Читать книгу The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War - Fenn George Manville - Страница 7

There were too many “alarums and excursions” at Groenfontein for much more thought to be bestowed upon the friendly Boers, as the party of former prisoners were termed, in the days which ensued. “Nobody can say but what they are quiet, well-behaved chaps,” Bob Dickenson said, “for they do scarcely anything but sit and smoke that horrible nasty-smelling tobacco of theirs all day long. They like to take it easy. They’re safe, and get their rations. They don’t have to fight, and I don’t believe nine-tenths of the others do; but they are spurred on – sjambokked on to it. Pah! what a language! Sjambok! why can’t they call it a whip?”

“But I don’t trust them, all the same,” said Lennox. “I quite hate that smiling field-cornet, who’s always shifting and turning the corn-sacks to give them plenty of air, as he says, to keep the grain from heating.”

“Why, he hasn’t been at it again, has he?” said Dickenson, laughing.

“At it again?” said Lennox. “What do you mean?”

“Did he shout to you to come and look at it?”

“Yes; only this morning, when the colonel was going by. Asked us to go in and look, and shovelled up the yellow corn in one of the sacks. He made the colonel handle some of it, and pointed out that he was holding back the corn tied up with the white strings because it lasted better.”

“What did the old man say?”

“Told him that, as the stock was getting so low, he and his men must make a raid and get some more.”

“And what did Blackbeard say?”

“Grumbled and shook his head, and talked about the danger of being shot by his old friends if they were caught.”

“Dodge, of course, to raise his price.”

“That’s what the colonel said; and he told him that there must be no nonsense – he was fed here and protected so that he should keep up the supply, and that he must start the day after to-morrow at the latest to buy up more and bring it in. Then, in a surly, unwilling way, he consented to go.”

“Buy up some more?” said Dickenson, with a chuckle. “Yes, he’ll buy a lot. Commando it, he’ll call it.”

That very day, growing weary of trying to starve out the garrison, the enemy made an attack from the south, and after a furious cannonading began to fall back in disorder, drawing out the mounted men and two troops of lancers in pursuit.

As they fell back the disorder seemed to become a rout; but Colonel Lindley had grown, through a sharp lesson or two, pretty watchful and ready to meet manoeuvre with manoeuvre. He saw almost directly that the enemy were overdoing their retreat; and he acted accordingly. Suspecting that it was a feint, he held his mounted troops in hand, and then made them fall back upon the village.

It was none too soon, his men being just in time to fall on the flank of one of the other two commandos, whose leaders had only waited till the first had drawn the British force well out of their entrenchments before one attacked from the east, and the other drove back the defenders of the ford and crossed at once, but only to bring themselves well under the attention of their own captured gun on the kopje, its shells playing havoc amongst them, while the men of the colonel’s regiment stood fast in their entrenchments. The result was that in less than an hour the last two commandos retired in disorder and with heavy loss.

“There,” said Lennox as the events of the day were being discussed after the mess dinner, “you see, Bob, it doesn’t do to trust the Boers.”

“Pooh!” replied the young officer. “There are Boers and Boers, and one must trust them when they supply the larder. Good-luck to our lot, I say, and may they bring in another big supply. If they don’t, we shall have to begin on those quadrupedal locomotives of horn, gristle, and skin they call spans. Ugh! how I do loathe trek ox!”

“Talking of that,” said Lennox, “the cornet and his men ought to have been off to-night.”

“Why?” said Dickenson, staring.

“Why? Because the enemy will be in such a state of confusion after the check they had to-day.”

“To be sure; let’s go and tell them so.”

“I was nearly suggesting it to the colonel, but he would only have given me one of his looks. You know.”

“Yes; make you feel as if you’re nine or ten, even if he hadn’t sarcastically hinted that you had not been asked for your advice. But I say, Drew, old fellow, I think you’re right, and if Blackbeard thinks it would be best he’ll go to the old man like a shot. No bashfulness in him.”

Without further debate the two young men made their way across the market-square to the wagon where the Boers’ dim lantern was swinging, passing two sentries on the way.

“Not much need for a light,” observed Dickenson; “one might smell one’s way to their den. Hang it all! if tobacco’s poison those fellows ought to have been killed long ago.”

The cornet was seated on the wagon-box, with his legs inside, talking in a low tone to his fellows who shared the wagon with him, and so intent that he did not hear the young officers’ approach till Lennox spoke, when he sprang forward into the wagon, and his companions began to climb out at the back.

“Why, what’s the matter with you?” said Dickenson laughingly as he stepped up and looked in. “Think some of your friends were coming to fetch you?”

“You crept up so quietly,” grumbled the Boer, recovering himself, and calling gently to his companions to return.

“Quietly? Of course. You didn’t want us to send a trumpeter before us to say we were coming, did you?”

“H’m! No. What were you doing? Listening to find out whether we were going to run away?”

“Psh! No!” cried Dickenson. “Here, Mr Lennox wants to say something to you.”

“What about?” said the man huskily.

“I have been thinking that, as you are going on a foraging expedition,” said Lennox, “you ought to go at once. It’s a very dark night, and the enemy is completely demoralised by to-day’s fight.”

“Demoralised?” said the Boer.

“Well, scared – beaten – all in disorder.”

“Oh,” said the Boer, nodding his head like an elephant. “But what difference does that make?”

“They would not be so likely to notice your wagons going through their lines.”

“Oh?” said the Boer.

“We think it would be a good chance for you.”

“Does your general say so?”

“No; our colonel does not know that we have come.”

“So! Yes, I see,” said the Boer softly.

“We think you ought to take advantage of their disorder and get through to-night.”

“Hah! Yes.”

“You have only to go and see what the colonel says.”

“Why don’t you go?” said the Boer suspiciously.

“Because we think it would be better for you to go.”

“And fall into the Boers’ hands and be shot?”

“Bother!” cried Dickenson. “Why, you are as suspicious as – as – well, as some one I know. Now, my good fellow, don’t you know that we’ve eaten the sheep?”

“Yes, I know that,” said the Boer.

“Finished the last side of the last ox?”

“Yes, I know that too,” replied the Boer, nodding his head slowly and sagely.

“And come down to the last ten sacks of the Indian corn?”

“Mealies? Yes, I know that too.”

“Well, in the name of all that’s sensible, why should we want to get you taken by your own people?”

“To be sure; I see now,” said the cornet. “Better for us to get the wagons full again, and drive in some more sheep and oxen.”

“Of course.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the man thoughtfully. “They will be all on the lookout, thinking that you will attack them in the night, and twice as watchful. I don’t know, though. There is no moon to-night, and it will be black darkness.”

“It is already,” said Dickenson.

“Ha! Yes,” said the Boer quietly, and he puffed at his pipe, which, after dropping in his fright, he had picked up, refilled, and relit at the lantern door. “Yes, that is a very good way. I shall go and tell the colonel that we will go to-night. You will come with me?”

“No,” said Lennox; “the colonel does not like his young officers to interfere. It would be better for you to go.”

“Your chief is right,” said the Boer firmly. “He thinks and acts for himself. I do the same. I do not let my men tell me what I should do.” He spoke meaningly, as if he were giving a side-blow at some one or other of his companions. “I think much and long, and when I have thought what is best I tell them what to do, and they do it. Yes, I will go to the colonel now and speak to him. Wait here.”

“No,” said Dickenson quietly. “Go, and we will come back and hear what the colonel thinks.”

The Boer nodded, thrust his pipe in the folds of the tilt, after tapping out the ashes, and went off, the two officers following him at a distance before stopping short, till they heard him challenged by a sentry, after which they struck off to their left to pass by the corn store, and being challenged again and again as they made a short tour round by the officers’ quarters, going on the farther side of the corrugated iron huts and the principal ones, four close together, which were shared by the colonel, the doctor, and some of the senior officers. As they passed the back of the colonel’s quarters there was the faint murmur of voices, one of which sounded peculiarly gruff, Dickenson said.

“Nonsense! You couldn’t distinguish any difference at this distance,” said Lennox. “Come along; we don’t want to play eavesdroppers.”

“Certainly not on a wet night when the rain is rattling down on those roofs and pouring off the eaves in cascades,” replied Dickenson; “but I never felt so strong a desire to listen before. Wonder what the old man is saying to our smoky friend.”

“Talking to the point, you may be sure, my lad,” replied Lennox. “I say, though, he is safe to tell Lindley that I suggested it.”

“Well, what of that?”

“Suppose the expedition turns out a failure, and they don’t get back with the forage?”

“Ha! Bad for you, old man,” said Dickenson, chuckling. “Why, we shall all be ready to eat you. Pity, too, for you’re horribly skinny.”

“Out upon you for a gluttonous-minded cannibal,” said Lennox merrily. “Well, there, I did it for the best. But I say, Bob, we’ve come all this way round the back of the houses here, and haven’t been challenged once.”

“What of that? There are sentries all round the market-square.”

“Yes; but out here. Surely a man or two ought to be placed somewhere about?”

“Oh, hang it all, old fellow! the boys are harassed to death with keeping post. You can’t have all our detachment playing at sentry-go. Come along. There’s no fear of the enemy making a night attack: that’s the only good thing in fighting Boers.”

“I don’t see the goodness,” said Lennox rather gloomily.

“Ah, would you!” cried Dickenson. “None of that! It’s bad enough to work hard, sleep hard, and eat hard.”

“I always thought you liked to eat hard,” said Lennox.

“Dear me: a joke!” said Dickenson. “Very bad one, but it’s better than going into the dumps. As I was about to say, we’ve got trouble enough without your playing at being in low spirits.”

“Go on. What were you going to say?”

“I was going to remark that the best of fighting the Boers is, that they won’t stir towards coming at us without they’ve got the daylight to help them to shoot. We ought to do more in the way of night surprises. I like the mystery and excitement of that sort of thing.”

“I don’t,” said Lennox shortly. “It always seems to me cowardly and un-English to steal upon sleeping people, rifle and bayonet in hand.”

“Well, ’pon my word, we’ve got into a nice line of conversation,” said Dickenson. “Here we are, back in the market-square, brilliantly lighted by two of the dimmest lanterns that were ever made, and sentries galore to take care of us. Wonder whether Blackbeard has finished his confab with the chief?”

“Let’s go and see,” said Lennox, and he walked straight across, answering the sentry’s challenge, and finding the Boer back in his former place, seated upon the wagon-box, and conversing in a low tone with the men within.

He did not start when Lennox spoke to him this time, but swung himself deliberately round to face his questioner.

“Well,” said the latter, “what did the colonel say?”

“He said it was a good thing, and that we should take our wagons, inspan, and be passed through the lines to-night.”

“Oh, come,” said Dickenson; “that’s good! One to us.”

“Yes,” grunted the Boer after puffing away; “he said it was very good, and that we were to go.”

“Then, why in the name of common-sense don’t you get ready and go instead of sitting here smoking and talking?”

“Oh, we know, the colonel and I,” said the man quietly. “We talked it over with the major and captains and another, and we all said that the Boers would be looking sharp out in the first part of the night, expecting to be attacked; but as they were not they would settle down, and that it would be best to wait till half the night had passed, and go then. There would be three hours’ darkness, and that would be plenty of time to get well past the Boer laagers before the sun rose; so we are resting till then.”

“That’s right enough,” said Dickenson, “so good-night, and luck go with you! Bring twice as many sheep this time.”

“Yes, I know, captain,” said the Boer. “And wheat and rice and coffee and sugar.”

“Here, come along, Drew, old fellow; he’s making my mouth water so dreadfully that I can’t bear it.”

“You will come and see us go?” said the Boer.

“No, thank you,” replied Dickenson. “I hope to be sleeping like a sweet, innocent child. – You’ll see them off, Drew?”

“No. I expect that they will be well on their way by the time I am roused up to visit posts. – Good-night, cornet. I hope to see you back safe.”

“Oh yes, we shall be quite safe,” said the man; “but perhaps it will be three or four days before we get back. Good-night, captains.”

“Lieutenants!” cried Dickenson, and he took his comrade’s arm, and they marched away to their quarters, heartily tired out, and ready to drop asleep on the instant as weary people really can.