By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

After dinner one of our braves staggered into the hotel dining-room, carrying seven or eight rifles with fixed bayonets attached under one arm, and a trembling Portuguese soldier under the other. This unhappy being was summarily tried for attempted murder. In passing sentence of death—and the address was punctuated by dabs with a full-cocked and loaded revolver—the judge came crashing to the floor. The marble-topped table on which he sat collapsed into utter ruin. The sentence was to have been carried out at once, but a few of us, who still retained some vestige of our senses, with difficulty succeeded in getting an hour’s reprieve to enable the culprit to prepare for eternity. We led him out and let him escape. I shall never forget how he sprinted down the street.

Later, Macpherson and I sallied forth in search of adventure. We happened upon the Governor’s residence. Here an archway led into a small courtyard which was full of tropical plants. Another arched doorway led from the courtyard into the house, and over the apex hung a fine pair of koodoo horns. Two sentries paced the footway outside, but we had slipped in before they realised our intentions—Macpherson leading and I following, with misgivings, in his wake. When we looked round, there stood the two sentries barring the way we had entered by with fixed bayonets. Macpherson reached up, tore the koodoo horns from the wall, placed the skull to his chest and charged with a terrible yell. The sentries collapsed. One escaped; the other we captured and put in a sentry box, which we turned over on him. We stuck the bayoneted rifles into his Excellency’s flower-beds and departed, leaving the unhappy sentry a prone prisoner.

Next day the town was, except for ourselves, like a city of the dead. All the shops were shut—not a soul appeared. The soldiers were shut up in the fort, the cannon of which were trained on the streets. However, some sort of order was restored, negotiations were opened, and it was agreed that we were to load up the goods we had come to fetch early next morning. This we accordingly did. Then we drew our wagons some few miles out of town and held high wassail in the primeval bush.

Our wagons were almost entirely laden with gunpowder, and the loads were light. The gunpowder was contained in 100-pound kegs. These last were loosely built and hooped together with twigs. The explosive inside was done up in 5-pound bags. We also had a mitrailleuse, which was drawn by eight oxen. I well remember the name of this weapon, inscribed in large letters on a thick copper plate. It was “Le General Schüler.”

About three days’ trek from the port lay the Mattol Marsh—a hideous quagmire several hundred yards in width. On our forward journey we had felled trees and laid a corduroy road over it. This the empty wagons crossed with comparative ease, but now when loaded they broke it up with dire results. The barrels had to be carried across. There was no chance of a rest by the way as, on account of the gaping spaces between the staves, the kegs could not be laid down in the mud even for an instant. The bare recollection of that experience gives me toothache in the atlas bone. Then the wagons had to be taken asunder and carried across piecemeal, but this was not so bad, for we could take an occasional rest.

The Mattol was, alas! not the only marsh we had to cross. Soon, from much handling, the gunpowder barrels began to break up, and we had to deal with the bags. Then these began to give way, and loose powder permeated everything. We tasted it in our tea; we shook it out of our kits when we unrolled them each night. Strict orders against smoking anywhere near the wagons had been given, but no one, from the commander down, paid the least attention to these. I have seen several men lying on the ground smoking under a wagon, and when one climbed up to get his kit, watched small trickles of powder fall among the smokers. Once a grass fire swept towards us before a stiff breeze. We were then outspanned at the Komati Drift. An order was passed round that when the fire reached a certain point we were to leave the wagons to their fate and take to the river. This, by the way, was full of crocodiles. But suddenly the wind died away, so we rushed at the fire and beat it out with our shirts. It was evident that the Fates were determined we were not to be blown up.

Occasionally we trekked by moonlight. One night I was walking with two others some distance in front of the leading wagon. We carried no weapons. One man uttered a low “sh-h” and held up his hand. There, not five yards away, were a lion and a lioness crouched flat in the roadway. We stepped slowly backwards for about fifty yards and then stood not upon the order of our going until we met the convoy.

One morning buffalo were reported close to the camp. I sprang from my blankets and went after them. I wounded one badly and went on its spoor. The sun began to decline, and I attempted to get back to the wagons. But the country was flat and the trees stood high on every side. Soon the terrible fact came home to me that I was lost.

I had neither eaten nor drunk since the previous evening. The day was sultry; soon I began to suffer from raging thirst. I had only three cartridges left, having expended the others on the wounded buffalo, whose vanishing hindquarters had been my occasional target for several hours. But my thirst became so furious that I determined to shoot some animal and drink its blood. I reached a long and wide depression where trees were few, but which was full of straggling patches of reeds. Looking through one of the latter I became aware of several animals moving to my left. I crept to the end of the reed-patch to intercept them and—out stalked five lions. Two were full grown; three were cubs. The old couple paced majestically away; the cubs squatted funnily on their haunches and looked at me with quaint curiosity.

That night I perched in a tree, where I was driven from bough to bough by predatory ants. When the sun arose I got my bearings roughly. Fortunately the day was cool. Early in the afternoon I managed to strike the trail of the wagons. After walking on it for about an hour, I found I was going in the wrong direction. But I turned and staggered along until about midnight, when I reached the camp. Here I narrowly escaped being shot, for when the sentry challenged I could not answer, my lips, tongue and throat being like crackling leather. Thus ended the most horrible experience of my life.