"Yes, worse luck," resumed the major. "We've been running after the shadow and the substance butts in during our absence."
An orderly came dashing up with a written message. The major's face fell as he read it.
"We're out of it again, Wilmshurst," he remarked, after the runner had been sent back with a confirmatory report.
"How's that, sir?" asked the subaltern.
"Orders from the colonel for 'A' Company to hold the position shown on the attached map, and to cut off the retreat of the enemy. Here we are: see this kloof? Three platoons are to lie in ambush at that spot, another—yours, Mr. Wilmshurst—will take up a position two miles to the north-west, in case any stragglers attempt to break through the smaller defile shown on the map. It looks nothing more than a native path. We'll find that out later on."
At the word of command "A" Company halted until the rest of the battalion was almost out of sight. Then the detachment, moving to the right in column of fours, marched at a rapid pace along a comparatively clear path through the scrub.
When the three platoons had taken up their position at the indicated spot Wilmshurst's platoon had still a distance of two miles to cover—and that two miles was the roughest part of the whole day's march. It was a disused track possibly dating back to the old days when the Arab slave-raiders traversed the greater part of Central Africa in search of "black ivory," and was now greatly overgrown by cacti and other fibrous plants. Here and there palm trees had fallen completely across the path, while in no part was it more than a yard in breadth, being hedged in on both sides by dense tropical vegetation. And yet the track was distinctly marked upon the German-compiled maps with which the British troops were working.
It was hardly a route that any European under ordinary circumstances would tackle under the glaring heat of the afternoon's sun. Mosquitoes—harbingers of malaria—and fire-flies buzzed in swarms, snakes and lizards, their hitherto undisturbed solitude rudely shaken by the stealthy patter of three score pairs of bare feet, wriggled across the swampy ground, while overhead thousands of frightened birds flew in large circles, chattering the while in a way that would alarm every Boche within a radius of three miles.
A mile and a half of this sort of marching—the Haussas were in single file—and the platoon emerged into a wider track running obliquely across the path they had taken. Halting his men Wilmshurst, assisted by Sergeant Bela Moshi, examined the ground. There were evidences that a number of European and native troops had passed, going in the opposite direction to the Waffs' bivouac, while what was somewhat remarkable there were more recent tracks of a horse's hoofs.
"Him am gov'ment horse, sah," declared the sergeant. "Him lib for go plenty fast no time," meaning that the animal was a British Army mount (this from the peculiar shape of the horse-shoe prints) and had passed by quite recently.