The Making of an Army
An Embargo--Federation--Gunpowder--An Object-Lesson--The Great
Palaver--After Many Years--Pikes--The Call to Arms
In the exchange of confidences Herr Schwab informed Tom that he had been
for several months wandering about with his donkeys and his samples,
booking orders for his firm. He had for the most part confined himself
to the villages in the vicinity of the Victoria Nyanza; but having heard
rumours of a large body of Arabs who were in possession of plentiful
stores of ivory, he had recently left German East Africa and come
rapidly northwards. He had heard nothing whatever of the fate of Major
Burnaby’s expedition, and could not answer Tom’s eager enquiries for his
friends; indeed, he had met no Europeans except his own compatriots
since he left Kisumu. He heard Tom’s story, modestly told as it was,
with mingled amazement and incredulity. But there was no gainsaying the
fact that the young Englishman was virtually chief of a large Bahima
village, and Schwab was not the man to lose any opportunity for trade.
Learning that an Arab attack was expected, and that Tom’s pressing
necessity was arms and ammunition, he offered to smuggle in some Mausers
from German East Africa, as of course he could not import arms openly
into the territory of the Congo Free State.
"Can’t think of it," said Tom decisively. "If it’s against the rules
that’s enough for me. We must play the game, you know. Besides, I’m
going to try to make some gunpowder myself."
"Ach!" exclaimed the German with a shrug, "certainly you vill burn your
fingers, my young friend. But now, vat can I do for you?"
"Fetch in your packages and let me see what you have."
When the bags were opened Tom at once marked a Colt revolver.
"That’s mine," he said; "a pretty thing, by Jove! And you’ve cartridges
for it! And I’ll take that Waterbury I see there; made in Germany, of
course. And three of those pocket-books, with a dozen lead-pencils; and
that comb; and a tooth-brush. Have you a tooth-brush? That’s the very
thing. You’ve a razor too; I’d take that if you had a looking-glass.
I’d like to get rid of this fur on my cheeks, but I’m afraid I should
gash myself horribly without a glass. What--you have one? Capital; and
a shaving-brush too, I see, and soap. Why, Schwab, what a universal
provider you are! There’s one thing I’d give a great deal for, and
that’s a pound of tea, Mazawattee or anything else. Haven’t any? Then
I must do without. You have some quinine, I see; that’ll always come in
handy. I think that’s about all. Now, how much does that come to?"
"Ten pound," said the German instantly.
"What! Ten pounds for those few things! Why, it’s ruinous! How do you
make out the bill?"
"I gif no bill. I hafe vat you call mon-o-po-ly, my young friend. It
is take it or leafe it, I do not mind."
"Business are business, indeed! Well, I want the things. I can do
without the watch and the pocket-books, perhaps. How much then?"
"Ten pound; I hafe only vun price."
"You old Shylock! Well, I haven’t the cash, so I can’t expect the five
per cent, but I’ll give you an order on my uncle. I suppose that’ll
satisfy you?"
"Oh yes! ze British officer vat you call pay opp. I vill feel quite
safe."
"Very well. Heavens! how funny it is to hold a pencil again! There you
are: ’Pay Herr Schwab on sight ten pounds (£10). Tom Burnaby’. That’ll
do, eh?"
"All correct, my young friend. And now, vat more can I do for you?"
"I hardly like to ask you, but would you mind--pray don’t hesitate to
say so--would you mind cutting my hair?"
"You hafe done me vell, Mr. Burnaby; I do not mind. I vill cut your
hair, and sell you ze scissors."
"Fire away, then, and don’t dig into my skin, will you?"
Schwab turned up his sleeves, tucked a long yellow scarf from his
variety bundle round Tom’s neck, and cropped him close, with no more
than the usual stabs and pricks. Then Tom escorted him round his little
domain, and gratified him with an order for various tools and
implements. He remained overnight as Tom’s guest, and started early in
the morning northwards to visit the Arabs.
Before he left, Tom warned him that he might find the Arabs rather
unpleasant customers. But Schwab puffed himself out and waved the
warning away.
"Vat!" he said, "the Arabs vill not dare do anyzink to me, a Gairman!
Our Kaiser, who is in Berlin--he vould know ze reason vy if vun hair of
my head vas touched."
"You Germans are lucky," laughed Tom. "The King isn’t so particular
about my hair! Besides, it’s not much good knowing after the event.
You’re out of reach of an army corps, you know, or even a telegram."
"I am not vun small bit afraid. I hafe my Mausers. I hafe my revolver;
besides, I go to sell ammunition, and zat ze Arabs vill alvays be most
glad to get."
"I must put my veto on that. I fear, Mr. Schwab, you don’t quite
realize the situation. I have every sympathy with legitimate trade--we
British are a trading nation; but as matters stand I must regard rifles
as contraband of war. Sell the Arabs pins and milking-pails and anything
else you like, but no arms or ammunition. In fact, I shall have to ask
you to leave your cases of ammunition here, taking with you only enough
to serve your immediate needs. I can’t have arms put into my enemy’s
hands. And you’re smuggling, you know; you’d get into hot water if the
Free State people knew. I’ll keep your ammunition safe until you
return. And another thing, Herr Schwab. You’ll be good enough to give
the Arabs no information about me or the village. I’m not sure that as
a precaution I oughtn’t to prevent your getting to them at all, but I
don’t want to be unfriendly. It’s understood, then, that you keep to
yourself all that you have seen here?"
The German tried for half an hour to wriggle out of the dilemma, but Tom
told him flatly at last that on no other conditions would he be allowed
to proceed; and he at last submitted with a shrug.
Half an hour after Schwab had gone Tom started with Mbutu, the katikiro,
the kasegara, the principal drummer, and three other officials, for the
hill to which the chiefs had been summoned for palaver. They all
arrived at the rendezvous, and for five long hours Tom patiently
explained and argued and explained again, striving with infinite tact to
dispel their suspicions and to persuade them of the ultimate advantage
they would all derive from co-operation. Coached beforehand in definite
details by the katikiro, he reminded them of the ravages from which they
had already suffered; of the villages burnt to the ground, the crops
destroyed, the ruthless massacres, the brutal mutilations, the hundreds
captured as slaves. He touched a tender spot when he spoke of the
immense treasures of ivory of which the Arabs had despoiled them--ivory
which their own skill as hunters had obtained, and which they might have
sold profitably to the Free State Government or to merchants. Lastly,
finding it necessary to take a leaf out of the African’s own book, he
spoke of himself, of the Great White King, of his own deeds against the
Arabs, and said that only if they fell in with his proposal could they
hope to deal a final crushing blow at the Arab power. The chiefs were
more and more impressed, and at length one of them said that only one
thing was still needed to bring him under Kuboko’s banner. He had heard
great stories of Kuboko’s big medicine; if Kuboko would exhibit his
magic and convince him by the evidence of his own eyes, he would
willingly call Kuboko brother and follow him as his great chief.
Tom instantly agreed, and the katikiro fairly danced with merriment.
Nothing could be more effectual, Tom thought, than his final performance
with the medicine-man, so he invited the chiefs in turn to knock him
down if they could. They showed at first some reluctance, but Msala
assured them that Kuboko would bear them no malice. Thus reassured they
advanced in turn, and in a very few minutes all three were sitting on
the ground, laughing uproariously at their own mishaps, while the
katikiro and his friends made the countryside resound with their
boisterous "Hoo! hoo! hoo!" No further proof was required; the chiefs
signified their adhesion to the proposed confederation, and declared
that they were ready, on a day to be fixed, formally to become Kuboko’s
blood-brothers.
This being achieved, Tom spent another hour in explaining the details of
the federation. Each chief, as soon as the approach of the Arabs was
signalled, was to place himself unreservedly at Tom’s orders, and bring
his contingent into the field. They could each promise about two
hundred men. The signal would be given in the usual way by drums, and to
ensure early information Tom intimated that he would arrange a series of
posts about three miles apart, extending for some thirty miles into the
forest, in the direction from which the Arabs might be expected. As
soon as the enemy was sighted, the fact would be announced by drums from
post to post; but in order to provide against the possibility of mistake
a message would also be conveyed by runners.
One of the conditions of the alliance was that each member of the
confederacy bound himself to assist in the rebuilding of any village
that might be destroyed, and Tom was especially careful in explaining
the reason.
"You see, my brothers," he said, "you will not wish to leave your
villages feeling that during your absence, and owing to your absence,
they may be burnt, and your wives and children thus rendered homeless.
But by accepting my plan, when the drum tells you that the Arabs are
coming, you may rush to join me with every confidence; for if your
villages are destroyed, you know that all your brothers, yes, and I
myself, will help to build them up again. And so you will have new huts
for old. Is it well, my brothers?"
There were grunts of acquiescence.
"There is one other thing," Tom continued. "The Arabs, if they come in
the large numbers that we expect, will range the country far and wide
for food. Then I recommend you, if at this late season of the year you
have still any of your crops unreaped, or any of your food-roots in the
ground, to gather in all that you can, and dig deep pits in secret
places, and there store your harvest. It is not well that we should
feed the Arabs."
The chiefs again showed by their grunts that they found Kuboko’s
recommendation good.
"Now I want you, when you return to your own villages, to call up all
the petty chiefs who look up to you, the chiefs of tens and twenties and
thirties, and explain to them what we have talked about to-day. If they
agree to come in with us, you will bring them to a grand palaver on this
same hillside eight days from now. Every man will carry his arms, and
come equipped as for war."
Tom was thoroughly tired out when he got back to the village. He had
intended to write, in one of the note-books he had obtained from Schwab,
a brief jotting of recent events, for future reference, but he put off
that till next morning. When morning came, however, he was too anxious
to begin his experiments in powder-making to spend any time in penning
records. He had a large quantity of crude sulphur and saltpetre to
refine, and he was by no means sure that with the rough apparatus at
hand he would be successful. That could easily be tested, and he at once
set about his preparations for the task.
He got a number of large earthen pots of all shapes and sizes, and broke
up the rough dirty rolls of sulphur into these. Then he heated them
gently over slow fires, and found, as he had hoped, that the earthy
impurities gradually settled at the bottom, leaving the pure sulphur, a
liquid like treacle, at the top. This he ladled off into clean vessels.
So far so good. The next thing was the saltpetre which had been
collected by the women. This also he put into vessels, and dissolved
the crude solid in water. Raising the mixture to the boiling-point, he
allowed it to cool gradually, and watched for the result. The pure
saltpetre was deposited in a solid crystalline mass at the bottom.
Here then were two of the necessary constituents; the third was easily
obtained, for the katikiro had admirably carried out his instructions,
and had personally superintended the cutting and carrying of an immense
quantity of splendid wood from the forest, which was easily converted
into charcoal by heating it in closed vessels.
Nothing now remained but to mix these ingredients.
"We must take care it isn’t bang! soosh! black man all dead," said Tom
to Mbutu, who, with all the other officials, was taking the keenest
interest in the experiments. "I think we had better build a shed half a
mile away, so that if there is an explosion it will do no harm except to
me and you and my assistants."
"Sah no go," said Mbutu. "Me go; make bang stuff; blow up; all same for
one."
"No, my boy, that won’t do. Why, the people here would lose all faith
in me if I was afraid to take my own big medicine. No; we’ll set about
running up a shed at once, and take care to avoid risks as much as
possible. Two men with you and me will be enough to do the mixing, at
first, at any rate, and you may choose them out of your own friends."
A wooden shed was soon fixed up on an open space far from trees or bush,
and Tom arranged to begin work before dawn next day, so as to get some
mixing done before the sun was high. He was not at all sure about the
proportions in which the three constituents ought to be mixed, but hoped
to find that out by experiment. Just as the darkness began to clear he
went out to the shed with Mbutu alone to make a first attempt in
private. It was unsuccessful; the mixture burnt readily enough, but
without explosion. He guessed from his failure that the quantity of
saltpetre in his first mixture had not been sufficient, and, carefully
measuring out his quantities in a small brass cup, he increased the
amount little by little, testing a portion of the mixture after each
addition, until at last he was rewarded with a decided explosion which
reverberated in a hundred echoes, and was answered by the banging of the
sentry’s drum in the village. Tom laughed with almost childish delight
at the success of his efforts, and, taking careful note of the
proportions he had finally arrived at, he returned to the village.
Next morning he took out the two Bahima selected by Mbutu, and found
that not only were they quick to learn, but, what is more important in a
native of Africa, they recognized the necessity for caution. They
worked steadily till ten o’clock, and at the end of the day Tom found
himself in possession of several pounds of serviceable powder. It was a
queer-looking mixture, and Tom said to himself, with a laugh, that no
doubt it would miserably fail to pass the Waltham test; but he knew that
it would serve his purpose, and that was sufficient. Within a fortnight
he had stored about half a ton in the recesses of the cavern in the
cliff, and had collected in the village a large quantity of the several
constituents, which only awaited mixing.
"It is a pity," he thought, "that with an almost unlimited supply of
powder, we can make so little use of it. At the most we have muskets
for only two hundred and fifty men, and many of these are likely to be
as dangerous to us as to the enemy. With the powder we already have we
could supply a brigade for a month’s campaign. But surely it can be
used in some other way?"
In the event of another siege the store of powder would, he knew, be
invaluable for mining purposes; but he wished to find some method by
which it could be turned to account in field operations. At last he hit
upon an idea. Why not lay in a supply of hand-grenades? He could not,
of course, with the limited supply of metal in the village, and the
still more limited smithy arrangements, manufacture bombs with a metal
case; but after some cogitation he found a means of surmounting this
difficulty. The grenades, he thought, might be made of thick pottery,
encased in a double or triple envelope of elastic wicker-work, the
latter intended to prevent the bomb, when thrown, from bursting before
the fuse had time to do its work. In the manufacture of this outer
envelope Tom relied on the extreme ingenuity of the Bahima in all kinds
of basket-weaving; and his expectations in this respect were more than
realized. Experimenting first with a dummy shell, he found that,
protected by the wicker covering, it could be thrown to a distance of
forty or fifty yards without breaking the earthenware container. This
was quite sufficient for his purpose.
"I think," he said to the katikiro, who was watching his experiments
with mingled wonder and amusement, "that we shall be able to give the
Arabs more than one surprise if they visit us again. I want you to get
your potters and weavers to make two dozen more jars after this pattern;
Mbutu will take them, together with a large basketful of granite chips,
to the shed where we made the powder. We shall see to-morrow whether
these little jars are going to be of use to us."
On the following morning Tom went with Mbutu to the powder-shed, which
had always been made taboo to the villagers. There he half-filled one
of the jars with granite chips (all the available iron scraps being
required for the muskets), and rammed in on the top a bursting-charge of
gunpowder. Into the neck of the jar he fitted a plug, through which a
hole was bored for the insertion of a time fuse. In the preparation of
the fuse Tom’s school-boy experiments in pyrotechny stood him in good
stead. Some cotton fibre steeped in a solution of saltpetre fully
answered his purpose. His next step was to erect a framework of
match-boarding to serve as a target. Stationing himself behind an
earthen breastwork about forty yards from the target, he set fire to the
fuse of his trial bomb and, hurling it at the target, dropped to the
ground behind the entrenchment. There he waited for some seconds until
a loud report showed that his grenades could at least be trusted to
explode; some small fragments dropped within a few feet of his shelter.
Stepping up to the target, he found it pitted in a dozen places with
dents due to the granite chips, some of which were driven some distance
into the wood. There was no doubt that had a body of men been within a
few feet of the bomb when it exploded, not many would have survived.
Tom’s next concern was to ensure, first, that the fuse should be
perfectly trustworthy, and secondly, that the bursting-charge of powder
should not be so great as to bring the grenadiers themselves within the
danger-zone. It required two or three days of careful experiment before
he was satisfied on these points. Then he instructed the katikiro to
select twenty potters and twice as many weavers to manufacture a large
supply of bombs; and under his own and Mbutu’s supervision these were
carefully charged in the shed, and stowed away in the cavern on the
cliff. The provision of a number of plug-bayonets by the village smiths
completed his experiments in the preparation of warlike stores.
On the day before the general palaver, the katikiro came to Tom and
informed him that the chief who had so insolently dismissed Barega’s
messenger during the siege had come into the village with a retinue, and
had very humbly asked to see Kuboko.
"Ah!" said Tom; "he has come round, has he? Bring him up."
The chief and his men drew near very much as whipped dogs would have
done. Within ten yards of Tom’s hut they flung themselves on their
faces, and wriggled their way with ludicrous contortions towards him.
He thought it a good opportunity for teaching the whole village a
salutary lesson, so he summoned the people by beat of drum, and ordered
them to stand round. Then he severely asked the fawning chief his name
and business.
"O Kuboko, great master, my name is Uchunku," said the man. "I am
weaker than a dog, smaller than a flea. Nothing that I have but is mine
by the mercy of Kuboko. I have heard of Kuboko’s mighty power, and I
fall on my face, for no man can stand upright in the presence of the man
of big medicine. I have heard, O Kuboko, of the wonderful thrower that
casts mountains as high as the very stars of heaven; and of the mighty
flood that flowed from the hollow of Kuboko’s hand, and upon which the
Arabs were swept away even as leaves upon the torrent. All this have I
heard, and more, and I come to put my neck under Kuboko’s foot, and beg
him to gird my village about with his mighty magic."
Tom let the man grovel there, and paused before he answered. Then he
upbraided him for his meanness and folly in refusing help to his
neighbour Barega when in dire extremity, and declared that he deserved
to be left to meet single-handed the devastating Arabs.
"You are a coward, Uchunku," he said. "You stood aloof from your
neighbour in distress, and then, when you find that all your other
neighbours have seen the wisdom of joining my people and accepting my
leadership, you come and whine like a puppy to be taken in. I will have
mercy on you; I will admit you to our confederacy; but you will have to
prove yourself worthy. You will be given no place of trust, your men
will not be allowed to bear arms, until you have shown that you are
loyal, and ready to carry out all my commands."
The miserable chief abjectly promised to do anything, even the most
menial work, to merit Kuboko’s favour. Tom cut him short, bade him get
up, and ordered him to attend the palaver next day with all his men.
Tom would have been more than human if he had not felt a thrill and glow
of pride next day, when, at the appointed mote-hill, he found a great
concourse of natives awaiting him. The three chiefs of the former
palaver had most effectively fulfilled his instructions. Each had
brought a group of petty chiefs, and each of these had come with several
of his warriors, so that the whole assembly numbered nearly three
hundred men, armed in their several ways. They were Bantu negroes of
various races, some of them tall, splendid specimens of humanity, some
short and thick-set, all muscular and in the pink of physical condition.
Until Tom came in sight with his small escort, they had kept up a
constant chatter, the sound of which travelled across the country like
the noise of a vast army of rooks or gulls. But as Tom ascended the
hill a silence fell upon the throng. Hundreds of eyes looked curiously
at the man of whom they had heard so much. When he reached the brow of
the hill, moved as by one impulse the crowd raised their spears aloft
and cried aloud: "Kuboko! Kuboko! Waize! Thou comest!" and it was then
that Tom thrilled with the thought that all these simple, untutored
negroes were looking to him as their leader, and relying on him to save
them from the awful fate they must inevitably meet if their inhuman
oppressors had their will. And thus, when he had gathered them about
him in a large ring, there was a deep note of earnestness in his voice
as he addressed them. He thanked them first for coming so readily at
his wish, and briefly explained to them the arrangements he had already
made with the three superior chiefs, impressing on them the seriousness
of the effort soon to be made to rid them for ever of their age-long
foes, and the necessity for all to work together without jealousy or
self-seeking. Much of what he said he knew must fall on deaf ears; he
could not expect them to forget the habits and ideas that were part of
their blood; but if he could only gain their confidence, he hoped that
his personal influence and example would succeed in effecting something,
however little.
When he had won their approval of his general scheme, he ventured to put
to them another proposal which he felt would meet with opposition. It
was that, when the great day came, they should bring all their women and
children, with their valuable possessions, to Mwonga, until the fight
was over. A low murmur of disapproval ran round the ring, then the
negroes began to gesticulate and argue excitedly until loud shouts of
"Nga! Ngabuse!" their strongest negative, filled the air. Waiting
patiently through the uproar, Tom at length held up his hand, and after
some minutes succeeded in stilling the storm. Then, in the same even
quiet manner, he began to reason with them.
"Why do my brothers shout so loudly into the sky? Is Kuboko deaf that
he cannot hear? Is he stupid that he cannot understand? I, Kuboko,
have but two arms and two hands. I cannot take all my brothers into my
grip and drag them whither it pleases me. No, but I speak plain words
to my brothers, and if they are not good words then my brothers can go
their own way. Listen, men of a hundred villages, how can you hope to
hold your huts against the attack of a strong and cruel foe? See, I
take this spear-shaft in my hand, I lay it across my knees and snap it
in two; you could do the same. But now I take five spear-shafts
together, and though I strive and strain I cannot break so much as one
of them. What think you of that, my brothers?"
The old illustration, so happily remembered, had an instant effect on
the keen natives, to whose minds the practical so strongly appeals.
Allowing a little time for the lesson to strike home, Tom went on:
"Now, what of Mwonga? Think how it is placed--on a hill, a steep path
at one end, a precipice at one side, an ever-flowing stream, a well-kept
stockade. Have we not already driven the Arabs from it, not once nor
twice? I have no thought of doing favour to Mwonga. It is not my
village: my village is far away, over mountains and rivers, on the other
side of a big water stretching farther than any eye can see. My village
awaits me, and when my work is done I long only to go back to it and see
my fields and huts and the faces of my own people again. But while I am
here I want to help you, and you, and you, my brothers, every one of
you. Make, then, a great camp at Mwonga until the Arabs are beaten and
hunted away. Only Mwonga has been able to defy them. Does any chief
know of a better place? If so, let him speak."
There was a long pause. Each chief consulted with his own men. Then
one of the three principal chiefs called for silence, and declared that
Kuboko’s words were good. A long and excited discussion ensued, until
at length they agreed to Tom’s proposal, provided the village could be
sufficiently enlarged to contain all their dependents in case of need.
Tom at once called for the services of a thousand men to extend the
stockade, widen the ditch, and build new huts for the accommodation of
the guests. This was also agreed to, and then Tom endeavoured to get an
idea of what his total force of fighting-men would amount to. He took
some time to question each chief as to the strength of his own
contingent, and to make the necessary deductions due to their incurable
love of boasting; but the number actually arrived at, including his own
force of Bahima and Bairo, fell not far short of four thousand. Then
the assembly broke up.
One of the lesser chiefs, during the latter part of the conference, had
been looking with great interest at Mbutu, who stood by his master’s
side. He was a tall Muhima, lithe and strong, with an Egyptian cast of
feature and the strange melancholy expression so characteristic of his
race. Looking very puzzled, he edged gradually nearer to Mbutu, and, as
Tom turned to go down the hill, took the young Muhima by both arms, and
gazed searchingly into his face.
"What is it, Mbutu?" said Tom. "Come along."
"Mbutu!" ejaculated the chief; then smiled, and shook the boy’s arms up
and down excitedly, talking very rapidly and earnestly the while. Mbutu
listened at first in fascinated amazement, but by and by his expression
changed, he clasped the stranger’s neck, and, turning to his master,
said simply:
"Him my brudder, sah! Him Mboda!"
Then he explained. When his village had been raided and burned some
years before, he had believed that he alone of the male population had
escaped alive. He had seen his father and two brothers killed, and knew
that the women would be carried into captivity. But it now appeared
that a few of the younger men had evaded the clutches of the Arabs and
got away into the forest, under the leadership of Mboda, his third
brother, and that, when the danger was past, they had returned, built a
village several miles west of the one that was burned, and gradually
gathered about them a few men and women of their own stock. Of this
small village Mboda was now chief, and he had been among the most eager
to join the coalition against the enemy he had so good reason for
hating.
The delight of the brothers at their unexpected meeting was so manifest
that Tom invited Mboda to return to Mwonga and stay for a few days.
Mboda eagerly accepted the invitation, and sent word to his village by
one of his men.
On Tom’s return to Mwonga, the operations arranged were immediately put
in hand and pressed on in spite of the constant rains. When the new
stockade was completed, the enclosure was more than half a mile square,
and there was room for the temporary accommodation of fifteen thousand
people. The hole in the wall of the reservoir was filled up, so that
the supply of water needed by so vast a host might be kept as large as
possible; and the defences were further strengthened by a solid earthen
embankment impenetrable to bullets. Another measure of Tom’s, at first
the cause of much grief and dismay among the Bairo, was the levelling of
the banana plantation on the south-east of the village. But when the
news was carried round among the allies it made a vast impression. The
chiefs recognized that not they alone were required to make sacrifices,
but that the people of Mwonga themselves submitted even to the loss of a
flourishing plantation at the bidding of Kuboko.
But all this Tom felt was but child’s play to the work of training his
men. He knew, from what he had read of operations in which native
troops had been engaged, in the Soudan and Kumasi, for instance, how
impulsive the negro is, how prone to get out of hand, how apt to fight
"off his own bat", without the least idea of co-operation. It was
hopeless to attempt the training of the whole body of his allies; it
would take years of vigorous drill, and the constant attention of
British non-commissioned officers, to eradicate these defects and
implant new ideas and habits in the native. All that he could hope to
do was to bring his own men, and especially the select body of two
hundred and fifty, into something like order. He worked unsparingly.
He got the men to fall in in double ranks, and arranged them according
to their height, making them number and form fours in the good old way
he remembered at school. When it came to "Left!" and "Right!" he had
some trouble at first, and the operation of changing ranks was almost
too much for the Bahima, not to speak of Tom’s patience. Marking time
presented no difficulty, and when the willing negroes had once learned
the difference between right and left it was not long before the orders
"Right form", "Left form", "Move to the right in fours", and the other
mystic cries of the barrack-yard, were carried out with fair precision.
All these military commands Tom gave in English, and he often smiled to
think of the surprise which his uncle, or any other British officer,
would feel if he were dumped down suddenly one day at Mwonga’s village
and heard the curt expressions of English drill bawled within the
stockade.
The four hours’ drill was kept up every day, and the monotony of it was
compensated by the eagerness and aptness of his pupils. Before, they
were a mob; now, they were gradually gaining the power to work together
and becoming a serviceable force. This was strikingly shown in their
volley-firing. After repeated efforts, Tom almost despaired of breaking
the men of firing haphazard, anticipating the word of command, blazing
with eyes shut in every possible direction. But patience won the day,
and at last he was able to advance men against them in sham-fight to
within twenty yards without a trigger being pulled before the word was
given.
The manufacture of gunpowder having proved successful, it was a
comparatively easy matter to make slugs for the muskets. Every scrap of
old iron, brass, copper, lead, in the place was utilized for this
purpose, and at last the musketeers were provided with sufficient
ammunition, Tom considered, to last them through a month’s brisk
fighting.
Having brought them into something like order, he next set about the
equipment of an equal force of pikemen. He had read something of the
good service done by pikemen in the wars of the seventeenth century, and
he was indeed amazed to find how details that had lain unnoticed in his
mind now came crowding to his recollection. He got his men to cut
strong staffs, sixteen feet long, from the forest trees, and to each he
fixed, by means of a thin plate of iron four feet long, a lozenge-shaped
pike-head, made by the Bairo smiths under his direction. Thus the head
could not be accidentally broken off, or cut off by the Arabs’
scimitars. The men so armed he trained to act with the musketeers. In
close fighting order the musketeers were drawn up in two ranks, the
front rank kneeling, the rear rank standing, while the pikemen stood
behind, their pikes projecting in front of the musketeers. In charging,
the pikemen led the way, supported by the musketeers with bayonets or
clubbed muskets.
Tom was, of course, entirely in the dark as to where the expected
engagement was to be fought--whether in the forest, in the open outside
the village, or again behind the stockade; but he was determined to be
prepared for any contingency. Ill-armed as his force was, he recognized
that he might have to fight a defensive campaign for a time, trusting to
wear the enemy out, and to seize a favourable opportunity for taking the
offensive. It was a risky policy with a negro force; he could place
full reliance only on the pikemen and musketeers; the great body of the
allies was little better than a rabble, and man for man less dependable,
because less used to regular fighting, than the Arab auxiliaries. But
he hoped that his special troops would be sufficiently well drilled to
give a good account of themselves if fighting took place in the open,
while in the forest the others could certainly harass the enemy,
probably cut off his supplies, ambush him, and attack him at a
disadvantage.
All this time Tom had been gleaning various items of information as to
the routes by which the enemy might be expected to come. There was, of
course, the path through the forest, along which he himself had been
carried to the village, but he learnt that there were two other possible
ways, to the west and east of the direct route. These, however, would
involve the crossing of at least two broad rivers, and the rainy season
being barely over, the streams would be so swollen as to render fording
impossible.
He would gladly have fortified the approaches to the village had this
been possible, but after carefully weighing the pros and cons he
reluctantly decided that he must be content to extemporize stockades
when the approach of the Arabs was announced. Until the peril was
imminent he could not count upon sufficient assistance from his allies
to enable him to construct defensive works on all the paths by which the
expected invasion might be made, and his own troops were clearly
insufficient for the purpose.
The long-awaited signal came at length. On the night of November 28, a
date which Tom carefully marked in the pocket-diary he had obtained from
Herr Schwab, the faint taps of a drum were heard far away to the north.
A few minutes later a distinct roll came from the nearest post. At
distances of six and three miles the signal drummers had passed on the
message received by them from posts farther afield. Reading the message
by the prearranged code, Tom made out that a small force had been
sighted sixty miles from the village. Surmising that this was merely the
advance-guard, he calculated that the main body would take at least five
or six days to arrive, and he resolved to wait until the morning before
calling up his levies.
Soon after daybreak a courier came panting into the village, and
announced that the line of runners had transmitted to him the news that
a huge force of Arabs was advancing along the forest-path a mile or two
in the rear of the advance-guard.
The village drummers were at once called on to signal the news to the
allied chiefs, and runners were despatched to them all confirming the
intelligence. The chiefs were each to send their women and children
into Mwonga under a small escort, with not less than six weeks’ supply
of food. The warriors who were used to forest fighting were to muster
at the edge of the forest, and await orders from Kuboko. The remainder,
men of the plain, with no special skill in woodcraft, and dreading the
forest as an unknown region of unimaginable terrors, were to concentrate
to the north-east of the village, and hold themselves in readiness to
move in any direction at a moment’s notice. By making forced marches,
all the fighting-men of the allies had arrived at their appointed places
by the morning of the next day. It was a glorious morning, and, looking
round from the village on the eager host, their spear-heads glittering
in the sunlight, Tom drew good augury, and felt his heart leap within
him.
His force numbered four thousand one hundred all told, and as yet he was
wholly without definite information of the size of the Arab army. It
was important that every possible means should be taken of worrying and
reducing the enemy while marching through the forest, encumbered, as no
doubt they were, with carriers and baggage. They included, Tom felt
sure, a very large number of men armed with rifles and muskets, but
their superiority in this respect would be to a great extent neutralized
among the trees. His first care, therefore, was to despatch five
hundred of his best forest-fighters, divided into twenty bands of
twenty-five each, into the forest, to dig pits, plant stakes, and employ
every device known to them to delay and harass the advance. They were
not to penetrate into the forest for more than thirty miles from their
base, in order that they might be easily supplied with food, and readily
recalled if need arose.
Tom’s next step was to arrange with the katikiro for the defence of the
village against a possible flanking attack. He could not be sure that
the line of the advance now signalled would be the line of the real
attack; for all he knew, the Arabs might divide their force, advance in
two directions, and, while making a feint in their immediate front,
throw all their strength upon the village, hoping to take it unawares.
The katikiro during the last few weeks had proved himself one of the
most intelligent and persevering of all Tom’s lieutenants, and Tom had
complete confidence that his courage and determination would not fail at
the critical moment. To him, therefore, he entrusted the defence of the
village. He gave him a thousand of the plainsmen, of whom sixty were
armed with muskets, and also the whole of the cadet corps, who, being
young and hot-headed, he thought would be all the better for the
restraint of the stockade. The force was, he knew, quite inadequate to
hold the extensive line of fortifications if the place was seriously
assaulted; but it could, he hoped, hold its own behind the stockade for
a day or two, allowing time for Tom himself to return to its assistance.
Before leaving the village, Tom took the katikiro aside to give him
final instructions. Msala was talking to the medicine-man at the time,
and the latter scarcely attempted to conceal a malignant scowl as Tom
approached. He moved reluctantly away, evidently curious to learn what
Tom’s business with the katikiro was.
"Msala," said Tom, as soon as he judged Mabruki to be out of ear-shot,
"I have given you an important post, because I know that you are
fearless, and because I trust you. The village, and the lives of the
thousands of people in it, are in your hands. You must on no account
leave your post unless you receive a direct order from me. If I want
you to leave it, I shall send a messenger to you, and he will bring with
him, as a proof that his message is genuine, a leaf out of my
pocket-book with this mark upon it." He drew a circle, with two
diameters intersecting at right-angles. "You see that? Whatever
messenger comes to you from me will have a leaf like that, and I will
leave this with you, so that no possible mistake can be made. Do you
understand?"
"Yes," said Msala, his face aglow with the importance of his duties; "I
will obey the words of Kuboko, and he shall find that I am as bold as a
lion and as wise as an elephant."
"Very well then. Now I myself am going into the forest with my picked
men. You may not see me for many days; but do not get down-hearted.
Let us hope that when you and I meet again we shall have made our
account with the enemy."