With Wolseley to Kumasi: A Tale of the First Ashanti War

by F. S. Brereton

He held up his hands in consternation, for our hero was indeed in a sorry plight. He had been little better than a scarecrow after his dash through the bush, and his escape from the stockade, and the few hours aboard the launch had not improved matters. He was as black as a sweep, for the soot from the funnel had played upon him as the launch bounded forward, while the perspiration had helped it to adhere. Then he had been struck in no fewer than six places by the slugs of the enemy, and in each case his tattered clothes told the tale. Not that the bleeding had been severe. On the contrary, none of the slugs had penetrated far, and in three of the wounds there was merely a large red bruise, now getting more discoloured. The skin had not been broken, and where there had been penetration it had been so slight that the missiles had fallen out into his clothing. Still one cannot stop a slug without feeling the effect, and Dick felt as if he had been playing a very hard and rough game of football. He limped owing to the wound on his knee. When he breathed he suffered considerable pain, for he had had a hard rap over the ribs, while his shoulders were so stiff from a wound just below the neck that he might well have fallen in the scrum and had half a dozen lusty fellows tumbling on him.

“All’s well that ends well,” he cried cheerily. “And that reminds me that I’m hungry again. I have come to the conclusion that fighting is hungry work. What stores are there, my lad?”

“Find plenty, sar. Massa say tree week ago, ‘yo go down to launch and put dis and dat aboard. Den s’pose nigger come ’long, all right for us. Get to launch and steam ’way. Hab grub to fill de tumock.’ Johnnie plenty hungry, too.”

“Then off you go and lay a spread. I’m ravenous.”

Thanks to the fact that the engine well and the one aft from which the steersman guided the launch were close together, the two comrades, for they were that on this occasion if on no other, were able to see to the management of the launch and enjoy a meal at the same time. The attack they made upon the food which Johnnie brought from the cabin was almost as fierce as that which James Langdon had made upon the stockade. They washed the repast down with good hot coffee, which Johnnie made at the furnace door, drawing water from the river. Then they lounged in the easiest position and smoked, the stoker his short clay, which one so often sees gripped between the shining teeth of negro stokers, and Dick his briar, at peace for the time being with all the world, content with the good fortune which had befallen him.

“I’ve a good report to hand in,” Dick said to himself, as he reflected. “The mine has been disturbed, but that was not my fault, and from what I have heard and seen since, I fancy those at the coast will not be surprised at the news. I rather expect that they will hardly hope to see me again, for these Ashantis seem to have gone out to war rather suddenly some little time ago. But the mines are good for the future, the wages are paid, and the men will return when the time comes, and in addition I have a valuable cargo of gold dust and nuggets. Good! The gains are gold dust, and one steam launch saved. The losses are a stockade and two native boats, one destroyed and sunk up the creek to keep the Ashantis from using her, and the other hidden, useless to us for the time being.”

It was pleasant to think of his success, and he passed the hours till dawn came, wondering what would happen at his meeting with his employers. And as the moon waned the dawn spread over the sky, at first a mere rose pink blush, the promise of a fine day. Then the sun got up and peeped at the wanderers out of the river mist, till it looked like another moon. Three hours later the increasing width of the river warned them that they were now approaching the mouth, and presently they were amidst the sandbanks and upheavals of mud which form its delta. Dick still clasped the iron make-shift tiller in his hand, and looked wearily for the central passage, while Johnnie now and again stoked his furnace and looked mechanically to the indicator and the water-gauge. For they were both utterly done up and weary. They had been awake and active for many hours, and the flight and the fight with the natives had helped to exhaust them. It was therefore with little show of excitement that Dick nodded ahead and pointed to a ship lying off the mouth of the river.

“British war vessel,” he said sleepily. “What’s she doing here?”

“Tink she make signal to us, sar,” said Johnnie after some minutes. “She wave de flag and send dem aloft.”