Chapter Thirty One.
A Bugle Call.
“Hulloa, Bassie! I thought this fine morning would bring you over. The sap’s running strong, and the quail are gathering thick in the young wheat. Hear to them whistling. Where’s your gun?”
“I did not come to shoot.”
“Soh! Well, you don’t look like shooting. Been eating too much green fruit?”
“I’ve passed the green fruit stage, Abe.”
“I ain’t; there’s nothing better’n a pie of green apricots with cream, and green mealies is better’n kissing. You’re not in love, are you?”
“I have been writing poetry,” I said, with an air of unconcern; “and I want to take your opinion of it.”
“Fire away,” said Abe, fetching up a judicial expression; “it’s many a year since I learnt poetry, my boy—many a year. The ole mum onct, in the moonlight, when I were knee high, read to me outer a torn sheet she had, and these words I remember:
“‘He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God that loveth us,
He made and loveth all.’
“Long years agone the old mother read that outer a torn slip of paper, and I know it yet, sonny. I’d like to year some more.”
“I don’t think I’ll read it you, on second thoughts,” I said, with sudden doubt.
“You bet you will, sonny. A man that’s got the gift of making poetry has no occasion to stand back in the corner.”
“Well it’s only a little thing I dashed off the other night. Here it is:
“‘Oh, frog, that sits on the garden seat
(Croak, croak! where the trees hang low),
Have you ever swum in the ocean deep,
In the waves where the wild winds blow,
Where the red crabs crawl on the rocks below,
On the rocks where the dead men sleep?’”
“It’s kind o’ buttery,” said Abe slowly, “but I don’t see no sense in it. What’s a frog on a garden seat got anything to do with dead men? And crabs ain’t red.”
“Oh, that’s a poet’s licence.”
“It are, eh? Well, I won’t go to your shop for spirrits. Is there any more?”
“This is the second verse,” I said, rather discouraged:
“‘Oh, speckled toad, did you ever dream
(Croak, croak! there’s a snake on the wall),
Did you ever dream of my lady dear,
Who sometimes walks in the garden here
(While the milk in the pan is making cream),
And sings when there’s no one near?’”
“How does it sound?”
“It sounds like treacle,” said Abe, with a puzzled look; “but I don’t see what the podder’s got to do with it, anyhow; and the young woman’s got no business to be wasting her time waiting for the milk to set. Why don’t she use the cream separator?”
“I couldn’t write about a machine.”
“Why not—hum—er—hum—why not say this:
“After she turned the cream separator,
She sat and ate a cold pertater.”
“There is no sentiment in that!” I said indignantly; “and the words have no rhythm.”
“What’s rhythm?”
“Why, tone, modulation, music; you know!”
“Sonny! is there any music in the croak of a frog—is there? In course not! Now listen—what do you hear?”
I listened, and heard nothing but the drowsy hum and hollow drone of the surf.
“I can hear nothing.”
“Soh! Well, now jes’ cock yer ear, and hearken to the voice of the sea—rising and falling, soft and melancholy. Dying away to a whisper, then swellin’ up as the big wave rolls in, swinging to and fro in a great song of quiet and peace. That’s music, sonny; and when the wind rises, and in the dark of the night, the spring-tide, coming in with the power of the sea behind, thunders on the beach, there’s music there—wild and grand—and when the clouds pile up outer the sea higher and higher, and the yearth waitin’ in silence, when there is no breath of air, shakes to the rollin’ crash of the thunder—there’s music then. Where’s your potery beside them sounds and the lightning flash and the rush of the wind, and the splashing of water risin’ suddenly?”
I thrust my paper back into my pocket.
“There’s music, sonny, in the veld and bush, and in the night cries of the wild animiles and birds; but I yeard onct a sound I shall never forget, and I guess there was in it a whole book of potery. But you ain’t finished about your podder.”
“Never mind the frog, the snake has swallowed him by this. Tell me the story.”
“Well it were in the Borna Pass, time of the Kaffir War, and the ole 94th were halted in the jaws of the pass, waitin’ for the cool of the afternoon before they marched. I recomember it well—the dark woods in the narrow pass rising up till they ’most shut out the sky; the red-coats down by the water; the smoke rising in tall columns from the cooking fires; the horses standing in a bunch switching the flies offen ’em; the oxen knee-deep in the water; and a silence born of the hot sun over all. It were as quiet as Sunday down in the mouth of the pass, with the sun running up and down the bayonets like fire, and no red to stain them, for there was no news of Kaffirs within a day’s march.
“I yeard a honey-bird call outer the black of the wood, and I jes’ moved off with nothin’ mor’n a pipe and a clasp-knife.
“‘Where you going, Abe?’ said a little bugler chap, lookin’ up from the shade of a bush.
“‘Bee huntin’, sonny.’
“‘I’ll come along o’ you,’ he sed; ‘as there ain’t no bloomin’ Kafs to hunt, bees’ll do.’
“He were a little chap, with his lips all cracked by the sun, and a little nose that you couldn’t see for the freckles, and brown eyes like you see in a bird or a buck—clear and bright. Always he were on the move, like a willey-wagtail, and him and me were chums. Ah yes; many a story I tole him by the camp fire, him a sitting with his chin in his hands staring at me with his big round eyes, and they called him ‘Abe’s kid,’ ’cos I downed a fellow for boosting him with a leather belt. I tole you how a little dream lad had come to me one night outer the sea; that were he, my son—that were my little boy.”
“Did he die?” I said, looking at the old man.
“He went away, sonny, but he said he’d wait for me, and he’ll keep his word.” There was a wistful look in the old man’s face as he looked towards the sea for some time in silence. “Yes; we slipped inter the wood, the honey-bird calling—the only sound outer the great stillness of the woods, ’cept for the crushing of the dried leaves under our tread, and the bird, flitting like a shadder from tree to tree, led us on deeper and deeper into the heart of the Borna Pass, till I pulled up to take bearings.
“‘We must get away back, little chap,’ I said.
“‘Then it’s not true what you tole me about the honey-bird?’ and he looked at me askance.
“‘Why not?’ said I.
“‘’Cos there he is a calling like mad, same as ever. I don’t believe he’s a honey-bird, and I don’t believe any of them stories you’ve been tellin’ me. You’re no pal of mine,’ he said, looking at me with a wrinkle ’tween his eyes.
“‘I’m thinkin’ we’re gettin’ too far from the lines,’ I sed, ‘and you ain’t used to the bush if Kaffirs were to come.’
“‘You’re afraid,’ he sed; ‘that’s what.’
“‘Come on,’ I sed, like a fool; and I went on, stooping through the bush, going mighty quick, and him panting after me. ‘I can smell honey,’ I sed, stopping short, and noticin’ that the bird had done his flight.
“‘Garn!’ he sed, wrinkling up his little nose. There was a holler tree standin’ up in a little clearin’ no bigger’n a room, and the hum of the bees came to us as we stood.
“‘I see ’em,’ he says; ‘look at ’em streaming in! What a lark! Cut a hole with your knife,’ he says, ‘’an I’ll carry some honey back in this bugle,’ and he laughed.
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘who’s been tellin’ lies?’
“He laughed again.
“‘I takes it back, Abe,’ he says. ‘Oh my eye! Jes’ look!’
“I seed then we’d clomb high up on the left side of the pass, and from the clearin’ there was a sight of the hanging woods over against us, of the narrow path below, and the soldiers away down to the left.
“‘Now you’ve seed the bee-tree,’ I says, ‘we mus’ go back.’
“‘Jes’ a little honey, Abe,’ he says; ‘jes’ a little to take back, else that Jimmy’ll never b’lieve I been up here.’
“I were looking across at the dark wood, and I said to him quietly, ‘Get behind the tree,’ for I’d seed a Kaffir stretched out on a grey rock that stood outer the bush.
“‘What’s the row?’ he says, looking a little scared. Maybe ’cos I looked the same.
“‘Take off that coat,’ I sed; for the red showed up plain.
“‘Take off the Queen’s coat?’ he sed, going red and white; ‘not me!’
“‘My lad,’ I sed to him quiet; ‘there are Kaffirs in the bush.’
“‘What larx,’ he sed in a whisper, and his eyes opening wide as he stared at me.
“‘And if you keep your coat on they’ll see you.’
“‘Let ’em,’ he said, swallering his throat.
“‘Take it off,’ I said.
“‘Not me.’
“‘Then I leave you.’ And with that I slipped away, but turned on my tracks and come back softly to peer at him. He were still standing behin’ the tree, looking away off at the soldiers, but his coat were buttoned up tight to his throat I went up to him tip-toe and touched him on the soldier, and he gave a low cry and jumped aside with his fists up. When he seed who it were, the tears came into his eyes.
“‘Abe Pike,’ he sed, tremblin’, ‘that’s a mean trick to play on a boy—a mean dirty trick.’
“I allow it were mean, but I thought I’d skeer him into taking off that red rag. Then I give it up. ‘Come on,’ I sed, ‘foller me; stop when I stop, run when I run, and keep quiet.’
“So we sot off tenderly through the bush, and we hadn’t gone mor’n fifty paces when I smelt the Kaffirs. I sank down; he did, too, and I peered through the shadders. A sound came to us—the sound of naked feet, of moving branches—and I knew the pass were full of men.
“He touched me on the arm as the bugle call to ‘fall in’ rang along into the still pass, ekering as it went from side to side.
“I put my mouth to his ear to tell him the Kaffirs were swarming, and that we could not go on, but must go up the ridge and work round to the troops.
“‘What are the Kaffirs doing?’ he sed.
“‘They are making an ambush.’
“‘And the General doesn’t know?’
“‘No, sonny, he doesn’t.’
“‘And they’ll march in and be stabbed,’ he whispered, with his eyes round and staring.
“‘Oh, they’ll fight their way out,’ I sed. ‘Come on after me.’
“‘Good-bye,’ he said, sitting down. ‘You go on—I’m tired.’
“‘I’ll carry you, little chap,’ says I, and I picked him up, but he was heavy for his size, and the bush was thick, and more than that, he kicked.
“So I sot him down, and I yeard a Kaffir calling out to his friends to know what the noise was. I motioned to him to come, but he sot there, with his face white, and shook his head; then he altered his mind. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I’ll foller—go quick!’ So I sot off up the ridge through the wood, slipping from tree to tree, thinking he were coming, when all of a sudden outer the wood, ringing out clear and loud, a bugle sounded the alarm. I looked round and the boy were not there. I ran back, and saw him with the bugle to his lips, and his cheeks swelling as he blew another blast. I can hear it now—the call of that little chap, with the muttered cries of the Kaffirs, and the sound of their naked feet running, as they came up.
“‘You little devil,’ I yelled; ‘they’ll kill you. Run!’
“He gave me one look over his shoulder, and he put his life into that last blow. As the last note went swinging away, there came an answering note from the regiment—to form square.
“‘That’ll be Jimmy,’ he said. And the next minnit an assegai struck him on the neck, and he fell into my arms.”
Abe stopped, and looked away.
“What, then?” I said, touching him on the shoulder.
“I don’t know, sonny, what happened, till I laid him down afore the General.”
“You carried him out?”
“I s’pose so—I s’pose so—seeing as we were both there; and my clothes were in rags from the thorns, and my head cut open with a kerrie. Yes, I laid him afore the General.
“‘What’s this?’ he says.
“‘General,’ I said, ‘this boy has saved the regiment; he could a’ run—but he didn’t.’
“‘Who sounded the alarm?’ he sed.
“‘It was him, and the pass is full of Kaffirs.’
“The General stooped down, and looked into the little feller’s face.
“‘Damn you, man,’ he said, turning on me; ‘what did you take him into the wood for?’
“The little chap opened his eyes, and they were fixed, all glazed, on the General, and the officers stood around, looking, and the soldiers in the square.
“The General brought his hand to his cap, then he wheeled round: ‘Ninety fourth—present—arms!’
“The ranks came to a salute, and the officers brought their heels together and their swords up.
“The little chap let his eyes scan the lines.
“‘They are saluting you, my brave boy,’ said the General.
“I felt him move in my arms, and I lifted his hand to his head to salute. Then he sighed, then he smiled, and his eyes closed. ‘I’ll wait for you, Abe,’ he said, and he was dead.
“‘Ninety-fourth,’ said the General, ‘the enemy’s in the pass.’
“They came by in columns, and as they passed, they looked at the little chap and saluted, and they went on in silence with their mouths shut.
“They clean frightened the Kaffirs that time; and next day—they buried the little chap—the band playing—and all the regiment in full dress. My little chap—my little chap!” said Abe, in a whisper—“‘I’ll wait for you, Abe,’ he sed. And when he sounds the bugle ole Abe’ll go. Yes, I sit and listen for it.” He sat still, looking toward the sea, and I went quietly away.