Memories and Adventures

The Storm Centre – To the Frontier – Assouan – Excited Offi cers – With the Press Men – A Long Camel Ride – Night Marches – Halfa – Gwynne of the “Morning Post” – Anley – A Sudden Voyage – Apricots and Rousseau.

I approached the proper authority, and so within a day or two I was duly appointed and everything was in order.

With a light khakI coat, riding breeches, a small valise, and the usual Christmas tree hung round me, I started off from Cairo by train to Assiout, where a small river boat was waiting. It was fi lled with offi cers going to the front, and we had a pleasant few days journeying to Assouan together. There were, I remember, several junior offi cers who have since made names in the world, Maxwell (now General Sir John Maxwell) and Hickman, who also rose to the top. There was a young cavalry lieutenant also, one Smythe, who seemed to me to be too gentle and quiet for such rough work as lay ahead. The next time I heard of him was when he was ga­zetted for the Victoria Cross. In soldiering there is nothing more deceptive than appearances. Your fi erce, truculent man may always have a yellow streak where the gentle student has a core of steel. There lay one of the many mistakes which the Germans made later in judging those “unwarlike islanders” the British.

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The relations between these offi cers and their men were paternal. If an offi cer of black troops came to Cairo he would go back with a pillow case stuffed with candies for his men. The Egyptians were more inscrutable, less sporting and less lovable, but none the less their offi cers were very loyal to them, and bitterly resented the distrust shown by the rest of the army. One British offi cer at some early battle seized the enemy’s fl ag and cried: “Well, the English shall not have this anyhow.” It is this spirit, whether in Egypt or in India, which

makes the British offi cer an ideal leader of native troops. Even at the great Indian Mutiny they would not hear a word against their men until they were murdered by them.

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The big pressmen had now arrived – “Where the carcass is there shall the eagles, etc.” – and I had luckily made friends with them, so it was determined that we should all go on to­gether. There were fi ve of us who started out, led by Knight of

the “Falcon,” representing “The Times,” and looking not un­like a falcon himself. He was a great man, tall and muscular, a famous yachtsman and treasure-seeker, traveller, fi ghter and scholar. He had just left the French in Madagascar. Next came Scudamore of the “Daily News,” small, Celtic, mercurial, full of wit and go. He was a great purchaser of camels, which were of course all paid for by the paper, so that when Robinson, the editor of the “Daily News,” heard of the Boer war his fi rst comment was, “Well, thank God, there are no camels in South Africa.” It was a study in Eastern ways to see Scudamore buying camels, and I learned from him how it is done. An Arab leads up the absurd-looking creature. You look deprecatingly at the beast – and you cannot take a better model than the creature’s own expression as it looks at you. You ask how much is wanted for it. The owner says £16. You then give a shriek of derision, sweep your arm across as if to wave him and his camel out of your sight for ever, and turning with a whisk you set off rapidly in the other direction. How far you go depends upon the price asked. If it is really very high, you may not get back for your dinner. But as a rule a hundred yards or so meet the case, and you shape your course so as to reach the camel and its owner. You stop in front of them and look at them with a disinter­ested and surprised look to intimate that you wonder that they should still be loitering there. The Arab asks how much you will give. You answer £8. Then it is his turn to scream, whisk round, and do his hundred yards, his absurd chattel with its horn-pipey legs trotting along behind him. But he returns to say that he will take fourteen, and off you go again with a howl

use them as an escort, but we thought we would be happier on our own, and so we managed to lose the Egyptians. There was some risk in our lonely journey along the right bank of the river with our left fl ank quite unprotected, but on the other hand the dust of a great body of horsemen would be insuffer­able. Therefore we set forth one evening, mounted upon our camels, with baggage camels in attendance, and quite a retinue of servants. In four or fi ve days we reached Korosko, where we got boats which took us to the frontier at Wady Halfa, while the camels and servants came on by land.

I shall never forget those days, or rather those nights, for we rose at two in the morning and our longest march was be­fore or during the dawn. I am still haunted by that purple vel­vet sky, by those enormous and innumerable stars, by the half­moon which moved slowly above us, while our camels with their noiseless tread seemed to bear us without effort through a wonderful dream world. Scudamore had a beautiful rolling baritone voice, and I can still hear it in my memory as it rose and fell in the still desert air. It was a wonderful vision, an in­termezzo in real life, broken only once by my performing the unusual feat of falling off a camel. I have taken many tosses off horses, but this was a new experience. You have no proper saddle, but are seated upon a curved leather tray, so that when my brute suddenly threw himself down on his fore-knees – he had seen some green stuff on the path – I shot head foremost down his neck. It was like coming down a hose pipe in some acrobatic performance, and I reached the ground rather sur­prised but otherwise none the worse.

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or danger, so I said nothing, but I managed to stir one of my companions, who sighted the newcomer with a muttered “My God!” The man rode past us and on northwards, never glanc­ing at our grove. I have no doubt that he was really one of our own native tribesmen, for we had some in our pay; but had he been the other thing our fate would have been sealed. I wrote a short story, “The Three Correspondents,” which was suggested by the incident.

Haifa lies also at the base of a cataract, and again all the stuff had to be transhipped and sent on 30 miles by a little track to Sarras. I walked the fi rst day to the small station where the track began, and I saw a tall offi cer in a white jacket and red tar­boosh, who with a single orderly was superintending the work and watching the stores pass into the trucks. He turned a fi erce red face upon me, and I saw that it was Kitchener himself, the Commander of the whole army. It was characteristic of the man that he did not leave such vital things to chance, or to the as­surance of some subordinate, but that he made sure so far as he could with his own eyes that he really had the tools for the job that lay before him. Learning who I was – we had met once be­fore on the racecourse at Cairo – he asked me to dinner in his tent that night, when he discussed the coming campaign with