Charge! A Story of Briton and Boer

by George Manville Fenn

In the Dark Watches.

“I can’t sleep,” I said to myself, feeling that history was repeating itself, as I lay on my side in the lit-up wagon, with my wrists tied behind my back and my torture increased by having my legs served in the same way just above the ankles and again above the knees. “No one could sleep in such a position,” I thought to myself; but I did not speak to my companion in misery. I was too weary and heart-sore, thinking that I should never see father, brother, aunt, or home again. “Poor old home is gone for ever,” I remember, was the thought that occurred to me. Next I fell to wondering what had become of my people, and whether they had fled to Natal. Then my thoughts turned quickly to something else: to the heavy, regular breathing of Denham, who was fast asleep and suffering from a bad dream, for he began muttering angrily. Then he was silent, but only to begin again. I believed I knew the subject of his dream, for he suddenly exclaimed, “Coward—coward blow!” Then he was silent for a few minutes, breathing hard and fast as if his growing excitement had worked up to fierce passion, for he was going over the scene of an hour ago, ending with “I’ll kill you—or you shall kill me.” He was suffering as if from a nightmare; and, unable to lie there listening, I managed to work myself along over the rough, cage-like bottom of the wagon till I could get my face close to his, just as he was panting and sobbing as if in a desperate encounter in which his strength was rapidly ebbing away.

“Denham!” I whispered. “Denham!”

“Ha!” he sighed softly, and ceased to struggle; while, as I lowered my head from the painful position into which I had strained it, I felt relieved to know that the poor, overwrought companion of my adventure could forget his sorrows for the time in sleep.

“I wish I could sleep, and never wake again; for when the time comes I shall be a coward”—such was the train of my thoughts. “Yes, I am sure to be a coward. One doesn’t think of the bullets when one is fighting and they ping and whiz by one’s head; but to stand up and face a row of rifles, waiting for the order to fire—I’m afraid I shall be a coward then.”

I shivered now; and a minute later, as I listened to Denham’s breathing, I shivered again. Perhaps it was from fear, perhaps it was from being cold, for the night wind, not far removed from freezing, blew up through the openings in the bottom of the wagon. I told myself it was from dread, and a peculiar feeling of shame and despair attacked me as the thought of what would occur on the coming morning rose up so vivid and clear that I strained my eyes round a little so as to look up at the hanging lantern, but lowered them again with a shudder, for I seemed to see a row of rifle-muzzles with the orifices directed down at me.

A noise occurred at the end of the wagon almost immediately, and upon looking back there was in reality the barrel of a rifle forcing back the canvas curtain, and then a second barrel appeared; but the owners only used their weapons to hold back the curtain while their big-bearded faces peered in to see if the prisoners were safe. They disappeared directly, and I could hear muttering, and could smell the fumes of their strong tobacco.

I was thinking with something like envy of the Boers’ lot as compared with mine, and the envy had to do with Denham, who was sleeping soundly; and then something happened—the something which I had thought impossible; but it was quite true. I was staring painfully up at the lantern which shed its yellowish glow all around, and then it seemed to have gone out, and I was fast asleep, with the restful sensation which comes of utter exhaustion. I dreamed, and it was of home and the beautiful orchard I had helped to plant, of driving in the cattle, of chasing the ostriches over the veldt; and then it was of having Bob and Denham with me in a wagon, for we were after lions. It was night, and the moon shone in through the front of the wagon with a yellowish light like that of a lantern hanging from the top of the tilt. The wind was blowing up icily through the bottom, and I had just been awakened by the distant deep barking roar of one of the great sand-coloured brutes. His roar had startled our oxen and made them low uneasily, as if they knew what the fate of one of them would be unless a flash of fire came from beneath the wagon-tilt just as the lion had crawled up and gathered himself together for a spring. The night was very cold, and somehow the thought occurred to me that it would be a good thing if that lion made a bound right on to the wagon-box, and then jumped in to seize me and carry me off as a cat does a rat; and when its roar sounded again, nearer, all dread and pain died out, for it seemed as if it would be far better to be killed by a lion than to stand up before the muzzles of a dozen rifles and be shot as a spy, while Moriarty stood smiling malignantly at my fate. It was all very vivid as the oxen bellowed softly now, and Bob whispered into my ear, his breath feeling quite hot after the chilling iciness of the night wind. “Cheer up, old Val,” he said; “they won’t dare to shoot you. I shall be there, and if they attempt it, and that Irishman gives the order—you know how true I can aim? I’ll send a bullet right through his head, if father isn’t first.”

I started violently and made an effort to rise; but I only succeeded in making a noise, as I looked up, to see the yellow lantern sending down its feeble light; but a lion was barking faintly in the distance, and some oxen close at hand were lowing uneasily. There was another sound, too, at the back of the wagon—that of some one climbing up—and in a wild fit of anxiety I listened for Bob’s voice again. But it was only that of the Boer who had first seized me, and he spoke in a gruff but not unkindly way, as he said in his own tongue:

“Hullo! What’s the matter? Lion scare you?”