The camp grew apace. A great area, reaching nearly to the shadow of the Pyramids, became covered over with tents; and many thousand men and horses arrived down the long road from Cairo. The infantry quartered themselves at the upper end, where the floor of the desert narrowed to a valley climbing into the hills; light horse took the desert’s inner edge; and army service and we artillery formed the triangle’s base, nearest the palm grove. Steamrollers and gangs of native workmen drove roads across the sands, reservoirs were built, wash troughs for the men were put up and watering troughs for the horses. The camp continued to grow and to improve. Our first week was an evil one. We could not find our true position, so that several times the horse-lines were relaid. Our tents were pitched and repitched. And the sand, meeting us as strangers, was wearying beyond belief. We set to wondering hard whether a soldier’s life would suit us. But the start was the worst: there followed a change for the better.
Réveillé tumbled us out of bed on many a[61] frosty morning. I say “tumbled us out of bed,” but I mean turned us on our pillows, for it was Tank’s jerky voice which would not be denied. About thirty of us slept in a large tent, where the first morning lights came in through the open doorways to lift the gloom and discover the forms of the sleepers. We were packed tight, with arms thrown over one another and mouths open. Some men would be gone altogether under a heap of clothing. Most mornings I sat up with the last notes of the trumpet, for I was slow at dressing. It might be someone else would rise to rub eyes and swear, but not often; the sleepers rolled over, though maybe a fellow blinked and covered himself up again or lit a cigarette. And then Tank’s jerky sentences broke the peace. “Get up! Get up at once! What are you doing there! Didn’t you hear Réveillé? Get up there!” Still slumbered on the tent. The voice started again. “Get up! Get up, I say. Réveillé’s gone! I’ll peg any man who doesn’t get up!” There might now follow a movement among the sleepers, and with many a groan the tent would awake.
It was wise to make an early start dressing. Between “Réveillé” and “Fall in” the interval was not long, and blankets must be rolled for inspection and kits stacked outside by them. As all the fellows waited for the last few minutes and dressed together, there was great scramble and confusion. When the “Fall in” went, men still were running about, dumping down their kits, putting on leggings, and pulling on coats.[62] We fell in in two rows at the end of our lines, and Tank called the roll.
Sands’s habit was to stroll across in the middle, and stand huddled in a greatcoat, for he resisted the cold but indifferently. His face showed very pinched and trembling, and he had much use for a handkerchief. The roll call over, he read brigade orders, and maybe he added a few remarks of his own upon our habits. Then came the first command of the day. “Turn in! Cast off for water!” The rule was a man to two horses, but more often it was a man to three or four. Those who stayed behind cleaned up the lines and filled the nosebags, and a man went down to the camels to bring up the day’s fodder. The journey to the water was tedious and not without risk; but the vast congregation of horses at the other end was a wonderful sight. There were many thousand moving to and fro. Halfway on the road there, we met the sun rising behind the trees on the Cairo highway. It was of immense size and blood red, and the long rays swept across the desert, and set the horses’ backs shining. At once the chill left the sands, though the cold stayed.
Often there was a long wait in the neighbourhood of the troughs, as the water supply was wont to give out. Such times were spent calling to the other fellows, begging cigarettes, or watching the happenings at the village not far away. The place was for ever full of peasants moving about their work. Women went down to the waterhole, bearing on their heads large earthenware pots;[63] children tended the flocks and herds; and the men worked at their cultivation and led away into the palms camels and bullocks. There was always a shrill crying of voices from over there, and a barking of mongrel dogs. In time our turn came; we moved on to the troughs; the horses saw the water and made a plunge for it, and there was a breathless moment while they steadied down. They were given plenty of time to drink. Presently sounded Sands’s voice: “Staff, files left! Walk, march!” and we joined the great procession moving back to the lines.
On the return we heelroped and began the morning grooming. I rode a big bony horse, who had known better days as a steeplechaser. He was so full of angles I named him “The Director”; but he was an honest hack. It was my daily penance to tend his wants and polish his coat, and slender enough results did my labours bring me. All the sands of the desert made a target of him; and many a measure of special feed went down his throat without filling his hide. Yet I forgave him much, for he was a good friend.
The men working on the feed passed down the rear of the lines, planting a bag behind each horse. Sands walked up and down the horses’ heads, watching the grooms from the tail of his eye. Here and there he stopped and made examination. Often he suspected me. Frequently he came up and rubbed his hand through “The Director’s” coat. On unlucky days a shower of sand flew out. “Lake,” he screamed once, “the condition of this horse is worthy of a court-martial.[64] I thought you knew something about horses! I see you never saw a horse before you came here! That’s not the way to use a brush, man! Give it to me!” He seized the brush and rubbed with great vigour until the dust went into his eyes and nose. Then he fled for another victim. Sands maddened most of his men; but he only amused me. There was something likeable deep down in him. I am sure he saw the humour of his doings. Often I caught him smiling as he turned away.
When we were all full weary in the arm, and the professional loafers had disappeared on one errand or another, Sands would bethink him of breakfast. “In rear of your horses!” came the order. “Stand to your nosebags! Pick up your dressing on the right there! Oxbridge, do you hear me!” On these occasions Tank stationed himself at one end of the line and wagged his hand in an agitated way. “Pick up your dressing there; pick up your dressing!” he cried in jerky notes. Then Sands called out again. “Are you ready to feed, Corporal?” “Yes, sir.” “Feed, trumpeter!” And the trumpeter blew “Feed.”
Of all the good comrades who had come on this expedition—of those, I mean, who could drive the devil of tedium from you at least notice—there was none better than the trumpeter. He could tell a wittier story than anyone else; he could tell a story more wittily than anyone else; he could act better, mimic better, dance better, lie better, laugh better than anyone in the tent; he could[65] do anything that helped to hurry time. Night after night he was the centre of a shaking circle. If half his tales were true he had lived a strange life. He was full of energy and full of resource, and carried a stout heart in his body. To a dispirited army he was worth a battery of guns. There were other fellows on the staff. There were public-school men like Hawkins and Jimmy Bull; there was Woods who never looked dirty, and Stokes who never looked clean. There was big Bill Eaves who always was crying out, and yet was a good man. There was Mossback from the bush who had brains in place of education; and Corporal Baker who took life heavily and was a good man at his work, though he would have been the better for a wash. There was Wilkinson, tall, lean, and dark; and Lewis, tall and fair, with the face of a girl. There were others to tell you of some day.
“Cookhouse” was blown soon after the “Turn out.” In these early days we squatted on our kitbags, plates on knees, and chewed up sand with the bread and meat. Later we were given tables and forms, and mess-houses were built us. But at first, as I say, we sat down in the sand to eat, and the food was rough and not plentiful.
A canteen was opened near our lines, where you could buy a few things at a heavy price to help down the bread and sand. We spent a good deal of our money there, so that most breakfast times saw us emptying sardines and salmon on to our plates. And it was “Pass the blasted bread there!” and, “Fer Gawd’s sike, pass the jam!”
[66]
The first weeks of our arrival brigade orders forbade the riding of a single horse, and we exercised them about the desert in long files at the cost of our legs. Tramping in the sand was heartbreaking work, and we marched miles a day; but the mornings were exhilarating, and the day never grew too warm. There was no threat of the evil summer to follow. Our journey led us among the sandhills, where we were lost to sight of everything but dismal sweeps of sand. Or we topped a rise and were shown afar off the palm groves on the desert edge, and beyond them the great city of Cairo. To the right hand stood the Pyramids, and past them a vast stretch of desert dotted with solitary palms, and palms in groves, and near the skyline other Pyramids. It was splendid to halt up here and overlook the wide country. The orange sellers, trailing gorgeous rags, followed us, and you might lie a few minutes sucking cool oranges, forgetful of the drudgery of every day. Even Sands fell into thought a little while on these occasions. We returned to the lines to water and feed. In the afternoon we exercised again. This was the manner of our living those first weeks.
When you went by the guard at Mena House, and turned to the left to strike the long road to Cairo, you passed in a moment from sandy ways into the arms of a passionate throng gathered outside the gates. It needed a man of purpose to reach his goal undeterred. Brown, frantic faces closed in; gorgeous robes flowed before your[67] eyes. Guides, donkeymen, camel drivers, money changers, fruit sellers, sweet sellers, motor drivers, beggars, fortune tellers, stamp dealers, postcard vendors, cigarette sellers, curio sellers, silk and cloth merchants—one and all screamed and pulled at you for patronage. Restaurant price lists, advertisements of hot baths or addresses of friendly ladies fluttered in your face. You were pulled to the nearest donkey, you were pushed to the nearest camel; a gharri backed into your path, and a motor hooted beside you. It was “This way, Australia! Australia very good, very nice! Oringies five one piastre! Nessles chocolate two piastres! Donkey, sir! Camel, very good, very nice!” And on your part it was, “Go to blazes, the lot of you!” The tramcar alone kept a dignified silence, for it was oversure of patronage. It had no upper story; and those who were cheated of room inside, climbed atop and dangled their legs over those below. A shouting, singing, swearing company set off for the mysterious pleasures of the waiting city.
At last you found your way to gharri or motor, paid your fare, sank down inside; and with fierce cries and a cracking of the whip or a sounding of the horn, you moved to the outskirts of the throng. A last brown face looked over the side and screamed, last dirty arms were waved in your face, and in a moment interest in you died, and the gathering swooped upon new victims. Then you were leaving the waiting camels, and eating up the miles to the town.
All the way the road was filled with hurrying[68] soldiers—tramsful, gharrisful, carsful of them. They forked their legs over tiny donkeys, they rolled to and fro on camels. There were those also who walked; but in these early and wealthy days they were not many. We passed people on the return journey—army service waggons loaded up, platoons of infantry, peasants back from market, children driving home flocks of sheep and goats. Once I saw a solitary figure praying on a carpet by the wayside. The desert was behind. True, on either side of the way stretched sand; but peasants worked here, and presently the countryside would grow green with crop. Now and again canals cut up the ground, and from them wandered away irrigation schemes of ancient pattern, put in motion by a listless bullock at a waterwheel. Quite suddenly one left behind such relics of past days, and came on the fringe of Cairo.
Had you left camp towards evening it was dark by now, and the tall houses frowned down or stared with their lighted windows. In the streets two continents rubbed shoulders, and faces of all shades and dresses of many fashions came into the light of the lamps as you rattled by. In course of time there appeared a quarter with broad thoroughfares and handsome shops, and tall houses built in French style; and somewhere here the journey ended.
The town was full of soldiers—Australians, New Zealanders, and English Territorials. They owned the place. They swaggered, hurried, or mooched down every street, stared into every[69] shop, and commonly explored the inside. At all corners they were meeting and calling out; every dozen paces they pulled up to examine the wares of native merchants. No article hawked through the streets was too useless to find a purchaser. The fellows were like children in their delight, and the majority were orderly and well behaved.
They invaded the eating houses and the cafés; and patronised with equal goodwill the best hotels and the lowest wine dens. Men sat at beflowered tables who scarce knew the use of a napkin. In their purchases they were no less large minded. If there were customers for charms and glass necklaces, there were those who bargained for Persian carpets.
When the calm stars overhead had turned somewhat farther in their courses, and the lusty diners below thought strange thoughts born of the wine they had passed over-freely, it was then that the darker places of the city beckoned, and did not beckon in vain.
You left this great lighted square, where wealth and propriety sat side by side, you followed the length of an ill-lit arcade, you turned one turning and then another, and, behold, you might have travelled a thousand miles. The streets had shrunk to ill-lit crooked lanes, homes of strange smells, strange cries, and vague flitting forms. The tall, dirty houses leaned over you, leaving no more than a strip of sky filled with stars, and that very far away. When you passed the flaring lights flickering in the windows, painted faces[70] smiled at you and eager hands beckoned. Out of wineshops sounded the notes of cheap pianos, and you heard the noise of dancers’ feet, and it might be watched their shadows tossed across the windows. The doorways were filled with soldiers and women and haggling native merchants; and men lurched out to threaten passers-by, or to be hurried from the scene by comrades. There came the roll of tom-toms, or the high notes of reedy pipes; and maybe in some den you caught a glimpse of two or three cross-legged players, and a brown woman jerking herself through the steps of a dance. At any of these places hands might be laid on your shoulders, and hot, haggard faces might peer invitingly into your own.
All the while the business of every day went forward, so that children played at hide and seek round your legs, men urged laden donkeys through the congregation, and bawled the virtues of their wares. Staling meat and butter and vegetables lay on the slabs of the shops, and vehement women bargained there for to-morrow’s dinner. You were buffeted and jostled from turning to turning, and your senses were excited and sickened by sights and odours. The breath of the multitude was heavy in your face. The cool of night found no way down there.
But it was not in these streets the strangest happenings took place, nor was it during the first hours of dark. There were many lanes to be followed, there was much wine to be spilled ere you had learned all. First you drifted to[71] the Bullring, where much was to be seen and done; then you passed to the Wazir, where fresh secrets might be discovered. And then you——. Dear sir, over the nuts and wine, come, listen to me.