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was while I awaited their arrival that I wished our army more resembled yours in one particular--the relationship between officers and men. Our fellows get too much non-commissioned officer and too little officer. We are too remote from them. We do not play games with them, get to know them, interest ourselves in them as fellow human beings, in the way that your officers do. Too often it is a case with us of hated non-coms. and stranger-officers. Particularly is this so in the Legion. The non-coms. are all-powerful and tyrannical; the officers are utterly uninterested in the men as individuals, and do not even know their names.
And I was not one of their own officers of the Legion. I was a Spahi officer, superintending the organising of mule-cavalry out of infantry; or rather, making ordinary infantry into mounted infantry, that the Legion might hope to compete with the Touaregs in mobility. We wanted mounted riflemen down there just as you did in the Boer War, or else the Arabs served us as the Boers did you at first.
I certainly had not been unduly harsh or oppressive during the time I had been with this particular lot; but, on the other hand, I certainly had no personal influence with them. I did not know them, nor they me, and all our lives seemed likely to be forfeit in consequence. . . .
However, I talked to the men whom Dufour brought, and did my best under the heavy handicap of not so much as knowing their names. Finally, I dismissed them with the words:
'For your lives, influence your friends wisely and well, and get it into their heads that at moon-rise we will have obedience with honour and safety, or disobedience with dishonour, misery, and death. For at moon-rise, the chosen escouade will enter the fort and bring out the dead, or the company will fire upon them. . . . Au 'voir, mes enfants.'
Of course, I knew the danger of making any reference to what would happen if the company refused to fire on the escouade--but it was foolish to pretend to ignore the possibility of such a thing. But I made no allusion to the Senegalese, and the coercion or punishment of white men by black.
It might be that the company would obey orders, if the escouade remained mutinous, and it might be that all would reflect upon the coming of the Senegalese.
Anyhow, I was on a knife-edge, and all depended upon the effect on these rascals of a four-hour rest and the words of the men to whom I had talked. There was just a chance that St. André and his Senegalese might arrive in time to influence the course of affairs--but I most certainly could not bring myself to postpone the issue until his arrival, and then take shelter behind the blacks. With the full moon well up in the sky--by its beautiful soft light--we should see what we should see . . .
And then, just as the men turned to go, I had an idea. Suppose some of them would volunteer to go over the fort with me; see for themselves that there was nothing to be afraid of; and then report to their fellows that all was well.
Their statement and the inevitable airs of superiority which they would give themselves, might well counteract Rastignac's influence and their superstitious fears. If some of these men, selected for character and influence, went back in the spirit of, 'Well, cowards, we have been in there and it is much the same as any other such cursed hole--except that somebody had a great idea for diddling the Arabs,' the others would probably take the line, 'Well, where you can go, we can. Who are you to swagger?'
Yes--I would try it. Not as though I were really persuading or beseeching, and anxious to prove that the escouade had nothing to fear if sent to garrison the place. No--merely as offering them, superior soldiers, an opportunity of seeing the fort before its remarkable dispositions were disturbed.
'Wait a moment,' said I, as they saluted and turned to go. 'Is there a man of courage among you--a man, par exemple such as the trumpeter, brave enough to enter an empty fort with me?'
They looked sheepish for a moment. Someone murmured, 'And where is Jean the Trumpeter?' and then I heard a curious whispered remark:
'Gee! I sure would like to see a ghost, Buddy,' and the whispered reply:
'Sure thing, Hank, and I'd like to see ole Brown some more.'
Two men stepped forward as one, and saluted.
They were in extraordinary contrast in body, and some similarity in face, for one was a giant and the other not more than five feet in height, while both had clean-shaven leathery countenances, somewhat of the bold Red Indian type.
You know what I mean--lean hatchet faces, biggish noses, mouths like a straight gash, and big chins. By their grey eyes they were Northerners, and by their speech Americans.
'You would like to see the fort and how it was manned to the last by heroes--victorious in death?' I asked.
'Oui, mon Commandant,' they replied together.
'Isn't there a Frenchman among you?' I asked the rest.
Another man, a big sturdy Gascon he looked, saluted and joined the Americans. Then what they now call 'the herd instinct' and 'mob-psychology' came into play, and the others did the same.
Good! I had got the lot. I would take them round the fort as though doing honour to the dead and showing them as an example--and then I suddenly remembered . . ."
"The murdered sous-officier," said George Lawrence.
"Exactly, George! These fellows must not see him lying there with a French bayonet through him! I must go in first, alone, and give myself the pleasant task of removing the bayonet. I would cover his face, and it would be assumed that he had been shot and had fallen where he lay. Yes, that was it. . . .
'Good! You shall come with me then,' said I, 'and have the privilege of treading holy ground and seeing a sight of which to talk to your grandchildren when you are old men. You can also tell your comrades of what you have seen, and give them a fresh pride in their glorious Regiment,' and I bade the Sergeant-Major march them over to the fort.
Mounting my mule, which had not been unsaddled, I rode quickly across to the gate. The sentry had been withdrawn.
Dismounting, I hurried up to the roof, to perform the distasteful duty I could not very well have delegated to the Sergeant-Major. I emerged from the darkness of the staircase on to the roof.
And there I stood and stared and stared and rubbed my eyes--and then for a moment felt just a little faint and just a little in sympathy with those poor superstitious fools of the escouade. . . . For, my dear George, the body of the sous-officier was no longer there! Nor was that of the bareheaded recumbent man!"
"Good God!" ejaculated Lawrence, raising himself on his elbow and turning to de Beaujolais.
"Yes, that is what I said," continued the other. "What else was there to say? Were there djinns, afrites, evil spirits in this cursed desert, even as the inhabitants declared? Was the whole thing a nightmare? Had I dreamt that the body of a French sous-officier had lain here, with a French bayonet through it? Or was I dreaming now?
And then I think my temperature went up two or three degrees from the mere hundred and two that one disregards; for I remember entertaining the wild idea that perhaps a living man was shamming dead among these corpses. Moreover, I remember going round from corpse to corpse and questioning them. One or two that seemed extra lifelike I took by the arm, and as I shouted at them, I shook them and pulled at them until they fell to the ground, their rifles clattering down with them.
Suddenly I heard the feet of men upon the stair, and pulled myself together. The Sergeant-Major and the half-dozen or so of legionaries came out on to the roof.
I managed to make my little speech as they stared round in amazement, the most amazed of all being the Sergeant-Major, who gazed at the smeared pool of blood where the body of the sous-officier had lain.
The two Americans seemed particularly interested, and appeared to be looking for comrades among the dead.
When would one of the men salute and ask respectfully the first of the hundred questions that must be puzzling them: 'Where is their officer?'
And what