The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War

Chapter Nineteen.

Not dead yet

The entrance at last, with the glorious light of the sun shining in, man after man drawing a heavy sighing breath of relief; and as they gathered outside on the shelf where the sentries were awaiting their coming, it seemed to every one there that for a few moments the world had never looked so bright and beautiful. Then down came the mental cloud of thought upon all, and they formed up solemnly, ready to march down.

“Well, Corporal May,” said the captain, “do you think you can walk?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the man. “My head’s thick and confused-like, but every mouthful of this air I swallow seems to be pulling me round. I can walk, sir, but I may have to fall out and come slowly.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the captain, with whom the corporal had always been a petted favourite. “Don’t hurry, my lad. – Sergeant, you and another man fall out too, if it is more than he can manage.”

Then turning to the rest of the party, the captain glanced along the rank at the saddened faces which showed how great a favourite the young lieutenant had been, and something like a feeling of jealousy flashed through him as he began to think how it would have been if he had been the missing man. But the ungenerous thought died out as quickly as it had arisen, and he marched on with the men slowly, so as to make it easier for the corporal, till half the slope of the kopje had been zigzagged down, when he called a halt.

“Sit or lie about in the sunshine for ten minutes, my lads,” he said, and the men gladly obeyed, dropping on the hot stones and tufts of brush, to begin talking together in a low voice, as they let their eyes wander over the prospect around, now looking, by contrast with the black horror through which they had passed, as if no more beautiful scene had ever met their eyes.

“How are you, Dickenson?” said the captain after they had sat together for a few minutes, drinking in the sunlight and air.

The young lieutenant started and looked at him strangely for a few moments before he spoke with a curious catch in his voice.

“Is it all true?” he said.

The captain’s lips parted, but no words came; he only bowed his head slowly, and once more there was silence, till it was broken by Dickenson.

“Poor old Drew!” he said softly. “Well, I hope when my time comes I shall die in the same way.”

“What!” cried the captain, with a look of horror which brought a grim smile to the subaltern’s quivering lip.

“I did not mean that,” he said sadly; “by a bullet, I hope, but doing what poor old Drew was doing – saving another man’s life.”

He turned his head on one side, reached out his hand, and picked from the sun-dried growth close at hand a little dull-red, star-like flower whose petals were hard and horny, one of the so-called everlasting tribe, and taking off his helmet, carefully tucked it in the lining.

“Off the kopje in which he died,” said Dickenson, in reply to an inquiring look directed at him by the captain. “For his people at home if I live to get back. They’ll like to have it.”

Captain Roby said nothing aloud, but he thought, and his thoughts were something to this effect: “Who’d ever have thought it of this light-hearted, chaffing, joking fellow? Why, if they had been brothers he couldn’t have taken it more to heart. Ha! I never liked the poor lad, and I don’t think he liked me. There were times when I believe I hated him for – for – for – Well, why did I dislike him? Because other people liked him better than they did me, I suppose. Ah, well! like or not like, it’s all over now.”

He sat thinking for a few minutes longer, watching Dickenson furtively as he now kept turning himself a little this way and that way and changed his seat twice for a fresh piece of hot stone. Suddenly at his last change he caught the captain’s eye, and said quite cheerfully:

“Getting a bit drier now.” Then, seeing a surprised look in his brother officer’s countenance, he said quietly, “I’m a soldier, sir, and we’ve no time for thinking if there’s another comrade gone out of our ranks.”

“No,” said Roby laconically, and he hold out his hand, in which Dickenson slowly laid his own, looking rather wistfully as he felt it pressed warmly. “I – I hope we shall be better friends in the future, Dickenson,” said the captain rather awkwardly.

“I hope so too, sir,” replied Dickenson, but there was more sadness than warmth in his tones as his hand was released.

“Yes; soldiers have no time for being otherwise. – There!”

The captain sprang up, and Dickenson stiffly followed his example.

“Fall in, my lads. – Well, corporal, how are you now?”

“Head’s horrid bad, sir; but this bit of a rest has pulled me together. I should like to fall out when we get near the way down to the spring.”

“Of course, my lad, of course. – Here, any one else like a drink?”

“Yes, sir,” came in chorus from the rank.

“All of us, please, sir,” added the sergeant.

“Very well, then; we’ll fall out again for a few minutes when get down. ’Tention! Right face – march!”

The men went on, all the better for their rest, while the captain joined Dickenson in the rear, and marched step by step with him for some minutes in silence.

“What confoundedly bad walking it is down here!” he said at last. “Shakes a man all to pieces.”

“I hadn’t noticed it,” said Dickenson, with something like a sigh.

“I say!”

Dickenson turned to look in the captain’s face.

“Come straight to the chief with me, Dickenson. I don’t like my job of telling him. He’ll say I oughtn’t to have let the poor fellow go down.”

“I don’t think he will,” replied Dickenson, after a few moments’ silence. “The old man’s as hard as stone over a bit of want of discipline; but he’s always just.”

“Think so?” said the captain.

“Yes. Always just. I’ll come with you, though I feel as weak as water now. But I shall be better still when we get down to the quarters; and it has got to be done.”

No more was said till the bottom of the kopje was nearly reached, and at a word from the sergeant the men went off left incline down and down and in and out among the loose blocks of weathered and lichen-covered stone which had fallen from the precipices above, while, as glimpses kept appearing of the flashing, dancing water, the men began to increase their pace, till the two foremost leaped down from rock to rock, and one who had outpaced his comrade bounded down out of sight into the deep gully along which the limpid water ran.

“Oh!” exclaimed Dickenson, suddenly stopping short with his face distorted by a look of agony.

“What’s the matter?” cried the captain anxiously. “Taken bad?”

“No, no. The men!” said the young officer huskily. “The water – the men are going to drink. That place in the cavern – it is, of course, where Groenfontein rises.”

“Yes, of course,” replied the captain; “but it is too late now.”

He had hardly uttered the words before there was a yell of horror which made him stop short, for the foremost man came clambering back into sight, gesticulating, and they could see that he looked white and scared.

“Oh!” cried the captain. “It will be sauve qui peut! The Boers have surprised us, and the lads have nothing but their side-arms. Got your revolver? I’ve mine. Let’s do the best we can. Cover, my lads, cover.”

“No, no, no!” cried Dickenson in a choking voice. “I can’t help it, Roby. I feel broken down. He has found poor Drew below there, washed out by the stream!”

“Come on,” cried the captain, and in another few moments they were with the men, who were closing round their startled comrade.

“Couldn’t help it,” the poor fellow panted as his officers came within hearing. “I came upon him so sudden; I thought it was a ghost.”

“Hold your tongue, fool!” growled the sergeant. “Fall in! Show some respect for your poor dead officer. – Beg pardon, gentlemen. They’ve found the lieutenant’s body, and – thank Heaven we can – we can —Ur-r-r!” he ended, with a growl and a tug at the top button of his khaki jacket.

The men shuffled into their places and stood fast, imitating the action of their officers, who gravely doffed their helmets and stepped down into the hollow, where, upon a patch of green growth a few feet above the rippling water foaming and swirling in miniature cascades among the rocks, poor Lennox lay stretched out upon his back in the full sunshine, which had dried up the blood from a long cut upon his forehead, where it had trickled down one side of his face.

He looked pale and ghastly, and there was a discoloration about his mouth and on one cheek where he seemed to have been battered by striking against the stones amongst which he had been driven in his rush through the horrible subterranean channel of the stream; but otherwise he looked as peaceful as if he were asleep.

The captain stopped short, gazing at him, while Dickenson dropped lightly down till he was beside his comrade, and sank gently upon one knee, to bend lower, take hold of the right hand that lay across his chest, and then – “like a girl!” as he afterwards said – he unconsciously let fall two great scalding tears upon his comrade’s cheek.

The effect was magical. Lennox’s eyes opened wildly, to stare blankly in the lieutenant’s face, and the latter sprang to his feet, flinging his helmet high over his head as he turned to the line of waiting men above him and roared out hoarsely:

“Hurrah! Cheer, boys, cheer!”

The shout that rang out was deafening for so small a detachment, and two more followed, louder still; while the next minute discipline was forgotten and the men came bounding down to group about the figure staring at them wildly as if not yet fully comprehending what it all meant, till the lookers-on began shaking hands with one another in their wild delight.

Then Dickenson saw the light of recognition dawn in his comrade’s face, a faint smile appear about his mouth and the corners of his eyes, which gradually closed again; but his lips parted, and as Dickenson bent lower he heard faintly:

“Not dead yet, old man, but,” – His voice sounded very faint after he had paused a few moments, and then continued: “It was very near.”

Chapter Twenty.

All about it

The men forgot their thirst in the excitement of the incident, and as soon as Lennox showed signs of recovering a little from the state of exhaustion in which he lay, every one volunteered to be his bearer. But before he had been carried far he made signs for the men to stop, and upon being set down he took Dickenson’s arm, and, leaning upon him heavily, marched slowly with the men for the rest of the way towards the colonel’s quarters.

They were met, though, before they were half-way, their slow approach being seen and taken for a sign that there was something wrong; and colonel, major, doctor, and the other officers hurried to meet them and hear briefly what had occurred.

“Why, Lennox, my lad,” cried the doctor after a short examination, “you ought to be dead. You must be a tough one. There, I’ll see what I can do for you.”

He took the young officer in his charge from that moment, and his first order was that his patient was to be left entirely alone, and, after partaking of a little refreshment, he was to rest and sleep for as many hours as he could.

“The poor fellow has had a terrible shock,” he said to the colonel.

“Of course; but one naturally would like to know how he managed to escape.”

“Very naturally, my dear sir; but his eyes tell me that if his brain is not allowed to recover its tone he’ll have a bad attack of fever. A man can’t go through such an experience as that without being terribly weakened. I want him to be led into thinking of everything else but his escape. I dare say after a few hours he will be wanting to talk excitedly about all he felt; but he mustn’t. Not a question must be asked.”

As it happened, the patient did exactly what the doctor wished: he slept, or, rather, sank into a state of stupor which lasted for many hours, came to his senses again, partook of a little food, and then dropped asleep once more; and this was repeated for days before he thoroughly recovered, and then began of his own volition to speak of his experience.

It was about a week after his mishap, in the evening, when Dickenson, just returned from a skirmish in which the Boers had been driven back, was seated beside his rough couch watching him intently.

“Don’t sit staring at me like that, old fellow,” said Lennox suddenly. “You look as if you thought I was going to die.”

“Not you! You look a lot better to-night.”

“I am, I know.”

“How?” asked Dickenson laconically.

“Because I’ve begun to worry about not being on duty and helping.”

“Yes; that’s a good sign,” said Dickenson. “Capital. Feel stronger?”

“Yes. It’s just as if my strength has begun to come back all at once. Did you drive off the enemy to-day?”

“Famously. Gave them a regular licking.”

“That’s right. But tell me about Corporal May.”

“Oh no, you’re not to bother about that.”

“Tell me about Corporal May,” persisted Lennox.

“Doctor said you weren’t to worry about such things.”

“It isn’t a worry now. I felt at first that if I thought much about that business in the cave I should go off my head; but I’m quite cool and comfortable now. Tell me – is he quite well again?”

“Not quite. He has had a touch of fever and been a bit loose in the knob, just as if he had been frightened out of his wits.”

“Of course,” said Lennox quietly. “I was nearly the same. I did not know at the time, but I do now. He is getting better, though?”

“Fast; only he’s a bit of a humbug with it. I thought so, and the doctor endorses my ideas. He likes being ill and nursed and petted with the best food, so as to keep out of the hard work. I don’t like the fellow a bit. There, you’ve talked enough now, so I’ll be gone.”

“No; stop,” said Lennox. “Tell me about the stores of corn we found in that cave.”

“Hang the cave! You’re not to talk about it.”

“Tell me about the grain,” persisted Lennox.

“Oh, very well; we’re going on eating it, for if it hadn’t turned up as it did we should have been obliged to surrender or cut our way through.”

“But there’s plenty yet?”

“Oh yes, heaps; and we got about thirty sheep two days ago.”

“Capital,” said Lennox, rubbing his hands softly. “Now tell me – where is the grain stored?”

“Where the niggers put it when they collected it there.”

“Not moved?”

“No. It couldn’t be in a better place – a worse, I mean. Bother the cave! I wish you wouldn’t keep on thinking about it.”

“Very well, I won’t. Tell me about the prisoners.”

“Ah, that’s better. The brutes! But there’s nothing to tell about them. I wish they had got their deserts, but we none of us wanted to shoot them, though they did deserve it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lennox. “They’re a rough lot of countrymen, and they think that everything is fair in war, I suppose. Where are they?”

“Number 4 tin hut, and a fellow inside with them night and day. Then there’s the sentry outside. Makes a lot of trouble for the men.”

Lennox was silent for a few minutes before speaking again.

“I say, Bob.”

“Yes?”

“Look at this cut on my forehead.”

“I’m looking. Very pretty. It’s healing fast now.”

“Will it leave much of a scar?”

“I dare say it will,” said Dickenson mockingly. “Add to your beauty. But you ought to have one on the other side to match it.”

“I wasn’t thinking about my looks,” said Lennox, smiling.

“Gammon! You were.”

“I suppose I must have been dashed against a block of stone.”

“Good job, too. Doctor said it acted like a safety-valve, and its bleeding kept off fever.”

“I suppose so. I must have been dashed against something with great force, though.”

“Oh, never mind that. Will you leave off thinking about that cave?”

“No, I won’t,” said Lennox coolly. “I must think about it now; I can’t help it.”

“Then I’m off.”

“Why?”

“Because you were getting better, and now you are trying to make yourself worse.”

“Oh no, I’m not; and you are not going. Talking to you about it acts like a safety-valve, too. There, it’s of no use for you to try and stop me, Bob, for if you go I shall think all the more. I’ve been wanting to tell you all about it for days.”

“But the doctor said I was not to encourage you to talk about the horror.”

“Well, you are not encouraging me; you are flopping on me like a wet blanket. I say, it was horrible, wasn’t it?”

“No,” said Dickenson angrily; “but this is.”

Lennox was silent for a few minutes, and he lay so quiet that Dickenson leaned forward to gaze at him earnestly, “All right, Bob. I’m here, and getting awfully strong compared with what I was a week ago. I shall get up and come out to-morrow.”

“You won’t. You’re too weak yet.”

“Oh no, I’m not. I shall be on duty in two or three days, and as soon as I’m well enough I want you and the sergeant to come with me to have another exploration with lanterns and a rope.”

“There, I knew it. You’re going off your head again.”

“Not a bit of it.”

“Then why can’t you leave the wretched cave alone?”

“Because it interests me. I mean to go down again at the end of the rope.”

“Bah! You’re mad as a hatter. I knew you’d bring it on.”

“There, it’s of no use. I want to tell you all about it.”

“If you think I’m going to stop here and listen to a long rigmarole about that dreadful hole, you’re mistaken; so hold your tongue.”

“There’s no long rigmarole, Bob. You know how the corporal yelled out and clutched at me.”

“No; I only guessed at something of the kind,” replied Dickenson unwillingly. “We could not see much.”

“Well, in his horror at finding himself lifted he completely upset me. It was all in a moment: I felt myself gliding over the slimy stone, and then I was plunged into deep water and drawn right down.”

“But you struck out and tried to rise?” said Dickenson, overcome now by his natural eagerness to know how his comrade escaped.

“Struck out – tried to rise!” cried Lennox, with a bitter laugh. “I have some recollection of struggling in black strangling darkness for what seemed an age, the water thundering the while in my ears, before all was blank.”

“But you were horror-stricken, and felt that you must go on fighting for your life?”

“No,” said Lennox quietly. “I felt nothing till the darkness suddenly turned to bright sunshine, and I have some recollection of being driven against stones and tossed here and there, till I dragged myself out of a shallow place among the rocks and up amongst the green growth. Then a curious drowsy feeling came over me, and all was blank again. That’s all.”

“But weren’t you in agony – in horrible fear?”

“Yes, when I felt myself falling and tried to save myself.”

“I mean afterwards, when you were being forced through, that horrible passage.”

“What horrible passage?” said Lennox, with a faint smile.

“What horrible passage, man? Why, the tunnel, or channel, or whatever it is – the subterranean way of the stream under the kopje, in the bowels of the earth.”

“I told you I was horrified for a moment, and then I was choking in the water, till all seemed blank, and then I appeared to wake in the hot sunshine, where I was knocked about till I crawled out on to the bank.”

“But didn’t you suffer dreadfully?”

“No.”

“Didn’t you think about England and home, and all that?”

“No,” said Lennox quietly.

“Weren’t you in fearful agony as you fought for your life?”

“Not the slightest; and I don’t think I struggled much.”

“Well, upon my word!” cried Dickenson in a tone of disgust. “I like this!”

“Do you, Bob? I didn’t.”

“You didn’t? Look here, Drew, I’m disgusted with you.”

“Why?” said Lennox, opening his eyes wider.

“Because you’re a miserable impostor – a regular humbug.”

“What! don’t you believe I went through all that?”

“Oh yes, I believe you went through all the – all the – all the hole; but there don’t seem to have been anything else.”

“Why, what else did you expect, old fellow?”

“What I’ve been asking you – pains and agonies and frightful sufferings and despairs, and that sort of thing; and there you were, pop down into the darkness, pop under the kopje, pop out into the sunshine, and pop – no, I mean, all over.”

“Well, what would you have had me do? Stop underneath for a month?”

“No, of course not; but, hang it all! if it hadn’t been that you got that cut on your forehead and a few scratches and chips, it was no worse than taking a dive.”

“Not much,” said Lennox, looking amused.

“Well, I really call it disgusting – a miserable imposition upon your friends.”

“Why, Bob, you are talking in riddles, old fellow, or else my head’s so weak still that I can’t quite follow you.”

“Then I’ll try and make my meaning clear to your miserably weak comprehension, sir,” cried Dickenson, with mock ferocity. “Here were you just taking a bit of a dive, and there were we, your friends, from the captain down to the latest-joined private, suffering – oh! I can’t tell you what we suffered. I don’t mean to say that Roby was breaking his heart because he thought there was an end of you; but poor old Sergeant James nearly went mad with despair, and the whole party was ready to plunge in after you so as to get drowned too.”

“Did they take it like that, Bob?”

“Take it like that? Why, of course they did.”

Lennox was silent for a few moments before he said softly, “And did poor old Bob Dickenson feel something like that?”

“Why, of course he did. Broke down and made a regular fool of himself, just like a great silly-looking girl – that is,” he added hastily, “I mean, nearly – almost, you know.”

“I’m very sorry, Bob,” said Lennox gently, and his eyes looked large as he laid his hand upon his comrade’s sleeve.

“Then you don’t look it, sir. I say, don’t you go and pitch such a lame tale as this into anybody else’s ears. Here were we making a dead hero of you, and all the time – There, I’ve seen one of those little black and white Welsh birds – dippers, don’t they call ’em? – do what you did, scores of times.”

“In the dark, Bob?”

“Well – er – no – not in the dark, or of course I couldn’t have seen it. There, that’ll do. Talk about a set of fellows being sold by a lot of sentiment: we were that lot.”

“The way of the world, Bob,” said Lennox rather bitterly; “a fellow must die for people to find out that he’s a bit of a hero. But please to recollect I did nothing; it was all accident.”

“And an awfully bad accident too, old chap; only I don’t see why the doctor need have prohibited your talking about the affair. We’ve all been thinking you went through untold horrors, when it was just nothing.”

“Just nothing, Bob,” said Lennox, looking at him with a wistful smile on his lip.

“Well, no; I won’t say that, because of course it was as near as a toucher. For instance, the hole might have been too tight to let you through, and then – Ugh! Drew, old chap, don’t let us talk about it any more. It’s a hot day, and my face is wet with perspiration, but my spine feels as if it had turned to ice. Yes, it was as near as a toucher. I would rather drop into an ambush of the Boers a dozen times over than go through such a half-hour as that again.”

Chapter Twenty One.

Preparations

There was a splendid supply of corn in the great woven Kaffir baskets, and that and the captured flock of sheep did wonders; but there were many hungry mouths to feed, and the lookout was growing worse than ever. The Boers were fighting furiously all over the two states and keeping our men at bay, or else were flitting from place to place to be hunted down again, and keeping the British generals so busily at work that, though they tried hard, it was impossible to send help to the little detachment at Groenfontein, from which place they had received no news, neither were they able to get through a single despatch.

Many a long discussion took place amongst the soldiers about the state of affairs, in which Corporal May declared that it was a burning shame – that the generals only thought of saving their own skins, and didn’t care a fig for the poor fellows on duty fighting for their lives.