Professor Daak interrupted. He had been listening dazedly to D’Aran’s words. Still crouching and looking like an obese and thrashed animal, he whimpered: “What about me? I can’t march!”
D’Aran regarded him with open contempt.
“We still have two horses. You can use one of them.”
There was an uneasy movement among the legionnaires. They were looking at each other in a strained, transfixed manner. But D’Aran did not notice, for Keith was speaking to him.
Keith made a gesture towards Gallast and the other surviving-guards.
“What about them, mon officier?”
Like most Frenchmen, D’Aran was essentially practical. He seldom wasted sympathy on undeserving causes.
“We will leave them here. I would like to leave the professor, too, but he is more valuable than the others.”
By now there was a blatant atmosphere of tension in the corridor where the legionnaires were gathered. And they were no longer looking at each other. They were staring at the ground.
D’Aran asked quietly: “What’s the matter, mes braves?”
There was no answer. Yet it was obvious that they had something to say.
“Tiens! Have you swallowed your tongues?”
Another silence.
Then one of the legionnaires raised his hand. He stared past D’Aran as he said: “We cannot march to the foothills, mon officier. We will have to stay here, too. We have only a few pints of water.”
“Only a few pints! You had two pitchers!”
“I know, mon officier. But some splinters from the grenade came into the bunk room. They smashed one pitcher into pieces. The other was damaged, but we managed to save a little water in it…”
7. The Dark Hours
D’Aran strode quickly into the bunk room. The garrison followed. He stood in the centre of the floor and looked carefully around.
He saw the clean scars in the stonework where the steel fragments had ricochetted off the inside top of the window.
He saw the vicious furrows where they had skidded across the floor.
He saw a scattering of broken pottery, which was all that remained of one pitcher.
He saw the other with an open crack from the lip to the middle. It contained about four pints.
At his feet he saw a large and slightly steaming patch of moisture. Of wasted liquid.
He turned to the legionnaires, lips twisted in a parody of a smile.
“Was anyone hurt?”
And as he asked the question he knew it to be ridiculous. It did not matter if the fragments had wounded anyone. Nothing mattered, but it was tradition which prompted the enquiry. The tradition, hammered home at St. Maxient, that an officer’s first concern must be for his men.
“No one was wounded, mon officier. It was a miracle. Only the water was lost.”
Only the water!
He wanted to laugh. Laugh loud and wildly, releasing into the hot still air the suppressed frenzy within him. But he could not do so. He must not do so. Soon, as the hours ticked away towards the inevitable doom, panic would tempt the men. Madness would goad them. Only he, Andre D’Aran, the cheap thief, could preserve some semblance of discipline. Why? Because of the uniform he wore. A grimy uniform on an undeserving body! But it still symbolised the glorious traditions of the officers of France. Non, he must not break. He, D’Aran the thief, must be calm and strong…
He spoke to the men—in a voice which was little above a whisper. But it contained no hint of weakness.
“Mes braves, I wish I could offer you hope, but I cannot. The water that remains would scarcely be enough for two of us on such a march. But we have a consolation, have we not? We have defeated the enemies who came within our walls. They sought to learn secrets which such men should never know. They have failed and in that respect we have kept faith. Our main regret must be that we have been unable to warn the Arabs in our command area of the explosion. Many of them will die at three o’clock tomorrow. As for us… we will die, too. Let us do so like men…”
Despite his youth, despite those conflicting lines of care on his face, there was a calm dignity about Andre D’Aran, the thief, as he walked slowly out of the bunk room.
Nine o’clock…
The moon was up, touching Fort Ney with lights of gold. A traveller, chancing on the place at that time, might have said: “Here is a tiny haven set in a sea of sand. It is a place of peace…”
But there was no peace within Fort Ney that night. The cauldron of hell was brewing. And it was being stirred by Legionnaire Rhuttal, the Latvian.
Rhuttal was an orator, just as the late Sergeant Vogel had been a reader. Rhuttal would speak with fluency and at great length on any conceivable subject.
He was never in any way deterred by the fact that his opinions were usually arrant nonsense and his authorities merely the products of his own vivid imagination.
Rhuttal loved words and ideas, so long as they were his own. And his comrades tolerated him with good humour. For in the normal way Rhuttal was harmless. In the normal way Rhuttal was merely one of the world’s great army of windbags.
But, given a suitable opportunity, such men can be intensely dangerous. Legionnaire Rhuttal had found such an opportunity.
He was surrounded by strained and frightened men. Men who were waiting… waiting to die. Men who felt the acid of fear burning at their vitals. Such men will listen gladly to anyone who speaks with assurance and offers hope.
Rhuttal was doing that.
He stood at the top end of the room, the moon shafts on his back, his face illuminated by the flickering oil lamps. The legionnaires sprawling on the cots were listening intently.
“How do we know that there’s no water in the foothills?” Rhuttal was asking. “We don’t know. There may be water there. So why must we stay in this place, waiting to be frizzled alive? Why, I ask you? Let us leave for the foothills now!”
Keith rose from his bunk. He said: “You talk like a fool. We’d never reach the foothills without water to drink on the way. It’s better to wait here…”
Rhuttal turned fanatical eyes on Keith. “Very well, you may be right…”
“I know I’m right, and so do you.”
“Then, I say, let one of us take half the remaining water and set out for the Keeba foothills alone. It is bet that one of us has a chance of life than that all of should die!”
There was a tentative rumble of agreement.
Keith was still standing as he said icily: “And who would be the lucky man? Are you thinking of yourself, Rhuttal?”
Rhuttal flushed and glared. Then he said with less force: “I am ready to take the risk. Surely none of you would stand in my way, since it is my plan?”
There was a wave of stark, humourless laughter. Then a babble of eager talk.
A black American, who had gambling in his blood said: “Ah figure we could draw for it.”
General agreement.
Keith turned on them, temper rising.
“Our orders are to stay here! We all heard what D’Aran said.”
“To hell with D’Aran,” Rhuttal said, eager now to grasp at this slender chance. “We’ll have a draw. There are two pints of water left. The man who wins will leave with half of it and a horse.”
“The horse won’t last long. Both of them are frantic with thirst now.”
The American came in again. He was a man with ideas, too.
“Ah guess the horses could use the water from the tank. That water sure would poison us right away, but them nags wouldn’t know no harm for a long time.”