ther any longer. Many will ride
no more, and others are scattered over the earth.

CHAPTER VII

MAC GOES TO CAIRO

The camp lay listless in the glaring heat of high noon. Long rows of
tents gleamed dazzlingly in the sun. Saddlery, horse-rugs, nose-bags
and gear were untidily scattered about. Except for the sleepy figure
of the horse-picket, attempting vainly to keep his lanky person within
the shadow of the feed-trough, there was no one in sight. The horses
needed little attention. With heads low and legs crooked, they dozed
in every attitude of siesta. Within the open tents lay the human
element, more or less replete after the seldom varying meal of sandy
stew and bread. Most of the men slept, stretched full length upon rush
matting on the shady sides of the tents. Some wore trousers, some
shirts and some neither.

Stretched full length upon his back, his head supported upon his
neighbour's chest, and his eyes idly following the ceaseless procession
of flies round the tent pole, Mac smoked and pondered deeply: was it
worth the fag to go to Cairo? Knowing full well that his last three
weeks' shirts and socks awaited washing, he decidedly dutifully to
remain at home, though possibly he might take the air, and probably the
beer, of Heliopolis in the evening. However, his good intentions were
ruthlessly upset, for at that moment the interior of his desert
domicile was swiftly converted into a swirling tornado of dust and
dirt. Blankets, towels and hay departed upwards, and all was turmoil.
In five seconds the air was calm again, but not so the eight
inhabitants of the canvas home.

Emerging from repose and a fog of grimy dust, they condemned Egypt and
things Egyptian in no uncertain tones. They had washed and eaten, and
had settled down comfortably for the afternoon, and why had this
confounded blanky cyclone selected their blanky tent to blanky well
empty itself upon! Often during the midday heat, "weary Willies,"
swirling spiral columns of sand 1,000 feet high, wandered in slow
procession along the edge of the desert from the north-east, usually
missing the camp, but sometimes crossing it, leaving a narrow trail of
chaos and ill temper. Mac met the situation with admirable dignity and
philosophy. This disturbance decided the Cairo question--he would go.
Still muttering wrathfully, the tent's complement sought their
individual towels and gravitated independently and sorrowfully towards
the sho