He could not finish—with a silent handshake he suddenly turned, and limped away in the gathering darkness.
When he had gained his room John sat down and thought. He sat silently there until the last gleam faded in the sky, until the room grew totally dark, and outside a large moon climbed up from the chimney stacks. Mrs. Perdie found him there when she came in to light the gas, preparatory to retiring for the night. She thought how worn he looked, and suggested a cup of cocoa, but he declined it with a faint smile of thanks. On her way to the top attic, she reflected that only youth could plumb the full misery of these tragic days.
II
In the train to Renstone, John wondered how he would find Mr. and Mrs. Marsh. He had had two letters from them since their son's death, letters written by Mrs. Marsh, full of quiet grief and patiently uncomplaining. Somehow this journey to Renstone brought Marsh's vivacious personality more vividly before him. Their days together had been without an open confession of friendship, but their attachment was deep, and Vernley's part in it equal, so that the old adage, "two's company, three's none," was proved utterly foolish.
At the station a trap met him, driven by the old gardener at the Vicarage. The sun beat down fiercely upon them on the slow drive along the country road. The regal splendour of June blazed on each side, in the woodlands and on the hills. Then the trap turned in at the familiar gates, past the central holly bush in the drive, and halted at the door. It opened as he alighted, and Mrs. Marsh stood there, hatless and smiling.
"You are just in time for tea," she said, as he moved towards her. So she had remembered his love of the tea hour and their talks! She had not altered in any way, as he had feared. Perhaps her hair was a little greyer, but of that he could not be sure; as for signs of the grief she had suffered, there was none upon that face of almost childlike grace. Far different with Mr. Marsh, however. John met him in the hall, and was shocked at the change in him. His hair was now wholly white, and the characteristic rectitude of his bearing had gone. He stooped slightly, and John felt, as he took the welcoming hand, it was a little feeble; but the irradiating kindness of his smile was there as ever, and the gentle humorous way of talking.
They had tea on the lawn, under the copper beech, with an arrogant peacock attempting to disguise its interest in their proceedings. The old cat came out from under the rose bush where it had slept in the shadow; a few birds lazily twittered in the screen of elms at the far end of the garden, audibly tremulous in their tops as the wind passed through them. The loudest noise was made by the wasps crowding about the jam-dish. They talked of a dozen things, with never a mention of Teddie's name, until after half an hour, just before Mr. Marsh went in to his study, he said—
"I'm afraid you'll find it very quiet here, my boy. You see, we've not marked the tennis lawn this summer—Teddie always did that, and there's no young people call now, they're all away. So you'll have to amuse yourself."
He went indoors, sadly, thought John. Mrs. Marsh watched him go.
"Poor father," she said at last. "It has hurt him terribly."
John turned to her.
"And you?" he asked quietly.
She smiled at him.
"Perhaps I am less rebellious, John—I don't know. But I feel, always I have felt, he has not gone, Teddie's here all the time."
"Here?"
"Yes—in this garden. Sometimes I sit here in the afternoon with my sewing and listen to the wind in these trees. Sometimes there's not a murmur of sound, and yet I feel that Teddie's here, just behind my chair, or pulling the lawn roller down there, or lying in the sun with a cushion under his head, 'basking' as he called it. I'm not what you call psychic, John,—I've never given any thought to these things, but I know he is not dead, that he moves with us here, perhaps hears all we say. You know how he loved to talk. This is foolish, perhaps,—but oh John, I am so sure I am right!"
He said nothing, but sat beside her. It was beautiful in this old vicarage garden. Generations of vicars had tended it, and June came year by year, with its profusion of roses, its climbing honeysuckle and night-scented verbena. Was it too much to believe that any one who had loved this spot, whose boyhood had passed in its peace, whose love still lingered here, should come back, unseen? This was a thought of faith, of love that would not countenance surrender; was it a thought any the less reasonable because it sprang from abiding love? He was a child in such experience, it was not for him to judge; happy for her if Faith's bright star shone in the darkness of these days.
He did not speak, he could not; any words of his would have seemed desecration. He just sat there by her side, in the flower-scented glow of the garden, while the sun dropped to the horizon and the shadow of the elms lengthened along the lawn. The birds were now twittering before sleep overtook them; the rookery over by the hall grew noisy as the sky changed from rose-red to translucent green, with an adventurous star here and there in the silver grey of the east. The dinner bell tolled at the Hall. Mrs. Marsh broke the silence.
"There, it is time we dressed. I have given you Teddie's room, I thought you would like it," she said.
Under the pergola they paused and looked back over the gardens towards the yew hedge, behind which the fading light of the horizon flamed in the heart of the sunset. Softly she repeated,
"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns
And the round ocean and the living air."
"Oh, John, I know I am right—the living air! I can't think of Teddie as dead, he loved life too much for that; he was too joyous to end in mere nothingness."
Her eyes shone with love as she spoke, and, that moment, her faith became his.
CHAPTER IV
In those last few days he deliberately kept his thoughts away from Muriel. Not that he was distressed by any bitterness; perhaps a little bitterness, a resentment of her injustice, would have comforted him. The inexplicable reasons of her action he ceased to ponder, and the consequences, he felt, were not his. Vernley had wanted to talk. Curiously, he now saw, Vernley revolted far more than he against the accomplished fact of her marriage. Why did she marry him? Was she in her right senses? Was she a nervous wreck? Could she possibly love this man? How could she treat her lover so callously?—all these aspects of the enigma worried Vernley in succession, and ceaselessly he battered himself, mothwise, against the undiminished, glaring fact of Muriel's marriage to a stranger. All this had not helped John, and he had tried to make Vernley see it, but the latter fretted ceaselessly against the finality of her folly.
"I don't understand women—I don't really. If ever a girl was madly in love, she was with you. She grew up with the idea of marrying you—and suddenly she turns round and bolts without reason."
And John felt also that Vernley could not understand his attitude. Vernley did not realise that henceforth he had ceased to feel anything, that he was just numb to life. Muriel had written after that dreadful interview. She made no excuses, gave no explanations, only she wanted him to know that always he had been first in her thoughts. He laughed when he read the letter, and in a vindictive moment felt he would like to ask her one question. "Who is first now?" For he knew that would distress her intensely. She could not possibly love this man, he was sure of that. She had mistaken motherliness and the protective instinct for the deeper emotions of love, and in a temporary aberration had seen in self-sacrifice something greater than a love which had encountered no real obstacles.
Had he but known, as he thought this, she was sitting in Mrs. Graham's flat seeking confirmation of her act. Mrs. Graham listened to her sympathetically, but gave her no comfort, for she affected no compromise with the hard fact that Muriel had not married the man she loved.
"Am I to blame, Mrs. Graham?—oh yes, I am, I am, but he must know I am not callous—that I still—"
Mrs. Graham smiled gently, and took the nervously clasped hands in hers.
"Muriel—in all you've said when you have said 'him', you have meant John. Need we disguise that? You can no more explain than I can. We women will never know why we throw away our lives."
At that the young wife broke down and wept in the other woman's arms.
"What can I do, what can I do?" she implored.
"Nothing," said Mrs. Graham. "My dear child you are not the first or the last sacrifice to impulse. You are not going to suffer long; your husband needs you so greatly and I think we women, if we realize it early enough, are only lastingly in love when we are happy in self-sacrifice."
She felt Muriel quiver in her arms and held her a while. Half an hour later, composed again, she went, but not before she had talked of her husband, of his cheerfulness, his eagerness to follow all she did. He had planned their whole life together, and she was not to realise she had a blind husband.
It was well she had not stayed to tea, for scarcely an hour had elapsed when the bell rang. Instinctively Mrs. Graham knew it was John. That he would come, she had never doubted. His confidence in her had touched her from that moment of boyish ardour in which he had acted as self-appointed cavalier on their first meeting at "The Croft."
When he entered she saw that he had changed. He had put on a mask, of that she was sure.
"Muriel has just gone," she said straightly, looking at him.
"Oh!" he replied, but with no surprise or embarrassment.
They sat down to tea. He talked of the Marshs, of their garden, of how Mrs. Marsh bore her loss. Mrs. Graham watched and let him talk of anything but the subject on which he really wished to talk. Then quickly, as he leaned over to take a piece of bread. "How is Muriel?" he asked, without a tremour in his voice.
"She has been here and talked to me, John. It's no use our putting masks on. You know she loves you still."
He sat silent for a few moments, then twisted his handkerchief in his hands, and looked down into his teacup.
"I never thought otherwise," he said at last. And then, dispassionately, he told her his plans. He was going away, he was going to keep away. He would never forget, of course, but she might, and that would be half the battle. If they met later and she showed that he had ceased to be first in her love, then he would not find it so hard. To go away, to stay away, only that offered hope for them both.
Mrs. Graham smiled in his face as she said—
"That is a desperate remedy," and although nothing had betrayed him in his voice, his eyes were full of dumb pain. "But John dear, perhaps you will be unable to stay away—had you thought of that?"
He laughed now, bitterly, she thought.
"Then I must make it impossible for me to return—but no woman can mean all that to a man," he added fiercely. "After all, love is the whole of a woman's life, it's only part of a man's—he has other interests."
"You don't mean that John, dear," said Mrs. Graham quietly.
"I do."
"You don't!" she reiterated, looking at him steadily. For a moment he returned her look boldly, while her hands closed over his on the table; suddenly his eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head over her hands. Neither of them spoke for what seemed a long time. She saw he could not endure this strain, and came abruptly to earth.
"More tea, John?" she asked, withdrawing her hands, and smiling at him, as though they had been foolish.
For the next hour they were very practical. He explained his plans. The prospect of his work filled him with lively anticipation.
"You know, I feel as if I were going home—as if I had a home," he said, "and if I hear Turkish spoken, although I have forgotten it all, I'm sure I shall lapse into those Amasia days again. I had a great friend there, a fellow called Ali—a Turk. I often wonder what's happened to him—whether he's been smashed up in it all. It's a silly world. Here I am, his official enemy—and we were sworn brothers. Look, I've still got his talisman here."
He opened his shirt and pulled out the moonstone with the word "Kismet" inscribed upon it.
"What a beautiful thing!" cried Mrs. Graham.
"Would you like it?" he asked, impulsively.
"No, John—you must not part with it, after all these years—and he gave it to you to keep."
"But it's only silly sentiment, Mrs. Graham."
"Sentiment is not always silly, John—'Kismet' who knows?"
He laughed out gaily, and she was glad to hear him laugh so. There was the ring of youth in it still.
"Very well then—I'll wear it because of you," he said.
"And Ali?" she added.
"And Ali," he echoed lightly. "But you shall have one gift for remembrance."
"I would like something, certainly."
"I shall not give it you except in an eventuality."
She laughed at him.
"Dear me, how formal and serious we are!"
"It's a statue—my nickname too—'Narcissus listening to Echo.' You know it? Dear old Marsh gave it to me in one of his whimsical moods. It's damaged, but it's very lovely and I have a sentimental attachment to it for his sake. I want you to keep it safely for me—and if I never come to reclaim it," he said quietly, "I want it to become yours."
She regarded him a moment, and saw that he was very serious, full of the drama of youth.
"John dear, you're talking like a novelette; 'if you never come back'—that's always what the rejected hero says in the last chapter but one. You're not made of that kind of stuff. But I'll keep it gladly—and perhaps, when you come to claim it, I shall not be willing to part with it."
He rose to go, but she saw that he had still something more to say.
"Well?" she asked him, as he stood, hat in hand, after making arrangements for her to receive the statue.
"You are wonderful, Mrs. Graham," he said, frankly. "You seem to read my thoughts."
"Oh, no, but I see you have some. Tell me, John."
He hesitated briefly, but her eyes helped him.
"There are some letters—Muriel's. I have them all—she wrote great letters from the Front. They're all numbered in a despatch box. Will you keep the box for me—and—" he hesitated again, but she waited, uttering no word, "if I don't reclaim the statue—send them to her?"
He saw that she assented, and after that he dare not trust himself longer. Almost abruptly he said good-bye and went.
BOOK VI
EAST AGAIN
CHAPTER I
I
John and young Sanderson were half asleep in the orange grove that sheltered the row of tents from the merciless midday sun. All the afternoon they had dozed, just under the oranges that ripened within their reach; but about four o'clock, the noise of a Ford car coming up the boarded track to the aerodrome, from its journey to Jaffa, woke them from their siesta. A party had been down into the port on a day's excursion. It was their last probably, for early at dawn, on the morrow, the great attack was to be made and every one of the aeroplanes now receiving final touches from the mechanics would be soaring in that blue and cloudless heaven whence death would rain upon the trenches below.
"I haven't written those blessed letters after all," said Sanderson yawning. "I must do it to-night."
He stood up, a slim graceful youth in his shorts and khaki shirt. The fierce Eastern sun had browned his legs and arms, though it had not caught him so fiercely as John. He rubbed his fingers through his wavy hair and looked down at his companion.
"Do you know, Dean, I think you must be the re-incarnation of an arab sheik—I never knew a fellow who loved the desert heat like you—you're looking splendidly fit." He laughed and threw an orange at his companion as he lay in the shade. "There's something feline about the way you purr in this devilish climate."
John smiled, stood up and collected the letters he had written.
"Let's hear the news from Jaffa," he said to Sanderson—and strolled across the clearing towards the fringe of tents. They had been together since John's arrival two months back, and this happy-go-lucky lad of twenty reminded him at moments of poor Marsh. He had the same volatile spirits, now very elated or full of apprehension, tireless and restless, and very human and often childlike in certain moods. It was to John that he raved about Mary, the little English girl in faraway Sussex, and so deep became their intimacy that he entrusted her letters to John, for him to co-operate in his intense admiration of her wonderful epistolary style, her unbounded lovableness. John soon knew much about his mother and father, the latter a retired naval officer living in a little house on the Devon Coast; through Sanderson, he could see the gentle little lady who wrote in such a perfect hand with unbroken regularity, chronicling the small events of the domestic round. That Sanderson loved her devotedly, John knew from the light that came into his eyes when he talked of her.
"You must write those letters, Sandy," said John, as they entered the mess-tent. It was a task Sanderson hated, being always unable to find anything to write about. A letter meant much at home, and after to-night they—
"I'll do 'em after dinner," promised Sanderson.
Dinner that evening was a merry affair. The excitement of the morrow was in their blood. John looked round at his comrades, all very young, not one giving any sign of the apprehension he might feel. General Allenby was making a great push with his left flank, stretching from the sandy coast to the Jordan basin and the rising hills of Judæa. The bombing squadron was engaged in the task of cutting off the Turkish army on the line of retreat along the Ferweh-Balata road. The Turk was on the run and this might be a last great opportunity. They were to start before dawn. Early in the day, John had sought and obtained permission to accompany the squadron. Sanderson was to take him in his Bristol fighter. The spirit of victory was in the air. That evening Sanderson twanged his banjo with great spirit and sang "Glorious Devon" and his eyes watered when MacDermott gave "Highland Mary," the heavy sentiment assisted by many highland toasts. Scottish or English, it was Mary, and Sanderson almost broke down just before they retired to snatch a few hours of sleep.
"Have you written those letters?" asked John,—Sanderson stood stripped in the moonlight, shaking out his shirt.
"No."
"Then you're not coming into this tent until you have," said John firmly.
"Well, I can't write like this, can I?"
John laughed, holding Sanderson's shorts firmly.
"You promise to write at once?"
"Yes—Lord, I'm cold."
"Here you are then, and here's my fountain pen; you can see in this moonlight."
Sanderson sat down on a box and put a writing pad on his knees. John walked across the clearing for a final survey before turning in. He climbed a ridge behind the grove, and above the tree tops a vast panorama swept into view. Away to the left in the grey void, the sea lay, the blue Mediterranean sea that glittered by day under the changeless canopy of heaven. In the night air he could hear the far-off roar of the surf, fitfully borne on a wind blowing up the ravine, laden with aromatic night-scents from the orange groves. A full moon hung in the sky, banishing many of the stars. John stood there, with a chill wind intermittently blowing upon him.
There had come to him in these days, here, in the hard adventure with kindred spirits, in the intoxication of danger and human courage, amid all that was splendid, perhaps the more splendid for its pitiful transience, a contentment with life. He was not maimed in the spirit, though he had been sorely buffeted. His greatest ally was with him, the Future. So much subservience to the omnipotent hand of Fate had this East wrought in him, he would not rebel. If Mrs. Graham could see him now, see the change that had quieted him, instead of recalling the tumult of those days when he had turned to her in his blind agony, she might wonder at the quality of his love, at a love that surrendered and was happy in the act.
"Muriel seems very happy," she wrote; "if I did not know I should think she loved him deeply; they are never apart and she seems unwearied in her service to him." But did she know? Who knew the heart of any woman and who could apportion duty, sympathy and love? Now he looked back, he saw that, tacitly, he and Muriel had loved, without obstacles, without trials. From the first dawn of instinct, from that wintry day by the copse, when unknown temptings of Nature and boyish impulse had made him gather her into his arms, they had followed the natural course of their early affection. For himself, even now, he had never doubted but that the fulfilment of that first impulse lay in his marriage to Muriel. Painfully, but frankly, he followed the remorseless logic of the facts. It had comforted his egotism, the eternal possessive instinct of man, to think that she had married in a mood of pity; what if she also married for love, suddenly awakened and all the stronger and more impetuous now it was really awakened?
He saw now, that throughout he had insisted upon the requital of his love, and perhaps his dominance had won until this stronger instinct awakened in her. He had banished all thought of her unfaithfulness, all reproach for the blow he had suffered. That day, for the first time, he had written to her. It had been a hard thing to do, because he realised how kindness, understanding even, would hurt her. But it was not possible to go through life with a barrier of silence separating lives that had such great memories in common, when the morning hours had been so bright for them. He had even referred to meeting again, feeling in his heart there was nothing to forbid it; and when he had written to Vernley, he had spoken of a "phase." The very word hurt him as he wrote, but it was a surgery he had to perform, and this great distance made it easier.
Rising, he retraced his steps towards the camp. He had just entered the shade of the grove, when something suddenly tensed his whole being into an attitude of listening. His heart beat, and the blood in his veins pulsed through a breathless pause. Yes, he had heard aright. Once again on the still night air it swelled and died, the old, never-to-be-forgotten, age-enduring drone of the saz, beaten in the Turkish trenches. Listening there, alert, his face turned to the moon-bathed valley. He was a boy again, the old impulse upon him. As a dream, his years fell from him. This was Amasia and the moon peered into the gorge, silvering the weirs of the old stream. Louder and louder, changeless and potent as ever, the night air pulsated with the immortal music of the East. He turned and went towards it, then halted with a short laugh at the strangeness of it all, a medley of thoughts dancing through his brain to those exotic strains, thoughts of deserted khans, crowded bazaars, a cowering Armenian, the tragic dumb eyes of a Turkish boy, and another boy, in a book-lined room playing a piano.
Then a voice suddenly cut sharply across the whispered suggestion of the night.
"Dean!" it rang.
"Here—coming!" answered John, shivering with a nervous chill. He blundered across the stubble, scratching his bare knees. The figure of Sanderson loomed out of the darkness.
"Good heavens, Dean, I thought you'd been kidnapped—it's twelve o'clock and we're off at four."
Sanderson had come up close now, and John's face shone clear and blanched in the moonlight. Its expression alarmed the younger man.
"I say—what's the matter?—you look hypnotised!"
"Rubbish," John laughed uneasily. "I'm cold, that's all."
They walked back to the tent in silence and turned in.
II
It seemed only a few minutes later that the batman awakened them in the dark tent. Outside there was a movement of feet and voices coming from the darkness. Hastily John and Sanderson dressed, in warm things this time, for the morning air was very cold. All the machines were out of the canvas hangars, lined up for the flight. There were muffled figures and voices. The mechanics stood by; there was an intermittent roar of an engine as it started up and died down again.
Sanderson climbs into his seat, John following. This first five minutes is trying to the nerves, his fingers are cold and he shivers slightly. They have said good-bye to the Wing Commander who has wished them good luck. Some will not return again, but their thoughts do not dwell on the fact.
Sanderson turns his head and smiles.
"All right, Dean?" he calls.
"Yes."
The propeller in front moves round slowly and the engine fires and begins with a roaring noise. Now the propeller has vanished as it gathers speed and they can see ahead, across the clearing, to the orange groves and the blue ridge of moonlit mountains. The mechanics are wheeling the machine round for the run down the field, the engine is tested with them hanging on to the wings, Sanderson waves his hands, they let go. They are off. Imperceptibly they lift from the ground up into the cold air of the moonlit night. The grey-blue country spreads around them. The stars have vanished with a paling moon; to the east the silver of the dawn creeps over a black ridge. The low flat roofs of Jaffa are dimly visible, here and there they catch a glimpse of moonlight rippling on the sea. They are facing the wind, but the roar of the engine is no longer audible, lulled by the perpetuity of the sound. The coast line grows more distant as their eyes become accustomed to the light. But dawn is breaking rapidly. They are flying, for the present, until the enemy lines are reached, in close formation; to the left and right, like grey birds, soar the other aeroplanes. In a few minutes they will cross the enemy's lines, over which they will have to deploy and run the gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire. Their crossing is well-timed, for dawn is advancing.
"We're over—do you hear?" cried Sanderson.
Far below came on the wind a familiar sound.
Ratatatattatatatatat!
It was machine gun fire trying to find them in the darkness above. They were flying down wind now and had lost their companions. The altimeter registered 8,000 feet. And then suddenly the world was transformed. From a cloud-bank the sun emerged with a triumphant blaze of yellow light. John saw the light, like a live thing, go streaming over the hills and valleys below, flooding in a thousand hues the objects of day. Behind them now, to the left, Jaffa, with its white houses, sparkled on the edge of a blue expanse of sea, wind-furrowed. Back on the left like a dull mirror, lay the ghostly outline of the Dead Sea, with the barren hills of Judæa. The coloured contours leapt up below them, the brown face of the grain-land, the grey villages, the green patches of woodland. A silver spear shot athwart a green-gold valley, where the Jordan twisted southwards to the Dead Sea. From the sand dunes of the coast to the Jordan basin a series of brown scars cut the earth's face.
"That's the last enemy line!" called Sanderson, pointing down. "They will be about, somewhere, now," and obedient to his wish, the machine lifted her nose and climbed to 12,000 feet. Already the change in temperature was noticeable. John had discarded his hat and tunic and sat in shirt sleeves, the wind blowing through his hair. They were traversing the desolate hill-region of Lower Samaria with Nazareth, highly situated to the West, and were now nearing the wild ravines where they would find the Ferweh-Balata road. John's heart beat quicker at the approach of the desperate moment. Far off, to the north, a bright light flashed. John noticed it twice before he called Sanderson's attention to it.
"What is it?" asked Sanderson. "A helio?"
"I don't know."
Again it flashed.
"I've got it!" cried John, putting his finger on the map. "It's the Sea of Galilee."
The next moment there floated up to them the sound of a dull report.
"That's a bomb—we've found 'em! Look out, I'm going to sweep—they're in one of these ravines. We ought to pick up the road here."
The wind sang down the planes as they banked and dropped, the country-side slowly revolved as if on a disc.
"There!" cried John, pointing to a white, ribbon-like road threading a deep gorge. "Look—it's choked with transport!"
An aeroplane ahead hovered like a hawk, then, as if inert, fell to within two hundred feet of the road, dropping its bombs.
Boom! Boom!
There were two clouds of dust high over which the swerving aeroplane swept.
Ratatatatatatatatat!—whirred its machine gun, ere the bird of death leapt skywards again.
Below on the blocked road, pandemonium broke loose. The mules reared amid a debris of destroyed wagons; some of the drivers deserted their seats and ran up the steep hillsides looking for shelter. The transport in front backed, the transport behind pressed forward, the line swayed, bulged and writhed in confusion and noise. A second aeroplane swooped and increased the panic. The road was now heaped with dead and dying men and horses, abandoned lorries, guns, carts and motor cars. There was no place of refuge in that pitiless gorge.
"Are you ready?" called Sanderson.
John's hand sought the bomb release lever.
"Yes."
The next moment they had nose-dived; at the bottom of the dive, Sanderson would pull out John waited for the moment, his eye on the bomb-sight through which the road seemed leaping up to meet them. Suddenly, the wind caught the rigid planes as the machine pulled out of the dive. Now!
John saw the two bombs go, turn over, fall in the distance; then a pause, with the air singing in their ears and—
Boom! Boom!
They were now climbing joyously. Their companion, for some strange reason, had turned to the west and was circling wide.
"What's he doing?" asked Sanderson, but the question was answered a moment later when three enemy aircraft, their wings black-crossed, emerged suddenly from a cloud-bank.
Ratatatatatatatatat! ratatatat! ratatatatat! went several machine guns.
Sanderson turned and climbed towards the trio swooping down upon the lonely prey. But his man[oe]uvre was seen. Two of the enemy planes detached themselves and turned to meet the aggressor.
"Phillips can look after himself," called Sanderson, but his optimism changed when a fourth enemy machine came out of the clouds. It was four to two now. Still Sanderson climbed. His machine was faster than theirs. John saw his intention—to make an Immelmann turn and get underneath the enemy and rake him with machine gun fire.
At the top of the climb there was a sudden ratatata! which sounded in their ears, ominously near. It came from above them, a fifth machine emerging from a cloud-bank, at a distance of eighty yards. John felt a sudden buffet, as though the wind had struck him, Sanderson's hand shot out to his gun, and there was an answering burst of firing, full into the belly of the machine above. It fell swiftly out of control with a wounded or dead pilot.
"Oh, good! Good!" yelled John.
Sanderson turned with a swift smile of triumph, ere tackling the machine below, but his smile changed to a look of concern.
"Dean—you're hit!"
"Hit?" echoed John, and looked down. His shirt was wet with blood. He plunged his hand into the open neck. A thin stream welled out from the left breast. Yet he had felt nothing. He was about to reassure Sanderson, when a sudden burst of firing broke on his ears. The next moment, with a fearful roar, a machine swept over them, the sparks from the exhaust trailing behind like a comet's tail. They swerved, climbed, and then fell. Down they went, leaving the enemy above; down, with an increasing roar of the wind, as they gathered momentum. Ten thousand, nine thousand, eight thousand, louder roared the wind, and John caught a glimpse of the country below as it leapt to meet them. It seemed incredible that the planes could stand this strain. Every moment he expected the machine to open up, but Sanderson knew his work; he was safe in his hands. They were falling still. Surely only three thousand feet now? Wasn't Sanderson cutting it rather fine. He could see his head in front, familiar and reassuring. Two thousand!
"Sanderson!" John called. He had no right to, of course, but something impelled him. The roar of the wind carried his voice away.
"Sanderson!"
Loud, this time, yet the head of the pilot did not move.
"Sanderson!" screamed John.
A sudden swerve, and the machine shuddered from wing tip to tail. He Was pulling out at last. No! they falling again. John stretched forward, dizzy now with loss of blood.
"Sander—"
The cry was unfinished. Sanderson lay with his head inert on the side of the fuselage. They were out of control! Faint, John fell back; the wind screamed in his ears as they swept to earth.
CHAPTER II
An hour before sunset, a group of Arab horsemen came over the scrubby hillocks, following the indistinct route worn by mules, which led, five miles to the north, to the main route to Damascus. Their horses were tired, for they had been hard pressed, and on the faces of the riders something of the panic of the early morning was still visible. They were alive, indeed, and fortunate in the fact, for hundreds had fallen in that dreadful massacre in the gorge. Picturesque they were, in an assorted fashion, but as soldiers they were not impressive, dressed in ragged gowns and dirty head-dresses, their beards untrimmed. More like a band of brigands, than a part of the routed 7th Turkish Army, they rode in disorder. The level sunlight flashed on the strange weapons stuck in their belts, ivory-handled knives, murderously long, revolvers of an obsolete fashion and pistols with heavy ebony handles. The young officer in command of them could ill-conceal his contempt of this rabble, and watched them with a cautious eye, knowing that they would as readily plunge their knives into him as into that of any luckless traveller. Accompanied by four juniors he rode behind, saddle-sore and depressed.
A cry at his side made him look up. His sergeant was pointing to something in the ravine below. Half a dozen Arabs had broken away from the column and were racing down the rocky steep to reach the plunder. The officer shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun. The stark outline of a shattered fuselage reared up on end from a twisted mass of machinery. A broken wing lay twenty yards apart, It was no unfamiliar sight, this, of a crashed aeroplane. He made no effort to recall the Arabs, for his command would be ignored. The possibility of plunder shattered all discipline. Contemptuously he reined up his horse on the hillock and waited. The transport halted behind them; even in retreat they disliked hurry.
"There's nothing left, I'm sure—it's a bad crash," said the officer, surveying the twisted frame-work through his glasses. "The engine's half buried—poor devil!"
The Arabs had soon finished their inspection, and with disappointment were riding back, all but two, who suddenly turned aside and dismounted.
"Why don't they come?" asked the young Turk, turning to his sergeant. "Go—hurry them up—I will not wait."
The sergeant detached himself, his horse carefully testing its way down the steep. The officer gave the command to march, the column jogged forward in disorderly fashion, the transport drivers behind cracked their whips and swore at the jaded mules, the cloud of dust rose again on their trail along the barren hills. They had not gone a mile ahead when the sergeant overtook the commandant again.
"It was a body—they'd stripped him, but I made them give up these papers in his pocket, and this."
He handed a pocket book, some envelopes and a thin chain to the officer. On the end of the chain a pendant swung and glinted in the sunset. The officer examined it before looking at the papers. A thin strand of hair, brown hair, was tied round the link that held the frame in which an oval moonstone was set. On one side there was a minute engraving of an eye, on the other, one word, in Turkish, "Kismet."
For a long moment, the young officer spoke no word as he held the stone in his hand. The sergeant waited. As they stood, the transport column filed past them, lorries and guns, and all the impedimenta of an army in retreat. The men were badly shod, their uniforms ragged. They were ill-fed and half rebellious, but the enemy were sweeping up behind and safety lay ahead; only the impulse for safety spurred their flagging spirits.
"Where was the body?" asked the Turk, without apparent interest.
"About twenty yards from the aeroplane, sir."
"The other—there were two?"
"Yes, sir, the pilot probably—the machine fired and there's little left."
The end of the column was in sight now. The sergeant turned his horse as if to join the line, but his officer did not move. The last lorry lumbered by in a cloud of dust.
"I will have a look at this machine, it may tell us something," said the officer, turning his horse. The sergeant followed.
"No," he said, sharply. "You go on—I will overtake you in a few minutes."
"Yes, sir." The man saluted and rode off after the cloud of dust. The lonely horseman waited. Quiet was settling down in the hills again. The next transport column would be an hour's march away yet; it would be dusk ere they arrived. Spurring his horse, he went back along the rutted road until the ravine with the crashed aeroplane at the bottom came into sight. Dismounting, he tethered his horse by the path and made his way slowly down the slope, still holding in his right hand the talisman taken from the dead Englishman. If what he feared was true it was a strange meeting after these many years. Kismet indeed!
He had reached the bottom of the slope now, dusty and shaken by his swift descent. It was dusk already in the ravine and the level rays of the sunset were gilding the ridges of the hills above. He shivered in the cool shade, and the silence grew oppressive. The call of a jackal came from a thicket near by, a horrible, blood-chilling whine. He stumbled. The light would be gone if he did not hurry.
He could see the object he sought, a small patch on the ground ahead; breaking into a run, he approached the naked body of the dead man. Those bandits had stripped him, and he lay stretched out, his set face turned to the sky. Two birds took sudden flight at the approach of the man, and rose with a whirr of large black wings, sinister and sickening to the sight in their repulsive portent.
Flinging himself to his knees, he bent over the slim body lying so inert. For a few moments he had no courage to look into the face. Beautiful, he lay in death, like a perfect figure of marble,—the whiteness only broken on the left breast, bloody and scarred. Had the miscreants murdered him in their plundering? No, for this thin stream of blood from the wound had dried long ago.
Bending forward, the living face looked on the dead, and in that moment of recognition a sharp cry of pain broke on the desert hush. Gathering him up in his arms, he pressed the lifeless body to his breast.
"Oh, John effendi! Oh, John effendi!" he sobbed, brushing back the hair from the brow of the dead man.
"See, I have our token and thou wast faithful, John effendi! Great brother of my heart, what woe is come upon us! Dost thou not hear me? 'Tis I, Ali, thy friend of boyhood's days. O thou unfortunate one! Unhappy the servant of Allah, that these eyes thus behold thee, most beloved brother of my soul, John effendi! Oh, John effendi!"
He bent over the lifeless form, peering into the unclosed eyes of the dead man as if he would read therein some words of recognition, of greeting. He had not changed, this friend of happy days by Yeshil Irmak's singing waters. The face that had faded in distance from the fountain at Amasia was this face of death found in the desert, and the years had scarcely touched it, perhaps only to make it sterner, more handsome. Great was the will of Allah to bring them together again across the ways of the world. Thus had he beheld him on the hill on that last day of parting when the night crept over the gorge at Amasia; night crept on now, night with its stillness and its stars, and he could not go hence again. Brothers in life they were, were they not brothers in death; were not their feet wedded to the same great adventure?
With his handkerchief he wiped the sand and blood from the face of the dead man, smoothed the bruised brow. Beautiful he was, in this hour of meeting.
"O John effendi," he cried, pressing his mouth to the cold brow. "Our footsteps have gone out upon the dusty way and we are met again. Allah in his greatness willed it so!"
The darkness of night gathered about the living and the dead. Above, the brazen dome held the last flush of day. In the cool east a few stars came on the flood of darkness. From hill-top to hill-top the greyness crept and the valleys filled with shadow. The moon, low on the dark horizon, brightened; the timorous stars spangled the heavenly way with bright battalions. The hill ridges, black in the sunset, softened and sank in the encroaching tide of night.
Such silence, such peace, such coolness after the noisy, parching day! Foolish man, fretful with his bewildering schemes, his fears and frenzy, his comings and goings over the face of the indifferent earth—all, all engulfed in the enduring silence. And for the end of all—this beneficent peace.
But no, even now, the hush is broken. Out of the darkness it comes, mysterious, stirring, portentous,—the sound of a thousand years, the low insistent droning of a drum. Listening, the living hears its mournful, suggestive music, even as he heard it in the khans at Amasia. It rises, it falls, undulating. And if the dead hear, then is the call familiar,—the call of a far-off night, when, under almond blossom, a little white figure, dream-impelled, stepped towards the moonlit stream.
Nearer it comes, nearer, nearer. The night winds bear it afar down the ravine; it is the music of war, the music of a thousand conquerors marching in brief glory out to the silence of death.
Gently the living man lowers the dead from his arms. He rises to his feet, solitary and minute under the inquisition of the stars. The tethered horse on the highway stirs and whinnies. The transport column comes winding along the road of retreat. Nearer now, sound the drums; soon the riderless horse will be found.
Suddenly, shattering the night, a shot rings out, doing violence to the quiet of the valley. The echo ricochets from hill-top to hill-top and faintly dies in the distance. The deep hush flows again, the eddies of sound fade out on the pool of silence. Over the grey crest of the eastern hills the moon climbs, pouring its light into the ravine. A jackal cries and slinks away among the scrub; and again, the insistent calling of a drum.
THE END