A few days after his departure, one of the nocturnal visitors was discovered in the compound, but as usual he streaked over the stockade and disappeared, leaving several poisonous snakes behind him. The Mekeo constabulary could not hit an elephant in the dark with their rifles, much less a running man. I began to feel nearly as annoyed with the sorcerers as Bramell, and determined to cure them of coming inside the stockade: accordingly I drew the shot from several gun cartridges, and replaced it with coarse bluestone, and then I gave the sentry my gun with the doctored cartridges instead of his rifle; next I pulled the bullet out of a rifle cartridge belonging to each private, and replaced it with mixed bluestone and dust shot. “Now,” I explained to the men, who hated the sorcerers as thoroughly as did Bramell, “I’m going to play sorcery against sorcery; I have charmed these cartridges, so that if you hold your rifle firmly, take plenty of time in aiming at a sorcerer at night, and he is a true sorcerer, you can’t miss him.”
DOBU HOUSE, MEKEO
In the gaol I had found Poruta, a son of Bushimai, one of the Mambare prisoners who had given me the trouble at Samarai, they having been scattered among the different gaols. I took Poruta, who was very lonely amongst a strange people, as my private attendant; I had plenty of work for the constabulary, without taking one as an orderly, and I did not feel keen on having a local boy as servant, for fear that he might insert something in my grub or a snake in my bed. Poruta—like all the Binandere people—had no fear of the dark, and was a born fighter; he took a keen interest in my plans for the discomfiture of the sorcerers, though he thought that all of them should be sought out and dealt with, with a club. He pointed out that the sentry always stood in one place—a place that must be perfectly well known to our night visitors—and also that the police, with the exception of two on my verandah, were always grouped about the barracks. “I would undertake,” said Poruta, “under the present system, to come inside the stockade every night and escape unseen. Make four men lie flat on their stomachs in the middle of the drill ground, each man watching the sky-line on one side of the stockade, and they are bound to see any man climbing over.” I did this; but I also tied a string on to the toe of the corporal in the barracks, and led it into the midst of the four watchers, so that they could alarm the barracks without noise, and also without giving any warning to our night visitors.
The very first night that the plan was tried, it worked excellently. Watching the sky-line carefully, one of the sentries noticed a head appear, followed by a second one; gently touching his three companions, he directed their attention to the intruders; immediately one fowling piece and three rifles, loaded with small shot and bluestone, converged on the figures of two men, as, flat on their stomachs, they slid sideways over the fence, and then gently began to lower themselves on the inner side. In their excitement, each of the four sentries forgot to pull the string attached to the corporal’s toe. Bang went all the guns together, an awful series of shrieks went up from the smitten intruders, as they hastily hauled themselves back over the stockade, and fled howling into the night. At the same time the air was rent by fearful yells and curses from the barracks; the police, at the sound of the shots, had hastily jumped to their feet and rushed out; man after man tumbled over and tangled himself up with the line attached to the corporal’s toe, thereby nearly dragging off that much enduring member.
For weeks after this, we were untroubled by nocturnal visitors; and by every one on the Station—bar the corporal—the plan was regarded as a gigantic success. My fame as a charmer of rifles, for use against sorcerers, spread through the land. I never found out who our two visitors were, but I will wager they never forgot their experience that night.
The next thing to which I had to turn my attention, was the straightening up of the detachment of constabulary; they showed a slackness and lack of smartness that I did not like. On the drill ground they appeared willing enough, but they could neither march, shoot, nor drill decently. I slanged the non-com. in charge, who was a Western man, but came from a different tribe and village to the rest of the men. “I can’t do anything with them, sir,” he said; “whenever Mr. Bramell was away they would not drill, and now, if you are not on parade, they only play the fool and cheek me.” I drilled and cursed the men myself, but they merely said that their non-com. was a liar, and that their behaviour was immaculate. For a long time I could never get hold of any specific instance of disrespect or disobedience to the non-com.; at last, however, I caught them, and this is the way I did it.
I went one night to the Mission house, taking with me Poruta and half a dozen constabulary; arriving there, I sent off the police, telling them I meant to stay the night with the missionary. I had previously told the non-com. to station a gaol warder—a countryman of his own—at the gate instead of a private, and to tell him to hold his tongue as to the hour I came home. Returning at about five o’clock in the morning, I was admitted by the warder, went straight to my house, which overlooked the parade ground, and got into bed without striking a light. Poruta slept in my room. Daylight and six o’clock came, and I was awakened by the yells of the non-com. parading his men; peeping out, I saw them come slowly strolling on to the drill ground and languidly fall in, some wearing fatigue kit of cotton, some full dress of serge, some without belts, and some without jumpers; one shining light fell in attired in the white “sulu” he slept in, some smoked in the ranks, others chattered, and they drilled like a newly enlisted volunteer company. For half an hour I watched the beauties, and listened to them answering back their non-com., who cursed and beseeched alternately.
Then I buckled on my belts, and walked slowly down my steps and up to the squad, watching them stiffen and their eyes start, as they saw the unexpected apparition of their officer. “I think I will finish the drill, Corporal,” I remarked; then to the squad, “Pile arms!” and they piled arms. Then I inspected man after man, ordering each one that I found incompletely dressed to strip to the buff and fall in for physical drill. Only one man, Private Keke, passed inspection; and I made him lance-corporal on the spot. After this, I drilled that unhappy squad until sweat ran down their brown bodies in streams; winding up by sending them at the double straight up against the stockade, at which they instinctively stopped. “I did not tell you to halt, you slack-backed pig-stealers; your meat rations and tobacco are stopped for a week; forward!” Over the stockade that sweating detachment went. “About turn!” Back they came; and I kept them at it until they were falling from the top, instead of jumping, from sheer exhaustion. Then I halted them on the parade ground again, and made a little speech; telling them that I was weak from shame at having to do with such a lot of feeble wasters, and that I felt certain the Commandant had made a mistake, and sent to Mekeo a sanitary gang—or something of that sort—instead of a detachment of constabulary. Their disgraceful exhibition had made me feel so faint, that I must go and breakfast, but meanwhile they would stand at attention.
I went to breakfast and lingered over it; then I returned to my depressed squad. “You have already lost your meat and tobacco for halting without orders; do it again, and I will clap the whole lot of you into gaol and feed you on pumpkins, until the Commandant can send me some real constabulary from headquarters.” Then I marched them into the garden, where, after doubling them about in extended order for some time, I suddenly wheeled them up to about an acre of pine-apples—horribly prickly things—and then, “Double! Charge!” Into the awful things went those naked men, whilst I yelled curses at them for breaking line. When they were fairly in the middle, I shouted, “Halt!” and then remarked, “I think you have had your lesson, pick your way out of the prickles and go to your breakfast; I don’t think you will want me to do your non-com.’s duty again in a hurry.” Leaving the men to crawl out as best they could, I went back to my house, where, shortly after, Corporal Sara came to get braid for Keke’s stripe. “They will give no further trouble,” he remarked; “they are blood from their thighs to the soles of their feet, and most of them are crying from pain and shame; but they won’t be fit to march for another week.”