this:
As a ruler the Khalifa finished when he rode out of Omdurman. His own pampered Baggara horsemen killed his herdsmen and looted the cattle that were to feed them. Somebody betrayed the position of the reserve camels.... His followers took to killing one another.... The whole population of the Khalifa's capital was now racing to pilfer the Khalifa's grain.... Wonderful workings of the savage mind! Six hours before they were dying in regiments for their master; now they were looting his corn. Six hours before they were slashing our wounded to pieces; now they were asking us for coppers.
This difficulty with the soldier's psychology is not special to Dervishes or to savages. An able and cultivated British officer writes:
Soldiers as a class are men who have disregarded the civil standard of morality altogether. They simply ignore it. It is no doubt why civilians fight shy of them. In the game of life they do not play the same rules, and the consequence is a good deal of misunderstanding, until finally the civilian says he will not play with Tommy any more. In soldiers' eyes lying, theft, drunkenness, bad language, etc., are not evils at all. They steal like jackdaws. As to language, I used to think the language of a merchant ship's forecastle pretty bad, but the language of Tommies, in point of profanity and in point of obscenity, beats it hollow. This department is a speciality of his. Lying he treats with the same large charity. To lie like a trooper is quite a sound metaphor. He invents all sorts of elaborate lies for the mere pleasure of inventing them. Looting, again, is one of his preferred joys, not merely looting for profit, but looting for the sheer fun of the destruction.63