It was a narrow escape, but the nine men got safely back to quarters,
but minus two of their horses. For the Boers had in every case been
well upon the alert; their lines had not been pierced, and they followed
up the retreating scouts till the searching fire from the kopje began to
tell upon their long line of skirmishers, and then they sullenly drew
back, but not before they had learnt that there were marksmen in the
regiment at Groenfontein as well as in their own ranks.
"That's something, Drew," said Dickenson as he watched the slow movement
of a light wagon drawn by mules. "But only to think of it: all that
trouble for nothing--worse than nothing, for they have shot those two
horses. Yes, worse than nothing," he continued, "for they would have
been something for the pot."
Each of the scouting parties gave the same account of the state of
affairs; that is to say, that though to all appearances the country
round was clear of the enemy, a keen watch was being kept up, and, turn
which way they would, Boers were ready to spring up in the most
unexpected places to arrest their course and render it impossible to
reach supplies and bring them in.
Their report cast a damp on the whole camp. For bad news travels fast,
and this was soon known.
"Sounds bad," said Dickenson cheerfully, "and just like them. They are
not going to run their heads into danger unless obliged. They mean to
lie low and wait for us, then turn us back to starve and surrender."
"And they'll find that we shall take a great deal of starving first,"
replied Lennox bitterly. "But I don't agree with you altogether. I
fully expect that, in spite of their failure to blow us up, it will not
be long before they contrive something else."
"Well, we shall not quarrel about that, old man," said Dickenson
cheerily. "If they do come on in some attack, every one here will be
delighted to see them. We should enjoy a good honest fight. What I
don't like is this going on shrinking and pulling the tongue farther
through the buckle. If it goes on like this much longer I shall have to
go to our saddler to punch a few more holes in my belt. I say, though,
one feels better after that draught of water. I believe if I had stayed
up yonder much longer I should have gone quite off my head, through
fancying things, for it was only imagination after all."
A fresh company occupied the kopje that evening, and once more perfect
silence reigned. There was one of the glorious displays of stars seen
so often in those clear latitudes, when the great dome of heaven seems
to be one mass of sparkling, encrusted gems.
Lennox had been standing outside his quarters for some time, enjoying
the coolness, and shrinking from going in to where the hut was hot and
stuffy and smelling strongly of the now extinguished paraffin-lamp,
mingled with a dash of the burned tobacco in Dickenson's pipe.
"I say," said the latter, "hadn't you better come in and perch? Nothing
like making your hay when the sun shines, and getting your forty winks
while you can."
"Quite right," replied Lennox in a low, dreamy voice; "but it's very
pleasant out here."
"That's true enough, no doubt, old man; but you'll be on duty to-morrow
night out yonder, and you can go on star-gazing then. Yah! Oh--oh dear
me, how sleepy I do feel!" he continued, yawning. "I'll bet a penny
that I don't dream once. Regularly worn out, that's how I am. There,
good-night if you won't come and lie down. I shall just allow myself
half a--Oh, hang it! I do call that too bad!"
For ere he could finish his sentence a rifle cracked somewhere near the
top of the kopje, followed by another and another; the bugles rang out,
and from the continued firing it seemed evident that the Boers were
going against their ordinary custom and making a night attack.
If they did, though, they were to find the camp ready for them, every
man and officer springing to his place and waiting for orders--those
given to Captain Roby being, as his men were so familiar with the spot,
to take half a company and reinforce the detachment on the kopje.
They found that the firing had completely ceased by the time they were
half-way up, and upon joining the officer in command there, to Captain
Roby's great satisfaction, he found a similar scene being enacted to
that which had taken place before him.
"Another false alarm, Roby," the officer said angrily. "Your fellows
started the cock-and-bull nonsense, and it has become catching. The
sentry here declares he saw a couple of figures coming down in the
darkness, and he fired. The idiot! There is nothing, of course, and
the colonel shall make an example of him."
Lennox was standing close up to the offender, and in spite of the
darkness could make out that the man was shivering.
"Come, come," said the young officer in a half-whisper; "don't go on
like that. You fancy you saw something?"
"I'm sure I did, sir," replied the sentry, grateful for a kind word
after the severe bullying he had received for doing what he believed to
be his duty. "I saw two of them, as plain as I can see you now. I was
regularly took aback, sir, for I hadn't heard a sound; but as soon as I
fired I could hear them rush off."
"You feel certain?"
"Yes, sir; and the captain says it was all fancy. If it was, sir, I
know--"
"Know what?" said Lennox, impressed by the man's manner. "Speak out."
"Oh, I know, sir," said the man again, with a shudder.
"Well, speak out; don't be afraid."
"Enough to make any man feel afraid, sir," half whimpered the man. "I
don't mind going into action, sir. I've shown afore now as I'd follow
my officers anywhere."
"Of course you would, my lad," said Lennox, patting the young fellow
encouragingly on the shoulder, for he could see that he was suffering
from a shock, and, doubtless from abstinence and weakness, was
half-hysterical.
"It's bad enough, sir, to be posted in the darkness upon a shelf like
that over there, expecting every moment to get a bullet in you; but when
it comes to anything like this, it makes a fellow feel like a coward."
"Who said coward?" said Dickenson, who had followed his companion and
now came up.
"I did, sir," said the man through his chattering teeth.
"Where is he?" said Dickenson. "I should like to look at him. I
haven't seen one lately."
"Here he is, sir," said the poor fellow, growing more agitated; "it's
me."
"Get out!" cried Dickenson good-humouredly. "You're not a coward.
There isn't such a thing in the regiment."
"Oh yes, there is, sir," whimpered the man. "It's all right, sir. I'm
the chap: look at me."
"Stop a moment," said Lennox quickly; "aren't you one of the men who
have been in the infirmary?"
"Yes, sir. This is the first time I've been on duty since."
"What was the matter with you?"
"Doctor said it was all on account of weakness, sir, but that I should
be better back in the fresh air--in the ranks."
"And you feel weak now?"
"Yes, sir; horrid. I'm ashamed of myself for being such a coward. But
I know now."
"Well, what do you know?" asked Lennox, more for the sake of calming the
man than from curiosity.
"I thought I was going to get all right again and see the war through,
if I didn't get an unlucky ball; but it's all over now. I've seen 'em,
and it's a fetch."
"A what?" cried Dickenson, laughing.
"Don't laugh, sir, please;" said the man imploringly. "It's too awful.
I see 'em as plain as I see you two gentlemen standing there."
"And who were they?" continued Dickenson; "the brothers Fetch?"
"No, sir; two old comrades of mine who 'listed down Plymouth way when I
did. We used to be in the same football team. They both got it at
Magersfontein, and they've come to tell me it's going to be my turn
now."
"Bah!" growled Dickenson. "Did they say so?"
"No, sir; they didn't speak," said the man, shivering; "but there they
were. I knew Tom Longford by his big short beard, and the other must
have been Mike Lamb."
"Oh, here you are," said the captain of the company. "You can go back
to quarters, and be ready to appear before the colonel in the morning."
"One moment, Captain Edwards," said Lennox gravely. "You'll excuse me
for speaking. This man is only just off the sick list; he is evidently
very ill."
"Oh yes, I know that, Mr Lennox," said the officer coldly; "he has a
very bad complaint for a soldier. Look at him. Has he told you that he
has seen a couple of ghosts?"
"Yes. He is weak from sickness and fasting, and imagined all that; but
I feel perfectly certain that he has seen some one prowling about here."
"Ghosts?" said the captain mockingly.
"No; spies."
"Psh! It's a disease the men have got. Fancy. Every fellow on duty
will be seeing the same thing now. There, that's enough of it."
"Look out!" cried Lennox angrily; and then in the same breath, "What's
that?"
For there was a sharp, grating sound as of stone against stone, and then
silence.
"Stand fast, every man," cried Lennox excitedly, seizing his revolver
and looking along the broad, rugged shelf upon which they stood in the
direction from which the sound had come.
"A lantern here," cried the captain as a sharp movement was heard, and
half-a-dozen men at a word from their officer doubled along the shelf
for a couple of dozen yards and then stood fast, while the other end of
the path was blocked in the same way.
Lennox's heart was beating hard with excitement, and he started as he
felt Dickenson grip his arm firmly.
Then all stood fast, listening, as they waited for the lantern to be
brought. Quite ten minutes of painful silence elapsed before a couple
of dim lights were seen approaching, the bearers having to come down
from the gun-platform; and when the two non-commissioned officers who
bore them approached, and in obedience to orders held them up, they
displayed nothing but swarthy, eager-looking faces, and the piled-up
rugged and weathered rocks on one side, the black darkness on the other.
"Come this way, sergeant," said Captain Edwards, and he, as officer in
command of the detachment that night, led on, followed closely by
Captain Roby and the two subalterns.
They went along in perfect silence, the lanterns here being alternately
held up and down so that the rugged shelf and the piled-up masses of
rock which formed the nearly perpendicular side of the kopje in that
part might be carefully examined.
This was done twice over, the party passing each time where their men
were blocking the ends of the shelf which had been selected for one of
the posts.
"It's strange," said Captain Roby at last. "I can see no loose stone."
"No," said Captain Edwards. "It was just as if a good-sized block had
slipped down from above. Let's have another look."
This was done, with no better result, and once more the party stood fast
in the dim light, gazing in a puzzled way.
"Can any one suggest anything?" said Captain Roby.
There was silence for a few moments, and then Lennox caught hold of
Dickenson's arm and gave it a meaning pressure as he turned to the two
captains, who were close together.
"I have an idea," he whispered. "Give the orders loudly for the men to
march off. Take them round to the south, and wait."
"What for?" said Captain Roby snappishly.
"I should like Dickenson and me to be left behind. I'll fire if there
is anything."
"Oh, rubbish!" said Captain Roby contemptuously.
"No," said his brother officer quietly. "It is worth trying." Then
turning to the two sergeants who bore the lanterns, he said, "When I say
put out those lights, don't do it; cover them sharply with greatcoats."
Directly after he gave his first order, when the lanterns rattled, and
all was dark.
Then followed the next orders, and tramp! tramp! tramp! the men marched
away like a relieving guard, Lennox and Dickenson standing fast with
their backs leaning against the rugged wall of rock, perfectly
motionless in the black darkness, and looking outward and down at the
faint light or two visible below in the camp.
As they drew back against the rock Lennox felt for his companion's hand,
which gripped his directly, and so they stood waiting.
To them the silence seemed quite appalling, for they felt as if they
were on the eve of some discovery--what, neither could have said; but
upon comparing notes afterwards each said he felt convinced that
something was about to happen, but paradoxically, at the same time, as
if it never would; and when a quarter of an hour must have passed, the
excitement grew more intense, as the pressure of their hot, wet hands
told, for they felt then that whatever was about to happen must befall
them then, if they were not interrupted by the return of their officers.
Each tried to telegraph to his companion the intensity of feeling from
which he suffered, and after a fashion one did communicate to the other
something of his sensations.
But nothing came to break the intense silence, and they stood with
strained ears, now gazing up at the glittering stars, and now down
through the darkness at the two feeble lights that they felt must be
those outside the colonel's quarters in the market-square.
"I don't know how it was," said Lennox afterwards, "but just at the last
I began somehow to think of being at the back of the colonel's hut that
night just after Sergeant James had put out the light upon discovering
the train."
"I felt that if the business went on much longer, something--some of my
strings that were all on the strain--would crack," interrupted
Dickenson.
"Yes," said Lennox; "I felt so too."
And this was how he was feeling--strained--till something seemed to be
urging him to cry out or move in the midst of that intense period, when
all at once he turned cold all down the back, for a long-drawn, dismal,
howling wail rose in the distance, making him shudder just as he had
seen the sentry quiver in his horror and dread.
"Bah! Hyena," he said to himself the next moment; and then a thrill ran
through him as he felt Dickenson's grip increase suddenly with quite a
painful pressure.
He responded to it directly, every nerve in his body quivering with the
greater strain placed upon it by what was happening, till every nerve
and muscle seemed to harden into steel. For the long expected--whatever
it might prove to be--the mystery was about to unfold itself, and in his
intense feeling it seemed to Lennox as if the glittering stars were
flashing out more light.
It was only a noise, but a noise such as Lennox felt that he must hear--
a low, dull, harsh, grating noise as of stone passing over stone; and
though he could see nothing with his eyes, mentally he knew that one of
the great time-bleached and weathered blocks of granite that helped to
form the cyclopean face of the kopje wall had begun to turn as on a
pivot.
This grating sound lasted for a few seconds only, and it came apparently
from a couple of yards away to his right, as he stood with his back
pressed against the rugged natural stones.
Then the noise ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and he listened, now
holding his breath in the vain hope that it would silence the heavy,
dull beating of his heart, whose throbs seemed to echo painfully in his
brain.
He pressed Dickenson's hand again, to feel from the return grip how
thoroughly his comrade was on the alert.
Then all was perfectly silent again, while a dull feeling of despair
began to assert itself as he felt that they were going to hear no more.
At last, with head wrenched round to the right, his revolver feeling wet
in his fingers and his eyes seeming to start with the strain of gazing
along the shelf at the brilliant stars before him, his nerves literally
jerked and he felt perfectly paralysed and unable to stir, for here, not
six feet away, he could make out against the starry sky the dimly-marked
silhouette of a heavily-built man.