Hi Jolly! Part 10

Presently, Ali caught his first glimpse of Camp Verde, the military post where the camels were to be held until a major expedition was organized.

His heart grew lighter and his troubles less.

Obviously, Camp Verde had been planned by someone who knew camels.

Glancing briefly at a cl.u.s.ter of adobe buildings, Ali centered intent scrutiny on the khan, or camel corral. Constructed of stone, wood and timber, it was patterned after the time-tested khans of Ali's native country. Rectangular, the north wall angled outward. The gate was in this wall and a house for the chief camel handler stood beside the gate.

s.p.a.cious enough for five times as many camels, the corral differed in a notable respect from most khans Ali had seen. It was sparkling clean.

A few camels, some with pack and some with riding saddles, stood here and there about the camp and more were visible in the khan. Evidently this was the herd Mimico had mentioned, the thirty-three previously imported. The new arrivals were halted, stripped of their burdens and herded into the khan.

With an affectionate parting slap for Ben Akbar, Ali turned to face a strange camel handler. Arrived with the first camels and presently serving as interpreter, he already had Mimico and the six other handlers in tow.

"You are to come with me," he announced.

He escorted the newcomers to a building and lined them up before a desk, behind which sat a bored-looking clerk. The clerk inscribed each man's name in his records while the interpreter told each about the wages he would receive. Ali, last in line, presently faced the clerk.

"You are to be paid twenty dollars a month and receive full rations,"

the interpreter said.

Without looking up, the clerk asked, "Name?"

"Hadji Ali," Ali answered.

"What?" the clerk asked.

"Hadji Ali," Ali repeated.

The clerk wrote with his goose quill, and, still without looking up, he flipped the book around for Ali's inspection. Unable to read or write, but with no intention of admitting that while the interpreter might overhear, Ali scanned his written name.

"Right?" the clerk asked.

Ali nodded approval. Thus did Hadji Ali cease to be. From that moment, not only as long as he lived but as history would record him after his death, Ali would be known by the name the clerk had written.

It was _Hi Jolly_.

9. Lieutenant Beale

Except for the camels, that never seemed to be affected by any weather, everything at Camp Verde had sought the nearest shade. It was hot, Ali admitted to himself. The Syrian sun at its fiercest was not more savage than this blazing sun of Texas. But it was not unendurable.

Since for the present there was no reason to endure it, Ali and Mimico sat cross-legged in the shade of the camel khan. Wan and weak, Mimico was still recovering from some devastating malady that had almost cost his life. For an interval neither spoke. Then Mimico broke the silence.

"I came to this thrice-accursed camp while winter was still with us," he growled. "I have been here since, doing the work of a stable boy and as a stable boy regarded. All this I endured without complaint--"

Ali smothered a quick grin. Throughout a very monotonous period of doing nothing worthwhile, as they waited for somebody to decide what should be done, no voice had declared more loudly or more frequently than Mimico's that camels and camel men belonged out on the trails. They should not be restricted to a rest home for obsolete Pashas--Mimico's personal t.i.tle for Camp Verde--who could do nothing except talk because they had grown too old or too fat to ride.

Mimico saw the grin and lapsed into a sulky silence. Then he resumed, amending his narrative to conform with truth.

"All this I endured with little complaint, for I knew that it was a pa.s.sing thing. Sooner or later, there would be work for men, and men would be needed. Now that the opportunity is here--"

Mimico's voice trailed off into silence, and he gazed moodily at the sun-shriveled horizon. Ali's heart went out to his friend.

Camp Verde had indeed proved dull. Ali would have taken Ben Akbar and gone elsewhere weeks ago, except that he, too, foresaw a need for both camels and camel men. Now that time was not only at hand, but it promised to be the most exciting caravan of Ali's life.

A full-scale expedition was to be commanded by a Lieutenant Beale, an officer Ali had not met. The object was to survey a wagon road.

According to rumor, a great deal of the proposed route lay through wilderness, of which none was well-known and much was unknown. There was more than a fair chance of encountering Indians, America's own savage tribesmen!

Most important and most exciting, the expedition was to provide a major test for the camels. Twenty-five were to go along, with Ali as a sort of overseer-teacher. Besides handling the camels, he was to instruct others in their proper handling.

Ali could well understand his friend's disappointment. Mimico, who otherwise would have accompanied the expedition, had been declared physically unfit by the post surgeon and ordered to remain at Camp Verde.

Ali offered such comfort as he could. "It is the will of Allah."

"Save your pious lectures for fledglings who may be impressed!" Mimico snapped. "If the will of Allah were truly what men proclaim it to be, you would have been shriveled by His wrath on a certain night when you left Mecca in a very great hurry."

Ali said nothing. Gray November skies had prevailed when he joined the company on the _Supply_ and had his first meeting with Mimico. This was June in a new land, and never once had Mimico even intimated that he knew of the incident in Mecca. Mentioning it now was a breach of etiquette, but Ali did not forget that Mimico was both sick and heartbroken.

After a moment, "Forgive me, my friend!" Mimico implored. "I shall not make my own hurt less painful by inflicting hurt upon you!"

Ali said, "It is forgotten."

"I care not what you or anyone else did in Mecca," Mimico went on. "None of us may truly know what lies beyond this mortal life until we have taken leave of it and may find out for ourselves. Getting back to earthly matters, which are the only ones I admit to understanding, I hear the journey will be long."

"I have heard the same," Ali declared. "But the longer it is, the better. I do not like this place."

Mimico said fervently, "Nor do I! Aside from being wearisome, it has been most absurd. I wonder at the Amirs who have made it so."

Ali told himself that that was also true. Major Wayne, in command at Camp Verde, was a thoroughly competent officer who maintained a smoothly running organization when left alone. But various officers who ranked Wayne, of whom few had any real knowledge of camels but all cherished pet theories, had visited from time to time and insisted on trying their ideas.

One had convinced himself--and submitted an official report that he hoped would convince others--that camels were greatly inferior to horses. He arrived at such a conclusion by arranging a race, a quarter-mile sprint, between a racehorse and a riding camel. The horse finished before the camel was fairly started, it is true, but the officer in question refused to recognize the sound fact that quarter-mile sprints would not be especially valuable to the proposed Camel Corps. Nor could he be convinced that, although a good horse may outdistance a camel in the first half day of travel, the camel will overtake and pa.s.s the horse before night.

Furthermore, the camel will be fresh for the next day's start and will be going on long after the horse is worn out.

Another officer had proved conclusively that, due to peculiarities of the terrain, camels would be worse than useless in the Southwest because they quickly became sore-footed. This officer derived such an opinion by requisitioning six camels that hadn't been outside the khan for six weeks, having them packed and sending them off on a fifty-mile trip. The camels went lame solely because they had had no trail work to harden their feet.

In a similar fas.h.i.+on, it had been demonstrated that the gait of a riding camel is so stiff and jarring that Americans couldn't possibly get used to it; that camels are subject to a bewildering variety of ailments; that they are too vicious to be practical, and that there were a few dozen other reasons why the whole project couldn't possibly work and the camels had better be disposed of right now! Throughout, those who had originally had faith in a camel corps persisted in battling all skeptics and going ahead.

At long last, this proper expedition was organized and a true test was at hand. What happened afterward, Ali told himself, depended in great measure on Lieutenant Beale. If he was one of those officers whose every thought is already written in the Manual of Regulations--Ali had seen for himself that the American Army has a full quota of such--his report might very well doom future expeditions. If Beale was able to think for himself, if he was capable of honest a.n.a.lysis and could adapt to new situations, it was wholly possible that his favorable report would remove all obstacles and be the making of the Camel Corps.

Mimico asked wistfully, "What think you of the savage tribesmen, whose country you are to enter?"

"I have never met them," Ali answered seriously. "But I have met and fought the Druse, and I know well the bandits of the caravan routes.

It is difficult to suppose that these savages are more fierce."

"Difficult indeed," Mimico said. "I am most envious, Ali."

Ali said, "There will be a chance for you."

"There is already a chance for you," Mimico pointed out, "and it is better to have one honey cake in the hand than to yearn for twenty and have none. It is said that you will enter desert country."