Charge! Part 21

"Poor fellows!" said Denham as soon as the Sergeant had gone. "That's the horrible part of it, getting wounded and being sent back to hospital. It's what I dread."

"You won't attempt to mount to-day?" I said. "You'd better follow in one of the wagons."

"Think so?" he said quietly. "Well, we shall see."

I did see in the course of that morning. For, when the order was given to march, and the column wound down in and out among the stones of the pa.s.s, Denham was riding with the troop, looking rather white, and no doubt suffering a good deal; but he would not show it, and we rode away. For a despatch had been brought to the Colonel from the General in command of the forces, ordering the Light Horse to join him on the veldt a dozen miles away as soon as the British regiment of foot reached the mouth of the pa.s.s; and, as I afterwards learned, the Colonel's orders were to keep away from the kopjes and mountainous pa.s.ses, where the Boers had only to lie up and pick off all who approached, and wait for opportunities to attack them in the open.

It was Denham who told me, and also what the Colonel said, his words being, "Then we shall do nothing, for the Doppies will take good care not to give us a chance to cut them up in the plains."

As we rode down the pa.s.s we could see some of the enemy's sentries high up among the mountainous parts; but we were not to attack them there; and, with a good deal of growling amongst the men, we kept on. Then every one seemed to cheer up when, a couple of hours later, we came in sight of a long line of infantry steadily advancing, and the rocks rang soon afterwards with the men's cheers as they drew up to let us pa.s.s.

"No fear of the Boers getting past them," said Denham to me. "I shouldn't wonder if their orders are to mount the pa.s.s, go over the Nek, and hold it. Maybe we shall meet them again after we've made a circuit and got round the mountains and on to the plain."

Chapter Sixteen.

On the March.

Our next week or two seemed to be pa.s.sed in doing nothing but riding from place to place for the purpose of cutting off parties of Boers. Information was sent to the Colonel, generally from headquarters; but, whether because we were too long in coming, or because the Boers were too slippery, we always found they had not stopped to be cut off, but were gone. There was no doubt they had been at the places we reached, generally some farm, where the old occupier and his people received us in surly silence, and invariably declared there was nothing left to eat, for the Boers had stripped the place. This sullen reception was not because we were going to plunder them, for the orders were that everything requisitioned was to be paid for; it was solely from a feeling of pitiful racial hatred.

We reached a big and prosperous-looking farm one afternoon after a long hot ride, and I had been chatting with Denham more than once, and remarking how rapidly he had recovered from his injury, which he attributed to the healthy open-air life, and had also spoken with the sergeant, whose injury troubled him very little; while of our men, thirty who had received slight injuries had refused to go into hospital, and were now ready to laugh at any allusion to wounds.

We had reached, as I said, a big and prosperous-looking farm on the open veldt, hot, f.a.gged, hungry, and thirsty; and the first thing we saw was the disorder left after the encamping of a large body of men. There were the traces of the fire they had made, the trampling and litter left by horses, and the marks where wagon after wagon had been placed to form a laager; while in front of the long, low house a big, old, grey-bearded Boer stood smoking, with his hands in his pockets.

One of the officers rode forward to tell him that we were going to camp there for the night, and that he must supply sheep, poultry, grain for the horses, and fuel for the corps, at the regular market-prices, for which an order for payment would be given to him.

The officer was received with a furious burst of abuse in Dutch. There was nothing left on the farm. The Boers had been there and cleared the place; and if we wanted provisions of any kind we must ride on, for we should get nothing there.

The officer was getting used to this kind of reception, and he rode back at once to the Colonel, who nodded and gave an order, riding forward with the other officers to take possession of one of the rooms. In an instant the men began to spread about and search, and the farmer dashed down his pipe in a fury, to come running towards the officers, raging and swearing in Dutch as to what he would do; while, as soon as he saw half-a-dozen men approach the corrugated-iron poultry-house and proceed to wrench off the padlock, the old man rushed back into his house, and returned followed by his fat wife and two daughters, all well armed in some fas.h.i.+on or another, the farmer himself bearing a long rifle and thrusting his head and arm through a cartridge-belt. There seemed no doubt about his meaning mischief, but before he could thrust a cartridge into his piece it was wrested from his hands by one of the troopers; and others coming to the trooper's aid, the fierce old fellow was bundled back into his house, his people following, and a sentry placed at the door.

Rude and cruel? Well, perhaps so; but we were in an enemy's country-the country of a people who had forced a war upon us-and the Colonel had a couple of hundred people waiting to be fed. So we were fed amply, for the farm was amply stocked; and the order the officer left in the old Boer's hands in return for his curses was ample to recompense him for what had been forcibly taken.

Denham and I slept pretty close to one another in one of the barns that night, revelling in the thick covering of mealie-leaves which formed our bed. Sweet, fresh, and dry, it seemed glorious; but I did not sleep soundly all the time for thinking of what might happen to us during the darkness. Once it was whether the farmer would send on messengers to bring back the Boer party who had preceded us, and give us an unpleasant surprise. Another time, as I lay on my back peering up at the openings in the corrugated-iron roof through which the stars glinted down, I found myself thinking of how horrible it would be if an enemy's hand thrust in a lighted brand; and in imagination I dwelt upon the way the dry Indian-corn leaves would burst into a roaring furnace of fire, in which some of us must perish before we could fight our way out. It was not a pleasant series of thoughts to trouble one in the dead of the night, and just then I heard a sigh.

"Awake, Denham?" I whispered.

"Yes-horribly," he replied. "I say, smell that?"

"What?" I replied, feeling startled.

"Some idiot's lit his pipe, and we shall all be burned in our-beds, I was going to say: I mean in this mealie straw."

"I can't smell it," I said.

"What! Haven't you got any nose?"

"Yes: I smell it now," I said; "but it's some one outside-one of the sentries, I think."

"Don't feel sure-do you?"

"Yes, I do now. Strict orders were given that no one was to smoke in the barns."

"Did you hear the order given?"

"Yes; and Sergeant Briggs muttered about it, and said it would serve the old Boer right if his hams were burned down."

"So it would," said my companion; "but I don't want us to be burned in them. Oh dear!"

"What's the matter?" I said.

"I wish this old war was over, and the same wish comes every night when I can't sleep; but in the daytime I feel as different as can be, and begin desiring that we could overtake the Boers and all who caused the trouble, and give them such a thras.h.i.+ng as should make them sue for peace. I say-"

"Yes," I replied.

"That's all. Good-night. I can't smell the smoking now."

Neither could I.

Chapter Seventeen.

We Make a Discovery.

"Oh, I don't like it; I don't like it," cried Denham to me, as he rode up to my side while we were cantering over the veldt one day. "We always seem to be running away."

"Manoeuvring," I said, with a laugh.

"Oh, hang so much manoeuvring!" he muttered. "The Boers set it all down to cowardice, and hold us in contempt."

"It doesn't matter what they think," I said, as we rode on over the splendid open highland, with the brisk bracing air whistling past our ears, and our horses seeming thoroughly to enjoy the run; "we've shown the enemy time after time that we are not cowards."

"But we're running away again; we're running away again."

"Nonsense," I said; "we're altering our position. I declare I'm getting to be a better soldier than you are. Would it be right to stand fast here and let the Boers surround us and lie snugly behind the rocks to take careful aim and shoot us all down, horse and man?"

"Oh, I suppose not," groaned my companion; "but I hate-I loathe-running away from these bullet-headed double-Dutchmen. They think it so cowardly."

"Let them, in their ignorance," I said. "It seems to me far more cowardly to hide one's self behind a stone and bring down with a rifle a man who can't reach them."

"Perhaps so. But where are we making for?"

"That clump of rocks right out yonder, that looks like a town."

"But they're making for that too," said Denham, shading his eyes by pulling down the rim of his soft felt hat.