“It was a small room or prison into which they stuffed a lot of our men once, in India, in awful hot weather, an’ kep’ them there waitin’ till the Great Mogul, or some chap o’ that sort, should say what was to be done wi’ them. But his Majesty was asleep at the time, an’ it was as much as their lives was worth to waken him. So they had to wait, an’ afore he awakened out o’ that sleep most o’ the men was dead—suffocated for want o’ fresh air.”
“I say, Mac, pass the water,” said Moses Pyne. “It makes a feller feel quite gaspy to think of.”
The weather-prophet proved to be right. That night no one could sleep a wink, except the big Scotsman Macleod. To make matters worse, the insects of the place were unusually active. One of them especially, not much bigger than a pin-point, was irritating out of all proportion to its size, and it kept up, during the night, the warfare which the innumerable flies had waged during the day.
“It’s no use trying to sleep, Willie,” said Miles to Armstrong, who was next to him, as they lay on the flat roof of the redoubt, with their rifles resting on the sandbags which formed a slight protection from the enemy’s fire when one of the frequent attacks was made on the town.
“So I find,” returned his friend. “I have tried everything. Counting up to hundreds of thousands has made me rather more wakeful. I find that thinking of Emmy does me most good, but even that won’t produce sleep.”
“Strange!” remarked Miles. “I have been trying the same sort of thing—without success. And I’ve had an unusually hard day of it, so that I ought to be ready for sleep. You were in luck, being on police-duty.”
“H’m! I don’t think much of my luck. But let’s hear what you have been up to all day.”
“Well, first, I began by turning out at 5:30 a.m.,” said Miles, rolling with a sigh on his other side, for a uniform, cross-belts, boots, ammunition, etcetera, don’t, after all, form an easy night-dress. “After a cup of coffee I fell in with a lot of our fellows, and was told off for fatigue-duty. Worked away till 7:30. Then breakfast. After that I had to clear up the mess; then got ready for inspection parade at 9:30, after which I had to scrub belts, and clean up generally. Dinner over, I was warned to go on night-guard; but, for some reason which was not stated to me, that was changed, and I’m not sorry for it, because the heat has taken a good deal out of me, and I prefer lying here beside you, Willie, to standing sentry, blinking at the desert, and fancying every bush and stone to be a dusky skirmisher of Osman Digna. By the way, if that mountain range where the enemy lies is twelve or fourteen miles distant from the town, they have a long way to come when they take a fancy to attack us—which is pretty often too. They say he has got two hundred thousand men with him. D’you think that can be true?”
A gentle trumpet-note from his friend’s nose told Miles that he had brought about what thoughts of Emmy had failed to accomplish!
Thoughts of Marion had very nearly brought himself to a similar condition, when a trumpet-blast, the reverse of gentle, roused the whole line of defence, and, immediately after, sharp firing was heard in the direction of the right Water fort, which was manned by marines with two Krupp guns and a Gardner. A few rounds from the big guns drove the enemy back in that direction.