Before we were safely in camp, and during the operation of pitching the tents, down came a torrential downpour of rain, soaking us all to the skin. No one, who has not undergone the experience, can possibly realize what a tropical rainstorm can be like; the water does not fall in drops, but appears to be in continuous streams, the thickness of lead pencils; it fairly bends one under its weight, and half chokes one with its density; and all this in a steaming atmosphere of heat that reduces one to the limpness of a dead and decaying worm. In Captain Barton’s case, his misery was increased by the spiky pangs of toothache and the slow gnawing of dysentery.
Tents were pitched at last, rain and storm passed, leaving a cool and pleasant evening, camp fires burnt cheerily and cooks were busy preparing the evening meal. Barton had stopped his toothache by dint of holding his mouth full of raw whisky, and eased his tum-tum with a prodigious dose of chlorodyne; pyjamas had replaced our sodden clothing, the Kaili Kaili were gaily chattering, and even the Maisina were plucking up their spirits, safe as they all thought in a ring of watching sentries, when bang went a rifle some distance away. I ran down to where a couple of sentries had been posted, at the mouth of a stream leading into the camp; they had vanished. I whistled for them, thinking that they had merely moved a few yards away, and were concealed in the scrub; Barton heard my whistle, thought that I wanted assistance, and came to me with a number of constabulary. We then hastily dispatched half a dozen police to find out what had become of the sentries; they did not return until after dark, and then appeared bringing the missing men and another private of constabulary with them. The latter bright individual had quitted the camp without leave, and run into half a dozen Doriri, at whom he had promptly fired; the Doriri decamped, as the sentries deserted their posts and rushed to his assistance. The sentries were told in chosen language exactly what was thought of them, and fearful threats made as to the fate of the next men who left their posts without orders. The roaming private was “punished,” as the Official Report put it; as a matter of fact, he was soundly walloped on the bare stern by his sergeant with a belt, a highly illegal but most efficacious means of inducing him to see the error of his ways.
That night we had a little conversation with the Doriri prisoners, and learnt that their villages were small and widely scattered, and that their food supplies were none too good. They really made their expeditions to Collingwood Bay in order to hunt game and make sago, and the killing of the people there was only a supplementary diversion, though of course the bodies of the slain gave them an agreeable change of diet. “Will your people fight?” I asked. “Yes,” was the reply, “of course they will; but those fire spears of yours are dreadful things to meet. If it was the Maisina, now——” Here they stared contemptuously at those unhappy people, who wilted accordingly. “Never mind the Maisina, they are my people now,” I cut in; “will the Doriri fight us?” “Yes, once,” was the reply, “until they have learnt all about those fire spears.” “Yes, what then?” I queried. “They will bolt for the hills, where you can’t find them, and starve there, for we have little food.” “Monckton,” said Barton, “you are not going to be callous brute enough to starve those unfortunate devils in the hills?” “No,” I answered, “but I am going to break their fighting strength, and teach them the futility of resisting a Government order before I leave.”
The carriers now put in a request to me that they might be allowed to eat any future Doriri killed; urging that, if they did so, it would not only be a great satisfaction to them but also a considerable saving to the stores of the expedition. “Really,” they urged, “there was no sense in wasting good meat on account of a foolish prejudice.” “You saw what happened to the disobedient private to-day?” I said to them. “Yes, he was most painfully beaten on the stern by the sergeant,” they said. “Quite so,” I replied. “Well, the carrier, be he Kaili Kaili or Maisina, who as much as looks with a hungry eye upon the body of a dead Doriri, will first be beaten in the same way by the sergeant, then by the corporals and lance-corporals, and then by the privates, until his stern is like unto the jelly of baked sago.” This fearsome threat curbed the man-meat hunger of the anthropophagi. After this we put in a peaceful and undisturbed night; even the Maisina sleeping soundly, happy at last in the belief that the dreaded Doriri would meet their match in the constabulary, and that the chances of their going down Doriri gullets were quite remote.
CHAPTER XX
We struck camp at daylight and moved down the river, soon coming upon a number of well-built native lean-to shelters, showing signs of having been recently and hastily vacated; many articles of value to natives had been abandoned, including some cleverly split slabs of green jade from the hills of Collingwood Bay, which they used for making stone heads for disc clubs, tomahawks or adzes; also earthenware cooking pots, which the Maisina identified by the pattern as of their manufacture. A little later we espied a small village situated upon a spur of the Didina Range; a patrol of police searched the village, but the inhabitants had decamped; a number of spears, however, were taken and destroyed. Next we discovered, situated upon a rise in the river bed, a village of about eighteen houses; this village was also deserted, so we took possession and occupied it. In this village we found ample evidence, in the shape of articles manufactured by the Maisina and identified by them, of the complicity of its inhabitants in the raiding; a large store also of recently manufactured sago, clearly proved that they had only just returned from the Collingwood Bay District.
Here we camped, in order to dry our clothes and give our carriers a well-earned and much-needed rest. The prisoners told us that the village was named Boure, and they looked on dismally while the police and carriers slaughtered all the village pigs, and ravished and devastated the gardens, which were but of small extent. Barton, as he thought of the grief of the evicted inhabitants, looked quite as unhappy as the prisoners, while the work of destruction went on, and many a crack from his stick a too exultant yelling Kaili Kaili received, if he incautiously approached too near that humanitarian. “You know now what it feels like to have your villages raided,” said the Dove Baruga to the prisoners; “we and the Maisina have had years of it at your hands.” Our now happy carriers spent a cheery night, gorging and snoring alternately, and well housed from the rain.
Upon leaving Boure next morning, the track led down the river bank through thick clumps of pampas-like grass, twelve feet high; beastly dangerous country to traverse amongst a hostile people. I was with the advance, when suddenly we heard the loud blowing of war horns and the defiant shouting of a large force of men moving up the river on our left. I at once changed our line of march towards the direction of the Doriri, but after going on a short distance, the grass became so thick and the track so narrow, as to prevent any safe fighting formation being retained. A halt, therefore, was made, and the constabulary formed into two bodies, fronting two lanes in the tall grass, from either of which the now expected attack might develop, the carriers being packed between the two lines of police. The voices of Doriri calling, and horns blowing, could now be heard on our front, rear, and, alternately, on each side, which looked as if we were to receive an attack simultaneously on front, rear and flanks. A worse position to defend it was almost impossible to conceive: spearmen could approach unperceived, and launch their spears, from the cover of the grass, into our packed men; while club men could get right on top of us, before we could see to shoot with any degree of certainty of hitting what we were shooting at; and once amongst us, shooting would be out of the question for fear of killing our own carriers. In the event of our advancing towards a better position, we should be forced to straggle in a long line of single file, which would expose our carriers to flank attack; and in the case of a Doriri rush we should be in imminent danger of our line being cut in two. The prisoners told us that the Doriri were now shouting challenges and explaining that they were about to make an end of the whole lot of us. We waited some time: the Maisina whining and collapsing from funk, and the constabulary strung up to the last pitch of nervous tension, waiting with finger on trigger for the expected attack; one private, in his excitement, accidentally exploding his rifle. I fancy that the Doriri were not quite certain of our exact position, as we kept very quiet and the report of a rifle is difficult to locate in thick cover, also I think they were no more anxious to engage us in that horrible spot than we were anxious to receive them there.
Barton and I consulted, for something had to be done, as the Maisina were getting into a state of hysteria; we decided to bring matters to a head by sending ten of the constabulary to crawl through the grass and locate the Doriri, with a view to advancing then our whole force. The ten men left, and shortly after yelled to us to come on. Advancing, we found that the police had emerged from the grass upon a long open stretch of sandy river bed, down which a large body of armed natives were dancing towards them, yelling furiously and brandishing spears, clubs and shields. The police were standing in line, holding their fire for orders; I ran up to them, with some additional police, and ordered them to fire into the advancing natives. Crash went a volley, two men fell, shot dead, while many others staggered into the surrounding long grass, more or less badly wounded. The Doriri, though apparently frightfully surprised at the effect of the rifle fire, still held their ground; but, as the steadily firing constabulary line moved rapidly towards them, they began an orderly retreat. Barton then came up; but, with a long line of straggling carriers in the rear open to attack, we did not consider it expedient to permit a police pursuit, and they were accordingly recalled. We followed the tracks of the retreating party down the Ibinamu, till it junctioned with the Adaua; here we found that the greater portion of the attacking force had crossed to the other side of the river.