The Green Flag | Page 7

at the first sight of those
howling fiends that purpose faltered, and at the second it was blown to
the winds. He saw a huge coal-black negro seize a shrieking
camel-driver and saw at his throat with a knife. He saw a shock-headed
tribesman plunge his great spear through the back of their own little
bugler from Mill-street. He saw a dozen deeds of blood--the murder of
the wounded, the hacking of the unarmed--and caught, too, in a glance,
the good wholesome faces of the faced-about rear rank of the Marines.
The Mallows, too, had faced about, and in an instant Conolly had
thrown himself into the heart of C Company, striving with the officers
to form the men up with their comrades.
But the mischief had gone too far. The rank and file had no heart in
their work. They had broken before, and this last rush of murderous
savages was a hard thing for broken men to stand against. They
flinched from the furious faces and dripping forearms. Why should they
throw away their lives for a flag for which they cared nothing? Why
should their leader urge them to break, and now shriek to them to
re-form? They would not re-form. They wanted to get to the sea and to
safety. He flung himself among them with outstretched arms, with
words of reason, with shouts, with gaspings. It was useless; the tide
was beyond his control. They were shredding out into the desert with
their faces set for the coast.
"Bhoys, will ye stand for this?" screamed a voice. It was so ringing, so
strenuous, that the breaking Mallows glanced backwards. They were
held by what they saw. Private Conolly had planted his rifle-stock
downwards in a mimosa bush. From the fixed bayonet there fluttered a
little green flag with the crownless harp. God knows for what black
mutiny, for what signal of revolt, that flag had been treasured up within
the corporal's tunic! Now its green wisp stood amid the rush, while
three proud regimental colours were reeling slowly backwards.
"What for the flag?" yelled the private.

"My heart's blood for it! and mine! and mine!" cried a score of voices.
"God bless it! The flag, boys--the flag!"
C Company were rallying upon it. The stragglers clutched at each other,
and pointed. "Here, McQuire, Flynn, O'Hara," ran the shoutings. "Close
on the flag! Back to the flag!" The three standards reeled backwards,
and the seething square strove for a clearer space where they could
form their shattered ranks; but C Company, grim and powder-stained,
choked with enemies and falling fast, still closed in on the little rebel
ensign that flapped from the mimosa bush.
It was a good half-hour before the square, having disentangled itself
from its difficulties and dressed its ranks, began to slowly move
forwards over the ground, across which in its labour and anguish it had
been driven. The long trail of Wessex men and Arabs showed but too
clearly the path they had come.
"How many got into us, Stephen?" asked the general, tapping his
snuff-box.
"I should put them down at a thousand or twelve hundred, sir."
"I did not see any get out again. What the devil were the Wessex
thinking about? The Guards stood well, though; so did the Mallows."
"Colonel Flanagan reports that his front flank company was cut off,
sir."
"Why, that's the company that was out of hand when we advanced!"
"Colonel Flanagan reports, sir, that the company took the whole brunt
of the attack, and gave the square time to re-form."
"Tell the Hussars to ride forward, Stephen," said the general, "and try if
they can see anything of them. There's no firing, and I fear that the
Mallows will want to do some recruiting. Let the square take ground by
the right, and then advance!"

But the Sheik Kadra of the Hadendowas saw from his knoll that the
men with the big hats had rallied, and that they were coming back in
the quiet business fashion of men whose work was before them. He
took counsel with Moussa the Dervish and Hussein the Baggara, and a
woestruck man was he when he learned that the third of his men were
safe in the Moslem Paradise. So, having still some signs of victory to
show, he gave the word, and the desert warriors flitted off unseen and
unheard, even as they had come.
A red rock plateau, a few hundred spears and Remingtons, and a plain
which for the second time was strewn with slaughtered men, was all
that his day's fighting gave to the English general.
It was a squadron of Hussars which came first to the spot where the
rebel flag had waved. A dense litter of Arab dead marked the place.
Within, the flag