The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War
“Yes, of course,” replied Dickenson shortly; “but I took care that they were out of hearing.”
“They are not out of hearing, sir,” retorted Roby; “as Mr Lennox here will bear me witness, Sergeant James and Corporal May must have heard every word.”
He turned to Lennox with a questioning look and waited for him to, as he termed it, bear witness.
“Well, really, I don’t think they could have heard,” said Lennox.
“What!” cried Roby indignantly. “Here, sergeant, you heard – you, Corporal May, you heard what Mr Dickenson said?”
“Yes, sir, everything,” replied the corporal smartly.
“And you, sergeant?”
“I heard Mr Dickenson saying something, sir,” replied the sergeant bluntly, “but I was looking along the gun here and did not catch a word.”
“You mean you would not hear,” cried the captain angrily. – “Look here, Mr Dickenson, don’t let it occur again.”
He jerked at the case of his field-glass and took it out again, then crossed to the other end of the roughly-made gun-platform and directed the telescope upon some object near the horizon.
The two subalterns exchanged glances.
“Mr Lennox – Mr Dickenson,” said the latter in a low tone. “Poor old chap, he’s regularly upset. Well, no wonder; wants his breakfast. I’m just as grumpy underneath for the same reason, but I keep it down – with my belt. Look here, Drew; go and prescribe for him. Tell him to buckle himself up a couple of holes tighter and he’ll feel all the better.”
“Hold your tongue! He isn’t well, and he’s put out about this mare’s-nest hunt.”
“Well, yes; we haven’t done much good.”
“Not a bit. How do you feel?”
“As if I should like to kick that time-serving corporal.”
“What! the ‘Lantern’? Yes: brute! Anything to curry favour with his master.”
“Look here, don’t forget. Mind I give old James two ounces of the best tobacco first time I have any – which I’m afraid will not be just yet.”
“Mare’s-nest,” said Lennox thoughtfully. “Yes, I suppose it is a mare’s-nest. Nobody could have been about here without being caught by the sentries.”
“I don’t know,” said Dickenson, looking about him; “these niggers are very clever at hiding and sneaking about. I felt certain after what I had experienced that we should find a way into a passage and some caves. Here, ’tention; the general’s coming back.”
Captain Roby returned, replacing his glass, and gave a few sharp orders for the men to take their places once more and commence the descent, searching every crevice among the rocks as they went down.
This was carefully done, and the men reached the foot of the granite pile, formed up, and marched back to the market-place, where they were dismissed to their meagre breakfast, while the captain sought the colonel’s quarters without a word to his subordinates.
“The doctor says fasting’s very good for a man; but one man’s meat, or want of it, is another man’s poison, Drew, my boy, and starvation does not agree with Roby.”
“No,” replied Lennox. “I’ve noticed that he has been a bit queer for a week past.”
“Say a fortnight, and I’ll agree with you. Why, he has been like a bear with a sore head. Never said a civil word to any one, and I’ve heard him bully the poor boys shamefully.”
“Yes; it is a pity, too, for they’ve behaved splendidly.”
“Right you are. I always liked them, but I’m quite proud of the poor fellows now. I say though, hang it all! talking must be bad on an empty stomach. Lead on, my lord; the banquet waits.”
“Banquet!” said Lennox, with a sigh.
“Yes. Oh, how tired I am of that mealie pap! It puts me in mind of Brahma fowls, and that maddens me.”
“Why?”
“Because I used to keep some of the great, feather-breeched, lumbering things to send to poultry shows. Some one told me that Indian corn was a fine thing for them – made their plumage bright and gave them bone; so I ordered a lot.”
“And did it answer the purpose?”
“Answer the purpose?” cried Dickenson indignantly. “Why, the beggars picked it up grain by grain and put it down again. Pampered Sybarites! Then the cock cocked his eye up at me and said, ‘Tuck, tuck, tuck! Caro, waro, ware!’ which being interpreted from the Chick-chuck language which is alone spoken by the gallinaceous tribe, means, ‘None of your larks: yellow pebbles for food? Not to-day, thankye!’”
“I say, Bob, what a boy you do keep!” said Lennox.
“The sweet youthfulness of my nature, lad. But, as I was telling you, the beggars wouldn’t touch it, and I had to get our cook to boil it soft. Our mealie pap has just the same smell. That makes me think of being a real boy with my poultry pen: the Brahmas make me think of the young cockerels who did not feather well for show and were condemned to go to pot – that is to say, to the kitchen; and that brings up their legs and wings peppered and salted before broiling for breakfast, finished off with a sprinkle of Worcester sauce, and then – oh, luscious! oh, tender juiciness! Oh! hold me up, old man, or I shall faint. There, sniff! Can’t you smell? Yes, of course; mealie pap in a tin, and – Oh, here’s the colonel eating his. Roby will have to give his report now.”
“Good – morning, gentlemen,” said the colonel. “Just in time for breakfast. Well, what have you found?”
He had hardly asked the question before Captain Roby hurried in, to go up to his side at once and make his report.
“I’m sorry; but no more than I expected. – Here,” he said, turning to his servant, after making a brave show of eating the meagre tin of Indian corn porridge; “bring me a little cocoa.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the man, bending over him from behind; “very sorry, but last of the cocoa was finished yesterday.”
“Humph! Yes; I had forgotten,” said the colonel, and he took up his spoon and began to play with the porridge remaining in his tin.
The breakfast was soon ended, and the officers made a show of chatting cheerfully together, while the colonel sat tapping the edge of his tin softly with his canteen spoon, looking thoughtfully into the bottom of the cleaned-out vessel the while. Then every eye was turned to him as he straightened himself up, for they judged that he was going to make some communication. They were right, for he threw down his spoon on the clothless board and said suddenly:
“Well, gentlemen, the French proverb says, Il faut manger.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, with a grim smile; “but it is necessary to have something in the manger.”
“Quite so, doctor,” said the colonel, with a good-humoured nod; “so I may as well open a discussion on the position at once, and tell you that while Roby and his company have been searching the kopje the major and I have formed ourselves into a committee of ways and means, and gone round the stores. – Tell them, major.”
The gentleman addressed shrugged his shoulders.
“There is so little to tell,” he replied; “only that with about quarter-rations we can hold out for another week. That’s all.”
“Not all,” said the colonel. “We have the horses as a last resource; but they are life to us in another way, and must be left till the very end.”
Dead silence reigned, every man looking down at the rough table.
“Well, gentlemen,” continued the colonel, “after giving every thought to our position I come to the conclusion that at all hazards I must hold this place.”
“Hear, hear!” came from every lip.
“We are keeping three commandos fully employed, and that is something.”
There was a sound like a murmur of satisfaction.
“I might determine,” said the colonel, “to try and reach Rudolfsberg, and somehow or another we would cut our way there; but our losses would be terrible, and we should reach safety – some of us – with the feeling that we had not done our duty by holding Groenfontein at all hazards.”
“That’s quite right,” said the major as his chief paused, and a murmur of assent followed the major’s words.
“Then, gentlemen, that brings me back again to the French proverb. We must eat, so the first thing to do is to decide on which direction a raid is to be made: that means scouting, and the discovery of the nearest Boer store of provisions, with sheep and cattle. We are quite alone here, without the possibility of my words being heard, so I can speak out freely. Scouting parties must go out at once in the direction of each of the three commandos, and on the strength of their reports the expedition will be made.”
“To-night?” said the major.
“Yes,” replied the colonel. “Hush! Don’t cheer! Let matters go on as if nothing fresh were on the way. We cannot afford to have our proceedings carried out of the lines by Kaffir spies.”
Chapter Twelve.
The Boer Advance
The scouting parties went out in three different directions after a long survey from the top of the kopje, the routes being marked out for the leaders in consultation with the colonel, who, glass in hand, selected the most likely routes to be followed so that the enemy might be avoided, and the more distant country reached where two or three Boer farms were known to be situated.
Then, with three of the best mounted men in each, they set off; and the colonel took especial care that no one of the many friendly – said to be friendly – natives who hung about the camp should follow. It was a necessary precaution, for the outposts stopped no less than a dozen men stealing through the long grass on both sides of the river, and, to their great disappointment, turned them back to go and squat down sulkily in such shade as they could find.
The instructions given were that at the latest the scouts were to be back at sundown, so as to give ample time for pointing out the route to be followed and preparations made for the raid to come.
Plenty of discussion ensued when the scouts had ridden off at a walk, opening out so as not to take the attention of the Boers; and as far as could be made out by the watchers there was not a sign of an enemy upon either of the hills.
The question of the discussion was which company of the regiment would be called upon to start upon the raid, the members of each hoping to be selected; and Captain Roby maintaining loudly, in a sharp, snappish way, that without doubt his company would be chosen, and turning fiercely upon any of his brother officers who differed from him.
“He’s precious cock-sure, Drew,” said Dickenson later on, as they strolled together up the steep sides of the kopje; “but we had our bit of work this morning, and it is not likely that the old man will send us.”
“Of course not; but it was of no use to say anything. Our failure has had a strange effect upon the poor fellow, and a word would act upon him like fire upon tinder.”
“Yes; but the starvation picnic has had its effect on other people too. Who’s he that he should have the monopoly of getting into a passion about nothing? I say, though, as we were up there this morning I don’t see what is the use of our going up again; there’ll be no shade at the top, and we shall be half-roasted.”
“Don’t come, then,” said Lennox quietly. “I’m going up to see if I can follow the scouts with a glass.”
“Don’t come?” cried Dickenson sharply. “Well, I like that! Here’s another one touched by the sun. Old Roby is not to have the monopoly of getting into a fantigue.”
“Nonsense! I’m not out of temper,” said Lennox.
“Not out of temper? Well, upon my word! But I shall come all the same. I would now if it were ten times as hot.”
“Very well,” said Lennox, drawing his breath hard so as to command his temper, for he felt really ruffled now by the heat and his comrade’s way of talking.
They climbed slowly on, step for step, till, as they zigzagged up into a good position which displayed the sun-bathed landscape shimmering in the heat, Lennox caught a glimpse of one of the scouting parties in the distance, and was about to draw his companion’s attention to it when Dickenson suddenly caught at his arm and pointed to a glowing patch of the rock in the full blaze of the sun.
“Look,” he said. “Big snake.”
“Nonsense!” said Lennox angrily; “there are no snakes up here.”
Their eyes met the next instant with so meaning a look in them that both burst out laughing, Dickenson holding out his hand, which was taken at once.
“I forgive old Roby,” he said.
“So do I,” said Lennox frankly. “Heat and hunger do upset a man’s temper. See our fellows out there?”
He pointed in the direction where he had seen the mounted figures, feeling for his glass the while.
“Not our men,” said Dickenson, following his example, and together they produced their glasses.
“Oh yes,” said Lennox. “I am certain it was they.”
“And I’m as certain it was not,” cried Dickenson.
Their eyes met again; but this time they felt too serious to laugh, and were silent for some moments.
Dickenson then said frankly:
“Look here, old chap, there’s something wrong with us. We’ve got the new complaint – the Robitis; and we’d better not argue about anything, or we shall have a fight. My temper feels as if it had got all the skin off.”
“And I’m as irritable as Roby was this morning. Never mind. Can you make out the mounted men now?”
“No,” said Dickenson after a pause. “Can you?”
“No. They’re gone behind that patch of forest. There,” he continued, closing his glass, “let’s get up to the top and sit in the men’s shelter; there’ll be a bit of air up there.”
He proved to be right, for a pleasant breeze, comparatively cool, was blowing on the other side of the mountain and tempering the glare of the sunshine, while they found that there was a bit of shade behind a turret-like projection standing out of the granite, looking as if it had been built up by human hands.
There they sat and watched for hours, scanning the veldt, which literally quivered in the heat; but they looked in vain for any movement on the part of the enemy, who had been disturbed by the scouts, and at last made up their minds to go down – truth to tell, moved by the same reason, the pangs of hunger asserting themselves in a way almost too painful to be borne.
“Let’s go,” said Dickenson; “they’ve got right away in safety. I believe the Boers are all asleep this hot day, and in the right of it: plenty to eat and nothing to do.”
“Yes, let’s go. I’m longing for a long cool drink down below there. Pst! What’s that?”
“One of the fellows round there by the gun,” said Dickenson.
“No,” whispered Lennox decidedly; “it was close at hand. Did you hear it?”
“Yes. Sounded like the rock splitting in this fiery sunshine.”
“More like a piece falling somewhere inside – beneath our feet – and I distinctly heard a soft, echoing rumble.”
“Come along down, old man,” said Dickenson. “It’s too hot to be up here, and if we stop any longer we shall have something worse than being hungry – a bad touch of the sun. I feel quite ready to go off my head and imagine all sorts of things. For instance, there’s a swimming before my eyes which makes me fancy I can see puffs of smoke rising out yonder, and a singing and cracking in my ears like distant firing.”
“Where?” cried Lennox excitedly. “Yes, of course. I can see the puffs plainly, and hear the faint cracking of the fire. Bob, my lad, then that sharp sound we heard must have been the reverberation of a gun.”
“Oh dear!” groaned Dickenson. “Come along down, and let’s get our heads in the cool stream and drink like fishes.”
“Don’t be foolish! Get out your glass.”
“To drink with?”
“No! Absurd! To watch the firing.”
“There is no firing, man,” cried Dickenson.
“There is, I tell you.”
“Oh, he has got it too,” groaned Dickenson. “Very well; all right – there is fighting going on out there a couple of miles away, and I can see the smoke and hear the cracking of the rifles. But come on down and let’s have a drink of water all the same; there’s plenty of that.”
“You’re saying that to humour me,” said Lennox, with his glass to his eyes; “but I’m not half-delirious from sunstroke. Get out your glass and look. The Boers are coming on in a long extended line, and they must be driving in our scouts.”
“You don’t mean it, do you, old chap?” cried Dickenson, dragging out his glass.
“Yes; there’s no mistake about it.”
Crack! went a rifle from behind the projection, a few yards away; and directly after, as the two officers began scurrying down, the bugles were ringing out in the market-square, and the colonel gave his orders for supports to go out, check the Boer advance, and bring the scouting party or parties in.
Chapter Thirteen.
Something in the Head
It was a narrow escape, but the nine men got safely back to quarters, but minus two of their horses. For the Boers had in every case been well upon the alert; their lines had not been pierced, and they followed up the retreating scouts till the searching fire from the kopje began to tell upon their long line of skirmishers, and then they sullenly drew back, but not before they had learnt that there were marksmen in the regiment at Groenfontein as well as in their own ranks.
“That’s something, Drew,” said Dickenson as he watched the slow movement of a light wagon drawn by mules. “But only to think of it: all that trouble for nothing – worse than nothing, for they have shot those two horses. Yes, worse than nothing,” he continued, “for they would have been something for the pot.”
Each of the scouting parties gave the same account of the state of affairs; that is to say, that though to all appearances the country round was clear of the enemy, a keen watch was being kept up, and, turn which way they would, Boers were ready to spring up in the most unexpected places to arrest their course and render it impossible to reach supplies and bring them in.
Their report cast a damp on the whole camp. For bad news travels fast, and this was soon known.
“Sounds bad,” said Dickenson cheerfully, “and just like them. They are not going to run their heads into danger unless obliged. They mean to lie low and wait for us, then turn us back to starve and surrender.”
“And they’ll find that we shall take a great deal of starving first,” replied Lennox bitterly. “But I don’t agree with you altogether. I fully expect that, in spite of their failure to blow us up, it will not be long before they contrive something else.”
“Well, we shall not quarrel about that, old man,” said Dickenson cheerily. “If they do come on in some attack, every one here will be delighted to see them. We should enjoy a good honest fight. What I don’t like is this going on shrinking and pulling the tongue farther through the buckle. If it goes on like this much longer I shall have to go to our saddler to punch a few more holes in my belt. I say, though, one feels better after that draught of water. I believe if I had stayed up yonder much longer I should have gone quite off my head, through fancying things, for it was only imagination after all.”
A fresh company occupied the kopje that evening, and once more perfect silence reigned. There was one of the glorious displays of stars seen so often in those clear latitudes, when the great dome of heaven seems to be one mass of sparkling, encrusted gems.
Lennox had been standing outside his quarters for some time, enjoying the coolness, and shrinking from going in to where the hut was hot and stuffy and smelling strongly of the now extinguished paraffin-lamp, mingled with a dash of the burned tobacco in Dickenson’s pipe.
“I say,” said the latter, “hadn’t you better come in and perch? Nothing like making your hay when the sun shines, and getting your forty winks while you can.”
“Quite right,” replied Lennox in a low, dreamy voice; “but it’s very pleasant out here.”
“That’s true enough, no doubt, old man; but you’ll be on duty to-morrow night out yonder, and you can go on star-gazing then. Yah! Oh – oh dear me, how sleepy I do feel!” he continued, yawning. “I’ll bet a penny that I don’t dream once. Regularly worn out, that’s how I am. There, good-night if you won’t come and lie down. I shall just allow myself half a – Oh, hang it! I do call that too bad!”
For ere he could finish his sentence a rifle cracked somewhere near the top of the kopje, followed by another and another; the bugles rang out, and from the continued firing it seemed evident that the Boers were going against their ordinary custom and making a night attack.
If they did, though, they were to find the camp ready for them, every man and officer springing to his place and waiting for orders – those given to Captain Roby being, as his men were so familiar with the spot, to take half a company and reinforce the detachment on the kopje.
They found that the firing had completely ceased by the time they were half-way up, and upon joining the officer in command there, to Captain Roby’s great satisfaction, he found a similar scene being enacted to that which had taken place before him.
“Another false alarm, Roby,” the officer said angrily. “Your fellows started the cock-and-bull nonsense, and it has become catching. The sentry here declares he saw a couple of figures coming down in the darkness, and he fired. The idiot! There is nothing, of course, and the colonel shall make an example of him.”
Lennox was standing close up to the offender, and in spite of the darkness could make out that the man was shivering.
“Come, come,” said the young officer in a half-whisper; “don’t go on like that. You fancy you saw something?”
“I’m sure I did, sir,” replied the sentry, grateful for a kind word after the severe bullying he had received for doing what he believed to be his duty. “I saw two of them, as plain as I can see you now. I was regularly took aback, sir, for I hadn’t heard a sound; but as soon as I fired I could hear them rush off.”
“You feel certain?”
“Yes, sir; and the captain says it was all fancy. If it was, sir, I know – ”
“Know what?” said Lennox, impressed by the man’s manner. “Speak out.”
“Oh, I know, sir,” said the man again, with a shudder.
“Well, speak out; don’t be afraid.”
“Enough to make any man feel afraid, sir,” half whimpered the man. “I don’t mind going into action, sir. I’ve shown afore now as I’d follow my officers anywhere.”
“Of course you would, my lad,” said Lennox, patting the young fellow encouragingly on the shoulder, for he could see that he was suffering from a shock, and, doubtless from abstinence and weakness, was half-hysterical.
“It’s bad enough, sir, to be posted in the darkness upon a shelf like that over there, expecting every moment to get a bullet in you; but when it comes to anything like this, it makes a fellow feel like a coward.”
“Who said coward?” said Dickenson, who had followed his companion and now came up.
“I did, sir,” said the man through his chattering teeth.
“Where is he?” said Dickenson. “I should like to look at him. I haven’t seen one lately.”
“Here he is, sir,” said the poor fellow, growing more agitated; “it’s me.”
“Get out!” cried Dickenson good-humouredly. “You’re not a coward. There isn’t such a thing in the regiment.”
“Oh yes, there is, sir,” whimpered the man. “It’s all right, sir. I’m the chap: look at me.”
“Stop a moment,” said Lennox quickly; “aren’t you one of the men who have been in the infirmary?”
“Yes, sir. This is the first time I’ve been on duty since.”
“What was the matter with you?”
“Doctor said it was all on account of weakness, sir, but that I should be better back in the fresh air – in the ranks.”
“And you feel weak now?”
“Yes, sir; horrid. I’m ashamed of myself for being such a coward. But I know now.”
“Well, what do you know?” asked Lennox, more for the sake of calming the man than from curiosity.
“I thought I was going to get all right again and see the war through, if I didn’t get an unlucky ball; but it’s all over now. I’ve seen ’em, and it’s a fetch.”
“A what?” cried Dickenson, laughing.
“Don’t laugh, sir, please;” said the man imploringly. “It’s too awful. I see ’em as plain as I see you two gentlemen standing there.”
“And who were they?” continued Dickenson; “the brothers Fetch?”
“No, sir; two old comrades of mine who ’listed down Plymouth way when I did. We used to be in the same football team. They both got it at Magersfontein, and they’ve come to tell me it’s going to be my turn now.”
“Bah!” growled Dickenson. “Did they say so?”
“No, sir; they didn’t speak,” said the man, shivering; “but there they were. I knew Tom Longford by his big short beard, and the other must have been Mike Lamb.”
