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!”