Read the book: «The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War», page 5
“Well, we can’t go back, of course. If we tried they’d shoot us, wouldn’t they?”
The reply seemed to be unanswerable, and Dickenson merely uttered a grunt, just as Captain Roby and his men marched up to form an escort for the little convoy.
“Well, commandant?” he said.
The Boer grunted. “Not commandant,” he said; “field-cornet.”
“Very well, field-cornet; how did you manage to get here?”
“’Cross the veldt,” growled the man.
“Didn’t you see any of your friends?”
“No,” grumbled the Boer. “If we had we shouldn’t be here. Have you got the money for what we’ve got?”
“No.”
“Stop, then. We’re not going on.”
“But you must now. The colonel will give you an order.”
“Paper?” said the Boer sharply.
“Yes.”
“Then we don’t go.”
“Yes, you do, my obstinate friend. It will be an order to an official here, and he’ll pay you a fair price at once – in gold.”
“My price?”
“Oh, that I can’t say,” replied the captain. “But I promise you will be fairly dealt with.”
The Boer put his burning pipe in his pocket, snatched off his battered slouch felt hat, and gave his shaggy head an angry rub, looking round at his companions as if for support, and then staring back at the way they had come, to see lanterns gleaming and the glint of bayonets dimly here and there, plainly showing him that retreat was out of the question. Then, like some bear at bay, he uttered what sounded like a low growl, though in fact it was only a remark to the man nearest to him, a similar growl coming in reply.
“Come, sir, no nonsense,” said the captain sternly. “You have come to sell, I suppose?”
“I shouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” growled the Boer.
“Then come along. You cannot go back now. I have told you that you will be well treated. Please to recollect that if our colonel chose he could commando everything you have brought for the use of our force; but he prefers to treat all of your people who bring supplies as straightforward traders. Now come along.”
The Boer grunted, glanced back once more, and at last, as if he had thoroughly grasped his position, said a few words to his nearest companions and passed the word to trek, when, in answer to the crack of the huge whip, the bullocks sprang to their places along the trek-tows, the wagons creaked and groaned, and the little convoy was escorted into the market-place, where, as soon as he saw him, the field-cornet made for the colonel’s side and began like one with a grievance.
But the amount of cash to be paid was soon settled, and the Boer’s objections died away. The only difficulty then left was about the Boers’ stay.
“If we go back they’ll shoot us,” he said to the colonel. “We’ve brought you the provisions you asked for, and when you’ve eaten all you’ll want more, and we’ll go and fetch everything; but you must have us here now.”
“My good sir,” said the colonel, to the intense amusement of the officers assembled, who enjoyed seeing their chief, as they termed him, in a corner, “I have enough mouths to feed here; you must go back to the peaceable among your own people.”
“Peaceable? There are none peaceable now. Look here: do you want to send us back to fight against you?” cried the Boer cornet indignantly.
“Certainly not,” said the colonel; “and I would not advise you to, for your own sake.”
“Then what are we to do? We got away with these loads of mealies, but it will be known to-morrow. We can’t go back, and it’s all your doing.”
“Well, I confess that it is hard upon you,” said the colonel; “but, as I have told you, I am not going to take the responsibility of feeding more mouths.”
“But we’ve just brought you plenty.”
“Which will soon be gone,” cried the colonel.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the Boer, with a grin full of cunning; “we know where to get plenty more.”
The colonel turned and looked at the major, who returned the look with interest, for these last words opened up plenty of possibilities for disposing of a terrible difficulty in the matter of supplies.
“I don’t much like the idea, major,” he said in a low tone.
“No; couldn’t trust the fellow,” was the reply. “May be a ruse.”
“At the same time it may be simple fact,” continued the colonel. “Of course he would be well aware of the whereabouts of stores, for the enemy always seem to have abundance. But no; it would be too great a risk.”
“All the same, though,” said the major, who afterwards confessed to visions of steaks and roast mutton floating before his mind, “the fellow would be forced to be honest with us, for he would be holding his life by a very thin thread.”
“Exactly,” said the colonel eagerly. “We could let him know that at the slightest suggestion of treachery we should shoot him and his companions without mercy.”
“Make him understand that,” said the major; and while the Boer party stood waiting and watching by the two wagons, which had been drawn into the square, a little council of war was held by the senior officers, in which the pros and cons were discussed.
“It’s a dangerous proceeding,” said the colonel, in conclusion; “but one thing is certain – we cannot hold this place long without food, and it is all-important that it should be held, so we must risk it. Perhaps the fellows are honest after all. If they are not – ”
“Yes,” said the major, giving his chief a meaning look; “if they are not – ”
And the unfinished sentence was mentally taken up by the other officers, both Lennox and Dickenson looking it at one another, so to speak.
Then the colonel turned to the Boer cornet.
“Look here, sir,” he said; “I am a man of few words, but please understand that I mean exactly what I say. You and your companions can stay here upon the condition that you are under military rule. Your duty will be to forage for provisions when required. You will be well treated, and have the same rations as the men; but you will only leave the place when my permission is given, and I warn you that if any of you are guilty of an act that suggests you are playing the spy, it will mean a spy’s fate. You know what I mean?”
“Oh, of course I do,” growled the Boer. “Just as if it was likely! You don’t seem to have a very good opinion of us burghers.”
“You have not given us cause to think well of you,” said the colonel sternly. “Now we understand each other. But of course you will have to work with the men, and now you had better help to unload the wagons.”
The cornet nodded, and turned to his companions, who had been watching anxiously at a little distance; and as soon as they heard the colonel’s verdict they seemed at ease.
A few minutes later the regimental butchers had taken charge of one of the oxen and a couple of sheep, whose fate was soon decided in the shambles, and the men gathered round to cheer at the unwonted sight of the carcasses hung up to cool.
Meanwhile an end of one of the warehouses had been set apart for the new supply of grain, and the Boers worked readily enough with a batch of the soldiers at unloading and storing, with lanterns hung from the rafters to gleam on the bayonets of the appointed guard, the sergeant and his men keeping a strict lookout, in which they were imitated by the younger officers, Lennox and Dickenson waiting, as the latter laughingly said, for the smuggled-in Boers, who of course did not appear.
Lennox made it his business to stand close to the tail-board of one of the wagons, in which another lantern was hung, and with the sergeant he gave every sack a heavy punch as it was dragged to the edge ready for the Boers to shoulder and walk off into the magazine.
Seeing this, the Boer chief, now all smiles and good humour, made for the next sack, untied the tarred string which was tied round the mouth, opened it, and called to the sergeant to stand out of the light.
“I want the officers to see what beautiful corn it is,” he said.
The sergeant reached up into the wagon-tilt to lift down the lantern from where he had hung it to one of the tilt-bows.
“No, no,” cried the Boer; “you needn’t do that, boss. They can see. There,” he cried, thrusting in both hands and scooping as much as he could grasp, and letting the glistening yellow grains fall trickling back in a rivulet again and again. “See that? Hard as shot. Smell it. Fresh. This year’s harvest. I know where there’s enough to feed four or five thousand men.”
“Yes, it looks good,” said Dickenson, helping himself to a handful, and putting a grain into his mouth. “Sweet as a nut, Drew, but as hard as flint. Fine work for the teeth.”
“Yes,” said the Boer, grinning. “You English can’t grind that up with your teeth. Wait till it’s boiled, though, or pounded up and made into mealie. Ha! Make yours skins shine like the Kaffirs’.”
“You don’t want these sacks back, I suppose?” said the sergeant who was superintending. “Because if you do I’d better have them emptied.”
“Oh no, oh no,” said the Boer. “Keep it as it is; it will be cleaner.”
“Why are some of the sacks tied up with white string and some with black?” said Lennox suddenly.
“Came from different farms,” said the Boer, who overheard the remark. “Here, I’ll open that one; it’s smaller corn.”
He signed to one of his fellows to set down the sack he was about to shoulder, and opening it, he went through the same performance again, shovelling up the yellow grain with his hands. “Not quite so good as the other sort,” he said; “it’s smaller, but it yields better in the fields.”
“Humph! I don’t see much difference in it,” said Lennox, taking up a few grains and following his friend’s example.
“No?” said the Boer, chuckling as he scooped up a double handful and tossed it up, to shine like gold in the light. “You are not a farmer, and have not grown thousands of sacks of it. I have.”
He drew the mouth of the sack together again and tied it with its white string, when it too was borne off through the open doorway to follow its predecessors.
“That roof sound?” said the Boer, pointing up at the corrugated iron sheeting.
“Oh yes, that’s all right,” said the sergeant.
“Good,” said the Boer. “Pity to let rain come through on grain like that. Make it swell and shoot.”
The first wagon was emptied and the second begun, the Boers working splendidly till it was nearly emptied; and then the cornet turned to Captain Roby.
“Don’t you want some left out,” he said, “to use at once?”
“Yes,” said the captain; “leave out six, and we’ll hand them over to the bakers and cooks.”
Three of the white-tied and three of the black-tied sacks were selected by the field-cornet, who told his men to shoulder them, and they were borne off at once to the iron-roofed hut which was used as a store. Then the wagons being emptied, they were drawn on one side, and the captain turned to consult Lennox about what hut was to be apportioned to the Boers for quarters.
“Why not make them take to the wagons?” said Dickenson.
“Not a bad notion,” replied Captain Roby; and just at that moment, well buttoned up in their greatcoats – for the night was cold – the colonel and major came round.
“Where are you going to quarter these men, Roby?” said the former.
“Mr Dickenson here, sir, has just suggested that they shall keep to their wagons.”
“Of course,” said the colonel; “couldn’t be better. They’ll be well under observation, major – eh?”
“Yes,” said that officer shortly; and it was announced to the field-cornet that his party were to make these their quarters.
This was received with a smile of satisfaction, the Boers dividing into two parties, each going to a wagon quite as a matter of course, and taking a bag from where it hung.
Ten minutes later they had dipped as much fresh water as they required from the barrels that swung beneath, and were seated, knife in hand, eating the provisions they had brought with them, while when the colonel and major came round again it was to find the lanterns out, the Dutchmen in their movable quarters, some smoking, others giving loud announcement that they were asleep, and close at hand and with all well under observation a couple of sentries marching up and down.
“I think they’re honest,” said the colonel as the two officers walked away.
“I’m beginning to think so too,” was the reply.
A short time before, Lennox and his companion had also taken a farewell glance at the bearers of so valuable an adjunct to the military larder, and Dickenson had made a similar remark to that of his chief, but in a more easy-going conversational way.
“Those chaps mean to be square, Drew, old man,” he said.
“Think so?”
“Yes; so do you. What else could they mean?”
“To round upon us.”
“How? What could they do?”
“Get back to their people and speak out, after spying out the weakness of the land.”
“Pooh! What good would that do, you suspicious old scribe? Their account’s right enough; they proved it by the plunder they brought and their eagerness to sack as much tin as they could for it.”
“I don’t know,” said Lennox; “the Boers are very slim.”
“Mentally – granted; but certainly not bodily, old man. Bah! Pitch it over; you suspect every thing and everybody. I know you believe I nobbled those last cigarettes of yours.”
“So you did.”
“Didn’t,” said Dickenson, throwing himself down upon the board which formed his bed, for they had returned to their quarters. “You haven’t a bit of faith in a fellow.”
“Well, the cigarettes were on that shelf the night before last, and the next morning they were gone.”
“In smoke,” said Dickenson, with a yawn.
“There, what did I say?”
“You said I took them, and I didn’t; but I’ve a shrewd suspicion that I know who did smoke them.”
“Who was it?” said Lennox shortly.
“You.”
“I declare I didn’t.”
“Declare away, old man. I believe you went to sleep hungry.”
“Oh yes, you may believe that, and add ‘very’ to it. Well, what then?”
“You went to sleep, began dreaming, and got up and smoked the lot in your sleep.”
“You’re five feet ten of foolishness,” said Lennox testily as he lay down in his greatcoat.
“And you’re an inch in height less of suspicion,” said Dickenson, and he added a yawn.
“Well, hang the cigarettes! I am tired. I say, I’m glad we have no posts to visit to-night.”
“Hubble, bubble, burr,” – said Dickenson indistinctly.
“Bah! what a fellow you are to sleep!” said Lennox peevishly. “I wanted to talk to you about – about – about – ”
Nothing; for in another moment he too was asleep and dreaming that the Boers had bounded out of their wagons, overcome the sentries, seized their rifles, and then gone on from post to post till all were well armed. After that they had crept in single file up the kopje, mastered the men in charge of the captured gun, and then tied the two trek-tows together and carried it off to their friends, though he could not quite settle how it was they got the two spans of oxen up among the rocks ready when required.
Not that this mattered, for when he woke in the morning at the reveille and looked out the oxen were absent certainly, being grazing in the river grass in charge of a guard; but the Boers were present, lighting a fire and getting their morning coffee ready, the pots beginning to send out a fragrant steam.
Chapter Seven.
Friends on the Forage
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.
