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

by Herbert Strang

On the logs rested half a dozen short, strong poles, evidently to be used as levers. The Arabs had expected the marching force to cross the bridge at once, and the delay had at first caused them much amazement and concern. But seeing the scouts pass over and scatter on the other side, and the careful examination of the bridge made by Captain Lister and his sergeants, they had apparently concluded that these were only the white man's usual measures of precaution, and were reassured. They had themselves taken the precaution to post a sentry a hundred yards down the bluff behind them, but this man, finding after a long delay that nothing had happened, edged gradually nearer to his companions, and when he saw them looking with intense interest over the ridge, his curiosity was too much for him. He quickened his pace and joined them, and from that moment caution was thrown to the winds.

Just as the Askaris reached the utmost verge of cover, and stood for an instant to take breath after their climb, one of the Arabs gleefully pointed to the scouts returning over the bridge. His companions instantly moved towards the brink. Sergeant Abdullah saw that the moment had arrived. He gave a nod to his men, they sprang forward with great leaps, remembering the major's injunction to make no noise. Before the Arabs were aware of their danger the enemy were upon them. Seven of the nine were despatched with the bayonet in a trice; one contrived to inflict a terrible wound on his assailant before he too was stricken down; the ninth man, with a howl of fright, sprang over the precipice and disappeared into the stream below.

The first part of the task of the sixteen was accomplished. Climb and all it had occupied but twenty minutes. There remained to give the signal expected by the Arabs in hiding. On the ground lay a white flag embroidered with the crescent. Abdullah stooped down, and hastily divesting one of the fallen Arabs of his burnous, he threw it over his own uniform, then picked up the flag, and walked northwards some thirty yards along the bluff to the edge of the declivity, whence he obtained a view of the open space and the forest beyond. Then he waved the flag, making three curious circular movements with which he was clearly familiar; he saw an answering signal from the edge of the forest more than half a mile away; then he returned to his companions, and hurried downhill with twelve of them to rejoin Captain Lister's force, leaving two to follow more leisurely with the man wounded.

In the meantime the major had rapidly moved his three hundred men northwards through the woodland. On the way he left fifty of them in open order on a wide arc to cover his right flank. Coming to the open space reported by the scouts, he was overjoyed to find it an outcrop of bare rock, broken in surface, cleft by fissures, and thus difficult to advance over. His quick eye marked at a glance the possibilities of the situation. He posted a hundred of his men about a yard apart, just within the edge of the forest, and stationed a second hundred twenty yards behind them as a reserve. The remaining fifty he told off to guard the left flank against surprise from the river-bed. At the extreme right of his position, a few yards in advance of the firing-line, stood one solitary thorn bush growing on a patch of soft earth amid the rock. This would form, as the major saw at once, an excellent screen for the Maxim; but to place the gun in position at once would certainly attract the attention of the Arabs. He therefore ordered Lieutenant Mumford to be in readiness to move it forward as soon as the enemy emerged from the wood.

"Now, my men," he said to the sergeants when his dispositions were complete, "when the signal is given from the bluff the Arabs will come out of the forest yonder and cross this open space. They know nothing, as I hope and trust, of our presence. They will not expect us here. Reserve your fire till they are within two hundred and fifty yards--the bugle will give the signal,--then fire. That will check the rush for a moment. There will be time for a second volley; then be ready to charge. Mr. Mumford, you will bring the Maxim into action as soon as they are well out in the open. Now mind, men," he added, turning sternly to the eager Askaris, "not a whisper till the word is given."

The men stood at their posts, fixing their keen eyes on the trees a quarter of a mile in front of them, their mouths set, their nostrils quivering. It was a trying ordeal. Minute after minute went by, and still there was no sign of the enemy. The men began to fidget, and the major, knowing the impetuous nature of the Soudanese, feared lest a single incautious movement or exclamation should wreck his plans. Then suddenly a hundred doors seemed to open in the green wall opposite, and out of them poured almost noiselessly a flood of tall, white-robed, turbaned Arabs. They kept no order, expecting to find their enemy in confusion by the bridge. In this careless confidence they rushed on pell-mell, clutching their rifles by the middle. Over the rocky ground they came, bounding like panthers, making no sound save with their quick breathing, eager, exultant, some waving flags, their leaders brandishing scimitars, a few with silent drums jolting against their thighs. Then a bugle rang out clear and shrill; from the trees and undergrowth in their front flashed forth a withering volley. The nearest of them went down like grass before the mower. There was an awful silence, broken only by the groans of wounded and dying men. Those of the foremost Arabs who were left alive halted in consternation, hesitating whether to advance or fly. But behind them a host of their Manyema allies was thronging from the woods. These had heard the volley, but had seen nothing of its effect. Imagining that the expected collision had taken place earlier than had been anticipated they pressed on furiously, now uttering savage cries, beating drums, invoking Allah and the Prophet. Thus the halted front ranks were driven on by the mass behind; Arabs and Manyema were crowded together in an unwieldy congested heap. Another volley rang out in front of them; the rattle of the Maxim, now playing across the crowded space, added its terrors to the scene. The stricken host fell in heaps before the pitiless hail of lead; then, in uncontrollable panic, they turned tail and fled, trampling each other down in their terror, carrying all before them in one irresistible rush to the shelter of the wood.

And now, with a fierce yell, the Soudanese darted after them with the bayonet. But in the lull that followed the first wild onset, the major's ear caught the sound of heavy firing in his rear. Captain Lister was evidently engaged. The major at once recalled the men from their pursuit, and, leaving Lieutenant Mumford with a hundred rifles to meet a renewed attack should the enemy recover from their panic, he hurried back with the main part of his force to support the hundred with Captain Lister up-stream.

He found the little body hard pressed. At the sound of firing to the north, a force of three hundred and fifty Arabs, supported by nearly five hundred natives, had emerged from their place of concealment in the forest. Checked in their rush by the abattis, they had made a second impetuous charge, losing heavily from the well-directed volleys of Captain Lister's men. But they had soon perceived the smallness of the force opposed to them, and, dividing into two bands, they made simultaneous attacks at both ends of the line. The Soudanese at the river-end staggered, and, being more exposed than the rest of the line, gave way. Instantly a few score Arabs broke through, and, true to their rapacious instincts, made direct for the baggage. Tom, who had been eating his heart out with impatience, saw that he was likely after all to have his fill of fighting. It seemed almost impossible that his handful of men could hold their own against the wild rush of the enemy, but the steady nerve which had served him so well in many a mimic battle did not fail him in this his first experience of real warfare. Bidding his men kneel and rest their rifles on the piled boxes, he waited till the Arabs were within fifty yards, then gave the order to fire. The assailants broke like a wave upon a rock. The most of them fell prone; a few, with desperate courage, came on till the Askaris could almost feel their breath; then cold steel completed what the bullet had begun.

In the meantime the other end of the British line was yielding before repeated rushes, being hampered by the necessity of guarding the left flank against the black crowds of Manyema pressing perilously near. It was at this critical moment that the major returned with his exultant troops. Charging downhill at tremendous speed, they swept to the support of their comrades, and after a severe hand-to-hand fight against great odds, they drove the enemy steadily back into the forest, with terrible loss.

It was now half-past four. The fight at the clearing having been won without a single casualty on the British side, Dr. O'Brien was free to attend to the thirty wounded men who, with about half as many dead, bore witness to the severity of the struggle by the abattis. Meanwhile, Captain Lister was leading his men in pursuit of the fugitives. Suddenly the crackle of musketry broke out again far away to the north-east. The major turned at the sound. He caught sight of the rampart of baggage, of the stricken forms lying close beneath it, of Tom standing among his men.