The Kopje Garrison Part 21

"He was quite right, sir," said the sergeant, nodding his head. "They found him this morning at his post."

"Dead?" said Lennox in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Yes, sir-dead. Horrid! Some one must have crept up behind him with a blanket and thrown it over him while some one else used an iron bar. He couldn't have spoken a word after the first blow."

"But why do you say that?" said d.i.c.kenson. "I understand the sentry was found dead, but-"

"There was the blanket and the iron bar, sir-the one over him and the other at his side. I don't call that fair fighting, sir; do you?"

The answer consisted of a sharp drawing in of the breath; and the officers turned away to examine the mischief done by the explosion, the backs of two houses having been blown right in.

"Well," said d.i.c.kenson dryly, "it's awkward, because they've got to be made up again; but one can't say they're spoiled."

"Not spoiled?" said Lennox, looking wonderingly at the speaker.

"No; they were so horribly straight and blank and square before. They do look a little more picturesque now. Oh, he was a wicked wretch who invented corrugated iron!"

"Nonsense!" said Lennox.

"But it does keep the wet out well, sir," put in the sergeant. "I don't know what we should have done sometimes without it."

Further conversation was stopped by the coming towards camp of a couple of Boers bearing a white flag; but they were only allowed to approach within the first line of defence.

"Want to have a look at the mischief they have done," said d.i.c.kenson bitterly, "and they will not have a chance. My word, what they don't deserve!"

The permission they had come to ask was given, and they were turned back at once, to signal for their ambulance-wagons to approach, these being busy for quite an hour picking up the dead and wounded; while the murdered sentry was the only loss suffered by the defenders of Groenfontein and the kopje.

As soon as suspicion was firmly fixed upon the party of non-combatant Boers who had departed upon their mission to obtain fresh supplies, one of the first orders issued by the colonel was for a patrol of mounted men to go in pursuit and, if possible, bring them back.

"There is not much chance of overtaking them," he said to the officers present; "but with a couple of teams of slow-going oxen they cannot make their own pace. Then this is the last time I'll trust a Boer."

"The worst of it is," said the major, "that we have let them carry off those two spans of bullocks. Tut, tut, tut! Forty of them; tough as leather, of course, but toothsome when you have nothing else."

"Toothsome!" said Captain Roby, laughing. "A capital term, for the poor teeth of those who tried to eat them would have to work pretty hard-eh,-d.i.c.kenson?"

"Better than nothing," said the young lieutenant-a decision with which all agreed.

That day pa.s.sed off without further attack from the enemy, who seemed to have drawn off to a distance; and as night fell the colonel became very anxious about the patrol, which had not returned. d.i.c.kenson, who had the credit of being the longest-sighted man in the regiment, had spent the day on the highest point of the kopje, armed with a powerful telescope, and from his point of vantage, where he could command the country in that wonderfully clear atmosphere for miles round, had swept every bit of plain, and searched bush and pile of granite again and again, till the darkness of evening began to fill up the bush like a flood of something fluid. When he could do no more he left the crew of the gun and began to descend by what he considered the nearest way to headquarters, and soon found it the longest, for he had delayed his return too long.

"Hang it all!" he muttered. "What a pile of s.h.i.+n-breaking rocks it is! I've a jolly good mind to go back and take the regular path; seems so stupid, though, now."

In this spirit he persevered, wandering in and out among the piled-up blocks, all of which seemed in the darkness to be exactly alike, often making him think that he was going over the same ground again and again. But he was still descending, for when he climbed up the next suitable place to try and get a view of the lights of the camp he could see them beneath him and certainly nearer than when he started.

"Shall manage it somehow," he muttered; "but, hang it! how hungry I am! There, I'll have a pipe."

He fumbled in his pocket as he stood in the lee of a block of granite, sheltered from the cold night wind, found the pipe, and raised it to his lips to blow through the stem, but stopped short with every sense on the alert, for from below to his left he heard a light chirp such as might have been given by a bird, but which he argued certainly was not, for he knew of no bird likely to utter such a note at that time of the evening, when the flood of darkness had risen and risen till it had filled up everything high above the highest kopje that dotted the plain.

"Couldn't be a signal, could it?" he said to himself. "Yes," he said directly after, for the chirp was answered from lower down.

d.i.c.kenson softly swung the case of his telescope round to his back out of the way, and took out his revolver without making a sound, listening intently the while, and at the end of a long minute he made out a low whispering close at hand; but he could not place it exactly, for the sounds seemed to be reflected back from the face of the rock directly in front of him.

"I wish it wasn't so dark," he said, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his lips, he tried to imitate the chirp, and so successfully that it was answered.

"Must be one of our sentries," he thought, and he hesitated as to his next proceeding.

"Don't want to challenge and raise a false alarm," he said; "but last night's work makes one so suspicious. I'll let them challenge me."

He turned to descend softly from where he had climbed to, and his foot slipped on the weather-worn stone, so that he made a loud sc.r.a.ping sound in saving himself from a fall; but not so loud that he was unable to hear the scuffling of feet close at hand, followed directly after by dead silence.

His finger was on the trigger of his pistol, and he was within an ace of firing in the direction of the noise, but refrained, and contented himself with walking as sharply as he could towards it with outstretched hands, for overhanging rocks made the place he was in darker than ever, and he was reduced to feeling his way. Then stopping short with a sense of danger being close at hand, he gave the customary challenge, to have it answered from behind him; and the next minute he was face to face with a sentry.

"I thought I heard something, sir," said the man. "Then it was you?"

"No, no," said d.i.c.kenson; "I heard it too-a low chirp like a bird."

"No, no, sir; not that-a sound as if some one slipped."

"Yes, that was I," said d.i.c.kenson; "but there was a chirp. Did you hear that?"

"Oh yes, I heard that, sir; and another one answered it."

"And then there was talking."

"Oh no, sir, I heard no talking. Sound like a bird; but I think it's a little guinea-piggy sort of thing. I believe they live in holes like rats, and come out and call to one another in the dark."

"Well, perhaps it may be; but keep a sharp lookout."

"I'll keep my ears well open, sir," said the man; "there's no seeing anything in a night like this."

The sentry was able to put his visitor in the right direction, and d.i.c.kenson went on, forgetting the incident and wondering how Lennox was getting on; then about what the colonel would say to his ill-success; and lastly, the needs of his being filled up all his thoughts, making him wonder what he should get from the mess in order to satisfy the ravenous hunger that troubled him after his long abstinence.

He reached the square at last, but not without being challenged three times over. Then making his way to the colonel's patched-up quarters, he was just in time to meet the patrol coming into the opening, their leader going straight to the mess-room, where the officers were gathered.

"Any luck?" said d.i.c.kenson. "I was on the lookout for you up yonder till I couldn't see."

"Yes, and no," said the officer. "Come on and you'll hear."

d.i.c.kenson followed his companion into the long, dreary-looking, ill-lighted barn, where they were both warmly welcomed; and the officer announced that he had gone as near the Boers' laagers as he could, drawing fire each time; but he had not been able to either overtake or trace the plotters till close upon evening, when on the return. They had found a sign, but there was so much crossing and recrossing that the best of scouts could have made nothing of it; and he concluded that the party he sought had got well away, when all at once they came upon the undoubted spoor of the two teams of oxen, followed it into the bush, and just at dusk came upon the two wagons in a bush-like patch among the trees.

"And what had the men to say for themselves?" said the colonel eagerly.

"The men had gone, sir," said the officer.

"Ah! Bolted at the sight of you?"

"Oh no, sir; they were gone."

"What! and left the wagons?"