The Green Flag | Page 2

and when their officers
have dashed to the front with a wave and halloo, those rebel hearts have
softened and their gallant Celtic blood has boiled with the mad Joy of
the fight, until the slower Britons have marvelled that they ever could
have doubted the loyalty of their Irish comrades. So it would be again,
according to the officers, and so it would not be if Dennis Conolly and
a few others could have their way.
It was a March morning upon the eastern fringe of the Nubian desert.
The sun had not yet risen, but a tinge of pink flushed up as far as the
cloudless zenith, and the long strip of sea lay like a rosy ribbon across
the horizon. From the coast inland stretched dreary sand-plains, dotted
over with thick clumps at mimosa scrub and mottled patches of thorny
bush. No tree broke the monotony of that vast desert. The dull, dusty
hue of the thickets, and the yellow glare of the sand, were the only
colours, save at one point, where, from a distance, it seemed that a
land-slip of snow-white stones had shot itself across a low foot-hill. But
as the traveller approached he saw, with a thrill, that these were no
stones, but the bleaching bones of a slaughtered army. With its dull
tints, its gnarled, viprous bushes, its arid, barren soil, and this death
streak trailed across it, it was indeed a nightmare country.
Some eight or ten miles inland the rolling plain curved upwards with a
steeper slope until it ran into a line of red basaltic rock which zigzagged
from north to south, heaping itself up at one point into a fantastic knoll.
On the summit of this there stood upon that March morning three Arab
chieftains--the Sheik Kadra of the Hadendowas, Moussa Wad

Aburhegel, who led the Berber dervishes, and Hamid Wad Hussein,
who had come northward with his fighting men from the land of the
Baggaras. They had all three just risen from their praying-carpets, and
were peering out, with fierce, high-nosed faces thrust forwards, at the
stretch of country revealed by the spreading dawn.
The red rim of the sun was pushing itself now above the distant sea,
and the whole coast-line stood out brilliantly yellow against the rich
deep blue beyond. At one spot lay a huddle of white-walled houses, a
mere splotch in the distance; while four tiny cock-boats, which lay
beyond, marked the position of three of Her Majesty's 10,000-ton
troopers and the admiral's flagship. But it was not upon the distant town,
nor upon the great vessels, nor yet upon the sinister white litter which
gleamed in the plain beneath them, that the Arab chieftains gazed. Two
miles from where they stood, amid the sand-hills and the mimosa scrub,
a great parallelogram had been marked by piled-up bushes. From the
inside of this dozens of tiny blue smoke-reeks curled up into the still
morning air; while there rose from it a confused deep murmur, the
voices of men and the gruntings of camels blended into the same insect
buzz.
"The unbelievers have cooked their morning food," said the Baggara
chief, shading his eyes with his tawny, sinewy hand. "Truly their sleep
has been scanty; for Hamid and a hundred of his men have fired upon
them since the rising of the moon."
"So it was with these others," answered the Sheik Kadra, pointing with
his sheathed sword towards the old battle-field. "They also had a day of
little water and a night of little rest, and the heart was gone out of them
ere ever the sons of the Prophet had looked them in the eyes. This blade
drank deep that day, and will again before the sun has travelled from
the sea to the hill."
"And yet these are other men," remarked the Berber dervish. "Well, I
know that Allah has placed them in the clutch of our fingers, yet it may
be that they with the big hats will stand firmer than the cursed men of
Egypt."

"Pray Allah that it may be so," cried the fierce Baggara, with a flash of
his black eyes. "It was not to chase women that I brought 700 men from
the river to the coast. See, my brother, already they are forming their
array."
A fanfare of bugle-calls burst from the distant camp. At the same time
the bank of bushes at one side had been thrown or trampled down, and
the little army within began to move slowly out on to the plain. Once
clear of the camp they halted, and the slant rays of the sun struck
flashes from bayonet and from gun-barrel as the ranks closed up until
the big pith helmets joined into a single long white ribbon. Two streaks
of scarlet