If we did not fire they would imagine that we had evacuated the ridge, and the obvious thing for them to do was to occupy it themselves, and wait until morning. If they did that, I realized very well that we could not escape, and, more important still, I knew that it would be impossible for Commander Duckworth to remove a single camel from the path under the fire of their rifles, and that all the nine-pounders and Maxims in the Navy could not dislodge them.
Already rifle fire was dying down at the bottom. It was too dark to aim there, and it would soon be too dark for us to aim either. No bullets had come our way for some time, so I had not them to disturb me as I tried to think what to do.
At first I thought that we all should gather in the gap itself and defend ourselves there, but I gave up that idea because I felt sure they would scale the ridge above it on either side, shoot down, and make an end of us pretty soon.
I did not know what to do.
All I could see now, except for the very occasional flash of a rifle, was a frightened group of camel-drivers huddled together on the third zigzag, apparently waiting for the armed men to join them before they plucked up sufficient courage to start the ascent. It was too dark farther down to see a single camel.
Then Jaffa turned to me and said simply: "I go down path—speak to camel men—tell them you no want kill Bedouin—Bedouin throw rifle away—you won't shoot—if they no throw rifle away you kill them all."
My aunt! What a chap! What a scheme! If it would only work, and if only the camel men could get the Arabs to listen!
"I tell them you have a hundred men on top—they no know—very frightened—very much frightened."
"But they might kill you," I said.
He shook his head, and drew his beloved Mauser pistol. "I go and speak to them."