16
The attack on the Rand Club began while Benham and White were at lunch in the dining-room at the Sherborough on the day following the burning of the STAR office. The Sherborough dining-room was on the first floor, and the Venetian window beside their table opened on to a verandah above a piazza. As they talked they became aware of an excitement in the street below, shouting and running and then a sound of wheels and the tramp of a body of soldiers marching quickly. White stood up and looked.
"They"re seizing the stuff in the gunshops," he said, sitting down again. "It"s amazing they haven"t done it before."
They went on eating and discussing the work of a medical mission at Mukden that had won Benham"s admiration....
A revolver cracked in the street and there was a sound of gla.s.s smashing. Then more revolver shots. "That"s at the big club at the corner, I think," said Benham and went out upon the verandah.
Up and down the street mischief was afoot. Outside the Rand Club in the cross street a considerable ma.s.s of people had acc.u.mulated, and was being hustled by a handful of khaki-clad soldiers. Down the street people were looking in the direction of the market-place and then suddenly a rush of figures flooded round the corner, first a froth of scattered individuals and then a ma.s.s, a column, marching with an appearance of order and waving a flag. It was a poorly disciplined body, it fringed out into a swarm of sympathizers and spectators upon the side walk, and at the head of it two men disputed. They seemed to be differing about the direction of the whole crowd. Suddenly one smote the other with his fist, a blow that hurled him sideways, and then turned with a triumphant gesture to the following ranks, waving his arms in the air. He was a tall lean man, hatless and collarless, greyhaired and wild-eyed. On he came, gesticulating gauntly, past the hotel.
And then up the street something happened. Benham"s attention was turned round to it by a checking, by a kind of catch in the breath, on the part of the advancing procession under the verandah.
The roadway beyond the club had suddenly become clear. Across it a dozen soldiers had appeared and dismounted methodically and lined out, with their carbines in readiness. The mounted men at the club corner had vanished, and the people there had swayed about towards this new threat. Quite abruptly the miscellaneous noises of the crowd ceased.
Understanding seized upon every one.
These soldiers were going to fire....
The brown uniformed figures moved like automata; the rifle shots rang out almost in one report....
There was a rush in the crowd towards doorways and side streets, an enquiring pause, the darting back of a number of individuals into the roadway and then a derisive shouting. n.o.body had been hit. The soldiers had fired in the air.
"But this is a stupid game," said Benham. "Why did they fire at all?"
The tall man who had led the mob had run out into the middle of the road. His commando was a little disposed to a.s.sume a marginal position, and it had to be rea.s.sured. He was near enough for Benham to see his face. For a time it looked anxious and thoughtful. Then he seemed to jump to his decision. He unb.u.t.toned and opened his coat wide as if defying the soldiers. "Shoot," he bawled, "Shoot, if you dare!"
A little uniform movement of the soldiers answered him. The small figure of the officer away there was inaudible. The coat of the man below flapped like the wings of a crowing c.o.c.k before a breast of dirty shirt, the hoa.r.s.e voice cracked with excitement, "Shoot, if you dare. Shoot, if you dare! See!"
Came the metallic bang of the carbines again, and in the instant the leader collapsed in the road, a sprawl of clothes, hit by half a dozen bullets. It was an extraordinary effect. As though the figure had been deflated. It was incredible that a moment before this thing had been a man, an individual, a hesitating complicated purpose.
"Good G.o.d!" cried Benham, "but--this is horrible!"
The heap of garments lay still. The red hand that stretched out towards the soldiers never twitched.
The spectacular silence broke into a confusion of sounds, women shrieked, men cursed, some fled, some sought a corner from which they might still see, others pressed forward. "Go for the swine!" bawled a voice, a third volley rattled over the heads of the people, and in the road below a man with a rifle halted, took aim, and answered the soldiers" fire. "Look out!" cried White who was watching the soldiers, and ducked. "This isn"t in the air!"
Came a straggling volley again, like a man running a metal hammer very rapidly along iron corrugations, and this time people were dropping all over the road. One white-faced man not a score of yards away fell with a curse and a sob, struggled up, staggered for some yards with blood running abundantly from his neck, and fell and never stirred again.
Another went down upon his back clumsily in the roadway and lay wringing his hands faster and faster until suddenly with a movement like a sigh they dropped inert by his side. A straw-hatted youth in a flannel suit ran and stopped and ran again. He seemed to be holding something red and strange to his face with both hands; above them his eyes were round and anxious. Blood came out between his fingers. He went right past the hotel and stumbled and suddenly sprawled headlong at the opposite corner. The majority of the crowd had already vanished into doorways and side streets. But there was still shouting and there was still a remnant of amazed and angry men in the roadway--and one or two angry women. They were not fighting. Indeed they were unarmed, but if they had had weapons now they would certainly have used them.
"But this is preposterous!" cried Benham. "Preposterous. Those soldiers are never going to shoot again! This must stop."
He stood hesitating for a moment and then turned about and dashed for the staircase. "Good Heaven!" cried White. "What are you going to do?"
Benham was going to stop that conflict very much as a man might go to stop a clock that is striking unwarrantably and amazingly. He was going to stop it because it annoyed his sense of human dignity.
White hesitated for a moment and then followed, crying "Benham!"
But there was no arresting this last outbreak of Benham"s all too impatient kingship. He pushed aside a ducking German waiter who was peeping through the gla.s.s doors, and rushed out of the hotel. With a gesture of authority he ran forward into the middle of the street, holding up his hand, in which he still held his dinner napkin clenched like a bomb. White believes firmly that Benham thought he would be able to dominate everything. He shouted out something about "Foolery!"
Haroun al Raschid was flinging aside all this sublime indifference to current things....
But the carbines spoke again.
Benham seemed to run unexpectedly against something invisible. He spun right round and fell down into a sitting position. He sat looking surprised.
After one moment of blank funk White drew out his pocket handkerchief, held it arm high by way of a white flag, and ran out from the piazza of the hotel.
17
"Are you hit?" cried White dropping to his knees and making himself as compact as possible. "Benham!"
Benham, after a moment of perplexed thought answered in a strange voice, a whisper into which a whistling note had been mixed.
"It was stupid of me to come out here. Not my quarrel. Faults on both sides. And now I can"t get up. I will sit here a moment and pull myself together. Perhaps I"m--I must be shot. But it seemed to come--inside me.... If I should be hurt. Am I hurt?... Will you see to that book of mine, White? It"s odd. A kind of faintness.... What?"
"I will see after your book," said White and glanced at his hand because it felt wet, and was astonished to discover it bright red. He forgot about himself then, and the fresh flight of bullets down the street.
The immediate effect of this blood was that he said something more about the book, a promise, a definite promise. He could never recall his exact words, but their intention was binding. He conveyed his absolute acquiescence with Benham"s wishes whatever they were. His life for that moment was unreservedly at his friend"s disposal....
White never knew if his promise was heard. Benham had stopped speaking quite abruptly with that "What?"
He stared in front of him with a doubtful expression, like a man who is going to be sick, and then, in an instant, every muscle seemed to give way, he shuddered, his head flopped, and White held a dead man in his arms.
THE END