The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes

by Sterling E. Lanier

  "There was still light enough to see one another quite well, and some contempt or something must have shown on my face. His mouth shut like a trap and he swung away down the slope. Over his shoulder he called back, 'We have rested long enough and we must keep moving. Otherwise we will miss the English ship.'

  "I couldn't argue that, so we went down, unhobbled the camels and set off over the dunes again. The daylight was now very dim and the blazing stars of the tropics were clearly visible. On our right the Indian Ocean lapped al the pebbles, and aside from the shuffle of our camels and the creak of our leather gear, this was the only sound. We could see well enough to ride if we didn't move too fast, and as the night came on the stars gave us quite decent visibility.

  "Every so often and with increasing frequency, we came to one of the marshy, ill-smelling wadis, or gullies, sloping down from the hills, and I soon noticed that Moussa gave these as wide a berth as possible. I knew that I must always follow him, because he knew the country and I didn't, but when we finally waded the camels out knee-deep into the ocean to avoid one of these little estuaries, I asked him what he thought he was doing.

  " 'Be silent!' he said in a carrying whisper, whipping around in his saddle. I could see the whites of his eyes clearly. 'If you make any more sound, I will forget my oath and leave you here. We are in deadly danger, and because you are stupid we will die if we are not careful. Now—silence!' He turned and urged his beast on.

  "This was a new Moussa with a vengeance! No 'S'ayyid' and a threat to leave me flat in addition. I made up my mind to have it out with Master Moussa at a later date, but meanwhile I kept my mouth shut and followed.

  "Now in the silence that followed, I suddenly became aware of something new. Moussa and most other desert Arabs I ever met could beat me all hollow at seeing things far away. I reckon our civilized noses aren't worth much either, and again he could catch scents I couldn't begin to detect. But his ears were curiously inefficient, compared to mine. I've noticed this before among other various folk who live out of doors, notably in West Africa, and I have no idea why, but it's a fact nonetheless.

  "I heard something now and I didn't much care for it either. It was a curious padding and scuffling noise, and it seemed to come from our left where the land rose. At first it seemed near, then farther away, then closer again. We were riding at a slow trot over the gentle sea face of the sand dunes, and I finally caught on to just what I was hearing.

  "Some thing, or things, was moving parallel to us along the other side of the line of dunes, and the slight variation in the height of the dunes made for the difference in the sound.

  "I looked at Moussa's back, but even though it appeared tense, I knew somehow he couldn't hear what I could. What should be done, I wondered?

  "Finally, I urged my camel alongside his to get his attention quietly. As he looked up in surprise, I pointed to my ears and made a motion of someone walking or running with my fingers. Then I pointed to our left, to the crest of the dunes. The starlight was so bright that it was easy for him to see what I was doing.

  "He caught on at once and his face went all drawn and taut while his mouth opened in an 'o' of surprise. Then he unslung his rifle in one motion and laid it across his saddlebow. He took out his pistol and jammed that in his cartridge belt and motioned to me to do the same. Next, he waved me around him so that I rode on the ocean side, but next to him. All this was done without our camels breaking stride, and I was beginning to get a bit shaken.

  "He angled our line of march down off the dunes onto the pebbly strand itself and even further, so that the camels were running almost in the calm water itself. They had speeded up, by the way, and we were now moving at a pretty fair clip. They were well-trained camels and the hour's rest had done them good.

  "I could hear nothing now, because the splash of their feet in the water made too much noise, but I felt sure we were not out of danger. Soon I saw the reason why. Up ahead, the dunes suddenly got very low and then for a space vanished. This flat lasted about half a mile, and then the dunes resumed again. A wave of fetid odor told me we were coming to yet another tidal marsh where still another wadi led to the sea.

  "The camels were running ankle-deep now, and any deeper would have slowed them badly. We were in the best possible position to meet whatever was pacing us, and as the last dune halted abruptly, I got my first sight of it, or rather, them.

  "A line of lean dark figures, perhaps a score or more, erupted over the crest of the white dune and poured down the face of it in our direction. In a second, they were out on the flat and coming after us like race horses. And they were men! The starlight showed their long legs clearly as they ran, in tremendous, leaping strides. By heavens, I had no idea men could run like that, and, mind you, I'd seen Masai and Shilluk warriors, both supposed to be tops in that field. They came on in utter silence, what's more, and Arabs would have been yelling like the devil by now. Also, desert Arabs don't like fighting at night, and won't if they can help it.

  "Moussa beat his camel and mine, too, with his goad, and we went on at a fine pace over the sea's edge, but behind us those dark figures got more and more distinct in the starlight.

  "In a pinch, you couldn't find better than Moussa. Not all Arabs can shoot, but a lot can, and he was one. He spun on his saddle and began snapping his Enfield off like a veteran. I saw one runner go down, but the rest came on. Then he hit another, who veered off into the water and fell with a mighty splash, and they seemed to check for a moment. By this time, Ed made up my mind whatever they were, they certainly were no Arabs for they were naked or almost so, and I really could see no clothes of any sort at all.

  "Moussa reloaded in the saddle and we thundered on. The dunes had reappeared again, but our enemies weren't taking cover, but coming on right behind us once more, and once more they were gaining. Such running I simply could not believe.

  " 'S'ayyid,' yelled Moussa, 'the camels can't last at this speed. How far to the ship-meeting place?'

  "Now Ed been devoting a lot of thought to just that, and I felt sure it wasn't much farther. Ed been checking a pedometer at intervals, and it works on camel-back, you know; and with that and a certain landmark, a small island now visible off the coast, I knew we were only about two miles or so away. Of course, if the boat wasn't there...!

  "Actually, it was quite a narrow squeak, what with one thing and another. Ed hauled out my big torch from the saddlebag and started blinking it like mad in an SOS aimed out to sea. Moussa was shooting again, really browning the lot, I suppose, but I couldn't see, being busy with the light. What a chase! And still not one bloody sound out of those beggars. If it hadn't been for the rifle, it all could have been a bad dream.

  "My camel gave way suddenly with no warning at all. The poor brute had done its best, and it collapsed kicking and threw me over its head into the shallows. As I flew through the air, I kept thinking to myself, don't let the pistol go, and I managed to hold it as I hit in about three feet of water. It was a big 'broom handle' Mauser automatic, and as I staggered erect, three of them were on me, coming through the shallows like Olympic sprinters.

  "I blinked the salt out of my eyes, flipped the change lever to full auto and sprayed all three until the magazine was empty.

  "I downed them all, but one got his hand on my arm and pulled me under with him. I pulled free of the body as the grip relaxed and there was Moussa and his camel beside me.

  " 'Get up behind me quick,' he called, and believe me, I did. He was still shooting over my head, but then his shots stopped as I mounted, and by the time I'd hauled myself up, the night was quiet again. As we sat in the shallow water, watching and listening, I could hear the MTB's engines as it swept in to meet us, and in another minute a searchlight beam had picked us out. We shot Moussa's camel, nothing else to do, and left the area in a great hurry. I wasn't sorry to see the last of it.

  "You see, the flash of my pistol had lit up my attackers all too clearly. They were about seven feet tall, stark naked, hai
rless and covered with minute blackish scales. In addition, their mouths were full of needle-like fangs, and they only had two holes where a nose ought to be. Their hands had long, sharp claws on the fingers, which I can demonstrate."

  No one said a word as Ffellowes removed first his coat and his left cuff link and finally rolled up his sleeve. There on his inner elbow were four savage white wheals, obviously done a long time ago.

  "Yes," he went on, "if anyone wants to look for Pleistocene man in California, good luck to him. I rather fancy I've seen Paleozoic Man, and that's quite enough of a leftover for me, thank you. Someone else can find the others."

  Even Williams could think of nothing to say.

  -

  A FEMININE JURISDICTION

  The evening talk in the club library had reached (or descended to—it's all in the point of view) the subject of women. Not sex. Older men are perfectly capable of discussing sex of course, but women are far more interesting to an experienced, intelligent man. Here we are, sharing the planet with what is another species really, and yet we still don't know how they think! Incredible!

  The subdivision, you could call it, of the current conversation, was "executive women," or "business women," but really what was meant was women running things that men normally do or holding jobs men have always held in the past.

  Mason Williams was in his usual noisy, if not good, form. He told a long story about some woman in a brokerage office who had annoyed him by doing something or other she shouldn't. Williams is a bore and the story was both interminable and completely uninteresting. Several of us were openly yawning before it mercifully ended.

  Yet oddly enough, the anecdote, dull and trite though it was, struck a response among a number of others present. A quiet guy named Callahan, a lawyer, spoke up quite vigorously for more women's rights and said that very few women ever got a decent break in any profession. I personally have always felt this was true in my business (I'm a retired banker) and chipped in a few examples of how I'd known capable women who got "new" titles and drastically lowered salaries to do exactly the same work as the men they were replacing.

  Of the ten or so present, we were finally all talked out on the subject. Except, that is, for Donald Ffellowes, our retired British Brigadier. (He always corrected anyone who said 'Brigadier General.') There is no one more worth listening to on any subject. His commission was supposed to have been in the Royal Artillery, but his experiences ranged from the Colonial Police to MI-5 to the R.A.F. I mean he'd been everywhere. He had a liking for obsolete American slang and he'd say "I've seen the elephant and heard the owl." A lot of his stories were absolutely wild and almost unbelievable.

  A few anti-British types, like Mason Williams, said he was a liar and a fake, but I noticed they never left once he'd started talking or telling a story.

  Anyway, he'd been sitting, saying nothing about women or anything else, and finally it became obvious that he was the only one left who hadn't said anything. We sort of looked at him and he suddenly looked up and blinked, as if he'd been a long way off, in time and space.

  "Let us see," he said, "the subject was, or is, women as executives, eh? That is, women running things, and especially men; supervising or ordering them about, as it were. Is that it? And you are good enough to ask my opinions on the matter?"

  Williams mumbled something mostly inaudible in which I caught the word "Limeys," but no one paid any attention, especially Ffellowes. This annoyed Williams more than anything else, by the way.

  "To be frank," said Ffellowes, "I feel that much of what has been said this evening rather begs the question—evades it, don't you know.

  "You see," he went on, his ruddy, smooth-shaven face calm and reflective, "women are perfectly constructed, mentally, physically and spiritually for certain things. They possess, in my opinion, and that of others such as Kipling, a quality of stark ruthlessness which is an outgrowth of the maternal defense mechanism."

  He stared moodily at his Scotch and soda as if seeking inspiration, took a hearty gulp and continued.

  "But constructive imagination on a large scale is perhaps not their long suit. They don't usually innovate well, to coin a barbarism, and once they find a comfortable or accustomed pattern of living, they are very reluctant indeed to change it. Did any of you married chaps ever have an easy time getting the wife to move to another area? (None of us knew whether Ffellowes himself was married and no one liked to ask.)

  "As the Benedicts grinned in response to his question, he took up the thread of his theory again.

  "As I see it, then, one can't say women are suitable for this and that position, unless one knows both the woman concerned and the position concerned very well indeed. Some women such as Elizabeth the First and Catherine of Russia have made admirable rulers. Still, I think a continuous matriarchy is not a good thing, really. It tends to, well, freeze in a mold, allowing no change to occur, and in nature, that sort of thing is quite unnatural."

  He looked reflective again, and then said a funny thing.

  "To make a very unpleasant pun, 'freeze' is exactly the word I wanted to use. Matriarchies are bad things in the long run and when there is an element of something else added, the situation is compounded for the worse. Much the worse.

  "Now I once encountered a situation of this sort. Would you like to hear a story?" He knew us all pretty well by now and didn't wait long before starting.

  "In May of 1941, the Germans had completely overrun Greece. I had been sent over by Wavell's intelligence people since I speak Demotic—modern—Greek to do a spot of resistance preparation. It was obvious to all of us, except Winston apparently, that we couldn't hold the Panzers back, even though we'd stripped North Africa to do it, and some farsighted blokes decided to help set up a guerrilla network in advance.

  "It was an excellent idea and we did good work. But the Jerries moved one hell of a lot faster than even the most pessimistic of us had thought possible. Instead of taking a leisurely departure through channels laid on in advance, I had to run like hell and trust to luck, if I weren't to be snaffled and stuck in some ghastly stalag.

  "Well, I got to the coast and found the last of the Royal Navy had just left. With another chap, a Greek intelligence wallah whom we badly needed and whom I'd been guarding, among other things, I located a small motor-driven caique, a Greek fishing boat, and we shoved off for Crete.

  "I had kept a pretty useful radio with us and I raised our people in Crete easily at night. They told us to keep off and as you say here, 'get lost,' because Student's crack Fallschirmjager division was dropping out of every plane and Crete itself was obviously a short hop from a total loss.

  "I told our Greek crew, who were all three good men, and we took new bearings for the Southeast. Perhaps we could work our way into the Sporades and Cyprus if our luck held. We had providentially put lots of fuel aboard and could go a long way, if at not too fast a pace. We wore Greek civvies in the hope no Messerschmidt pilot would think us worth strafing.

  "Our luck held exactly ten hours, and then a perfectly ghastly Aegean gale blew up out of Asia, driving at us from the Northeast. We were somewhere north of Denusa and were driven southwest at a furious rate, really fighting to just stay afloat. This seemed to go on all night but lasted about five hours, much of it spent submerged, to one degree or another under cold salt water.

  "Sometime around six in the morning, when the spume and murk was coming a bit alight, we hit something, a rock one supposes, very, very hard. The little caique, which had really behaved admirably, just burst asunder and we were all in the sea in seconds.

  "The three sailors must have drowned. At any rate, I'm sorry to say I never saw or heard of them again. God bless them, they did their level best for us.

  "But my Greek officer and I survived, both by chance seizing opposite ends of an empty wooden crate which had been lashed to the deck and which had come loose intact. The weather was so bad and black, spray and all, that it was quite a while before each of us saw that
the other was hanging on to the same object.

  "This seems as good a time as any to mention my charge, the Greek army captain. His name was Constantine Murusi, called Connie by everyone, and he was one of the really old and true Greek nobility, a descendant of the Phanariot princes who ruled the Balkans under the Turks for hundreds of years. A delightful man, humorous and charming, he was educated in France and spoke a dozen languages. He was steeped in the legends and history of Greece and could make its antiquity come alive for me as no professor ever did. The Greek army thought the world of him and I'd been told by my chief to take very good care of him, since he was slated for high command in the near future.

  "Well, I had not gotten him killed at this point, but that was about all that could be said for my care. We were unable to do much except cling to our crate, fortunately a sturdy one, and pray, as we were buffeted by spray and pounded by heavy seas. Little by little, the weather was lightening, and finally our range of vision allowed us to actually see one another clearly. Connie grinned at me and even managed to gesture in a feeble way and I tried to smile back. The force was going out of the waves but we were exhausted and very cold and I knew that it was only a matter of time until I simply couldn't hang on any longer.