The Kopje Garrison: A Story of the Boer War

“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.

Chapter Eight.

“Run, Sir, for your Life!”

“Eh? Yes. All right,” cried Lennox, starting up, ready dressed as he was, to find himself half-blinded by the light of the lantern held close over him. “Time, sergeant?”

“Well, not quite, sir; but I want you to come and have a look at something.”

“Something wrong?” cried the young officer, taking his sword and belt, which were handed to him by the non-com, and rapidly buckling up.

“Well, sir, I don’t know about wrong; but it don’t look right.”

“What is it?”

“Stealing corn, I call it, sir; and it’s being done in a horrid messy way, too.”

“What! from the stores?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man; “but come and look.”

“Ready,” said Lennox, taking out and examining his revolver, and then thrusting it back into its holster.

The next minute, after a glance at Dickenson, who was sleeping peacefully enough, Lennox was following the sergeant, whose dim lantern shed a curious-looking halo in the black darkness. Then as they passed a sentry another idea flashed across the young officer’s confused brain, brought forth by the sight of the guard, for on looking beyond the man there was no sign of the Boers’ lantern hanging from the front bow of their wagon-tilts.

“What about the Boers?” he said sharply.

“Been gone about an hour, sir. I suppose it was all right? Captain Roby saw them start.”

“Oh yes, it is quite right,” said Lennox. “Now then, what about this corn? Some of the Kaffirs been at it?”

“What do you think, sir?” said the man, holding down the lantern to shed its light upon the ground, as they reached the open door of the store and showed a good sprinkling of the bright yellow grains scattered about to glisten in the pale light.

“Think? Well, it’s plain enough,” said Lennox. “Thieves have been here.”

“Yes, sir. The open door took my notice at once. That chap ought to have seen it; but he didn’t, or he’d have given the alarm.”

“Go on,” said Lennox, and he followed the man right into the barn-like building, to stop short in front of the first of the half-dozen or so of sacks at the end, this having been thrown down and cut right open, so that a quantity of the maize had gushed out and was running like fine shingle on to the floor.

“Kaffirs’ work,” said Lennox sharply.

“Well, sir, if I may give you my opinion I should say it was those Boers,” said the sergeant gruffly.

“What!”

“Man must eat, sir, and it strikes me that they, in their easy-going way, thought it was as much theirs as ours, and helped theirselves to enough to last them till they could get more.”

“Well, whoever has done it,” – began Lennox.

Then he stopped short, and took a step forward. “Here, sergeant,” he cried, “hold the light higher.”

This was done, and then the pair bent down quickly over the sacks, each uttering an angry ejaculation.

“Why, it’s sheer mischief, sergeant,” cried Lennox. “Done with a sharp knife evidently.”

For the light now revealed something which the darkness had hitherto hidden from their notice. Another sack had been ripped up, apparently with a sharp knife, from top nearly to bottom. Another was in the same condition, and a little further investigation showed that every one had been cut, so that, on the farther side where all had been dark, there was a slope of the yellow grain which had flowed out, leaving the sacks one-third empty.

“Well, this is a rum go, sir,” said the sergeant, scratching his head with his unoccupied hand. “They must have got a couple of sackfuls away.”

“But why slit them up, when they could have shouldered a couple and carried them off?”

“Can’t say, sir,” said the sergeant.

Lennox turned back to the doorway, and his companion followed with the light.

“Hold it lower,” said Lennox, and the man obeyed, showing the grain they had first noticed lying scattered about, while a little examination further showed the direction in which those who had carried it off had gone, leaving sign, as a tracker would call it, in the shape of a few grains which had fallen from the loads they carried.

“Follow ’em up, sir?” said the sergeant. “It would be easy enough if it keeps like this.”

“Yes,” said Lennox. “We should know then if it was the Boers.”

The man stepped forward with the door of the lantern opened and the light held close to the ground, making the bright yellow grains stand out clearly enough as he went on, though at the end of a minute instead of being in little clusters they diminished to one here and another there, all, however, running in one direction for some fifty yards; and then the sergeant stopped.

“Seems rum, sir,” he said.

“You mean that the Boers would not have been going in this direction?”

“That’s so, sir. I’m beginning to think that it couldn’t have been them.”

“I’m glad of it,” said Lennox, “for I want to feel that we can trust them. Who could it have been, then?”

“Some of the friendly natives, sir, I hope,” replied the sergeant.

“But they wouldn’t have come this way, sergeant. It looks more as if some of our own people had been at the corn.”

“That’s just what I was thinking, sir,” replied the sergeant, “only I didn’t want to say it.”

“But that’s impossible, sergeant. A man might have slit up the sacks out of spite, or from sheer mischief, but he wouldn’t have carried off any.”

“No, sir. He wouldn’t, would he? Well, all I can say is that it’s rather queer.”

“Well, go on,” said Lennox; and the sergeant went on, tracing the grain right out to the back of the corrugated iron huts that formed one side of the square, and then past the angle and along the next side, now losing the traces, but soon picking them up again, the hard, dry earth completely refusing to give any trace of the bearer’s feet.

Then the next angle of the square was reached, turned, and the sergeant still passed on with the light.

“Gets thicker here,” he whispered, and directly after he stopped and pointed down at two or three handfuls of the bright grain.

“Seem to have set down a basket here, sir,” he said softly. “Shall I go on?”

“Go on? Yes, and trace the robbery home. The scoundrel who has tampered with the stores deserves the severest punishment.”

The sergeant proceeded, but more slowly now, for he had only a grain here and a grain there to act as his guide; but these still pointed out the direction taken by the marauders, till the trackers came suddenly upon a good-sized patch.

“Tell you what, sir,” whispered the sergeant; “there’s only one chap in it, and he’s got such a swag he’s obliged to keep stopping to rest.”

“Yes, that seems to be the case, sergeant,” said Lennox, looking carefully about. “Let’s see; we must be near the colonel’s quarters,” he whispered.

“That’s right, sir. About twenty yards over yonder; and the fellows on sentry ought to have seen the light and challenged us by now.”

“No,” said Lennox; “the houses completely shut us off. Go on.”

The light was held low down again and swung here and there in the direction that the marauder ought to have taken; but there was not a grain to be seen to indicate the track, and the sergeant had to hark back again and again without being able to find it.

“Rum thing, sir,” he whispered. “He must have stopped here and found that his basket was leaking, and patched it up, for I can’t see another grain anywhere.”

“Neither can I, sergeant; but try again. Take a longer circle.”

“Right, sir; but it does seem queer that he should have stopped to make all fast just behind the colonel’s quarters.”

“It seems to indicate that it was the work of some stranger; otherwise he would not have halted here.”

“P’r’aps so, sir; but if he was a stranger how did he know where the corn store was?”

“Can’t say, sergeant. Try away.”

“Right, sir,” said the man, proceeding slowly step by step, with the open lantern very close to the ground, and making a regular circle, in the hope of cutting the way at last by which the supposed thief had gone off after his last rest.

But minute succeeded minute without success, and Lennox was about to urge his companion onward in another direction, when the sergeant uttered a sharp ejaculation as if of alarm, jerking up the lantern as he started back, and in the same movement blew out the light and shut the lantern door with a loud snap.

Lennox, who was a couple of yards behind, sprang forward, unfastening the cover of his pistol-holster and catching his companion by the arm, while all around now was intensely dark.

“Enemy coming?” he whispered.

“Dunno yet, sir,” panted the sergeant, whose voice sounded broken and strange. “Something awfully wrong, sir.”

“Speak out, man! What do you mean?” whispered Lennox, whose heart now began to beat heavily.

“I’ve come upon something down here, sir.”

“Ah! The thief – asleep?”

“No, sir,” said the sergeant, and his fingers were heard fumbling with the fastening of the lantern.

“What are you doing, man? Why don’t you speak?”

“Making sure the light’s quite out, sir. Can’t speak for a moment – feel choking.”

“Then you hear the enemy approaching?”

“No, sir. – Ha! It’s quite out! Now, sir, just you go down on one knee and feel.”

“I don’t understand you, sergeant,” whispered Lennox; but all the same he bent down on one knee and felt about with his right hand, fully expecting to touch a heap of the stolen grain.

“No corn,” he said at the end of a few seconds; “but what’s this – sand?”

“Take a pinch up, and taste it, sir. I hope it is.”

“Taste it?” said Lennox half-angrily.

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant out of the darkness, and the faint rustle he made and then a peculiar sound from his lips indicated that he was setting the example.

The young officer hesitated no longer, but gathering up a pinch of the dry sand from the ground, he just held it to the tip of his tongue.

“Why, sergeant,” he whispered excitedly, “it’s powder!”

“That’s right, sir,” replied the man. “Gunpowder – a train; a heavy train running right and left.”

“Nonsense!”

“Truth, sir. I had the lantern close to it, and might have fired it if I’d dropped the lantern, as I nearly did.”

“But what does it mean? Here, sergeant, that’s what we have to see.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the sergeant in a hoarse whisper, “and don’t you grasp it? One way it goes off towards the veldt – ”

“And the other way towards the colonel’s quarters,” whispered Lennox. “Here, sergeant, there must be some desperate plot – a mine, perhaps, close up to that hut. Quick! Follow me.”

The sergeant did not need the order, for he was already moving in the direction of the cluster of huts, but going upon his hands and knees, leaving the lantern behind and feeling his way, guiding himself by his fingers so as to keep in touch with the coarse, sand-like powder, which went on in an easily followed line towards the back of the colonel’s hut.

It seemed long, but it was only a matter of a few seconds before they were both close up, feeling in the darkness for some trace of that which imagination had already supplied; and there it was in the darkness.

“Here’s a bag, sergeant,” whispered Lennox.

“A bag, sir? Here’s five or six, and one emptied out, and – Run, sir, for your life! Look at that!”

For there was a flash of light from somewhere behind them, and as, with a bag of powder which he had caught up in his hand, Lennox turned round, he could see what appeared to be a fiery serpent speeding at a rapid rate towards where, half-paralysed, he stood.

Chapter Nine.

Guy Fawkes Work

The light of the fired train had hardly flashed before the first sentry who saw it, fired, to be followed by one after another, till the bugles rang out, first one and then another, whose notes were still ringing when there was a muffled roar, then another, and another, till six had shaken the earth and a series of peculiar metallic clashes deafened all around.

But before the first sentry had raised his piece to his shoulder and drawn, the sergeant, seen in the brilliant light of the running train, seemed to have gone frantically mad.

“Chuck, sir, chuck!” he yelled, though Lennox needed no telling. The light which suddenly shone on the back of the cluster of sheet-iron huts had shown him what was necessary, and after raising the bag he had picked up with both hands high above his head, and hurling it as far as he could, he dashed at the others he could see packed close up against the colonel’s hut, so that between him and the sergeant five had been torn from the ground and hurled in different directions outward from the buildings, leaving only the contents of a sixth and seventh bag which had been emptied in a heap connected with the long train before the others had been laid upon it in a little pile.

They were none too soon, for the last bag had hardly been hurled away with all the strength that the young officer could command, and while the sergeant was yelling to him to run, before the hissing fiery serpent was close upon them.

Fortunately the sergeant’s crawling and the following trampling of the excited pair had broken up and crushed in the regularly laid train, scattering the powder in all directions, so that the rush of the hissing fire came momentarily to an end and gave place to a sputtering and sparkling here and there, giving Lennox and the sergeant time to rush a few yards away in headlong flight. There was a terrific scorching blast, and a tremendous push sent them staggering onward in a series of bounds before they fell headlong upon their faces; while at intervals explosion after explosion followed the fiery blast, the burning fragments setting off three of the other bags, fortunately away from where the pair had fallen.

The sergeant was the first to recover himself, and raising his face a little from the ground, he shouted, “Don’t move, sir! Don’t move! There’s two or three more to go off yet.”

Lennox said something, he did not know what, for he was half-stunned, the shock having had a peculiar bewildering effect. But at the second warning from his companion he began to grasp what it meant, and lay still without speaking; but he raised his head a little, to see that beneath the great canopy of foul-smelling smoke that overhung them the earth was covered with little sputtering dots of fire, either of which, if it came in contact, was sufficient to explode any powder that might remain.

But two bags had escaped, the explosive blast rising upward; and the danger being apparently at an end, the principal actors in the catastrophe roused to find officers hurrying to meet them, and men coming forward armed with pails of water to dash and scatter here and there till every spark was extinct and the remaining powder had been thoroughly drenched.

“Much hurt, old chap?” cried Dickenson, who was the first to reach his friend, and he supplemented his question by eagerly feeling Lennox all over.

“No! No: I think not,” said Lennox, “except my head, and that feels hot and scorched. Can you see anything wrong?”

“Not yet; it’s so dark. Here, let’s take you to the doctor.”

“No, no!” cried Lennox. “Not so bad as that. But tell me – what about the officers sleeping in those huts?”

“All right, I believe; but the backs of the houses are blown in, and the fellows at home were blown right out of their beds.”

“No one hurt?”

“Oh yes; some of them are a bit hurt, but only bruised. But you? Oh, hang it all! somebody bring a light. Hi, there, a lantern!”

“No, no!” roared the colonel out of the darkness. “Are you mad? Who’s that asking for a light?”

“Mr Dickenson, sir.”

“Bah! Keep every light away. There may be another explosion.”

The colonel gave a few sharp orders respecting being on the alert for an expected attack to follow this attempt – one that he felt to have been arranged to throw the little camp into confusion; and with all lights out, and a wide berth given to the neighbourhood of the headquarters, the troops stood ready to receive the on-coming Boers with fixed bayonets.

But an hour passed away, and the doubled outposts and those sent out to scout had nothing to report, while all remained dark and silent in the neighbourhood of the damaged huts.

Meanwhile Dickenson had hurried Lennox and the sergeant off to the doctor’s quarters, where they were examined by that gentleman and his aids.

“Well, upon my word, you ought to congratulate yourself, Lennox.”

“I do, sir,” was the reply, made calmly enough.

“And you too, sergeant.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man stolidly.

“Why, my good fellow, you ought to have been blown all to pieces.”

“Ought I, sir?”

“Of course you ought. It’s a wonderful escape.”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir. What about my back hair, sir?”

“Singed off, what there was of it; and yours too, Lennox. Smart much?”

“Oh yes, horribly,” said the latter.

“Oh, well, that will soon pass off. Threw yourselves down on your faces – eh?”

“No. We were knocked down.”

“Good thing too,” said the doctor. “Saved your eyes, and the hair about them. A wonderful escape, upon my word. Yes: you ought to have been blown to atoms. – Eh? What’s that, sergeant?”

“I say we should have been, sir, if we hadn’t scattered the powder-bags.”

“Scattered the powder-bags?” said a voice from the door, and the colonel stepped into the circle of light spread by the doctor’s lamp. “Tell me what you know about this explosion, Lennox. How came you to be there instead of visiting your posts?”

Lennox briefly explained, and the colonel stood frowning.

“I don’t see all this very clearly,” said the colonel. “Somebody stealing the corn, and you were tracing the thieves and came upon a train laid up to my quarters. There was a sentry there; what was he about?”

“No, sir: no sentry there,” said Lennox.

“Nonsense! I gave orders for a man to be posted there, and it was done.”

“I beg pardon, sir,” said Lennox. “No one was there to challenge us.”

“Indeed!” said the colonel. – “Who’s that? Oh, Mr Dickenson, examine the place as soon as it is light. There was a man there, for I saw him myself. But now then, I cannot understand how the enemy can have stolen through the lines and carried the powder where it was found. What do you say, Lennox?”

“Nothing, sir. My head is so confused that I can hardly recall how it all happened.”

“Of course. Well, you, sergeant. You said that you scattered the powder-bags.”

“Yes, sir. Threw ’em about as far as we could.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.