Collection 1980 - Yondering (v5.0) (6 page)

“No.” I was ashamed to admit it, feeling that the confession would lower me in his esteem. “I have no goats.”

“A camel?” He was giving me every chance.

“No,” I confessed reluctantly, “no camel.” Inspiration hit me suddenly. “I have horses. Two of them.”

He considered that. “It is good to have a horse, but a horse is like a woman. It is unproductive. If you have a horse or a woman, you must also have goats.”

“If one has a woman,” I ventured, “one must have many goats.”

He nodded. I had but stated a fact.

G
LORIOUS!
G
LORIOUS!

In 1893 and again in 1909 Riffian tribesmen attacked Spanish settlements in Spanish Morocco. Finally, in 1921, this became an all-out war that resulted in a series of defeats for the Spanish. In the battle at Anual an army of twenty thousand men was thoroughly defeated by the Riffs under Abd-el-Krim, and twelve thousand were slain. Fighting continued for five years, and the Spanish Foreign Legion was in the thick of it
.

Supply lines to many scattered outposts were cut or severely hampered by mud caused by torrential rains that made travel difficult to impossible. Much bravery was exhibited by officers and men, but among their superiors there was often total incompetence
.

Chentafa was destroyed, and Seriya held off repeated attacks for seventy-odd days before the post was wiped out
.

Abd-el-Krim was a competent commander and an able tactician, as were several of his subordinates. He was only defeated when the French came into the fight, and he was exiled to the isle of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, installed on a country estate, and provided with a considerable pension
.

The Riffs are a Berber people, excellent rifle shots, and first-class fighting men. From about 15,000 B.C. Berbers occupied just about all of North Africa, including the Sahara. The veiled Tuareg, once considered the fiercest of desert raiders, were Berbers. Among the Riffs the percentage of redcoats is about the same as can be found in Scotland or Ireland
.

In my story I have used the terms Moor and Riff interchangeably. Correctly speaking, a Moor is of the Arab race but born in Morocco. As a matter of fact a large percentage are of mixed Arab and Berber blood. The Riffs are so called because of their residence in the Riff Hills, a part of the Atlas Mountains, a lovely but rugged country cloaked in pine and cedar
.

T
HE FOUR MEN crouched together in the narrow shadow of the parapet. The sun was setting slowly behind a curtain of greasy cloud, and the air, as always at twilight, was very clear and still. A hundred and fifty yards away was the dirty gray earth where the Riffs were hidden. The declining sun threw long fingers of queer, brassy light across the rise of the hill behind them.

On their left the trench was blown away by artillery fire; here and there a foot or a shoulder showed above the dirt thrown up by explosions. They had marched, eaten, and fought beside those men, dead now.

“Better keep your head away from that opening, kid, or you’ll get it blown away.”

Dugan pulled his head back, and almost on the instant a spout of sand leaped from the sandbag and splattered over his face.

Slim smiled wryly, and the Biscayan looked up from the knife he was sharpening. He was always sharpening his knife and kept it with a razor edge. Short, thick-bodied, he had a square-jawed, pockmarked face and small eyes. Dugan was glad they were fighting on the same side.

“You got anything to eat?” Slim asked suddenly, looking over at Dugan.

“Nothing. I ate my last biscuit before that last attack,” he said. “I could have eaten forty.”

“You?” Slim looked at the Irishman.

Jerry shrugged. “I ate mine so long ago I’ve forgotten.”

He was bandaging his foot with a soiled piece of his shirt. A bullet had clipped the butt of his heel the day before, making a nasty wound.

Somewhere down the broken line of trenches there was a brief volley followed by several spaced rifle shots, then another brief spatter of firing.

Slim was wiping the dust from his rifle, testing the action. Then he reloaded, taking his time. “They’re tough,” he said, “real tough.”

“I figured they’d be A-rabs or black,” Jerry said, “and they ain’t either one.”

“North Africa was never black,” Dugan said. “Nearly all the country north of the Niger is Berber country, and Berbers are white. These Riffs—there’s as many redheaded ones as in Scotland.”

“I was in Carthage once,” Slim said. “It’s all busted up—ruins.”

“They were Semitic,” Dugan said. “Phoenicians originally.”

“How you know so much about it?” Slim asked.

“There was a book somebody left in the barracks all about this country and the Sahara.”

“You can have it,” Jerry said. “This country, I mean.”

“Book belonged to that colonel—the fat one.” Dugan moved a small stone, settled himself more comfortably. “He let it lay one time, and somebody swiped it.”

“Hey!” Jerry sat up suddenly. He held the bandage tight to survey the job he was doing, then continued with it. “That reminds me. I know where there’s some wine.”

Slim turned his long neck. “Some
what
?”

He looked gaunt and gloomy in his dirty, ill-fitting uniform. One shoulder was stained with blood, and the threads had begun to ravel around a bullet hole. He had been hit nine times since the fighting began, but mostly they were scratches. He’d lost one shoe, and the foot was wrapped in canvas. It was a swell war.

Jerry continued to wrap his foot, and nobody said anything. Dugan watched him, thinking of the wine. Then he looked across at the neat row of men lying side by side near the far parapet. As he looked, a bullet struck one of them, and the body jerked stiffly. It did not matter. They were all dead.

“Over there in the cellar,” Jerry said. He nodded his head to indicate a squat gray stone building on the peak of a conical hill about a quarter of a mile off. “The colonel found a cellar the monks had. He brought his own wine with him and a lot of canned meat and cheese. He stored it in that cellar—just like in an icebox. I helped pack some of it in not over two weeks ago. He kept me on patrol duty three days extra just for breaking a bottle. He brought in a lot of grub, too.”

The Biscayan glanced up, mumbling something in Spanish. He pulled a hair from his head and tested the edge of the blade, showing his teeth when the hair cut neatly.

“What’s he say?”

“He says it may still be there.” Jerry shifted his rifle and glanced speculatively at the low hill. “Shall we have a look?”

“They’d blow our heads off before we could get there,” Slim protested, “night or no night.”

“Look,” Jerry said, “we’re liable to get it, anyway. This is going to be like Anual, where they wiped them all out. Look how long we’ve been here and no relief. I think they’ve written us off.”

“It’s been seventy-five days,” Dugan agreed.

“Look what happened at Chentafa. The officer in command saw they’d had it and set fire to the post; then he died with his men.”

“That’s more than these will do.”

“Hell,” Jerry said, “I think they’re already dead. I haven’t seen an officer in a week. Only that corporal.”

“They pick them off first. Those Moors can shoot.” Slim looked at Dugan. “How’d you get into this outfit, anyway?”

“My ship was in Barcelona. I came ashore and was shanghaied. I mean an army patrol just gathered in a lot of us, and when I said I was an American citizen, they just paid no attention.”

“Did you get any training?”

“A week. That was it. They asked me if I’d ever fired a gun, and like a damned fool I told them I had. Hell, I grew up with a gun. I was twelve years old before I found out it wasn’t part of me. So here I am.”

“They wanted men, and they didn’t care where or how they got them. Me, I’ve no excuse,” Slim said, “I joined the Spanish Foreign Legion on my own. I was broke, hungry, and in a different country. It looked like an easy way out.”

Far off to the left there was an outburst of firing, then silence.

“What happened to the colonel? The fat one who had all that wine brought in?”

“Killed himself. Look, they tell me there’s a general for every twenty-five men in this army. This colonel had connections. They told him spend a month over there and we’ll promote you to general, so he came, and then we got pinned down, and he couldn’t get out. From Tetuan to Chaouen there’s a whole line of posts like this one here at Seriya. There’s no way to get supplies, no way to communicate.”

The talk died away. It was very hot even though the sun was setting.

A big Russian came up and joined them. He looked like a big schoolboy with his close-cropped yellow hair and his pink cheeks. “They come,” he said.

There was a crackle of shots, and the four climbed to their feet. Dugan lurched from weariness, caught himself, and faced about. The Russian was already firing.

A long line of Moors was coming down the opposite slope, their advance covered by a barrage of machine-gun fire from the trenches farther up the hill. Here and there a captured field gun boomed. Dugan broke open a box of cartridges and laid them out on a sandbag close at hand. Slowly and methodically, making each shot count, he began to fire.

The Biscayan was muttering curses and firing rapidly. He did not like long-range fighting. Jerry leaned against the sandbags, resting his forehead on one. Dugan could see a trickle of sweat cutting a trail through the dust.

Somewhere down the parapet one of their own machine guns opened up, the gray and white line before them melted like wax, and the attack broke. Slim grounded his rifle butt and leaned against the sandbags, fumbling for a cigarette. His narrow, cadaverous features looked yellow in the pale light. He looked around at Dugan. “How d’you like it, kid? Had enough?”

Dugan shrugged and reloaded his rifle, then stuffed his pockets with cartridges. The powder smoke made his head ache, or maybe it was hunger and the sound of guns. His cheek was swollen from the rifle stock, and his gums were sore and swollen. All of them were indescribably dirty. For seventy-five days they had held the outpost against a steady, unrelenting, consistent, energy-draining attack that seemed to take no thought of men lost. Their food was gone; only a little of the brackish water remained, and there would be no relief.

“They’ve written us off,” Slim said. “We’re dead.” He was hollow eyed and sagging, yet he was still a fighting man. He looked at Jerry. “How about that wine?”

“Let’s go get it. There’s a machine gun there, too, and enough ammo to fight the battle of the Marne.”

“Does the sergeant major know?”

“He did.” Jerry indicated the line of dead bodies. “He’s over there.”

“Who’s in command?” Dugan asked.

“Maybe nobody. The lieutenant was killed several days ago, shot from behind. He was a fool to hit that Turk. He slugged one guy too many.”

The sun was gone, and darkness was falling over the low hills. There was no movement in the trenches across the way. The Russian stood up, then sat down abruptly, his throat shot away. He started to rise again, then just sat back down and slowly rolled over.

Slim picked him up as though he were a child and carried him to the line of bodies, placing him gently on the ground. Then he unbuckled his cartridge pouches and hung them around his own waist. Dugan looked through an opening in the sandbagged parapet at the broad shoulders of shadow along the slope. A dead Moor hung head down over the barbed wire about fifty feet away, and a slight breeze made his burnoose swell.

When it was dark, the corporal came along the trench. He looked old. His thin, haggard face was expressionless. He said what they all knew.

“There won’t be any relief. I think everything behind us is wiped out, too. We wouldn’t stand a chance in trying to get away. They’re out there waiting, hoping we try it.

“There’ll be at least one night attack, but with day-break they’ll come. There’s thirty-eight of us left. Fire as long as you can, and when they get through the wire, it’s every man for himself.”

He looked around vacantly, then started back up the line. His shoes were broken, and one leg was bandaged. He looked tired. He stopped suddenly, looking back. “If any of you have the guts to try it, go ahead.” He looked from Jerry to Slim, then at Dugan. “We’re through.”

Slim walked over to the dead officer and took his automatic, then the cartridges for it. He took some money, too, then dropped it into the sand. Having a second thought, he picked it up.

“If a man could get away,” he said, looking over at Dugan, “this would pay a boatman. Gibraltar—that would be the place.”

Dugan sat down, his back to the parapet. He glanced along the trench. Far down he could see movement.

Thirty-eight left! There had been 374 when they occupied the post. He tilted his head back and looked at the stars. They had looked the same way at home. How long ago was that?