Tom Burnaby: A Story of Uganda and the Great Congo Forest

by Herbert Strang

A night-attack was therefore decided on. Tom prayed that the night might be dark. He called up one of the prisoners, and made him draw a rough plan of the fort on a leaf torn from his pocket-book. Then he sent one of the redoubts to the mainland to fetch further stores and to bring back a number of carriers with knives and axes. When these arrived he set them to work in cutting a path through the bush on the east side of the island in order that his troops might move rapidly from place to place without being seen. While the carriers were engaged in this task a sudden shout from the south apprised him that something was happening in that quarter. In a few moments a messenger came up with the news that the enemy had made a sortie from the south gate with the evident intention of capturing the canoes, and had driven back the post placed between the plantations and the belt of copse. But this move had been already provided against. When the Arabs reached the shore they saw, to their chagrin, that the canoes lay two hundred yards out on the lake, under the protection of one of the floating forts. Tom sent three hundred men under the kasegara to intercept the enemy as they returned. The Bahima placed themselves just within the copse in a line parallel to the path leading to the gate, and poured in a hot fire at the Arabs as they hastened back. Mustapha, in the fort, was on the alert; he threw out a large force to cover the retreat of his men, and but for this it seemed likely that the sortie-party would have been cut off from their base and annihilated. As it was, they lost heavily, and no similar organized attempt was made during the rest of the day, though occasional shots were fired from the fort as if to show that the enemy was not napping.

Taking advantage of the freedom from serious interference, Tom devoted himself to his plan of operations. He decided that the real attack should be made, not from his camp, east of the fort, as the Arabs would no doubt expect, but from the south. The katikiro with two hundred men would make a feigned attack from a point north of the fort, and the kasegara with another two hundred would demonstrate vigorously against the east. Each of these feigned attacks would be accompanied with heavy rifle-fire, and, while they were in progress, Tom himself would lead a strong force against the southern portion of the palisade, from which he expected that most of the defenders would have been drawn off towards the apparent danger north and east.

At nightfall, then, Tom called his officers together and explained his plans. He was somewhat surprised to see Mwonda among them, for the giant had been badly wounded in the right shoulder. He was still more surprised to learn that the heroic negro had got a companion to cut the bullet out of his flesh, and had borne the terrible pain without so much as a groan. He came now, with his right shoulder bound up, and his musket in his left hand, determined to wreak vengeance in person for the treacherous blow dealt him.

"You are a brave fellow, Mwonda," said Tom. "You shall be in command of the northern force, and the katikiro shall stay with me. The kasegara will attack first, on the east, when I send him word, an hour before dawn. When you hear his rifles in play, Mwonda, you will make a sham attack on the north gate. Understand, you are both to keep up a heavy fire, and shout as loud as you like; but you are not to make a real attack until you get orders from me."

Since his arrival on the island Tom had taken no pains to preserve silence in the camp, and on this night he ordered companies of a hundred men, in addition to the usual sentries, to be kept awake in turn, each for an hour, so that their chatter might delude the enemy and cover up any sounds made by his troops as they moved to their positions. Two hours before dawn the movements began. Mwonda led his men northwards, being instructed to march as silently as possible. Tom, accompanied by Mbutu and Msala, went southwards with seven hundred men, leaving the kasegara in charge of the camp with orders to keep his men talking until he received the signal for beginning the sham attack. With Tom's men went fifty carriers with scaling-ladders, and before starting he ordered one man in five to take a fire-ball in addition to his gun or pike. When they reached the position he had decided on, he briefly explained what they were to do. Then he turned to Mbutu and the katikiro and said quietly:

"If I fall, press home the attack with all your might. The men will follow you if you only show them strong leadership. And, Mbutu, when the fight is over, if I am not alive, I trust to you to make your way to Kisumu, and tell my uncle, if he is there, or the English commander if he is not, all that has happened to me. That is my last request."

Then he sent a messenger to the kasegara. Ten minutes later a sharp volley was heard in the direction of the camp, accompanied by savage yells. Immediately afterwards shouts and the crackle of rifles were heard, less distinctly, from the north.

"My men," said Tom, "now is our turn. Go quietly through the copse, make a rush to the foot of the slope; scramble up, on hands and knees if you must, and make for the palisade. No firing, mind; nothing but bayonets and pikes at first. Don't fire till I give the word. Now, advance!"

Two hundred men being left in reserve, Tom's little force consisted of five hundred musketeers and pikemen, and the fifty carriers with the scaling-ladders. These latter held the ladders in front of them as a partial protection from rifle fire. The whole force moved quickly through the woodland, gained the bottom of the glacis with a rush, and began the ascent. The front ranks were half-way up before their presence was discovered. Then a brisk fusillade broke out from the fort, and several men fell. The rest threw themselves on their hands and knees, and finished the ascent at a scramble. The point made for was a few yards to the left of the gateway. While the bullets were flying erratically over the palisade, the carriers placed their ladders against it, and as, owing to the slope, they stood somewhat insecurely, Tom ordered four men to hold each while the rest mounted. In hardly more than a minute a hundred men were within the palisade, to find themselves exposed to cross-fires from the gate and from a line of fencing thrown across from the inner stockade to the outer, thus dividing the space between them into compartments. But faster than the gaps were made they were filled by fresh men swarming over the fencing. Tom was over among the first. He ordered some of the ladders to be hauled across and planted against the inner palisade, now more strongly defended by reinforcements which the first alarm had drawn from north and east. The Arabs were firing not only over the palisade, but through loopholes in it. Luckily the invaders had already spread, so that there were no close ranks to be decimated by the fusillade, and in the darkness and the flurry the defenders' fire was necessarily ill-aimed.

"Light fire-balls!" cried Tom in a clear voice. In half a minute twenty flaming balls whizzed through the air and over the inner stockade, lighting up the interior of the fort with its huts and tents, and showing the loopholes in the fencing. These became the target for Tom's best marksmen as he now at last gave the order to fire. Bullets flew fast; war-cries seemed to split the air; the defenders were already verging on panic. Some were making desperate attempts to extinguish the fire-balls, only to become the marks for more of those flaming missiles. A hut was already alight, and Tom's men were now swarming almost unchecked over the palisade. A few fire-balls had speedily cleared out the enemy from the cross fence, and this position was immediately occupied by the Bahima. The katikiro, at Tom's orders, had led a party of men with scaling-ladders to the left along the enclosure between the palisades to a point opposite the eastern gate, and cries from that quarter told that a position had been occupied there. Thus in less than half an hour three positions were held by the attackers. Several huts in the interior of the fort were in flames, and the defenders were rushing hither and thither, exposed to destructive rifle-fire from their own palisades.