“I love to fight,” he said to Harry, “but to lie idle with the spear in my hand is not good for Googagoo. Let it be now.”
Then Harry, after visiting all his lines, speaking words of encouragement and issuing commands, gave the order to advance, he himself leading in person, sword in hand.
Kara’s army lay at arms, in vast squares or impis, along a wide and sparsely wooded valley, Harry’s hill being on the east of him, the lake to the north, and a dense forest land behind and to the west. It was a difficult position to attack, but they had come here to fight and must face every odds.
It must also be to a great extent a hand-to-hand engagement.
Now unlike a battle with guns and rifles, a fight of the nature Googagoo was now to engage in could not be of long duration. Harry knew that, and resolved to make his onset as telling as possible. He had two advantages over Kara: his men were well drilled, and they possessed a most deadly weapon in the cross-bow.
At the very moment the signal of advance was given by Harry, wild shouting arose from the ranks of the enemy, accompanied by the rattle of tom-toms and the blaring of innumerable chanters. But the foe showed no intention of coming on, so the Googagoo men and amazons marched steadily to meet them.
There was no racing or shouting. To have run would have meant to lose wind, and Harry knew well the value of breath in a hand-to-hand fight. A movement was first made towards the south with the view of out-flanking the enemy. This had the desired effect, and Kara’s swarms now came on in that direction.
Harry threw his archery-men out in skirmishing order now, in two lines, and the orders were to advance steadily to within a hundred yards of the enemy, then commence firing, one line supporting the other, but the whole army falling back towards the hills as the foe advanced.
This was to prevent the latter closing, when of course the cross-bows would be of no more use.
The battle began, and for a time raged on two sides, the amazons having partially out-flanked the foe. The army as at present might be represented by the capital letter L, the short limb being the side facing southwards and fronting the terrible amazons, the long limb the main body of Kara’s army driving back—as they thought—Googagoo’s archers towards the hills.