"That is all?" asked Tom.
"All."
"Then we will go. Give me your whistle."
The sergeant unslung the whistle from his shoulder. Tom blew a shrill note, and his men started out of the bush and lined up on the track. The German cursed when he saw that they were less in number than his own men; Tom felt that he would have writhed had he known that none of them was trained. At the present moment he was lost in wonderment at the fact of a young white man, in German territory but clearly not a German, having at his command negroes who were just as clearly not German askaris, but possessed German rifles.
The order of the march home was quickly arranged. Half Tom's men went ahead, carrying the captured rifles. They were followed by the liberated natives, who, imagining that they had only exchanged one servitude for another, trudged on in gloomy silence. Tom's motive in not dismissing them at once was to link them to the British cause by means of the impression which he hoped they would gain from his defensive measures at the nullah, and he knew that they would break away the moment they realised that they were free. Behind them marched the askaris, then five more of his riflemen escorting the German privates. He kept the sergeant by his side, and the rear was brought up by Mwesa and the rest of his men.
The capture of a German prisoner gave Tom an opportunity of learning something of the course of events on the frontier. He considered how best to open up the subject with the sergeant, and decided that perfect frankness would probably serve him best.
"You are naturally surprised, Sergeant," he said, "at finding an Englishman on your side of the border."
"An Englishman!" growled the sergeant. "I thought you were a Belgian."
"Indeed! Are you at war with Belgium too?"
"There is no Belgium. It belongs now to the Kaiser."