But there is a turn in the tide of events which, taken at the flood, makes one at times feel somewhat giddy as it whirls us round. This dizzying ebb of fortune ran counter to Happy Jack, and threw him on his beam-ends in the most reckless fashion.
It happened that Sergeant Herridge of the police force, and in command of that party, seeing the discomfiture of his men, had had the discretion to lead them back to Cape Town, and was showing the way as fast as his portly person, under the sweltering heat of the sun and the battle combined, allowed him to do. Happy Jack espied the retreating chief, and took up the pursuit like Achilles after affrighted Hector, chevying him round and round his admiring followers. At length he reached the spent chieftain, and placing the muzzle of his firelock between the outspread coat-tails of the flying victim, blew a cartridge off at that part upon which people usually sit. The effect was startling. Hector cut a double-shuffle high up in the air like an exploding cracker, and while still wreathed in smoke, swung round his truncheon with Parthian address on the grinning face of Jack, whose head came to the ground—cracker number two.
Now was the time for the victorious sergeant to make off: the road was clear, and he had my good wishes that it should be kept so. But the foolish fellow, instead of running away, to live and fight another day, sat deliberately down in the dusty road and began bumping his hindquarters violently on the ground, to stamp out the fire the cartridge of Happy Jack had lit in his rear. This ludicrous display of stern-firing gave time for other men to come up; he was made prisoner, and Jack, recovering his senses, feelingly kicked the fire out of the singeing sergeant in double-quick time. Herridge was removed on board in a critical state, refusing in his disgraced condition to be taken to Cape Town; ultimately, upon recovery, he enlisted in my corps.
On the discomfiture of the police, the artillerymen in the valley began to retreat; but in this direction the pursuit was very slack. My men bent all their energies in scattering every vestige of civil authority; they evidently began to consider themselves as one with the soldiers—in fact, it was in recounting the mishaps that had that day befallen the police that we retired laughingly together, with those whom we were supposed to be repulsing with great vigour.
Finally, on arriving at the beach from whence the enemy had started, a still greater surprise awaited us; but this time (as if by just reprisal) it fell exclusively upon my own men, and that in a most bewildering manner.
Captain Hall had landed his marines and a detachment of blue-jackets, who, sans cérémonie, disarmed my men, as they arrived in batches of twos and threes, and placed them in files along the sea-shore. The climax had arrived; and to the astonishment, no doubt, of many beholders from the town, who had come to witness what they supposed was likely to be an exciting performance, I was quite equal to the task of stage-manager on this occasion. In a few words I explained to my future heroes that the time was come to go to the front and show to the Kaffirs what we were capable of doing. The black was pressing hard on the white man, who looked to us for help; the ship was ready to convey us; the cheers of the inhabitants of Cape Town were a token of what was expected; in fact, the time had arrived when the very humblest had a duty to perform.
Go we must; so I called for three cheers, and “Forward to the boats!” Some murmured that they had not wished friends “good-bye;” others talked of kits left behind; but they were too tired to resist physically, and without consultation they were unequal to combined action; so, nolens volens, we managed, one after another, to get them all aboard ship, excepting some twenty or so, who had come to grief in our late engagement with the police, and these I left behind. By the exertions of Captain Hall, who appeared to me a most painstaking, energetic officer, we soon got safely stowed away on board, and three days after landed at Port Elizabeth. Mr Durant Deare, a merchant of that town, kindly offered me quarters under his hospitable roof. The men were billeted in the town; and two days afterwards, with seven waggon-loads of ammunition and five gun-carriages, we started for Graham’s Town.
Foreseeing the disorderly manner in which my rough lot would probably leave the grog-shops, I started very early in the morning, before the inhabitants had got up—for I was loath to show our, as yet, disorganised state. I waited until fairly on the march before bringing a tighter hand to bear upon the many ruffians in my corps, who, half in joke, half inquiringly, looked me in the face, and called me mate, skipper, or captain, as they interpreted its meaning.
On the evening of the second day we arrived at the Ada bush; this was some twenty miles in breadth, composed of jungle-wood, free from Kaffirs, but infested with bands of marauders, consisting of native levies who had fled, weapons in hand, from the seat of war. As we were encamped that night, I strolled the greater part of it around the fires, and gathered from several parties that the next day something eventful was to take place in which my fate was concerned. I felt perfectly tranquil, however, trusting that I should be equal to the task of holding my own against such an abandoned, disunited lot—for I had also many good, God-fearing men among them.
The next morning, on the order being given for the men to fall in for roll-call, no one stirred. Sergeant Waine, who had been a non-commissioned officer in the 44th, but broken and discharged for bad conduct, to whom I had given the stripes in consideration of his regimental knowledge, stepped up to me, and said that the men wanted grog served out to them before they would budge, and if they did not get it, would return to Port Elizabeth. I did not reply to him, but, getting on my horse, rode up to the men and asked if they had enlisted with the intention of obeying orders or not. No one replied; and giving the word to fall in, they sullenly did so.