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Askaris led the way, Somalis in claret-colored fezzes and khaki uniforms, bare legged, with bandoliers across their chests and rifles over their shoulders. Their small, dark faces were sharp and fierce; they marched with the swing of desert men; their glances expressed their pride, their contempt for the humble, melodious horde that followed after them.
As he approached them, Dewforth saw that the fezzes were actually felt hats with the brims atrophied or rotted away, and the funereal long-johns were the weatherbeaten remains of those suits which are designed for Young Men On The Way Up. As though by tacit agreement of long standing, these men did not look directly at Dewforth as he passed, nor he at them.
He then made haste to the hotel of Mûsa el Barûdi. The two sons of Mûsa, Daûd and Selîm, clad in robes of striped silk, and high red fezzes, sat out on stools, one on either side of the doorway, to feel the morning sun and chat with wayfarers. Behind them, against the doorpost, leaned a tall negro in white robe and turban, who held a broom in his hand, but seemed to have done with sweeping.
But at Constantinople, how we turned out! Turbans, scimetars, fezzes, horse-pistols, tunics, sashes, baggy trowsers, yellow slippers Oh, we were gorgeous! The illustrious dogs of Constantinople barked their under jaws off, and even then failed to do us justice. They are all dead by this time. They could not go through such a run of business as we gave them and survive.
"... Before leaving the convent we were again cautioned against holding conversation with STRANGERS we might encounter in the numerous caravans along the road to LEH.... We punctiliously obeyed these instructions during the rest of our journey until we reached the PETAK convent, which stands upon an isolated rock beside an abandoned garrison or fort, with its two towers looking like ant hills beside the majestic mountain that rises ten thousand feet above our resting place.... This mountain is the sentinel that protects our entrance into Thibet.... Six miles away is LEH, elevated eleven thousand feet above the lowlands and around whose shadowy convents rise those immense granite pinnacles to an elevation of eighteen thousand feet, where their frosty crests are enshrouded in the fezzes of eternal snows!...
Besides, if they find the pit empty they'll only put fresh men here, and all the work will be to do again. 'Let's tackle 'em then, said Roy Horan recklessly. 'Odds are too long, replied Ken. He paused a moment, and glanced round. 'I've an idea, he said swiftly. 'I believe we can fool them. Quick! Take the coats off the dead men, and put them on. Their fezzes, too.
To his left, formed up at right angles, were the representative detachments of the Egyptian army, the 11th Soudanese, with their red heckles in their fezzes, in the front line. Upon the Sirdar's right were the detachments of Gatacre's division, each in its regimental order of seniority.
Fortunately, at the foot of the road leading down to the plateau, the sergeant who led the men out of action found one of our Caucasian regiments who are used to dealing with the fezzes, and they came up at the double, and after two hours' fighting were reenforced by another two companies and carried the trench. "Farther back we found the enemy in a stronger plateau.
They clung to things and pressed themselves against things, and they stared with unfocused eyes at something which had been there before but was not there now. These men seemed to be wearing greasy fezzes and dark, baggy long underwear with buttons and vestigial lapels.
And Parr, sagging, shivering, softly groaning on the back of the Muscat donkey, and Hamoud, ever pacing beside her, and the askaris with their rifle barrels glinting against their fezzes, and the porters and the camp boys, were only the instrument that her will had welded together. They were wraiths obediently advancing her dream of one fleeting moment of triumph over fate.
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