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

by Herbert Strang

The chief, knowing that he was new in the territory of the Congo Free State, felt pretty secure from pursuit by the British, and had decided to continue his march westward towards the Rutchuru at a moderate pace. He stalked along with downbent head before his troops, reminding Tom, when he saw him presently, of Napoleon in Meissonier's picture of the retreat from Moscow. The hakim had seen him early in the morning, and spoken to him of the English prisoner; and the chief had curtly bidden the physician tend him carefully, as he might be valuable as a hostage. As for him, he had other matters to attend to. Tom learnt later what these other matters were.

The hakim sought out the four Manyema who had brought Tom to the camp, and ordered them to resume their task. The Arab walked by the head of the litter, and when the sun rose higher, he arranged a linen screen above Tom's head, which served to defend him from the burning rays and in some measure from insects.

At mid-day the chief halted to dispose of the business that weighed on him. He first called up the Wanyabinga chief, who had clung to the band in the hope of the Arab's relenting. But Mustapha told him bluntly that if he accompanied the caravan farther it would be as a slave. The man stood trembling for a moment as though paralysed; then muttering awful imprecations, he collected his few tribesmen, brandished his spear thrice, and bolted amid his men across the swamp. Having reached a safe distance he halted, led a chorus of execration, and hurling his spear in a last desperate defiance at his late ally, he turned and disappeared into the bush.

Then the Arab formed a court of six of his leading men, and summoned before him two miserable wretches whom Tom had noticed marching painfully, with shackled feet and wrists, under a close guard. They were charged with cowardice during the first terrible fight on the previous afternoon. In due form they were condemned to death and led away, and shortly afterwards Tom heard two shots. In affairs of this kind the Arabs waste no ammunition.

The march was resumed, and now that he had attended to his other matters, the chief had time to take some notice of Tom, He came up to the litter, and started when he saw that the prisoner was none other than the stripling who had held him in such desperate fight. He grunted, as though in displeasure at discovering his doughty opponent still alive; then a faint smile wreathed his lips, and the cloud that had darkened his face all day cleared away. He spoke rapidly to the hakim, who nodded his head and replied gravely. Tom of course understood nothing of what they said, but he inferred that the physician had declared him out of danger, and that the Arab was calculating on turning the capture to some profit. Giving Tom another glance, in which there was a tinge of admiration for a warrior worthy of his steel, Mustapha returned to his place at the head of the caravan.

Late that night they reached the right bank of the Rutchuru. The chief and his men had slept for but one hour during the past twenty-four, and were too tired to attempt a crossing. They formed a zariba on a stretch of dry ground about half a mile from the river, intending to continue the march next day towards their stronghold beyond the hills. Tom was again carefully tended by Mahmoud the hakim, and, thanks to his fine constitution, was steadily gaining strength.

Next morning, just as the Arabs were breaking up camp, one of the scouts who had already been sent across the river returned with the news that, some distance beyond the farther bank, he had descried from an eminence a body of about a hundred men in uniform preparing to march. They were commanded by a white officer. The question naturally flashed into Mustapha's mind: "Could they be a part of the British force sent out in search of the missing officer?" He had already heard, from one or two late stragglers from the force which had engaged Captain Lister, of the rockets sent up and the bugles sounded when darkness had fallen after the fight, and he had no stomach for encountering a vengeful search-party. The force just discovered, it was true, was in a quarter where the British were little to be expected, but it was well to be on the safe side. Hoping that his troops had not yet been seen, and that if they had been seen they would be mistaken in the distance for a peaceful caravan, the Arab determined on a strategic move. Instead of crossing the river, and thus coming upon the other force at an acute angle, he moved off in a north-easterly direction, as though making for the south-eastern corner of Lake Albert Edward, leaving a few trusty scouts to watch the movements of the unknown troops. But this was only a feint. After marching for a few miles he swung round suddenly to the south-east, cut across the track of his previous day's march, pressed on rapidly over the swampy ground, and struck the Rutchuru some ten miles from his first position, the river bending there almost due east. There he crossed, and, finding a stretch of comparatively clear and level ground between the forest and the hills, he halted his men, to rest them after their forced march.

Not many minutes afterwards a scout came up at full speed to say that the unknown force was following hot-foot at their heels, and taking a more direct line, having evidently divined the object of the trick. The news was hardly out of his mouth when another scout followed and informed the chief that the pursuing force was composed of Bangala, and was unmistakeably Belgian, and not British. Mustapha smiled grimly. His four hundred Arabs were a match, he thought, for a body of Bangala of one fourth that number, and rather than run the risk of being dogged and harassed, he determined to chance a fight. Sending his transport on in advance, under an escort of fifty Arabs and a crowd of negroes, he proceeded to prepare a hot welcome for his pursuers.

He knew every inch of the ground. Between his halting-place and the foot of the hills intervened a swamp some two miles long and half a mile broad. It was crossed by two paths, one leading straight to the hills, the other intersecting the first at right angles about a quarter of a mile from the outer edge of the swamp. The whole region was mere mud and water, except along the paths, with elephant-grass at least twelve feet high standing up in all directions.

Mustapha made his dispositions rapidly. He posted a hundred of his men on the second and shorter path, about two hundred yards to the left of the main path, at a spot where they were absolutely concealed by tall grass. At the farther end of the main path he placed another hundred, with orders to offer a feeble resistance to the Belgian troops, and to retire before them into a dense copse at the base of the hills. A third hundred were stationed some three hundred yards north, at the edge of the swamp, on a line curving to the east, so that they commanded the right flank of the advancing force. These positions had hardly been taken up when the Belgian scouts, having crossed the river, advanced cautiously to the edge of the swamp and began to move forward along the main path. Just as they came to the crossways they caught sight of a few Arabs retiring in their immediate front, these having been instructed so to do in order to lure them on. The plan worked perfectly. Not troubling to examine the crosspaths, they returned with the information that the Arabs were retreating to the hills, obviously desirous of avoiding an engagement. The Belgian commandant, who had arrived but recently from Europe and was burning to distinguish himself in the pursuit of raiders, ordered his men to press forward rapidly. The Bangala advanced in single file, their commandant at their head, between hedges of grass, sometimes in their haste slipping knee-deep into the swamp.