Charge! Part 35

"You know?" I cried, staring at the black's calm, imperturbable countenance.

"Um? Yes."

"Why, what could be done?" I said, excited by the black's cool and confident way, knowing as I did from old experience how full of ingenuity the brave fellow was.

"Um?" he said thoughtfully, as he still watched the Boer lines. "No good to fight; Doppie too many."

"Yes," said Denham impatiently. "You said so before."

"Um?" said Joeboy, taking his eyes from the gla.s.s a moment or two to glance at the speaker, but turning away and raising the gla.s.s again; "Joeboy know."

"Let's have it, then," said Denham, "for hang me if I can see how it could be done."

"Big fool black fellow drive wagon," said Joeboy, still gazing through the gla.s.s, as if he could see those of whom he spoke. "'Nother big fool black fellow vorloper. Both fast sleep under wagon. Boss Val talk like Boer: double-Dutch."

"Is that right?" said Denham.

"Oh yes," I said. "I can speak like a Boer if it is necessary."

"Um? Yes," said Joeboy quietly. "Think Doppie talky, Boss Val take Joeboy and go in a dark night up to wagon. Stoop down and kick big black fool driver and big black fool vorloper. 'Get up!' he say. 'Want sleep alway? Get up, big fool! Trek!'"

"What?" I cried excitedly.

"Um? Talk like Doppie, Boss Val talk. Big fool get up an' inspan. Boss Val get up on box an' keep call driver big black fool, like Doppie. Joeboy walk 'long o' vorloper. Tell 'im Joeboy 'tick a.s.sagai in um back if he talk, and drive right 'way."

"Ha!" I said, with a heavy expiration of the breath. "But do you understand what he means?"

"Oh yes, I understand," said Denham, laughing; "but where are the Doppies going to be all the while?"

"Lying somewhere about, of course, asleep," I said excitedly; "but there would be no sentries over the wagons; and, as he says, the black foreloper and driver would be sleeping underneath."

"Oh, that's right enough," said Denham impatiently. "But the noise, the rattle of the wagon, the getting of the oxen, and all the rest of it?"

"The oxen would be all lying down with the trek-rope between them, and they'll quietly do what their black driver and foreloper wish. I think it could be done."

"My dear boy, it's madness."

"It isn't," I said angrily. "Joeboy is right, and a trick like this would perhaps succeed when force would fail. We must capture one of those wagons."

"Oh, I'd have the lot while I was about it," cried Denham, laughing.

"Be sensible," I cried pettishly. "Joeboy is right. Can't you see that it is the sheer impudence of the thing that would carry it through?"

"No, old chap," he replied; "that I can't."

"Well, I can," I said firmly. "The black driver and foreloper could be roused out of their sleep, and they take it as a matter of course that they were to drive the wagon somewhere else, and obey at once, especially if they are hurried by some one who speaks like a Boer."

"Well, I grant that's possible," said Denham; "but what about the Boer sentries and outposts? They'd stop you before you'd gone straight away for a hundred yards."

"I shouldn't go straight away," I said, "but along by the front; and if we were stopped, Joeboy could tell the outpost we were ordered to change position-to go on to the other end of the line. What would the outpost care or think about it? All he would think would be that a wagon-load of stores was being s.h.i.+fted, and let us pa.s.s. Then I should tell Joeboy to begin creeping out towards the east yonder, and keep on till we were out of bearing before striking away for the kopje here. Once we had got clear off we could keep steadily on all through the night, and at daybreak you would be watching for us, and send out a detachment to bring us in."

"Splendid, my boy-in theory," said Denham; "but it would not work out in practice."

"Think not?"

"A hundred to one it wouldn't," cried Denham firmly.

"Well, I think it would," I said-"and from the cool daring of the thing."

"And what about your horse? That would be enough to betray you."

"No take Sandho," said Joeboy, who had been listening attentively.

"Of course not," I said. "We should walk right across to the Boer lines, getting off as soon as it was dark."

"Why not go in disguise as a minstrel?" said Denham banteringly-"like King Alfred did when he went to see about the Danes? Have you got a harp, old chap?"

"No," I said coolly.

"Well, it doesn't matter, because I don't believe you could play it. But a banjo would be better for the Doppies, or-I have it-an accordion! Haven't one in your pocket, I suppose?"

"Why can't you be serious?" I said.

"I am, old fellow. Banjo, concertina, or accordion, either would do; and if you could sing them one or two of their popular Dutch songs it would be the very thing."

"Don't banter," I said dryly.

"Then don't you propose impossibilities. There, they are cooking supper again, so let's get down and see about a bit of-ahem! you know. Whatever it is, we must eat. I almost wish I were a horse, though, and could go out on the veldt and browse on the herbage. Here, I say, I've got a far better Utopian scheme than yours."

"What is it?" I replied quietly, for I felt that he was going to chaff me.

"Well," he said, "it's this. You know how imitative monkeys are?"

I nodded.

"Then all we have to do is to make a ring of our men round the kopje there, and drive the baboons into the court here. From the court we could turn them into one of the pa.s.sages between the walls, stop up the ends, and capture the lot."

"To eat?" I said sarcastically.

"Eat, man? No; to drill, and teach them to forage for us, just as the Malays teach the monkeys to pick coco-nuts for them."

"Drill them? Ah! there is a baboon called a 'drill.' Yes, go on," I said.

"We could send them out every night, and they'd come back laden with mealies for us; and there you are."

"Nice evening, gentlemen," said Sergeant Briggs, who had just climbed to our side. "I've been using the Major's gla.s.s. My word! they've got wagon after wagon loaded with stores across yonder. Is there any way of cutting out one or two, for we must not go on living upon horse?"

I looked hard at the speaker, and then at Denham, and the result was that we astonished the Sergeant, for both Denham and I burst out laughing, and Joeboy smiled as widely as he could.