The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War
“I will see to that, James,” said the captain. “Unfasten your belt, Mr Lennox, and pass it through the ring of the lantern so that it can hang to your waist and leave your hands free.”
“Just as if we didn’t know!” said the sergeant to himself as he helped in this arrangement.
“Sure the knot will not slip, sergeant?” said Lennox.
“Oh, it won’t come undone, sir. If it moves at all, it will be to get tighter.”
“That is what I meant. I want to breathe.”
“Less talking there,” said the captain. “Recollect that a man’s life is in danger. If you feel any compunction about going, Mr Lennox, make way for one of the men.”
“Ready, sir, and waiting for your orders,” said Lennox quietly.
“Very well. Now then, lower away.”
The sergeant took a firm hold of the rope, and whispered “Trust me, sir,” to the explorer, who nodded and looked calmly enough in the sergeant’s eyes, and gave way as he felt himself lifted off the stones upon which he stood and gently lowered down till he was half-hanging, half-sitting, against the sloping side of the rock. Then a few feet of the rope glided through the sergeant’s hands, and Lennox stiffened himself out, to hang rigidly, feeling his back rest against the wet rock, over which he began to glide slowly, and then faster and faster as he was let down hand over hand, seeing nothing but the black darkness lit up like a quaint halo in front of him, and going down what he felt to be a terrible depth. He fought hard against one horrible thought which would trouble him: should he ever be pulled up again? And no sooner had he mastered this than another gruesome idea forced itself as it were out of the darkness in front, the words to his excited imagination seeming to be luminous: suppose the rope should break!
It is wonderful how much thought will compress itself into a minute. It was so here, these ideas repeating themselves again and again before the young man’s feet touched something soft and yielding, and upon his stretching his legs wide he felt slippery rock.
“Hold on!” he shouted, and there was what sounded like a mocking chorus of “On – on – on – on!” beginning loudly and distinctly, and going right away into a faint whisper.
Turning himself a little on one side, Lennox bent outward so that the light of the lantern flashed from a narrow stream of water which, from the bubbles and foam, he could see was rushing towards him, to pass down under the ledge of rock upon which one foot rested; but now he was able to see what he wanted, and that was the missing corporal hanging face upward, but with head and neck over the edge of a block of stone which had checked his rapid slide down into the gulf, while the next moment the light showed that the poor fellow’s legs were also hanging downward, the ledge being exceedingly narrow.
“Well?” cried Captain Roby. “Found him?”
“Yes, sir. Seems to be quite insensible. I can get my arms round him and hold him if you can haul us up. Will the rope bear us both?”
“No!” came in a roar from up above, every man, in his excitement, negativing the proposal.
“Silence, men!” cried the captain angrily. Then he shouted down, “It would be too risky. Here, I’ll have the rope slackened, and you can untie it and make it fast round May’s chest. I’ll have him hauled up, and send the rope down again for you. – Slacken away, my lads.”
The pressure on the rope ceased for a moment as it was slackened, and then it tightened with a jerk, and there was a loud, echoing splash as Lennox was plunged into rushing water to the waist, the sensation being as if he had been suddenly seized and was being dragged under into some great hole.
“Hold hard!” he roared, and the echoes seized upon the last word – “Hard – hard – hard!” – running right away again till it was a whisper.
“Why, what are you about?” cried Roby.
“Trying to save the light,” panted Lennox. “There is no room to stand on the ledge with the poor fellow. Haul up a little more. My face is on a level with him now. Haul! haul! The water seems to suck me down. Ha!” he gasped; “that’s better,” and he wrenched himself round, catching at a piece of slippery rock that was against his waist, and looking for foothold, for a few moments in vain, till he saw a way out of his difficulty.
“How are you getting on?” cried the captain excitedly.
“I’m obliged to kneel right on the poor fellow,” said Lennox; “there’s so little room. He’s alive – I can feel his heart beating. Keep the rope tight for a few minutes.”
“Tight it is, sir,” shouted Sergeant James.
“Look here, Lennox,” cried Roby hoarsely; “can you unfasten the rope and tie it to the corporal? We can see nothing from up here.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, sir,” replied Lennox. – “Yes, I think so.”
“Think! You must be sure,” cried Dickenson, whose voice sounded husky and strange. “Look here, I’m going to slide down to you.”
“Silence!” roared the captain. “You will do nothing of the kind. – Look here, Lennox.”
“I’m all attention, sir.”
“If you can’t do as I say I must send for another rope.”
“No, no, it would be horrible to leave the poor fellow; he’d slip off the rock.”
“Then you must stay with him.”
“Very well, sir,” said Lennox after a short pause.
“Ha! I think I can do it now I’ve found room to kneel.”
“Bravo!” shouted Dickenson.
“Will you be silent, Mr Dickenson?” cried the captain. – “Now, Lennox, what are you doing?”
“Trying to get this knot undone, sir; it’s so tight.” At the end of a minute he cried, “I can’t move the knot. I’m going to pass it over my head, and then make a noose and slip it round the corporal.”
“Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir, I think so. Now slacken away all you can, but keep a tight hold in case I have to snatch at it again.”
“Oh yes, they’ll keep a tight hold. – Do you hear, Sergeant James?”
“Oh yes, sir, I hear,” growled the sergeant, whose face glistened with the perspiration that streamed down from the gathering-place – his brow.
“How are you getting on?” cried the captain.
“Don’t talk to me, please,” panted Lennox. “I’m doing my best.” There was a pause, and then, “I’ve got it off, and I’m going to pass it over his neck and shoulders now. It will compress his chest, but I can’t help it.”
“Don’t study that; only get it fast. Ready?” continued the captain after another pause.
“Not quite yet. It is hard to get the loop over. I have to bend down to reach with one hand, and hold on with the other.”
“Go on,” said the captain.
A strange rustling sound came up, and then it seemed as if the rope was being flapped against the rock.
“Can’t you do it?” shouted the captain.
“Not yet. I’m obliged to rest a minute.”
“Oh dear! oh dear me!” panted Captain Roby in a tone of voice that seemed to suggest other words which indicated his idea that the young subaltern was very awkward.
“Got it at last!” came up. “I think so. Yes, I have him tight – right past his arms; he can’t slip. Now, haul!”
“Haul!” echoed Captain Roby. “Quick!”
But Sergeant James knew better than that. The rope had to pass through his cautious hands, and he raised it gently.
“All right, sir?” he asked.
“Yes; haul,” cried Lennox. “You have him now. Right; you’re lifting him right off. I’ll hold on to the rock. Be sharp, for it’s a very awkward – ”
The young subaltern’s words were cut short at that moment by a most horrible, unearthly-sounding yell; for the tightening of the rope about the unfortunate corporal, and the steady strain as he was lifted from where he had lain so long, had the effect of arousing his dormant energies. Not realising that he was being helped, he had no sooner uttered his cry of horror than, as if suddenly galvanised into life, he began to struggle violently, tearing, kicking, and catching at something to hold on to for dear life.
Unfortunately, and consequent upon the slow way in which the rope was being drawn up, the first thing his right hand came in contact with was one of Lennox’s arms, round which his fingers fastened as if they were of steel. The next moment his right hand was joined by his left and he clung desperately, dragging the young officer from the slippery edge of rock, and before Lennox could raise a hand to help himself and hold on in turn, and cling desperately in the hope that after all perhaps the rope might bear them both, the corporal’s spasmodic clasp ended as quickly as it came. Those at the top felt the strain on the rope less, and those who were gazing down unoccupied saw the light suddenly extinguished, heard a terrible, echoing splash, followed by suckings and whisperings that seemed as if they would have no end.
For Lennox did not rise again, the rush of water bearing him rapidly down into the very bowels of the cavernous mass of rock.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Corporal Relates
The party at the head of the cavern stood for a few moments perfectly motionless, listening to the dying away of the strange gurglings and whispering echoes which followed the heavy splash, and then Dickenson uttered a wild cry of horror and despair.
“Pull!” he shouted. “Pull up!” and, spurred into action by his order, Sergeant James and the two men behind him who helped with the rope hauled away rapidly, till the rigid-looking form of the corporal rose out of the darkness into the light shed by the lanterns, to be seized by the sergeant and dragged into safety.
“Is he dead?” said Captain Roby hoarsely. “I dunno, sir,” growled the sergeant, loosening the noose around the rigid sufferer, and then with a few quick drags unfastening the knot which had troubled Lennox in his helpless state.
“Silence a moment,” cried the captain, “while I hail!” and he made the place echo with his repetitions of the subaltern’s name.
There were answers enough, but given only by the mocking echoes; otherwise all below was still save the weird, rushing sound of the water.
“Here, what are you doing, Dickenson?” cried the captain, who suddenly became aware of the fact that the young lieutenant had seized the sergeant and was hindering him from securing the end of the rope about his chest.
“He’s not going down: I am,” cried Dickenson hoarsely.
“You?”
“Yes; I think I’m going to leave my friend in a hole like this?”
“Hole indeed!” thought the captain. Then aloud: “Let him go down, sergeant. Here, two lanterns this time;” and as the sergeant obeyed and began securing the rope about Dickenson, Roby seized and began unbuckling the young officer’s belt, and himself passed the stiff leather through the ring-handles of a couple of lanterns, and rebuckled the belt, adjusting it so that Dickenson had a light on either side.
“Ready, sergeant?” said the young officer sharply.
“All right, sir; that’ll hold you safe.”
“What are you going to do, Dickenson?” said Roby, in a voice that did not sound like his own.
“I don’t know,” cried the young officer, with a curious hysterical ring in his voice. “Go down. – See when I get below. – Now then, quick! – Lower away. – Fast!”
He began gliding down the sharp slope directly after.
“Faster!” shouted Dickenson before he was half-way down; and the sergeant let the rope pass through his hands as quickly as he could with safety let it go, while the lanterns lit up the glistening sides with weirdly-strange, flickering rays, till the rope was nearly all out and Dickenson stopped with a sudden jerk.
“Got him?” shouted Roby.
“No!” came up in a despairing groan. “I’m on a dripping ledge. Lower me a few feet more till I call to you to stop.”
The sergeant obeyed, and the call came directly after. For there was a splash and the lights disappeared – not extinguished, but they seemed to glide under a black projection that stood out plainly as a rugged edge against the light, which made the water flash and sparkle as it could be seen gliding swiftly by.
“Well?” shouted Roby again.
“Hold on with the rope,” came up. “The water’s close up to the foot of the lanterns. If you let it any lower they will go out.”
“Right, sir,” roared Sergeant James.
“Now,” shouted Roby; “see him?”
“No; the water goes down here in a whirlpool, round and round, and I can feel it sucking at me to drag me below.”
“Yes, sir; I can feel it along the rope. Look at my arms,” growled the sergeant.
There was a quick glance directed at the sergeant, and those who were nearest could see that, while his arms jerked and kept giving a little, the rope was playing and quivering in the light.
“Can’t you see anything?” cried Roby wildly.
“Place like a big well ground in the rock,” came up in hollow tones; “the water all comes here, and goes down a great sink-hole. Shall I cut myself free and dive?”
“No!” came simultaneously, in a hoarse yell, from a dozen throats.
“Madness!” shouted Roby. “Look round again; he may be clinging to the rocks somewhere.”
Dickenson uttered a strange, mocking laugh, so loud and thrilling that it made his hearers shudder.
“There’s nothing but this hole, smoothed round by the water. I can see all round.”
“Yah!” roared the sergeant. “Haul!” For suddenly his arms received a heavy jerk which bent him nearly double, and the light which glowed down by the water disappeared; while, but for the rush made to get a grip at the rope by Roby and a couple more men, the sergeant would have gone down.
As it was, the sudden snatch made dragged him back; and then, without further order, the men hauled quickly and excitedly at the rope till Dickenson’s strangely distorted face appeared in the light.
“Hold on!” shouted the sergeant, and stooping down, he got his hands well under his young officer’s armpits, made a heave with all his strength, and jerked him out of the horrible pit on to the hard rock.
Roby had helped by seizing the sergeant and dragging him back as soon as he had a good hold, and it was his captain’s eyes that Dickenson’s first met in a wild, despairing look, before, dripping with water from the chest downwards and the lights both extinguished, he sank upon his knees and dropped his face into his hands, no one stirring or speaking in the few brief moments which followed, but all noticing that the poor fellow’s chest was heaving and that a spasmodic sob escaped his lips.
The silence was broken by the sergeant, who stood rubbing his wet hands down the sides of his trousers.
“Thought I was gone too,” he said huskily.
His words reached Dickenson’s understanding, but not their full extent. His hands dropped to his lap, and he looked up, gazing round in a strangely bewildered way, his lower lip quivering, and his voice sounding pathetically apologetic.
“Yes,” he said feebly, “I thought I was gone. The water seemed to rise up round me suddenly to snatch me down. I did all I could – all I could, Roby, but it seemed to make me as weak as a child. Look at that – look at that!” he groaned, holding out one arm, which shook as if with the palsy. Then clasping his hands together he let them drop, and gazed away before him into the darkness through the arch, and said, as if to himself, “I did all I could, Drew, old lad – I did all I could.”
“Dickenson,” whispered Roby, bending over him. “Come, come, pull yourself together. Be a man.”
The poor fellow turned his head sharply, and gazed wildly into the speaker’s eyes.
“Yes, yes,” he said, and drawing a deep breath, he eagerly snatched at the hand held out to him and stood up. “Bit of a shock to a fellow’s nerves. I never felt like that when we went at the Boers. Thank you, sergeant. Thank you, my lads. I never felt like that.”
“No,” said the captain quickly. “It would have unmanned any one.”
“Did me, sir,” said Sergeant James. “And I never felt like that.”
“Ha!” sighed Dickenson, giving himself a shake, and beginning to unbuckle his belt to get rid of the dripping lanterns. “I’m better now. Ought I to go down again, sir?”
“Go down again, man?” cried Roby. “Good heavens, no! It would be madness to send any one into that horrible pit. – Here, I had forgotten Corporal May. Where is he?”
“We laid him down in yonder, sir,” said one of the men, indicating the interior of the cavern with a nod.
“Not dead?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so,” was the reply as the captain passed through the archway, followed by the sergeant, who snatched up a lantern; while Dickenson turned to the great pit, steadied himself by the tree-trunk which led up, and gazed into the black place.
“Poor old Drew!” he groaned softly. “If it had only been together – in some advance!”
And then, soldier-like, he drew himself up as if standing to attention, turned, and went to his duty again, walking pretty steadily after Roby to join them where the sergeant was down on one knee with his hand thrust inside the corporal’s jacket.
“Heart’s beating off and on, sir,” growled James. “I don’t think he’s hurt. Seems to me like what the doctor called shock.”
“Yes. What did he say?”
“I dunno, sir. Sort of queer stuff: sounded like foolishness. I’m afraid he’s off his head. – Here, May – me, May, my lad. Hold up. You’re all right now.”
The man opened his eyes, stared at him wildly, and his lips quivered.
“What say?” he whispered.
“I say, hold up now.”
“Hurts,” moaned the poor fellow, beginning to rub his chest. “Have I been asleep?”
“I hope so, my lad,” said Roby, “for you have been saved a good deal if you have.”
“Ugh!” groaned the man, with a shiver. “Mind that light don’t go out. Here,” he cried fiercely, “what did you go and leave me for?”
“Who went away and left you?”
“I recklect now. It was horrid. I dursen’t try and climb that tree again with the water all cissing up to get at me.”
“What!” cried Roby sharply.
“It was when the orders were given to retire, sir. I kept letting first one chap go and then another till I was last, and then I stood at the bottom trying to make up my mind to follow, till the lights up atop seemed to go out all at once. Then I turned cold and sick and all faint-like, holding on by the tree, till there was a horrid rush and a splash as if something was coming up to get at me, and I couldn’t help it – I turned and ran back through that archway place in the big hole, feeling sure that the water was coming to sweep me away. ’Fore I’d gone far in the black darkness I ketched my foot on a stone, pitched forward on to my head, and then I don’t remember any more for ever so long. It was just as if some one had hit me over the head with the butt of a rifle.”
“Where’s the lump, then, or the cut?” said Sergeant James sourly.
“Somewhere up atop there, sergeant. I dunno. Feel; I can’t move my arms, they’re so stiff.”
The sergeant raised his lantern and passed his hand over the man’s head.
“Lump as big as half an egg there, sir,” he said in a whisper.
“It’s a bad cut, ain’t it, sergeant?” said the corporal.
“No; big lump – bruise.”
“Ah, I thought it was a cut; but I’d forgotten all about it when I come to again in the dark, and couldn’t make it out. My head was all of a swim like, and I couldn’t recklect anything about what had happened, nor make out where I was, only that I was in the dark. All I could understand was that my head was aching awful and swimming round and round, and I seemed to have been fast asleep for hours and hours, and that I had woke up. That was all.”
“Well, go on,” said the sergeant, in obedience to a hint from Roby.
“Yes, direckly,” said the man. “I’m trying to think, but my head don’t go right. It’s just as if some sand had got into the works. Ah, it’s coming now. It was like waking up and finding myself in the dark, and not knowing how I got there.”
“Well, you said that before,” said the sergeant gruffly.
“Did I, sergeant? Well, that’s right; and I tried to get up, but I couldn’t stand, my head swam so. Then I got on my hands and knees, and began to crawl to the ladder; and I went on and kept stopping on account of my head, till I knocked against my helmet and put it on, and began crawling again, thinking I must be where I’d lain down and gone to sleep. Then I went on again for ever so long till I could go no farther, for I was in a place where the rock came down over my head so that I could touch it; but it was all narrow-like, and I was so tired that I lay down, got out my pipe, lit up, and had a smoke.”
“What next?” said the sergeant, exchanging glances with Roby and Dickenson, who were listening.
“That’s all,” said the man quietly. “So I’ll just have a nap to set my head right. It’s a touch of fever, I think.”
“Stop a moment, my lad,” said Roby. “Can’t you recollect what came next?”
“No, sir,” said the man drowsily. “Oh yes, I do. I know I began crawling again without my helmet after I’d smoked a pipe of tobacco – for the hard rim hurt my head – and went on and on for hours, till I thought I could hear water running; and then in a minute I was sure, and I made for it, for at that time I was so thirsty I’d have given anything for a drink to cool my hot, dry throat. Yes, it’s all coming back now. I crept on till all at once the water falling sounded loud, and the next moment I was sinking down sidewise into a deep place where I was hanging across a stone to get at the water in the dark, and couldn’t. It was just like a nightmare, sergeant, that it was, and I felt my head go down and my legs hanging till my back was ready to break, but I couldn’t get away, and I lay and lay, till all at once I was snatched up, and that hurt me so that I yelled for help, and then the nightmare seemed to be gone and I was lying all asleep like till I saw you and the captain; and here I am, somewhere, and that’s all.”
It was all, for the corporal swooned away, and had to be lifted and carried up.
“Poor fellow!” said Captain Roby; “he’ll be better when we get him out into the open air. See to him, my lads. If he cannot walk you must carry him.”
The men closed round the corporal, while the captain and Dickenson walked back to where a couple of the men, looking sallow and half-scared with their task, stood holding one of the lanterns at the month of the water-chasm.
“Heard anything?” said the captain, in a low tone of voice which sounded as if he dreaded to hear his own words.
“Nothing, sir,” was the reply; “only the water rushing down.”
“It seems to me,” – began the other, and then he paused.
“Yes: what? How does it seem to you?” asked the captain.
“Well, sir, as we stand listening here it sounds as if the hole down there gets choked every now and then with too much water, and then the place fills up more, and goes off again with a rush.”
The captain made no reply, but stood with Dickenson gazing down into the chasm till there was a difference in the sound of its running out, when the latter caught at his companion, gripping his arm excitedly.
“Yes,” he whispered hoarsely; “that’s how it went while I was down there. Oh Roby! can’t we do anything more?”
The captain was silent for some little time, and then he half-dragged his companion to the rough ladder.
“Come up,” he said; “you know we can do no more by stopping thinking till one is almost wild with horror. Here, go up first.”
It was like a sharp order, but Dickenson felt that it came from his officer’s heart, and, with a shiver as much of horror as of cold from his drenched and clinging garments, he climbed to the next level and stood feeling half-stunned, and waiting while the sergeant climbed up and joined them with some rings of the rope upon his arm.
“May’s going to try and climb up by himself, sir,” said the sergeant in a low voice, “but I’ve made the rope fast round him to hold on by in case he slips. We don’t want another accident.”
The sight of the rope, and the sergeant’s words, stirred Dickenson into speaking again.
“James,” he said huskily, “don’t you think something more might be done by one of us going down to the water again?”
“No, sir,” replied the sergeant solemnly; “nothing, or I’d have been begging the captain to let me have another try long enough ago.”
“Yes, of course, of course,” said Dickenson warmly. “How are we to tell the colonel what has happened?”
The young officer relapsed into a dull, heavy fit of thinking, in which he saw, as if he were in a dream, the corporal helped out of the pit by means of the rope, and then go feebly along the cavern, to break down about half-way, when four men in two pairs crossed their wrists and, keeping step, bore him, lying horizontally, to the next ladder, up which he was assisted, after which he was borne once again by four more of the men; and as Drew’s comrade came last with the captain, the procession made him nearly break down with misery and despair.
