Flying Legion

by George Allan England

  CHAPTER XXVII

  TOIL AND PURSUIT

  Before midnight the storm died with a suddenness even greater thanthat of its onset. Like a tangible flock of evil birds or of thespirits Victor Hugo has painted in _Les Djinns_, the sand-storm blewitself out to sea and vanished. The black sky opened its eyes ofstarlight, once again; gradually calm descended on the desert, and byan hour after midnight the steady east wind had begun to blow again.

  The "wolf's tail," or first gray streak of dawn along the horizon,found the Legion all astir. Lebon had long since been told of hisrescue; he and his lieutenant had embraced and had given each other along story--the enslaved man's story making Leclair's face white withrage, his heart a furnace of vengeance on all Islam.

  The Sheik, dimly understanding that these devils of Feringistan had bytheir super-magic overwhelmed him and his tribe with sleep-magicand storm-magic of the strongest, lay bound hand and foot, sullenlybrooding. No one could get a word from Abd el Rahman; not even Rrisa,who exhausted a wonderful vocabulary of imprecation on him, until theMaster sternly bade him hold his peace.

  A gaunt, sunken-eyed old hawk of the desert he lay there in the sand,unblinkingly defiant. Tortures and death, he felt, were to be hisportion; but with the stoicism of the barbarian he made no sound.What his thoughts were, realizing the loss of tribesmen, capture,despoilment of the Great Pearl Star, who could tell?

  A wondrous dawn, all mingled of scarlet, orange, and vivid yellows,with streaks of absinthe hue, burned up over the desert world. Itshowed _Nissr_ about as she had been the night before; for the simoomhad not thrashed up sea enough--offshore, as it had been--to break upthe partial wreck.

  The air-liner had, however, settled down a good deal in the sand,and had canted at a sharp angle to port. Her galleries, fuselage,and wings were heavily laden with sand that materially increased herweight; and to the casual eye she gave the impression of a bird whichnever again would soar on level wing.

  The major voiced discouragement, but no one shared it. Spirits werestill high, in spite of thirst and exhaustion, and of the lossesalready sustained in men and material. Lombardo and "Captain Alden"had patched up the wounded in rough, first-aid fashion; and they,in spite of pain, shared the elation of the others in the entirewiping-out of the Beni Harb.

  As soon as the light permitted operations to begin again, the Legiontrekked over to the Arabs' former lines. Nothing now remained to tellthem of the enemy, save here or there the flutter of a bit of burnousor _cherchia_ (head-dress), that fluttered from the white sand nowall ribbed in lovely scollops like the waves of a moveless sea. In onespot a naked brown arm and hand were projecting heavenward, out of thesand-ocean, as if in mute appeal to Allah.

  The Legionaries heaped sand on this grim bit of death, completelyburying it, and on the fluttering cloths. And as they peered abroadacross the desert, in the glory of morning, now nothing could be seento mind them of the fighting-men who, like the host of Sennacherib,had been brushed by the death-angel's wing.

  The jackals knew, though, and the skulking hyenas, alreadysneaking in the _nullahs_; and so did the _rion_ and the yellow_ukab_-birds--carrion-fowl, both--which already from the farthestblue, had begun to wheel and volplane toward the coast.

  Back on the beach, exultant, yet rather silent in the face of all thatdeath, the Legion at once got itself into action under the vigorouscommand of the Master. Twenty-three men were still fit and active forservice; and both Enemark and Lebon would in a few days be of help.

  "Man-power enough," thought the Master, as he laid out his campaign."The only troublesome factors, are, first, _Nissr's_ condition;second, our lack of water and supplies; and third, the possibility ofinterference from Arabs or European forces, by land or sea. If we canovercome all these--_if_, did I say? We can! We will!"

  First of all, three volunteers swam out to _Nissr_ through the surfnow again beating in from the open sea. Their purpose was to bring thewounded Kloof ashore. Even though Kloof's oversight of the stowawayhad wrecked the expedition, and though Kloof would probably beexecuted in due time, common humanity dictated succoring him.

  The volunteers returned, after a hard fight, with a body past anyhuman judgments. Kloof, Daimamoto, Sheffield, and Beziers, all ofwhom had lost their lives in the battle with the Beni Harb, weresoon buried on the beach by the hungry, thirsty, sand-penetratedLegionaries. The shallow graves were piled with driftwood--rocks therewere none, even in the wady, which' was of clay and gravel--and so,protected as best might be from beasts and birds, four of theLegion entered their long homes. The only ceremony over the fallenadventurers was the firing of a volley of six pistol-shots.

  Swiftly returning heat, and a plague of black flies that poisoned withevery bite, warned the Legionaries not to delay. Hunger and thirst,too, scourged them on. Their first care was food and drink.

  Fortune favored them. In spite of the simoom the prevailing westwind had cast up all along the shore--for two or three miles eachway--perhaps a quarter or a third of the stores they had been forcedto jettison. Before doing anything else, the Legion brought in thesecases of provisions and established a regular camp in the wady wherethey would be protected from observation from the Sahara. The pilingup of these stores, the building of a fire to keep off the flies,and the portioning out of what little tobacco they had with them,wonderfully stiffened their morale.

  Water, however, was still lacking; and all the Legionaries, as wellas the old Sheik who would have died in the flames before askingfor drink, were beginning to suffer extremely. The Master detailedSimonds, L'Heureux, and Seres to construct a still, which they did inonly a little more than three hours.

  The apparatus was ingeniously and efficiently built, out of two largeprovision tins and some piping which they got--together with a fewtools--by swimming out to the air-liner. The still, with a brisk fireunder it, proved capable of converting sea-water into flat, tastelessfresh water at the rate of two quarts an hour. Thirsty they mightall get, to desperation; but with this supply they could survive tillbetter could be had.

  While the distilling apparatus was being built, work was already underway on _Nissr_; work which old Abd el Rahman watched with beady eyesof hate; work in which Dr. Lombardo, fellow-partner in Kloof's guilt,was allowed to share--the condition being frankly stated to him thathis punishment was merely being deferred.

  Under the Master's direction, stout mooring-piles of driftwood weresunk into the dunes, block-and-tackle gear was improvised, and lineswere rove to the airship. She was lightened by shoveling several tonsof sand from her and by removing everything easily detachable; the menworking in baths of sweat, with a kind of ardent abandon.

  Enough power was still left in her storage-batteries to operate theair-pressure system through the floats. This air, with a huge boilingand seething of the white surf, loosened the floats from the cling ofthe sand; and a score of men at the tackles succeeded at high-tide inhauling _Nissr_ far up on the beach.

  Rough gear, broken ship, toiling men blind with sweat, blazing Africansun, appalling isolation, vultures and jackals at work behind thedunes, and--back of all--ocean and Sahara, made a picture fit for anymaster-painter. We must throw only one glance at it, and pass on.

  This much accomplished, nightfall, with the west glowing likea stupendous jewel, brought rest. They camped in the wady, withmachine-guns mounted and sentinels out. Abd el Rahman, liberated fromhis bonds and under strict surveillance, still refused to talk. Noinformation could be got from him; but Rrisa's eyes brightened withunholy joy at sight of the old man ceremonially tearing his burnousand sifting sand on his gray head.

  "Allah smite thy face, _ya kalb!_" (O dog!) he murmured. "Robber ofthe Haram, from Jehannum is thy body!"[1]

  [Footnote 1: Alluding to the Arab superstition that every man's bodyis drawn from the place where it will eventually be buried. Rrisa'sremark, therefore, was an Oriental way of wishing the Sheik back intoHell.]

  Night passed with no alarm, quietly save for the yelping andquarreling of the
jackals and hyenas at work beyond the dunes. Earlymorning found the Legionaries again at work; and so for five days theytoiled. The Legion was composed of picked men, skilled in science anddeep in technical wisdom. With what tools still remained from the timewhen all surplus weight had been jettisoned, and with some improvisedapparatus, they set vigorously to work repairing the engines, fittingnew rudder-plates, patching up the floats and providing the burnedpropellers with metal blades.

  Metal enough they had at hand, by cutting out dispensable partitionsfrom the interior. And beavers never worked as these men worked inspite of the fierce smitings of the tropic sun. Even the wounded menhelped, holding or passing tools. The Master labored with the rest,grimy, sweating, hard-jawed; and "Captain Alden" did her bit withouta moment's slackening. Save for Abd el Rahman, now securely lockedwithout any means of self-destruction in a stateroom, no man idled.

  Anxiety dogged their every moment. Sudden storm might yet hopelesslybreak up the stranded air-liner. Other tribes might have seen thesignal-fire and might descend upon the Legionaries. Arab slavers mightdiscover them, beating along the coast in well-armed dhows. Twice, infive days, latteen-sailed craft passed south, and one of these putin to investigate; but a tray of blanks from a machine-gun, at half amile, turned the invader's blunt nose seaward again.

  The greatest peril of all was that some news of the wreck might reachRio de Oro and be wirelessed to civilization. That would inevitablymean ruin. Either it would bring an air-squadron swooping down, orbattle-ships would arrive.

  The Master labored doggedly to get his neutralizing apparatuseffectively operating once more; and besides this, he spent hourslocked in his cabin, working on other apparatus the nature of whichhe communicated to no one. But the Legion knew that nothing couldsave them from long-range naval guns, if that kind of attack shoulddevelop. They needed no urging to put forth stern, unceasing energies.Twice smoke on the horizon raised the alarm; but nothing came of it.

  With great astuteness the Master had the wireless put in shape, atonce, and sent out three messages at random, on two successive days.These messages stated that _Nissr_ had been sighted in flames andfalling, in North latitude 19 deg., 35'; longitude 28 deg., 16', or about twohundred and fifty miles north-west of the Cape Verdes; that wreckagefrom her had been observed somewhat south of that point; and thatbodies floating in vacuum-belts had been recovered by a Spanishtorpedo-boat.

  No answer came in from any of these messages; but there was alwaysan excellent chance that such misinformation would drag a red herringacross the trail of pursuit.

  Men never slaved as the Legionaries did, especially toward the end.The last forty-eight hours, the Master instituted night work. The menpaused hardly long enough to eat or sleep, but snatched a bite whenthey could, labored till they could do no more, and then dropped intheir places and were dragged out of the way so that others couldtake hold. Some fell asleep with tools in hand, stricken down as if byapoplexy.

  The Master had wisely kept the pace moderate, at first, but hadspeeded up toward the end. None grew more haggard, toil-worn, oremaciated than he. With blistered hands, sweat-blinded eyes, parchedmouths and fevered souls these men fought against all the odds ofdestiny. Half naked they strove, oppressed by heat, sun, flies,thirst, exhaustion. Tobacco was their only stay and solace. TheMaster, however, only chewed khat leaves; and as for "Captain Alden,"she toiled with no stimulant.

  It was 7:33, on the morning of the sixth day, that Frazier--now chiefengineer--came to the Master, as he was working over some complex bitof mechanism in his cabin. Frazier saluted and made announcement:

  "I think we can make a try for it now, sir." Frazier looked white andwan, shaking, hollow-eyed, but a smile was on his lips. "Two enginesare intact. Two will run half-speed or a little better, and one willdo a little."

  "One remains dead?"

  "Yes, sir. But we can repair that on the way. Rudders and propellerswill do. Helicopters O.K."

  "And floats?"

  "Both aft floats repaired, sir. One is cut down a third, and one ahalf, but they will serve."

  "How about petrol?" the Master demanded. "We have only that one aftstarboard tank, now, not over three-quarters full."

  "There's a chance that will do till we can run down a caravan alongthe Red Sea, carrying petrol to Suakin or Port Sudan. So there's afighting hope--if we can raise ourselves out of this sand that clingslike the devil himself. It's lucky, sir, we jettisoned those stores.Wind and current brought some of them back, anyhow. If they'd stayedin the storeroom they'd have all been burned to a crisp."

  "Yes, yes. You think, then, we can make a start?" The Master put hisapparatus into the desk-drawer and carefully locked it. He stood upand tightened his belt a notch.

  "We can try, sir," Frazier affirmed grimly. Unshaven, haggard, dirty,and streaked with sweat, he made a strange figure by contrast with thetrim, military-looking chap who only a week before had started withthe other Legionaries, now no less altered than he.

  "Very well," said the Master decisively. "Our prospects are good. Thewounded are coming on. Counting Lebon, we have twenty-five men. Iwill have all stores reloaded at once. Be ready in one hour, sir.Understand?"

  "Yes, sir!" And Frazier, saluting again, returned to the ravaged butonce more efficient engine-room.

  All hands plunged into the surf, wading ashore--for it was nowhigh-tide--and in short order reloaded the liner. In forty-fiveminutes stores, machine-guns, and everything had been brought aboard,the cables to the posts in the beach had been cast off and hauled in,and all the Legionaries were at their posts. The ports were closed.Everything was ready for the supreme test.

  The Master was last to come aboard. Still dripping seawater, heclambered up the ladder from the lower gallery to the main corridor,and made his way into the pilot-house. Bohannan was with him, alsoLeclair and Captain Alden.

  The engines had already been started, and the helicopters had begunto turn, flickering swiftly in their turbine-tubes. The Master settledhimself in the pilot's seat. All at once a buzzer sounded close athand.

  "Well, what now?" demanded the Master into the phone communicatingwith the upper port gallery.

  "Smoke to southward, sir. Coming up along the Coast."

  "Smoke? A steamer?"

  "Can't see, sir." It was the voice of Ferrara that answered. "Thesmoke is behind the long point to southward. But it is coming fasterthan a merchant vessel. I should say, sir, it was a torpedo-boat or adestroyer, under forced draft. And it's coming--it's coming at a devilof a clip, sir!"