They were sitting round the camp-fire. The afternoon had merged into night, and now the circle was discussing old times.
“Who?—Gertie Wray—you remember her—now Mrs Jack Armitage, promoted. When?—last year. Where?—in Grahamstown,” replied Jim.
And then, as others joined them, the conversation turned from things personal and retrospective, to things political and present; and the state of affairs was discussed in all its bearings.
“Well, we’ve a big enough force in the field to thrash out the Gcaleka country,” Jim was saying; “but then we shall have to be constantly playing hide-and-seek with the Kafirs until we catch old Kreli. If the Gaikas don’t break out, all that the people on the border will have to do will be to guard their line so that none of these chaps can cross. If the Gaikas rise, why, then our friends there will be between two fires.”
“And the Gaikas will rise,” put in Garnier—Jim’s second lieutenant—a quiet-looking, brown-bearded man of about five-and-forty. “You may take my word for that. It isn’t for nothing that they’ve been going through all the war-dancing and farrago. It isn’t for nothing they’ve been sending all their cattle away to the thickest parts of the Amatola forest. And it isn’t likely they’d sit still—they, the warrior race of all others—and let Kreli do all the fighting. And to hear ’em talk, too! Why, they’ve been coming round my place in shoals, and they don’t care what they say. Mind, they mean mischief.”
“But, then, how is it they haven’t broken out already?” ventured Hicks.
Garnier looked pityingly at him. “For several reasons. There’s a strong peace party among them, for one thing. For another, they heard, or rather saw—for there were lots of them present—what a hammering the Gcalekas got the other day when they attacked Ibeka; and they’re not ready. But if any of these chaps of Kreli’s get through and join them—then look out.”
“Well, we can put a tremendous force into the field,” went on Jim. “Why, in the Eastern Province alone we could raise enough to finish the war in a couple of months, if they’re only put to it and not kept fooling about doing nothing.”
“Yes; and if they’re properly looked after in the field,” said another. “No one can fight unless he’s fed; and with the commissariat always two days behind, no body of men will remain long contented.”
“And, while they are fooling about, all their property’s going to wrack and ruin, as ours is at this damned moment,” growled Thorman, who was one of the party.