alone. She had
unveiled for the first and only time on this day of the skirmish,
had distributed cartridges and had acted faultlessly.

"Soon we were able to ascertain the number of the enemy. There
were about 300 men; we numbered fifty, with twenty-nine machine
guns. In the night Lieutenant Schmidt died. We had to dig his grave
with our hands and with our bayonets, and to eliminate every trace
above it, in order to protect the body. Rademacher had been buried
immediately after the skirmish with all honors.

"The wounded had a hard time of it. We had lost our medicine chest
in the wreck; we had only little packages of bandages for skirmishes;
but no probing instrument, no scissors, were at hand. On the next day
our men came up with thick tongues, feverish, and crying: 'Water,
water!' But each one received only a little cupful three times
each day. If our water supply became exhausted we would have to
sally forth from our camp and fight our way through. At night we
always dragged out the dead camels that had served as cover and
had been shot.

"This continued about three days. On the third day there were new
negotiations. Now the Bedouins demanded arms no longer, but only
money. This time the negotiations took place across the camp wall.
When I declined the Bedouin said, 'Lots of fight.' I said, 'Please
go to it.'

"We had only a little ammunition left, and very little water. Now
it really looked as if we would soon be dispatched. The mood of
the men was pretty dismal. Suddenly, at about ten o'clock in the
morning, there bobbed up in the north two riders on camels, waving
white cloths. Soon afterward there appeared, coming from the same
direction, far back, a long row of camel troops, about a hundred;
they drew rapidly nearer, rode singing toward us, in a picturesque
train. They were the messengers and the troops of the Emir of Mecca.

"Sami Bey's wife, it developed, had in the course of the first
negotiations, dispatched an Arab boy to Jeddah. From that place
the governor had telegraphed to the emir. The latter at once sent
camel troops with his two sons and his personal surgeon; the elder,
Abdullah, conducted the negotiations, and the surgeon acted as
interpreter in French. Now things proceeded in one-two-three order,
and the whole Bedouin band speedily disappeared. From what I learned
later I know definitely that they had been corrupted with bribes by
the English. They knew when and where we would pass, and the