Major von Rudenheim's surmise that "the cub" had been busy was correct:
Tom had never before been so fully occupied, and, as he afterwards
confessed, he had never been happier in his life.
The northern end of the nullah had now the appearance of a prosperous
native village. Tom had felt certain misgivings on the score of
cleanliness and health; but he found that the Wahehe, like all tribes
that inhabit inland and mountainous districts, away from the corrupting
influences of the coast, were tidy and orderly, and under the authority
of their old chief, Mirambo, the people settled down to a comfortable
existence. The one drawback was the limited range of movement; but even
in this respect the people were little worse off than they had been on
the plantation, and their rooted belief that before long the Germans
would be utterly driven from the country gave them bright hopes for the
future. Moreover, the women and children in a native village rarely
stray far from their homes, and as for the men, they had movement
enough.
To begin with, Tom organised a regular body of scouts, incorporating
some of his own men with those furnished by his new ally, M'setu. Always
keeping in mind his alternative ultimate designs, either to trek into
British territory or to hold his ground until the British overran the
border, he determined, when the scouts became proficient, to patrol the
whole country between the nullah and the Neu Langenburg road. The
defeat of the Germans at Abercorn was very heartening: clearly they were
not to have the easy conquest that Reinecke had apparently expected. At
the same time, it was only too likely that their preparations were much
more advanced than the British, and he could not hope that the Germans
would yield the largest and most precious of their colonial possessions
without a bitter struggle. It was also certain that the enemy would at
some time or other make a serious effort to crush this mutiny; and
while, in such a vast and well wooded country, he could not have
commanded every possible avenue of approach even with ten times as many
men as were available for scouting, he would at least make reasonably
sure that any movement of the enemy on the main tracks should be
reported to him.
At first he sent out one of the Wahehe with each of M'setu's men, and
practised them in watching the movements of small parties of M'setu's
people within a few miles of the nullah. Presently, in order to increase
the number of his fighting-men, he accustomed M'setu's men to scout
alone. By degrees he extended their field of operations until at length
he had established a definite chain, or rather network, of
scouting-posts commanding the principal tracks from Bismarckburg, and
especially the main frontier road to Neu Langenburg. Within a month no
enemy force or convoy could move along the frontier without Tom's
hearing of it.
The reports were at first brought to him by runners, and reached him
many hours late. Could he not devise some means of saving time and
exertion alike? He remembered having read, in a book of travels, how
the natives of the mountainous interior of New Guinea were accustomed to
shout news from height to height. The hills to the south of his own
position would lend themselves admirably to a similar system, and after
a few rather heart-breaking experiments he succeeded in teaching the
negroes to adopt this plan. Each prominent hill was given a name; the
man stationed at any particular post had to shout the name to the next,
and within a very few minutes Tom at the nullah learnt that a message
had been dispatched by a scout perhaps forty miles away.
Meanwhile he practised the fighting-men in aiming and sighting and fire
discipline, giving his commands by means of the whistle borrowed from
the German sergeant. These exercises were performed, not only in the
nullah, but on the ground cleared in front of the barricade and also in
the forest. His stock of ammunition would not allow of much target
practice, and he ruefully owned that the greater part of the men could
not be expected to become good marksmen. It was more profitable to
spend time in giving them cohesion in simple field movements. He
divided them into sections of sixteen, and got up sham fights in the
forest: one party advancing, the other retiring. At first the men whose
part it was to retire refused to do so, and even came to blows with the
attackers: why should they withdraw before men no better than
themselves? But after a time they entered into the spirit of the game,
and showed considerable aptitude.
Tom found the askaris useful in the course of his various exercises. At
first, when he practised his men in the nullah, the askaris looked on
with disdain, and roared with laughter at the mistakes made by the
negroes. But by degrees they grew interested; they commented among
themselves on the contrast between the Englishman's patience and good
temper and the rough treatment they had suffered at the hands of their
German drill sergeants. Tom, though he affected to disregard them, was
all the time keenly watching, and there came a moment when he suddenly
turned to them and asked for two volunteers to show the Wahehe the
correct way of kneeling to take aim. As he had expected, they were
flattered; every man wished to serve as a model. For some days he did
not apply to them again, and noticed a certain restlessness and
disappointment among them. At length he allowed them to act regularly
as guides and markers, but did not admit them definitively to the ranks
of his fighting-men until they came to him in a body and begged to be
taken fully into his service. They were Sudanese, like the majority of
the German native troops. Many of their people were fighting in the
British ranks: they preferred his drill to the German; and they were
ready to vow fidelity to him.
"What about pay?" asked Tom. "I have no money."
They replied that in the nullah they had no use for pay, but no doubt he
would pay them when he had the money--an English promise was good. Tom
was rather doubtful of the wisdom of trusting men who so suddenly
changed their allegiance, and he suspected that at the slightest
set-back they would desert him. On the other hand, these trained men
might serve as good stiffening for his untried troops, and ultimately he
decided to incorporate them with the garrison of the nullah, but not to
allow them to leave it until he had some clear proof of their loyalty.
As time went on, he became somewhat worried about two matters--the
approach of the rainy season, and the food supply. The foliage of all
the trees had turned red, a sure sign, according to Mwesa, that the
rains were at hand. The lake would fill, the stream would become much
swollen: would he be flooded out? What would be the effect of the damp
upon his health and the health of the people? Hitherto there had been
no sickness except minor ailments, which he had treated with such drugs
from Reinecke's stores as he knew the use of. Ague and malaria were
only names to him, but they stood for something terrible--the more
terrible because unknown. He had a good stock of quinine, the great
stand-by, he understood, in tropical climates; he would watch for the
first sign of fever, and then dose freely. Fortunately one of the Arab
overseers had been accustomed to doctor the workers on the plantation,
and this man was gratified by being appointed health officer to the
community.
The food question was an even greater difficulty, for while all might
not be sick, all must be fed. The provisions brought from the
plantation were running low: and though these had been supplemented by
small animals trapped in the forest and by occasional gifts from M'setu,
these sources were too precarious to be relied on. In order to ease the
situation, Tom at last made a habit of going into the forest for a day's
hunting once a week, leaving Mirambo in charge of the nullah. M'setu's
people were excellent beaters and knew the likeliest places for game;
the Wahehe were born hunters; but he could not afford to let them use
his ammunition indiscriminately, and when they accompanied him they were
armed only with spears. Everything depended on his own gun. In the
course of these shooting expeditions he brought down several head of
eland, hartebeest, and rhinoceros, the last being a special favourite
with the people. The game was cut up and carried home by his own men and
by M'setu's people, who were sufficiently paid for their services by the
present of certain portions of each day's bag.
It was after one of these expeditions that Tom had had to take
disciplinary measures with Haroun. The rationing system, after a little
trouble, had worked well. Moses had proved himself to be thoroughly
honest, and every one had his fair share. After a time Moses began to
suspect that some one was pilfering. Small quantities of food
mysteriously disappeared. A watch was kept; Tom called the people
together and warned them that any one who acted against the common
welfare must be punished; but the thief was not detected until, made
bold by success, he forgot caution, and was caught red-handed by Moses.
On returning from a day's shooting Tom learnt that the culprit was the
Arab who had volunteered his services on the first day at the nullah.
In such a man the crime could not be taken lightly, and Tom ordered the
man half a dozen strokes of the whip.
A few days afterwards Haroun disappeared. The sentries on guard day and
night at the barricade declared that the Arab had not passed them. The
nullah was searched; no trace of him could be found. Some of the people
reported that, after the whipping, he had sulkily held himself aloof,
and used to wander alone by the shore of the lake. At length it was
generally believed that he had fallen victim to a crocodile, and his
fate was a fruitful topic of conversation among the Wahehe.
One day, accompanied by Mwesa and some two-score beaters and carriers,
Tom set off to shoot. The rains had just begun, and Mirambo had told
him that with the filling and overflowing of the streams animals would
certainly be found on the swamps thus created. He had usually gone
either north or east, as being least likely to encounter enemies in
those directions. On this occasion, however, he struck to the west, in
order to reach low-lying ground where, according to M'setu's huntsmen,
at this season of the year game was plentiful.
A couple of hours' march through the forest brought him to an extensive
hollow, covered only with scrub and tall grass, and already showing
signs of becoming the impassable swamp which would result from a few
weeks' rain. The beaters, marching quietly ahead, soon made signs that
they had sighted game, and presently, through the grass, Tom saw the
long dark form of a rhinoceros placidly browsing. Stealing round to
leeward, he gradually approached the animal until he was within easy
range, fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing his quarry fall at the
first shot.
The report of his rifle had startled another beast that was wallowing in
a pool near by. It rose, sniffed around, then made off with lumbering
but rapid gait across the hollow towards a belt of woodland on higher
ground. Tom hurried in pursuit with his beaters, leaving Mwesa to guard
the animal he had already shot.
The chase was a long one. The rhinoceros, before it recovered from its
alarm, plunged through a long stretch of forest and scrub, and was found
at last resting in a narrow glade bordered on the further side by tall
bushes. Again Tom brought down the beast, this time at his second shot.
The natives, with cries of delight, were rushing forward to skin and
dismember it for transport when, without warning, there came from the
bushes beyond the sharp crack of several rifles, bullets sang through
the air, and two of the beaters fell. The rest bolted into the bush on
either side, and Tom, a little less precipitately, was about to follow
them when he saw a number of German askaris emerge from cover opposite,
with Reinecke at their head.
Reinecke's eyes were already gleaming with triumph. He shouted a word
or two which Tom could not catch, and then fired his revolver. In face
of odds, Tom had already started to make good his escape: but when he
heard the German's bullet whistle past him, he snatched out his
revolver, wheeled round, and fired. Reinecke flung up his arm, stopped
short, and yelled to the askaris at his heels. Tom sprinted across the
few yards of open ground, dashed into the bush, and ran, at first
blindly, for he heard the askaris close behind: one or two of them were
shooting at random in the hope of hitting him as he ran.
He was fleet of foot, and guessed that he could easily outstrip the
askaris, laden with their service packs. The danger was that he might
lose his way in the forest. All his men had disappeared; they would
probably find their way back to the nullah without difficulty. It was
important, however, that he should not be long behind them, for if they
should report that he was captured or killed, the people might be seized
with panic, and all his work be overthrown. He had left the glade at a
different point from that at which he had entered it, and so could not
follow the track made by his men. But fortune favoured him. He had not
pushed his way far among the trees when he struck a game track, along
which, if the askaris also did not discover it, he could make still
swifter progress than they, hindered by the bush.
Some few minutes later, the track brought him to a small stream: it had
no doubt been trodden by animals in quest of water. He jumped into the
stream, ran a short distance in the same direction as the current, then
made a long jump into a clump of low shrubs on the right bank. Replacing
as well as he could the disarranged vegetation, so as to give no clue to
his pursuers, he plunged once more into the bush, in the hope of coming
by and by upon a cross track that would lead towards the nullah.