And the people, how kind they all were! Even the shopkeepers did all they could to make us feel at home. "Special Australian Shop," "Australian Soldiers' Rendezvous"—signs like these met us at every turn. Especially grateful did we feel for the warning one Cairo shopkeeper gave us: "Don't go elsewhere to be cheated, Australians. Come here!" Nor shall we ever forget the laborious days and nights which that shopkeeper who put out the sign must have spent in mastering our language—"English and French spoken; Australian understood."
Truth to tell, the Australian soldiers were as a shower of gold to the thirsty Cairo traders. They all loved the Australians. We scattered money far and wide—till we had none left. We threw piastres to the winds—thinking nothing of them, they were such little coins—till we had none left. From morning till night we distributed largess. It was baksheesh everywhere and all the time. Whichever way we turned we found somebody dangling something in front of our eyes—ready to sacrifice it for our sake. Even Trooper Newman, who previously had expressed his best wishes to the ship, comes up to me with a gaudy handkerchief he has just bought for ten piastres. It has King George in one corner, Kitchener in another, French in another, Jellicoe in another, and generals and admirals and dukes and earls all round it. "It may be the only chance I'll get," says he, "of poking my nose into high society."
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST FIGHT
ACROSS FORTY CENTURIES—EGYPTIAN MAGIC—A SCARAB SELLER—THE ENEMY REPULSED—THE UBIQUITOUS GERMAN SPY—SPREADING DISAFFECTION—ATTACKS ON KANTARA, TOUSSOUM, ISMAILIA AND SERAPEUM—FIRST BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY.
I am living Egypt, living.... Your pyramids and your mosques and your old Nile can talk to me of things long past and gone, and I shall listen with interest to what they have to say, but I would rather be a living dog of an Egyptian than the dead lion of an Egyptian king—I would rather be a moving, talking native dressed in garish clothes than a Prince of the House of Rameses, sans eyes, sans ears, sans tongue, in the shrivelled brown form of a mummy.
For there is something about these living ones that brings the dead to life. Sometimes when I look into their eyes I seem to see a strange, mysterious light in them—a light that never was on sea or land. It is then that I think of the things these people have seen in the forty centuries of which Napoleon spoke. I don't believe in magic, but I have seen strange things—things that make me remember that the magicians of Pharaoh were able to turn their rods into serpents!
There came one day a very wise Egyptian—one whom I know as a Freemason—and he gave a valuable scarab, mounted in a gold ring, to Major Lynch. There was no doubt that the wise man valued it, and there is no doubt that he left an impression on Major Lynch. It is a talisman and a protection to the owner, but it has deadly powers. Nothing can harm the owner so long as he has it in his possession, and the owner can shrivel up an enemy by merely pointing at him and muttering incantations—just as the Northern Territory natives in Australia can will an enemy to die by pointing a bone at him. Major Lynch lost no time in putting the scarab to the test. There was a very troublesome native who used to bother him several times a day about things that don't matter, and the day after the wise Egyptian had made his presentation the major pointed at the native and muttered a powerful Australian incantation. Since then the native has not been seen.
A dragoman wanted to sell me some scarabs.