"Hallo, Selmes, what's the row with you?" said Trooper Sketchley,
suddenly noticing that Dick's face had gone rather white. "Confound it,
you didn't get hit, did you?"
Harley Greenoak, who was riding a little way in front, keeping a
watchful eye on the captive chiefs, instinctively reined in his horse,
having just overheard. The movement annoyed Dick Selmes. It seemed to
him to savour of leading-strings; and had not he borne part in two good
fights--three, in fact, for this capture of the two chiefs was better
than a fight. It was a bold dash and a fight combined.
"Oh, it's nothing," he answered, rather testily. "Something seemed to
knock me during that last volley. I expect it was a spent pot-leg or
splinter of rock. But it'll keep till we get back to camp."
"Where did it knock you?" said Greenoak.
"Here. Bridle arm. Rather ride with the right."
"All serene. But--just haul up your sleeve, if you can."
No fuss. No calling a halt. Just a plain injunction. Such was Harley
Greenoak. Dick obeyed.
"You'll be all right, Dick," pronounced Greenoak, after a brief
scrutiny, during which he strove to conceal the anxiety he felt. "It's
as you say, a spent pot-leg. But it has made a nasty jagged scratch all
the same, and we'll get the sawbones at it soon as we're in. You may
thank your stars it was a spent one, or you'd have had a broken arm for
some time to come."
"Never mind. We've boned the chiefs," said Dick, delightedly. "That
sweep Vunisa, he's the beggar who'd have cut my throat that night they
tied me up in a bag. Jolly glad we've boned him. Bit of turning the
tables there."
"We ought to enlist you, Selmes," said Sub-Inspector Mainwaring, who was
in command of the body that had so opportunely come to the rescue.
"You're a tiger for pulling off anything out of the way."
"Well, I hope I'll go through some more jolly old scraps with you
fellows," answered Dick. "The war seems to have begun in earnest now."
"Don't know. This may have broken the whole back of it. Eh, Greenoak?"
"May, or may not," answered the latter, who was not going to commit
himself to an ordinary conversational opinion at that stage.
They were joined by the other half of the pursuit under Inspector
Chambers. One man had been killed. A desperate savage, fairly
cornered, had sprung like a wild-cat upon the unfortunate trooper and
assegaied him fair and square as he sat in his saddle, being himself,
however, immediately shot. Three more were wounded with assegai cuts.
But, all things considered, the Police had come off with flying colours,
and all hands were in high spirits.
On the way, they picked up the wounded Kafir, Tolangubo, who had given
the information which had led to the capture of the chiefs. He had
proved useful enough already, and might prove so again, thought
Inspector Chambers when the man expressed a desire to join the Police as
a native detective. But, watching his opportunity, he besought Harley
Greenoak to enjoin upon the four troopers on no account to let out that
he had been instrumental in that, for in such event he could be of no
use at all, as the vengeance of his countrymen would be certain to
overtake him, and then--why, a dead man was more useless than a dead ox,
since you could neither eat him nor use his skin--he added, somewhat
humorously.
On reaching camp the two chiefs were lodged in the guard-hut, Jacob
Snyman having been now released and allowed to return to duty. He had
shown his good faith. The attack against which he had warned them had
been made in real earnest, and now in the flush of victory, the
would-have-been traitor found himself rather popular than otherwise.
All the same, a watchful eye was kept upon him. Vunisa and Pahlandhle
accepted the position with sullen philosophy. They were told that they
would be kept as hostages for the good behaviour of their people--an
announcement which filled them with no exhilaration, remembering as they
did, though keeping the knowledge to themselves, that the Gudhluka
Reserve was a very Alsatia, and comprised plenty of turbulent spirits,
whose allegiance to themselves was purely nominal. But there they were,
and their rations were regular, and the Police were not stingy with
tobacco; so the philosophy of the savage stood them in good stead:
"Sufficient unto the day."
"Well, Greenoak. It seems to me we are making a real frontiersman of
our friend here," said the Commandant, going on the while sorting out
and otherwise arranging his "specimens," as calmly as though they had
not spent the morning in defeating and thoroughly routing a few thousand
of bloodthirsty savages. "Wounded too? Never mind, Selmes. Think what
a lot of yarns you'll have to spin to the people at home."
"Oh, I don't mind that, Commandant. But--er--Blunt says it's a toss up
whether I'll be able to take a hand in any more fights for a month or
so. And by that time the war may be over."
"Hope so, I'm sure," was the dry reply. "Eh, Greenoak?"
The latter nodded.
For the Police surgeon--Dr Blunt--a tall, pleasant-mannered Irishman--
had examined and duly dressed Dick's wound, informing him that, although
not serious, it was not a thing to play the fool with.
"You see, Selmes," he said, "you are such a rash, impetuous beggar. I
suppose if some nigger were to sneak in to-night and tell you he knew
where to capture old Kreli, you'd start out on the spot and try and do
it. Well, let me remind you there's such a thing as blood-poisoning.
It's all right now, but if you get acting the ass with this thing, open
and running as it'll be for the next few days, why, there's no telling.
No, my boy. You'll have to wear your arm in a sling till I tell you to
take it out. What then? Why, you'll only look the more interesting.
Anyway, it's only your left fin."
This was some consolation. For it enabled Dick to sit down and write a
full, true, and particular account of the two battles and their sequel
to Hazel Brandon, and, incidentally, to his father, to be sent when the
Commandant should elect to send through despatches reporting recent
affairs.
"What do you make of this beast, Greenoak?" went on the Commandant, as
he extracted the last captured lizard specimen from the lethal
pickle-bottle.
"Don't know. I'm not up in scientific natural history."
"Well, he's quite an uncommon variety. Shall have to look him up when I
get back to my library."
Greenoak exchanged a comical look with Dick Selmes. The Commandant, for
the moment, attached more importance to the capture of this miserable,
uninviting little specimen of the lizard tribe, than he did to the
stirring and momentous events of the last couple of days. And yet--were
the alarm again to be given, no man in that camp would be more readily
on the spot, the very personification of cool and calm collectedness.
There were other humours in the life of the camp which every now and
then would come to the fore. One day a trooper, charged with trying to
shoot himself with his carbine, was marched before the Commandant. The
latter looked at him in a half-abstracted, lack-lustre sort of way, then
ordered him extra musketry practice--"for," he added, with
characteristic dryness, "a man who can't hit himself at no yards isn't
likely to be able to hit an enemy at so many."
Then Corporal Sandgate returned to the Kangala and reported for duty.
His foot was quite healed now, and all he asked for were a few chances
of being even with the brutes who had tortured him.
"Well, the prime mover in it is here in the camp now, old chap," said
Dick Selmes. "But you won't be able so much as to punch his head, for
he's shot through the leg. Besides, I believe the old man's
contemplating taking him on as a native 'tec." And he told the other
how the Kafir had put them in the way of capturing the two chiefs.
"Well, you've been in luck's way, Selmes," said Sandgate, wistfully,
"although you've got winged yourself. You've come in for a lot of hard,
lively service, while I've been kicking up my heels rotting in hospital
at Isiwa. Some fellows have all the luck. Mine, of course, is to be
reduced, if not hoofed out of the Force."
"Bosh! Not a bit of it. Buck up, old chap! You're far too useful to
the Force for that. Why, man, you did a splendid service. If I had
been in your place I expect I'd have given away the whole show."
But Sandgate refused to be comforted. He had been found wanting when
engaged upon service of vital importance. There was no getting behind
that.
A few days later he was sent for by the Commandant. It happened that he
and Dick were chatting together at the time.
"All up," he said resignedly. "Told you so."
The Commandant was seated in front of his hut. An express had just
ridden in, and, together with Inspector Chambers, he was going through
the correspondence. He looked up.
"Corporal Sandgate, yes," he said, as the other saluted in silence.
"Well, I can hardly call you that now. You are relieved of your rank."
"Yes, sir. I expected no less," answered the poor fellow, saluting
again, and making as if to withdraw.
"One moment. Read that," said the Commandant, handing him a folded
letter in blue official foolscap.
Sandgate, again saluting, took it mechanically. As he glanced down the
sheet, he gave a start, and his handsome sun-browned face lost all its
colour, then flushed, as he mastered, in cold official phraseology, that
on account of his heroic endurance, which had resulted in the saving of
vitally important despatches entrusted to his care, from falling into
the hands of the enemy, and by reason of his general efficiency and
zealous service, he was appointed to the rank of Sub-Inspector in the
room of the late Sub-Inspector Francis Madden of D. Troop, killed in
action at the Qora River.
Sandgate entertained no clear idea of what happened when he had grasped
the purport of this announcement, only a confused recollection of not
being quite responsible for his actions. In point of fact he sprang
forward impulsively, and, seizing the Commandant by the hand, shook it
again and again without ceremony.
"Oh, sir! This is all your doing," he cried. "And I--can't say
anything."
"Then don't try," was the answer. And a kindly smile lurked in the
ordinarily imperturbable face. The joke was one which appealed to its
owner.
Just after this, troop after troop of armed and mounted levies came
pouring into the Transkei. Every part of the Colony had responded to
the call, and the Gcaleka country was swept from end to end, its
defeated inhabitants retreating sullenly across the Bashi, there to
billet themselves, more or less by force, upon the weaker tribes which
occupied the country further to the eastward. But these reinforcements,
relieving the Police, enabled the latter to withdraw to the frontier,
where it might be that in the near course of events their services would
be even more urgently needed.
And Sub-Inspector Sandgate went to join his new troop, in a state of
mind representing that there was hardly anything left in life to wish
for.