Jock disliked kaffirs: so did Jim. To Jim there were three big
divisions of the human race--white men, Zulus, and niggers. Zulu, old
or young, was greeted by him as equal, friend and comrade; but the rest
were trash, and he cherished a most particular contempt for the
Shangaans and Chopis, as a lot who were just about good enough for what
they did--that is, work in the mines. They could neither fight nor
handle animals; and the sight of them stirred him to contempt and
pricked him to hostilities.
It was not long before Jim discovered this bond of sympathy between him
and Jock, and I am perfectly sure that the one bad habit which Jock was
never cured of was due to deliberate encouragement from Jim on every
possible opportunity. It would have been a matter of difficulty and
patience in any case to teach Jock not to unnecessarily attack strange
kaffirs. It was very important that he should have nothing to do with
them, and should treat them with suspicion as possible enemies and keep
them off the premises. I was glad that he did it by his own choice and
instinct; but this being so, it needed all the more intelligence and
training to get him to understand just where to draw the line. Jim made
it worse; he made the already difficult task practically impossible by
egging Jock on; and what finally made it quite impossible was the
extremely funny turn it took, which caused such general amusement that
every one joined in the conspiracy and backed up Jock.
Every one knows how laughable it is to see a person dancing about like a
mad dervish, with legs and arms going in all directions, dodging the
rushes of a dog, especially if the spectator knows that the dog will not
do any real harm and is more intent on scaring his victim, just for the
fun of the thing, than on hunting him. Well, that is how it began.
As far as I know the first incident arose out of the intrusion of a
strange kaffir at one of the outspans. Jock objected, and he was
forcing a scared boy back step by step--doing the same feinting rushes
that he practised with game--until the boy tripped over a camp stool and
sat plump down on the three-legged pot of porridge cooking at the camp
fire. I did not see it; for Jock was, as usual, quite silent--a feature
which always had a most terrifying effect on his victims: it was a roar
like a lion's from Jim that roused me. Jock was standing off with his
feet on the move forwards and backwards, his head on one side and his
face full of interest, as if he would dearly love another romp in; and
the waggon-boys were reeling and rolling about the grass, helpless with
laughter.
A dog is just as quick as a child to find out when he can take
liberties; he knows that laughter and serious disapproval do not go
together; and Jock with the backing of the boys thoroughly enjoyed
him-self. That was how it began; and by degrees it developed into the
great practical joke. The curious thing to note was the way in which
Jock entered into the spirit of the thing, and how he improved and
varied his methods. It was never certain what he would do; sometimes it
would be a wild romp, as it was that day; at other times he would stalk
the intruder in the open, much as a pointer approaches his birds in the
last strides, and with eyes fixed steadily and mouth tightly pursed-up,
he would move straight at him with infinite slowness and deliberation
until, the boy's nerve failed, and he turned and ran. At other times
again he trotted out as if he had seen nothing, and then stopped
suddenly. If the boy came on, Jock waited; but if there was any sign of
fear or hesitation, he lowered his head, humped up his shoulders--as a
stagey boxer does when he wants to appear ferocious--and gave his head a
kind of chuck forward, as if in the act of charging: this seldom failed
to shake the intruder's nerve, and as soon as he turned or backed, the
romp began. Still another trick was to make a round in the bush and
come up behind unobserved, and then make a furious dash with rumbly
gurgly growls; the startled boy invariably dropped all he had, breaking
into a series of fantastic capers and excited yells, to the huge delight
of Jim and the others.
But these things were considered trifles: the piece that always `brought
the house down' was the Shangaan gang trick, which on one occasion
nearly got us all into serious trouble. The natives going to or from
the goldfields travel in gangs of from four or five to forty or fifty;
they walk along in Indian-file, and even when going across the veld or
walking on wide roads they wind along singly in the footsteps of the
leader. What prompted the dog to start this new game I cannot imagine:
certainly no one could have taught it to him; and as well as one could
judge, he did it entirely `off his own bat,' without anything to lead up
to or suggest it.
One day a gang of about thirty of these Shangaans, each carrying his
load of blankets, clothing, pots, billies and other valuables on his
head, was coming along a footpath beside the road some twenty yards away
from the waggons. Jock strolled out and sat himself down in the middle
of the path; it was the way he did it and his air, utterly devoid of
hostile or even serious purpose, that attracted my attention without
rousing any doubts. The leader of the gang, however, was suspicious and
shied off wide into the veld; he passed in a semicircle round Jock, a
good ten yards away, and came safely back to the path again, and the dog
with his nose in the air merely eyed him with a look of humorous
interest and mild curiosity. The second kaffir made the loop shorter,
and the third shorter still, as they found their alarm and suspicions
unjustified; and so on, as each came along, the loop was lessened until
they passed in safety almost brushing against Jock's nose. And still he
never budged--never moved--except, as each boy approached, to look up at
his face and, slowly turning his head, follow him round with his eyes
until he re-entered the path. There was something extremely funny in
the mechanical regularity with which his head swung round. It was so
funny that not only the boys at the waggons noticed it and laughed; the
unsuspecting Shangaans themselves shared the joke. When half a dozen
had passed round in safety, comments followed by grunts of agreement or
laughter ran along the line, and then, as each fresh boy passed and
Jock's calm inspection was repeated, a regular chorus of guffaws and
remarks broke out. The long heavy bundles on their heads made turning
round a slow process, so that, except for the first half-dozen, they
were content to enjoy what they saw in front and to know by the laughter
from behind that the joke had been repeated all down the line.
The last one walked calmly by; but as he did so there came one short
muffled bark, "Whoop!" from Jock as he sprang out and nipped the
unsuspecting Shangaan behind. The boy let out a yell that made the
whole gang jump and clutch wildly at their toppling bundles, and Jock
raced along the footpath, leaping, gurgling and snapping behind each one
he came near, scattering them this way and that, in a romp of wild
enjoyment. The shouts of the scared boys, the clatter of the tins as
their bundles toppled down, the scrambling and scratching as they clawed
the ground pretending to pick up stones or sticks to stop his rushes,
and the ridiculous rout of the thirty Shangaans in every direction,
abandoning their baggage and fleeing from the little red enemy only just
visible in the grass as he hunted and harried them, were too much for my
principles and far too much for my gravity. To be quite honest, I
weakened badly, and from that day on preferred to look another way when
Jock sallied out to inspect a gang of Shangaans. Between them, Jim and
Jock had beaten me.
But the weakening brought its own punishment and the joke was not far
from making a tragedy. Many times while lying some way off in the shade
of a tree or under another waggon I heard Jim, all unconscious of my
presence, call in a low deep voice, almost a whisper, "Jock, Jock;
kaffirs; Shangaans!" Jock's head was up in a moment, and a romp of some
sort followed unless I intervened. Afterwards, when Jock was deaf, Jim
used to reach out and pull his foot or throw a handful of sand or a
bunch of grass to rouse him, and when Jock's head switched up Jim's big
black fist pointing to their common enemy was quite enough.
Jim had his faults, but getting others into mischief while keeping out
of it himself was not one of them. If he egged Jock on, he was more
than ready to stand by him, and on these occasions his first act was to
jump for his sticks, which were always pretty handy, and lie in
readiness to take a hand if any of the gang should use what he
considered unfair means of defence, such as throwing stones and kerries
or using assegais or knives; and Jim--the friend of Jock, the avoided
enemy of all Shangaans, aching for an excuse to take a hand in the row
himself--was not, I fear, a very impartial judge.
There was a day outside Barberton which I remember well. We were to
start that evening, and knowing that if Jim got into the town he might
not be back and fit to work for days, I made him stay with the waggons.
He lay there flat out under his waggon with his chin resting on his
arms, staring steadily at the glistening corrugated iron roofs of the
town, as morose and unapproachable as a surly old watch-dog. From the
tent of my waggon I saw him raise his head, and following his glance,
picked out a row of bundles against the sky-line. Presently a long
string of about fifty time-expired mine-boys came in sight. Jim on his
hands and knees scrambled over to where Jock lay asleep, and shook him;
for this incident occurred after Jock had become deaf.
"Shangaans, Jock; Shangaans! Kill them; kill, kill, kill!" said Jim in
gusty ferocious whispers. It must have seemed as if Fate had kindly
provided an outlet for the rebellious rage and the craving for a fight
that were consuming him.
As Jock trotted out to head them off Jim reached up to the buck-rails
and pulled down his bundle of sticks and lay down like a tiger on the
spring. I had had a lot of trouble with Jim that day, and this annoyed
me; but my angry call to stop was unavailing. Jim, pretending not to
understand, made no attempt to stop Jock, but contented himself with
calling to him to come back; and Jock, stone deaf, trotted evenly along
with his head, neck, back, and tail, all level--an old trick of Jess's
which generally meant trouble for some one. Slowing down as he neared
the Shangaans he walked quietly on until he headed off the leader, and
there he stood across the path. It was just the same as before: the
boys, finding that he did nothing, merely stepped aside to avoid bumping
against him. They were boys taking back their purchases to their kraals
to dazzle the eyes of the ignorant with the wonders of civilisation--
gaudy blankets, collections of bright tin billies and mugs, tin plates,
three-legged pots, clothing, hats, and even small tin trunks painted
brilliant yellow, helped to make up their huge bundles. The last boy
was wearing a pair of Royal Artillery trousers; and I have no doubt he
regarded it ever afterwards as nothing less than a calamity that they
were not safely stowed away in his bundle--for a kaffir would sacrifice
his skin rather than his new pants any day. It was from the seat of
these too ample bags that Jock took a good mouthful; and it was the
boy's frantic jump, rather than Jock's tug, that made the piece come
out. The sudden fright and the attempts to face about quickly caused
several downfalls; the clatter of these spread the panic; and on top of
it all came Jock's charge along the broken line, and the excited shouts
of those who thought they were going to be worried to death.
Jim had burst into great bellows of laughter and excited--but quite
superfluous--shouts of encouragement to Jock, who could not have heard a
trumpet at ten yards.
But there came a very unexpected change. One big Shangaan had drawn
from his bundle a brand new side-axe: I saw the bright steel head flash,
as he held it menacingly aloft by the short handle and marched towards
Jock. There was a scrambling bound from under the waggon, and Jim, with
face distorted and grey with fury, rushed out. In his right hand he
brandished a tough stout fighting stick; in his left I was horrified to
see an assegai, and well I knew that, with the fighting fury on him, he
would think nothing of using it. The Shangaan saw him coming, and
stopped; then, still facing Jim, and with the axe raised and feinting
repeatedly to throw it, he began to back away. Jim never paused for a
second: he came straight on with wild leaps and blood-curdling yells in
Zulu fighting fashion and ended with a bound that seemed to drop him
right on top of the other. The stick came down with a whirr and a crash
that crimped every nerve in my body; and the Shangaan dropped like a
log.
I had shouted myself hoarse at Jim, but he heard or heeded nothing; and
seizing a stick from one of the other boys I was already on the way to
stop him, but before I got near him he had wrenched the axe from the
kicking boy and, without pause, gone headlong for the next Shangaan he
saw. Then everything went wrong: the more I shouted and the harder I
ran, the worse the row. The Shangaans seemed to think I had joined in
and was directing operations against them: Jim seemed to be inspired to
wilder madness by my shouts and gesticulations; and Jock--well, Jock at
any rate had not the remotest doubt as to what he should do. When he
saw me and Jim in full chase behind him, his plain duty was to go in for
all he was worth; and he did it.
It was half an hour before I got that mad savage back. He was as
unmanageable as a runaway horse. He had walloped the majority of the
fifty himself; he had broken his own two sticks and used up a number of
theirs; on his forehead there was a small cut and a lump like half an
orange; and on the back of his head another cut left by the sticks of
the enemy when eight or ten had rallied once in a half-hearted attempt
to stand against him.
It was strange how Jim, even in that mood, yielded to the touch of one
whom he regarded as his "Inkos." I could not have forced him back: in
that maniac condition it would have needed a powerful combination indeed
to bring him back against his will. He yielded to the light grip of my
hand on his wrist and walked freely along with me; but a fiery bounding
vitality possessed him, and with long springy strides he stepped out--
looking excitedly about, turning to right and left or even right about,
and stepping sideways or even backwards to keep pace with me--yet always
yielding the imprisoned arm so as not to pull me about. And all the
time there came from him a torrent of excited gabble in pure Zulu, too
fast and too high-flown for me to follow, which was punctuated and
paragraphed by bursting allusions to `dogs of Shangaans,' `axes,'
`sticks,' and `Jock.'
Near the waggons we passed over the `battlefield,' and a huge guffaw of
laughter broke from Jim as we came on the abandoned impedimenta of the
defeated enemy. Several of the bundles had burst open from the violence
of the fall, and the odd collections of the natives were scattered
about; others had merely shed the outside luggage of tin billies,
beakers, pans, boots and hats. Jim looked on it all as the spoils of
war, wanting to stop and gather in his loot there and then, and when I
pressed on, he shouted to the other drivers to come out and collect the
booty.
But my chief anxiety was to end the wretched escapade as quickly as
possible and get the Shangaans on their way again; so I sent Jim back to
his place under the waggon, and told the cook-boy to give him the rest
of my coffee and half a cup of sugar to provide him with something else
to think of and to calm him down.
After a wait of half an hour or so, a head appeared just over the rise,
and then another and another, at irregular intervals and at various
points: they were scouting very cautiously before venturing back again.
I sat in the tent-waggon out of sight and kept quiet, hoping that in a
few minutes they would gain confidence, collect their goods, and go
their way again. Jim, lying flat under the waggon, was much lower than
I was, and--continuing his gabble to the other boys--saw nothing.
Unfortunately he looked round just as a scared face peered cautiously
over the top of an ant-heap. The temptation was, I suppose,
irresistible: he scrambled to his knees with a pretence of starting
afresh and let out one ferocious yell that made my hair stand up; and in
that second every head bobbed down and the field was deserted once more.
If this went on there could be but one ending: the police would be
appealed to, Jim arrested, and I should spend days hanging about the
courts waiting for a trial from which the noble Jim would probably
emerge with three months' hard labour; so I sallied out as my own herald
of peace. But the position was more difficult than it looked: as soon
as the Shangaans saw my head appearing over the rise, they scattered
like chaff before the wind, and ran as if they would never stop. They
evidently took me for the advance guard in a fresh attack, and from the
way they ran seemed to suspect that Jim and Jock might be doing separate
flanking movements to cut them off. I stood upon an ant-heap and waved
and called, but each shout resulted in a fresh spurt and each movement
only made them more suspicious. It seemed a hopeless case, and I gave
it up.
On the way back to the waggons, however, I thought of Sam--Sam, with his
neatly patched European clothes, with the slouchy heavy-footed walk of a
nigger in boots, with his slack lanky figure and serious timid face!
Sam would surely be the right envoy; even the routed Shangaans would
feel that there was nothing to fear there. But Sam was by no means
anxious to earn laurels; he was clearly of the poet's view that "the
paths of glory lead but to the grave;" and it was a poor-looking
weak-kneed and much dejected scarecrow that dragged its way reluctantly
out into the veld to hold parley with the routed enemy that day.
At the first mention of Sam's name Jim had twitched round with a snort,
but the humour of the situation tickled him when he saw the too obvious
reluctance with which his rival received the honour conferred on him.
Between rough gusts of laughter Jim rained on him crude ridicule and
rude comments; and Sam slouched off with head bent, relieving his heart
with occasional clicks and low murmurs of disgust. How far the new
herald would have ventured, if he had not received most unexpected
encouragement, is a matter for speculation. Jim's last shout was to
advise him not to hide in an ant-bear hole; but, to Sam's relief, the
Shangaans seemed to view him merely as a decoy, even more dangerous than
I was; for, as no one else appeared, they had now no idea at all from
which quarter the expected attack would come. They were widely
scattered more than half a mile away when Sam came in sight; a brief
pause followed in which they looked anxiously around, and then, after
some aimless dashes about like a startled troop of buck, they seemed to
find the line of flight and headed off in a long string down the valley
towards the river.
Now, no one had ever run away from Sam before, and the exhilarating
sight so encouraged him that he marched boldly on after them. Goodness
knows when, if ever, they would have stopped, if Sam had not met a
couple of other natives whom the Shangaans had passed and induced them
to turn back and reassure the fugitives.
An hour later Sam came back in mild triumph, at the head of the Shangaan
gang; and, `clothed in a little brief authority,' stood guard and
superintended while they collected their scattered goods--all except the
axe that caused the trouble. That they failed to find. The owner may
have thought it wise to make no claim on me; Sam, if he remembered it,
would have seen the Shangaans and all their belongings burned in a pile
rather than raise so delicate a question with Jim; I had forgotten all
about it--being anxious only to end the trouble and get the Shangaans
off; and that villain Jim `lay low.' At the first outspan from
Barberton next day I saw him carving his mark on the handle, unabashed,
under my very nose.
The next time Jim got drunk he added something to his opinion of Sam:
"Sam no good: Sam leada Bible! Shangaan, Sam; Shangaan!"