The Kopje Garrison Part 51

The next instant there was a tremendous concussion, the stone giving him a violent blow, and as the sky above seemed to blaze there was a roar like thunder, then a perceptible pause, another roar, again a pause, and another roar.

Then for a few moments the young officer lay deafened and feeling stunned, till beneath the pall of smoke which hung over him he opened his eyes and saw the sergeant kneeling by his side with his lips moving.

d.i.c.kenson stared at him wonderingly, while he saw the horrified look in the man's face and its workings as he kept on moving his lips, and finally half-raised his young officer and laid him down again.

"What's the matter?" said d.i.c.kenson-at least he thought he did-he felt as if he had said so; but somehow he could not hear himself speak for the cras.h.i.+ng sound of many bells ringing all together.

He did not for the moment realise what had happened, but like a flash the power of thinking came back, and drawing a deep breath, he tried to get up, but could hardly stir. Something seemed to hold him down.

"Give me your hand, sergeant," he said, but still no words seemed to come, and he repeated what he wished to speak; but before he had completed his sentence, he grasped the fact that the sergeant's manner had changed, for he rose up, felt behind him, looked at him again, and seemed to speak, for his lips moved.

"Are you hurt?" d.i.c.kenson said, in the same way.

The sergeant's lips moved and he shook his head, looking the while as if he were not hurt in the least.

"Then why don't you speak?" said d.i.c.kenson.

The man smiled and pointed to his ears.

"The explosion has deafened you?" said d.i.c.kenson dumbly, for still he could not hear a word. "What do you mean? Oh, I see."

For the sergeant clapped him on the chest, and then placing his shoulder against the stone, he seemed to be exerting all his strength to force it uphill a little, succeeding so well that the next moment d.i.c.kenson felt himself slip, glided clear of the sergeant's legs, and rose to his own, while the man leaped aside and the great block slipped two or three yards before it stopped.

"Then I was caught by the stone?" said d.i.c.kenson wonderingly. "I felt it move."

He felt sure now that he had said those words; but in his confused state, suffering as he was from the shock, he could only wonder why the sergeant should begin feeling him over, and, apparently satisfied that nothing was broken, begin hurrying him along in the direction taken by the retreating force, which, now that the dense cloud of smoke was lifting, he could see steadily marching away in the distance, but with a group of about a dozen lingering behind.

Just then the sergeant stopped, unslung his rifle, placed his helmet on the top, and held it up as high as he could, till d.i.c.kenson saw a similar signal made by the party away ahead.

"They know we're all right," said d.i.c.kenson, still, as it seemed, dumbly: and the sergeant nodded and smiled.

"It was an awful crash. I mean they were terrible crashes, sergeant."

There was another nod, and after a glance back the sergeant hurried him along a little faster.

"Can you-no, of course you can't-hear whether the Boers are calling out now?"

The sergeant shook his head.

"Poor wretches!" said d.i.c.kenson. "But they were too far off to be hurt."

The sergeant nodded.

"Here, I can't understand this," said d.i.c.kenson.

"You pointed to your ears and signified to me that the explosions had made you as deaf as a post."

The sergeant turned to him, looking as if he were trying to check a broad grin, as he pointed to his officer's ears. That made all clear.

"Why, it is I who am deaf," cried d.i.c.kenson excitedly; and almost at the same moment something seemed to go crack, crack in his head, and his hearing had come back, with everything that followed sounding painfully loud.

"And no wonder, sir," said the sergeant. "It was pretty sharp. My ears are singing now. Does it hurt you where you were nipped by the stone?"

"Feels a bit pinched, that's all."

"And you're all right beside, sir?"

"Yes, I think so, sergeant."

"That's good. Well, sir, you did it."

"What! blew up the wagons? Yes, sergeant, I suppose we've done our work satisfactorily. But do you think the Boers would be hurt?"

"If they were, sir, it was not bad enough to make them stop singing out for help. I heard them quite plainly after the explosions. Can you walk a little faster, sir?"

"Oh yes, I think so. I'm quite right, all but this singing noise in my ears. I say, though, what about the enemy?"

"I don't know anything about them, sir; the kopje hides them for the present, but once they make out how few we are, I expect they'll come on with a rush; and the worst of it is, they're mounted. But it'll be all right, sir. The colonel said he was sending out a covering party to help us in, didn't he?"

"Yes," replied d.i.c.kenson.

"Oh, we shall keep them off. They'll begin sniping as soon as they get a chance, but they'll never make a big attack in the open field like we're going over now."

A very little while after they overtook the party hanging back till they came up, Captain Edwards being with the men, ready to congratulate them on the admirable way in which their task had been carried out.

The brisk walking over the veldt in the clear, bright air rapidly dissipated d.i.c.kenson's unpleasant sensations, and when the main body was overtaken the young officer would have felt quite himself again if it had not been for the dull, heavy sense of misery which a.s.serted itself: for constantly now came the ever-increasing belief that he must accept the worst about his comrade, something in his depressed state seeming to repeat to him the terrible truth-that poor Drew Lennox must be dead.

He found himself at last side by side with the major, who as they went on began to question him about his friend's disappearance, and he frowned when d.i.c.kenson gravely told him his fears.

"No, no," said the major; "we must hope for better things than that. He'll turn up again, d.i.c.kenson. We must not have our successful raid discounted by such a misfortune.-Eh, what's that?"

"Boers in sight, sir," said Sergeant James. "Mounted men coming on fast."

"Humph! Too soon," said the major, and he proceeded to make the best of matters. The ambulance party was signalled to hurry forward, and a message sent to the little rear-guard with the store wagons and cattle to press forward with their convoy to the fullest extent. Then, as the mounted Boers came galloping on and divided in two parties, right and left, to head off the convoy, the eager men were halted, faced outward, and, waiting their time till the galloping enemy were nearly level at about three hundred yards' distance, so accurate a fire was brought to bear that saddles were emptied and horses went down rapidly. Five minutes of this was sufficient for the enemy, the men swerving off in a course right away from the firing lines, and, when out of reach of the bullets, beginning to retreat.

"Has that settled them?" said Captain Edwards.

"No," said the major; "only made them savage. They'll begin to try the range of their rifles upon us now. Open out and hurry your men on, for the scoundrels are terribly good shots."

The speaker was quite right, for before long bullets began to sing in the air, strike up the dust, and ricochet over the heads of the men, to find a billet more than once in the trembling body of some unfortunate ox. But fighting in an open plain was not one of the Boers' strong points; the cover was scarce, they had their horses with them, and the little British party was always on the move and getting nearer home. Several bold attempts were made to head them off, but they were thwarted again and again; but in spite of his success, the major began to grow frantic.

"Look at those blundering oxen, d.i.c.kenson," he cried. "It's a regular funeral pace over what will be our funerals-the brutes! We shall have to get on and leave them to their fate. I'll try a little longer, though. I say, we must be half-way now."

"Yes; but unfortunately there's a fresh body of the enemy coming up at a gallop," said d.i.c.kenson, who had paused to sweep the veldt with his field-gla.s.s. "Yes, twice as many as are out here."

"What!" cried the major. "Well, there's no help for it; we shall have to leave the cattle behind. Send a man forward to tell the convoy guard to halt till we come up, and let the cattle take their chance."

"The men with the wagons too, sir?"