These villages were pleasant little places, built of mud brick on the high earth mounds5 encircling the palm-gardens. Nakhl Mubarak lay to the north, and Bruka just south of it across a thorny6 valley. The houses were small, mud-washed inside, cool, and very clean, furnished with a mat or two, a coffee mortar7, and food pots and trays. The narrow streets were shaded by an occasional well-grown tree. The earth embankments round the cultivated areas were sometimes fifty feet in height, and had been for the most part artificially formed from the surplus earth dug out between the trees, from household rubbish and from stones gathered out of the Wadi.
The banks were to defend the crops from flood. Wadi Yenbo otherwise would soon have filled the gardens, since these, to be irrigable8, must be below the valley floor. The narrow plots were divided by fences of palm-ribs or by mud walls, with narrow streams of sweet water in raised channels round them. Each garden gate was over water, with a bridge of three or four parallel palm-logs built up to it for the passage of donkeys or camels. Each plot had a mud sluice9, scooped10 away when its turn for watering came. The palms, regularly planted in ordered lines and well cared for, were the main crop; but between them were grown barley11, radishes, marrows12, cucumbers, tobacco and henna. Villages higher up Wadi Yenbo were cool enough to grow grapes.
Feisal’s stand in Nakhl Mubarak could in the nature of things only be a pause, and I felt that I had better get back to Yenbo, to think seriously about our amphibious defence of this port, the Navy having promised its every help. We settled that I should consult Zeid, and act with him as seemed best. Feisal gave me a magnificent bay camel for the trip back. We marched through the Agida hills by a new road, Wadi Messarih, because of a scare of Turkish patrols on the more direct line. Bedr ibn Shefia was with me; and we did the distance gently in a single stage of six hours, getting to Yenbo before dawn. Being tired after three strenuous13 days of little sleep among constant alarms and excitements I went straight to Garland’s empty house (he was living on board ship in the harbour) and fell asleep on a bench; but afterwards I was called out again by the news that Sherif Zeid was coming, and went down to the walls to see the beaten force ride in.
There were about eight hundred of them, quiet, but in no other way mortified14 by their shame. Zeid himself seemed finely indifferent. As he entered the town he turned and cried to Abd el Kadir, the Governor, riding behind him, Why, your town is ruinous! I must telegraph to my father for forty masons to repair the public buildings.’ And this actually he did. I had telegraphed to Captain Boyle that Yenbo was gravely threatened, and Boyle at once replied that his fleet would be there in time, if not sooner. This readiness was an opportune15 consolation16: worse news came along next day. The Turks, by throwing a strong force forward from Bir Said against Nakhl Mubarak, had closed with Feisal’s levies17 while they were yet unsteady. After a short fight, Feisal had broken off, yielded his ground, and was retreating here. Our war seemed entering its last act. I took my camera, and from the parapet of the Medina gate got a fine photograph of the brothers coming in. Feisal had nearly two thousand men with him, but none of the Juheina tribesmen. It looked like treachery and a real defection of the tribes, things which both of us had ruled out of court as impossible.
I called at once at his house and he told me the history. The Turks had come on with three battalions18 and a number of mule-mounted infantry19 and camelry. Their command was in the hands of Ghalib Bey, who handled his troops with great keenness, acting20 as he did under the eye of the Corps21 Commander. Fakhru Pasha privately22 accompanied the expedition, whose guide and go-between with the Arabs was Dakhil-Allah el Kadhi, the hereditary23 law-giver of the Juheina, a rival of Sherif Mohammed Ali el Beidawi, and after him the second man in the tribe.
They got across Wadi Yenbo to the groves24 of Bruka in their first onset25, and thus threatened the Arab communications with Yenbo. They were also able to shell Nakhl Mubarak freely with their seven guns. Feisal was not a whit3 dismayed, but threw out the Juheina on his left to work down the great valley. His centre and right he kept in Nakhl Mubarak, and he sent the Egyptian artillery26 to take post in Jebel Agida, to deny that to the Turks. Then he opened fire on Bruka with his own two fifteen-pounders.
Rasim, a Syrian officer, formerly27 a battery commander in the Turkish Army, was fighting these two guns; and he made a great demonstration28 with them. They had been sent down as a gift from Egypt, anyhow, old rubbish thought serviceable for the wild Arabs, just as the sixty thousand rifles supplied the Sherif were condemned29 weapons, relics30 of the Gallipoli campaign. So Rasim had no sights, nor range-finder, no range tables, no high explosive.
His distance might have been six thousand yards; but the fuses of his shrapnel were Boer War antiquities31, full of green mould, and, if they burst, it was sometimes short in the air, and sometimes grazing. However, he had no means of getting his ammunition32 away if things went wrong, so he blazed off at speed, shouting with laughter at this fashion of making war; and the tribesmen seeing the commandant so merry took heart of grace themselves. ‘By God,’ said one, ‘those are the real guns: the Importance of their noise!’ Rasim swore that the Turks were dying in heaps; and the Arabs charged forward warmly, at his word.
Things were going well; and Feisal had the hope of a decisive success when suddenly his left wing in the valley wavered, halted; finally it turned its back on the enemy and retired33 tumultuously to the camping ground. Feisal, in the centre, galloped34 to Rasim and cried that the Juheina had broken and he was to save the guns. Rasim yoked35 up the teams and trotted36 away to Wadi Agida, wherein the Egyptians were taking counsel avidly37 with one another. After him streamed the Ageyl and the Atban, the men of Ibn Shefia, the Harb and Biasha. Feisal and his household composed the rear, and in deliberate procession they moved down towards Yenbo, leaving the Juheina with the Turks on the battlefield.
As I was still hearing of this sad end, and cursing with him the traitor38 Beidawi brothers, there was a stir about the door, and Abd el Kerim broke through the slaves, swung up to the dais, kissed Feisal’s head-rope in salutation, and sat down beside us. Feisal with a gasping39 stare at him said, ‘How?’ and Abd el Kerim explained their dismay at the sudden flight of Feisal, and how he with his brother and their gallant40 men had fought the Turks for the whole night, alone, without artillery, till the palm-groves became untenable and they too had been driven through Wadi Agida. His brother, with half the manhood of the tribe, was just entering the gate. The others had fallen back up Wadi Yenbo for water.
‘And why did you retire to the camp-ground behind us during the battle?’ asked Feisal. ‘Only to make ourselves a cup of coffee,’ said Abd el Kerim. We had fought from sunrise and it was dusk: we were very tired and thirsty.’ Feisal and I lay back and laughed: then we went to see what could be done to save the town.
The first step was simple. We sent all the Juheina back to Wadi Yenbo with orders to mass at Kheif, and keep up a steady pressure on the Turkish line of communications. They were also to push sniping parties down the Agida hills. This diversion would hold up so many of the Turks that they would be unable to bring against Yenbo a force superior in number to the defenders41, who in addition had the advantage of a good position. The town on the top of its flat reef of coral rose perhaps twenty feet above the sea, and was compassed by water on two sides. The other two sides looked over flat stretches of sand, soft in places, destitute42 of cover for miles, and with no fresh water upon them anywhere. In daylight, if defended by artillery and machine-gun fire, they should be impregnable.
The artillery was arriving every minute; for Boyle, as usual far better than his word, had concentrated five ships on us in less than twenty-four hours. He put the monitor M.31, whose shallow draught43 fitted her for the job, in the end of the south-eastern creek44 of the harbour, whence she could rake the probable direction of a Turkish advance with her six-inch guns. Crocker, her captain, was very anxious to let off those itching45 guns. The larger ships were moored46 to fire over the town at longer range, or to rake the other flank from the northern harbour. The searchlights of Dufferin and M.31 crossed on the plain beyond the town.
The Arabs, delighted to count up the quantity of vessels47 in the harbour, were prepared to contribute their part to the night’s entertainment. They gave us good hope there would be no further panic: but to reassure48 them fully49 they needed some sort of rampart to defend, mediaeval fashion: it was no good digging trenches50, partly because the ground was coral rock, and, besides, they had no experience of trenches and might not have manned them confidently. So we took the crumbling51, salt-riddled wall of the place, doubled it with a second, packed earth between the two, and raised them till our sixteenth-century bastions were rifle-proof at least, and probably proof against the Turkish mountain guns. Outside the bastions we put barbed wire, festooned between cisterns52 on the rain catchments beyond the walls. We dug in machine-gun nests in the best angles, and manned them with Feisal’s regular gunners. The Egyptians, like everyone else given a place in the scheme, were gratifyingly happy. Garland was engineer-in-chief and chief adviser53.
After sun-down the town quivered with suppressed excitement. So long as the day lasted there had been shouts and joy-shots and wild bursts of frenzy54 among the workmen; but when dark came they went back to feed and a hush55 fell. Nearly everyone sat up that night. There was one alarm about eleven o’clock. Our outposts had met the enemy only three miles outside the town. Garland, with a crier, went through the few streets, and called the garrison56. They tumbled straight out and went to their places in dead silence without a shot or a loose shout. The seamen57 on the minaret58 sent warning to the ships, whose combined searchlights began slowly to traverse the plain in complex intersections59, drawing pencils of wheeling light across the flats which the attacking force must cross. However, no sign was made and no cause given us to open fire.
Afterwards, old Dakhil Allah told me he had guided the Turks down to rush Yenbo in the dark that they might stamp out Feisal’s army once for all; but their hearts had failed them at the silence and the blaze of lighted ships from end to end of the harbour, with the eerie60 beams of the searchlights revealing the bleakness61 of the glacis they would have to cross. So they turned back: and that night, I believe, the Turks lost their war. Personally, I was on the Suva, to be undisturbed, and sleeping splendidly at last; so I was grateful to Dakhil Allah for the prudence62 which he preached the Turks, as though we might perhaps have won a glorious victory, I was ready to give much more for just that eight hours’ unbroken rest.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
instinctive
|
|
| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
abominable
|
|
| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
whit
|
|
| n.一点，丝毫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
accustom
|
|
| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
mounds
|
|
| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
thorny
|
|
| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
mortar
|
|
| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
irrigable
|
|
| 可灌溉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
sluice
|
|
| n.水闸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
scooped
|
|
| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
barley
|
|
| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
marrows
|
|
| n.骨髓（marrow的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
13
strenuous
|
|
| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
mortified
|
|
| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
opportune
|
|
| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
levies
|
|
| （部队）征兵( levy的名词复数 )； 募捐； 被征募的军队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
battalions
|
|
| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
infantry
|
|
| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
corps
|
|
| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
privately
|
|
| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
groves
|
|
| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
onset
|
|
| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
artillery
|
|
| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
formerly
|
|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
demonstration
|
|
| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
relics
|
|
| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
antiquities
|
|
| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
ammunition
|
|
| n.军火，弹药 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
galloped
|
|
| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
yoked
|
|
| 结合（yoke的过去式形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
trotted
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
avidly
|
|
| adv.渴望地，热心地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
traitor
|
|
| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
gasping
|
|
| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
gallant
|
|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
defenders
|
|
| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
destitute
|
|
| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
draught
|
|
| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
creek
|
|
| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
itching
|
|
| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
moored
|
|
| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
reassure
|
|
| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
trenches
|
|
| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
crumbling
|
|
| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
cisterns
|
|
| n.蓄水池，储水箱( cistern的名词复数 )；地下储水池 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
adviser
|
|
| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
frenzy
|
|
| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
garrison
|
|
| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
seamen
|
|
| n.海员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
minaret
|
|
| n.（回教寺院的）尖塔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
intersections
|
|
| n.横断( intersection的名词复数 )；交叉；交叉点；交集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
eerie
|
|
| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
bleakness
|
|
| adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
prudence
|
|
| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |