When the square got close to the right end of the curved earthwork, the troops nearest to it charged at it with a cheer, leaving a big gap in the ranks they left. Had they succeeded in carrying the place with the rush, this would not have mattered; but it could not be done. Tap a bee-hive smartly with your stick on a mild May day, and see the inhabitants swarm out at you, and you may form some idea of how the Hadendowas flew over the parapet at their assailants. Every one of them fixed his eye on an enemy, and went straight at him. Every soldier found himself with two or three opponents, and, instead of pressing on into the earthwork, had enough to do to hold his ground.
The cool, brave man, who made sure of getting rid of one with a steady shot a few yards off, and then plied his bayonet till he got a moment’s pause to re-load, came off well; the flurried soldier, who was not quite sure whether to stand or retire, who missed or only wounded his man, and then stood strictly on the defensive, was most likely overpowered and speared.
The greater the daring the greater was the safety, and vice versa. But brave or timid, the men who had rushed out of the ranks to attack were borne back by the sheer weight of numbers. The Soudanese, however, never got through the gap that was left. The Marines inside the square promptly presented themselves as a second barrier, till the attackers, retiring in good order, fell back into their places again.
But there was some hard fighting at the point for a minute or two. Good old-fashioned cut and thrust, hammer and tongs, like cutting out a ship. Tom Strachan found himself, he did not know how, with the hilt of his sword right up against a Soudanese breast-bone, the weapon having passed right through the man’s body. But there was no expression of pain in the dying face so close to his own, only hate and defiance. He was killed, not conquered.
Before he could disencumber himself from the body another Hadendowa rushed at him with uplifted spear. Tom levelled his pistol at him, and pressed the trigger; but the weapon did not explode. He had already fired all the barrels.
Another second and the spear-head would have been buried in his throat, but suddenly the Arab’s arm dropped, nearly severed by a cut from Green, which caught him between wrist and elbow. The wounded man caught his spear with the left hand, and strove to stab, but before he had time he got the point in his throat, and that stopped him.
At this time Private Gubbins had a narrow escape. He fired at an Arab, about twenty yards off, and hit him hard, but he came on at him all the same, trying to spear him. Gubbins thrust at him with his bayonet, but perhaps rather timidly; anyhow he missed his body, though he wounded him again in the shoulder, and with that, and parrying, knocked the spear out of his hand. Whereupon the Soudanese caught hold of the bayonet and tried to unfix it. He could not manage that, and a tug of war commenced, in which Gubbins, being the weaker and less active, was pulled bodily out of the ranks, and would have been made mincemeat of had not some one shot the Arab through the head, while his rear rank man pulled him back. He owned afterwards that he was fairly scared.
“Thought that ’ere cannibal couldn’t die!” he said, “Fust I shot him, and then I bayoneted him, and he only snarled like a wild cat. Fancy a chap pulling like that with one hole in his stomach and another in his shoulder! ’Taint reasonable.”
They fought like that, many of them.
When the momentary confusion was over, and the square again compact, Strachan found an opportunity of slipping fresh cartridges into his revolver; the work in prospect did not look like being suited to an empty pistol. He had hardly done it before they were under the parapet of the earthwork.