CHAPTER XII
THE AMBUSH OF THE BROOM
"The wells of El Djebir, Monsieur," explained Sergeant Perinaud. "It ishere we should find our men, if they are proceeding by the shortestroute to their hills. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
The horses were roused from their gentle amble into a gallop. The dustrose from fourscore hoofs as the Goumiers raced down in an envelopingcloud upon the cluster of palms and thicket of broom scrub whichsurrounded the watering-place. They pulled their horses upon theirhaunches; they shouted in hoarse disappointment. The shadowedresting-place beneath the palms was empty. Not a living soul was insight.
Perinaud shrugged his shoulders again.
"This is very conclusive, Monsieur. The party we seek has thought fit toleave the open road and to bury themselves in the recesses of the jungleand the northern gorges of the river. They did not do that without areason. It remains to follow, if we can."
The native officer shouted something and Perinaud turned swiftly in thesaddle to stare down the track which they had been following. A whitefigure bestriding a brown horse was thundering towards them, the rider's_haik_ fluttering out snowily against the dun background of the earth.
"So Monsieur thought fit to leave me--me!" expostulated Daoud, as hedrew rein at Aylmer's side. "I, I who address you, am told by the chancegossip of the Sok that this expedition has set out without a word ofwarning, to seek bandits--where?" He threw abroad his arms in derision."On the broad and open road, within sound, nay, almost within sight, ofthe patrols of Casablanca. I ask, is it here that knaves are likely tohide their knavery? Your venture and its object are already the pivot onwhich the laughter of the market-place swings."
He turned and pointed vehemently towards the north.
"Has none of your trained spies had the wit or the courage to tell youthat a hundred of these Beni M'Geel Berbers have encamped in thethickets of the Bou Gherba gorge this ten days back? And yet themarket-place knows it, as it knows a hundred things beneath yourconcern."
Perinaud looked the Moor up and down. Then he turned leisurely towardsAylmer.
"He is a safe man, this?" he asked. "You guarantee him?"
Aylmer smiled, and shrugged his shoulders towards the waiting Goumiers.
"They are all for their own hand, these, are they not, Sergeant? Yes, Iwill guarantee that he seeks to serve me, for the moment, and in servingme, himself. It is the way with these desert folk. They cannot managelarge issues, and they split into factions to follow small ones. Let ushear him and, if you see no objection, take his advice. He has been inCasablanca before."
Perinaud grunted and eyed the Moor grudgingly.
"Well, man of infinite knowledge," he said in Arabic. "Youpropose--what?"
"Are there two courses before us?" asked Daoud, disdainfully. "Or are weto await reinforcements? We have to surround this lair of desert cats."
"Where?" asked Perinaud, laconically.
The Moor wheeled his stallion with an elaborate caracole.
"If the Sidi had used my services from the first," he said, "he wouldhave been saved an hour's ride. Forward, Sidi!"
The sergeant lifted his eyebrows at Aylmer with an air of comicalresignation. To the native officer he gave a decisive little nod. WithDaoud leading, the brown stallion arching his neck in remonstrance to atightened rein and goading spur, the column broke formation and insingle file turned northwards into the broom scrub which fringes thetilled lands of the Chawia.
The horsemen rode in silence. The mantle of Rattier's taciturnity, rentto rags in D'Hubert's office, seemed to have been restored to itspristine imperviousness, seemed, indeed, to hang heavy upon the spiritsof the whole company. Now and again the commandant's lips moveduneasily, but the spoken word died still-born. A Goumier would addressfervent maledictions to the memory of the female ancestors of astumbling horse; curt conferences took place at long intervals betweenPerinaud and the native officer. But apart from this, the thud of hoofsmeeting sand or earth and the dull rap of rein or stirrup leather wereall the sounds which broke the stillness. The heavy noontide heat seemedto have swallowed into silence all sound. For sound denotes creativeenergy, and energy, when the sun is at its zenith in South Morocco, issapped.
Their course, as Aylmer was quick to notice, led perpetually upward, butin gradients which almost eluded notice. Gray blue in the haze ofdistance, the rolling uplands culminated in a range of low hills, butthese were a full day's march beyond their powers. Their goal, if itwere to be reached within daylight, must be nearer than that. Hisattention, as the hours went monotonously by, was at last drawn to a gapin the far mapped expanse of vegetation.
A line of green, deeper and of more luxuriant growth than the thicketsaround them, divided the jungle from east to west. Daoud, turning in hissaddle, waved his hand in an important gesture.
"The Gorge of the Bou Djerba, Sidi," he said. "It is my advice that I goforward to reconnoitre--alone."
Aylmer looked at Perinaud. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
"Monsieur guarantees this fellow, I understand? Well, let him justifyhimself. I have no objections."
Rattier interrupted.
"It is well understood that I deal with this M. de Landon if he isthere, I alone? Your man, now, if he suddenly confronts him--" He brokeoff with a meaning gesture. "I do not wish my interview with himanticipated."
In spite of himself, a smile broke the imperturbability of thesergeant's face. With a suggestive jerk of the hand he dismissed Daoud,who cantered on into and was lost in the jungle of mallow. Perinaudturned sympathetic and now perfectly grave features towards thecommandant.
"Monsieur may be easy in his mind," he said quietly. "The man we seek,if I have understood his talents rightly, is hardly likely to be subduedwithout the display of some force and intelligence."
He turned to give the order to dismount. Rattier watched him with an airof baffled exasperation. There had been a gentle emphasis on the lasttwo words which could scarcely be misunderstood, and as the sailorruminated over them, his taciturnity showed renewed signs of failingbefore the rising tide of his wrath. A sudden diversion averted anoutbreak.
For a gunshot rang out among the woodland silences into which Daoud haddisappeared. It was instantly replied to by the shriller snap of arevolver. And this was followed by a fusillade of five more reports asthe weapon was emptied. The Moor's voice was suddenly uplifted.
"To me, Sidi!" he was shouting vehemently. "To me!"
The native officer thundered an order. In a twinkling the men were backin their saddles and, in irregular formation, threading the aisles ofthicket at a canter. Aylmer and Rattier followed the sergeant, ridingabreast.
There came another report. A bullet whistled between the pair, and fromRattier came a little growl of satisfaction. If there was to be a fight,he seemed to imply, his promised interview with Landon would assumeproportions which were entirely pleasing to him. Perinaud increased hishorse's pace, flinging alert glances each side of him rather than infront.
A couple of hundred yards at speed and the forest maze opened into awide clearing, deeply overgrown with mallow and broom. Through themiddle of this, his horse laboring against the growth which was fullfive feet high, rode Daoud, revolver in hand. A short distance ahead ofhim the green thicket was grooved in half a dozen places, as unseenbodies crashed through. Daoud's aim was poised and then withdrawn ascore of times in as many seconds. The flicker of a white _haik_ wouldshow for a brief instant here and there, and then be swallowed by thejungle.
Daoud would answer these appearances with a bullet, one which apparentlyinvariably missed its mark, for the echo of a mocking triumph greetedthem. He turned irritably in the direction of his companions.
He waved his hand significantly, motioning them to deploy right andleft, to surround the thicket. Perinaud answered with a comprehendingnod.
But Rattier had neither the time nor the inclination for a display oftactics. As Daoud turned his horse to emerge from the mall
ow, thecommandant spurred his charger into the thick of it. And he shouted, hewhirled up his right hand, grasping his revolver, with fiercegesticulations of encouragement.
The Goumiers saw, heard, and found little room for hesitation in theirmood. Like a torrent released at the breaking of a dam, they followed.Perinaud thundered an ineffectual protest.
It fell on deaf ears. The green brake was furrowed by a dozen lanesbefore their impact and then, relentlessly, as it seemed, closed behindthem. The horses bucked, plunged, but made little headway. From one ofthem came a sudden whinnying shriek of pain.
Then it sank under its rider as the knife which had severed its tendonsslipped back into the cover from which it had been so swiftly and sosilently thrust.
The fallen Goumier cleared himself and scrambled to his feet. His facealone was clear in the sea of vegetation, and it was a mask of anger andbewilderment. And then it, too, was gone with a sudden panting cry.
Aylmer gave a little gasp. The head was there and then it was not. Itsank into the green as the swimmer sinks into the blue in ashark-infested sea. But this shark was a human one, and its teeth a longBerber knife. The fugitives of the Beni M'Geel had chosen theirbattle-ground well.
Horse or man, lance or carbine--what were they against the daggers whichthe tussocks veiled? Mocking cries echoed in the thicket. Another horseshrieked and fell; another face showed white above the green and thenwas gone. The Goumiers snarled with rage as they spurred furiouslyforward, but the clinging mallow held them, shackled them, suffocatedthem with its density. There was a note of panic in their shouts; theybattled no longer for victory but for escape.
The leader of the reckless charge was in slightly better case than themajority. Rattier and one or two others, by chance of circumstances,stood in wider spaces, where the dagger men could not reach them unseen.They sat in their saddles, alert for opportunity, quivering with rage,but useless. Their glances flashed from side to side, their eyesgleamed, but opportunity evaded them. And the cries of the unseen enemystill mocked them from the ambush.
Carried away by impulse, Aylmer would have joined the charge. Perinaud'shand fell upon his reins with a grip of iron. Aylmer made as if he wouldrelease them by force.
The sergeant made a gesture of appeal.
"No, my Captain! This is serious. A little coolness, a little restraint,and we pull them out of this! But to follow! That spells death for usall!"
He leaped from the saddle, drew his carbine from the bucket, and flungto Aylmer the reins of both horses.
"If Monsieur will be so obliging?" he said quickly, and turned towardsthe nearest tree, a cedar which towered twenty feet above the dwarfedbolls of cork. He climbed lithely, rapidly, resting, at last, within afew feet of the top. He leaned his carbine upon a bough, took a steadyaim, and fired.
A shriek answered the report--a shriek muffled in the blanket of thebroom.
"_Courage, mes enfants!_" said Perinaud, placidly. "That accounted forone, and from here I see all. There are but six. Give me time and theaffair completes itself effectually."
Again he dwelled upon his aim, hesitated, fired, shook his head inself-reproach and fired again. This time he gave a little nod ofsatisfaction.
"Two!" he cried complacently. "Two, my children!" and the report of hisrifle punctuated the announcement. "So!" went on the sergeant, as if hecommented on the score at a rifle range. "So! We write full stop to_Monsieur le troisieme_. Aha! _Messieurs quatrieme_, _cinquieme_ and_sixieme_--it is poor stuff to push through, the broom. No, I do not seeyou, Messieurs, but I see where you run like rabbits, and perhaps we maychance a bullet--there!"
The report of the last cartridge in the magazine was answered by anotheryell. A brown-clad body shot into the air out of the undergrowth andsubsided limply. Perinaud nodded again.
"Through the brain, my friend, through the brain. Yes, I still see you,my two little doves. We have to reload. Four for one magazine of fivecartridges is not bad, you will allow. You are trapped, are you not? Inthe broom you cannot escape me; in the open you will be ridden down.Well, it is to be in the broom, is it? So! _Voila, Monsieur lecinquieme!_ That closes your account. As for you, my sixth friend, youhave chosen the thicket, have you? You are very still; we mustspeculate, we must invite the co-operation of chance, who is a goodfriend to Sergeant Perinaud as a rule. There! No, is that not in themiddle of the target? We must try again. Umph! I wonder if you are,after all, dead, my pigeon. Hola, there! Monsieur le Commandant. If youwill be good enough to step fifteen long paces to the right, followingthe motion of my hand, you will be able to inform me if my last shot wasa bull's-eye, an outer, or even--shame to me if it is so--a miss. Yes,Monsieur, that is the spot. Where the patch of broom outcrops betweenthose two stumps of cork."
Rattier beat a road laboriously through the clinging stems as thesergeant's finger motioned. A sudden muffled exclamation burst from him;he lurched sideways, stumbled, and fell prone. The green stalks rustledand shook as something brown and indistinguishable shot through them inthe direction in which the waiting Goumiers were thickest.
Perinaud gave a warning cry.
"Look to yourselves! I cannot shoot; he is in line between us!"
One of the horsemen shouted and spurred his stallion towards the fringeof the undergrowth furthest from the point at which the charge hadentered it. His impulsive action countered Perinaud's manifest purposeof firing, for he, too, had seen the agitation of the mallow in thatdirection. The horseman bounded forward, the horse clearing theobstructions in a series of jerky little leaps. Beside the edge of theclearing they halted, the man searching the cover in front of him and oneach side keenly.
A brown something snaked out of the thicket at his back. Steel flashedin the sun. The Goumier toppled from the saddle, and a brown figure,bowing flat across the horse's withers, seemed to have replaced himalmost in the moment of his fall. Spurred desperately by his new rider,the stallion burst away down the cork tree alleys.
A ragged volley rattled out. Splinters flew wide from a dozen trees, buthorse and rider fled on. The Goumiers called fiercely on the name of adozen saints of Islam to qualify their rage as they thrust theirchargers out of the tangle in pursuit. Perinaud and their officer yelledstrenuous commands.
Crestfallen and sullen, the troopers reined in, listening in silence tothe commination addressed to them from the pulpit of the cedar.
"Is one lesson insufficient?" thundered Perinaud. "Do we practise thearts of war or are we conducting a _ralli-papier_? Like hares you weredecoyed into this ambush, and, flinging your red-hot experience to thewinds, you are prepared to be drawn, as likely as not, into another.Collect yourselves, morally as well as physically, if you please."
They reined in among the cork trees, and half a dozen, flinging theirreins to comrades, pushed back on foot into the cover. A string ofoaths and maledictions, twice repeated, told of what they found. Theycame back with the sullen tread of those bearing the heavy burdens ofdefeat and death. They laid the bodies of their two comrades at the footof the cedar.
Rattier, leaning upon Aylmer's arm, swore vehemently. The blood drippedfrom a gash across his wrist, but he raised it to shake a fist in thedirection taken by the fugitive.
"Another item in M. de Landon's ledger, name of all names!" he cried."But we shall see, my friends, we shall see. The hand is not played outyet, believe me!"
"Perhaps not," agreed Aylmer, "but you, at any rate, have cut out of thedeal, or have been cut out," he added significantly, pointing to thewounded arm.
The commandant drew himself away with a fierce jerk.
"I!" he cried. "Is a cut finger--a graze--to send me weeping to theambulance? The scoundrel who deceived me I pursue to the world's end! Hehas scored once more. It is the last time--this!"
He raised himself to his full height in a grandiloquent gestureand--fell fainting into Perinaud's arms. The sergeant grunted moroselyand pointed to a crimson stain which had welled through the blue tunicand was rapidly spreading.
"If it
is not serious, I thank Our Lady and all the listening Saints forthis!" he said devoutly. "He is impossible as a colleague onreconnaissance, this energetic commandant. It was his recklessness whichled these men into a trap which at any other moment they would haveavoided. We have lost two men and five horses by the result of thisescapade. What are your suggestions now, Monsieur?"
Aylmer hesitated.
"For the moment have you not done enough?" he asked. "After all, yourservice is to France, not to intruders like myself. My Moorish servantand I might continue to reconnoitre alone. Your hands are full enough,are they not?"
The other looked at him queerly.
"Perhaps Monsieur thinks that so far we have been a hindrance ratherthan a help to his purposes. Monsieur has reason. At the same time wemight justly, in my opinion, be permitted another chance to repair ourprestige."
Aylmer smiled. Perinaud's voice was chilly. The glance he directed atthe crestfallen Goumiers let it be inferred that his words were alsodesigned to reach their address. They shuffled and kicked at the groundrestlessly as they listened.
"It is for you, of course, to direct matters, Sergeant!" he saidquickly. "But the commandant, without a doubt, must be removed at onceto hospital."
"Without a doubt, Monsieur," agreed Perinaud, with sudden cheerfulness."We will escort him and the dismounted men out of the forest into theopen farm lands, where patrols are not infrequent and nothing is to befeared. They will then be about twenty kilometres from the town. Thebest mounted will proceed as quickly as possible to fetch the ambulance.Of the others, twenty will escort the commandant's stretcher--it isperfectly feasible to make a good one of poles which we will cut andover which we will button two greatcoats--the five new-made _fantassins_will walk. The remaining dozen and you and I, Monsieur, willproceed--with energy, if you please, but certainly with prudence."
Perinaud closed his little homily with the satisfied air of an oratorwho has arrived at and correctly delivered an anticipated peroration.
And chance, who may have been listening, offered yet another of herfavors to her protege. As the little column debouched from the treesinto the open expanse of alluvial country, a cloud of brown dust wasrising on the far side of the fringing barley fields. Perinaud gave anexclamation of content.
"It is the Tirailleurs with their major," he explained. "They havepatrolled the Ber Rechid road and made a reconnaissance to get cattle.They will have an ambulance, or at least a mule litter."
He put his horse to the gallop. The others, following more sedately, sawhim reach and disappear among the ranks of white-uniformed men, whosecummerbunds and tarbooshes winked a cheerful scarlet against the dunfallow or green cropping of the fields. And there was an air ofanimation about the column accounted for, perhaps, by the fact thatinnumerable kids frisked about their mothers as the captured goats wereherded along the track, while droves of small, wiry cattle bellowed andbutted at each other, their captors, and every moving object withinreach of their serviceable little horns.
Perinaud, who had dismounted, was standing and speaking with an air ofrespect and precision to a mounted officer. The latter turned as Aylmerand his companions approached, and the former could barely restrain astart of consternation and surprise. For a deep, flaming groove dintedthe man's forehead from temple to temple, while the hand which he raisedin salute was one huge scar from knuckles to wrist. His brown eyesinspected Aylmer with friendly attention.
"At your service, _mon Capitaine_," he said. "Sergeant Perinaud hasexplained your needs."
Aylmer began to express his thanks. The other nodded pleasantly and gavean order. From the rear an ambulance was trotted forward: agray-moustached doctor in uniform swung himself from his saddle and bentover Rattier, who was still unconscious.
A moment later he looked up.
"Loss of blood," he said laconically. "He has a gash two fingers deepbehind the shoulder. Severe, but not serious--with care. We will see tohim."
The officer nodded again. He looked at Aylmer.
"And yourself, Monsieur?" he asked.
Aylmer made a gesture towards the forest and the distant uplands.
"With your leave, we will continue our--investigations, Major," he said.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"The forest, _mon ami_? We, do you see, have confined our operations sofar to the plough lands, the open. I have no store of experience to drawupon for your advice. You will be pioneers. I shall hope to have thebenefit of your experience on your return. Maillot is my name, Monsieur,and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at the headquarters of myregiment outside the Fedallah Gate. For the moment, then, _au revoir_!"
He smiled cheerfully, saluted, and gave an order. The tramp and jingleof the march were renewed. The dust cloud began to form again where ithad settled, and the Tirailleurs swung off seawards with the elasticstep which those who wear the _godillot_ acquire, and which makes themthe envy of their colleagues in the regulars who are doomed to theprecise lacing of the _soulier_. Perinaud made a gesture of admiration,as with Aylmer and his half score of Goumiers he watched them go.
"Monsieur has seen the bravest man and the finest leader of all thetroops of France," he remarked.
"Major Maillot?"
"But certainly the major, Monsieur. He needs no medals to prove what heis and where he has been. His deeds are witnessed on his brow andhands."
He hesitated and then spoke quickly.
"I have no wish to vaunt the deeds of Frenchmen to you, a foreigner,Monsieur, but that is a man in whom we may take an honest pride. Thescar you saw came to him by Settat. He and a picket were cut off fromthe main body by a hidden reserve of the enemy. They retreated fightingand were within measurable distance of safety. And then one of ourfallen, whom they had left for dead, cried aloud out of the hands of theenemy. How these savages were dealing with him I shall not disgustMonsieur by telling. Suffice it to say that they were working the willof devils upon him and, in spite of his manhood, he shrieked. The majorheard, and like a thunderbolt turned and charged straight for the enemy,and his men, without a thought of the peril, turned with him, a dozenperhaps, against five score. But those hundred Moors were in fullretreat before the main body of the regiment raced up to the rescue, andthey picked their major up wounded as you have seen, lying across thebody of the man he had fought to save, with seven dead foes ringed roundhim.... They have a confident air, these Tirailleurs of ours. Some sayan insolent one. Well, Monsieur, they have their pride, it must beallowed, but God knows when they are led as that man leads they have aright to it."
Aylmer nodded. Slowly they turned their horses' heads forestwards again.Perinaud looked at the line of trees abstractedly and then back again atthe receding column.
"France does not desert her children if she remembers," he remarkedquietly. "It is well that we met these men and their major. He is a manwho will see to it that we are not forgotten, if chance wills that we donot soon return. The task of seeking us would be one after his ownheart, and his Tirailleurs would think with him." He smiled confidently."So we may go forward with an easy mind, _mon Capitaine_. We arepioneers, as the major said. To pioneers should come adventures, if theyare worthy of their name."
He touched his stallion's flank with the spur. The little band ofhorsemen cantered up and into the shadow of the cork trees. And therewas an air of arrogance and recklessness about the riders. All trace ofdiscomfiture of an hour back was gone. It was as if the Tirailleurs hadbreathed an infection of valor around them--a bacillus of intrepiditywhich their major had cultivated with the point of his untiring sword.