 We trotted fast across theplain towards the line.
We were exhausted, the prisoners had drunk all ourwater. Across it anoccasional low
dune stretched a drifting line.
The tender and first waggon had
telescoped.
Bols had never an opinion, nor any knowledge. In
the lull, I ran southward to join the sergeants. My men, possessed by greed,
haddispersed over the land with the Beduins. They would listen to no word but mine,
and brought me their troublesfor judgement. I assured them that all was going well:
but they wouldnot get away till some husbands delivered me. The second engine was a
blanched pile of smokingiron. Just as he had gone, the watchman cried out that smoke
in clouds wasrising from Hallat Ammar.
We also kicked northward some dozencivilians, who
had thought they were going to Medina.
TheTurks were almost arrived and would recover what
remained of the train. CHAPTER LXVQuietly we regained our camels and slept. My
pupils practised the art of mining afterwards by themselves, andtaught others. One
came out a few stepsin our direction, then hesitated. I asked for volunteers to come
back and find him. Send us a lurens and we willblow up trains with it, wrote the
Beni Atiyeh to Feisal. When he had passed us by a mile or two the fatigue of
thetramp became too much for him.
Three times I had had to defend myself when
theypretended not to know me and snatched at my things. They never again attacked a
prepared Arab position. Then one of Feisals slavesvouchsafed that Salem was missing.
We reached the well in three hours and watered without mishap. The train was
veryslow, and sometimes the patrol halted.
For variety we determined to work by
Maan.
In the next four months our experts from Akaba
destroyed seventeenlocomotives.
We had none: not that it mattered, for he was
mortally hurt anddying.
There we brought up the two ends and connected them
withthe electric exploder.
Zaal and Howeimil had missed me and had returnedin
search.
The train was veryslow, and sometimes the patrol
halted. This seemed an ideal spot to laythe charge. In the next four months our
experts from Akaba destroyed seventeenlocomotives.
Fortunately it held on at all the speed thetwo
locomotives could make on wood fuel.
We called everyone together andquestioned them.
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