CHAPTER IX

*

*Trapping a Caravan*

From where I lay, sprawling on my stomach, on the very edge of that vast ridge, like a fly clinging to the rim of a cup--my "coffee-cup"--I could look down on both sides. Inland, the sides of the ridge fell away steeply but not precipitously; the track from the gap did not zigzag down, as it did on my other side, but wound and sloped at an easy angle until I could trace it no farther. The leading horseman of the caravan was, possibly, two miles away, and perhaps a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below me--one could not judge heights or distances with any accuracy--the middle portion of the winding caravan was hidden by a swelling of the mountain slope, and the tail end, indistinct, lost itself in the stifling haze which filled the valleys below. I watched those first few mounted men. They kept on halting and waiting, going on again and stopping, as though the camels could not keep pace with them.

I turned my head the other way, and looked down the precipitous curtain of rocks which fell almost sheer into the extraordinary hollow below me. The red turban and flowing white cloak of the old villager showed up--a bright spot against the dark rocks--as he scrambled hastily to join his people, tiny little dots moving about between the boulders which strewed the bottom of the "coffee-cup". I could not see the crack through which we had entered the hollow, because the huge walls surrounding it overlapped there, but I marvelled how we had managed to climb the path without slipping and being dashed to pieces below. I really did not believe it possible for a camel to negotiate it in safety.

"Surely a camel cannot go there?" I asked Jaffa.

"Yes, camel go down, safe; horse cannot; Bedouin leave horses behind them."

"Will they bring them up to the gap?"

Jaffa did not think they would, and I devoutly hoped that they would not.

I thought how old Popple Opstein's face would have beamed, and his yellow hair stood up, if only he had been here with me on that edge of rocks. Yes, here I was literally on the edge of civilization, where all my life I had longed to be. How my chum would have chaffed me about that if he saw me now! Perhaps in a few hours, if he had the luck to be landed, he would see me.

And, thinking of yellow hair, perhaps little Miss Borsen, if she too could see me and could realize what might soon happen, would treat me as a man. More likely than not she would only have smiled in her tantalizing, irritating way, and told me how uncomfortable I looked.

Jaffa touched me. "Bedouin see very far; very good sight; see us soon."

What an ass I was! I had ordered Webster and his fellows to conceal themselves below the crest, and here I was still sprawling on the sky-line myself.

I crawled lower down; so did Jaffa and Griffiths.

Until I had left the ridge it never occurred to me that probably the advance party of Bedouins would scale the sides of the gap and scatter along the edge. If they did that they would certainly see us; so it was necessary to hide much farther away from it and take no such risk.

I whistled softly to Webster, and he came crawling across to me, keeping well below the sky-line.

"Take your men a hundred yards along the ridge," I told him; "hide among those rocks there, below the edge, and for Heaven's sake don't show yourselves, not until the last Arab and the last camel have gone halfway down the zigzag, and not until you see me move."

"I understand, sir," he answered grimly, and presently I saw him and his two men scramble to a cluster of detached rocks much farther along.

When they were safely hidden, Jaffa, Griffiths, and myself crawled in the opposite direction, away from the gap, behind some more boulders. We shifted about among them until we found a position from which we could see that gap, and also look down the zigzag path. We were about one hundred and fifty yards from the gap, and practically on a level with it. Of course we could see nothing of the approaching horses and camels, but I trusted to my ears to hear them.

Lying there under these conditions was an extraordinary trial to my nerves, and I thanked my stars that Webster had come ashore with me that morning and not Moore. Moore would have made a hopeless muddle of his job, and could not have controlled his own nerves, let alone those of his men. As it was, I presently found the strain of waiting and listening so great that I had to hang on to those rocks, like a maniac, to prevent my legs making me crawl up to the sky-line, twenty feet above us, to have one more look at the caravan.

I do not believe that if I lived a thousand years I could be more excited or "jumpy".

I breathed more freely when I saw the head-man reach the bottom of the "coffee-cup", gather his villagers together, and disappear with them, like a lot of white ants, out of sight round that projecting corner of rock which marked the huge crack or rent giving exit to the path. I relied upon the old sportsman hurrying down to the village as quickly as he could, and hoped that in another hour Commander Duckworth would receive my note. In another forty or fifty minutes afterwards he might be able to land his men, and in another hour and a half they might reach the entrance to the "coffee-cup".

Then the fun would begin.

My wrist watch was, of course, still smashed--there had been no chance of having it repaired--so I could only judge by the height of the sun that the time was about eleven o'clock. At the earliest the _Intrepids_ could not reach the bottom of the zigzag path for another three hours; and, if the head-man had been accurate, the head of the caravan would be at the gap an hour and a half before they arrived.

The only thing that troubled me then was whether the leading Arabs would have descended it, turned the corner, and sighted the _Intrepid_, and perhaps the advancing bluejackets, before the rear of the caravan had passed through the gap and had begun the perilous descent.

Once the rear-guard was below us I felt that we could prevent them climbing back; but if it should happen that the _Intrepids_ were sighted and the alarm given when only a part of the caravan had passed us, then our position would be perilous.

If they searched the ridge before even commencing to send their camels down I knew that we should be discovered, and in that case there would be nothing for it except to sell our lives as dearly as possible. But I did not think they would take the trouble to do this, nor did Jaffa, and the chief danger lay in the alarm being given before all the camels and Arabs had passed through the gap.

If this happened, I made up my mind to shoot as many camels as possible, to prevent the Arabs getting away with all their rifles; and I told Jaffa that if anything went wrong, I relied upon him and his Mauser pistol to prevent either Griffiths or myself falling alive into their hands.

Somehow or other I could rely upon Jaffa, and it was a comfort. Webster would have to look after himself and his two men; I knew that he would not fail.

Writing this now, the fact that I really thought this ending possible, or prepared for it, seems almost unreal. Time has quickly blurred the remembrance of the extraordinary peril of our position at that time, and only left vivid recollections of the wonderful feeling of exhilaration which took hold of us as we lay there feeling almost like wild beasts waiting for our prey, and listening for the first sound of their approaching feet.

A large bird appeared above us, circling with motionless wings. Suddenly he came gliding downwards, disappearing behind the crest. Looking up again into the burning sky I saw more specks coming from all directions. Soon there were ten or twelve of the ugly brutes circling round. So close to us did they come that I could see their heads and their naked necks stretched towards the ground. They were vultures, and one by one they slid downwards in huge spirals and disappeared.

Jaffa whispered: "A camel or a horse has dropped; they must be driving them hard."

He told me that the speed of a camel caravan was about two and a half miles an hour. As the crow flies, Jeb was probably thirty miles away from the spot where we lay. It was inside the mark to add another fifteen for the turns and twists of the track through the mountains and valleys; this would bring the probable march to forty-five miles, and if the camels had been pressed forward day and night, as Jaffa imagined likely, the poor beasts must be very weary.

Jaffa had noticed when he first looked through my glasses at them that their necks were very straight. He now explained to me that the halter of one camel is secured to the one next in front, and that, as the leading camels of a gang were always the best, when the others tire they tend to be dragged along, and the ropes stretch their necks until they are almost straight and not curved.

"They were very straight," he said.

This waiting was a tremendous strain. To know that the caravan was approaching on the other side of that ridge, behind and above us, made the longing to climb up and look over simply maddening.

To pass the time we made little loopholes between the rocks, through which we could fire towards the gap and down the zigzag path without being seen ourselves. Griffiths asked me, under his breath, if he could smoke his pipe. He asked simply to hear himself speak. He knew that I would refuse, but it was a comfort for him to whisper and a comfort for me to whisper back that the blue smoke might show--a fact he knew well enough.

Then a horrid thought struck me. When we had first reached the gap I had lighted a cigarette, and the burnt match and the end of the cigarette must be lying somewhere there still. If either of them were seen the alarm would be given at once. My whole mind became tortured with picturing them lying there on the bare stones, and I would have given anything in the world to be able to crawl across and try to find them. I did not fear that our tracks would be found: the rocks were quite bare; what loose stones there were between them would not leave a foot-mark; but even now, as the scene comes back to me, I remember that the fear of the burnt match and cigarette end being discovered was horrible at the time.

Just as the strain became almost unbearable, and the impulse to crawl to the gap almost more than I could resist--I had actually risen to my hands and knees--Jaffa gave a low sound, and pressed me down.

Looking through my loophole I saw a tall, fine-looking Arab standing erect at our side of the gap, with a rifle in his hand, turning his head from side to side and then peering below into the chasm beneath.

[Illustration: LOOKING THROUGH MY LOOPHOLE I SAW A TALL, FINE-LOOKING ARAB PEERING INTO THE CHASM BENEATH.]

I felt certain that the white cigarette end must be lying there at his feet, and that in another second he must see it. My heart seemed to stop beating and my ears buzzed. He turned and looked intently at the very heap of boulders behind which we lay. I could have sworn that our eyes met. I had to put my hand to my mouth to prevent me giving way to the frantic desire to yell. Then he disappeared back into the gap, and I breathed more freely.

"He tell others--all safe--see nothing--camels come presently," Jaffa whispered.

In two or three minutes more Arabs--ten, then twenty--crowded through the gap, their rifles held ready and their fierce eyes scanning every rock.

Thank goodness! The towering sides of the "coffee-cup" hid the _Intrepid_ from view.

They moved stiffly, as though tired, talking quietly and squatting on the rocks for a few minutes, until they suddenly stood up, looked back through the gap, slung their rifles over their shoulders, and commenced to scramble down the zigzag path.

They had hardly left the gap when, with a light scraping noise, the ugly head and neck of a camel appeared. He hesitated as he saw the steepness of the path below him, but the camel leader beat him about his head and lips until he condescended to move out of the gap, and with hesitating paces, putting down his huge feet with very great care, started the descent. As his body came into view we saw long sacks or bundles of matting--containing rifles, we felt sure--strapped one on either side of him.

From his quarters stretched taut the halter of the camel "next astern", and another supercilious, scornful, ugly head appeared. Camel after camel (all with their bundles), Arab after Arab (some armed, others simply leading camels) squeezed after each other through the gap in the crest and started down the zigzag path.

I was thankful to notice that the advance-guard seemed in no hurry to reach the bottom, but would go on for a hundred yards, wait for the leading camel to overtake them, and go on again. The longer the time which elapsed before they sighted the _Intrepid_, the more chance would there be that the end of the caravan had already passed through the gap before the alarm was given.

Fifty camels I counted; sixty; sixty-two--three; but as the sixty-fourth head emerged into sight it sank down to the rocks. The wretched brute had fallen on his knees, his neck stretched quite straight as his halter to the camel ahead took the strain. He was dragged bodily forward for a few inches on the smooth rock, then the halter "parted", and his neck curved again.

Another ugly camel's head appeared over his back, but there was no room to pass--the gap was too narrow--and he stopped, swaying his head angrily from side to side.

The Arabs called shrilly one to another---half-dazed they seemed to be, probably from fatigue--and a dozen of them, surrounding the kneeling camel, tried to make him rise to his feet. They prodded him with their rifles and spears, howling execrations, hauled on the broken halter, and beat him on the nose and face. They actually fired rifles close to his face; but he took not the slightest notice. He never even moved his head, holding it up quite motionless, with that extraordinary sarcastic, supercilious look which camels always have, and appeared to be quite unaware of the cruel treatment.

"Camel--finish--much tired--never get up--stay to die," Jaffa whispered.

Two vultures--appearing from nowhere--perched silently on the rocks behind which lay Webster and his two men, saw them, and flapped across to another rock. The Arabs were too busy to notice this or they might have been suspicious.

Then a fine-looking, very richly dressed Arab, with a flowing red[#] patriarchal beard and a green turban pushed past the camel and began to give orders. The ropes securing the bundles were unlashed, the bundles were dragged aside and propped up against the projecting rocks, and then, hauling on those ropes (they passed under the camel's belly), shouting and yelling as though hell had broken loose, the Arabs tried to hoist him to his feet.

[#] The sheikh must have visited Mecca three times, as only after three such pilgrimages are beards dyed red.

The sheikh, or whoever he was, climbed to the top of the gap, the better to superintend operations. A grand-looking chap he was, with a fine "fighting" face, beetling eyebrows, and a great hooked nose.

For a moment I thought again of that cigarette end, and grew sick with fear lest it was there and he should see it. But he was too much interested in the camel to see anything else. Although his men heaved with all their might they only raised the poor beast a few inches, and down it would sink again.

Then the sheikh gave more orders. Men began calling down to those on the paths of the zigzag, immediately underneath the helpless camel, and I saw these hurriedly making large gaps in the line of camels. Two men took hold of the poor brute's halter and hauled the head round until it was touching the hind quarters; the others, gathering at the side of the camel farther from the precipice below, using their rifles as levers and also pressing against his lean flanks, shoved "all together"; the men on the head-rope tugged the head still farther round, and the helpless brute toppled over the edge. Rolling and falling, sliding through the gaps in the lines beneath, bounding from boulder to boulder, he at last "fetched up", two hundred feet below, against a rock, and lay there a shapeless mass of broken back and neck and legs.

The two vultures hopped about excitedly and flapped a little farther down, eyeing the remains with twisted heads.

At another order from the sheikh those bundles were torn open, and I simply "thrilled" to see at least two dozen rifles--brand-new rifles--hauled out. Each man, taking one or two of them as he passed, started off again along the zigzag path after the rest of the camels. The sheikh, clambering down to the path, followed them slowly, and that procession of camels commenced afresh through the gap, camel after camel, until I had counted eighty-three. After the eighty-third came many more, pace by pace, with weary feet, but these were loaded with boxes of ammunition. No attempts had been made to conceal that fact; the boxes were just as they had left the manufacturers, slung in great nets across the camels' backs.

One hundred and thirty-four passed through, counting both those with rifles and those with ammunition; and, last of all, led by two men, a magnificent camel, splendidly caparisoned, with a scarlet, silver-embroidered cloth and with silver-mounted harness, stalked angrily through, followed by two smaller ones with unwieldy burdens. These three were doubtless the sheikh's own camels, his riding camel and the two which carried his tent and the cooking gear and food which he might want on the march.

No more camels came.

I could hardly believe our good fortune. Everything had turned out as we had planned. Looking down into the "coffee-cup" I could see the zigzag of painfully-descending camels; and still farther below them the white figures of the advance-guard, not yet near the bottom or that corner beyond which they would be able to see the _Intrepid_. Not one of those Bedouin Arabs suspected that we six were lying there above them, or that the _Intrepids_ were--possibly--hurrying up to drive them back to us. I would have given much to know what was happening beyond the mountain screen, whether the _Intrepids_ had actually landed, and, if they had landed, how near they were. I reckoned that, by now, if all had happened as I hoped, they would be about halfway up from the village, and in another quarter of an hour, or less, the first of those Arabs would have scrambled out of the bottom of the "coffee-cup" and should see them.

What the time was, or how long it had taken those one hundred and thirty-seven camels to pass through the gap, I had no idea; but the sun was already slanting downwards in the west and was no longer lighting the rocks at the bottom of the "coffee-cup". In fact they had disappeared for some time in the shadow cast by the ridge on which we were hidden, and as the sun gradually sank, so did the sharply-outlined shadow of the ridge and the gap, rising upwards along the opposite face of the chasm, gradually shade the zigzag path higher and higher.

We were fearfully thirsty, but we still dared not shift our cramped positions to get at our water-bottles and make ourselves more comfortable. We simply lay where we were, peering through our loopholes between the rocks at the caravan crawling down the path. Vultures, perched on the rocks around us, craned their bare necks downwards and watched too. It looked like some huge centipede or caterpillar, as each camel carefully felt for his next foothold and swung his long ungainly legs stiffly and cautiously forward. I caught sight of one, the third in a gang or string of five, evidently making very "heavy weather" of it. Whenever the path was sufficiently broad I noticed that an Arab would take hold of his halter to steady him. I pointed out this camel to Jaffa, and scarcely had he whispered: "He fall--soon," when the poor brute stumbled, tried to recover his feet, and fell on one knee, the other leg sprawling over the edge, violently pawing space. The Arab guiding him sprang away, clinging to the rocks, and in a moment the camel had toppled over. I heard wild cries of alarm; the camel leaders on the zigzag below tried desperately to make a gap in their line as they saw what was happening over their heads; but too late. The camel fell; the two camels behind were dragged after him, and the three slid like an avalanche down the rocks, sweeping more camels and one or two Arabs from the narrow zigzags below, bursting their bundles and scattering rifles until they disappeared in the gloom beneath.

It was a horrid sight, and for two or three minutes there was the utmost confusion. The frightened drivers pulled the camels' heads this way and that, and how the poor stupid creatures could keep their foothold at all was marvellous, especially as in many places the path was so narrow that, even from where I was, I could see the "inner" bundles of rifles scraping against the rocks.

We were so intent on watching this that we never turned our heads; but when I did again look across the gap to see whether Webster and his men were still hidden, I had a terrible fright.

Squatting right in the mouth of the gap, and on both edges of it, were a score or more of Arabs, their rifles slung over their shoulders. Jaffa saw them; Griffiths saw them. If they were as frightened as I was they did not show it.

We hardly dared to breathe. There they were, the nearest of them not fifty yards away. They evidently meant to stay, for they had brought firewood, and some of them were trying to set light to it, whilst others were pouring water from a skin into a brass cooking pot.

That anything such as this should happen had never entered my head. I never thought that they would have taken the precaution of leaving a rearguard to protect their line of retreat, and to have done so entirely altered the whole situation and upset all my calculations.

If they took to wandering along that ridge we should be discovered, and if they simply remained where they were we could not fire on the caravan without exposing ourselves to this new force. At the very first shot they would take cover, find out where we lay, and then crawl to the rocks overhead and shoot down. In those first few moments my whole idea was to kill as many as possible before being killed myself.

We watched them with straining eyes. If they had scattered and come near us I should have opened fire. My fingers clutched my rifle to draw it to me, and then loosened again, because they all collected round that cooking pot; the blue smoke came curling up among them, and they evidently had no other thought than to rest and make coffee. They never even troubled to look down to see whether their comrades and the camels were recovering from their disorder, but huddled close together, sheltering their heads from the sun with their dirty cloaks.

There was no immediate danger, so I turned to watch the caravan. Down at the gloomy bottom of the "coffee-cup" I could just distinguish little white figures moving among the boulders---the advance party had at last reached the gorge which led them out into the open. Three or four disappeared round the shoulder of the rocks which shut out my view of the gorge, and I knew that in a moment or two they would sight the _Intrepid_ lying at anchor--and perhaps her advancing men.

I was right. Hardly had they disappeared before back they came into view, very hurriedly, and in a marvellously short space of time the whole of that "coffee-cup" rang with strange cries and shouts as they passed the word up and up its precipitous sides. Along the zigzag path--from one zigzag shouted to the next above--we could hear the news being passed. The camel leaders seized the heads of their camels and stopped them; the Arabs crouching round the gap sprang to their feet as the shouting disturbed them, unslung their rifles, and began talking excitedly.

Down below I saw the green turban of the sheikh as he worked his way along the lowest zigzag, until he too reached the bottom and also disappeared from view.

I would have given all I possessed to know what he could see.

Whatever he had seen I quickly knew that he had seen something which convinced him that the caravan could not hope to escape downwards, because more orders--flurried and high-pitched--were shouted upwards along the zigzag until the deep ravine re-echoed from side to side with them. The camel leaders began unfastening the long halters from the camels, and, very nervously, began to try to turn the tired animals round to face upwards again. Some had room enough and managed to do so; others were in places so narrow, with steep rocks so close to the path, that it was a pure impossibility for a camel to turn. Many camels absolutely refused to try, sinking to their knees; two or three tried, toppled over their clumsy feet, and fell, increasing the horrible confusion as they crashed below.

I realized now that the caravan could neither move upwards nor downwards. If only Commander Duckworth and his people could come quickly the whole of these rifles and ammunition would be theirs. In the joy of knowing this I cared not a jot what happened to us.

The shouting and confusion below us grew greater; every armed Arab was trying frantically to reach the bottom of the path, squeezing past the standing or crawling over the kneeling camels. Directly they reached the bottom they hurried away round the shoulder out of sight.

Some unarmed camel men began shouting to the men round the gap, and ten or twelve of these left the group round that cooking bowl and began the perilous descent. They had not gone more than a hundred yards along the first arm of the zigzag before more shouts came from below; they turned and called back to the others, and the remainder of the rear-guard rose and followed them.

In five minutes we six were alone on that ridge, with the blue curling smoke of that Arab fire between our two little parties.

I had to hold my breath to prevent myself shouting with joy; Jaffa's face was beaming; I heard Griffiths chuckling with delight.

The relief from the awful strain of having that rear-guard so close to us was too much for Webster or one of his men, because for a moment I saw the barrel of a rifle appear behind their rocks and almost expected to hear a cheer. The rifle disappeared as if someone had pulled it down violently.

By this time the caravan was in a state of the most hopeless confusion, totally unable to move either upwards or downwards; many camels had fallen, others were kneeling and refused to move; some were facing one way, some the other. The frightened camel leaders had given up any attempt to restore order and were gradually moving up the path as if to escape themselves, even if they could not bring their camels with them.

Only the upper few zigzags were now in sunlight; the gloom down at the bottom was increasing very rapidly, and unless the Arabs there had worn fairly white clothes we should not have been able to see them as they scrambled among the boulders, to disappear out of sight round that corner.

I realized now that when the sun sank still lower, and the gloom increased still more, we should be able to see nothing whatever to fire at down below. And, too, I had never thought that if they tried to defend the approach to the gorge they might take up a position round that corner where our fire could not reach them. They were evidently doing this, and it upset my scheme still more.

I knew enough of soldiering to know that a small force, well posted behind rocks, could hold the mouth of that ravine (the crack in the "coffee-cup") for an almost indefinite time against a very much superior force. If the _Intrepids_ were actually advancing, and had not brought Maxims or field-guns, these Arabs, with their "backs to the wall", could keep them at bay for the three and a half or four remaining hours of daylight. If so, they might be able during the night to withdraw a remnant of the caravan, and in the dark our five rifles and six hundred cartridges would not stop them.

There was only one thing to do. It sounds heroic, but there was no thought of heroism. Those men still scrambling to the bottom and the men of the rear-guard must be stopped. We five must open fire on them and compel them to remount the zigzag to attack us, and therefore prevent them joining those who had already issued from the "coffee-cup" to defend it against the _Intrepid's_ people.

If I could only have been certain of what was actually happening down there, outside our line of vision, we might have waited; but I did not know, and it was absolutely necessary to do something, and to do that something quickly.

We had to take the risk that perhaps after all the _Intrepids_ had not landed, and that directly we opened fire the whole force of Arabs would turn back and overwhelm us.

I told Jaffa and Griffiths that we must open fire. Griffiths nodded. "Just as you like sir; I'm ready."

Webster must be told, and Jaffa was the man to tell him, because, if he was seen, his clothes at a distance might be mistaken for those of an Arab.

I told him to make his way to the top of the ridge, find out what was happening down in the valley, how far away the horses were, and how many men had been left with them. Then he had to work his way along beneath the sky-line to Webster, and tell him to separate his men, station them on the top of the ridge so that they could not be seen, but, if possible, be able to fire down both ways, and, when I opened fire, to do so himself at every armed Arab in sight.

Jaffa understood, took my field-glasses, and wriggled away up to the ridge, whilst Griffiths and I listened to the noise of grating stones. Then there was silence and what seemed a very long period of waiting whilst we anxiously watched that rear-guard descending. If we did not open fire soon it would be too late.

At last I could stand the strain no longer. Jaffa must have had time to reach Webster, although we had not seen him crawling over the ridge.

Already the leading men of the rear-guard were indistinct in the gloom of the lower zigzags.

"We must chance it," I whispered to Griffiths. "You scramble up till you get a comfortable place where you can see both ways. I'll go halfway towards the gap. When I open fire you commence; aim awfully carefully. Now go!"

We both rose stiffly to our hands and knees, dodged round the rocks, and separated. Some cartridges fell out of my bandolier. I stopped to pick them up: one cartridge might make all the difference. I crawled to the top of the ridge.

I gave one hurried look into the valley, but not a sign of horses or Arabs could I see. I threw myself down and crawled to the edge of a rock from where I could point my rifle into the darkening "coffee-cup". As I did so I saw Webster and his two marines leave their shelter and clamber up the crest on their side of the gap.

There was no time to wait; the excitement was too great to think what would be the result of this new move, too great to realize anything. Not twenty armed Arabs were in sight down in that vast hollow beneath us, little, dirty, whitish, moving figures threading their way past the motionless camels.

I took a very careful aim at the nearest and fired.

*