was annoying, and so were those two Krupp guns; already there were more
cacolets full than he cared to see. But on the whole he thought it
better to hold his fire until he had more to aim at than a few hundred
of fuzzy heads peeping over a razor-back ridge. He was a bulky,
red-faced man, a fine whist-player, and a soldier who knew his work.
His men believed in him, and he had good reason to believe in them, for
he had excellent stuff under him that day. Being an ardent champion of
the short-service system, he took particular care to work with veteran
first battalions, and his little force was the compressed essence of an
army corps.

The left front of the square was formed by four companies of the Royal
Wessex, and the right by four of the Royal Mallows. On either side the
other halves of the same regiments marched in quarter column of
companies. Behind them, on the right was a battalion of Guards, and on
the left one of Marines, while the rear was closed in by a Rifle
battalion. Two Royal Artillery 7 lb. screw-guns kept pace with the
square, and a dozen white-bloused sailors, under their blue-coated,
tight-waisted officers, trailed their Gardner in front, turning every
now and then to spit up at the draggled banners which waved over the
cragged ridge. Hussars and Lancers scouted in the scrub at each side,
and within moved the clump of camels, with humorous eyes and
supercilious lips, their comic faces a contrast to the blood-stained men
who already lay huddled in the cacolets on either side.

The square was now moving slowly on a line parallel with the rocks,
stopping every few minutes to pick up wounded, and to allow the
screw-guns and Gardner to make themselves felt. The men looked serious,
for that spring on to the rocks of the Arab army had given them a vague
glimpse of the number and ferocity of their foes; but their faces were