Evening star., 1936-01-26
Magazine Section
The Affair at Ain Zeb
Continued from page nine
Magazine Section
Continued from page nine

before sunset. he jumped to his feet,
fixed his bayonet and did charge all
by himself
Curlously enough. he got there,
too. though the good Lord alone knows
how many times he got chipped on the
way Reached the nearest group of
them. got his bayonet into his man.
and died happy
"Charmantelle you remember
Sergeant Charmantelle been a
Dragon officer before he iolned the
Legion great big chap got one
sideways too. Took out all his front
teeth. That was funny because he'd
always been So proud of 'em. You re-
member the old Joke about him2"
Yes" replied Tant de Soil and
quoted: There lots OF good things
about Charmantcllc -- thirty-SiX good
teeth
well. that's about all the good
there was to Charmanteile, but one
has to admit that he died we'll The
last thing he SAID - and it must have
cost hun some effort to speak at all --
was: Well. shan't be able to eat Tor
long time. but can still drink, thank
God
"Schleydcl died noisily, moaning
and groaning and bawl:ng something
Or other in German But. in fairness,
one has to admit that he was prob
ably delirlous.
Every time heard bullet strike
man. glanced at young Adolphe
who was lying next to me. few feet
away on my right. firing as coolly and
steadily as If we were on the rifle
range.
"Once he crawled over to Guajiros
who was lying with his face buried IN
the sand and his bare head and neck
exposed to the sun A bullet had taken
his KEPT off, after he had sunk down
shot in the neck. Adolphe pu, the kep
pdNN oii HIS lICu0. anu thIliC1 MN
over. SO that he could breathe; then
took GuajIros ammunition and
crawled back to his place
Towards evening, ammunition be-
came problem. Corporal Gueldre
started round of all the dead and
wounded - too badly wounded to be
able to shoot, mean collecting
their ammunition. And when he was
hit, Corporal Djoolte, another damned
good Dutchman. carried on and dis
tributed it among us.
after he d been the rounds, DjOolte
signaled the Cease Fire, and gave
orders that there was to be no more
shooting until the Arabs charged.
That was all very well. but they
didn't charge. They simply wriggled
and crept and crawled little nearer.
and little nearer, while keeping up
as hot fire as ever. Before long.
DJOoltc, in the centre, raised his head
to give another order, and got bullet
between the eyes.
Then someone's nerve gave out
and he started shooting. 1t wasn't
young Adolphe. Then old Zarinieff
jumped up, bawled:
I've had enough of this. and did
exactly what Sergeant Major Brasche
had done.
AT that we all started firing. to
give him what support we could. But.
of course, he didn't last long.
when glanced round few min
utes later, was surprised to see how
few of us were left; not more than
about half dozen, besides Adolphe
and me. Curiously enough. l hadn't
any what do you call it? premo-
milton of death. Not bit of it. In fact,
| felt quite sure that should come
through this scrap all right, as Id
come through so many before And -
a still more curious thing. my friends.
Almost to the last minute, | had a
feeling that the Arabs weren't going
to get my young cOmrade my
,,o,,4~ AIolr~ho