"Bang! Boom!"
Rock and frowning krantz rolled back the reverberations in swooping echo
as the first seven-pounder spoke, launching its whistling shrapnel
across the deep, thickly-bushed valley of the Tsolo River. Hardly had
the echoes died away than the second gun spoke.
Simultaneously with its roar, branches and stones were seen to split and
fly, on the opposite hillside, some six hundred yards away.
Simultaneously, too, a deep-chested ejaculation of wonderment broke from
the throats of more than double that number of human beings. But the
mere handful of brown-clad, helmeted men stood calm and alert, feeling
perhaps a little grim, as they marked the effect of the gun practice
upon the ochre-smeared groups which dotted the hillside hard by. More
and more Kafirs came hurrying up from near and far, eager to witness the
fun of what was to them an entirely new experience. For this was no
battle, only a "demonstration" on the part of the Frontier Armed and
Mounted Police, whose recently formed battery of artillery was delighted
to have a chance of showing the turbulent inhabitants of the Transkei
what they might hope to expect in case of--accidents.
With each successful shot--and the new artillerymen were making
wonderfully good practice--a gasp of admiring amazement ran through the
entranced spectators like the breaking of a wave on the shore. These
had increased till there could not have been less than a couple of
thousand, reddening the slopes like a swarm of ants. They were not
armed, except with sticks; and without his kerrie a Kafir rarely moves.
The Police Commandant had sent word to all the principal chiefs,
inviting them to witness the gun drill, and some had accepted. Besides
the artillery, there were three full troops of mounted men.
Tall and bearded, his stature and smart uniform and shining sword
impressing the savages no less than his calm imperturbability of
demeanour, the Commandant stood, among three or four Inspectors. Two
others made up the group, and these, old friends of ours--Harley
Greenoak and his charge, Dick Selmes. A little way from these squatted
a knot of chiefs and councillors, eagerly discussing, in a low hum, the
effect of every shot. They were all old or elderly men, differing
outwardly in no way from the commonest of their people. They wore the
same red blanket, and some the massive ivory armlet. But the faces of
all were remarkably shrewd and intelligent.
"Well, Greenoak, so you couldn't induce old Kreli to show up?" said the
Commandant, naming the great and paramount chief of all the Transkeian,
and also of the Kafir tribes within the Colonial border. "Even you
couldn't manage that, eh?"
"Not even me," was the laconic reply.
"Well, I never supposed you would. He's got a long memory, and that
warns him that it may be no safer for his father's son within a white
man's camp than it was for his father before him."
"Why? What happened to his father, Commandant?" eagerly struck in Dick
Selmes, scenting a yarn.
"Shot--`while trying to escape.'"
"But wasn't he trying to escape?" said Dick, upon whom a certain
significant cynicism of tone underlying this remark was not lost.
"I didn't say he wasn't, and history agrees that he was," answered the
Commandant, drily. "But then, you see, Kreli can't read history, and
wouldn't believe it if he could. So he'd rather be excused coming to
see the new Police artillery make very fair gun practice, and I for one
don't blame him. Why, there's my old friend, Botmane," he broke off, as
his glance rested on the group of potentates above mentioned. Then to
an orderly, "Bring him here, Harris, I must have a talk with him."
"Who's he?" asked Dick.
"One of Kreli's big _amapakati_, or councillors," answered Greenoak.
"In fact the biggest."
"Oh!" and he looked with vivid interest as the Kafir, an old man with a
pleasant face, rose from his place in the group and strode forward,
which interest deepened as he listened to the subsequent conversation.
This he was able to do, as the Commandant, though perfectly at home in
the vernacular, chose, for reasons of his own, to use an interpreter.
But the said conversation was of no political importance, being a mere
exchange of compliments, with here and there a reminiscence. The old
Kafir expressed unbounded wonder at the gun practice. The white people
could do anything--he declared, as he was shown the working of the
guns--could kill men as far distant as anybody could see. "What was it
done with?"
"Show him the powder," said the Commandant.
This was done, and the old councillor dipped his fingers, not without
awe, into the black, large-grained stuff. No wonder the guns could
shoot so far with stuff like that, he remarked.
"Give him a big handful to take borne and show his chief. He can tell
him what he has seen to-day," said the Commandant.
Most savages are more or less like children over the acquisition of a
novelty, and now as old Botmane rejoined his brother magnates the whole
group of these craned eagerly forward to look at this mysterious and
wonderful stuff which he held in the corner of his blanket, and many a
deep-toned exclamation of suppressed excitement rose above the hum of
animated discussion. The Police looked on in semi-contemptuous
amusement.
The practice was over now, and the swarms of red-ochred savages began to
melt away; though a goodly proportion remained on the ground to discuss
what they had seen. Meanwhile, the Police were mounting for their
return march.
With them went Harley Greenoak and Dick Selmes. The bulk of the patrol
would return across the Kei to the Colonial side, but A. Troop would
remain behind in camp to keep an eye on a particularly unreliable and
turbulent chief named Vunisa. The officer in command of this, Inspector
Chambers, and Greenoak were old friends, and it was arranged that the
latter and his charge should camp with them for awhile.
At that time the Transkei was in a state of simmer, and the same might
be said of the tribes inhabiting British Kaffraria. Chiefs were known
to be calling in their followers; and this was done by a system that
worked with marvellous rapidity. At night mysterious beacons flashed
answering messages to each other from this or that lofty hill-top, and
it was known that war-dancing on a real scale was going on in this or
that disaffected chief's location; and notably in that of Vunisa,
situated in the Gudhluka Reserve. This Vunisa was the chief over an
important section of the Gcaleka tribe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In front of the officers' mess hut in the A. Troop camp, a group of four
sat chatting.
"Pity we can't find out something more definite, Greenoak," Inspector
Chambers was saying. "I believe I'd be justified in arresting Vunisa on
my own responsibility."
Harley Greenoak laughed drily.
"Don't you do it, Chambers. You'd stoke up the whole country then and
there. Even if you didn't--what price the Government? Too much zeal
isn't encouraged in the Police any more than in other departments, I
take it."
The Inspector and his sub. laughed ironically.
"Not much," said the latter. "And these devils are war-dancing every
night right bang under our noses. It's genuine too, for I've seen it
before, as you know."
"By Jove! I would like to see a real war-dance," struck in Dick Selmes.
"I say, Inspector, couldn't some of us go over some night and have a
look in? Why not to-night?"
"Tired of life yet, Selmes?" answered Chambers, good-naturedly.
"Because if a few of us went to have a look in at it none of us would
come back--in their present state of mind. If a lot--why, there'd be no
war-dance."
"Bother!" said Dick.
The conversation rolled on; then came dusk--then dinner. Life in the
open makes men drowsy. It was not long before the camp of A. Troop--bar
the sentries--was fast asleep.
The night was moonless, but the blue black of the unclouded sky was
beautiful with its myriad golden stars, shining as they only can shine
in Southern skies. The loom of the hills was perceptibly defined,
notably in one direction, where a faint glow brought into relief the
V-shaped scarp of converging slopes, constituting, as it were, a portal
to the country lying beyond. Hence sounds were borne, distant but
indescribably weird. But the Police were accustomed to such by this
time. There was war-dancing going on in the Gudhluka Reserve.
We said that the camp was fast asleep. Dick Selmes constituted an
exception. Lying on his blanket outside one of the huts--he preferred
to sleep in the open for the sake of freshness--he was planning out an
extraordinarily mad scheme. Why should he not steal out, make his way
over to Vunisa's location, and witness the fun? It would be a chance he
might never get again. As for the risk, old Chambers was probably
exaggerating. Even if he were discovered, they wouldn't hurt one man
all alone. He would just give them tobacco and tell them to go on with
the programme; and, acting on this idea, he rose quietly and stole out
of the camp.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Hang it! He had forgotten the confounded sentry.
"Oh, it's all right, old man," he answered genially. "It's only me, and
I'm taking a walk. Here, fill your pipe, I'll be back soon," putting a
coin into the man's hand.
Trooper Carter was not one of the best men in the Force, and F.A.M.
Police pay was none too liberal in those days. The weight of a
sovereign felt good.
"All right, sir. Don't be too long, though."