From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

Gressex had, after that one word, small difficulty in following the halting speech of the sleeping man. He waited impatiently for other sentences, but the voice was hushed again. That name, “Ella” told him a good deal. It told him that, although in their long ride of the previous day Parton had not reverted in the slightest degree to their former friendship and its environments, his mind now, during the hours of sleep, was running busily in old channels. The word “Ella” and its associations roused many a pang and many a memory in the soul of Gressex, as he lay there under the silent stars. A hundred questions and doubts shaped themselves in the trooper’s mind for the next hour or more. At last sleep again overtook him and he remembered no more till pale dawn came round and he awoke. Already the little coqui francolins—the prettiest of all the African partridges—were calling with sharp voices to one another near the pan of water fifty yards away, and an early sand-grouse or two were coming in for their morning drink. It was time to be breakfasting and away. The embers were blown up, fresh wood was put on, and the kettle boiled for coffee. The two men, after an exchange of “Good morning,” breakfasted almost in silence, the horses were got in from their feed of grass, saddled up, and the journey was resumed.

The blazing morning passed, as in all these long veldt rides, in monotonous fashion. At three o’clock, in the hottest period of the afternoon, the two men emerged from a long two hours’ stretch of bastard yellow-wood forest. Suddenly Parton, who was a little in front, reined up with a “Sh!” upon his lips. Gressex followed the lieutenant’s glance and saw what had arrested his progress. Half a mile to the right, just outside the forest, a troop of noble gemsbok were resting beneath a patch of acacia thorn trees: some were lying down, some standing, but all, even the usually tireless sentinel nearest the waggon-track, were overcome by the heat, and—for such suspicious game—a little relaxed in their watchfulness. Such an opportunity was too tempting to be passed by. A plan of operations was quickly evolved as the two men withdrew their horses within the shelter of the wood. It was curious to observe how instantly the prospect of sport had broken down the thick hedge of reserve between them. They now whispered together rapidly and with intense animation.

Gressex turned his horse’s head and rode back through the forest in a semicircle towards the game. Presently he dismounted, fastened his horse to a bush, and then with the greatest caution stole towards the troop. At last, from behind a screen of bush, he has the game well before his gaze. They are a hundred and fifty yards away; between them and the watcher’s clump of bush is open grass veldt, and there is no possibility of getting a foot nearer. Gressex sits down, sidles imperceptibly to the left hand, and now has in front of him a fair shot. Even now there is not a breath of suspicion among the dozen great antelopes out there in the open. Gressex can note easily their striking, black and white faces and spear-like horns. The shade of the acacias is somewhat scanty, and he can see plainly the splashes of the sunlight gleaming through the foliage bright upon their warm grey coals. Now he takes aim at the bull nearest, draws a long breath, and pulls trigger. The Martini-Henry bullet flies true, and claps loudly, as upon a barn door, on the broadside of the gallant beast. The gemsbok leaps convulsively forward and scours away up wind. In the same instant there is dire commotion among the troop; the recumbent antelopes spring up wildly, and with their fellows stretch themselves at speed—and few animals can rival this antelope in speed and staying powers—in rear of the stricken bull. Gressex hurriedly fires another shot and misses clean.

And now, as Parton had foreseen, his opportunity has come. The troop will cross his front within less than half a mile. He gallops full tilt from the sheltering woodland and rides his hardest to cut them off. He is perfectly successful—so successful that he cuts off the main troop from the two leading antelopes, and, while the animals stand for a moment in utter bewilderment, he jumps off and gets his shot. The bullet flies high, yet luckily. The vertebra of the big cow he aimed at is severed on the instant, and she falls in her tracks, “moors dood,” as a Boer would say—as dead as mutton.

At the report of Parton’s rifle, the troop scatters and flees again. Parton jumps into the saddle and tears after Gressex’s wounded bull, which, three hundred yards in front, is manifestly failing fast. The stout pony, now thoroughly excited with the chase, gains rapidly; the gemsbok is pumping its life-blood from mouth and nostrils, and cannot stand up much longer. But, suddenly, without warning, Parton’s nag puts its foot into a deep hole hidden by the long grass and goes down. Parton is shot violently over its head and comes heavily to the veldt. In the next three seconds Gressex’s gemsbok fails suddenly, and, sinking quietly to earth, breathes out its last.

Gressex himself is quickly on the spot and first applies himself to Parton, who now sits ruefully with his hat off, gathering his scattered senses and nursing a broken left arm. Gressex has once helped to set a man’s arm in the hunting field, and he now goes to work. First he cuts quickly from a piece of fallen wood two flattish splints, then he unwraps one of the “putties” from his legs. This winding gear makes an admirable bandage. Next he proceeds to set the damaged limb. Luckily it is the fore arm, and after a painful ordeal of pulling, endured with set teeth by Parton, Gressex adjusts the broken bone and binds on the splints. With the other “putty” a sling is then extemporised. Parton has some brandy in a flask in his saddle-bag. He takes a pull at this, and while Gressex cuts off the heads, tails, and some of the meat from the slain gemsbok and fastens them upon the saddles, he sits with somewhat more ease and contentment smoking a welcome pipe which the trooper has filled and lighted for him after the operation. Half an hour later the journey is resumed again. It was a long twenty miles to the Bakalahari village to which they were travelling. The pace was slow, out of consideration for the wounded arm, and it was not until well on into the night that they rode into the beehive-like collection of round native huts, and called up the two Border policemen stationed there.

For two days the swollen and painful state of Parton’s arm prevented him from taking further action in the affair of the cattle-stealers, which had necessitated his sudden patrol. Meanwhile he rested, gleaned quietly all the intelligence that was to be gleaned, and prepared for action.

He interviewed, of course, Masura, the native chief settled here, and made a casual inquiry as to the stolen cattle, but he was careful not to let it appear that he had made a special journey on that account. The chief, it was well known, was not well affected to Government; but he protested that no stolen cattle or cattle-stealers had come into his country, and appeared to be anxious to aid in any inquiries that might discover the marauders. To lull his suspicions, Parton, on the second day of his arrival, requested him to send out runners to his various cattle posts so as to ascertain whether fresh stock had lately come in. This the chief promised to do on the following day.

But Parton had meanwhile, thanks to the alacrity of the two troopers quartered in the town and to a native spy of theirs, gained exact information of the whereabouts of the stolen cattle and their thieves.

They stood at a remote and little known cattle post of this very chief, some twenty-five miles from the town, and Parton had now laid his plans to ride out during the night and make their recapture early next morning. There might be some resistance, and he settled therefore to take with him the two troopers stationed here, as well as Gressex and a couple of natives upon whom he could depend. Meanwhile, although busied in his official work, Parton had had time in these two days to be much exercised by the private anxieties that galled incessantly his mind. For several days he had borne their harassing companionship. Two letters, one read and re-read many times within the last five days, the other unopened and unread, which lay within the breastpocket of his tunic, contained the secret of all this mental harassment; these letters burnt upon his conscience much as a blister burns the flesh against which it is laid.