Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Every Tuesday and snatched open a small shutter with which one of them was equipped. Peering through the aperture that Wivs disclosed, he saw a couple of Arabs mounted on prancing, mettlesome steeds. They were the scouts attached to the fort, and the shot that had rung out had been fired as a warning by one of them—a warning which he made haste to supple- ment in a high, shrill voice. "A great harka of warriors come this way!" the scout hailed. "They are mak- ing for the fort. You will need reinforce- ments and we will ride to Tokotu for help!" TO THE DEATH RIDING off across the desert wastes, the two Arab scouts little knew that their arrival before the gates had inter- I'upted a tensely dramatic situation. As for the occupants of the stronghold, their outlook was completely and imme- diately changed. With the entire gai-rison menaced by a common peril, all the cir- cumstances leading up to and arising from the plot to mutiny were forgotten. In strident accents Markoff gave the order to prepare for action, and in prompt response Schwartz and his partisans rushed to arm themselves. Well within the space of sixty seconds the fighting-platform behind the parapet of the fortress wall was fully manned, and a legionnaire was stationed at every em- brasure when all at once the crest of a bold ridge of sand some distance to the south of the stronghold became alive with swarming tribesmen. By the light of,a moon that had arisen the soldiers of the garrison saw that the Arab harka, or host, was composed of Touaregs—that veiled Saharan race whose warriors are notoriously the fiercest and the cruellest of all desert raiders. They soon perceived, too, that this harka of Touaregs outnumbered them by ten to one. Yet the odds did not appal the men of the Legion, any more than the demoniac battle-cry that was sent up from six hundred Arab throats as that formidable force swept down fi-om the rim of the extensive dune. Armed to the teeth, bent on taking Fort Zinderneuf by storm, the savage Touaregs came on in dense array, some astride spirited ponies, others mounted upon swift mehari camels. And as they surged to the attack stabbing jets of flame darted from the embrasures in the south wall of the French stronghold, whence cool and steadfast legionnaires fusilladed them with rapid nre. Hot lead raked the advancing horde of Arabs, bringing down robed and turbaned figures by the score, and before that withering, death-dealing challenge the Touaregs presently wavered and then beat a retreat, some of them retiring beyond the ridge where the harka had first appeared, others deploying so as to envelop Pierced through the head by an Arab bullet, Schwartz tumbled from his lofty vantage point BOY'S CINEMA the fort while remalnmg at a respectful distance from it. The raiders then proceeded to dig them- selves in, and while they were engaged in this operation Markoff .sent the legion- naires below in platoons with instructions to don full kit, for none but himself, Rasinoff and the men formerly on sentry- duty had been attired when hews of the enemy's approach had been received. Whatever MarkoIT's faults, no one could have denied that he was a good man in an emergency—a soldier par excellence when there was fighting to be done. Never- theless the inhuman streak in his character was no less evident now than heretofore. F'or, observing that several casualties had been inflicted on the garri- son by bullets that the Arabs had dis- charged during their onset, he hoisted up the men who had fallen, propped them in the embrasures at which they had been stationed and thrust their rifles under their right armpits, so that to the foe it must seem as if they were living defenders. One of them, indeed, was still alive, though mortally wounded. But Markoff treated him as he had treated the slain. "Everybody does his duty at Zinderneuf, dead, half dead or alive!" the sergeant declared, grinning wolfishly. 'We'll make those Touaregs think there's no limit to the replacements we have here! We'll make them think there's men standing by to step into the breach every time an Arab bullet scores a hit!" Having planted the casualties in the vacant embrasures, he turned his atten- tion on a watch-tower that surmounted the fort, and, noticing that Schwartz was in the shadow of it he ordered the Ger- man to ascend to an exposed look-out post at the summit of the structure. "The place of greatest danger for you. mo?i brave," he said with an ugly laiigh. "Get aloft and warn us if you notice the Touaregs mustering for another ru.sh. We can't see what they're up to from here." Schwartz hesitated, but complird with MarkofT's command as the .seigeant juggled significantly with his revolver, and he had been crouching on the lop of the tower for some fifteen or twenty mmutes when all at once he gave vent to a sharp cry. "The main bodv of the Arabs are gather- ing on the other side of that dune to the south!" he called. "It looks like they're going to advance again." He was right. An attack was launched, the Touaregs moving forward slowly this time and keeping up a heavy fire that inflicted further losses on the garrison, one of the first victims of that concen- trated Are being the German on tl^e watch-tower. Pierced through the head by an Arab bullet, Schwartz tumbled from his lofty vantage-point and crashed to the fighting platform whence his comrades were blaz- ing at the enemy. In all, a dozen legionnaires were hit during the assault, but the casualties suffered by the raiders were far more numerous, and the sands were thickly strewn with the bodies of veiled warriors who would never move again when the Touaregs retired once more. The Arabs were by no means dis- heartened, however, and throughout the remainder of the night, and in the course of the succeeding day. they attacked at intervals of every hour or so. And though they were beaten back time after time, the close of each onslaught saw the defenders sadly reduced in numbers. To the enemy it must have seemed that the fort was still adequately manned. For Markoff, who seemed to bear a charmed life, continued to apply his stratagem of propping up the 'fallen legionnaires in the embrasures. Yet by the evening of that day only a handful of the garrison were left alive—a handful consisting of Rasinoff. Renoir. John and Beau Geste and Markoff himself. Octouer i4tli, vji-J.