There were long faces among the men when they heard what was expected of
them. Night was terrible to them. They were low-spirited, and John had
to refrain from stimulating them with a full meal; there would be danger
in lighting fires. But he promised them a feast when the work was done.
To march silently, to keep together, to do exactly what they were told:
that was the sum of his exhortation. When he left them to consider it,
some grumbled, others talked of slinking away. But one reminded them
that these wasungu had slain lions and rhinoceros, why should they not
slay bad men too? And they kept their promises: if they said there
should be a feast, a feast there would certainly be. So they took
comfort, and began to talk bravely of the deeds they would do.
Before they set forth, John set Bill to gather some bundles of dry grass
and press them tight. Then he asked Said Mohammed to spare him a
quantity of the methylated spirit he had brought for cooking. He poured
some of this into his pocket-flask from the Bengali's tin can.
"You will remain here, Said Mohammed," he said. "I shall leave five or
six men who have most felt the strain of marching."
"Respectfully, sir, that is against the grain. I go where honour calls.
Never say die. I gird up my loins and follow into thick of the fray."
"All right. Just as you please. Keep close to us, that's all."
"I will stick closer than a brother, sir."
Some few minutes past ten o'clock, under a sky whose blackness was
scarce broken by the stars, John and the Wanderobbo led the way out of
the camp, each carrying a bundle of dried grass. Immediately behind
them marched Said Mohammed, then Coja and the rest of the men in single
file, Ferrier bringing up the rear. They moved silently, and the
half-dozen men left behind in the camp, peering out through the boma,
neither saw nor heard them when the last man was a dozen yards away.
John did not try to find the track of his former journey. It was too
dark to see it. Bill might have discovered it by his wonderfully keen
sense of touch, but there was no need. All they had to do was to march
due west until they struck the stream; then to hug its bank until they
arrived at the elephant grass.
It was slow work, and not without its anxieties for the white men. Every
now and then John heard a gulping sound behind, and knew that some one
was afraid. Once or twice he halted. The men's hard breathing spoke of
terror rather than effort. At such times he passed down the line,
speaking quietly to reassure them; then, returning to the head, he bent
to the ground and struck a match under his hat, to check the course by
his pocket-compass, and went on again. Once there was a rustling sound
upon the left hand, and the scared negroes made clicks with their
mouths, and some would have run had not John, in a fierce whisper,
called to them to stand, and asked whether they feared an antelope.
They came at length to the stream, the gurgle of its waters making a
pleasant music in John's ears. Half the journey was done. So that he
might not come to the stream near the enemy's camp he had directed his
course somewhat south of his former line; and it was a long march
up-stream before they came to the elephant grass. John avoided the
brink, for fear of lurking crocodiles. Once he almost stumbled upon a
hippopotamus asleep in the sedge, and thought it lucky he was at the
head of his men, whom the snort of the beast, as it rose and shambled
away into the darkness, might have infected with panic. He heaved a
sigh of relief as he came at last to the tall, thick grass standing high
above his head. Halting, he passed word down the line to tread even
more cautiously and in even deeper silence, trusting that the rustling
which could scarcely be avoided would, if heard in the camp, seem to the
enemy only the sound of animals moving in the grass. Then he went on
again.
Peering out through the screen, he presently saw a dull glow some
distance to the right. There lay the camp; within the boma fires were
burning. Once more the party halted, and John, moving stealthily,
sought Ferrier to consult with him.
"I'm going to set fire to the boma," he said in a whisper. "When you
see the flames, fire off all your rifles and lead the men at a rush for
the camp. They can shout then like the army of Gideon. We're
north-west of it; they'll be startled out of their sleep, and rush for
the gate on the south-west; at least I hope so."
"You'd better let me fire the boma, John. You'll lead the men better
than I should; they know you best. Besides, it's my turn."
"Rubbish!" said John. "I've been here before."
"But I can't miss the boma if I go straight ahead. I insist on it, old
chap; I'm sure it will be best. Hand over your grass and the spirit;
I've got matches."
"Your arm's not thoroughly sound yet."
"All the more reason. It doesn't require much muscle to strike a match.
Come on; it must be past midnight; there's no time to lose."
John gave him the materials somewhat reluctantly. Ferrier pressed his
hand and slid away into the darkness. Time passed very slowly. The men
grew fidgety; John heard the strange gulping in their throats, and the
little noises they made as they moved worried him, lest they were heard
in the camp. True, there were other sounds: the hum of insects, a
lion's roar in the distance, the laughing bark of a hyena; but these
were momentary, not continuous like the rustling of the grass, which
there was no breeze to account for. As minute after minute passed, and
there was still no sign, John grew more and more anxious. The boma was
less than two hundred yards distant. He durst not strike a light to
look at his watch, but surely there had been time to go and come and go
again. What was happening?
Ferrier, stealing across the ground with no more sound than a snake
might have made, guided always by the faint glow from the fires, had
covered, as he guessed, two-thirds of the distance when he thought it
prudent to drop upon hands and knees, lest, upright, his form should be
descried by some keen-sighted sentry. He had crawled thus some twenty
yards further when suddenly he saw dimly before him a something, like an
irregular hedge, no more than four feet high, stretching athwart his
path. Was this the boma? Surely it bespoke unusual security in the
enemy if they had contented themselves with so low a defence. Their
bomas were commonly six feet high or more. He crept on more stealthily
until he touched the obstruction: it was a thorny hedge. He tried to
peer through it, expecting to see the camp-fires; but he looked into
blackness, save for the dull red glow in the sky. Was it possible that
the enemy were not so confident after all, but had erected a double
barrier? Or was the hedge natural?
He crawled to the left. The hedge had a regular curve. It must have
been placed by men. Raising himself gradually to his feet until his
eyes were just level with the top, he looked over. Yes; there was the
true boma, a dark mass thirty feet away. Through its interstices he saw
streaks of dim light from the fires burning within. To set fire to the
outer hedge would be useless; within the boma the enemy would be still
secure, and the conflagration would but give them light to take aim at
their assailants. He must cross the hedge.
But how? By a flying leap? This would expose him to the view of any
one on watch, for though the night was dark, it was not so black but
that a moving object could be seen. By clambering over? This would be
attended by the same risk and by others. He might indeed scramble over
at the expense of torn hands and clothing, though there was the danger
of being held fast by the tenacious wait-a-bit thorns of which the
obstacle was made. But his movements must cause such a crackling and
creaking of the interlaced branches as could not fail to alarm any one
who chanced to be awake in the camp, no matter at what part of it.
Leaping and climbing being equally out of the question, what course
remained?
Ferrier was not for nothing the grandson of a man who had roughed it in
the backwoods of Canada. If acquired qualities are not inherited, the
stock of which he came must have been sturdy and dogged in grain. At
any rate, Charles was not the man to be baulked. Dropping on his knees
again, he dug his fingers into the soil beneath the hedge. It was
gravel, like the ground he had crossed in coming from the river. Very
carefully he began to scrape out a hole, intending to persevere until it
was large enough for him to squeeze his body through. He soon found
that the task was not to be easy. The soil was so light and mobile
that, as he scraped, it tended to slip at the sides and fill up the hole
he was so laboriously excavating. Further, he felt the hedge, at the
point where he was undermining it, subside, with a rustling and creaking
which, faint as it was, might easily catch the ear of a wary guard.
Fortunately the subsidence was soon checked. The base of the hedge was
composed of stout branches which yielded but slightly, and in a few
minutes the settling down ceased.
Relieved on this score, Ferrier scraped away at the hole, thinking of
John, who was no doubt wondering at the long delay. He worked until his
fingers were sore. At last the hole was large enough for him to wriggle
under the hedge. He groped with his hands for any thorns that might be
sticking out downwards from the tangle above, and finding several, cut
them off with his knife. Then, shoving his bundles of grass before him,
he crawled into the hole and began to worm his way through. It was a
tight fit, and the difficulty was all the greater because of the need
for silence. More than once as his body, pressed close against the
lower part of the hedge, put some strain upon it, there was a sharp
creak when his passage freed the branch. At last he was through,
scratched, hot, and breathless, and with a feeling that the various
parts of his clothing were in very unnatural relation to one another.
But he was through: that was the main thing; and pausing only to take
breath, he ran in a stooping posture across the space between the outer
and the inner defences.
All was quiet within the boma. Ferrier maintains to this day that
snoring is an infirmity of civilization, for the sleepers emitted no
sound. He lost no time in completing his task. First he soaked the
bundles of grass thoroughly with methylated spirit, having postponed
this until he reached the boma, lest evaporation should diminish the
effect. Then he thrust them beneath the boma, choosing a place where it
was thick and the light from the fires shone through less freely than
elsewhere. Then he struck a match and applied it. Instantly there was
a great flame; the dry thornbushes of the boma took fire readily.
Ferrier slipped away to be out of the glare, but had gone only a few
steps when he heard a soft patter of feet behind him. A moment after,
the air was rent with rifle cracks and a din of shouting, from within
the boma and from a distance. He turned to meet the man approaching,
and saw the form of a big negro silhouetted against the glare. Ferrier
was unarmed save for his clasp-knife, and he had not made up his mind
what to do when a shot whistled past him: the negro had fired at him
while still running. Before the man could draw a knife or turn in his
tracks Ferrier threw himself upon him, trying to wrest the rifle from
his hand. The two fell together; the rifle dropped to the ground; and
black man and white were locked in a desperate wrestle. Ferrier felt
the negro's arms about him, straining to crush him or to break his back.
Oblivious of the tumult around him--the yells and shots within the boma,
the shouts of the assailants, the crackle and roar of the
flames--Ferrier strove to free himself from the strangling embrace,
conscious that he was no match in muscle for his powerful opponent. He
had almost given himself up for lost when the man's grip relaxed, and
with a heavy groan he lay still. Ferrier sprang up. By the light of
the blazing boma he saw the men of his party at two points of the outer
hedge, some leaping over it, some slashing at it with their knives and
tearing it down. None of them were firing; after the first discharge of
their rifles John had ordered them to rush for the camp. Evidently the
big negro had been struck down by a shot from his own friends.
Ferrier stood for a moment, marvelling at the din. Then he saw that
John's men had crossed the outer hedge and were swarming towards the
boma. Shouting at the top of his voice lest he should be butchered by
his own party, he left the wounded man on the ground and joined them.
With John at their head they were sweeping round towards the gate. The
firing from within the boma had now ceased; the shouts were those of the
assailants alone; and when the excited throng reached the gate, they saw
in the ruddy glare the enemy streaming in frantic haste towards the
river. Many an arrow was sped after them; a few of the rearmost
narrowly escaped capture. Seeing that they were hopelessly routed, John
shouted to his men to refrain from pursuit and retire within the boma.
Then, telling off a dozen men to stand at the gate and watch against any
rally of the enemy, he called to the rest to help him to check the fire.
He left the part that was fiercely burning, and ordered the men to tear
down a portion on each side of it, so as to make two large gaps across
which the flames could not spring. The work was assisted by the absence
of wind. The portion around the spot where Ferrier had kindled the fire
soon burnt itself out; the remainder was saved. Within ten minutes
after the first blaze the enemy were scattered in confusion, and the
camp was in John's hands.