“Now, Porkie,” said Anna Cleeve, “I shall have to spank you if you don’t stop that. Monty won’t come to any harm—he’s just as well able to look after himself as any other selfish brute of a man. You are nothing but a little fretful porcupine. Don’t cry any more now, else I shan’t love you. Come back to the tent and lie down. What’s the matter with you is that you want rest.”
When they had gone Mrs Valetta said impatiently to me:
“Monty Skeffington-Smythe is a little drunken wretch, and the very best thing he could do would be to get killed decently. It would be the first fine act he ever performed and Nina Skeffington-Smythe knows it.”
“Then surely she has reason enough to weep,” said I, and to myself could only drearily repeat the words, “They will be gone four or five days, if they ever get back at all.”
The hour for the march into Matabeleland had struck. For months the British South Africa Company had, with the sanction of the English Government, been preparing to take the field against Lobengula, but the preparations had moved slowly for the waggons and horses needed for such an expedition had to be brought hundreds of miles, arms and stores had to be provided, and men who were not soldiers by profession got into fighting shape by those who were. I made the startling discovery that every man in Fort George had for months been rising in the cool hours of dawn to engage in drill, gun-practice, shooting, and manoeuvring with ox-waggons, the last quite an important feature of warfare with natives, the waggons being used to form forts or laagers in which to take shelter from native attacks and from which to attack in turn.
A convoy of waggons on the march can in two or three minutes be transformed into an almost impregnable laager. When the waggons are out-spanned it takes not more than ten to fifteen minutes to form a laager, bush it, and get all the horses inside.
So the men I had despised for idlers and loiterers were not so idle after all, it seemed! It is true that they had amused themselves in the afternoons and evenings, but they had been hard at it for many hours in the morning while I was still sleeping. Most of them, in fact, were not Fort George men at all, but came from camps and farms in the outlying districts, because on account of the offensive attitude of the Matabele it was no longer safe to be there. They had left all their regular occupations to come into town to get ready for war. Every one who was not a trooper commanded a troop. Every one had a part and place in the Government plan for invading Matabeleland, putting an end to an impossible situation, and making the country a safe and clean one for a white race. Having newly come to Mashonaland I did not know of all these internal workings and doings. Therefore I was more surprised than any one else to see the splendidly mounted and equipped body of men who were ready to start for Matabeleland the day after the orders to march came down.
Though it was as early as four o’clock in the morning every one in the town was up to see the men leave, and I, too, at the sound of the bugle, had risen from my sleepless bed, dressed hastily, and joined the crowd round the post-office. In the crush I found myself standing next to a woman in a grey skirt and pink cotton blouse, and recognised her as that Mrs Marriott of whom the astounding story of unarrived boxes had been told. After a little while I spoke to her about the men, making one or two ordinary remarks,—what fine fellows they were, and how happy they seemed to be off,—but she had a desperate look and answered me in a dull way, like a woman who only heard dimly what was being said to her. It occurred to me then that her husband was one of those about to ride away.
Most of the men who composed the Column had their wives and families in the place and business to attend to; in fact a great many of them were leaving behind everything they possessed in the world. Yet I never saw a merrier, jollier crowd, and the wives looked equally dauntless. Some of them had white lips but they smiled with them, and the children were prancing about everywhere, hooting with excitement. The only downcast faces to be seen were those of the men who were being left behind, our defenders, of whom Mrs Valetta had spoken so mockingly. I cast my eye round upon them. It was not true that they were the maimed and the halt and the blind, but certainly they were not the most attractive-looking men I had ever seen. Most of them wore unshaven faces and no coats, while their nether garments were what is known as hitched around them on a leather strap—some of them frankly repeating the process of hitching while they stood scowling enviously upon the lucky men who had horses and had been pronounced fit.