Part 37

"Aren't you Jollife, you chap with the Turkish fez and your eye in a sling? My Orderly in front of Gaza! What price that leg of roast goat with the skin and hair on? I'll bet you'd tuck into it quick enough now--if you got the chance!"

A graver, older officer leans out and calls to the soldiers:

"Can any of you men give us news of Father Forbis? We've been on the look-out for him since we heard we were to be moved."

"The Padre! ... Where's the Padre? ... What are you shaking your heads about? Damn you, you hairy brute! Why do you savage the man? ... What the hell has he done to you? ..."

Thus the ringing British voice, sharp and acrid with indignation. For Barney Mossam, screwing himself up to answer, has been clubbed by a _posta's_ rifle-butt full in the mouth. He spits out blood and broken teeth, and grins pitiably; and for his sake and his comrades', the officers address them no more. Now the Turkish Station-Master and the German R.T.O. who is his master, appear on the platform, as the Deputy Director of War Prisoners and the Controller of Imperial Transport and their escorts arrive on the scene in German Army motor-cars. They board the dirty first-class compartment specially reserved for them. Their orderlies and servants stow away their luggage, the signal falls--and the train--with a non-commissioned officer on the platform of the corridor-car conveying the German officials--armed with binoculars and sharply on the look-out for British bomb-carrying aircraft, jolts over the warped, unevenly-laid metals for El Fuda Junction and Deraa, the first stages of its journey North....

An Arab horseman, stationary beside the track with two mounted companions, controlling his fiery dapple-grey mare with a master-hand upon her jingling bridle--resplendent with the gold and silver jewellery lavished on horse-furniture by the wealthier Bedwân, gravely salutes with his long lance tufted with sable ostrich feathers, as the composite train jolts out of Nakr. And the Deputy Director of War Prisoners and the Controller of Imperial Transport, sitting opposite one another in their dusty first-class compartment, with tall tumblers of Munich beer, (iced, in this land of dust and drouth) on a table fitted between them ... smoking the fat cigars of Hamburg and discussing German Military Supremacy and German World-politics--gravely finger the brims of their sun-helmets in recognition of the salute....

"_Wer ist es!_ Who now, is that Arab? ..." asks the Controller, whose bulging, light-grey eyes are sharp-sighted behind their tinted glasses. "A personage of some consequence, by the gold embroidery on his _burnus_ judging; the gold twist in his head-rope, the gold-hilted sword in his waist-cloth--and the also-with-precious-metal-enriched trappings of his Blauschimmel mare."

"He," the Deputy Director replies, "is one of the lesser Emirs of the Irregular Cavalry of the King of the Hedjaz, who--as the Herr General Controller knows,--secretly under British leadership--upon the City of Mecca seized in June and annexed Akaba in July."

"And is now wrecking trains on the Hedjaz Rail, containing German Ottoman forces, under the very noses of our Allied patrols,--blowing Turkish Railway-bridges with charges of nitro-glycerine sky-high--and in the North and East our rearguards harassing. _Donnerwetter!_ Why is this rogue of an Arab not in fetters? What makes he, hanging about trains containing military officials of the Fatherland?"

"Because, Herr General, the Emir Fadl Anga and his followers are of those who the solid worth and philanthropic aims of Germany recognise, and scorn the windy emptiness and rapacious greed of England, the Great Swashbuckler.... They what we Germans have done for the Turkish Army also see--and are convinced that under similar auspices, Arabia, hand in hand with Egypt and India, might become a powerful and war-capable State. Emir Fadl Anga estimates the number of his party--headed by a nephew of the Mecca Sherif--as very considerable. 'They are many,' he in his Oriental hyperbole, says, 'as the stars of Heaven, or the Desert sands!' Also, information has by him been supplied, which, had the difference between German and Arabic clock-time at our Shechem Headquarters been better understood--might have resulted in a _Handstreich_ very gratifying to Imperial Majesty at Berlin. The officer guilty of this so gross ignorance was brought to a drumhead Court Martial and degraded, the Herr General will be pleased to hear! However, the Emir's intentions were agreed to be excellent, and he has now brought us a basket of carrier-pigeons from his Chief, the nephew of the Sherif--and the Emir is to convey back with him of these birds a similar basket, trained at the Nazareth Headquarters of the Herr General-in-Chief, Liman von Sanders--as soon as the pigeon-master-Sergeant with them arrives.... Also, this is good beer! What does the Herr General say to another bottle?"

"_Ja, ja_. _Mit Vergnügen_. It is hellishly hot! ..."

The Emir Fadl Anga, ingenious purveyor of genuine but post-dated intelligence--salutes gravely, and wheels his dapple-grey about as the composite train bumps out of Nakr. A muscle in his lean, dark cheek jerks, and his thin lips under the Arab beard smile scornfully--as his glance falls on the rank-and-file of the War Prisoners--clustered on the platform beside the iron way....

They are hot, faint and weary under the bite of the sun, amidst this jumble of naked hills, on whose chalk and limestone knees they have driven elaborate systems of trenches for the enemy, under the lash of the loaded hide-whips. But Barney Mossam, with a split top-lip and a scarlet gap where several front teeth are missing, is making a gallant effort to buck the others. In the middle of a spirited rendering of "I HAVEN'T seen the Kaiser for a VERY long time. He's the leader of a German Band, an' he AIN'T no cousin of mine!"--breaks in the fierce interruption of an Arab voice, bitterly abusive:

"You--O you! Sons of _farrâshes_ prostitute concubines!--silence that brother of howling apes!"

Thrusting his lance-butt in the embroidered leathern bucket, Fadl Anga leans low from his saddle--appears to pick up something, no doubt a pebble--rises erect, and hurls the missile savagely into the brown of the crowd of men. It hits Barney, who picks it up, and white teeth flash in the black beards of the other mounted Arabs, and a laugh goes up from the Turkish guards, who are smoking and chatting and eating water-melons, as the supposed emissary of the traitorous nephew of the Sherif of Mecca touches his mare with the sharp edge of the broad copper stirrup--and with a ringing shout of _"Allah ho Akbar!_" gallops down the rocky road towards Shechem, followed by his two companions, and leaving Barney Mossam gaping--with an embroidered Arab purse--heavy with Turkish silver coins, clutched in his hand....

Long before the composite train went jolting out of Nakr the keen grey eyes under the _kuffiyeh_ of Fadl Anga--eyes less miserable now that by day and night sharp danger gives a spice to life, so empty void of Katharine--have assured their owner, Edward Yaill,--that Julian Forbis is not with the officers in the cattle-trucks any more than he is with the men clustered like swarming bees upon the grilling platform, beside the iron track.

V

The weather changes before dawn. Soggy clouds roll inland from the sea, hide the sky of Eastern azure, blot out the shining faces of the stars and invest the pale beauty of the Queen Planet of Night with the flowing sable veil of a recent War Widow. It has come on to rain--a slashing downpour of Palestinian intensity, under which the wadis speedily become shallow cataracts of khaki water--the trenches slashed in the terraced Judæan Hills, and manned by Turks, Germans, or British Crusaders--mere troughs of sandy or chalky mud.

Sangars ramparted with boulders may offer some practical assurance against shell-splinters or bullets, but against rain like this they offer no security. Bivouacs built of stones, and roofed with ground-sheets may in some degree keep out the rain, but they freely admit the cold. A Scotch mist, clammy, freezing and blinding in its damp opaqueness blankets the Hills of Ephraim, and broods over the Maritime Plain, as on the edge of one of the limestone terraces that fringe the robe of Mount Ebal,--a big, brawny Arab sits--nursing a badly-ricked ankle, and swearing in the fruitiest vernacular of his adopted land.

It is lucky for the Arab in the brown camel-hair shirt, striped _abâyi_ and roped white linen head-cloth, that he has no audience but the scorpions and lizards sheltering from the slashing downpour under the grey-white boulders--as he rocks himself and nurses his ricked ankle--and curses his luck. Presently, as the Scotch mist lifts, and the plain is irradiated by the watery moonlight, he sets his teeth for an effort and crawls to where a bundle tied in native cloth, and a long, metal-tipped Arab walking-staff lie on the chalky, puddled plain where they fell when he dropped them from the machine at the beginning of the volplane, and screwed himself as the plain rushed up, to wait the throttling down of the engine--the long, smooth final glide--the flattening out following the pilot's raising of the lever--and the slight jarring impact of the thick-tyred wheels with the ground....

"_Now_ jump!" the sharp, strident voice of the Egyptian called when the expected shock seemed imminent, and John Hazel set his teeth and jumped promptly. Aware even before he crashed to ground that the word had been given too soon. Even as he sprawled on the chalky plain, with all the wind knocked out of his body--the machine just missed landing on top of him. How he rolled out of the way of the thick squat wheels, and the steel framework of the under-carriage of the biplane, a powerful and heavy machine of D.H.6 type--he does not know now....

Sick, faint and shaken, he picked himself up, but not before Essenian, lithe as an acrobat, freed himself from the safety-belt, jumped out, adjusted the controls, and swung the big propeller. As the engine started he leaped back to his seat, looked round at Hazel, shouted "Good-bye!" and opening the throttle, raced over the plain, and rushed up into the air as though pursued by a fusillade of machine-gun bullets.

"Damn and blast the Egyptian beast!" John snarls, and, as the ricked joint rapidly swells to cricket-ball size, swears again, and thinks as he rubs it, "Might have guessed he was out for some treachery or other. Though how could I?--until he signalled to the enemy over Shechem by firing the Verey light, and gave away the whole show by dropping a message-bag! Making me swear before the start by all we Hazels hold most holy, never by word or sign to let out anything I might see him do. Consequently I'm his confederate--tarred with the same brush. And now I know he murdered Captain Usborn! It was his own revolver-bullet I showed him at the Club. If ever I get out of here I stand some chance of getting shot myself for being back at the Front on the quiet when I'm supposed to be on leave in Alex. But anyhow I hope I'll see Essenian Pasha get his dose of British lead before I do. Unless I get a chance to settle him myself. Wouldn't I let the beggar have it! Right in the neck--where Winnie wore the beads. But what a flier! Holy Smoke! what an A1. flier! Unless he's a devil, which I trend to believe!--there's not a man his match."

The rain that began at two a.m. by his wrist-watch (hidden under a broad band of untanned sheep-leather, laced on John's big wrist by a slender thong) shows no sign of abating. Fitfully and at intervals through the night, those guns in the west and south have held debate. Now they begin again with redoubled energy. John has seen as the D.H.6 travelled through the clear azure Palestine night, how the enemy's line has been thrust back from Gaza towards Jaffa. Now with a great blowing-up of Turco German ammunition-dumps, Junction Station,--key of the northern railway system--announces to the echoing hills the success of British arms.

"Good for us!" John chuckles, rather drearily--as the sullen sky in the south is illuminated by Aurora Borealis-like effects of orange, green and crimson--and Brock-like sheaves of flame spurt from the horizon to descend in gold and silver showers. "Djemal Pasha's Fourth Army Corps seems to be getting it rather badly. We're putting the breeze up Von Kressenstein, unless I much mistake...."

Even as John Hazel hugs the thought, the train containing Djemal Pasha's German Corps Commander is rushing towards Jerusalem. The Turco-German Army, broken in two, is retiring eastwards upon the Holy City and north-west through Ramleh towards Tul Keram. The brigades that rolled into Shechem overnight--rested and fed, are rolling out again. Fresh batteries from the Caucasus, diverted from Mesopotamia, new battalions of infantry of the Redif and Mustafiz, and brigades of irregular Cavalry from Kurdistan and Northern Albania, are swarming down to reinforce the Nizam and its Ikhtiât.

Dawn comes with cessation of the freezing, pelting rain and the sun glows fiery red through the curtain of leaden-coloured mists that yet hang over the Mediterranean. Wounded and stragglers on foot, German Army motor-lorries laden with escaping Teuton officers, begin to arrive at the Holy City. It is whispered in Jerusalem the Weary that the days of Ottoman rule in Palestine are numbered, that the German, Turkish and Austrian officials and residents are even now preparing to quit the town. And indeed German depots are hurriedly emptied; sugar sold as cheap as the dirt that is in it--long held-up flour and cereals disposed of in haste. From the high towers of the City and from the Mount of Olives one can see the roads that are muddy now--and will be dusty presently, crowded with lorries, carts and pack-animals carrying fugitives with their baggage, munitions and essential stores, north to Shechem or east to Jericho....

John, unaware of this, yet senses great happenings, as he stands propped on his Arab staff, cursing the temporary uselessness of a man with a sprained ankle-joint. He must lie up somewhere until the anguish abates and the cricket-ball reduces. A hut--there are clusters of drab-white specks, indicating a village on the northern fringes of the stretch of plain--boulder-strewn, bush-dotted, thinly grassed, thick with tufts of mandrake and tall blue Campanulas, and knee-deep in growth of late-blooming, white and yellow asphodel--on which Essenian elected to come down.... Westwards towards the sea there are other, larger villages. South there is a broad defile, curving east between humpy limestone hills, leading, John knows, to the town of Shechem. Over him rises the huge and bulky Shape of Ebal, three thousand six hundred and ninety feet above sea-level. From terrace to terrace, a path winds up to her towering rounded crest between hedges of tamarisk, broad-leaved grey-green cactus, and prickly pear plentifully laden with knobby red fruit. On her summit the map has shown John the ruins of an ancient fortress. Near the top, on this, the west side--stands a little whitewashed cupola surmounting a wall of mud and stone encircling a Moslem well.

Water is there; and hidden away with his revolver and cartridges on John's big person, is a case of First Aid necessaries, a small flask of brandy and some meat-lozenges in case of need like this. He determines to crawl up to the place of the well, hide, and doctor himself for a day, or even two days until the sprain is reduced, and he can get about.

"Hard luck," he mutters to himself, "but there's no good in grousing.... Now buck up and help me--O all you Big Old Men!"

But the Big Old Men give no sign, and their descendant, shouldering his bundle (to bear out his role of Arab there ought to be a donkey or a woman to carry it), limps, leaning on his staff and sweating with pain, up the narrow pathway leading between the hedges of cactus and prickly pear.

Blood-red, the Sun rises over the distant horizon, the glittering drops upon the leaves, the drying puddles under John's naked, slippered feet are reddened by the reflection. From the broad, prickly leaves the wet begins to steam; the tufts of snapdragon, pink and crimson, white and yellow and orange; and the blue campanulas, growing in the tissues of the rock, stand gallantly upright, refreshed by the dampness; the lily-like asphodel exhales its delicate, characteristic smell.

There are goats on the Mount, John notices, presently. Their droppings are thick upon the path he climbs. He hears them bleating, and sees them, feeding under the ruins of the Fortress. Indeed, the next wind of the path brings him out upon a ledge where a heavy-uddered female is cropping the thyme that grows there, with a jet-black kid nuzzling at her side. If one could catch the mother, thinks John, the question of subsisting here for days would be easily settled. Prickly pears are eatable.... Goat's milk is good.... There were lots of milch-goats in the caves of Sheria, and modern Crusaders, dry with the drouth of battle, and as yet uncertain whether the enemy had not poisoned the wells--milked the goats into their tin hats and other receptacles, and drank and were mightily refreshed. If only--even as John licks his lips, the too-nimble dairy, skipping from ledge to ledge, recedes from view. Bleating, the little black kid scrambles after her--and the Moslem well near the summit of Ebal seems farther off than it did before.

John sees now a path, branching off to his right hand, which may lead to the hut or cave of the goatherd. He strikes out upon it, and makes some progress, until the curve of it, trending southwards, suddenly shows him a narrow road, deeply rutted with broad-tyred wheels, and pitted with hoof-prints, leading up the Mount from its base on the south-eastern side. The erect brown figure of a sentry--reduced by distance to the size of a doll--stands out against the background. A Turkish Artillery waggon is jolting up the steep roadway.... John hears the panting of the toiling horses, the creak of the straining rope traces, the jingle of chains and the cracking of the drivers' thick-lashed whips....

From behind a bush he now looks down into a sangar built of boulders, sheltered at one end with green tarpaulin and full of Turkish machine-guns. The tarpaulin quivers with the snores of sleeping gunners, whose legs project beyond it, and from a nest of camouflage lower down the mountain, the blunt nose of a howitzer snuffs at the sky.

Still farther south a Field battery of Krupps has been posted on the flank of Ebal; the whinnying of horses eager for their morning barley and forage comes from a hollow where the Turks have stabled their teams, the smell of some aromatic burning wood spices the air with sweetness. Blue smoke columns up from fires of hidden bivouacs. There are picquets along the foothills, and on the plain are outposts. The Mount--except on the west and north whence danger is not apprehended--has been converted into a veritable wasps' nest.

Holding his breath, John Hazel turns, and noiselessly retraces his footsteps between the cactus hedges and along the path to where it first branched off. As he sets his lame foot gingerly upon it, he encounters a veiled native woman, toiling upwards, who carries--not an excessive burden in this land of laden women--a bundle of canes, and an empty gourd, and has a coarse jar of red earthenware balanced on her head.

Perhaps the earthen Jar contains water, or milk, or _laban_, that mixture of excessively sour milk with finely-chopped mint, peculiar to Syria. The bare idea intensifies John's thirst.

"O my mother!" he begins in quite passable Arabic: "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate--"

"_Ai--e!_" The woman has started and dropped the gourd, and stands before him trembling, "What--what wouldst thou?"

"Somewhat to wet my throat. Thou lookest on a thirsty man. Hast thou, by any lucky chance, drink in the vessel?"

"The vessel is empty. See you, I have spoken truth!" She takes the jar from her veiled head and turns it upside down, and John's heart sinks to the bottom of his famished stomach. "May God relieve your need! ..."

"Allah favour thee! Black is my fortune. Thou seest," he thrusts out the swollen foot with the bulge at the side of the ankle-joint, "what evil has befallen me through a slip upon the Mountain side."

"It hurts thee? ..." He cannot see the hidden face, but in the faint voice there is a note of pity....

"_Wallah_! It hurts like very hell! Worse than the hurt is the lameness. Now hear! By the life of my head I say: If thou, being a woman, couldst help it somewhat! ... If thou knewest a place of shelter where I could lie and tend the hurt, and--and--have somewhat to eat and drink while it was mending, for this I would pay thee. By Allah! I am no beggar, I!"

The Fellaha thinks, while a little dusky hand holds the edges of her veil together. Then she says faintly:

"_Ala râsi_. I have--I know of a place of shelter. It is not very far from here. There thou couldst lie, it is a cave between two boulders and I would bring thee food and drink."

"Allah requite thee, O my sister! ..."

"Come, then, Sidi!" She returns her empty vessel to its place upon her head, with the deft, accustomed swing of the Eastern woman, and moves on before him, striking into another lateral path, a mere goat-track to the unpractised eye, that scores the mountain-side, running north. For perhaps a quarter of a mile her little bending figure hurries along and the tall Arab, leaning on his staff, hobbles painfully after. Where the cave between two boulders is--and less a cave than a hollow under a projecting ledge of nummulite limestone--he finds her waiting him....

"In here, Sidi!"

"Call me not Sidi! I am no person of degree." John thinks it well to try on the woman the story he has invented. "No person of degree am I. Only Ali Zaybak the Bedawi, a man who once had three camels, and ten sheep, and five goats, and a father and two brothers, and a wife also; and now has none; my brothers, my wife and two camels being killed and all the rest lost...."

"May the Dispenser of Mercies atone to thee, O Ali Zaybak!" says the thin faded voice from under the woman's veil. "How came about thy loss? From whom dost thou claim the blood-wreaks?"

"From the Inglizi, (English) the thrice-accursed ones! who came flying over our village--we dwelling in the Shadow of Allah in the caves of the Wadi Sheria--I and my brothers having bought exemption from service with the Army of the Osmanli (Turks) with the savings of all our lives."

"Ay, ay," the thin voice assents, bitterly. "Few and small were the gold and silver coins remaining on thy wife's head-tire, when the Dispensers of Exemption had signed thy card."