Newspaper Page Text
THE LIGHT
1 THAT FAILED
'Ey 'Rudyard K.ipUng
CHAPTER 11.
Then we brought the lances down, then
the bugles blew,
When we went to Kandahar, ridin’ two
an' two.
Ridin', ridin', ridin', two an' two,
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra,
All the way to Kandahar, ridin' two an'
. two.
—Barrack Room Ballad.
“W'M not angry with the British
I public, but Ido wish we had
a few thousand of them scat
tered among these rocks. They
wouldn't he In such a hurry to get at
their morning papers then. Can't you
imagine the regulation householder
Lover of Justice, Constant Reader, Pa
terfamilias and all that lot—frizzling
on hot gravel?”
“With a blue veil over his head and
his clothes in strips. Has any man
here a needle? I've got a piece of sug
ar sack.”
“I'll !?nd you a packing needle for
six square Inches of it, then. Both my
kjjees are worn through.”
' “Why not six square acres while
you're about it? But lend me the nee
dle, and I’ll see what I can do with
the selvage. I don't think there’s
enough to protect my royal body from
the eohi blast as it is. What are you
doing with that everlasting sketchbook
of yours. Dick?”
“Study uf our special correspondent
repairing his wardrobe,” said Dick
gravely as the other man kicked off a
pair of sorely worn riding breeches and
began to fit a square of coarse canvas
aver the most obvious open space. He
grunted disconsolately as the vastness
of the void developed itself.
“Sugar bags, indeed! Hi, you pilot
man there! Lend me all the sails of
that whaleboat.”
A fez crowned head bobbed up in the
stern sheets, divided itself into exact
halves with one flashing grin and bob
bed down again. The man of the bat
tered breeches, clad only in a Norfolk
jacket and a gray flannel shirt, went
on with his clumsy sewing, while Dick
chuckled over his sketch.
Some twenty whaleboats were nuz
zling a sand bank which was dotted
with English soldiery of half a dozen
corps, bathing or washing their clothes.
A heap of boat rollers, commissariat
boxes, sugar bags and flour and small
arm ammunition cases showed where
one of the whaleboats had been com
pelled to unload hastily, and a regi
mental carpenter was swearing aloud
as he tried on a wholly insufficient al
lowance of white lead to plaster up the
sun parched gaping seams of the bout
herself.
“First the bloomin’ rudder snaps,”
said he to the world in general; “then
the mast goes, an’ then, s’ ’elp me,
when she can't do nothin’ else she
opens ’erself out like a cock eyed Chi
nese lotus.”
“Exactly the case with my breeches,
whoever you are,” said the tailor, with
out looking up. “Dick, I wonder when
I shall see a decent shop again.”
There was no answer save the inces
sant angry murmur of the Nile as it
raced round a basalt walled bend and
foamed across a rock ridge hulf a mile
up streum. It was as though the
brown weight of the river would drive
the white men back to their own eouu
try. The indescribable weight of the
Nile mud in the air told that the stream
was falling and that the next few miles
would be no light thing for the whale
boats to overpass.
The desert ran down almost to the
banks, where among gray, red and
black hillocks a camel corps was en
camped. No man dared, even for a
day, lose touch of the slow moving
boats. There had been no fighting for
weeks past, and throughout all that
time the Nile had never spared them.
Rapid had followed rapid, rock rock,
and island group island group, till tho
rank and file had long since lost all
count of direction and very nearly of
time. They were moving somewhere,
they did not know why, to do some
thing, they did not know what. Before
them lay the Nile, and at the other end
of it was one Gordon, fighting for dear
life, in a town called Khartum.
There were columns of British troops
in the desert, or in one of the many
deserts; there were columns on the riv
er; there were yet more columns wait
ing to embark on the river; there were
fresh drafts waiting at Aesiut and As
souan; there were lies and rumors run
ning over the face of the hopeless land
from Suakim to the Sixth cataract, and
men supposed generally that there must
be some one in authority to direct the
general scheme of the many move
ments. The duty of that particular
river column was to keep the whale
boats afloat in the water, to avoid
trampling on the villagers’ crops when
the gangs “tracked” the boats with
lines thrown from midstream, to get
as much sleep and food as xvas possible
and, above all, to press on without de
lay in the teeth of the churning Nile.
With the soldiers sweated and toiled
the correspondents of the newspapers,
and they were almost as ignorant as
their companions. But it was above
all things necessary that England at
breakfast should be amused and thrill
ed and interested, whether Gordon
lived or died or half the British army
went to pieces in the sands. The Su
dan campaign was a picturesque one
and lent itself to vivid word painting.
Now and again a "Special” managed
to get slain—which was not altogether
a disadvantage to the paper that em
ployed him and more often the hand
to hand nature of the fighting allowed
of miraculous escapes which were
worth telegraphing home at 18 pence
the word. There were many corre
spondents with many corps and col
umns, from the veterans who had fol
lowed on the heels of the cavalry that
occupied Cairo in 1882. what time Arab!
Pasha called himself king, who had
seen the first miserable work round
Sualclm when the sentries were cut up
nightly and the scrub swarmed with
spears, to youngsters jerked into the
business at the end of a telegraph wire
to Jake the jilace of their betters killed
or invalided.
Among the seniors—those who knew
every shift and change in the perplex
ing postal arrangements, the value of
the seediest, weediest Egyptian garron
offered for sale in Cairo or Alexandria,
who could talk a telegraph clerk into
amiability and soot lie the ruffled van
ity of a newly appointed staff officer
when press regulations became burden
some —was the man in the flannel shirt,
tin* black browed Torpenhow. He rep
resented the Central Southern syndi
cate In the campaign, as lie had repre
seated it in the Egyptian war and else
where.
The syndicate did concern itself
greatly with criticisms of attack and
the like. It supplied the masses, and
all it demanded was picturesqueness
and abundance of detail. There Is more
joy in England over one soldier who
insubordinatel.v steps out of a square
to rescue a comrade than over twenty
generals slaving even to baldness over
the gross details of transport and com
missariat.
He had met at Suakim a young man,
sitting ou the edge of a recently aban-
“IFhat arc you fort" said Torpenhow.
doned redoubt about the size of a hat
box, sketching a clump of shell torn
bodies on the gravel plain.
“What are you for?” said Torpenhow.
The formula of the correspondent is
that of the commercial traveler on the
road.
“My own hand,” said the young man
without looking up. “Have you any
tobacco?"
Torpeuhow waited till the sketch
was finished, and when he had looked
at it said, “What's your business here?”
“Nothing. There was a row, so I
came. I'm supposed to be doing some
thing down at the painting slips among
the boats, or else I’m in charge of the
condenser ou one of the water ships.
I've forgotten which.”
“You’ve cheek enough to build a re
doubt with,” said Torpenhow, and took
stock of the new acquaintance. "Do
you always draw like that?”
The young man produced more sketch
es. “Row on a Chinese pigboat,” said
he sententiously, showing them one
after another. “Chief mate dirked by
a comprador; junk ashore off Hako
date; Somali muleteer being flogged;
star shell bursting over camp at Ber
bers; slave dhow’ being chivied round
Tajurrah bay; soldier lying dead in the
moonlight outside Suakim; throat cut
by Fuzzies.”
“H'm!” said Torpenhow. “Can’t say
I care for Verestchagiu and water my
self, but there is no accounting for
tastes. Doing anything now, are you?”
“No: amusing myself here.”
Torpenhow looked at the aching des
olation of the place. “Faith, you've
queer notions of amusement. Got any
money ?”
“Enough to go on with. Look here,
do you want me to do war work?”
“I don’t. My syndicate may. though.
You can draw more than a little, and I
don’t suppose you care much what you
get. do you?”
“Not this time. I want my chance
first.”
Torpenhow looked at the sketches
again and nodded. "Yes, you’re right
to take your first chance when you can
get it.”
lie rode away swiftly through the
Gate of the Two Warships, rattled
across the causeway into the town and
wired to his syndicate:
“Got man here, picture work. Good
and cheap. Shall I arrange? Will do
letterpress with sketches.”
The man on the redoubt sat swing
ing his legs and murmuring: “I knew
the chance would come sooner or later.
By heaven, they’ll have to sweat for it
if I come through this business alive!”
In the evening Torpenhow was able
to announce to his friend that the Cen
tral Southern agency was willing to
take him ou trial, paying expenses for
three months. “And, by the way,
what’s your name?” said Torpenhow.
“Heldar. Do they give me a free
band?”
“They’ve taken you on chance. You
must justify the choice. You'd better
stick to me. I'm going up country with
a column, and I’ll do what I can for
you. Give me some of your sketches
taken here, and I’ll send ’em along.”
To himself he said, “That's the best
bargain the Central Southern has ever
made, and they got me cheaply
enough.” .... * ►„
So it came to pass that after some
purchase of horseflesh and arrange
ments financial and political Dick was
made free of the New and Honorable
-Fraternity of War Correspondents,
who all possess the inalienable right of
doing as much work as they can and
getting as much for it as Providence
and their owners shall please. To
these things are added in time, if the
brother be worthy, the power of glib
speech that neither man nor woman
can resist when a meal or a bed is in
question, the eye of a horse coper, the
skill of a cook, the constitution of a
bullock, the digestion of an ostrich
and an infinite adaptability to all cir
cumstances. But many die before they
attain to this degree, and the past mas
ters in the craft appear for the most
part in dress clothes when they are in
England, and thus is their glory hid
den from the multitude.
Dick followed Torpenhow wherever
the latter’s fancy chose to lead him,
and between the two they managed to
accomplish some work that almost sat
isfied themselves. It was not an easy
life in any way, and under its influ
ence the two were drawn very closely
together, for .they ate from the same
dish, they shared the same water bot
tle, and. most binding tie of all, their
mails went off together.
It was Dick who managed to make
gloriously drunk a telegraph clerk in a
palm hut far beyond the Second cata
ract and while the man lay in bliss on
the floor possessed himself of some la
boriously acquired exclusive informa
tion forwarded by a confiding corre
spondent of an opposition syndicate,
made a careful duplicate of the mat
ter and brought the result to Torpen
how, who said that all was fair in
love or war correspondence and built
an excellent descriptive article from
his rival's riotous waste of words. It
was Torpenhow who —but the tale of
their adventures, together and apart,
from Phihe to the waste wilderness of
Herawi and Muella, would till many
books.
They had been penned into a square
side by side in deathly fear of being
shot by overexcited soldiers, they bad
fought with baggage camels in the chill
daw’n, they had jogged along in silence
under a blinding sun on indefatigable
little Egyptian horses, and they had
floundered on the shallows of the Nile
when the whaleboat in w hich they had
found a berth chose to smite a hidden
rock and rip out half her bottom planks.
Now they were sitting on the sand
bank, and the whaleboats were bring
ing up the remainder of the column.
“Yes.” said Torpenhow. as he put the
last rude gtitches into his overlong neg
lected gear; “it has been a beautiful
business.”
“The patch or the campaign?” said
Heldar. “Don’t think much of either
myself.”
“You want the Euryalus brought up
above the Third cataract, don’t you,
and eighty-one-ton guns at Jakdul?
Now, I’m quite satisfied with my
breeches.” He turned round gravely
to exhibit himself after the manner of
a clown.
“It's very pretty. Specially the let
tering on the sack, G. B. T. Govern
ment Bullock Train. That’s a sack
from India.”
“It’s my initials—Gilbert Belling Tor
penhow’. I stole the clotb on purpose.
What the mischief are the camel corps
doiug yonder?” Torpenhow shaded his
eyes and looked across the scrub
strewn gravel.
A bugle blew furiously, and the men
on the bank hurried to their arms and
accouterments.
“ ‘Pisan soldiery surprised while
bathing,’ ” remarked Dick calmly. “Do
you remember the picture? It's by
Michael Angelo. All beginners copy it
That scrub’s alive w ith enemy.”
The camel corps on the bank yelled
to the infantry to come to them, and a
hoarse shouting down the river showed
that the remainder of the column had
wind of the trouble and was hastening
to take share in it As swiftly as a
reach of still water is crisped by the
wind the rock strewn ridges and scrub
topped hills were troubled and alive
with armed men. Mercifully It oc
curred to these to stand far off for a
time, to shout and gesticulate Joyously.
One man even delivered himself of a
long story. The camel corps did not
fire. They were only too glad for a
little breathing space until some sort
of square could be formed. The men
on the sand hank ran to their side, and
the whaleboats, as they toiled up with
in shouting distance, were thrust into
the nearest bank and emptied of all
save the sick and a few men to guard
them. The Arab orator ceased his out
cries, and his friends howled.
“They look like mahdi’s men,” said
Torpenhow, elbowing himself into the
crush of the square, "hut what thou
sands of 'em there are! The tribes
hereabout aren’t against us. I know.”
“Then the mahdi’s taken another
town.” said Dick, “and set all these
yelping devils free to chaw us up. Lend
us your glass.”
“Our scouts should have told us of
this. We’ve been trapped.” said a sub
altern. "Aren't the camel guns ever
going to begin? Hurry up. you men!”
There was no necnl for any order.
The men flung themselves, panting,
against the sides of the square, for
they had good reason to know that
whoso was left outside when the fight
ing began would very probably die in
an extremely unpleasant fashion. The
little 150 pound camel guns posted at
one corner of the square opened the
ball as the square moved forward by
its right to get possession of a knoll of
rising ground.
All had fought in this manner many
times before, and there was no novelty
in the entertainment, always the same
hot and stifling formation, the smell of
dust and leather, the same boltlike
rush of the enemy, the same pressure
on the weakest side of the square, a
few minutes of desperate hand to hand
scuffle and then the siience of the des
ert, broken only by the yells of those
whom the handful of cavalry attempt
ed to pursue. They had grown careless.
The camel guns spoke at intervals, and
the square slouched forward amid the
protests of the camels. Then came the
attack of 3,000 men, who had not
learned from books that it is impossible
for troops in close order to attack
against breechloading fire.
A few dropping shots heralded their
approach, and a few horsemen led, but
the bulk of the force was naked hu
manity mad with rage and armed with
the spear and the sword. The instinct
of the desert, where there is always
much war, told them that the right
flank of the square was the weakest,
for they swung clear of the front. The
camel guns shelled them as they passed
and opened for an instant lanes
through their midst most like those
quick closing vistas in a Kentish hop
garden seen when the train races by at
full speed, and the infantry fire, held
till the opportune moment, dropped
them in close packed hundreds.
No civilized troops in the world could
have endured the hell through which
they came, the living leaping high to
avoid the dead clutching at their heels,
the wounded cursing and staggering
forward till they fell—a torrent .black
as the sliding water above a milldam—
full on the rtght flank of the square.
Then the line of the dusty troops and
the faint blue desert sky overhead
went out in rolling smoke, and the lit
tle stones on the heated ground and
the tinder dry clumps of scrub became
matters of surpassing interest, for men
measured their agonized retreat and
recovery by these things, counting me
chanically and hewing their way back
to chosen pebble and branch.
There was no semblance of any con
certed fighting. For aught the men
knew the enemy might be attempting
all four sides of the square at once.
Their business was to destroy what lay
in front of them, to bayonet in the back
those who passed over them, and, dy
ing, to drag down the slayer till he
could be knocked on the head by some
avenging gun butt. Dick waited quiet
ly with Torpenhow and a young doctor
till the stress became unendurable.
There was no hope of attending to the
wounded till the attack was repulsed,
so the three moved forward gingerly
toward the weakest side.
There was a rush from without, the
short hough-hough of the stabbing
spears, and a man on a horse, followed
by thirty or forty others, dasbed
through, yelling and hacking. The
right flank of the square sucked in aft
er them and the other sides sent help.
The wounded, who knew that they had
but a few hours more to live, caught
at the enemy’s feet and brought them
down, or, staggering to a discarded
rifle, fired blindly into the scuffle that
raged in the center of the square.
Dick was conscious that somebody
had cut him violently across his hel
met that he had fired his revolver into
a black, foam flecked face which forth
with ceased to bear any resemblance
to a face, and that Torpenhow had gone
down under an Arab whom be had
tried to "collar low” and was turning
over and over with hjs captive, feeling
for the man’s eyes. The doctor was
Jabbling at a venture with a bayonet,
and a helmetless soldier was firing over
Dick's shoulder. The flying grains of
powder stung his cheek. It was to Tor
penhow that Dtck turned by instinct.
The representative of the Central
Southern syndicate had shaken himself
clear of his enemy and rose, wiping his
thumb on his trousers.
The Arab, both hands to his fore
head. screamed aloud, then snatched
up his spear and rushed at Torpenhow.
who was panting under shelter of
Dick’s revolver. Dick fired twice, and
the man dropped limply. His upturned
face lacked one eye.
The musketry fire redoubled, but
cheers mingled with it. The rush had
failed, and the enemy were flying. If
the heart of the square were shambles,
the ground beyond was a butcher's
shop. Dick thrust his way forward be
tween the maddened men. The rem
nants of the enemy, were retiring, and
the few—the very few—English cav
alry were riding down the laggards.
Beyond the lines of the dead a broad
blood stained Arab spear cast aside in
the retreat lay across a stump of scrub,
and beyond this again the illimitable
dark level of the desert. The sun
caught the steel and turned it into a
savage red disk. Some one behind him
was saying, "Ah, get away, you brute!”
Dick raised his revolver and pointed to
ward the desert. His eye was held by
the red splash in the distance, and the.
clamor about him seemed to die down
to a very faraway whisper like the
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Dick fired twice.
whisper of a level sea.
There was the revolver and the red
light and the voice of some one scaring
something away exactly as had fallen
somewhere before, probably In a past
life. Dick waited for what should
happen afterward. Something seemed
to crack inside his head, and for an In
stant he stood in the dark, a darkness
that stung. He fired at random, and
the bullet went out across the desert as
he muttered: "Spoiled my aim. There
aren’t any more cartridges. We shall
have to run home.” He put his hand
to his head and brought it away cov
ered with blood.
“Old man, you’re cut rather badly,”
said Torpenhow. “I owe you some
thing for this business. Thanks. Stand
up! I say, you can’t be ill here.”
Dick had fallen stiffly on Torpen
how’s shoulder and was muttering
something about aiming low and to the
left Then he sank to the ground and
was silent Torpenhow dragged him
off to a doctor and sat down to work
up his account of what he was pleased
to call “a sanguinary battle, in which
our arms had acquitted themselves,”
etc.
All that night when the troops were
encamped by the w’haleboats a black
figure danced in the strong moonlight
on the sand bar and shouted that
“Khartum, the accursed one, was dead
—was dead—was dead; that two steam
ers were rock staked on the Nile out
side the city, and that all of their crews
there remained not one, and Khartum
was dead—was dead—was dead.”
But Torpenhow took no heed. He
was watching Dick, who was calling
aloud to the restless Nile for Maisie—
and again Maisie!
“Behold a phenomenon,” said Tor
penhow, rearranging the blanket
"Here is a man, presumably human,
who mentions the name of one woman
only. And I’ve seen a good deal of de
lirium too. Dick, here’s some fizzy
drink.”
“Thank you, Maisie.” said Dick.
r~ f
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