Albert Kinross

“ At night everything comes closer.
We watered at wells or off the pipe-line—they'd laid the Nile water clean through to Palestine; and there were oases with Bedouin and mangy camels and date-palms and ripe dates, at Katia and Romani and El Arish. At El Arish we got a bathe in the sea, camels and all, and it did us good. I'd got a sort of a grizzled beard by then and my own mother wouldn't have known me. We met all kinds of things on the way, and there was a wire-road. They'd put down that as well—a net of wire, five or six yards wide, pegged down on the sand the whole way through the desert. ”

“ We had time to spare, and as I lingered. 'You've made a proper old fool of yourself,' he remarked; and, smiling rather grimly with his cold blue eyes, 'you've made rather a fool of me, Mr. Vignolles.' It was a complete and perfect survey of the situation. And next growing almost human, 'It's the climate,' he ran on; 'most people go a bit daft in hot countries. That's what's the matter with Egypt; all of us out here are a little mad. ”

“ Vignolles laughed.
"What we talked about, or what they talk about? Money and women mostly," he answered; "same as people do in Europe, only it's different money and different women. And then there's eating and drinking and one's relatives, and land and crops and things; but it's money and women mostly. Can't say it's always very respectable." ”

“ Some went in with a net and caught gray mullet that were leaping. Pine swimmers they were, and, though not much to look at as they plodded along with the camels, they stripped like statues—like bronze statues.
Vignolles was still brooding. I remember one curious remark he made; there was a good deal of truth in it.
"I suppose the worst day in a woman's life," he said, "is the day she realizes that men don't care a damn about her. Sooner or later it's bound to come—the day she's finished and the youth gone out of her. We two are a bit like that, getting fired and sent down to a garrison job." ”

“ When his time was up, he was going back to his village to have his fantasia and moons of bliss. The old dog told me all about it. 'A virgin, high-breasted.' Being a villager, of course he'd seen her—they only wear their veils when they go into the towns.
"I'd fixed up with Achmet, the bash-reis, that Ali Selim was to be one of the picket on that particular night. I found him fast asleep in the forage-bin and dreaming of Aziza. He was a tall, dried-up old fellow, a bit like me, but, I dare say, twenty years younger. They age more rapidly than we do. ”

“ At sunrise, however, all would be well again, and Vignolles and I and such other subalterns as were awaiting orders here would meet upon parade. One day's ritual was very like another, except that on every other day we watered. And then all the camels, four of five hundred of them, would march out in a long line, two by two, with an Egyptian driver to each pair. These men wore bright blue gowns—galabiahs, they call them—of the same color as the eternal blue of the sky; the camels, and Vignolles and I in khaki, were of the color of the desert ”

“ He was a man past fifty and had always been in the thick of it. That, I imagine, was his passion, the ruling motive of his life. Most people, therefore, would call him an adventurer; the war threw up many such. They flocked home from all the corners of the earth at the great call, and Vignolles was one of them, the only one, however, whom I knew with any intimacy. He had the two South African ribbons, he had a Japanese, he would have had a Bulgarian, only just now they were the enemy, and he had two more which I can't exactly remember that finished off the row. ”

“ But if we were angels instead of men and women, we'd just sit tight and leave war to the fools."
"But the Turk was—something more than a fool," I ventured.
"Quite right," answered Vignolles, thoughtfully. "He's got a certain point of view. It don't square with ours; it can't live in the same street with ours. So I don't blame him as much as I blame the Hun. Nothing the Hun loves better than living in our street; can't keep him out of it. If you chuck him out at the door, in he comes by the window. ”

“ It came in all right, and while it was standing, who should turn up but the inspector himself, old Coldicott Pasha, and a little staff colonel with blue tabs and a clean-shaved face! I'd seen him up at Karm, bossing the supply people and everybody else, a clever, brainy-looking little bloke. Seemed to know what he was doing, and no frills and no fuss and no standing on his dignity. I take off my hat to him, though as a rule I'm agin' staff officers. Men go rotten in an office unless their heart's with us poor devils who do the job. ”

“ I heard the challenges of sentries on the other bank and fellows answering; and then, at midnight, I went back to the depot. Our watchmen were asleep as usual; they always went to sleep after the orderly officer had made his last round. You can't expect a Gyppo to keep awake unless he feels like it and these nabatchis had been on duty all day. There was nobody about. One heard the camels mutter and grumble, and one or two of you fellows were snoring. I sneaked into my tent, and when I came out again I was exactly like a driver—just an ordinary Gyppo, all complete. ”

“ I was fool enough to tell the truth." And then, more matter-of-fact, he pursued: "A couple of young 'uns are coming here to-morrow. They'll take all the sound camels and men away with them, and you and I, me lad, 'll be back numbers."
I felt it as much as he did but, of the two of us, I was rather the more English. "Well, I don't care," was what I answered. "If they don't want us, they don't—and there's an end of it."
"I didn't join up to live in a billet and do a garrison job in Cairo," said Vignolles, brooding. "If I can't be in it, I'm not going to be out of it." ”

“ They love an honest man, do these Egyptians. As one of their wisest once said to me, 'We have brains enough—too much brains. The English are fools, but they are honest; and honesty is what we need. By Allah, we need it! That is why I am for the English, and may God prosper them!'
"But Coldicott Pasha was no fool; indeed, I have often suspected that he smelt a rat, but that he was far too clever to disturb it. He let them shout and yell and he moved no muscle of his grim old face. He only smiled with his eyes as he let the crowd fawn on him and went back to his car. ”

“ Religion's rather an industry up at Jerusalem, same as in Rome, same as in Mecca. When I'd done I squatted down at the comer outside the posh hotel and waited for the lorry. The crowd did one good. I've never seen anything like it; a human menagerie. Licked all the zoos. Bedouin, Australians, all sorts of Jews, Indians, West Indians, Gyppoes, and real live female Yankees dishing out money or medicine or something. ”

“ For he is a character, rather a rare one, rather of the romantic sort, one of those persistent children of unrest who give our ordinary life and standards the go-by and venture on a world tour of their own. ”

“ Intellectual-looking lot of blokes; too much brains and not enough beef. It'll take 'em three generations to get going. And I hopped on a lorry one fine morning and wound up into the hills and landed plumb in Jerusalem. It smelt like a 'jakes'—I think that's what Shakespeare calls it—but when you got on the Mount of Olives and looked down on the city and over to the Dead Sea and the Mountains of Moab, you forgot all your troubles and even forgave the Turk and how he'd failed on sanitation. I suppose Jerusalem grows on one. ”

“ If they're decently governed by honest men they're like little children. When they're stirred up by agitators and priests, they see red and run amok. They treated me like a king and hardly charged for it. I only used my fists once, and that was in the tourist country; a damned guide was making rude remarks about one of our Sisters. Luxor was full of army nurses, and V.A.D.'s, and spoony officers. The girl and the major she was with both offered me money when I explained matters. Most remarkable English I used to the major and 'No, O beloved!' says I to the girl, in Arabic ”

“ The Camel Transport Corps isn't exactly an alluring proposition. But there were others, and, indeed, the most of us—for the old chap hadn't an enemy—who were pretty certain that Vignolles had reached Port Said all right and then come some sort of a cropper in Arab Town, the festive quarter. After these months in the desert, it seemed more than likely. Knocked on the head, or knifed, or even poisoned; the drink they sell has little relation to the label. He may have turned quarrelsome after a dose of it, and, in one way and another, he had a good deal of money on him. ”

“ And next I thought of the women in the mud Tillage on the Nile, and the children, and the howl they would set up till God comforted them. It's these people that war hits, not proud fellows like you and me. ”

“ Vignolles resumed:
"Oh, yes. I thought you'd be interested"; and after a moment's reflection: "Well, here was I, and here was Ali Selim whose togs I'd pinched. He was a middle-aged man who'd married a young wife, a virgin. He'd found the money for that, but he hadn't found the money to have his fantasia. That's the wedding celebration, the bridal night, the drums and dancing, the feast and all the rest of it. If you marry a widow or a divorcée, she can go without; but a young girl has to have her fantasia. It costs money and the bridegroom has to pay ”

“ I've often thought that if the Belgians and the French had just sat tight and let the Hun march on and on and on, and smoked their pipes and looked at the fools marching, even the Hun would have seen the joke at last and turned to the Kaiser, and said, 'What the hell are we doing here?' Instead of looking on and smoking their pipes, the French fought 'em. Very natural and human thing to do ”

“ Armies aren't like voters; they can't live on air and promises. The navy carried on along the coast, but the Horse Transport and the regimental limbers had got stuck in the sand before we started; and now the tractors, vans, and lorries were all stuck in the mud. But we camels kept it up somehow. ”

“ He asked no questions; it is not their way. They've been slaves, or something near it, for BO many thousands of years that they still believe in miracles.
"Ali Selim came back with his few belongings.
"'Now give me your identity disk,' I commanded. He took it off his neck and I hung it round my own. Then I handed him the twenty pounds. He smiled all over his face and stowed the money away inside his galabiah. 'Now you must go,' I said. 'If you are careful and keep away from the canal, you'll be home in a couple of days.' His village was a place called Abu Zeid, not far from Zagazig. ”

“ Made me chuckle; didn't know what a fool I was making of myself just then. It is possible that some of the Gyppoes spotted me, but to them it would be some deep white man's game, and they'd naturally keep out of it I just carried on as though I were Ali Selim. I had his kit, and the identity disk round my neck was stamped with his number, while my own was hidden away in my belt. You looked as though you had a proper old hump as we came trailing by; but, by Jove, you were the wise man and I was all kinds of a damned old fool! ”

“ There were rows and rows of them alongside a canal. Camels take five-and-twenty minutes to fill their skins, and though they go in lean and baggy, they come out round as a barrel with their sides full of it, so you must give them room to expand and not crowd 'em. We let half of the drivers fall out at a time and take a dip in the fresh water. ”

“ Then you can buy a new outfit and come back to the army as a subaltern. You'll report at the Horse Transport Depot; can't have you in camels. And then you'll be sent to Saloniki; they're asking for spare officers.'
"'And there's nothing else, sir?' I don't know why I put the idiotic question, but I suppose I couldn't quite get over the fact that I was to escape without the regulation ceremonial.
"'No, there's nothing else,' the inspector answered. "You'd only make me look a worse fool than the last time, wouldn't you? ”

“ The English are men and women like ourselves, and they are all lions. I have seen Kitchener Bashaw, and my belly turned to water.'... It went on like that and worse till we got to Zagazig. There I got out and walked to Abu Zeid.
"The Chief did his business in the town, and his car overtook me as we entered the village. Really, it must have been the mudir's car; he's the governor of the district. Our friend the body-servant sat proudly next the driver ”