"I feared," said Mrs. Shedd, "that the enemy might get the better of us and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives. While they were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away. I looked about me to see what we might carry. There was little May, six years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had unconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a little bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag of money so that I should be ready on a moment's notice for Dr. Shedd if they should swoop down upon us."
All day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired horses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the horizon. What would happen in the darkness?
Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in khaki. They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under Captain Savage. They had come ahead from the main body that had moved up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession. The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved forward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp.
"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" asked one of the Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety.
"I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the women and the children to the mercy of the enemy."
He was rejoiced that the British had come.
"There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, a light in his eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months."
He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and men and women through the mountains into the protection of the British squadron of troops.
IV
Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the August day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which had a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler than a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on the floor of the cart.