"Beastly shame that the Boers hadn't buried themselves instead of
the guns!" Carew remarked, as he wrestled with a tough thong of
bully beef which yielded to his jaws much as an India-rubber eraser
might have done.
Without making any pretence of extracting nutriment from his own
ration, Weldon converted it into a missile and hurled it straight at
his companion.
"There's this difference," he returned pithily; "a gun is a good
enough fellow to deserve Christian burial. Carew, do you ever yearn
for the fleshpots?"
Without bringing his jaws to a halt, Carew shook his head.
"Do you?" he asked, after a prolonged interval.
"Yes, if they could be brought here; not otherwise. I like the game;
but I also like a little more oats mixed with my fodder. How long is
it since we had a square meal?"
"How long since we halted in that pineapple grove, coming up from
Durban?" Carew retorted. "That made up for a good deal. You have no
cause to rebel, though. Between Paddy and Kruger Bobs, you stand in
for all the tidbits that are going."
With a mock sigh, Weldon pointed backward over his shoulder.
"But unfortunately Kruger Bobs and The Nig are left behind in the
shadow of Naauwpoort's dreary heights. By the way, Carew, does it
ever strike you that these Boers make a lot more fuss over their
spelling than they do over their pronunciation? At home, we'd get as
good results out of dozens less letters."
"They make as good use of their extra letters as they do of their
extra bullets," Carew returned tranquilly. "They've been sniping,
all the morning long, and they have only hit a man and a quarter
now."
"Which was the quarter?"
Turning, Carew displayed a jagged hole in his left sleeve. Weldon
laughed unfeelingly.
"Can't you keep out of range, you old target? If there's a bullet
coming your way, it's bound to graze you."
"This is only the fourth. Only one of those really meant business.
Oh, hang it! There they go again!" he burst out, as a distant line
of rocks crackled explosively and, a moment later, a random bullet
opened up the side of his shoe.
With the swift change of occupation to which the past four months
had accustomed them, they were soon in the saddle and galloping off
across the rolling veldt. Before them, a pair of guns were pounding
away at the rocky line and its flanking bushes, and beyond, over the
crest of the next ridge, scores of thick-set, burly figures were
racing in search of shelter, with a fragment of the Scottish Horse
in hot pursuit.
Neck and neck in the vanguard raced Weldon and Carew, with Captain
Frazer's huge khaki-colored horse hard on their heels. To Weldon,
the next hour was one of fierce excitement and pleasure. The shriek
of the shells, long since left behind, the flying figures before
them, the rise and fall of his own gray little broncho as she
stretched herself to measure the interminable veldt, the khaki-colored
desert, dotted with huge black rocks and shimmering with the
heat waves which rose above it towards the midday sun: his pulses
tingled and his head throbbed with the glorious rush of it all.
And then the slouching figures were met by other slouching figures,
and reluctantly Weldon drew in his horse, as the halt was ordered.
Only madness would prolong the chase against such heavy odds. Mere
sanity demanded that the troopers should delay until the column came
up. The action must wait, while the heliograph flashed its call for
help. Weldon grumbled low into Carew's ear, as the minutes dragged
themselves along, broken only by indeterminate volleys.
"I have exactly five rounds left," he said at length. "I believe in
obedience, Carew; but, when I get this used up, by jingo, I'll pitch
into those fellows on my own account."
"Keep cool," Carew advised him temperately. "You always were a
thriftless fellow; you must have been wasting your fire. Oh, I say,
what's the row in the rear?"
"The column, most likely. It's time, too. Those fellows would be on
us in a minute. Ah ha!" And Weldon drew a quick breath of
admiration, as the guns came up at the gallop under the watchful eye
of the Imperial Yeomanry.
Once in position on a rise to the left, quickly the guns unlimbered
and opened fire, while the sergeants gathered around the boxes of
spare cartridges on the ground beside the panting ammunition horse.
Then at last came the order for the advance, the order so eagerly
awaited by Weldon, maddened by his long exposure to the bullets of
his unseen foe. In extended order, the squadrons galloped forward
until their goal was a scant five hundred yards away, when of a
sudden a murderous fire broke out from the rocks in front of them,
emptying many a saddle and dropping many a horse. Under such
conditions, safety lay only in an unswerving charge.
Close on their leaders' heels, the troopers spurred forward and,
revolver in right hand, rifle in left, they charged over the
remaining bit of ground and into the midst of the Boer position.
Briton and Boer met, face to face. Revolvers cracked; Boers dropped.
Mausers crashed; Britons fell. And then, through and over, the
British charge had passed.
Even then Weldon found no place for pause. From behind the Boer
position, a band of their reinforcements came galloping down upon
him. Caught between the two lines, the squadrons wheeled about, fell
again upon the broken enemy, dashed through them and, amid the
leaden hail, retired upon their own guns. And now once more the
gunners could reopen fire, and the shells dropped thick and fast.
The moment for a general advance had come. In open order, a thousand
men dashed forward and reached the ridge, only to see the retiring
foe galloping away in all directions across the open veldt. A halt
was ordered, to rest the winded mounts. Pickets were thrown out on
front and flank, while the British awaited their approaching convoy.
That night, the column rested upon the veldt at Vlaakfontein.
After the rush of the day, its hope and its succeeding
disappointment, Weldon was long in falling asleep. Carew was out on
picket; Captain Frazer, coat off and sleeves rolled to his
shoulders, was busy among the wounded, and Weldon had cared to make
few other close friends in the squadron. Around him, he could hear
the murmurs of other sleepless ones; but he lay silent, his arms
under his head, his face turned upward to the shining perspective of
the stars. In similar perspective there ranged them-selves before
his mind the events of the past twelve weeks.
Already the month at Piquetberg Road seemed a chapter out of another
volume. It had culminated in that languid afternoon spent around the
tea-table under the wattle tree in the garden, culminated there and
also ended there. With the unexpectedness that marks all things in a
time of war, the next noon found him steaming across the Cape Flats,
with Maitland in sight. Two days later, they were loaded on an empty
hospital ship returning to Durban. Piquetberg Road was child's play
now, for the front was almost in sight. The voyage had been beastly;
but after it had come the real beginning of things. Natal, in those
days of late February, had seemed deserving of its name, a true
Garden of Africa. The crossing was now a memory of heavy grades, of
verdant country, of ripened fruits. There had been the week's delay
at Pietermaritzburg where they had tasted a bit of civilization in
the intervals of completing their outfits; there had been the brief
stop at Ladysmith, already recovered from her hardships of the year
before, then the crossing the border into the Transvaal where the
verdure slowly vanished to give place to the dreary wastes of red-brown
veldt. At Johannesburg, he had manufactured an excuse for a
long letter to Ethel who--
"Show a leg there!"
The sergeant's voice at his ear called him back to the realities of
life. He sat up as alertly as if he had slept upon eider-down.
By eight o'clock, Weldon was out on the veldt, two miles from camp.
Before him, a force of Yeomanry was guarding the two guns; around
him, a detail from his own squadron protected the flank on the
right. And, still farther to the right, a cloud of yellowish smoke
rose skyward across the yellower sunshine. Then, of a sudden, out
from the heart of the wall of smoke came a muffled thud and roar,
confused at first, growing strident and more detached until,
sweeping from the haze of smoke, five score Boer horsemen rode in a
bolt-like rush, fierce and uncheckable. Without swerving to right or
left, they charged straight towards the Yeomanry drawn up beside the
guns, drove them back and shot down the gunners almost to a man. An
instant later, the guns were whirled about and trained upon their
quondam owners.
From over his breakfast, that morning, the General raised his head
to listen to the booming of the fifteen-pounders. No need to tell
him that heavy fighting had begun. His experienced ear had taught
him that magazine firing meant business. His hand went in search of
his field-glasses.
"General, the enemy have captured the guns. The Major asks for
assistance to retake them."
The General lowered his glasses. Covered with dust, and breathless,
Weldon was before him.
"Mount every available man, and gallop to the scene of action!"
Orderlies carried the command to the different regiments. Before the
mounted men could start, the infantry were half-way to the guns. But
already shells were falling into the camp, telling every man that
the guns were in the hands of the Boers.
In the forefront of the remainder of his squadron, Weldon found
himself borne onward in the rush, straight from the camp to the
right flank of the guns. The broncho's swinging trot had long since
changed to a gallop, and her eyes were flashing with the wicked
light of her old, unbroken days, as she went tearing across the
sun-baked veldt, up and down over the rises and through the rare bits of
thicket at a pace which Weldon would have been powerless to check.
He had no mind to check it. The crisp air, full of ozone and warmed
by the sun, set his cheeks to tingling with its impact. A true
rider, he let his mood follow the temper of his horse and, like a
pair of wild things, they went bolting away far towards the head of
the squadrons.
And always the firing of the guns grew nearer and faster and more
murderous.
He took no note of passing moments, none of the miles he had ridden
during the past days. These counted for naught, while, with
photographic distinctness, the picture before him fixed itself
sharply in his mind: the dust-colored troops on the dusty veldt, the
brown-painted guns, the distant line of the enemy's fire and, far to
the eastward, the wall of smoke which was fast sweeping towards them
from the acres of burning veldt.
"Captain Frazer, the General orders you to take up your position in
the kraal on the extreme right, and to hold it at any cost."
From his place at the Captain's side, Weldon glanced at the orderly,
then, turning, looked across the veldt to the four gray walls
surrounding the clump of trees a mile away. His hand tightened on
the curb, and he straightened in the saddle, as the Captain led the
way into the purgatory beyond, an orderly purgatory, but crossed
with leaden lines of shot and shell.
At such moments, the brain ceases to act coherently. When Weldon
came to himself, he was kneeling behind the old gray wall, revolver
in hand, firing full in the faces of the Boer horsemen, scarce
fifteen feet away. Carew, his right foot dangling, had been hustled
to the rear of the kraal where the gray broncho and her mates were
in comparative shelter.
"Weldon?"
He looked up in a half-dazed fashion. The wall of smoke was already
shutting down about the retreating Boers. Beside him stood the
Captain, his yellow hair clinging to his dripping face, his blue
eyes, under their fringe of black lashes, glittering like polished
gems. Coated as he was with dust and sweat, his clothing torn and
spotted with the fray, he looked ten times more the gallant
gentleman, even, than when he had met Weldon in the heart-shaped
bit of lawn encircled by the Dents' driveway. Now he held out his
hand.
"Splendidly done, old man! One doesn't forget such things."