“Mark that Maxim!” said Jack sharply. “If we drive off these fellows we can easily make it next door to impossible for them to remove it, for at this distance we could shoot down any man who approaches it. But our duty now is to look after these fellows. Frank, you take those of the left. I’ll look after those directly in front of me, and Wilfred will manage those on the right. Let them get within sixty yards, and then fire fast and steady. Keep the magazine for closer quarters.”
Lying full-length on the ground, they pushed the muzzles of their rifles a few inches through the loopholes and waited.
“Now I think we can begin,” said Jack, when the Boers were well within the distance he had named. “Are you ready? Then fire!”
Taking a careful aim, the three pulled their triggers, and as many of the Boers threw up their hands and fell forward upon their faces. The remainder at once dropped full-length upon the grass and wriggled forward, firing after going a few feet, for they were still ignorant of the force opposed to them behind the shattered walls of the house, and therefore abstained from rushing. Had they done so, there is little doubt that they would quickly have overwhelmed the little garrison; but the average Boer dislikes nothing more intensely than to fight in the open and attack a position in which the enemy lurks in complete concealment. But to take the house there was absolute need for this, and believing that after all there were not many opposed to them, they ventured to approach.
And now the superiority of khaki clothing was fully sustained, for instead of being barely visible, each one of the Boers formed a black bull’s-eye against the waving veldt, and was an easy target for the rifles of Jack and his friends.
Loading and firing rapidly and steadily, they picked off one recumbent figure after another, and after five minutes’ work, when their rifles were becoming so hot that they could scarcely hold them, the enemy stopped and hesitated, and then fled in confusion, pursued still by the merciless bullets. When they reached the Maxim they stopped, and three of their number commenced to place it in position so as to rake the farmhouse.
But Jack and his two friends, helped now by Eileen, concentrated their fire upon it, and picked off the Boers. More at once rushed pluckily forward to take their places, but suffered the same fate, and soon, stung by the bullets which still spattered amongst them and struck puffs of dust from the ground, the enemy bolted out of range, leaving their Maxim behind them.
“By Jove, if we only possessed a few more rifles,” exclaimed Wilfred impetuously, “we would go out and bring in that gun. But it’s impossible as things are, and I expect we shall have something else to think of shortly.”
But, contrary to their expectations, nothing occurred, on shells flew overhead, and the Boers seemed to have disappeared from sight Jack climbed up on to the table and mounted on the chair. Then he searched all round with his glasses, and made out a number of men riding off in the distance towards Kimberley. He climbed up the iron sheets on to the top, and looked out behind. Here, too, all seemed deserted, but the sight of a half-hidden figure behind one of the low houses a mile away told him that they were still watched by the enemy.
“They’ve left us alone for a little,” he said, “but there are men all round us. The guns have gone, and I expect our friends have ridden back for reinforcements. You may be certain, though, that they have left sufficient behind to make it impossible for us to approach that Maxim. Well, I suppose we have nothing to do but wait. To-night, if we can last out so long, the garrison in Kimberley will make a sortie, but I think we are too far out for them to reach us.”