The Soul of a Regiment | Page 5

Africa. But nobody connected Grogram with the feringhee
who danced.
But another man was captured who told a similar tale; and then a Greek
trader, turned Mohammedan to save his skin, who had made good his
escape from the Mahdi's camp. He swore to having seen this man as he
put in one evening at a Nile-bank village in a native dhow. He was
dressed in an ancient khaki tunic and a loin-cloth; he was bare-legged,
shoeless, and his hair was long over his shoulders and plastered thick
with mud. No, he did not look in the least like a British soldier, though
he danced as soldiers sometimes did beside the camp-fires.
Three natives who were with him played fifes while the feringhee
danced, and one man beat a drum. Yes, the tunes were English tunes,
though very badly played; he had heard them before, and recognized
them. No, he could not hum them; he knew no music. Why had he not

spoken to the man who danced? He had not dared. The man appeared
to be a prisoner and so were the natives with him; the man had danced
that evening until he could dance no longer, and then the Dervishes had
beaten him with a koorbash for encouragement: the musicians had tried
to interfere, and they had all been beaten and left lying there for dead.
He was not certain, but he was almost certain they were dead before he
came away.
Then, more than three years after Gordon died, there came another
rumor, this time from closer at hand -- somewhere in the neutral desert
zone that lay between the Dervish outpost and the part of Lower Egypt
that England held. This time the dancer was reported to be dying, but
the musicians were still with him. They got the name of the dancer this
time; it was reported to be Goglam, and though that was not at all a bad
native guess for Grogram, nobody apparently noted the coincidence.
Men were too busy with their work; the rumor was only one of a
thousand that filtered across the desert every month, and nobody
remembered the non-commissioned officer who had left for Khartum
with the First Egyptian Foot; they could have recalled the names of all
the officers almost without an effort, but not Grogram's.

III

Egypt was busy with the hum of building -- empire building under a
man who knew his job. Almost the only game the Sirdar countenanced
was polo, and that only because it kept officers and civilians fit. He
gave them all the polo, though, that they wanted, and the men grew
keen on it, spent money on it, and needless to say, grew extraordinarily
proficient.
And with the proficiency of course came competition -- matches
between regiments for the regimental cup and finally the biggest event
of the Cairo season, the match between the Civil Service and the Army
of Occupation, or, as it was more usually termed, "The Army vs. The

Rest." That was the one society event that the Sirdar made a point of
presiding over in person.
He attended it in mufti always, but sat in the seat of honor, just outside
the touch-line, half-way down the field; and behind him, held back by
ropes, clustered the whole of Cairene society, on foot, on horseback
and in dog-carts, buggies, gigs and every kind of carriage imaginable.
Opposite and at either end, the garrison lined up -- all the British and
native troops rammed in together; and the native population crowded in
between them and wherever they could find standing-room.
It was the one event of the year for which all Egypt, Christian and
Mohammedan, took a holiday. Regimental bands were there to play
before the game and between the chukkers, and nothing was left
undone that could in any way tend to make the event spectacular.
Two games had been played since the cup had been first presented by
the Khedive, and honors lay even -- one match for the Army and one
for the Civil Service. So on the third anniversary feeling ran fairly high.
It ran higher still when half time was called and honors still lay even at
one goal all; to judge by the excitement of the crowd, a stranger might
have guessed that polo was the most important thing in Egypt. The
players rode off the pavillion for the half-time interval, and the infantry
band that came out onto the field was hard put to drown the noise of
conversation and laughter and argument. At that minute there was
surely nothing in the world to talk about but polo.
But suddenly the band stopped playing, as suddenly as though the
music were a concrete thing and had been severed with an ax. The