Chapter Four.
The Retreat of the Patrol.
The patrol held on its retreat.
Wearily on, from day to day, nearly a hundred and a half of hungry, ragged, footsore men—their clothing well-nigh in tatters, their feet bursting out of their boots, in several instances strips of clothing wound round their feet, as a sort of tinkered substitute for what had once been boots, as sole protection against thorns and stony ground, and the blades of the long tambuti grass, which cut like knives—depression at their hearts because of the score and a half of brave staunch comrades whom they had but the faintest hope of ever beholding again—depression too, in their faces, gaunt, haggard and unkempt, yet with it a set fierce look of determination, a dogged, never-say-die expression, still they held on. And ever upon their flanks hovered the savage enemy, wiser now in his generation, wasting his strength no more in fierce rushes, to be mown helplessly down with superior weapons. Under cover of his native bush he could harry the retreating whites from day to day. And he did.
Very different the appearance of this group of weary, half-starved men, fighting its way with indomitable courage and resource, through the thick bush and over donga-seamed ground, and among rough granite hillocks, to that of the smart, light-hearted fellows, repelling each fierce rush of the Matabele impis, in the skilfully constructed waggon laagers. Every rise surmounted revealed but the same heart-breaking stretch of bush and rocks, and dongas through which the precious Maxims had to be hauled at any expenditure of labour and time—to be borne rather, for the carriages of the said guns had been abandoned as superfluous lumber—and all through the steamy heat of the day the roar of the swollen river on the one hand never far from their ears—and, overhead, that of the thunder-burst, which should condemn them to pass a drenched and shivering night. For this expedition, with the great over-weening British self-confidence which has set this restless little island in the forefront of the nations—has started to effect with so many—or rather so few—men, what might or might not have been effected with just four times the number—in a word has started to do the impossible and—has not done it.
“Well, Percy, do you still wish this fun wasn’t going to be over quite so quickly?”
“No. Yet I don’t know. I suppose it’s only right to see some of the rougher side, as well as the smooth,” answered the young fellow pluckily—though truth to tell his weariness and exhaustion were as great as that of anybody else. There was the same hollow, wistful look in his face, the same hardened and brick-dust bronze too, and his hands were not guiltless of veldt-sores, for he had borne his full share both of the hardships and the fighting and was as thoroughly seasoned by now as any of them.
“I was something of a prophet when I told you the toughest part of the campaign was to come, eh?” said Blachland, filling up his pipe with nearly the last shreds of dust remaining in his pouch.
“Rather. I seem to forget what it feels like not to be shot at every day of my life,” was the answer. “And this beastly horseflesh! Faugh!”
“Man! That’s nothing,” said Sybrandt, his mouth full of the delicacy alluded to, while he replaced a large slice of the same upon the embers to cook a little more. “What price having to eat snake?”
“No. I’d draw the line at that,” answered Percival quickly.
“Would you? Wait until you’re stuck on a little island for three days with your boat drifted away, and a river swarming with crocodiles all round you. You’d scoff snake fast enough, and be glad to get him.”
“Tell us the yarn,” said Percival wearily.
But before the other could comply, a message from the officer in command arrived desiring his presence, and Sybrandt, snatching another great mouthful of his broiling horseflesh, got up and went.
“Another wet night, I’m afraid?” said Blachland philosophically, reaching for a red-hot stick to light his pipe, which the rain dripping from his weather-beaten hat-brim was doing its best to put out. “Here, have a smoke, Spence,” becoming alive to the wistful glance wherewith he whom he had named was regarding the puffs he was emitting.
Spence stretched forth his hand eagerly for the pouch, then thrust it back again.
“No. It’s your last pipe,” he said. “I won’t take it.”
“Take it, man. I expect there’s a good accumulation of ’bacco dust in my old coat pockets. I can fall back on that at a pinch.”
Spence complied, less out of selfishness than an unwillingness to go against the other in any single detail. A curious change had come over him since his rescue—since the man he had wronged, as he thought, had ridden into the very jaws of death to bring him out. He regarded his rescuer now with feelings akin to veneration. He had at the time, expressed his sorrow and regret in shamefaced tones, but Blachland had met him with the equable reassurance that it didn’t matter. And then he had eagerly volunteered for this expedition because Blachland was in it, and once there, he had watched his rescuer with untiring pertinacity to see if there was nothing he could do for him, even if he could risk his life for him. More than once he had striven stealthily to forego his own scanty rations when they were messing together, pretending he loathed food, so that there might be a little more for this man whom he now regarded in the light of a god; but this and other attempts had been seen through by their object, and effectually, though tactfully, frustrated. Hunger and exhaustion, however, are somewhat of an antidote to even the finest of finer feelings, and Justin Spence was destined to experience the truth of this.
The patrol was resting. Thick bush surrounded the position, with long grass and boulders. But the ground had been well scouted in advance: and in rear—well, the strength of the command was distributed in that direction. There were granite kopjes, too, which could be turned to good account.
“Whau!” grunted Ziboza, the fighting induna of the Ingubu regiment. “I think we have them now. They have no more waggons to hide behind, and the izikwakwa are broken down, for did we not find their wheels? These are they who would have captured the Great Great One. We shall see, ah—ah! Now we shall see.”
Squirming like snakes through the long grass and bush, the Matabele advance, stopping every now and again to reconnoitre. They can hear the subdued hum of voices in the sorry camp of the whites—and on each face raised to peer forward, there is a ferocious grin of anticipation. In obedience to the signalled orders of their leaders they spread their ranks, so as to be in a position to surround that sorry command with the first order issued. More and more are pressing on from behind—and the bush is alive with swarming savages, creeping, crawling onward. The dreaded izikwakwa are broken now. They have only to fear the ordinary fire of that handful of whites, to surround them, rush in and make an end.
Of a truth the agency that supplied Lo Bengula with firearms was a far-seeing benefactor to its countrymen. For those warriors now in the front line of attack who have rifles, no power on earth can restrain from using them. They now open fire, hot and heavy but wild. No more surprise now, no wild rush of overwhelming numbers with the deadly assegai. The coup-de-main has failed. Like magic the whites are in position, replying with sparing, but deadly and well-directed fire—as the plunge and fall of more than one warrior flitting from bush to bush, testifies. But the forward rush has carried some right among the remaining horses of the patrol, and the assegai is plied with deadly effect, as the savages slash right and left, burying their reeking blades within the vitals of the poor animals. It is something to kill at any rate, and besides, goes for towards crippling the movements of their human enemies. “Jjí-jjí! Jjí-jjí!” the ferocious death-hiss vibrates amid the trampling and squealing and the fall of the slaughtered animals. And then—what is this? Through and above the discharge of rifles, the sharp, staccato, barking sound so known to them, so dreaded by them—as the Maxims speak. Is there no doing anything with these invulnerable whites? They have left the wheels behind, even as brave Ziboza has just said, but—they have mounted the izikwakwa on sticks, each on three sticks, and the deadly muzzles are sweeping round as usual, pouring in their leaden hail.
“Percy—Spence! Up here, quick!” says Blachland—and in a moment they are within the sheltering boulders of a kopje. Two other men are already there.
“Au! Isipau!” cry some of the Matabele, who have seen and recognised him. And a sharp discharge follows, at least two of the missiles humming unpleasantly near.
“Watch that point!” says Blachland grimly, designating a spot where a bit of bare rock surface, the length of a man, showed out in the bush beneath. And almost with the words his piece went off. A brown, writhing body rolled forward from the cover, the flung away shield and assegais falling with a rattle.
“That scalp yours, Blachland,” observed one of the American scouts who was up there with them. “Oh, snakes!”
The last ejaculation is evoked by an uncomfortably near missile, which grazing the granite slab immediately behind the speaker, hums away at a tangent into space. It is followed by another and another: in fact a settled determination to make it hot for the holders of that particular kopje upon the part of the enemy seems to have followed upon the recognition of Blachland.
“Lie close, you fellows!” warns the latter. “Hallo! That’s Sybrandt signalling me. It’s an old hunting call of ours,” as a peculiar chirping whistle travels over from an adjacent granite pile. “Ah, I thought so.” Quick as thought he has wormed himself behind another stone and now peeps forth. Below, a couple of hundred yards distant, dark forms are crawling. The bush is thinner there, and the object of the savages is to pass this, with a view to extending the surround. Blachland and the American have both taken in this, and the thud and gurgling groans following on the simultaneous crash of their pieces tell that they have taken it in to some purpose. At the same time a cross fire from among the boulders where Sybrandt and some others are lying, throws the Matabele into a momentary but demoralising muddle of consternation.
The rain has ceased, but in the damp air the smoke hangs heavy over the dark heads of the bushes. Down in the camp, the sullen splutter of rifles, and ever and anon the angry, knock-like bark of the Maxims. There is a lull, but again and again the firing bursts forth. With undaunted persistency the savages return to the assault, howling out jeering taunts at those who a short while back they reckoned as sure and easy prey—but with dogged pertinacity the defence is kept up. One man falls dead while serving a Maxim, and several more horses are shot.
At length the firing slackens. The enemy seem to have had enough. Quickly the orders are passed round. Those in the kopjes are to remain there, covering the retreat of the rest of the patrol, until this shall have gained better ground some little way beyond.
Then the very heavens above took part in the fight, and in a trice the deafening, stunning thunder crashes rendered the sputter of the volleys as the noise of mere popguns, and the lurid blinding glare of lightning, pouring down in rivers of sheeting flame, put out the flash of man’s puny weapons.
“This is rather more risky than their bullets, eh Hilary?” remarked Percival West, involuntarily shrinking down from one of these awful flashes.
“Gun barrels are a good conductor,” was the grimly consolatory reply.
So, too, are assegai blades. In the midst of that stunning awful crash that seems to split open the world, five Matabele warriors are lying, mangled, fused into all shapes—and shapelessness—while nearly twice that number besides are lying stunned, as though smitten with a blow of a knob-kerrie.
“Mamo!” cries Ziboza, who is just outside the limit of this destruction, himself unsteady from the shock. “Lo, the very heavens above are fighting on the side of these whites!”
[a/]