Yet plain though he was, Captain Aubrey marched in state, coming first, with Mowett on his right, a midshipman on his left, and his coxswain immediately behind him; then came the Surprises with their officers, forecastlemen in front, then foretopmen, maintopmen and afterguard, and then the baggage-train. They left Suez in quite good style, escorted by a cloud of excited yellow curs and little boys, for although those seamen who started in step soon fell out of it they did at least keep in recognizable groups until they were well out into the desert.
But presently there came a long stretch of heavy going, sand so soft that unless a man had feet like a camel he sank to the ankles; furthermore the whole party had been long enough at sea to grow quite unused to walking, and by the time Jack gave the order to halt for breakfast the column was a long straggling line.
'I see that there are some camels with nothing on their backs but drunken sailors and a few tents,' said Martin. 'Army officers generally ride, even in the foot regiments.'
'So they do in the Navy, sometimes,' said Stephen, 'and an eminently comic spectacle it is, on occasion. But there is a tedious and I fear increasingly powerful sentiment that when something exceptionally arduous and disagreeable is to be done, like walking over a hot, shadowless desert, then all hands must share alike, ton for ton and man for man. It seems to me foolish, inconsistent, ostentatious, useless, illogical. I have often represented to Captain Aubrey that no one expects him to join in cleaning the filth from the ship's heads, nor in many other vile offices, and that it is therefore mere froth and showing away, spiritual pride, nay downright sin, voluntarily to strut about the wilderness like this.'
'And yet - forgive me, Maturin - you are doing so yourself, with camels of your own at hand.'
'That is only moral cowardice. My courage will increase as my ankles swell and my feet grow more blistered, and presently I shall silently mount my beast.'
'We rode, you and I, on the march down.'
'That was because they marched at night, while it was known that we spent the day botanizing. We were also unperceived.'
'How we botanized! Do you think we shall reach Bir Hafsa tomorrow?'
'Which as Bir Hafsa?'
'The resting-place where there was such a fine stretch of centaurea for the camels and where we found the curious euphorbia among the dunes.'
'And the spiny lizards, the crested desert-lark, the anomalous wheatear. Perhaps we may: I hope so, indeed.'
Yet at one time it seemed scarcely possible. The party did not get along well at all: those men who had spent the night in song and dance were horribly jaded, and once the sun had climbed a little way the heat was very great; but there was another factor that had not come into play when they marched down to Suez in the darkness - by day the vast expanse of desert, perfectly level in every direction, offered no shelter for those who wished to relieve themselves; and as several of the Surprises, including their captain, were as shamefast and bashful in their actions as they were licentious in their speech, this led to a great loss of time as men hurried off so that distance, often very great distance, should preserve their modesty. So much was this the case that the party advanced no more,than a pitiful stage the first day, only reaching a place called Shuwak, a rocky outcrop with some tamarisk and mimosa scrub less than sixteen miles from Suez. But had they gone farther Stephen would never have been able to show Jack his first Egyptian cobra, a magnificent specimen five feet nine inches long that was gliding about the small ruined caravanserai with its head raised and its hood expanded, a most impressive sight. Nor would he and Martin have been able to take a camel over to the shores of the Little Bitter Lake, where in the last rays of light they saw the pied kingfisher and the houbara bustard.
But by the next day most people had recovered; they were now on firm stony sand with a certain amount of low vegetation, and they went along at a fine rate. It was the same easy going after the long midday halt, and the sun was still a handsbreadth over the horizon when Bir Hafsa came in sight far ahead - another ruined building by the side of the track and three palms by the well, in a region of fixed dunes.
'I think we might as well pitch camp by the well,' said Jack. 'Going on another hour would be neither here nor there, and we might as well sup in comfort.'
'You will not object if Martin and I go ahead on our camel?' asked Stephen.
'Never in life,' said Jack, 'and I should be most uncommon obliged if you would clear the ground of the more disgusting reptiles while you are there.'
The camel in question, a comparatively good-natured animal with a long swift stride, soon outpaced the column even with its double load, and set them down in the centaureas near the palms with half an hour of sunlight to spare.They had seen two very curious wheatears, black with white polls, and they were climbing a dune to the east of the camping-place to see more when Martin said 'Look. How extremely picturesque.' He pointed westwards, and there on a corresponding dune, black against a brilliant orange sky, Stephen saw a dromedary and its rider. He shaded his eyes against the glare, and down on the level desert he saw more camels, a great many more; and not only camels but horses too. He looked to the south, and there was the column marching in or rather straggling in over a furlong of ground, with the baggage-train fast catching up as the camels smelt the thorny pasture. 'I think we should hurry down,' he said.
Jack was pointing out the places for the tents when Stephen interrupted him. 'I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a large force of camels a short mile to the west: when I last saw them from up there their riders were changing to horses, which I understand is the Bedouin mode of attack.'
'Thankee, Doctor,' said Jack. 'Mr Hollar, pipe to quarters.' And raising his voice enormously, 'Afterguard, afterguard there. Double up, double up, double up.'
The afterguard doubled up, falling into their place on the fourth side of the square formed by the forecastlemen, the foretopmen and maintopmen. 'Mr Rowan,' said Jack, 'take some hands and make the camel-drivers take shelter in that enclosure with all their beasts. Killick, my sword and pistols.'
The square was not military in its neatness, and when Jack said 'Fix bayonets' there was no simultaneous flash, click and stamp; but the sharp blades were there, the muskets were there, and the men were thoroughly used to using them. The square was small, but it was formidable: and as Jack stood there in the middle of it he thanked God that he had not tried to increase the rate of march by having the weapons loaded on to the pack animals. He was not so pleased when he looked at the slow-moving animals themselves, however; his own chest was on one of the foremost beasts and Killick was already coming back, but although Rowan and his men had most of the camels in the enclosure they were still having to beat the stragglers along and he was just about to call out when he saw horsemen appear on the top of Stephen's dune. He hailed 'Rowan, Honey. Rejoin at once,' and they came running, their shadows long on the sand.
More horsemen gathered, and then with a concerted shriek they raced breakneck down the hill upon Rowan and Honey, easily catching them and cutting them off, enveloping them but avoiding them by inches as they stood there: after a moment they were past, riding furiously up the opposite slope, where they reined in so hard that their horses stopped dead. Here they poised for a long moment, all armed, either with swords or very long guns.
Jack had seen many a fantasia on the Barbary coast - Arabs galloping full tilt at their chief and his guests, firing in the air and turning at the last moment- and as Rowan and Honey came gasping into the square he said 'Perhaps it is only their fun. No man is to fire unless I give the word.' He repeated this with emphasis and there was a general grunt of agreement, though old Pomfret muttered 'Funny fun.' The men looked grave, displeased, but perfectly competent and sure of themselves. Both Calamy and Williamson were nervous, naturally enough, since they had seen almost no action on shore, and Calamy kept fiddling with the lock of his pistol.