No More Learning

The camel-guns shelled them
as they passed and opened for an instant lanes through their midst, most
like those quick-closing vistas in a Kentish hop-garden seen when the
train races by at full speed; and the infantry fire, held till the
opportune moment, dropped them in close-packing hundreds. No civilised
troops in the world could have endured the hell through which they came,
the living leaping high to avoid the dying who clutched at their heels,
the wounded cursing and staggering forward, till they fell--a torrent
black as the sliding water above a mill-dam--full on the right flank of
the square.

Then the line of the dusty troops and the faint blue desert sky overhead
went out in rolling smoke, and the little stones on the heated ground
and the tinder-dry clumps of scrub became matters of surpassing
interest, for men measured their agonised retreat and recovery by these
things, counting mechanically and hewing their way back to chosen pebble
and branch. There was no semblance of any concerted fighting. For aught
the men knew, the enemy might be attempting all four sides of the square
at once. Their business was to destroy what lay in front of them, to
bayonet in the back those who passed over them, and, dying, to drag
down the slayer till he could be knocked on the head by some avenging
gun-butt.

Dick waited with Torpenhow and a young doctor till the stress grew
unendurable. It was hopeless to attend to the wounded till the attack
was repulsed, so the three moved forward gingerly towards the weakest
side of the square. There was a rush from without, the short hough-hough
of the stabbing spears, and a man on a horse, followed by thirty or
forty others, dashed through, yelling and hacking. The right flank of
the square sucked in after them, and the other sides sent help. The
wounded, who knew that they had but a few hours more to live, caught at
the enemy's feet and brought them down, or, staggering into a discarded
rifle, fired blindly into the scuffle that raged in the centre of the
square.

Dick was conscious that somebody had cut him violently across his
helmet, that he had fired his revolver into a black, foam-flecked face
which forthwith ceased to bear any resemblance to a face, and that
Torpenhow had gone down under an Arab whom he had tried to "collar low,"
and was turning over and over with his captive, feeling for the man's
eyes. The doctor jabbed at a venture with a bayonet, and a helmetless
soldier fired over Dick's shoulder: the flying grains of powder stung
his cheek. It was to Torpenhow that Dick turned by instinct. The
representative of the Central Southern Syndicate had shaken himself
clear of his enemy, and rose, wiping his thumb on his trousers.
The
Arab, both hands to his forehead, screamed aloud, then snatched up his
spear and rushed at Torpenhow, who was panting under shelter of Dick's
revolver. Dick fired twice, and the man dropped limply. His upturned
face lacked one eye. The musketry-fire redoubled, but cheers mingled
with it. The rush had failed and the enemy were flying. If the heart of
the square were shambles, the ground beyond was a butcher's shop. Dick
thrust his way forward between the maddened men. The remnant of the
enemy were retiring, as the few--the very few--English cavalry rode down
the laggards.

Beyond the lines of the dead, a broad blood-stained Arab spear cast
aside in the retreat lay across a stump of scrub, and beyond this again
the illimitable dark levels of the desert. The sun caught the steel
and turned it into a red disc. Some one behind him was saying, "Ah,
get away, you brute! " Dick raised his revolver and pointed towards the
desert. His eye was held by the red splash in the distance, and the
clamour about him seemed to die down to a very far-away whisper, like
the whisper of a level sea. There was the revolver and the red light.
. .