Charge! Part 12

Chapter Twelve.

Into the Fire.

"What about breakfast? Have you had any?" said Denham.

"No," I replied; "but I have some with me;" and taking out a portion of what was left over from the previous afternoon, I proceeded to make up for what was lacking, eating with the better appet.i.te for seeing that Joeboy was busy over one of the big sandwiches provided for him by Aunt Jenny.

This done, I seemed to forget my injuries, and rode on with the little troop, watching the agile way in which Joeboy made his way forward, well in advance and showing no sign of fear.

Mounted men advancing up the rugged pa.s.s had very little chance of keeping themselves concealed. Here and there a bend in the narrow valley helped us; but there was always the knowledge that, if the enemy were in force up by the neck of the pa.s.s, they had plenty of niches among the mountains on either side to which they could climb and watch us till well within range of their rifles, when shot after shot and puff after puff of white smoke would appear, with very different effect, I felt, from those fired in the darkness of the past night's scare.

All this was very suggestive of danger; but somehow I did not feel alarmed. There was too much excitement in the business, and I was flushed with a feeling of triumph at being so soon in a position to retaliate upon the people who had used me so ill.

I rode on, then, for some distance behind my officer, as I now began to consider him, till the valley opened out, and he reined up a little to allow me to come alongside, so that he could question me about the track higher up. I told him all I could, and endeavoured to impress upon him that it would be a very bad position for his men if the Boers sighted them.

"You would find the ground so bad and enc.u.mbered with rough stones," I said, "that it would be impossible to gallop back."

"But we don't want to gallop back," he said, with a laugh. "That's all capital about the bad road, and sounds sensible as a warning; but you must not talk about galloping back. If the enemy does show we shall dismount and use our rifles, retiring slowly from cover to cover. But you'll soon know our ways in the Light Horse."

"I hope so," I said; "but of course I am no soldier yet, and very ignorant."

"Not of the use of your rifle, Val, my lad," he said. "I used to envy you."

"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "Of course I could shoot a bit. My father began to teach me very early."

"I don't believe I can shoot so well now as you did two years ago, when we went up the country. I don't know what you can do now. Why, Val, I expect you'll soon prove yourself to be a better soldier than any of us, for our drill is precious rough; but we are improving every day."

"You have been farther up than this?" I said, to change the conversation, which was making me, a lad accustomed only to our solitary farm-life, feel awkward and uncomfortable, with a suspicion that my companion was bantering me.

"No," he replied; "only about a hundred yards farther than where we met this morning."

"Then you'll find the riding worse than you expect."

"Well, it will be practice," he said. "But I say, how that n.i.g.g.e.r of yours scuffles along! He's leaving us quite behind."

"He is sure-footed and accustomed to the rocks," I said as I watched Joeboy, who was getting higher and higher up the precipice to our left, as well as higher up the pa.s.s. "He wants to get up to where he can look over the Boers' position."

"He had better mind," said Denham. "You ought to have taken away those bits of vanity before he went into action."

"What bits of vanity?" I said.

"Those white ostrich-feathers. They make him stand out so clear to a shooter. Ah! he's down."

Just then Joeboy was seen to drop forward right out of sight.

"No," I said; "that was one of his jumps;" and I spoke confidently, for I had often seen him make goat-like leaps when we had been out shooting among the hills.

"You're wrong," said my companion confidently. "Poor fellow! let's get level with the place where he tumbled. I'm sure that was a fall."

"Wait a few minutes," I said, "and you'll see him perhaps a hundred yards farther on."

I proved to be quite right, for we soon saw Joeboy climbing steadily on just as I had said, and he kept on getting higher and higher till we were up to the spot where I had pa.s.sed so unpleasant a night.

"My word, you did have a bad time of it! Why, if you had gone over there it would have killed this beautiful little horse of yours."

"Then I shouldn't have found the Light Horse," I said quietly; but I couldn't help feeling a bit of a s.h.i.+ver as I gazed at the depth below where we had stopped.

After that, as we rode on, keeping a good lookout, I began to ask a few questions about the war which had so suddenly broken out and come like a surprise upon us at our quiet and retired home.

"Oh," said my companion, "it is only what many people expected. The Boers have never been satisfied about being under England. Plenty of them are sensible enough, and think that the proper thing to do is to attend to their farms and grazing cattle; but there are a set of discontented idiots among them who have stirred them up with a lot of political matter, telling them they are slaves of England's tyrannical rule, and that it is time to strike for their freedom, till they have believed that they are ill-treated. So now they have risen, and say that they are going to drive all the Rooineks, as they call us English, into the sea, quite forgetting that if we had not helped them the savage tribes around them would have overrun their country and turned them out."

"Will they drive us into the sea?" I asked.

"What do you think?" said Denham, with a laugh. "Do you think we are the sort of people to let a party of rough farmers turn us out of Natal, just because they have been stirred up to fight by a gang of political adventurers? Is your father going to give up his farm that he has spent years of his life in making out of the wilderness?"

"What?" I cried angrily. "No! I should think not."

"Well, that's bringing it home to you, my lad. I said your father's farm. His is only one instance."

"It isn't as if we wanted to turn the Boers out," I said.

"Of course not. All we want is for them to behave like peaceable neighbours, and obey the laws. They want what they call freedom, which is as good as saying that English laws make people slaves. We don't feel much like slaves-do we?"

"Is that the reason they are at war with us?"

"Something of that kind," said the Lieutenant, "as far as I understand it. All politics, and they are the most quarrelsome things in the world. People are always fighting about them somewhere."

"But-" I began.

"Oh, don't ask me," said my companion; "that's as much as I understand about it. All I say is that it's a great pity people should be shooting at one another over what ought to be settled by a bit of talk. But, I say, look out. What does that mean? Halt!"

The men drew rein on the instant, as I looked forward, expecting to see a puff of white smoke ahead, for Joeboy suddenly dropped down behind a block of stone high up in front, and from there began to make signals, just as if he were out in rough ground with me on the veldt and had sighted game.

"He has seen the Boers," I said excitedly. "Look! He says there are hundreds of them."

"No, he doesn't," said my companion gruffly; "he's only flouris.h.i.+ng his arms about like a windmill gone mad."

"But that's his way of signalling a big herd of game," I said, "and-"

Before I could say more, puff, puff, puff arose the tiny white clouds of smoke, followed by the cracking of the rifles, taken up by the echoes till there was a continuous roar; while phit, phit, phit, bullets began to drop about us, striking the stones, and others pa.s.sed overhead with an angry buzz like so many big flies.

"Retire!" shouted my companion. "It's of no use to waste ammunition. They're in strong force up yonder.-Here, you, Moray, what are you about?"

"Nothing," I said sternly; "only looking for my man."

"But didn't you hear my order?" shouted Denham; and before I could do anything to prevent him he caught Sandho's rein and put spurs to his horse.

"Don't do that," I cried angrily. "I can't go and leave my poor fellow in the lurch. I'm afraid he's. .h.i.t."