Chapter XX: The March Through Goshen

On, and on, and on, through the same kind of Egyptian landscape--tame, barren, and insipid--so terribly vapid and flatly horrid, when compared with the Salvatoresque hills and glens of their native land--the naked plain, bounded by occasional hillocks at vast distances--the toilsome march of the Highlanders continued. Yet there are luxuriant plains in some parts of the Land of Goshen.

Sometimes date-trees were seen, with trunks bare and slender, or mud-walled wigwams on the causeways; but it is a land that, with all its vast antiquity and religious associations, of which no poet has ever sung. 'What, indeed, could an Egyptian sing on the reed of Gesner or Theocritus?' asks Volney. 'He sees neither limpid streams, nor verdant lawns, nor solitary caves; and is equally a stranger to valleys, mountain-sides, and impending rocks.' Miss Martineau is almost the only traveller who claims for Egypt the attributes of the picturesque and varied in beauty!

And there were incessant swarms of scorpions, gnats, and more especially of flies--one of the many plagues of Egypt--which were so numerous that it was impossible to eat the dry ration biscuits without the chance of swallowing these pests also.

More than once, on the summit of a sandy hillock, there would appear, sharply defined against the clear blue sky, the picturesque figure of a mounted Bedouin, with his white burnous floating about him, a tall, reed-like spear, or a long musket slung by his side--a man unchanged in aspect or ideas from his nomadic forefathers, who saw the mailed Crusaders toiling on their way to Jerusalem--gazing with stolid wonder at the marching columns in a costume so strange, with bare knees, white sporrans, and kilts of dark-green tartan waving at every step; while on the hot and breathless air there was borne towards him the hoarse and shrill music of the pipes--the same wild music that, eighty years before, woke the echoes of the Pyramids and of the streets of Grand Cairo.

But what land in the world has not echoed to their music?

All our soldiers were more or less full of enthusiasm--anxious to get at Arabi--to grapple with the enemy, 'and get the business over,' as they phrased it; though it is doubtful if they quite believed in Sir Garnet Wolseley's apparently boastful prediction that the war would be ended by the 16th of that month, September.

In the exuberance of their spirits, many chorussed merrily when the pipes ceased, which was seldom, lilting as, a writer says, only 'the song-loving Scots' can do, as in the days when their country was redolent of song, when the milk-maid sang some old chant to her cows in field or byre, when the house-wife span at her ingle-neuk, when the reapers filled the harvest-field with melody, and the ploughman in winter when he turned the glistening furrows over the lea.

And now and anon the Bedouin scouts would wheel their horses round and vanish ere our cavalry could reach them to bear to Tel-el-Kebir the terrible tidings, as some said, 'that devils in petticoats' were coming, and, as others asserted, 'devils with beards down to their knees.'

Every man had one hundred rounds of ball-cartridge and his bottle filled with water from the Canal, called by the soldiers jocularly 'Egyptian soup,' from its hue and quality; thus a ration of rum, when it was served out, proved very acceptable, though some there were who did not much affect the cold tea, and Allan could not help smiling at a little argument that ensued between Corporal MacSnish of his company and one of the Scripture-readers, who, to their honour, be it said, kept up with the troops, went under fire with them, and after the conflict did all in their power to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded.

'Don't grumble, corporal,' said the Scripture-reader, 'though I know it is a soldier's privilege. He who paints the lilies of the field and feeds the sparrow will supply all you want.'

'Oich, I hope so, whateffer; but a corporal of the Black Watch is worth a good many sparrows, I can tell you, and as for the cold tea--ugh!'

'Better for you than all the liquor in the world, my man,' said the Scripture-reader.

'Even the worst whusky, whateffer, would be better to my mind; and we have Scripture for it that we should not drink water alone.'

'Indeed!' said the reader, doubtfully.

'Yes,' urged the corporal, who knew his Bible well; 'are we not told in Maccabees, chapter xv. and verse 39, that "it is hurtful to drink wine or water alone, as wine mingled with water is pleasant and delighteth the taste?"'

'For all that,' replied the Scripture-reader, 'I agree with Sir Garnet that water is alone the drink for man.'

'Yet the only man that Holy Writ records as ever asking for it, didn't get it.'

'Who was _he_?'

'Dives, and we all know where _he_ was then. Scripture again!' said the corporal, with a smirk on his sharp Highland face, and thinking he had decidedly the best of the argument.

During a mid-day halt on this march, some of the troops constructed out of blankets and rifles with fixed bayonets erections like gipsy tents, to shelter them from the blazing heat of the sun, and a singular kind of encampment they presented.

With ship biscuits and tinned meat and some brandy to flavour their cold tea, Allan Graham, Cameron, Carslogie, and some other officers of the corps made themselves as comfortable as they could under shelter of their impromptu tents, and many were even jolly, especially Carslogie, who was rather a noisy and irrepressible fellow.

Stretched on the sand with his tropical helmet tilted back on his head, he drank his 'cold tea,' as he called it, though it was stiff half-and-half grog, and proffered his cigar-case to all.

'Isn't this jolly!' he exclaimed. 'Instead of this, we might have been out in the blazing open.'

Then he struck up a verse of a song to the air of the 'Garb of Old Gaul,' and composed by an anonymous writer, though he hinted it was Mr. John Bright:--

'They talk of a good time, when warfare shall cease,
And the nations hobnob o'er a big pipe of peace,
And the lion and the lamb in auriferous mead
On bills of exchange in beatitude feed.
But keep your powder dry, my boys, and keep your bayonets keen;
The world can't do without us yet, nor will it soon, I ween!
Then stern and true, where work's to do, we'll do it as we can,
And shoulder to shoulder still march in the van!'

'The good time predicted seems a long way off yet,' he added, with a sigh, to find that the last of his grog was gone, for after a hot morning's march it was, as he said, 'quite a Sybaritish luxury.' 'Well, well, a little time will find us face to face with Arabi, and we shall exchange the fleshpots of Egypt for those of the old country.'

This was the 11th of September, and the march was resumed at five in the evening for the head-quarters at Kassassin, where the column found its tents pitched. Allan shared his with Cameron, and, like their comrades, they proceeded to make themselves as comfortable as they could; but it soon became known that on the morrow the Highland Brigade was to lead in the night attack upon the formidable entrenchments of Arabi Pasha at Tel-el-Kebir.

'The last bugle some of us may ever hear will sound at six to-morrow evening,' said Allan, as he and Cameron, after a picnic kind of repast, lay on the floor of the tent and smoked their Havanas, with their jackets open, and minus collars and ties, for the evening was hot then, though cold and dew came together the moment the sun went down, and then there was no light in the tent save those of the stars.

'Listen to Carslogie singing in his tent; no sombre reflections seem to come to him,' said Cameron.

'Some of us, of course, will lose the number of our mess, as the sailors say,' said Allan again, after a pause.

'Well, it is not a cheerful thought, Allan,' said Cameron; 'but life is not particularly rosy with me just now, so I am just the fellow to have a charmed one when under fire again to-morrow.'

'There is a history in all men's lives, Cameron, it is said. Well, there is a devil of a lot in mine--more than I care for.'

'You have long seemed rather low in spirit.'

'I have reason,' replied Allan, while that inexpressible longing to talk of himself and his sorrows, which seizes upon men now and then, came upon him, and he related to Cameron the whole story of his engagement with his cousin, his doubts and fears--the intrusions and outrageous insults put upon them both by Hawke Holcroft, who seemed to wield some degrading and mysterious power once--a power that was ended now; 'and,' he added, after his narrative was ended, 'I trust under heaven never to look upon her false fair face again!'

Cameron heard his strange story in silent amazement.

'Can all this not be explained?' he asked.

'I want no explanation; I have been degraded enough,' replied Allan, bitterly.

Cameron, strangely enough, had never, as yet, even to his early friend and comrade, made any reference to what the latter fully knew--his love for Eveline: and never once had her name escaped him during the long voyage in the Nepaul from Woolwich to Ismailia, nor even on the march towards the enemy.

Poor Cameron had thought, what was the use of speaking of that matter now, when all was hopeless--all over, and for ever, between them? But now, encouraged or melted by Allan Graham's new confidence in himself, he said,

'With reference to the risks we run tomorrow, I am glad that I set my house in order, did so, indeed, before we marched from Edinburgh.'

'How?'

'About Stratherroch, or what remains of it.'

'In what way, Evan?'

We must all die sooner or later--a soldier sooner, perhaps, than a civilian; so by will, if aught happens to me--I have left the old place--tower and hill, wood, glen, and water, to--to Eveline--I mean to Lady Paget.'

'Good heavens! To Eveline!' exclaimed Allan, his face full of a surprise that was unseen in the starlight and darkened bell tent.'

'Yes.'

'Have you no one else?'

'None save my brother Duncan, who has himself a large fortune--none whom I love as--as I love her,' added Cameron, in a very broken voice.

'Poor Evan! I always suspected--indeed, knew of it.'

'You did?'

'Yes, Evan.'

'And--and your sister.'

'She loved you.'

'My God!--yet was sacrificed to another.'

They wrung each other's hands in the dark, and both remained silent for a time, each full of his own thoughts, and in the gloom seeing nothing but the end of the other's cigar.

'Sir Paget is so rich that he will think little of Stratherroch, even when cleared of its heavy encumbrances,' said Evan.

'But he may think rather wrathfully of the donor, though I trust and hope he may never get it. And now, good-night, Evan. I have to parade the inlying picquet. Get some sleep if you can, old fellow--we'll need all our metal on the morrow.'

And Allan, taking his dirk and claymore, hurried away full of thought, for, if his friend really fell, this odd bequest of Stratherroch might compromise his sister with her elderly spouse, and it was impossible to make any change, circumstanced as they were then.

'It is said that "every man has a history, and that every man outlives it,"' thought Allan; 'I wonder how it will be with poor Evan and me. And now to parade the picquet, with that paragon of sergeant-majors, M'Neill. Picquets parade at sunset--here, however, the sun sets before we have time to think of it. But the fight to-morrow will be to Evan and me--for a time, at least--what opium was to De Quincey and the author of the "Ancient Mariner." Fool, fool, fool that I am, to think of _her_ here at all!'

He left Evan Cameron inspired by a mingled emotion of gratitude and satisfaction, for Evan now knew and felt certain that, had Eveline been in Allan's gift, she might have been his bride ere this; and with this conviction in his mind he strove to court sleep, while roused ever and anon, as in India, by the wild cry of the jackal.

Sir Garnet Wolseley had now come up, the brigade of guards also, and the whole strength of the British force was concentrated at Kassassin, the place of our cavalry victory, where our horse so gallantly charged and swept, sword in hand, through the brigades of Egyptian guns in the dark.

With the next day's dawn those officers, who, like the Master of Aberfeldie, Cameron, and others, advanced beyond a palm wood that grew near the camp, could distinctly see with their field-glasses, against the bright orange tint shed on the sky by the up-coming sun, the strong earthworks of Tel-el-Kebir crowning the hillocks, and manned by more than twenty thousand regular troops--the flower of the army of Arabi, who commanded them in person; and when the sun rose higher the infantry could be seen lining the trenches, with all their serried bayonets flashing in the sunshine.

Beyond these formidable earthworks the Egyptian camp could be seen in the distance spreading far away an almost unbroken line of tents, which, if they had all occupants, betokened the presence of a very great force indeed, as more than one reconnoitring officer remarked to another.

Many were full of disappointment lest there might be no fighting after all, as the preceding morning the sound of heavy firing had been heard in the rear of the Egyptian position, and there seemed a prospect of internal dissension facilitating a dissolution of the whole enemy's force.

Others more wisely suggested that Arabi was only practising his artillery to obtain the range in case his position was turned and attacked in the rear, though some asserted that the deep booming of the guns was too steady and continuous for mere practice of that nature.

The British troops had only a five days' reserve of provisions, but it was generally known that the country was rich and full of subsistence beyond the lines of Tel-el-Kebir, and that we would carry these no man under Wolseley doubted. Moreover, he had with him sixty of the finest pieces of cannon in the world.

The day passed on, and evening drew nigh, the eventful day of the 12th September, when every man was prepared to 'do or die!' Higher and higher beat every heart. At six p.m. the 'fall in' was sounded far along the lines, and quietly, as if upon parade at home, that stately soldier M'Neill, sergeant-major of the Black Watch, paraded and posted the markers for the various companies of his corps, 'dressing' them with his usual accuracy.

The orders were brief but emphatic. Perfect silence was to be maintained for the march, and, as the place was to be carried in grand old British style at the point of the bayonet, on no account was an order to load to be issued.

Each man carried a hundred rounds of ball with one day's provisions, and his tin water-bottle filled with cold tea. The tents were struck, and the baggage piled for conveyance to the rear, in case of a reverse, which no man thought possible.

The blood-red sun went swiftly down westward of the point of attack beyond Zagazig, darkness fell as swiftly over the desert and the triple lines of canal that flow between both Mahsameh and Abassa, and then our army, fourteen thousand strong, including foot, horse, and artillery, began in silence the midnight march for Tel-el-Kebir, the last march as it proved to many a brave young fellow.

As the regiment moved off, Allan thought of Evan Cameron's communication over-night, and an irrepressible regret and anxiety took possession of him, as he had an unaccountable presentiment that his friend was doomed to fall in the coming strife. Of himself he never thought at all.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.