am going in,' said I. 'I cannot send another man, although I ought to do so. Take command. . . . If you do not see me within ten minutes, and nothing happens, assault the place. Burn down the gates and let a party climb the walls, while another charges in. Keep a half-troop, under the Corporal, in reserve.'
'Let me go, mon Commandant,' begged the Chef, 'if you will not send another soldier. Or call for a volunteer to go. Suppose you . . .'
'Silence, Chef,' I replied, 'I am going,' and I rode back to the fort. Was I right, George?"
"Dunno," replied George Lawrence.
"I remember thinking, as I rode back, what a pernicious fool I should look if, under the eyes of all--the living and the dead--I failed to accomplish that, by no means easy, scramble, and had ignominiously to admit my inability to climb up where the trumpeter had gone. It is sad when one's vile body falls below the standard set by the aspiring soul, when the strength of the muscles is inadequate to the courage of the heart. . . .
However, all went well, and, after an undignified dangling from the spout, and wild groping with the raised foot, I got a leg over the ledge, scrambled up and crawled into an embrasure.
And there I stood astounded and dumbfounded, tout bouleversé, unable to believe my eyes.
There, as in life, stood the garrison, their backs to me, their faces to the foe whom they had driven off, their feet in dried pools of their own blood--watching, watching. . . . And soon I forgot what might be awaiting me below, I forgot my vanished trumpeter, I forgot my troop waiting without--for there was something else.
Lying on his back, his sightless eyes out-staring the sun--lay the Commandant, and through his heart, a bayonet, one of our long, thin French sword-bayonets with its single-curved hilt! No--he had not been shot, he was absolutely untouched elsewhere, and there he lay with a French bayonet through his heart. What do you say to that, my friend?"
"Suicide," replied Lawrence.
"And so did I, until I realised that he had a loaded revolver in one hand, one chamber fired, and a crushed letter in the other! Does a man drive a bayonet through his heart, and then take a revolver in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other? I think not.
Have you ever seen a man drive a bayonet through his heart, my friend? Believe me, he does not fumble for letters, nor draw a revolver and fire it, after he has done that. No. He gasps, stares, staggers. He grips the handle and the forte of the blade with both hands, totters, stretches convulsively, and collapses, crashing to the ground. . . . In any case, does a man commit suicide with a bayonet when he has a loaded revolver? . . . Suicide? Pouf.
Was it any wonder that my jaw dropped and I forgot all else, as I stared and stared. . . . Voyez donc! A French fort in the Sahara, besieged by Arabs. Every man killed at his post. The Arabs beaten off. The fort inviolate, untrodden by Arab foot. The gates closed. Within--the dead, and one of them slain by a French bayonet while he held a loaded revolver in his hand! . . .
But was the fort inviolate and untrodden by Arab foot? If so, what had become of my trumpeter? Might not the Arabs be hiding below, waiting their opportunity to catch the relieving force unawares? Might not there be an Arab eye at every rifle-slit? Might not the caserne, rooms, offices, sheds, be packed with them?
Absurdly improbable--and why should they have slain the Commandant with a French bayonet? Would they not have hacked him to pieces with sword and spear, and have mutilated and decapitated every corpse in the place? Was it like the wild Touareg to lay so clever a trap with the propped-up bodies, that a relieving force might fall into their hands as well? Never. Peaudezébie! Had the Arabs entered here, the place would have been a looted, blackened ruin, defiled, disgusting, strewn with pieces of what had been men. No, this was not Arab work.
These Watchers, I felt certain, had been compelled by this dead man, who lay before me, to continue as defenders of the fort after their deaths. . . . He was evidently a man. A bold, resourceful, undaunted hero, sardonic, of a macabre humour, as the Legion always is.
As each man fell, throughout that long and awful day, he had propped him up, wounded or dead, set the rifle in its place, fired it, and bluffed the Arabs that every wall and every embrasure and loophole of every wall was fully manned. He must, at the last, have run from point to point, firing a rifle from behind its dead defender. Every now and then he must have blown the alarm that the bugler would never blow again, in the hope that it would guide and hasten the relieving force and impress the Arabs with the fear that the avengers must be near.
No wonder the Arabs never charged that fort, from each of whose walls a rifle cracked continuously, and from whose every embrasure watched a fearless man whom they could not kill--or whose place seemed to be taken, at once, by another, if they did kill him. . . .
All this passed through my mind in a few seconds--and as I realised what he had done and how he had died in the hour of victory, murdered, my throat swelled though my blood boiled--and I ventured to give myself the proud privilege of kneeling beside him and pinning my own Croix upon his breast--though I could scarcely see to do so. I thought of how France should ring with the news of his heroism, resource, and last glorious fight, and how every Frenchman should clamour for the blood of his murderer.
Only a poor sous-officier of the Legion. But a hero for France to honour. . . . And I would avenge him!
Such were my thoughts, my friend, as I realised the truth--what are yours?"
"Time for a spot of dinner," said George Lawrence, starting up.
-----
§5.
Next morning, as the two lay awake on their dusty bedding, begrimed, tousled, pyjama-clad, awaiting the next stop, bath, and breakfast, de Beaujolais lit a cigarette, turned on his side, and fixed his friend with the earnest troubled gaze of his bright brown eye.
"Well, George, who killed him--and why?"
"Oh, Ancient Mariner!" yawned Lawrence.
"What?"
"I feel like the Wedding Guest."
"You look like one, my George," smiled the Frenchman.
"Get on with it, Jolly."
"How was the Commandant of that fort killed?"
"Someone 'threatened his life with a railway-share.'"
"Be serious, little George. I want your help. I must get to the bottom of this. Where did I leave off?"
"God knows. I was asleep."
"Ah! I was on the roof, pinning my Croix on the breast of the bravest man I have ever met. Your General Gordon in miniature! This obscure and humble soul had kept his country's Flag flying, as that great man did at Khartoum, and, like him, he had been relieved too late. But yes, and there it flapped above my head and recalled me to myself.
I rose, drew my revolver, loaded it, and walked to the door. As I was about to descend into that silence I had a little idea. I looked at each of the Watchers in turn. No. Each man had his bayonet, of course. I had not really supposed that one of them had stabbed his officer and then gone back to his post and died on his feet! He would have fallen--or possibly have hung limply through the embrasure. I raised my weapon and descended the stairs--expecting I know not what,
