Sands of Destiny (6 page)

Corville thought of Le Farge and his ever present fears. He thought of blood-stained sand and the bodies of twenty legionnaires lying in their shallow graves less than half a day’s march away. He thought of Sheik El Morini and the man’s cold, calculated cruelty. He thought of Fort Hollendoft and what had been found there. He remembered that she was young and a guest and not really interested in the answer at all. Looking into her eyes he smiled and lied with easy skill.

“No.”

“I thought not. That Captain, Captain Gerald I think his name is, he kept trying to get us to leave sooner than we had planned.” She laughed. “The caravan is due in five days time and there isn’t any way we could leave until then so I don’t know what he was worried about anyway.”

“He is a good soldier,” said Corville abruptly. “He meant well.”

“He frightened me,” complained Miss Carson. “He is so rough, so uncouth.” She frowned. “de Corville,” she murmured. “I wonder? Tell me, young man, did you go to school in England?”

“I did.” Corville was deliberately rude. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to pry into his personal history. Miss Carson nodded.

“I thought that I recollected the name. A friend of mine, perhaps you know him? Mr. Smithers? No? Well, he sent his son to the same school. At least I think that it was the same. He was telling me of a boy who was there years ago, the son of Lord Trehern.” She frowned again. “Of course it’s so long ago now but it seemed that there was some sort of scandal, I never did know what it was all about and my friend, Mr. Smithers, he had to take his boy away because he lost most of his money in a share deal or something that this Lord Trehern had floated. I did hear that the boy, he was older than my friend’s son, of course, went to live with his mother in France. I....” She broke off at the expression on Corville’s face. “Is anything the matter?”

“No. You were telling me of this Lord Trehern?”

“Yes. Well rumour had it that he ran away and hid somewhere.” She tittered; the wine had obviously taken effect. “Some say that he joined the Foreign Legion, but then they always say that, don’t they. It just struck me because of the name de Corville, it’s an unusual name, but it couldn’t be the same one, could it?”

“Hardly,” said Corville drily. “If my father was an English lord then I should know it.”

“But your English is so perfect,” insisted Miss Carson. “I knew that you must have been to school in England the moment you spoke.” She tittered again and, as she reached for her glass, managed to spill a few drops of the red wine on the spotless napery. Dick Mason smiled at Corville and shrugged. His sister, sensing the young officer’s feelings, rested her hand with friendly warmth on his arm. Marignay, oblivious to all the byplay, grunted as he reached for a fresh bottle of wine.

“Come. Let us not be sad or remember the past, or think too deeply of the future. Let us drink to my Villa near Toulon and the wines I shall drink there and the toys, similar to the dagger I mentioned, I shall have to while away my lonely hours.” He poised the bottle over Miss Carson’s glass. “Wine?”

“I shouldn’t really,” she simpered. “I’m not used to wine and I’m afraid that it’s affecting me a little.” She watched him pour her glass full. “Only a little then and after that I’m off to bed. I always say that there’s nothing like a....” She broke off, her glass half tilted to her mouth, her eyes wide and suddenly strained. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” said Marignay. “The wind perhaps?”

“Silence!” Corville rose from the table, his stomach knotted with apprehension. Thinly through the thick walls, filtered by the embrasures and echoing from the hills around came the sound of the sentry’s harsh challenge.

“Qui va là?”

He was answered by a shot, his scream mingling with the sound of gunfire and, as he screamed both shots and cries were drowned in an undulating yell,

“Allah il Allah! Mohamed ill akbar!”

The attack had begun.

ATTACK

FOR a moment no one moved then, as the frenzied yelling slashed again through the tropic night, Corville lunged towards the door.

“What is it?” asked Clarice, her soft brown eyes wide with apprehension. “What is that yelling, and those shots?”

“An attack.” Corville reached the door just as it burst open and Captain Gerald staggered into the room. He was sober, stone cold sober, and his eyes as they stared at Marignay were wild and flecked with blood. He had lost his kepi and his uniform was stained with an ugly splotch of spreading blood.

“You,” he said, and pointed towards the Colonel. “You did this.”

“Nonsense!” Marignay licked his thin lips with a nervous gesture. “Probably some tribesmen trying to gain credit by attacking the fort. They will break and retreat at the first charge.”

“You think so?” Gerald sneered and spat a mouthful of blood. “The hills are alive with raiders. The fire from their guns makes the night seem like day. Men died where they stood, the watchtower guard, the sentries, others.” He swayed and his grimed hand fumbled with the pistol in his belt.
“Cochin! Je vous mort pour....”
He staggered again his mouth filling with blood before he could finish the threat, and, as Corville reached out to steady him, the Captain fell lifeless to the floor.

Miss Carson screamed. She stood. her eyes wild, her hair disarranged, and shrieked at the unaccustomed sight of freshly spilt blood. Clarice moved to comfort her and Dick, his face white and drawn, looked at Corville.

“Is it bad?”

“Yes.”

“Can I help?”

“Stay with the women. See that they stay away from the embrasures and out of the line of fire.” Corville stepped over the dead man. “I must see what has happened. I’ll return when I’ve learned the state of things.” He looked at the sobbing woman and gestured towards the wine. “Give her a drink, slap her if you have to, but make her keep silent.” He was gone before the American could do more than nod.

Outside, beneath the glowing stars and the swollen moon, the night had turned into a flame-lit hell.

Bullets whined like bees over the scarred merlons, whining as they ricochetted or making a soggy thud as they ploughed into soft and yielding flesh. The fire was the heaviest that Corville had ever experienced and. as he squinted at the winking points of light, he swore with an unusual savagery.

“Machineguns!”

“Two of them.” Sergeant Smith, his face grimed with sweat and dirt, squatted beside the lieutenant as he stared towards the surrounding hills. “Spandaus I reckon, or maybe they’ve managed to get hold of a couple of Vickers. Whatever they are they’re bad.”

“The caravan,” said Corville sickly. “The machineguns must have been among the load.
Sacré!
I could have stopped all this.”

“You could have died,” agreed the sergeant, “but I doubt if you could have stopped it.” He pointed towards the moonlit desert as he gave a quick explanation of what had happened. “They must have crept to within the very shadow of the walls before opening tire. They have all the cover they need while we are illuminated by the moonlight. The first shot killed the watch-guard, and it was followed by a volley that killed most of the sentries. Before we could beat them back they had dug themselves in, too close for comfort, and those damn machineguns are sweeping the walls.” He stared over his shoulder. “Where the hell is the Captain?”

“Dead.”

“And the Colonel?”

“He’ll be out soon.” Corville spat into the darkness. “He has his guests to worry about.”

“Guests?”

“Didn’t you know?” Corville looked at the bleak face of the sergeant. “Three of them, two women and a man.” He shrugged. “The man can fight, most Americans know how to use a rifle, but the women....”

“They can act as nurses.” Smith ducked as lead chipped dried brick from the merlon behind which be crouched. “Your orders, sir?”

“Let them waste their ammunition as long as they wish.” Corville squinted into the darkness. “We can’t see them as well as they can see us, but we have thick walls and they can do us no real harm. When they charge we must be ready to beat them back.” He looked down the line of waiting men, each with his loaded Lebel, his bayonet at his side and his water canteen to hand. The dead lay where they had fallen, stiff and cold in the pale light of the setting moon. “Release the prisoners from the cells, arm them, and have them issue a half-litre of wine per man. Relieve one third of the men at a time for food and rest and tell the others to stay behind cover. Time enough to return the fire when they have something to shoot at.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any idea as to who is behind this, sergeant?”

“I’d guess at the Sheik El Morini, sir. He has been much about the fort and knows our defences too well.” Smith glanced towards the well in the centre of the compound. “Shall I draw water, sir?”

“Can you?”

“I think so. The walls should protect me from the machinegun fire and the fort is so built that the well is protected from direct aim.” He hesitated. “I think that it would be best, sir, wounded men need water and when the sun rises....”

He broke off but Corville knew what he meant. Beneath the torrid sun men’s bodies craved for water as for nothing else and, during the long hours of siege ahead, water would be as essential as bullets, He was about to give the order when Colonel Marignay joined them.

“Lieutenant?”

“Sir!”

“How are things?”

“Under control, sir. I was about to order the sergeant to draw water and store it. You agree?”

“Unnecessary,” snapped the Colonel. “The sergeant would be doing better by sending a man up into the watchtower. It is essential that I should know the movements of the enemy.”

“To send a man up there would be to send him to his death,” said Corville quietly. “The hills are full of marksmen and they would cut him down before he was halfway up.”

“It is dark,” grunted the sergeant. “What man can see in the dark?”

“You will do as I order,” snapped the Colonel, “Send a man, the man I whipped will do, up into the tower. At once!”

“Yes, my Colonel.” Smith saluted and crawled away to send the unfortunate man up to the watchtower. Marignay stayed where he was for a moment then, as lead blasted dust into his face, returned to his quarters. Corville, in effect if not in name now full commander of the fort, squatted and stared bleakly into the night.

The attack was well planned, there could be no doubt of that. And yet, as he thought about it. something troubled him. To attack at night was against the regular custom of the Arabs. They preferred to attack by day, riding out of he desert and charging with blind ferocity at the walls of the fort. Sometimes, as at Fort Hollendoft, they succeeded in scaling the walls and winning an expensive victory. At others they were beaten back with heavy losses until their Mullah, the holy fanatic who was usually behind all such attacks, was either killed or announced that Allah had decreed the fighting ended.

But this attack showed signs of careful planning.

The use of the night for cover, the volley aimed to eliminate the sentries, the twin machineguns set so as to spray the walls and keep the defenders behind cover. Above all the lack of a charge. Corville bit his lips as he thought about it and felt his stomach tighten with apprehension. The attack had been planned by a master of warfare and he wondered what the next step would be.

He soon found out.

The man Marignay had ordered to the top of the watchtower screamed and pointed towards the gate just as the murderous fire from a score of rifles lanced in his direction, The scream died as lead smashed the helpless body to mangled ruin and, as the rolling echoes of the rifle fire died away, flame and smoke shot up from the outside of the gate. The explosion deafened the young officer, blinding him with its bout of searing fire and, as he blinked to clear his eyes from the retinal after-images, he felt sick horror at what he saw.

The gate had been destroyed.

Men lay around it, mostly clad in the blue and scarlet of the Legion but with here and there the drab white of a burnoose. Even as he stared, hearing the groans of wounded men and the shrill prayers of the dying, a rush of hate-filled Arabs lunged through the-burst portal, their cries stabbing the air with searing dread.

“
Allah il Allah!
Allah the one true God. Allah the merciless, Death to the infidel! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

For a moment it seemed that they had won the fort. For a moment the compound was full of white burnoosed figures firing, slashing with their curved swords. stabbing with their pointed daggers. Men died then, brave men dressed in the blue and scarlet of the Legion but, as they died, they fought with the incredible desperation of despair. Lebels fired and fired and fired again. Then, their magazines empty, the legionnaires reversed their weapons and hurled themselves towards the shrieking enemy. Rifle butts thudded against the turbans, long, sword-bayonets flashed and dulled with blood as the desperate soldiers fought hand to hand with the swelling tide of invaders. Men screamed and groaned as steel and lead ripped their vitals. Others laughed with the sheer excitement of combat while others muttered prayers to forgotten gods as they thrust and lunged, parried and ducked, rose to kill and be killed in turn.

Corville had flung himself forward at the first appearance of the enemy, his automatic spitting fire as he emptied it before snatching up a discarded Lebel. Hastily he fitted on a bayonet and thrust at a tall, burnoosed figure swinging a heavy scimitar. The shock as metal met metal almost made him drop the rifle then, as the Arab swung again, Corville lunged and grinned as he felt the slender blade of the bayonet slip between the other’s ribs. Pausing only to jerk the weapon free he swung the butt at a snarling, bearded face, ducked as a rifle blasted towards him, and triggered his own weapon in reply, as something smashed with sickening force against his skull.

After that things took on a strange, misty unreality. Bearded faces with open, yelling mouths seemed to rise before him and to fall away without any effort on his part. Steel grated against his bayonet and once he felt the sting of a knife in his arm, but he seemed to be beyond all physical pain and fought more like a machine than a man, shouting orders, curses, swearing at legionnaires and Arab alike, his trained reflexes taking over from his numbed mind.

Finally it was over.

He staggered as he looked around him at the heaps of dead, staring at a sky that had suddenly changed from black to blue, and squinted at the ball of the rising sun where it rested over the horizon. Impossible as it seemed the fight must have lasted well over an hour and, as he stared at the bent and broken rifle in his hands, he wondered how it was that he was still alive. A voice called to him and turning, he saw the sergeant, his face blood-stained, crouching on the fire step, a rifle in his hands, two others at his side, the area around him littered with empty cartridge cases. Two dead men beside him stared at the sun with sightless eyes and a third whimpered as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from a stomach wound.

“Quickly, my lieutenant. Here before they fire into the compound.”

Hardly knowing what he did Corville climbed up to join the sergeant. He felt weak, dizzy, and the side of his face was stiff with dried blood.

“Here.” Smith passed over a canteen. “Drink and pour the rest over your head. You were a lucky man last night, the bullet meant for between your eyes only tore the flesh and almost stunned you.”

“You saw?” Corville gasped as the tepid water sent pain from his wound but beneath the shower his mind cleared and he was himself again. He stared at the piles of cartridge cases and at the position of the sergeant.

“You covered me,” he said. “You sat up here and fired at everyone around me. Why?”

“In a fight a man must keep a cool head,” said Smith calmly. “I saw what had happened to you and. calling these three whom I knew to be good shots, we sat up here and poured fire down into the compound. While you engaged them hand-to-hand they could not spare the time to shoot us down.” He looked at the two dead men and the one who was wounded. “At least,” he corrected himself, “not all of us.”

“I must have been half stunned from the bullet,” said Corville. “How is the situation now?”

“We have managed to beat them back from the compound but in doing so we have lost more than half our men. Now, with the gates destroyed we must concentrate on stemming a new charge.” Smith glowered at the heaps of dead below. “I would give much to know who thought of pinning us down with machinegun fire while their sappers set and fired a charge beneath the gates. No Arab thought of that.”

“No,” agreed Corville. He stared at the line of weary legionnaires lining the parapet over the open gate. Too few to do more than beat off another such charge as last night. Far too few to withstand a siege of any length of time. Smith attracted his attention and pointed down towards the well.

“The trouble has only just begun, sir. Soon the men will need water, the wounded are already crying for it, and we can’t draw water from the well without being exposed to the fire of the machineguns.” He pointed towards the rocky hills. “I have watched them dismount the weapons and set them up so as to fire through the open gate. It would be certain death to attempt to cross the compound now.”

Corville nodded as he surveyed the area. The sergeant was right. As soon as the gates had been blown open the unknown genius behind the attack had set his rapid-fire weapons so as to cover the exposed compound. As yet they had not been used, while the attackers had filled the gate and battled with the legionnaires it would have been criminal folly to shoot down their own men, but now that the area was clear they could be used to render the compound impassable.

It was still possible to move around the fort, the high fire-platform protected by the thick merlons allowed that, but the sole source of water was the primitive well and that was in the centre of the compound. Corville felt thirsty as he looked at it, its nearness tempting him with its promise of cool comfort and liquid refreshment. He touched Smith on the shoulder.