From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

Since their arrival at the village Parton’s demeanour towards Gressex, which had suddenly altered after the episode of the hunt and the broken arm, had changed again. During the excitement of the chase and under the quick and kindly attentions of Gressex when his arm was broken, his old friendliness had reasserted itself. Twice the name Mainwaring had escaped his lips as he thanked his trooper gratefully for his ready and tender help. And upon that long evening’s ride his manner had softened greatly; almost in the dim starlight he had gone back to the old days again.

Yet something within him had just stayed his tongue and had hindered a recognition which in itself would have been a mere act of grace, lessening no whit the discipline and respect ordained by their present difference in rank.

As for Gressex he had ceased to wonder at his old friend’s curious demeanour. The mental exclamation that rose within him—“He’s a proud devil, after all. I should hardly have thought it of Parton!”—very well expressed his feelings, and he now made the best he could of the companionship of the two troopers—very good fellows they were—with whom he was quartered.

At twelve o’clock upon the third night of his arrival in the Kalahari village, Parton, who had now made every preparation, rode very silently and with every circumstance of caution, out into the night. With him were his three troopers and the two native allies—one a Bushman, the other a Griqua—who had acted as his spies and were now to show him the road. His broken arm was by no means yet at ease; but Parton, whatever else his demerits, had plenty of pluck, and just now, in his state of mental tension, inactivity was a very curse to him.

The huts where they were quartered lay upon the outskirts, and the party quitted the village so silently that not even a native dog raised its alarm. Sometimes walking their horses rapidly, sometimes cantering—though the action caused Parton to grind his teeth with pain—they passed in less than five hours over the wilderness of grass and bush that lay between them and the cattle post they sought. The Griqua, who had a horse of his own, rode, the Bushman trotted always in front of the party, finding his way in the starlight with an unerring and marvellous precision. There were four huts at the cattle post. These were speedily rushed in the dim early morning, just as the faintest hint of dawn began to pale the night sky. The inmates were all asleep, but the final rattle of horse hoofs and the furious barking of the kraal dogs roused them. It was too late. Gressex and his fellow troopers each carried and secured without a blow their respective huts, which contained a few Bakalahari men, women and children.

Parton, by a stroke of ill luck, happened to walk into a hut in which four Bechuanas—three of them the very cattle thieves he was in search of—lay together. These men were all disaffected and turbulent border ruffians, and they had arms ready at hand. In a few words of Sechuana the lieutenant, as he stood within the hut, called upon them to surrender. It was pretty dark, and the first reply Parton got to his summons was an assegai through his shoulder, which brought him down. His revolver went off uselessly, and in an instant he had three out of the four men on top of him Gressex, in the next hut a few yards off, heard the shot and Parton’s stifled cry, and, leaving the Griqua to take charge of his capture, dashed round to his lieutenant’s relief. In five seconds he was in the fray. The three men struggling with the wounded officer were impeding one another, and beyond a gash or two with their assegais had done little injury. Gressex ran in among them, loosed off his carbine at the nearest man and settled him, struck another with his empty weapon a blow on the arm which broke it and disabled its owner, and threw himself upon the remaining native, who had Parton still by the throat. But in that instant the fourth occupant of the hut who had been standing back in the dark shade watching the struggle, came in. He lunged with the assegai he had snatched up at Gressex’s broad back. The sharp blade shore through the trooper’s tough cord tunic and flannel shirt and drove deep into his right lung. At this moment another trooper appeared with a blazing wisp of grass. By the light of it, as he flung it upon the floor, he could take in the whole scene. His carbine was undischarged; he levelled it instantly at the man attacking Gressex and dropped him with a bullet through the heart.

Here then was the situation. The cattle post was captured, two of the thieves were slain, another disabled; the rest of the dozen inhabitants of the kraal were safe under guard, the Bushman—delighted to pay off some old scores—standing sentinel over one hut with a long Martini in his hand and a diabolical grin of exultation on his face. The stolen cattle, as was presently ascertained, were safe in the ox-kraal, with the rest of the stock running at this post. But against this, Gressex was badly wounded and the lieutenant somewhat cut and battered.

Gressex stood stooping in the hut, the assegai sticking half a foot into his back. Despite that horrible thrust he had still all his wits about him.

“Warton,” he said grimly through his teeth to the trooper, who still stood with smoking carbine, “thanks for settling that chap. Now pull this damned thing out of me. Pull before I fall down. I feel a bit sick.”

Warton laid hold of the spear and, exerting his strength, managed to extract the spear-head. A little torrent of blood poured forth. While Parton, who had now got to his feet, pressed his right hand upon the wound, Warton managed to strip off Gressex’s tunic Gressex was now very faint. They laid him upon his side, pulled away his flannel shirt, and then bound up the hurt as tightly as possible. Then from the lieutenant’s flask they managed to pour some brandy between the wounded man’s lips, from which blood was already oozing. There was only one thing to be done with the sufferer. The bleeding must be stopped somehow, and he must lie where he now lay. Only the extremest quiet could save him.