Suddenly I heard a trumpet and a cry. I looked towards the right; the spahis were riding at top speed with levelled lances on the foe. Our men were scattered, fighting in squads and parties over the plain, driving the Arabs back. The press of battle had gone beyond me. In a moment the horsemen swept into the Arab ranks; the lances rose and fell with terrible significance as the mass rolled on. Our work was over; the cavalry so rushed and harried the fleeing enemy that the rebellion was practically at an end, for that time of course, before noon. When the main body came up the chiefs were in our camp, prepared to accept any terms offered by the general. These were hard enough. All arms to be surrendered, a heavy fine to be paid, their villages to be kept in our possession till all the petty fortifications should be dismantled. Yes; my company kept a village and an oasis, and I fancy that the next generation of Arabs was whiter than their forbears. But that is war; and the people—the goody-goodies and the stockbrokers and the foolish women—who believe that honour dwells in the heart of a soldier on active service will lament our wickedness and get ready for the next occasion when they can send off their own soldiers to war, glorious war!
CHAPTER VII
Not long after the end of the little war my company and another were ordered on garrison duty to a place which we called, for what reason I know not, Three Fountains. I never saw three springs in the place; of course, there was an oasis but whether this, before being walled in, had really been divided into three separate wells I cannot say. Probably the name was a fanciful one given by a soldier and taken up by his comrades.
Alongside us lay about five or six hundred Turcos. They did not like us and we did not care overmuch for them, so you might imagine that here were pretty grounds and opportunity for a quarrel. Not so, indeed; they kept away from us, for they knew well what would happen should one of them dare to enter our lines. We gave them a wide berth, for the African is always—like the Asiatic and the American and the European—ripe for treachery to men of another race and colour. No; the races did not fight, but we of the higher breed,—how angels and devils must laugh when people speak of higher breeds!—had a very pretty fight amongst ourselves.
It came about in an unusual way, but for the invariable cause. There was a Portuguese in No. 4 Company who loved a girl—a Cooloolie girl who had followed him in all his marches and campaignings. A Cooloolie, I may explain, is the offspring of a Turkish father and an Arab or Christian mother, and as a rule when a Cooloolie woman gives herself to a man she does it in a thorough manner and without any reservation save one—the woman's right to change her mind. And this lassie did change her mind, and of her own accord made love to a Greek who belonged to my company, as handsome and well-formed a man as I have ever had the good fortune to see, and a downright good soldier. Certainly I should not care to see him too near my knapsack—brushes and such things have a strange knack of disappearing—but I know very well that he was a right man in a fight and a trump to spend his money when he had it. He did not have it often, and when he had you generally heard next morning that an officer's tent had been visited—yes, visited is a good word—by someone not invited.
Well, the Cooloolie girl flung over the Portuguese, with bad words and worse insinuations, and openly followed the Greek around, like a dog after its master. And Apollo, of course, who probably did not care a button about the woman, must go here and there, head up, with smiling face, cheery talk, and queer jests. He visited every corner of the camp: first the part where we, his own company lay; then, still followed by the woman, the Turcos, who showed their white teeth and grinned and muttered: by Jove, he was a handsome man, and she, though rather dusky and stout, looked a perfect beauty in such a place, remote from civilisation; last of all he came towards us through the company of his predecessor in the Cooloolie girl's favour. Flesh and blood, least of all the hot blood of a Peninsular, could not stand it; with a hoarse cry and an awful oath the Portuguese rushed at the Greek, but Apollo was quite prepared. Slipping aside he struck the poor devil full under the ear at the base of the skull and sent him headlong to the earth, senseless. Apollo, seeing that his opponent did not rise, calmly walked to his own quarters, the girl now hanging upon his arm and uttering all the endearing words she could think of, looking up the while into his face as one entranced. None of the men of No. 4 Company interfered. It was a common thing enough for two men to quarrel about a woman, and, though they must have felt sore that their comrade had been worsted, still that was no reason why outsiders should interfere. The matter would have been settled by the interested parties for themselves had it not been for the devilish desire of creating mischief that always possessed Nicholas the Russian. Indeed, Nicholas loved mischief like a woman.
Now Nicholas was a man who often had money and spent it like a gentleman, a soldier, and a rascal. He never got all that was sent to him, any more than the Crown gets all the revenues collected in its name: to greasy palms coins will always stick. If 1000 francs were his due—sent by friends, of course—he reckoned himself lucky to be able to spend half. This time he must have received a more than ordinary sum, for instead of following the custom of the Legion and showing us, his comrades, a little bit of paper, which the commandant would cash next day, so that we, his good comrades, the men who liked and loved him, might know exactly how much drink and other things to be had for money each might fairly reckon on, he said:
"Our comrade, Apollo I mean, has taken the girl; let us be good comrades to him; let us take the two cabarets to-morrow, and keep all the drink and all the tobacco and all the cigars for ourselves, and give the happy pair a right good wedding."