The Green Flag | Page 4

thou black-browed child of Shaitan, aim, and aim for thy life."
It may have been chance, or it may have been skill, but the third and
fourth shells burst over the square. Sheik Kadra smiled grimly and
galloped back to the left, where his spearmen were streaming down into
the gully. As he joined them a deep growling rose from the plain
beneath, like the snarling of a sullen wild beast, and a little knot of
tribesmen fell into a struggling heap, caught in the blast of lead from a
Gardner. Their comrades pressed on over them, and sprang down into
the ravine. From all along the crest burst the hard, sharp crackle of
Remington fire.
The square had slowly advanced, rippling over the low sandhills, and
halting every few minutes to re-arrange its formation. Now, having
made sure that there was no force of the enemy in the scrub, it changed
its direction, and began to take a line parallel to the Arab position. It
was too steep to assail from the front, and if they moved far enough to
the right the general hoped that he might turn it. On the top of those
ruddy hills lay a baronetcy for him, and a few extra hundreds in his
pension, and he meant having them both that day. The Remington fire
was annoying, and so were those two Krupp guns; already there were
more cacolets full than he cared to see. But on the whole he thought it
better to hold his fire until he had more to aim at than a few hundred of
fuzzy heads peeping over a razor-back ridge. He was a bulky, red-faced

man, a fine whist-player, and a soldier who knew his work. His men
believed in him, and he had good reason to believe in them, for he had
excellent stuff under him that day. Being an ardent champion of the
short-service system, he took particular care to work with veteran first
battalions, and his little force was the compressed essence of an army
corps.
The left front of the square was formed by four companies of the Royal
Wessex, and the right by four of the Royal Mallows. On either side the
other halves of the same regiments marched in quarter column of
companies. Behind them, on the right was a battalion of Guards, and on
the left one of Marines, while the rear was closed in by a Rifle battalion.
Two Royal Artillery 7 lb. screw-guns kept pace with the square, and a
dozen white-bloused sailors, under their blue-coated, tight-waisted
officers, trailed their Gardner in front, turning every now and then to
spit up at the draggled banners which waved over the cragged ridge.
Hussars and Lancers scouted in the scrub at each side, and within
moved the clump of camels, with humorous eyes and supercilious lips,
their comic faces a contrast to the blood-stained men who already lay
huddled in the cacolets on either side.
The square was now moving slowly on a line parallel with the rocks,
stopping every few minutes to pick up wounded, and to allow the
screw-guns and Gardner to make themselves felt. The men looked
serious, for that spring on to the rocks of the Arab army had given them
a vague glimpse of the number and ferocity of their foes; but their faces
were set like stone, for they knew to a man that they must win or they
must die--and die, too, in a particularly unlovely fashion. But most
serious of all was the general, for he had seen that which brought a
flush to his cheeks and a frown to his brow.
"I say, Stephen," said he to his galloper, "those Mallows seem a trifle
jumpy. The right flank company bulged a bit when the niggers showed
on the hill."
"Youngest troops in the square, sir," murmured the aide, looking at
them critically through his eye-glass.

"Tell Colonel Flanagan to see to it, Stephen," said the general; and the
galloper sped upon his way. The colonel, a fine old Celtic warrior, was
over at C Company in an instant.
"How are the men, Captain Foley?"
"Never better, sir," answered the senior captain, in the spirit that makes
a Madras officer look murder if you suggest recruiting his regiment
from the Punjab.
"Stiffen them up!" cried the colonel. As he rode away a colour-sergeant
seemed to trip, and fell forward into a mimosa bush. He made no effort
to rise, but lay in a heap among the thorns.
"Sergeant O'Rooke's gone, sorr," cried a voice. "Never mind, lads," said
Captain Foley. "He's died like a soldier, fighting for his Queen."
"Down with the Queen!" shouted a hoarse voice from the ranks.
But the roar of the Gardner and the typewriter-like clicking of the
hopper burst