Читать книгу Beau Geste - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 7

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After a dusty meal, impatiently swallowed by Major de Beaujolais, that gentleman resumed his story, with serious earnestness and some gesticulation, while, on the opposite side of the carriage, George Lawrence lay upon his back, his clasped hands beneath his head, idly watching the smoke that curled up from his cheroot. But he was paying closer attention to the Frenchman’s tale.

“But, of course, it soon occurred to me,” continued that gentleman, “that someone must be alive.... Shots had been fired to welcome me.... Those corpses had not of themselves taken up those incredibly life-like attitudes. Whoever had propped them up and arranged them and their rifles in position, must be alive.

For, naturally, not all had been struck by Arab bullets and remained standing in the embrasures. Nine times out of ten, as you know, a man staggers back and falls, when shot standing.

Besides, what about the wounded? There is always a far bigger percentage of wounded than of killed in any engagement. Yes, there must be survivors, possibly all more or less wounded, below in the caserne.

But surely one of them might have kept a look-out. Probably the Commandant and all the non-commissioned officers were killed.

Even then, though, one would have expected the senior man—even if the survivors were all soldats deuxième classe—to have taken that much ordinary military precaution! ...

Well, I would soon solve the problem, for my troop was approaching, my trumpeter with them. I was glad to note that my Sergeant-Major had evidently had a similar idea to mine, for, on coming in sight of the fort, he had opened out and skirmished up in extended order—in spite of the bravely-flying Flag.

When my men arrived, I had the ‘rouse,’ the ‘alarm,’ the Regimental Call, sounded by the trumpeter—fully expecting, after each blast, that the gates would open, or at least that someone would come running up from below on to the roof.

Not a sound nor a movement! ... Again and again; call after call.... Not a sound nor a movement!

‘Perhaps the last one or two are badly wounded,’ thought I. ‘There may not be a man able to crawl from his bed. The fellow who propped those corpses up may have been shot in the act, and be lying up there, or on his cot,’ and I bade the trumpeter cease. Sending for the Chef, as we call the Sergeant-Major, I ordered him to knot camel-cords, sashes, girths, reins, anything, make a rope, and set an active fellow to climb from the back of a camel, into an embrasure, and give me a hoist up.

That Sergeant-Major is one of the bravest and coolest men I have ever known, and his collection of ferblanterie includes the Croix and the Medaille given on the field, for valour.

‘It is a trap, mon Commandant,’ said he. ‘Do not walk into it. Let me go.’ Brave words—but he looked queer, and I knew that though he feared nothing living, he was afraid.

‘The dead keep good watch, Chef,’ said I, and I think he shivered.

‘They would warn us, mon Commandant,’ said he. ‘Let me go.’

‘We will neither of us go,’ said I. ‘We will have the courage to remain in our proper place, with our men. It may be a trap, though I doubt it. We will send a man in, and if it is a trap, we shall know—and without losing an officer unnecessarily. If it is not a trap, the gates will be opened in two minutes.’

‘The Dead are watching and listening,’ said the Chef, glancing up, and he crossed himself, averting his eyes.

‘Send me that drunken mauvais sujet, Rastignac,’ said I, and the Sergeant-Major rode away.

‘May I go, mon Commandant?’ said the trumpeter, saluting.

‘Silence,’ said I. My nerves were getting a little on edge, under that silent, mocking scrutiny of the watching Dead. When the Sergeant-Major returned with a rope, and the rascal Rastignac—whose proper place was in the Joyeux, the terrible Penal Battalions of convicted criminals—I ordered him to climb from his camel on to the roof.

‘Not I, mon Officier,’ replied he promptly. ‘Let me go to Hell dead, not living. I don’t mind joining corpses as a corpse. You can shoot me.’

‘That can I, of a surety,’ I agreed, and drew my revolver. ‘Ride your camel under that projecting water-spout,’ said I. ‘Stand on its back, and spring to the spout. Climb into the embrasure, and then go down and open the gates.’

‘Not I, mon Officier,’ said Rastignac again. I raised my revolver, and the Sergeant-Major snatched the man’s rifle.

‘Have you le cafard?’ I asked, referring to the desert-madness that, bred of monotony, boredom, misery, and hardship, attacks European soldiers in these outposts—especially absinthe-drinkers—and makes them do strange things, varying from mutiny, murder, and suicide to dancing about naked, or thinking they are lizards or emperors or clock-pendulums.

‘I have a dislike for intruding upon a dead Company that stands to arms and keeps watch,’ replied the fellow.

‘For the last time—go,’ said I, aiming between his eyes.

‘Go yourself, Monsieur le Majeur,’ replied Rastignac, and I pulled the trigger.... Was I right, my friend?”

“Dunno,” replied Lawrence, yawning.

“There was a click, and Rastignac smiled. I had emptied my revolver when approaching the fort, as I have told you.

‘You can live—to be court-martialled and join the Batt d’Af,’ said I. ‘You will be well placed among the Joyeux.’

‘Better among those than the Watchers above, mon Officier,’ said my beauty, and I bade the Sergeant-Major take his bayonet and put him under arrest.

‘You may show this coward the way,’ said I to the trumpeter, and, in a minute, that one had sprung at the spout, clutched it, and was scrambling on to the wall. He was un brave.

‘We will proceed as though the place were held by an enemy—until the gates are opened,’ said I to the Sergeant-Major, and we rode back to the troop and handed Rastignac over to the Corporal, who clearly welcomed him in the rôle of prisoner.

‘Vous—pour la boîte,’ smiled the Corporal, licking his lips. And then we watched and waited. I could see that the men were immensely puzzled and intrigued. Not an eye wandered. I would have given something to have known what each man thought concerning this unique experience. A perfectly silent fort, the walls fully manned, the Flag flying—and the gates shut. No vestige of a sign from that motionless garrison staring out into the desert, aiming their rifles at nothing—and at us....

We watched and waited. Two minutes passed; five; six; seven. What could it mean? Was it a trap after all?

‘That one won’t return!’ said Rastignac loudly, and gave an eerie jarring laugh. The Corporal smote him on the mouth, and I heard him growl, ‘What about a little crapaudine^[1] and a mouthful of sand, my friend? ... You speak again!’ ...

At the end of ten minutes, a very mauvais quart d’heure, I beckoned the Sergeant-Major. I could stand the strain no longer.

‘I 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.

[1]	Torture. The hands and feet tied together in a bunch in the middle of the back.