Chapter Twenty Five.
Abe Pike Scouting.
“Yes!” said Abe, one afternoon, after he had been helping threshin’ wheat; “these newfangled machines bin smashing up all the good old customs that were the salt of country life. This yer thresher of yours may get through the sheaves with a lot of dust an’ rattle an’ smoke, but give me the old floor, an’ the oxen tramping out the ear, an’ the neighbours coming to the supper. Oh, yes! the old customs they brought the people together and made ’em soshiable and talk. Lor’ bless you, there ain’t no talking nowadays—only grunting.”
“Is that so?” said I, as I brushed the dust from my eyes.
“It are. No one talks now, ’cos of these yer machines, which does everything. Why, blow me! you can shoot a man with these new guns without ever seeing him.”
“I don’t know that it is any more satisfaction for the man shot to die with the knowledge that he knows who shot him.”
“Well, I do know. Take these yer talking machines I year on. What’s the good squeaking through a machine to a man, or maybe a girl, in the nex’ street when you can’t see the eyes of her, or the shape of her lips, or the expression, without which talking’s no account. Look here, sonny, you listen to what I tell you; these yer machines goin’ to turn out people same as pins, all o’ one pattern.”
“You’re a great talker yourself, Abe?”
“I’m not talking when I ain’t got nothin’ to say. When I seed the Colonel of the 94th up by Pluto’s Vale—‘Who the blazes are you,’ he said, ‘and where the devil you come from?’—I weren’t saying much, but I took a pull at his black bottle. He were one of the ole sort were the Colonel—grey an’ peppery, an’ stiff in the upper lip ’s if his face bin fixed in a iron mask. That’s the sort of man he were. ‘The Kaffirs is laying a trap for you,’ I said to him. ‘They darn’t do it,’ he said. ‘Lay a trap for the 94th! I never yeard o’ sich blamed impertinence,’ he said, twisting his grey moustaches, an’ glaring at me’s if I’d insulted him. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘if yure too proud to take advice, go an’ walk inter the trap like a blunderin’ porkipine, an’ you’ll get stuck full o’ assegais,’ I said. ‘You’re too free with your tongue,’ he said, gettin’ red in the face; so I walked out, but bymby he came over to where I sot by the fire, an’ he sot down ’longside o’ me. He talked an’ I ate, but at last he up an’ came to the point. ‘Can you scout?’ he said. ‘Mejum,’ says I. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a mejum scout with me. What I want is a fust-class scout.’ Well, sonny, I jes’ lit my pipe and took a puff. He looked at me under his eyebrows. ‘My scout tells me the Kaffirs have retreated,’ he said. ‘Soh!’ says I, and went on smoking. ‘Yes,’ says he, gettin’ angry aller a sudden, ‘and you’ve been giving me false news for the sake of getting a reward.’ Well, I jes’ pulled up my sleeve and showed him where I’d been stabbed. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, and riz up to go back to his tent. ‘Colonel,’ says I, laying hold of his sash, ‘if you want me to scout I’ll scout, and you can send a man along with me.’ ‘Leave to-morrer,’ he said, ‘if you feel well enough;’ and he marched off jes’ as stiff an’ unconcerned ’s if he’d asked me to supper. Soon after a young chap came up to my fire. ‘I’ve received orders to go on scout duty with you,’ he said, eyeing me up an’ down ’s if I’d been some kur’ous kind o’ inseck. ‘When do we start?’ says I. ‘Oh, furst thing in the morning, if you’re awake.’ ‘Oh!’ says I, ‘so’s the Kaffirs can see us?’ ‘There ain’t no Kaffirs,’ says he; ‘’t any rate I ain’t seen any.’ ‘I’m startin’ at midnight,’ I says, and with that turned over to sleep. Well, at midnight I woke up and prepared to leave, thinking that young fellow wouldn’t be about. But, blow me, there he were, sitting by the fire watching me. ‘I’m ready,’ he said, standin’ up. ‘What for?’ ‘Why, to scout, of course’ ‘Orright,’ says I; ‘take off that sword then, and that white hat, and that red coat. You ain’t anxious for the Kaffirs to see us furst, are you?’ He jes’ opened his mouth to cheek me; then he ran off, and bymby he came back without them things, with a grey shirt and soft hat. ‘Is that right?’ he said, fetching a grin. I jes’ nodded, an’ off we stepped inter the dark of the night. Slipping by the sentries without givin’ ’em good evenin’, we marched along outer the side of the valley where the camp were pitched to where it narrowed into a poort, between big krantzes, with a kloof running down on the left side. By sunrise we were on the divide between the poort and the nex’ valley, jest about where the road led over the neck ahead of the troops. We took cover and looked around. ‘There’s a Kaffir,’ said I, ‘over yonder on that rock above the far krantz, watching the camp.’ The young chap fetched a laugh. ‘That Kaffir,’ said he, ‘is a vidette, and there’s a whole string of ’em on the heights. None of the enemy can get inter the poort without being seen.’ Well, this was up against me, an’ I kep’ quiet, looking away down inter the next valley where the road track twisted along the steep aside of the thick bush. ‘That’s the place for an ambush,’ said the young chap, ‘down in that ravine. If there are any Kaffirs about they will be there. Let us go down.’ I jes’ sot there watchin’, an’ bymby he began to fidget; then he up an’ tole me that if I would not scout, he would. ‘There’s no Kaffirs in the far valley,’ I said. ‘I’m tired of you,’ he said, in one o’ them sort o’ drawn tones that always reminds me o’ a sword glinting out o’ the scabbard; ‘I came out to scout, not to lie in cover; you may stay here by yourself; I’m going inter the valley below.’ I nearly got angry, but then I thought what’s the use, so I jest explained matters. ‘There’s no Kaffirs down there,’ says I, ‘but there is Kaffirs down here in the poort in that big kloof, an’, what’s more, them pickets o’ yours will be assegaied before long. I’ll tell you why. See them birds flying over that kloof? They’ve been startled, an’, what’s more, when they settled jest now they started off ag’in on a new flight, an’, what’s more, I seed a jackal an’ a ram slip away over the rise. That’s good enough for me, an’ when it’s dark I’ll slip back to the camp to tell the Colonel.’ ‘Are you sure?’ he said, lookin’ at me hard. ‘Certain,’ I said. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘we must go back to the Colonel at once.’
“‘You might start to go back,’ I said, ‘but you’d never reach half way. Where’s the picket?’ I said. He took a look at the krantz where we’d seen the figgur of a man, and he seed the poor beggar was gone. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he’s been assegaied!’
“‘My God!’ he said, ‘can’t we do anything to save the others?’
“‘It’s no go,’ said I, pulling out my pipe. ‘Haven’t you got any heart?’ he said, fiercely, then he began to move off. Well, that wouldn’t do, so I pulled him back. ‘Keep still,’ says I; ‘the pickets must look after themselves; we’ve got to save the camp.’ Well, blow me, that made him worse, and he struggled to get free, saying the 94th didn’t want to be saved from any Kaffirs, and all that—but I jes’ hung onter him, an’ while we were struggling in a holler behind a rock, up there came the sound of a bugle. ‘Hark!’ he said, lettin’ go his hold; ‘the regiment has struck camp—that’s the order to advance.’ ‘The blamed fool,’ I said, ‘he’ll march straight inter the trap.’ ‘Soh,’ says he, then he made a bolt, saying as he ran, ‘I must warn them.’ I seed it were no use, an’ I let him go. By gosh! he jes’ bounded down from rock to rock, without taking any cover, straight for the track that ran down the poort past the kloof to the regiment. At the same time I seed a black figure running down the slope from where the picket had been, then another an’ another, all of ’em crouchin’. Of course, there were Kaffirs there, an’ in course they seed him, an’ they were runnin’ down to stop him.”
“And what did you do?”
“What did I do? Well I jes’ sat an’ looked, an’ bymby I edged away over the randt away from the Kaffirs. Then I sot off at a run round to get to the back of the krantze where the picket had been killed.”
“You didn’t know he had been killed.”
“Well, according to all that was goin’ on he oughter bin killed, and ’t any rate I made round that way—but if you’re going to talk to me like that I’ll jes’ shut up. I’m gwine to supper now.”