Quite dead, there returned not only
cultivators, craftsmen, and artisans, but outlandish men of war, scarred
with old wounds and the generous dimples that the Martini-Henry bullet
used to deal - fighting men on the lookout for new employ. They would
hang about, first on one leg, then on the other, proud or uneasily
friendly, till some white officer circulated near by. And at his fourth
or fifth passing, brown and white having approved each other by eye, the
talk - so men say - would run something like this:
OFFICER (with air of sudden discovery). Oh, you by the hut, there,
what is your business?
WARRIOR (at 'attention' complicated by attempt to salute). I am
So-and-So, son of So-and-So, from such and such a place.
OFFICER. I hear. And ...?
WARRIOR (repeating salute). And a fighting man also.
OFFICER (impersonally to horizon). But they all say that nowadays.
WARRIOR (very loudly). But there is a man in one of your battalions
who can testify to it. He is the grandson of my father's uncle.
OFFICER (confidentially to his boots). Hell is quite full of such
grandsons of just such father's uncles; and how do I know if Private
So-and-So speaks the truth about his family? (Makes to go.)
WARRIOR (swiftly removing necessary garments). Perhaps. But these
don't lie. Look! I got this ten, twelve years ago when I was quite a
lad, close to the old Border, Yes, Halfa. It was a true Snider bullet.
Feel it! This little one on the leg I got at the big fight that finished
it all last year. But I am not lame (violent leg-exercise), not in
the least lame. See! I run. I jump. I kick. Praised be Allah!
OFFICER. Praised be Allah! And then?
WARRIOR (coquettishly). Then, I shoot. I am not a common spear-man.
(Lapse into English.) Yeh, dam goo' shot! (pumps lever of imaginary
Martini).
OFFICER (unmoved). I see. And then?
WARRIOR (indignantly). I am come here - after many days' marching.
(Change to childlike wheedle.) Are all the regiments full?
At this point the relative, in uniform, generally discovered himself,
and if the officer liked the cut of his jib, another 'old Mahdi's man'
would be added to the machine that made itself as it rolled along. They
dealt with situations in those days by the unclouded light of reason and
a certain high and holy audacity.
There is a tale of two Sheikhs shortly after the Reconstruction began.
One of them, Abdullah of the River, prudent and the son of a
slave-woman, professed loyalty to the English very early in the day, and
used that loyalty as a cloak to lift camels from another Sheikh, Farid
of the Desert, still at war with the English, but a perfect gentleman,
which Abdullah was not. Naturally, Farid raided back on Abdullah's kine,
Abdullah complained to the authorities, and the Border fermented.
