Eaves put his hairy hands upon my shoulder, and dragged me out of sleep. “’Ere, Lake, wake up, you’re on picket with me!” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “My God,” said I. Eaves grinned and moved away. He wore his overcoat, and a helmet of wool over head and neck. The big black moustache hid the rest of his face. “Show a leg this way!” he called back, plunging hands into pockets and hunching his shoulders. Away he went. I lay nearly atop of Tank, one blanket serving both of us. I got up quietly to leave him undisturbed, and tucked him up at the same time. He was on his side, an arm across his face; and he was full of deep breaths. We had lain down as we had arrived a couple of hours before. I got up fully dressed. The sand had grown cold and had gathered much dew, and I was rheumy and knew a hundred little pains. I threw one arm above my head, and after it the other. I tossed back my head and opened my mouth,[50] letting go something between a yawn and an oath.
It was night yet; but dawn was very near. The sand was hidden under a grey vapour; the sky was cloudless and filled with stars. To the right hand there seemed uneven hills climbing into the sky; and to the left, in the distance, stood the Pyramids. In the centre of this desert space was the little company of men and horses, sleeping exhaustion’s sleep. We had staggered there, and straightway had thrown ourselves upon the sand.
I stepped clear of everybody until I was in the open. I stamped my feet, settled my coat, pulled straight the wool helmet. I was dead tired still. Then I turned the way Eaves had gone, leaving behind me the sleepers. The horses were tethered to a single headline and lacked heelropes. Some lay on their sides without twitch of the ear or quiver of the nostril; others were stretched out, breathing in great sighs. There were those that got up, shifted a pace or two, and dropped down again; and those that wandered until pulled up by the rope or entangled with a neighbour, when they reared or plunged in spiritless manner. Never had I looked on such a weary company.
Hands in pockets, Eaves wandered up and down, grumbling to himself and shouting at the horses. Quickly it was seen the absent heelropes caused work in plenty. We dived together for a brute on his knees, half choked with a tangled headline; and we dived again for another in[51] worse case. Hardly was there time to swear at each other: there was no time for yawning. Of course there were lulls in the fury when we stood a few moments straight-backed to stare at the ground or look one another in the eyes, and curse Egypt and the Kaiser and ourselves as fools for having come this far. And then it was “Blast that ’orse!” and together we sprang for it. The wide flat country shut in by blue starry sky made the night immense, and we went about much of our work in silence. For the small noises of our movements and our words, and the groans of the horses, were caught and swallowed instantly in the stillness. There was so much to do, time went with great speed. The false dawn moved abroad while I thought still it was night.
We were on short picket, and quite soon I was relieved. Light was spreading everywhere, the fog was lifting, and with it passed away the damp. The morning was very sharp, so that I started to wonder how long the sun would delay. As yet there was no sign of it. I waited a few moments, hands deep in pockets, watching the new pickets move disconsolately up and down. Then I walked back to the sleepers. They were as I had left them, on their backs with open mouths, curled up knees to chin, and even covered completely up in coat or blanket. Even now it wanted most of an hour to réveillé, and I thought of bed again. Tank had seized the blanket for himself; but I knelt down and firmly took most of it away. He groaned, but he did not wake[52] up. I lay down beside him and pushed my back against his, which was warm and comforting after the sharp air. I wrapped the blanket well about me, and quite soon I was asleep.
I seemed asleep no time at all; but when I woke the sun had come up into the sky, the desert was bright and alive, and men were waking all round me, yawning, getting up, and stamping, and cursing Egypt for a barren and barbarous land. Tank sat beside me, blinking his eyes, and puffing his cheeks out like a swollen toad. He was dirty and done up, and I knew his liver was out of order again. It meant a bad time for the Staff, had not the Staff taken Tank’s wrath as a joke. I forget if we spoke at the time. I know presently I rose to my feet and walked a little way off from the others. I felt as broken up as I could wish to be, stiff and dirty and not overfull of hope. It was the sharpness of the morning that saved me. I took off the woollen helmet and opened out my coat, and in a few minutes my blood began to move a little. I thought of a wash; but, hands deep in pockets and legs apart, first I saw what was to be seen.
We were a ragged island of men and horses dropped in a sea of sand. Around was a vast stretch of country, hill land and flat land covered deeply with fine sand. Where I stood the floor was printed over with marks of men and beasts; but farther away the sand sparkled virgin and unsoiled, as though for ages no life had passed[53] by. It was a sombre and forbidding land, and yet it attracted me strangely. In front, a mile or so away, the country was relieved by an oasis of palms many hundred acres in extent. A considerable village of mud huts had grown up on the outskirts, and now in and out the gates wandered what looked like flocks of goats and sheep, tended by native children. There seemed a building or two solitary among the palms, and tall robed figures moved among the trees and round about the village. A man led to work a string of three camels, and other men sat astride ambling donkeys, their legs sweeping the ground. And there were curious cattle shambling before a leisurely cowherd. The shrill crying of voices and the barking of dogs came constantly from over there. Farther to the right ran the straight road to Cairo. It was marked for several miles of its length by two lines of trees. We had brought the horses that way last night, or this morning, to tell the truth. The desert seemed to march beyond the farther side; but it was not easy to see past the trees.
Swinging farther still to the right hand, I met the Pyramids. Where I stood two only were visible. They rose up side by side, large and very forbidding. Before them had risen the first tents of the camp. There seemed, also, stacks of stores in building. Troops moved about in the neighbourhood, like ourselves the vanguard of the great camp. Behind me the desert stretched bare of everything to the horizon. So much for[54] the present, thought I, and I went back to the others.
All the men were awake now, and, as we had lain down in our clothes, there was little toilet to perform. All seemed short of temper, for they were blinking at one another and cursing their luck. That merry rogue Wilkes alone of them all greeted me with smiling face. He sat cross-kneed on a waterproof sheet, and called out to know how I did. I stopped by him and looked down. He was an Englishman, a jolly vagabond chap, and a liar of wonderful ability. I had a strange liking for him; he was my best tonic for the blues. I had but to call out: “Wilkes, old man, come and lie to me about your rich uncle,” and across he would come and keep me smiling for an hour.
Now he turned to me his white, well-fed face, which made me think of a shifty parson, and cried out: “What d’you make of it, Lake?”
I shrugged my shoulders, and said nothing.
“The same here,” he answered, laughing.
Oxbridge, who had been growling to himself, chipped in from near-by. “Awful place! Wish I was back in Collins Street. Won’t catch me here again.”
Then Tank came at us on the bounce and shut us up. He jerked out his sentences on the end of his breath. “What are you doing there! Get up at once! Fall in! D’you want to be told a hundred times! Oxbridge, what are you doing there! D’you hear me, Oxbridge!”
[55]
“I damned well hear you,” said Oxbridge, rising leisurely to his feet.
The sun rose up, a kindly sun, warm but not too hot; and the earth grew more cheerful. The winds sparkled and the distant palm leaves glittered; but the bite in the air stayed. The horses were little recovered by their rest, and still lay as dead, with bodies turned gratefully towards the sun. The pickets wandered forwards and backwards along the line. We had expected a day’s rest; but we started the weariest day in my memory. There was chaff to be humped over the sand for the horses; there was watering to be done. The shifting sands made walking a labour in itself. Later we were given the camping ground allotted us; it was distant from the old spot, and quantities of baggage must be carried there. The journeys over the sand were endless.
There was baggage which proved too weighty for man-handling, and a party of us were told off to commandeer help. We trudged towards the tented area, and found there a great gathering of rickety lorries, drawn in each case by a thin underbred horse, and driven by an unsavoury native. The vehicles were in much confusion, there was constant backing, grinding, and jarring; and the drivers employed frenzied gestures and wild shouts. Outside this gathering were a score of resting camels, thrusting this way and that snaky heads, or rolling jaws from side to side on the cud. A group of drivers squatted on their hams, pulling to pieces in their fingers round[56] flat cakes, and pushing the fragments into their mouths. Like the horses, the camels were stale and unkempt; and the gorgeously robed drivers would have been the better for a wash.
We stood a short while watching the jumble, perhaps as we were uncertain of the method of possessing these transports. The soldiers quartered down here were English Territorials, belonging to a Manchester Regiment. I was told they had been sent over from Cairo to prepare camp for us. It was to be seen they knew the game better than ourselves, as he who wanted a cart or camel plunged into the tide, chose a beast more promising than the rest, jumped upon the driver, and by threats and promises forced him to thread a way into the open. The confusion increased, the voices of the drivers broke into passionate Arabic; there was a cracking of whips and a grinding of wheels; and finally lorry or camel came into the quiet of the more open ways and moved over the desert.
The quartermaster’s tents were rigged here, and men weighed out meat, flour, and vegetables, and loaded them on the lorries. The crush in the lanes between the tents was great, lorries, camels, and soldiers trying to pass at the same time. Oaths in plenty were to be heard for the listening, but a current of good nature ran under all. It did not take us long to learn our part. We secured our lorries, heedless of groans and protests from the drivers that they had worked all night and could do no more. We crowded on[57] to them, dangling our legs over the back, and turned towards last night’s camping ground. The sand made the going very heavy, and the horses were underbred and starved. We were sorry for them, but we were sorrier for ourselves and stayed where we were. Torrents of Arabic and a heavy whip got us home at last.
As yet the camp had neither boundaries nor guards, and natives overran it. Numbers came to loaf and stare; also there were orange sellers in scores, and vendors of nougat, chocolate, picture postcards, and cigarettes. They grew a nuisance with their importunity. This was our first day, and we accepted them in good humour and bought largely. The news of our wealth spread quickly, and turned the camp into a travelling bazaar, with merchants ready to bargain salvation at a price.
It was coming towards the middle of the morning, the sun was high up, the sharpness in the air gone, yet the heat was in no way oppressive. The winter climate was ideal. I own the prospect of endless sand was very desolate, and the men seemed to think so. To tell the truth, we were dog-tired, and the endless marching across the sands was taking the last of our spirit from us. Matters were little improved now the lorries helped us. With quite a moderate load aboard, the wheels sank into the sand; and pull the weedy beast as he might, and scream the driver as he could, the load waited where it was. So it happened we must push and haul at the wheel-spokes,[58] or put a shoulder behind the waggon; and in this way, with imprecations and many rests, the baggage shifted ground. We wore out the morning on these journeys.
A dozen natives under a white overseer sank holes for our horse-lines. Never have I met a more easy-going company. Three shovelfuls per minute was the average. The digger put his shovel into the ground and leaned a foot on it; and looked long at the sky and longer at us, and next pressed home the shovel. He straightened his back then, said a word to a neighbour, and lifted out the sand. There was something noble in the leisure of those movements. I watched the gang as I lay on the sand eating a makeshift lunch.
The transport of material continued through the afternoon and into the evening; nor did our sorrows end until fresh chaff had been brought over and the horses watered and fed. To be honest, we managed a few spells for ourselves during that time. There was a great deal to see. People passed constantly to and from the village on camels and donkeys; and herds tended cattle, sheep, and goats not far away. There was no false modesty: we stared at them; they stared at us. There were the bright-robed fruit-sellers, money-changers, guides, cigarette merchants, vendors of silks, chocolates, picture postcards with whom to argue. All this took time. There had been no space to rig tents, and we lay down again at night on the open sands. The desert was not a bad bedroom, the sky being[59] cloudless and full of bright stars. But the sun had not long gone down before the night grew very cold and made a mock of blankets and overcoats. I turned once or twice before morning.