Harley Greenoak's Charge

“By George, the Chief’s splendid!” exclaimed Dick Selmes, who, in his eagerness, was right in among the front rank of the fighters.

“Silence there!” came the whispered but sharp mandate of a sergeant. “Oh, it’s Mr Selmes? Well, if you’re not in the ranks you are for the present,” he added meaningly.

Dick apologised and shut up. He was in such a state of suppressed excitement that it was all he could do to keep silence.

Now the dawn was lightening, and with it the mist. Harley Greenoak whispered a word or two to the Commandant. Both stood listening intently, and, in a moment, the officer in charge of the seven-pounder moved swiftly from the group. A red flash belched forth dully through the mist, together with a resonant roar, and with the bursting of the shrapnel, some six hundred yards away on the front face of the position, came sharp, startled yells of dismay and of agony. Harley Greenoak’s fine, well-nigh supernatural sense of hearing had told him that at this front were massed a considerable body of the savage enemy.

Grimly, justifiably elate, the gunners in a trice had rammed home the next charge. And then with the widening dawn, the mist rolled back like a curtain, and this is what it revealed.

The thicker bush line, barely half a mile distant, was pouring forth dense masses of Kafirs. They seemed to swarm like disturbed red ants; and now, with a tremendous and vibrating roar, the whole of this formidable array swept forward upon the Police camp.

“Seems to me we’re taking on all the Kafirs in Africa,” said Inspector Chambers, lowering his glass. “Thousands and thousands anyhow.”

The Commandant issued some orders, characteristically laconic and few. He and Harley Greenoak were the only two men present who betrayed absolutely no sign of any excitement.

The swarming assailants had halved the distance now, and their front ranks, dropping into cover, began opening a furious fire upon the camp. Two troopers were hit, but not fatally. Then the seven-pounder spoke again, and with the reverberating boom the bursting shrapnel fell beautifully over a point where the savages were massed thickest. But, so far from dismaying them, it had the effect of urging them on to the attack, so as to get it over as quickly as possible, which was just what the Commandant intended should happen.

Those in the enemy’s firing-line leaped up and charged forward in skirmishing order, dropping into cover every now and then to deliver a rapid volley. So far, from the Police camp not a rifleshot had been fired. Only the seven-pounder boomed as quickly as it could be loaded, every time dropping its shrapnel where likely to prove most effective.

In crescent formation the front line of the savages had now reached within three hundred yards of the camp. They had ceased all shouting, and were coming on in silence; grim, naked figures, save for their fantastic war-adornments. Then the Police carbines barked. The men had been especially enjoined to fire low, and in the result, at such close range, the blow to the onrushing enemy was felt, and as the first discharge was quickly followed by another and another, his ranks staggered, swayed this way and that, then dropped down into cover again.

This was the opportunity of the assailed and, incidentally, of Harley Greenoak. For cover was very scant so near the camp, and when two men got behind a stone or ant-heap that would not have sheltered one, why, the bullets had a pitiless knack of finding them out. Utterly demoralised, the skirmishers crawled away to a remoter point where the bush grew thicker, and for upwards of an hour kept up a straggling fire. But they never repeated their first rush. The back of the fight seemed to have been broken by the terrible execution done during that same rush. At last, utterly panic-stricken, they fled.

Now A. Troop was ordered to complete the blow by a pursuit; under so experienced an officer as Inspector Chambers there was no chance of it being drawn too far. And we may be sure that Dick Selmes did not remain behind.

For the first time now he realised the sights and horrors of a battlefield. Wherever he looked it was to behold some stark and gory corpse, even piles of them where the deadly shrapnel had done its work. Wounded Kafirs too, groaning and twisting in their pain – ugh! It was horrible! But, as the Police came up with the rear masses of the flying enemy, the fierce excitement revived. The horrors were forgotten.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Two Chiefs

“Hallo! Here’s a chap we’ve overlooked,” sang out Dick, turning his horse. Four troopers followed him. A little to the right of the pursuit a solitary Kafir was standing, peering over a bush. As the five charged up to him, revolver in hand, he sank to the ground.

“No kill. I hit,” he said, in English. “Hit bad – in the leg.”

There was no mistake about that. From a neat bullet-hole in the calf, blood was oozing. However, dismounting, the men kicked his assegai out of his reach.

“No kill,” repeated the fellow, spreading out his hands. “I tell you something – something you like hear.”

Dick Selmes, who, of course, had not the remotest intention of killing a wounded man, here assumed an aspect of the most merciless ferocity. He pointed his revolver at the Kafir’s head.

“Tell away,” he said. “If it’s not worth hearing, I’ll scatter your brains, by Caesar’s ghost I will!”

“It worth hearing,” answered the other. “How you like take chief, eh?”

“Chief? Which chief?”

“Vunisa. Pahlandhle. Two chief.”

“Go on. Only remember if you humbug us, then, – good-night.” And Dick touched the helpless man’s head with the muzzle of his pistol, as an earnest of what was to come.

“You go on up dere,” went on the Kafir. “Two tree – Kafir-boen – over rock. Rock hang over hole – same as place where we take you. Vunisa – Pahlandhle – they hide there – wait till Amapolise done killing Kafir – then they get away. You take them same as we take you – easily.”

Now Dick Selmes remembered. The voice, the face, came back to him. Why, this was the English-speaking Kafir who had ordered them to read the despatches, and had directed the torture of Sandgate because they refused. Had the fellow been armed, and fighting, he would have shot him with infinite satisfaction, as the recollection of that ghastly experience came back. But it was manifestly out of the question to shoot an unarmed and helpless man; besides, this one was giving him information which set all his blood tingling with the prospect of a glorious adventure – if it were true. If so, and it were carried out successfully, such a feat was bound to procure sure and rapid promotion to the four young Police troopers with him.

“I know the spot he means, Selmes,” said one of these, a Colonial-born man, who understood veldt-craft and spoke the Xosa language fluently. “And I think he’s very likely telling the truth.”

“Oh, I tell truth,” said the wounded man. “Dey not my chiefs – and Pahlandhle eat up my cattle. I like to see him shot.”

“If you’ve told us a lie, that’s what you’ll be,” said Dick, “you may take your oath upon that. We’ll come back for you, never fear.”

“Oh, I not fear,” said the other, easily. “If you grab chiefs, I like to join Police as ’tective. How that?”

“That’s for the Commandant. But I expect he’ll take you on,” answered Dick, airily. “Come along, you chaps. We’ll bag these two, or not go back at all.”

“Rather,” was the unanimous answer. As we have said, Dick Selmes was exceedingly popular in the Force since he had been its guest. He put on no “side” whatever, and had shown rare pluck whenever opportunity for such had occurred. These four would have followed him anywhere; the more mad and dare-devil the adventure the better.

“Now, Sketchley, you must be guide,” he said to the Colonial man. “If this fellow’s lying, of course we’ll come back and shoot him. Here – what’s your name?”

“Tolangubo. English – where I work before – call me John Seapoint.”

The mist, which had lightened on the plain, still hung heavy on the higher ridges. This was all in their favour.

Under the guidance of Sketchley, the Colonial-born trooper, they were not long in reaching their objective.

“We’ll leave the horses here,” said this man. “Now – silence is the word, I need hardly say. You, Simpson, you’re a clumsy beast, you know, but for Heaven’s sake don’t kick so much as a little stone this time.”

The reply was a growling promise to punch the speaker’s head when all was over, and they started their stealthy climb. Not long did it take, and then, at a word from Sketchley, all halted for a hurried breather.

Above was the lip of the hollow the Kafir had described. There were the two trees overhanging – all corresponded exactly. But what if the said hollow were bristling with armed savages? What if they had walked into a palpable trap – was the thought that occurred to them now. Tolangubo had not said that the two chiefs were alone, they now remembered; immediately consoling themselves with the thought that it would not have made much difference if he had.

With beating hearts the five peered over the ridge. There, not a hundred yards distant, squatted four Kafirs. Four. Which of the two were the chiefs?

“That’s Vunisa,” whispered Dick Selmes, excitedly. “I’d swear to him anywhere.”

But the whisper, faint though it was, reached the ears of the keen-witted savages. These sat bolt upright, listening. All four, with a subtle movement, reached for their arms; two for their rifles, the others for their assegais.

“That settles it,” breathed the Colonial man. “The ones with the guns are the chiefs. Now, we mustn’t give away the smallness of our force. Let ’em think there’s a crowd behind. Come on, now.”

The five advanced, covering the group with their revolvers.

“Yield, chiefs!” cried Sketchley, in the Xosa tongue. “If a man moves he is shot.”

A man did move, making a sudden spring to get away. Him Sketchley promptly and unerringly shot dead. This told. The remaining three stood, sullenly awaiting events.

“Drop your weapons, or you are all shot,” he went on.

The Kafirs stared, and, believing him, sulkily obeyed.

“Don’t quit covering them for a moment,” cried Dick Selmes. “I’ll go in, and tie them up.”

They had brought reims from their horses’ headstalls. With these Dick now approached. There was no mistaking the chiefs. Vunisa and Pahlandhle were both elderly men of powerful build, the other was a mere boy. Both seemed to treat the affair as entirely beneath their notice, and, making a virtue of necessity, submitted to have their arms bound behind them, in sullen silence, the while the Police troopers were covering them effectually and at close quarters with their revolvers. But hardly had this operation been completed than the other, whom they had left to the last, with a spring and a rush disappeared into the mist, leaping and zigzagging to dodge the bullets which were fired after him.

“Here’s a howling joke,” said Trooper Sketchley. “He isn’t touched, and now he’s gone to raise a rescue. Those chaps’ll rally like the deuce to get back their chiefs.”

“Will they?” said Dick Selmes, smart, alert, with the tingling sense of adventure. “Come along then. We’ll wheel them back to camp before there’s time for any bother of that sort. The old Commandant’ll look mighty surprised, I’ll bet.”

So these five hair-brained youngsters started off; shoving their august prisoners along at a pace which sorely tried the dignity of the latter. When they gained the lip of the hollow, Sketchley gave a signal to halt.

The mist was all driving back, leaving one side of the hill bare. But this was by no means as it had been when they came up it. The stones and bushes, glistening with dew, were now alive with red-ochred forms, swift-moving, lithe, stealing upward; assegais and guns held ready in sinewy, eager grip. Then, as the helmets of two careless troopers showed above the ridge, there was a sudden roaring discharge of firearms, and the vicious “whigge” overhead showed that the “pot-legs” and bullets were beginning to fly.

Now these five were in a tight hole. The Kafirs, rallying to the rescue of their chiefs, were coming on to storm that hill with a fixity of purpose which left nothing to be desired or to be hoped for. They reckoned on finding at least fifty men up there, and these were only five.

“A few more steps, and both chiefs will be shot,” sang out Sketchley, in their own language.

But it seemed to stay the rush not at all. Swarming through the bushes, they still kept on. In a minute or two they would rush the position.

“Give them a volley!” yelled Dick Selmes.

This was done, but with scant effect.

Slapping in their reloads, the men delivered another, this time with considerable effect, for it checked the advance. But the worst of it was that, further out, they could see more and more Kafirs coming up to the support of these. Then a shout went up.

“Release the two chiefs, white men, and we will leave you.”

They looked at each other. What chance had they of holding their own against such odds – but on the other hand, could they trust the promises of the savages? This, in substance, Sketchley called out in reply.

“Au!” exclaimed Pahlandhle, with some eagerness. “We you can trust. You are only a few foolish boys. Let us go, and then you may go home yourselves. None of these will harm you.”

“None,” echoed Vunisa, emphatically.

“Well, and what do you all say?” asked Sketchley, having translated this.

“I’ve got people at home,” said one of the troopers, meaningly.

“So have I,” declared another.

“Let’s put it to the vote then,” went on Sketchley. “It’s on the cards they’ll keep their word, and then we’ve had all this bother for nothing. Otherwise, candidly, I don’t believe we’ve the ghost of a chance. Now then?”

The two who had first spoken were for surrendering the chiefs. Sketchley and the other trooper were against it.

“Now then, Selmes,” said the latter. “You’ve got the casting vote.”

Dick was inclined to hold out, but what right had he to sacrifice these men’s lives? Besides, had not he also “got people at home”? He wavered. Then something occurred which decided him, decided them all. For just then the mist parted all round. A strong body of Police, attracted by the firing, was swarming up the hill.

The answer of the besieged was another volley, this time with effect. All four shots told – one man had been left in charge of the captive chiefs, with revolver ready to shoot both dead in the event of their countrymen gaining a foothold on the ridge. Then another volley with like effect. These young Englishmen, you see, were now in the most dangerous position of all to their enemies – that of “cornered” – and they shot deadly, and cool. The original assailants, who, heartened by their reinforcements, had sprung up to renew the attack, now began to drop behind cover again.

“Give ’em another!” yelled Dick.

“No. Wait till they show,” corrected Sketchley. “No good lessening the wholesome scare they’ve got of us by blazing at stones.”

Even as he spoke the savages became alive to this new turn of events, and reckoning they would soon be caught between two fires, were, with warning cries to each other, beginning to glide away. But between the two fires a good few were consumed before they managed to; for the shots from above were now coolly and carefully timed, and those from below, especially where Harley Greenoak got his foresight on to a brown red body, told with terror-striking effect. In a very few minutes there was not a Kafir left on the hillside.

“Hi! Here! Hullo, Greenoak, here we are,” sung out Dick Selmes. “You’re just in time, but we’ve bagged the two chiefs. Come along.”

They started back to camp without delay. Just before reaching it, one of the four troopers, who was given to pessimism, remarked —

“Old Chambers’ll get all the kudos for to-day’s job. We shan’t.”

It may be said that in the event the speaker was wrong. The Commandant was far too wise and too just a man to allow a meritorious service to go unrecognised. In the event, too, it transpired that these four had performed a very meritorious service indeed, and all of them, except one man who left the Force, his time having expired, got promotion as soon as practicable.

Chapter Twenty Three.

The Commandant’s Joke

“Hallo, Selmes, what’s the row with you?” said Trooper Sketchley, suddenly noticing that Dick’s face had gone rather white. “Confound it, you didn’t get hit, did you?”

Harley Greenoak, who was riding a little way in front, keeping a watchful eye on the captive chiefs, instinctively reined in his horse, having just overheard. The movement annoyed Dick Selmes. It seemed to him to savour of leading-strings; and had not he borne part in two good fights – three, in fact, for this capture of the two chiefs was better than a fight. It was a bold dash and a fight combined.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered, rather testily. “Something seemed to knock me during that last volley. I expect it was a spent pot-leg or splinter of rock. But it’ll keep till we get back to camp.”

“Where did it knock you?” said Greenoak.

“Here. Bridle arm. Rather ride with the right.”

“All serene. But – just haul up your sleeve, if you can.”

No fuss. No calling a halt. Just a plain injunction. Such was Harley Greenoak. Dick obeyed.

“You’ll be all right, Dick,” pronounced Greenoak, after a brief scrutiny, during which he strove to conceal the anxiety he felt. “It’s as you say, a spent pot-leg. But it has made a nasty jagged scratch all the same, and we’ll get the sawbones at it soon as we’re in. You may thank your stars it was a spent one, or you’d have had a broken arm for some time to come.”

“Never mind. We’ve boned the chiefs,” said Dick, delightedly. “That sweep Vunisa, he’s the beggar who’d have cut my throat that night they tied me up in a bag. Jolly glad we’ve boned him. Bit of turning the tables there.”

“We ought to enlist you, Selmes,” said Sub-Inspector Mainwaring, who was in command of the body that had so opportunely come to the rescue. “You’re a tiger for pulling off anything out of the way.”

“Well, I hope I’ll go through some more jolly old scraps with you fellows,” answered Dick. “The war seems to have begun in earnest now.”

“Don’t know. This may have broken the whole back of it. Eh, Greenoak?”

“May, or may not,” answered the latter, who was not going to commit himself to an ordinary conversational opinion at that stage.

They were joined by the other half of the pursuit under Inspector Chambers. One man had been killed. A desperate savage, fairly cornered, had sprung like a wild-cat upon the unfortunate trooper and assegaied him fair and square as he sat in his saddle, being himself, however, immediately shot. Three more were wounded with assegai cuts. But, all things considered, the Police had come off with flying colours, and all hands were in high spirits.

On the way, they picked up the wounded Kafir, Tolangubo, who had given the information which had led to the capture of the chiefs. He had proved useful enough already, and might prove so again, thought Inspector Chambers when the man expressed a desire to join the Police as a native detective. But, watching his opportunity, he besought Harley Greenoak to enjoin upon the four troopers on no account to let out that he had been instrumental in that, for in such event he could be of no use at all, as the vengeance of his countrymen would be certain to overtake him, and then – why, a dead man was more useless than a dead ox, since you could neither eat him nor use his skin – he added, somewhat humorously.

On reaching camp the two chiefs were lodged in the guard-hut, Jacob Snyman having been now released and allowed to return to duty. He had shown his good faith. The attack against which he had warned them had been made in real earnest, and now in the flush of victory, the would-have-been traitor found himself rather popular than otherwise. All the same, a watchful eye was kept upon him. Vunisa and Pahlandhle accepted the position with sullen philosophy. They were told that they would be kept as hostages for the good behaviour of their people – an announcement which filled them with no exhilaration, remembering as they did, though keeping the knowledge to themselves, that the Gudhluka Reserve was a very Alsatia, and comprised plenty of turbulent spirits, whose allegiance to themselves was purely nominal. But there they were, and their rations were regular, and the Police were not stingy with tobacco; so the philosophy of the savage stood them in good stead: “Sufficient unto the day.”

“Well, Greenoak. It seems to me we are making a real frontiersman of our friend here,” said the Commandant, going on the while sorting out and otherwise arranging his “specimens,” as calmly as though they had not spent the morning in defeating and thoroughly routing a few thousand of bloodthirsty savages. “Wounded too? Never mind, Selmes. Think what a lot of yarns you’ll have to spin to the people at home.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that, Commandant. But – er – Blunt says it’s a toss up whether I’ll be able to take a hand in any more fights for a month or so. And by that time the war may be over.”

“Hope so, I’m sure,” was the dry reply. “Eh, Greenoak?”

The latter nodded.

For the Police surgeon – Dr Blunt – a tall, pleasant-mannered Irishman – had examined and duly dressed Dick’s wound, informing him that, although not serious, it was not a thing to play the fool with.

“You see, Selmes,” he said, “you are such a rash, impetuous beggar. I suppose if some nigger were to sneak in to-night and tell you he knew where to capture old Kreli, you’d start out on the spot and try and do it. Well, let me remind you there’s such a thing as blood-poisoning. It’s all right now, but if you get acting the ass with this thing, open and running as it’ll be for the next few days, why, there’s no telling. No, my boy. You’ll have to wear your arm in a sling till I tell you to take it out. What then? Why, you’ll only look the more interesting. Anyway, it’s only your left fin.”

This was some consolation. For it enabled Dick to sit down and write a full, true, and particular account of the two battles and their sequel to Hazel Brandon, and, incidentally, to his father, to be sent when the Commandant should elect to send through despatches reporting recent affairs.

“What do you make of this beast, Greenoak?” went on the Commandant, as he extracted the last captured lizard specimen from the lethal pickle-bottle.

“Don’t know. I’m not up in scientific natural history.”

“Well, he’s quite an uncommon variety. Shall have to look him up when I get back to my library.”

Greenoak exchanged a comical look with Dick Selmes. The Commandant, for the moment, attached more importance to the capture of this miserable, uninviting little specimen of the lizard tribe, than he did to the stirring and momentous events of the last couple of days. And yet – were the alarm again to be given, no man in that camp would be more readily on the spot, the very personification of cool and calm collectedness.

There were other humours in the life of the camp which every now and then would come to the fore. One day a trooper, charged with trying to shoot himself with his carbine, was marched before the Commandant. The latter looked at him in a half-abstracted, lack-lustre sort of way, then ordered him extra musketry practice – “for,” he added, with characteristic dryness, “a man who can’t hit himself at no yards isn’t likely to be able to hit an enemy at so many.”

Then Corporal Sandgate returned to the Kangala and reported for duty. His foot was quite healed now, and all he asked for were a few chances of being even with the brutes who had tortured him.

“Well, the prime mover in it is here in the camp now, old chap,” said Dick Selmes. “But you won’t be able so much as to punch his head, for he’s shot through the leg. Besides, I believe the old man’s contemplating taking him on as a native ’tec.” And he told the other how the Kafir had put them in the way of capturing the two chiefs.

“Well, you’ve been in luck’s way, Selmes,” said Sandgate, wistfully, “although you’ve got winged yourself. You’ve come in for a lot of hard, lively service, while I’ve been kicking up my heels rotting in hospital at Isiwa. Some fellows have all the luck. Mine, of course, is to be reduced, if not hoofed out of the Force.”