"He won't be done in."
"What I mean is, when old Haig catches him as he's bolting out of Berlin. What I say, send him to Messypotamia, and without a sun helmet: lumme, he wants a place in the sun."
The boatmen paddled the kelak slowly through the marsh until sunset compelled a halt. They slept on board, and started again at dawn. Soon they came into shallow water where it was necessary to jump overboard and wade, pushing the kelak. Sometimes they swam; more than once they had to make a portage over comparatively dry land, dismantling the kelak and carrying the stores. It was afternoon before they came to the neighbourhood of the island stronghold. Burnet left his party securely hidden in the reeds, and made his way alone, wading and swimming until he reached the rising ground south of the mound.
"Is it good news, my brother?" said Rejeb, meeting him.
"There are guns and stores in the marsh yonder," replied Burnet. "Will you send out men to bring them in?"
While a party of Arabs went on this mission, Burnet enquired what had happened during his absence. He learnt that the situation was much more serious than it had been on his departure. Under cover of machine-gun fire the Turks had advanced along the causeway and erected a breastwork of stones at the northern edge of the gap which the Arabs had cut. Then they had set to work to fill up the gap, and had already made great progress. They had several times attempted to gain access to the island from other directions, but the waterlogged condition of the country had rendered their efforts fruitless against the fire of the vigilant defenders. When the causeway should be restored, Rejeb despaired of holding his ground against a force so largely outnumbering his own. To make matters worse, a slight wound which he had received had grown serious through lack of attention, and he felt incapable of the energy necessary to the conduct of a strenuous defensive campaign.
His depression of spirit was somewhat lifted by Burnet's report that measures would be undertaken for his relief. He called a council of some of his principal men to consider the propositions which Burnet conveyed to him from headquarters. There was no opposition to the sending away of the non-combatants. The Arabs, accustomed to a nomad existence, saw little hardship in the people having to wander for safety to other regions. But the suggestion to part with their horses was at first strongly opposed. An Arab without a horse is like a shipwrecked mariner. Burnet found all his persuasiveness unavailing until a diversion was caused by the appearance of the two gunners bringing up their machine-guns, followed by the boatmen and the Arabs loaded with stores. The explanation that these were only an advance party of a force that was by and by coming to their assistance, and that this force would in all probability bring back their horses, turned the tide. Encouraged by the assurance of help, the men agreed to the temporary sacrifice demanded of them; and the council broke up with a yell of defiance which caused the enemy, expecting an attack, to open fire.