CHAPTER XXIX.
THROUGH THE HOLY LAND.
The drumming of a pheasant in a near-by thicket was the first sound ofthe dawn to the first of the four sleepers who emerged fromdreamland--no other than Billy, whose slumber had been haunted by oldimpressions of war.
Half awake, the boy looked dazedly for the appearance in the clearing ofrank upon rank of marching soldiers, moving to the measure of thedrum-beat. When, however, he had rubbed his eyes and realized where hewas, his ringing laugh not only dissolved the fantasy, but brought Henrito his elbows like a jumping-jack.
"Plague take it," cried the startled lad; "what do you mean by scaring afellow out of his boots?"
"That's just what a jolly old bird over there in the bushes did to me,"said Billy; "I thought he was sounding a 'Charge of the Light Brigade,'with no less terrible result than when Bill Williams used to recite iton exhibition days at Brixton school."
"What are you fellows chattering about?" This from Canby, rising fromhis mossy bed.
"Another county heard from," announced the Bangor boy; "we werediscussing, sir," he went on, "whether the clothes you are occupyingwere tailored just before or just after the Byzantine period."
"Hold hard there," put in Macauley; "'spare that tree, woodman,' it's afine old oak, no matter how rough its coat."
Canby, beginning to fear that "Mustapha" was going to be late with thebreakfast, broke away from the wordy exchange to take a look through theorchard, in the hope of meeting the incoming provider.
He soon returned in triumph, drilling the grinning black in drum-majorstyle, waving an olive branch for a baton.
"Most illustrious purveyor, thou art most doubly welcome," declaredMacauley, as "Mustapha" shifted the load from his head to the ground.
The disappearance of the breakfast marked the appearance of thepatriarch, who was accompanied by a husky pair of natives, each with abalancing pole across the shoulders, double-ended with buckets of brass.
"Of that for which you most wished I have it here in gallons," statedthe graybeard, "and with blessing on its use."
Billy constituted himself a smelling committee of one to analyze theproduct in the swinging metal vessels.
"By the nearest approach," decided the young aviator, "it is either thereal thing or first cousin to it; a little closer to tan-yard aroma thanis usual, perhaps, but the kind that will make the wheels go 'round."
"Sorrow is with me if this last gift should hasten the passing of theflying men, for whom I hold a never-dying welcome."
Touched by the words of the patriarch, and profoundly grateful for allthat he had done for them, every head among the four was bared, asMacauley, in his deep voice, and with scarcely concealed emotion,returned the heartfelt thanks of the aviation party for the benefactionsso freely and so generously bestowed upon them.
"That we must soon depart," he exclaimed, "is inevitable, but no day tocome will be empty of a thought of our treatment by you. Out in thehurly-burly we cannot expect to match it, yet out in the hurly-burly webelong. Peace be with you, sir."
On ordinary occasions nothing could have restrained Canby from crying,"Hear, hear," at such eloquence on the part of his usually blunt-spokencomrade. But Canby had a fine edge under his rough and ready manner, andhe merely nodded his head in approval of the sentiment expressed.
"You are a soldier?" The aged man had evident intent of changing thesubject.
"Two of us are in the service, sir," replied Macauley, "and would answerthe bugle call did we but know where it was sounding hereabouts."
The patriarch raised his dimming eyes to the blue canopy above, a prayeron his lips.
"That all could say, 'peace be with you,'" he muttered. Then, drawinghimself up in the full measure of his tall figure, the old man, with asweeping gesture to the south, quietly directed:
"That way does the carnage rage."
He gave more minutely, however, details of distance, territory to betraversed and other facts of value to the travelers.
"We will start in the morning, sir," advised Billy.
"And so it is written," solemnly returned the patriarch. "Farewell andfare thee well." To the boy he handed a scroll, with Arabic charactersthereon. "To any Jew," he said.
Gathering his robe about him, the speaker turned into the shady walk ofthe orchard, followed by his dusky retainers.
More of his bounty came during the day, but never another sign of hispresence in the hours that completed the stay of the flyers on theborder of the city that its people call "a pearl set in emeralds."
Following the southerly course, as directed, the aviators began to notea change in the fleeting landscape below, nature in less luxuriant form,foliage sparse and more and more of the stony gray of arid country withwide wastes of desert sand.
Macauley's loud cry--"the sea, the sea!" found an echo in the otherwar-plane, Canby also shouting his discovery of the great expanse ofwater to the west.
Henri, remembering the advices of the patriarch at Damascus, proclaimedit the Mediterranean. The war-planes were sailing over the deep valleyof the Jordan, and in Palestine, or the Holy Land.
With so much mountainous country about them, the pilots concluded todescend to the valley for rest and council.
Landing was made near a spring of boiling hot water, something notbefore of record in Henri's notebook.
"If the janitor of my uncle's apartment house in Boston had this to tapfor the kicking tenants, I believe the hump in his shoulders would loseits curve in a week."
Billy had tested the product of the boiling spring with a finger tip,and promptly poked the scalded member into his mouth for cooling.
"It wouldn't be a marker to the way my Aunt Melissa would go on,"remarked Canby, "if she knew her wayward nephew was really in the 'landflowing in milk and honey.' Even if the 'flow' isn't showing much yet tome, that good old soul has it fixed in her mind. It wasn't so far fromhere, I guess, that King David looked one way at Philistine enemies andthe other at Moabite foes."
"Suppose we may as well camp here for the night," said Henri, "though itstrikes me that I'd rather be where the sea would sing me to sleep."
"No dark night flying for me this trip. I don't want to smash anymountains by running into them."
Billy had concluded that the sand was soft enough for a good bed, andthere was another spring near, in decided contrast to the hot one.
"We can be in Jerusalem in almost no time now, and a little further onthe fighting game begins again. Why hurry? There'll be plenty of powderleft when we get to Egypt."
"You ought to have said that before we shook the pleasant berth up atDamascus, Billy," insisted Henri.
"But, you know, Macauley and Canby wouldn't have consented to keepingthat far away from the cannon's mouth. They know now that thejumping-off place is close enough to reach in a day or two, and, maybe,they'll stand hitched for a little while."
Billy spoke loud enough for the soldiers to hear, as he intended.
"Don't worry yourself, my kiddy," laughed Canby; "we are not going torun away from you."
"There's a big bunch of sheep and goats, I see, feeding around thesehills, but strange to say, we haven't glimpsed a single human since wecame down."
This observation by Macauley conveyed a fact at which the others, too,had wondered.
"Well," asserted Billy, "there's one thing sure, we had more of an airescort flying in here than I've seen in many a long ride. The eagles,vultures and hawks must think the war-planes are a new brand of birdcome to crowd them out of business."
"Maybe they thought the planes were geese, seeing Canby's head stickingout of the rigging."
"Mac's jealous," parried Canby; "he has to keep his ears folded up whenwe're flying, and can only bray on the ground."
"Why don't you fellows put on the gloves?" suggested Billy.
"I guess they don't irrigate this country like they used to do in theold days," observed Henri, who had been taki
ng a little jaunt ofinspection toward the overhanging hills; "it's as dry as a bone, and ifyou show me a tree I'll eat it."
"You'd better save your appetite for the spread we are going to havebefore we turn in," said Billy; "our old friend at Damascus sure gave usa load of fig-pasty fixings that we'll have to get away with before theyspoil. And, besides, Buddy, this is a tiny little country, they say, andwe may see a better side of it when we go a bit further."
"That will be at daylight, I hope," put in Macauley.
When next the sun rose above the plateaux, the war-planes had lifted forflight to the great maritime plain at the west of the Jordan, awonderful journey, over a country of stones, caves, tombs, ruins,battlefields, sites hallowed by traditions--all bathed in an atmosphereof legend and marvel.
Drawing near now to Jerusalem, "The Holy," one of the most ancient andinteresting cities in the world, the aviators from afar could see itswalls outlined three thousand feet above the sea.
Approaching this center of pilgrimage in an aeroplane! Dashing towardthe "wall of David" in a buzz-boat of the air! "Something to remember,"thought Billy, steering for one of the five city gates now in use.
When the war-planes skidded in the train of a procession of mules andcamels, there was considerable of a scare along the line, and theaviators were soon surrounded by a curious bunch of Bedouins. It wasjust a babel to the airmen, until there stepped from the press ofstrange humanity one of authoritative manner, a Hebrew of advanced ageand apparent consequence.
It struck the travelers all in a heap, the marked similarity of typebetween the Jew of Damascus and the man who stood before them.
The latter intently surveyed both the flying machines and flyers beforehe spoke, and in English, for he saw that the four were but poorimitations of Turks.
"Came you this way or that?" he questioned, pointing in turn to theflanking valleys at all points of the compass.
"From the north," promptly replied Billy.
It just then occurred to the boy to produce the scroll given to him bythe Damascus patriarch. "To any Jew," the latter had said, and here wasa goodly specimen of the race within easy reach.
So Billy stepped forward with the parchment roll in extended hand. Abrief glance at the Arabic communication by the man accepting it hadmagic effect.
He clapped his hands in signal to someone in the confusedly murmuringcrowd, and two Arabs, mere boys, responded, leading a pair of heavilyladen donkeys.
A few words of command and the loads on the donkeys' backs weretransferred to the humps of two camels, the last named animals makingprotest by savage teeth snaps at the nimble servitors doing the work.
Rope attachments made, the war-planes were hauled through the city gate,the first and only time these machines ever worked under donkey power!
Turning out of the traffic of the main road into a narrow, ill-pavedstreet, down-sloping into the interior of the city, the four flyers,walking alongside of the machines to steady them, and theirself-declared host marching ahead of the donkey drivers, passed throughlong double lines of dead walls, for though the houses weresubstantially built of stone they presented no windows to the streets.
However, the air travelers had a glimpse or two of the modern Jerusalemhere and there; new hotels, for instance, that had the appearance ofbeing up-to-date.
"No look-in there for us," sighed Billy; "we're just plain broke; butlet me say, Buddy, it seems that we are somehow always provided for, nomatter what has happened on this side of the ocean."
"Giving the glad hand seems a specialty with the Damascus man and histwin in Jerusalem; they're all to the good in that line," declaredHenri.
Canby would have strayed from the line of march when he caught sight inthe distance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but the leader keptstraight ahead, and the Arab boys were constantly whanging the donkeysto keep up with him.
Pausing finally in front of a flat-roofed stone dwelling, with courtyardenclosure, the war-planes were sheltered within the walls of the latter,while the host guided his guests into and through the house to anextensive garden at the rear, rich with flowering plants.
"Probably our last day of peaceful avocation," mused Canby, as heapplied a lighted taper to the bowl of a long-stemmed pipe, which hadbeen served to him by an Arab attendant.
CHAPTER XXX.
OFF FOR EGYPT.
"The reverend sir tells me that this country of Palestine is only 140miles long and about 80 miles wide," said Henri, who had entered theinformation in his ragged notebook, to which he had clung like grimdeath from the day he had entered the war zone.
"My Aunt Melissa would tell you," stated Canby, "that nearly all theevents in the accounts of Israel that are recorded in the Old Testamenthappened within this space. From the days of Abraham to our own timesthere's been a mighty lot of history made here."
"Pity we could not have gone about a little bit more," remarked Billy,"but warriors and war-planes must get to the front."
"If it pleases your honor," slyly intimated Macauley, "Canby and I couldwalk the rest of the way."
"I've got a picture of you doing it," retorted the Bangor boy; "the warwould be over by the time you got anywhere. You were built for riding,my bold captain."
"Listen to the wasp," laughed Canby.
The stillness of evening pervaded the garden, and the four fell into thebrooding silence of the hour. The liquid notes of a nightingalecontributed to the dreamy effect of the oriental surroundings. With themorning the vision of the Holy Land would fade.
Up betimes, again alert and eager to proceed, the air travelers had oncemore the kindly greeting of the venerable host, and once more partook ofhis generous hospitality. At his order the war-planes were wheeled intothe open, and followed by a blessing the pilots, fully advised of theroute, sent the machines buzzing away to the south, along theMediterranean coast line.
Their fixed destination was El Arish, on the border of Palestine andEgypt, the key to the fighting zone in the land of Suez and the Nile,where General Maxwell, in command of the British forces, was matchingwits with the Ottoman commanders, urged to best effort by the presenceof Enver Pasha, the young "war lord" of Turkey.
While fully ten miles away from the border, Macauley declared that hecould scent gunpowder, and as the distance rapidly lessened, numerousenough were the signs of military occupation to convince Billy that thesoldier's nose had not gone back on him.
A half hour later the war-planes were down, and Macauley and Canby hadfound their own again; if not, indeed, the "old Seventh," just the samekind of fighting blood under the Union Jack.
While Billy and Henri got busy in overhauling the war-planes andreducing in the machines some of the effects of rough usage andcontinuous journeying, the two soldiers were equally active in gettinginto the campaign. Well set up again in khaki uniforms and with pithhelmets on their heads, "Daring Dan" and Canby looked like ten-timewinners. The boys also had ceased to be "Turks," by the courtesy of thequartermaster.
"Guess we'll have to shake you for a while, and sorry for it, my youngfriends. We have your gauge for a dandy pair, and the breed to whichanyone may safely tie; so I am just wanting to say that I hope we willmeet many times and often in the future, the nearer the better."
"What's the occasion?" questioned Billy.
"Marching orders for the morning," continued Macauley; "not a flyingassignment this time, or you boys would be on the front seats. Justplain footing it for the present."
The speaker gave each of the boys a hearty grip and a look of strongliking, Canby following suit with equal fervor.
When the soldiers turned away to join the regiment to which they hadbeen assigned, the lads climbed to an elevation on the sea front andlooked out upon the rolling blue of the Mediterranean.
"Many the hard parting we've had, Buddy," murmured Billy; "how I wouldlove to go back over the trail and greet the good friends and truecomrades again, one by one. Mayhap some of th
e warm hands are cold bynow, some of the great hearts stilled. My prayer is that this be not so.And I've been asking myself if there is any pledge behind us that wehave broken?"
"I don't believe there's a single shortage there," exclaimedHenri--"why, yes, there is, too, come to think twice--Stanny's belt."
"Not so much of a fracture there, after all," said the Bangor boy--"onlydelayed delivery. We couldn't help that."
"Let's call the past a fairly clean slate, then," conceded Henri. "Facesto the front, old pard; we're not through yet!"
The boy was right; there were still strenuous days in the mist-veiledfuture, and in territory all unknown to them.
A message to Port Said was in the making, and no wires to convey it;what next to the electric flash for lightning speed? The aeroplane!
The call was sudden, but no less prompt the response.
Billy Barry and Henri Trouville saluted a pair of shoulder straps,received the word to go--and, forthwith, went!
Their flight carries them into the continuing record of adventure: "OurYoung Aeroplane Scouts in Turkey; or, Bringing the Light to Yusef."
THE END.
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