Chapter Twenty Six.
“A Coward!—a Cur!”
It was about an hour later, when the wounded had been seen to by the surgeon—who reported very favourably on the men, whose injuries were for the most part the result of blows from rifle-butts received in the struggle on the kopje—that two of the scouts who had been left to watch the Boers came in with a sufferer dangerously injured by a rifle-bullet.
Dickenson’s heart gave a throb as he saw the men, and being off duty, he hurried to meet them, in the hope and belief that they had found Lennox. But it was one of their companions.
The men’s report was that the Boers had come steadily on as the British force retreated, and had then been busily engaged collecting their dead and wounded, paying no heed to the little outpost watching them till their task was done, when, as the last of their wagons moved off, they began firing again, till one of the outposts fell, and the others remained too well covered, staying till the firing had ceased, and then hurrying back.
“Poor old Lennox!” said Dickenson to himself. Then, seeing that Sergeant James was watching him, he shook his head.
“I was hoping that they were bringing in Mr Lennox, sir,” said the sergeant gloomily. “Of course, seeing the temper the enemy is in after their defeat, it would be like getting some of our fellows murdered if the colonel gave me leave to go out with a white flag.”
“I’m afraid so too,” said Dickenson.
“But what about as soon as it’s dark, sir? Think the colonel would let us go to make a better search? He must be near the Boers’ laager where we missed him.”
“I was thinking something of the sort,” said Dickenson. “Will you go with me, James?”
“Will I go with you, sir?” cried the sergeant. “Wouldn’t I go through anything to try and get him back? You’ll ask the colonel to name me, sir?”
“If he gives consent,” said Dickenson warmly. “He’ll tell me to take two or three men, and of course I shall pick you for one.”
“Thankye, sir; and don’t you be down-hearted. You’re fagged now, sir, with all we’ve done since we started, and that explosion gave you a horrid shaking up. You go to your quarters, sir, as soon as the colonel has given leave, and lie down—flat on your back, sir—and sleep till it’s time for starting. I’ll have the others ready, and I’ll rouse you up, sir.”
“Very well, sergeant,” said the young officer. “I must own to being a bit down.”
As soon as the sergeant had left him, the young officer went to the colonel’s quarters and asked to see him.
“Come in, Dickenson,” said the chief, and he held out his hand. “Thank you, my lad,” he said. “I’ve heard all about what you’ve done. Very good indeed. I sha’n’t forget it in my despatch, but when it will get to headquarters is more than I can tell. I’m glad you have come. What can I do for you?”
Dickenson stated his wishes, and the colonel looked grave.
“I don’t know what to say, Dickenson,” he replied. “It would be a very risky task. I have scouts out, but I doubt whether they’ll be able to tell whether the enemy is still holding the kopje. If he is, you will run a terrible risk. I’ve just lost one of my most promising young officers; I can’t spare another.”
“I was afraid you would say so, sir. But Drew Lennox and I have always been regular chums together, and it seems horrible to settle down quietly here in safety and do nothing to try and find him.”
“It does, my dear sir; but we soldiers have to make sacrifices in the cause of duty.”
“Yes, sir; but we’ve had a splendid bit of luck since last night. Can’t you strain a point?”
The colonel smiled.
“Well, it’s hardly fair to call it luck, Dickenson,” he said. “I think some of it’s due to good management. Eh?”
“Yes, sir; you are quite right.”
“Well there, then, if you’ll promise me to run no risks with the lads, and return if you find the enemy still at the kopje, I’ll give you leave to take a sergeant and a couple of men and go.”
Dickenson looked pleased and yet disappointed.
“We might find him somewhere near, sir, even if the Boers are there,” he said.
“In the darkness of a moonless night, with men on the qui vive ready to fire at the slightest sound?”
“We got well into the laager last night, sir, with a hundred and fifty men,” said Dickenson in tones of protest.
“But you wouldn’t get in to-night with one, and such an enterprise against either of the other laagers would now be impossible. There, I can make no further concessions, for all your sakes, so be content.”
“You are right, sir, and I am wrong,” replied Dickenson quietly.
“You will retire, then, directly you find the place occupied?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go, then, as soon as it is dark. You can pick two men who can ride, take three of the captured Bechuana ponies, and one can hold them while the others search.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But I have no hope of your finding him, Dickenson. This is solely from a desire that we may feel we have done all we can do in such a case. Now I am busy. You have been up all night, and nearly been killed. Go and lie down for a few hours’ sleep.”
The young officer left the colonel’s presence, and had no trouble in finding the sergeant, for he was watching for his return, and heard with eagerness the result.
“Ride? Capital, sir; make us fresher for our work. We shall find him. I don’t believe he’s dead. Now you’ll take a rest, sir. I’ll have the ponies ready, and the men.”
Dickenson gave him the names of the two men he would like to take, but had to give up one.
“Can’t sit a horse, sir; hangs on its back like a stuffed image. Now Jeffson, sir, was a gentleman’s groom. Ride anything. I wonder he isn’t in the cavalry.”
“Very well, then; warn Jeffson. There, I am done up, sergeant. I trust you to rouse me as soon as it’s dark.”
“Right, sir. But one word, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Captain Roby, sir. Keeps off his head, sir. Going on awfully. Doctor Emden says it’s due to the bullet striking his skull.”
“Dangerous?” said Dickenson anxiously.
“Oh no, sir; but he keeps on saying things that it’s bad for the men to hear; and that Corporal May, he’s nearly as bad. He thinks he’s worse. He’s within hearing, and every time the captain says anything, Master Corporal May begins wagging his head and crying, and tells the chaps about him that it’s all right.”
“Poor fellow! There, I’ll go and see them before I lie down.”
“No, sir; please, don’t,” said the sergeant earnestly. “You’ve done quite enough for one day.”
“Confound it, man! don’t dictate to me,” cried Dickenson testily.
“Certainly not, sir. Beg your pardon, sir; but we’ve got a heavy job on to-night, and it’s my duty to warn you as an old soldier.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, sir, that I’ve had twenty years’ experience, and you’ve had two, sir. A man can only do so much; when he has done that and tries to do more, he shuts up all at once. I don’t want you to shut up, sir, to-night. I want you to lead us to where we can find Mr Lennox.”
“Of course, sergeant. I know you always mean well. Don’t take any notice of my snappish way.”
“Not a bit, sir,” said the man, smiling. “It’s only a sign that, though you don’t know it, you’re just ready to shut up.”
“But, hang it all, man!” said the young officer, with a return of his irritable manner, “I only want to just see my brother officer for a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir, I know,” said the sergeant stubbornly; “but you’re better away. He’s right off his head, and abusing everybody. If you go he’ll say things to you that will upset you more than three hours’ sleep will wipe out.”
“Oh, I know what you mean now—what he said before—about my being a coward and leaving him in the lurch.”
“Something of that sort, sir,” replied the sergeant.
“Poor fellow! Well, perhaps it would be as well, for very little seems to put me out. It was the shock of the explosion, I expect. There, sergeant, I’ll go and lie down.”
“I’ll bring you a bit of something to eat, sir, when I come. There’s plenty now.”
“Ah, to be sure; do,” said the young man. “But I could touch nothing yet. Remember: as soon as it is quite dark.”
“Yes, sir; as soon as it is quite dark.”
Dickenson strode away, and the sergeant uttered a grunt of satisfaction.
“Poor fellow!” he muttered. “It would have made him turn upon the captain. Nobody likes to be called a coward even by a crank. It would have regularly upset him for the work. Now then, I’ll just give those two fellows the word, and then pick out the ponies. Next I’ll lie down till the roast’s ready. We’ll all three have a good square meal, and sleep again till it’s time to call Mr Dickenson and give him his corn. After that, good-luck to us! We must bring that poor young fellow in, alive or dead, and I’m afraid it’s that last.”
Meanwhile Dickenson had sought his quarters, slipped off his accoutrements and blackened tunic, and thrown himself upon his rough bed. It was early in the afternoon, with the sun pouring down its burning rays on the iron roofing of his hut, and the flies swarming about the place.
As a matter of course over-tired, his nerves overwrought with the excitement of what he had gone through, and his head throbbing painfully, he could not go to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes his ears began to sing after the same fashion as they did directly following the explosion, and after tossing wearily from side to side for quite an hour, he sat up, feeling feverish and miserable.
“I’m making myself worse,” he thought. “I know: I’ll go down to the side of the stream, bathe my burning head and face, and try and find a shady place amongst the rocks.”
He proceeded to put his plan into execution, resuming his blackened khaki jacket and belts, and started off, to find a pleasant breeze blowing, and, in spite of the afternoon sunshine, the heat much more bearable than inside his hut. His way led him in the direction of the rough hospital, and as he drew near, to his surprise he heard Captain Roby’s voice speaking angrily, and Dickenson checked himself and bore off to his right so as to go close by the open door.
“Poor fellow!” he said. “I must see how he is.”
He went into the large open hut in which the captain had been placed by the doctor’s orders, because it was one in which the sides had been taken off so as to ensure a good current of air. As the young officer entered he caught sight of two others of the injured lying at one end, and noted that the wounded corporal was one.
Both men were lying on their backs, perfectly calm and quiet; but Roby was tossing his hands about impatiently and turning his head from side to side, his eyes wide open, and he fixed them fiercely upon his brother officer as he entered.
“How does he seem, my lad?” said Dickenson to the attendant, who was moistening the captain’s bandages from time to time.
“Badly, sir. Quite off his head.”
“Ah! Cur!—coward!” cried Roby, glaring at him. “Coward, I say! To leave me like that and run.”
“Nonsense, old fellow!” said Dickenson, affected just as the sergeant had said he would be; and his voice sounded irritable in the extreme as he continued, “Drop that. You said so before.”
“Who’s that?” cried Roby, with his eyes becoming fixed.
“Me, old fellow—Dickenson. Not a coward, though.”
“Who said you were?”
“Why, you did, over and over again.”
“A lie! No. I said Lennox. Ah! To run for his miserable life—a coward—a cur!”
“What!” cried Dickenson angrily; but Roby lay silent as if exhausted, and, to the young officer’s horror and disgust, a womanly sob came from the corporal’s rough pallet at the end of the hut, and in a whining voice he moaned:
“Yes, sir; he don’t mean you, but Mr Lennox, sir. I saw him run, and it’s all true.”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
“There’s Nothing like the Truth.”
Bob Dickenson’s jaw dropped as he stood staring for some moments at the corporal—as if he could not quite believe his ears. It seemed to him that this had something to do with the explosion, and that his hearing apparatus was still wrong, twisting and distorting matters, or else that the excitement of the past night and his exertions had combined with the aforesaid explosion to make him stupid and confused.
But all the same he felt that he could think and weigh and compare Roby’s words with those of the corporal, and experienced the sensation of a tremendous effervescence of rage bubbling up within his breast and rising higher and higher to his lips till it burst forth in words hot with indignation.
“Why,” he roared, “you miserable, snivelling—lying—Oh, tut, tut, tut! what a fool I am, quarrelling with a man off his head!—Here, orderly,” he continued, turning to the hospital attendant, “this fellow May doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“So I keep on telling him, sir,” said the man sharply; “but he will keep at it. Here’s poor Captain Roby regularly off his chump, and bursting out every now and then calling everybody a coward, and, as if that ain’t bad enough, Corporal May goes on encouraging him by saying Amen every time.”
“I don’t,” cried the corporal, in a very vigorous tone for one so badly injured; “and look here, if you make false charges against me I’ll report you to the doctor next time he comes round, and to the colonel too.”
“What!” cried the orderly fiercely. “Yes, you’d better! Recollect you’re down now, and it’s my turn. I’ve had plenty of your nastiness, Mr Jack-in-office Corporal, for a year past, when I was in the ranks. You ain’t a corporal now, but in hospital; and if you say much more and don’t lie quiet I’ll roll up a pad of lint and stuff that in your mouth.”
“You daren’t,” cried the corporal, speaking the simple truth defiantly, and without a trace of his previous whining tone.
“Oh yes, I dare,” said the attendant, with a grin. “Doctor’s orders were that, as you were put in here when you oughtn’t to be, I was to be sure and keep you quiet so as you shouldn’t disturb the captain, and I’m blessed if I don’t keep you quiet; so there.”
“You daren’t,” cried the corporal tauntingly.
“What! Just you say that again and I will. Look here, my fine fellow. In comes Dr Emden. ‘What’s this, orderly?’ he says. ‘How dare you gag this man?’
“‘Couldn’t keep him quiet, sir,’ I says. ‘He’s been raving awful, and lying, and egging the captain on to keep saying Mr Dickenson and Mr Lennox is cowards.’”
“I wasn’t lying,” cried the corporal, with a return of his whimpering tone. “What Captain Roby says is all true. I saw Mr Lennox sneak off like a cur with his tail between his legs.”
“Cur yourself, you lying scoundrel!” cried Dickenson.—“Here, orderly, I’ll hold him. Where’s that gag?”
“Oh! Ow!” wailed the corporal. “Here, if you touch me I’ll cry for help.”
“You won’t be able to,” said the orderly, making a pretended rush at the doctor’s chest of hospital requirements.
“Bah! Quiet, orderly. Let the scoundrel alone. He’s off his head and doesn’t know what he’s saying, poor wretch.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the attendant, “the captain don’t; but this chap does. I haven’t seen what I have amongst the sick and wounded without picking up a little, and I say Master Corporal here’s doing a bit o’ sham Abram to keep himself safe.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Dickenson shortly. “You’re getting as bad as the poor fellow himself. The doctor would have seen in a minute.”
“I don’t know, sir,” whispered the attendant, glancing at the corporal, who lay with his eyes half-closed and his ears twitching. “He’s pretty cunning. Had a crack or two with a rifle-stock, I think, but only just so much as would make another man savage. You’ll see; he’ll be sent back into the ranks in a couple of days or so.”
“No, no, orderly,” said Dickenson. “I prefer to believe he’s a bit delirious.”
“Well, sir, I hope he is,” said the man, “for everybody’s sake, including his own. I don’t know, though,” he continued, following the lieutenant outside after the latter had laid his hand upon Roby’s burning forehead, and been called a coward and a cur for his pains; “I’ve got my knife into Master Corporal May for old grudges, and I should rather like Mr Lennox to hear him say what he does about him. Corporal May would get it rather hot.”
“That will do,” said Dickenson; “the man’s in such a state of mental excitement that his captain’s ravings impress him and he thinks it is all true. There, you, as a hospital attendant, must learn to be patient with the poor fellows under your charge.”
“I am, sir,” said the man sturdily. “Ask the doctor, sir. I’m doing my best, for it’s sore work sometimes with the poor chaps who are regularly bad and feel that they are going home—I mean the long home, sir. I’ve got six or seven little things—bits of hair, and a silver ring, and a lucky shilling, and such-like, along with messages to take back with me for the poor fellows’ mothers and sisters and gals; and please goodness I ever get back to the old country from this blessed bean-feast we’re having, I’m going to take those messages and things to them they’re for, even if I have to walk.”
“Ha!” said the young officer, laying his hand on the man’s shoulder and gripping him firmly, for there was a huskiness in his words now, and he sniffed and passed his hand across his nose.
“Can’t help it, sir. I’m hard enough over the jobs, but it touches a man when it comes to sewing ’em up in their blankets ready for you know what. Makes you think of them at home.”
“Yes,” said Dickenson, in quite an altered tone. “There, you know me. When we get back and you’re going to deliver your messages, if you let me know, orderly, I’ll see that you don’t have to walk.” Dickenson turned sharply to walk away, but came back. “Try and keep the captain from making those outrageous charges, my lad.”
“I do, sir; but he will keep on.”
“Well, go on cooling his bandages, and he’ll go off to sleep.”
“I hope so, sir,” replied the man. “But what about Corporal May?”
“Serve him the same, of course,” said Dickenson, and he hurried away, with Roby’s words ringing in his ears.
“Chap wants to be a sort of angel for this work,” said the orderly as he fumbled about his slight garments. “Hankychy, hankychy, where are yer? Washed you out clean in the little river this morning and dried you on a hot stone.”
“What are you looking for, mate?” said the third patient in the hut feebly—a man who, with a shattered arm-bone, was lying very still.
“Hankychy,” said the orderly gruffly. “Lost it.”
“Here it is. You lent it to me to wipe my face and keep off the flies.”
“Did I? So I did. All right, mate; keep it. Mind you don’t hurt the flies. Like a drink o’ water?”
“Ah-h!” sighed the injured man. That was all, but it meant so much.
There was a pleasant, trickling, tinkling sound in the heated hut as the orderly took a tin and dipped it in an iron bucket. The next minute he was down on one knee with an arm under the sufferer’s shoulders, raising him as gently as if the task was being done by a woman. Then the tin was held to the poor fellow’s lips, and the orderly smiled as he saw the avidity with which it was emptied.
“Good as a drop of beer—eh?” he said.
“Beer?” replied the patient, returning the smile. “Ha! Not bad in its way; but I never tasted a pint so good as that.”
“Oh! Ah!” said the orderly grimly. “Wait till you get all right again, and you’ll alter your tune.”
“Get right again?” whispered the man, so that the corporal should not hear. “Think I shall?”
“What! with nothing else the matter but a broken bone? Why, of course.”
“Ah!” sighed the poor fellow, with a look of relief. “I’m a bit down, mate, with having so little to eat, and it makes me think. Thankye; that’s done me a lot o’ good.”
He settled down upon the sack which formed his couch, and the orderly rose to take back the tin, not seeing that Corporal May’s eyes were fixed upon the vessel, which he watched eagerly, as if expecting to see it refilled and brought to him. But the orderly merely set it down, and made a vicious blow at a buzzing fly.
“Well, what have I done?” whined the corporal.
“Done? Heverythink you shouldn’t have done,” said the orderly. “Look here, corp’ral; next time the barber cuts your hair, you ask him to take a bit off the end of your tongue. It’s too long, mate.”
“Do you want me to report you to the doctor for refusing to bring me a drink?”
“Not I,” said the orderly coolly. “The chief’s got quite enough to do without listening to the men’s complaints.”
“Then bring me a drink of water directly.”
“All right,” said the man good-humouredly; “but you’d better not.”
“Better not? Why?”
“Because it only makes you cry. Runs out of your eyes again in big drops, just as it does out of another fellow’s skin in perspiration. Strikes me, corp’ral, that you were meant for a gal.”
“You won’t be happy till you’ve been reported, my man,” said the patient.
“And I sha’n’t be happy then, mate. Want a drink o’ water?”
“Yes; but things are managed here so that the patients have to beg and pray for it.”
“And then they gets it,” said the orderly good-humouredly as he dipped the tin again; “and that’s more than you can say about what most chaps begs and prays for. There you are.”
“Well, help me up,” said the corporal.
“Yah! Sit up. You can.”
“Oh!” groaned the man in a peculiar way which sounded as if he were not satisfied with its effectiveness, and so turned it into a whine.
“Won’t do with me, corp’ral,” said the man. “You gammoned the doctor, but you haven’t took me in a bit.”
“Only wait!” said the patient in a miserable whining tone this time. “How cowardly! What a shame for such as you to be put in charge of wounded men!”
“Wounded!” said the orderly, laughing. “Why, your skin is as whole as mine is. You’ve frightened yourself into the belief that you’re very bad.”
“Ah! you’ll alter your tone when I’ve reported you.”
“Look here, corp’ral; it strikes me that, with the row that’s coming on about you and the captain charging the officers with being cowards, there’s going to be such a shine and court-martial that you’ll have your work cut out to take care of yourself. Here, put your arm over my shoulder, and up you come.”
“Eh?” said the corporal in a much more natural tone.
“Eh—what?”
“About the court-martial?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I only said what I thought,” said the orderly, winking to himself. “Now then, up you come. Mind the water.”
He supported the corporal gently enough, and helped him to raise the water to his lips, watching him as he drained it, and then lowered him gently down and knelt, still looking at him, till the corporal gazed back at him wonderingly.
“What are you staring at?” he said sharply.
“You, old man.”
“Why?”
“I was thinking. Your knocks have made you quite off your head.”
“That they haven’t. I’m as clear over everything as you are.”
“Oh no,” said the orderly. “You’re quite off your chump, and don’t know what you’re saying.”
“You’re a fool,” said the corporal angrily.
“Tell me something I don’t know, old chap. Fool? Why, of course I was, to ’list and come out for a holiday like this. Oh yes, plenty of us feels what fools we’ve been; but we’re making the best of it—like men. D’yer hear—like men? I say, the captain’s regularly raving, ain’t he?”
“Well, er—yes—no.”
“Oh, he is; and you’d better own up and be cracked too. You don’t know what you’ve been saying about Mr Lennox.”
The corporal hesitated, looking up in the orderly’s eyes curiously, and seeming as if he was thinking deeply of the man’s words and debating in himself about the position he was going to occupy if an inquiry did follow the captain’s charges. He was not long in deciding, but he forgot to whine as he said, “Off my head? Delirious? Not a bit. I saw all the captain said, and I’m as clear as you are. I shall stick to it. There’s nothing like the truth.”
“Oh yes, there is,” said the orderly, chuckling; “a thoroughly good thumping lie’s wonderfully like it sometimes—so much like it that it puzzles people to tell t’other from which.”
“Look here, orderly; do you mean to tell me I’m a liar?” said the corporal angrily.
“Not I. ’Tain’t no business of mine; only it strikes me that there’s going to be a regular row about this. People as go righting don’t like to be called cowards. It hurts anybody, but when it comes to be said of a soldier it’s like skinning him. There, I must go and wet the captain’s lint.”
Saying which, the orderly rose and went to captain Roby’s side to moisten the hot bandages, so that their rapid evaporation might produce a feeling of coolness to his fevered head.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
A Find.
Dickenson walked frowning away from the hospital hut, thinking of the manner in which Roby had shifted the charge of cowardice from his shoulders to Lennox’s, and a sigh of misery escaped from his breast as he made for the side of the bubbling stream.
“Poor fellow!” he said to himself. “I’m afraid that he’s where being called coward or brave man won’t affect him.”
He reached the beautiful, clear stream, lay down and drank like some wild animal, and then began bathing his temples, the water setting him thinking of Lennox’s adventures by its source, and clearing his head so much that when he rose at last and began to walk back to his quarters he felt wonderfully refreshed.
This state of feeling increased to such a degree that when he once more lay down after taking off his hot jacket, the heat from the roof, the buzzing of the flies, and the noises out in the village square mingled together into a whole that seemed slumber-inviting, and in less than ten minutes he was plunged in a deep, heavy, restful sleep, which seemed to him to have lasted about a quarter of a hour, when he was touched upon the shoulder by a firm hand, and sprang up to gaze at the light of a lantern and at nothing else.
“Close upon starting-time, sir,” said the sergeant out of the darkness behind the lamp.
For a few moments Dickenson was silent, and the sergeant spoke again.
“Time to rouse up, sir.”
“Yes, of course,” said the young officer, getting slowly upon his feet, and having hard work to suppress a groan.
“Bit stiff, sir?”
“Yes; arm and back. I can hardly move. But it will soon go off.”
“Oh yes, sir. It was that big stone nipping you after the blow-up.”
“I expect so,” said Dickenson, struggling into his jacket. “Ha! It’s getting better already. Where are the ponies?”
“Round by the tethering-line, sir; but you’ve got to have a bit of supper first.”
“Oh, I want no supper. I’ve no appetite now.”
“Armoured train won’t work, sir, without filling up the furnace,” said the sergeant sternly; “and the ponies are not quite ready.”
“You promised to have them ready, sergeant.”
“So I did, sir; but we want all we can out of them to-night. We may have to ride for our lives; so I managed to beg a feed of mealies apiece for them. There’s a snack of hot meat ready in the mess hut, sir, and the colonel would like to see you before you start.”
“Yes,” said Dickenson, finishing buckling on his sword, and slipping the lanyard cord of his revolver about his neck.
He hurried then to the mess-room, where a piece of well-broiled steak, freshly cut from one of the oxen, was brought by the cook, emitting an aroma agreeable enough; but it did not tempt the young officer, whose one idea was to mount and ride away for the kopje. Certainly it was not only like fresh meat—very tough—but it possessed the toughness of years piled-up by an ox whose life had been passed helping to drag a tow-rope on trek. So half of it was left, and the young man sought the colonel’s quarters.
“Ha!” he said. “Ready to start, then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I must leave all to your discretion, Dickenson,” he said. “Recollect you promised me that if there was any sign of the kopje being still occupied you would stop at once and return.”
“Yes; I have not forgotten, sir.”
“That’s enough, then. Keep your eyes well open for danger. I’d give anything to recover Lennox, but I cannot afford to give the lives of more of my men.”
Dickenson frowned.
“You mean, sir, that you do not believe he is still alive.”
“I don’t know what to say, Dickenson,” said the colonel, beginning to walk up and down the hut. “You have heard this ugly report?”
“Yes, sir; and I don’t believe it.”
“I cannot believe it,” said the colonel; “but Captain Roby keeps on repeating it to the doctor and the major; while that man who was wounded, too, endorses all his captain says. It sounds monstrous.”
“Don’t believe it, sir,” cried Dickenson excitedly.
“I have told you that I cannot believe it,” said the colonel; “but Mr Lennox is missing, and it looks horribly corroborative of Roby’s tale. There, go and find him—if you can. We can’t add that to our other misfortunes; it would be a disgrace to us all.”
“You mean, sir,” said Dickenson coldly, “if Drew Lennox had—has—well, I suppose I must say it—run away?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, sir, I don’t feel in the least afraid. He is either a prisoner, lying badly wounded somewhere about the kopje, or—dead.”
He said the last word in a husky tone, and then started violently.
“What is it, man?” cried the colonel excitedly, for the young officer seemed as if he were suffering from some violent spasm. “Are you hurt?”
“Something seemed to hurt me, sir,” said the young man; “but it was only a thought.”
“A thought?”
“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “I was wondering whether it was possible.”
“Whether what was possible?” said the colonel impatiently. “Don’t speak in riddles, man.”
“No, sir. It came like a flash. Suppose the poor fellow was somewhere near the spot where we exploded the ammunition?”
“Fancy,” said the colonel coldly. “There must have been plenty of places round about the part you attacked without Lennox being there. There, lose no time; find him, and bring him back.”
“He half believes that wretched story put about by Roby,” said Dickenson to himself as he walked stiffly away, depressed in mind as well as body, and anything but fit for his journey, as he began to feel more and more. But he made an effort, stepped out boldly in spite of a sharp, catching pain, and answered briskly to the sentries’ challenges as he passed into the light shed by the lanterns here and there.
“Ready, sir?” said a voice suddenly.
“Yes; quite. The sooner we’re off the better.”
“The ponies are waiting, sir; and I’ve got the password, and know exactly where the outposts are if I can hit them off in the dark, for it’s twice as black as it was last night.”
“Then it will be a bad time for our search.”
“Search, sir?” said the sergeant bluntly. “We’re going to do no searching to-night.”
“What!” cried Dickenson.
“It’s impossible, sir. All we can do is to get as close as we can to the kopje and find out whether the enemy is still there. Then we must wait for daylight. If the place is clear, it will be all easy going; if the Boers are still there we must have a hasty ride round, if we can, before we are discovered.”
“Very well,” said Dickenson slowly as they walked on to the lines where the ponies were tethered, mounted, and went off at a walk, the sergeant and Dickenson side by side and the two men close behind; while the slight, cob-like Bechuana ponies upon which they were mounted seemed to need no guiding, but kept to the track which brought them again upon outposts, where their riders were challenged, gave the word, and then went steadily on at a walk right away across the open veldt.
“Ponies know their way, sir,” said the sergeant after they had ridden about a mile. “I’ll be bound to say, if we let them, they’ll take us right by that patch of scrub where the enemy had his surprise, and then go straight away for the kopje.”
“So much the better, sergeant,” said Dickenson, who spoke unwillingly, his body full of pain as his mind was of thought.
“Will you give the order for us to load?”
“Load?” said Dickenson in a tone expressing his surprise. “Oh! of course;” and he gave the necessary command, taking the rifle handed to him by one of the men as they rode on. “I was thinking of our chances of finding the Boers out scouting. I suppose it is quite possible that we may run against a patrol.”
“More than likely, sir. They’ll be eager enough to find out some way of paying back what we gave them to-day.”
“Of course, and—What does this mean?” whispered Dickenson, for his pony stopped short, as did the others, the sergeant’s mount uttering a sharp, challenging neigh and beginning to fidget.
“Means danger, sir,” whispered the sergeant. “We loaded none too soon.”
There was nothing for it but to sit fast, peering into the wall of darkness that surrounded them, trying vainly to make out the approaching danger, every man listening intently. Fully ten minutes elapsed, and not a sound was heard. The ponies, well-trained by the Boers to stand, remained for a time perfectly motionless, till all at once, just as Dickenson was about to whisper to the sergeant that their mounts had probably only been startled by some wild animal of the desert, one of them impatiently stretched out its neck (drawing the hand holding the reins forward), snuffed at the earth, and began to crop at the stunted brush through which they were passing. The others immediately followed suit, and, letting them have their own way, the party sat once more listening in vain.
Then came a surprise. All at once, from what Dickenson judged to be some fifty feet away, there was the peculiar ruff! ruff! ruff! ruff! of some one walking slowly through the low scrub, which there was not unlike walking over a heather-covered track.
“Stand,” cried the lieutenant sharply, “or we fire.”
“No. Hold hard,” cried a familiar voice. “Who goes there? Dickenson, is that you?”
“Lennox! Thank Heaven!”
The steps quickened till he who made them came staggering up to the lieutenant’s pony, at which he caught, but reached short, stumbled, and fell.
The sergeant was off his pony in a moment, handing the reins to a companion, and helping the lost man to rise.
“Are you all right?” said Dickenson excitedly as he reached down, felt for, and firmly grasped his friend’s wet, cold hand.
“All right?” said Lennox bitterly. “Well, as all right as a man can be who was about to lie down utterly exhausted, when he heard your pony.”
“But are you wounded?”
“No; only been nearly strangled and torn to pieces. But don’t ask me questions. Water!” A water-bottle was handed to the poor fellow, and they heard him drink with avidity. Then ceasing for a short space, he said, “I was just going to lie down and give it up, for I was completely lost.” He began drinking again, and then, with a deep breath of relief: “Whose is this?”
“Mine, sir,” said the sergeant, and he took the bottle from the trembling outstretched hand which offered it.
“Thankye, sergeant,” sighed the exhausted man. “It does one good to hear your voice again. Are we far from Groenfontein?”
“About three miles,” said Dickenson.
“Ah!” said Lennox, with a groan. “Then I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can,” said Dickenson warmly. “Here, hold on by the nag’s mane while I dismount. We’ll get you into the saddle, and walk the pony home.”
“Excuse me, sir; I’m dismounted,” said the sergeant, “and I’d rather walk, please.”
“Thank you, James,” said Dickenson. “I’ll take your offer, for I’m nearly done up myself.”
“You keep still, then, sir.—Dismount, my lads, and help to get Mr Lennox into the saddle.—Rest on me, sir; I’ve got you. Sure you’re not wounded, sir?”
There was no reply; but the sergeant, who had passed his arm round his young officer’s waist, felt him subside, and if the hold had not been tightened he would have sunk to the ground.
“Got him?” cried Dickenson.
“Yes, sir; all right. Fainted.”
“Fainted?”
“Yes, sir. Regular exhaustion, I suppose. We’ll get him into the saddle, and I think the best way will be for me to got up behind and hold him on, for he’s regularly given up now that he has fallen among friends.”
“But the pony: will it carry you both?”
“Oh yes, sir—at a walk. They’re plucky little beasts, sir. But we’ve got him, sir, and that’s what I didn’t expect. I suppose we mustn’t cheer?”
“Cheer? No,” said Dickenson excitedly. “Look here, sergeant; I’m a bit crippled, but I’ll have him in front of me.”
“But he’s on my pony now, sir, with the lads holding him. Had we better drag him down again? He’s precious limp, sir; and I’m afraid he’s hurt worse than he said.”
“Very well; keep as you are,” said Dickenson hurriedly; and, almost unseen, the sergeant mounted behind his charge and began to feel about him for the best way of making the poor fellow as comfortable as possible.
“He’s got his sword all right, sir, but his revolver’s gone. Stop a moment,” continued the sergeant, fumbling in the darkness; “there’s the lanyard, but his hat’s gone too. There, I’ve got him nicely now. Mount, my lads.”
There was a rustling sound as the men sprang into their saddles again.
“Ready?” said Dickenson.
“Yes, sir.”
“Stop a moment. How are we to find our way back?”
“We shall have to trust to the ponies, sir,” said the sergeant. “Let’s see; we have turned their heads round over this job. We must leave it to them; they’ll find their way back, thinking they’re going to get some more mealies. Trust them for that.”
“Forward at a walk!” said Dickenson. “Tut, tut, sergeant! It’s as black as pitch. If a breeze would only spring up.”
“Dessay it will, sir, before long.”
“How does Mr Lennox seem?”
“Head’s resting on my clasped hands, sir, and he’s sleeping like a baby—regular fagged out.”
It was a slow and toilsome march; but the party were in the highest of spirits, and, in the hope of seeing the lights at Groenfontein at the end of an hour or so, they kept on, only pausing now and again to listen for danger and to rearrange Lennox, whose silence began to alarm his friend. But the sergeant assured him that the poor fellow was sleeping heavily, and they went on again with a dark mental cloud coming over Dickenson’s exhilaration as he thought of the unpleasant news that awaited his friend.
“But a word from him will set that right,” he said to himself. “Poor fellow! He must be done up to sleep like that. Why, he never even asked how we got on after the fight.”
Chapter Twenty Nine.
In Difficulties.
On and on at the ponies’ slow walk through the short scrub or over the bare plain, with the clever little animals seeming to instinctively avoid every stone that was invisible to the riders in the intense darkness. Every now and then a halt was made, one of which their steeds immediately took advantage by beginning to browse on such tender shoots as took their fancy, and again and again the whispered questions were asked:
“How does he seem, sergeant?”
“Fast asleep, sir.”
“Hadn’t you better let one of the men take your place?”
“Oh no, sir; I’m all right, and so’s he.”
“Can either of you hear anything?”
“No, sir; only the ponies cropping the bush.” Then a faint, “We ought to be getting near home, sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can we do anything more?”
“No, sir; only wish for a row of gas-lamps along a straight road, and it ain’t any good to wish for that.”
“I can see nothing, sergeant, and the sky seems blacker than the earth.”
“Both about the same, sir, I think.”
“It is so unfortunate, sergeant, just at a time like this.”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir; one ought to make the best of things, and weigh one against another.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, we’re bothered a good deal with the darkness, and we’re obliged to do what a human man don’t like to do—trust to a dumb animal instead of himself. Of course that’s bad; but then, on the other side, we’re not running up against any of the enemy, and instead of hunting for hours after a long ride and then not finding what we come for, here we are not having a long dangerous ride at all, and him we wanted to find tumbling right atop of us and in a way of speaking, saying, ‘Looking for me, my lads? Here I am!’”
“Yes, we have been very fortunate,” said Dickenson.
“Fortunate, sir? I call it downright lucky.”
“Of course—it is. But can we do no more?”
“Not that I see, sir—feel, I mean. We might camp down and let the horses feed till daylight.”
“Oh no; let us keep on.”
“Very well, sir; then there really is nothing we can do but trust to the ponies. They somehow seem to see in the dark.”
“Forward, then!”
At the end of another half-hour they drew rein again, and almost precisely the same conversation took place, with the exception that Dickenson declared at the end that they must have lost their way.
“Well, sir,” replied the sergeant dryly, “it’s hardly fair to say that, sir.”
“What do you mean?” said Dickenson tartly.
“Begging your pardon, sir, one can’t lose what we’ve never had. It’s been a regular game of Blindman’s buff to me, sir, ever since we left the last post.”
Dickenson was silent, for he felt that he had nothing to say but “Forward!” so he said that, and the ponies moved on again.
“We must be going wrong, sergeant,” said Dickenson at last. “We have left Groenfontein to the right.”
“No, sir; I think not,” replied the man. “If we had, we should have broken our shins against the big kopje and been challenged by our men.”
“Then we’ve passed it to the left.”
“No, sir. If we had we should have come upon the little river, and the ponies would have been kicking up the stones.”
“Then where are we?” said the lieutenant impatiently.
“That’s just what I’m trying to find out, sir. I wouldn’t care if I knew which was the north, because then one could say which was the south.”
“Psh! It all comes of trusting to the ponies.”
“Yes, sir; but that’s one comfort,” said the sergeant. “We know they’re honest and would not lead us wrong. Poor brutes! they’re doing their best.”
“I’m beginning to feel hopelessly lost, sergeant. I believe we keep going on and on in a circle.”
“Well, sir, we might be doing worse, because it must be daylight by-and-by.”
“Not for hours,” said Dickenson impatiently. “We are, as I said, hopelessly lost.”
“Hardly,” said the sergeant to himself, “for here we are.” Then aloud he once more proposed that they should bivouac till daybreak.
“No,” said the leader decisively. “We’ll keep on. We must have been coming in the right direction, and, after all, I dare say Groenfontein is close at hand.”
He was just about to give the order to march again when the long, snappish, disappointed howl of a jackal was heard, and the ponies ceased grazing and threw up their muzzles; while as Dickenson leaned forward to give his mount an encouraging pat he could feel that the timid creature’s ears were thrust right forward.
“Always seems to me, sir,” said the sergeant gently, “that the wild things out in these plains never get enough to eat. Hark at that brute.”
He had hardly spoken when from out in the same direction as the jackal’s cry, but much farther away, came the tremendous barking roar of a lion, making the ponies draw a deep breath and shiver.
“Well,” said Dickenson, “that can’t be our way. It must be open country yonder. It’s all chance now, but we needn’t run into danger and scare our mounts. We’ll face right round and go as far as we can judge in the opposite direction to where that cry came from.”
“Yes, sir; and it will make the ponies step out.”
The sergeant was quite right, for the timid animals responded to the touch of the rein, immediately stepped out at the word “Forward!” and then broke into a trot, which had to be checked.
The roar was not heard again, but the yelps of the jackals were; and the party went on and on till suddenly the cautious little beasts began to swerve here and there, picking their way amongst stones which lay pretty thickly.
“This is quite fresh, sergeant,” said Dickenson.
“Yes, sir. I was wondering whether we had hit upon the river-bank.”
“Ah!” cried Dickenson eagerly, just as his pony stopped short, sighed, and began to browse without reaching down, the others seeming to do the same.
“But there’s no river here, sir,” continued the sergeant.
“How do you know?”
“Ponies say so, sir. If there’d been a river running by here, they’d be making for it to get a drink.”
“Yes, of course. Here, sergeant, I can touch high boughs.”
“Same here, sir.”
“But there’s no wood in our way.”
“What about the patch where our men surprised the Boers yesterday, sir?”
“To be sure. Why, sergeant, we must have wandered there.”
“That’s it, sir, for all I’m worth.”
“Ha!” said Dickenson, with a sigh of relief. “Then now we have something tangible, and can easily lay our course for Groenfontein.” The sergeant coughed a little, short, sharp, dry cough, and said nothing. “Well, don’t you think so?”
“Can’t say I do, sir. I wish I did.”
“Why, hang it, man! it’s simple enough. Here’s the coppice, and Groenfontein must lie—”
Dickenson stopped short and gave his ear a rub, full of vexation.
“Yes, sir, that’s it,” said the sergeant dryly; “this is the patch of wood, but which side of it we’re looking at, or trying to look at, I don’t know for the life of me. It seems to me that we’re just as likely to strike off straight for the Boers’ laager as for home. I don’t know how you see it, sir.”
“See, man!” cried Dickenson angrily. “It’s of no use; I only wish I could see. We can do nothing. I was thinking that we had only to skirt round this place, and then face to our left and go straight on, and we should soon reach home.”
“Yes, sir; I thought something of that sort at first, but I don’t now. May I say a word, sir?”
“Yes; go on. I should be glad if you would.”
“Well, sir, it’s like this; whenever one’s in the dark one’s pretty well sure to go wrong, for there’s only one right way to about fifty that are not.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then won’t it be best to wait till the day begins to show in the east, and rest and graze the ponies for a bit? Better for Mr Lennox too.”
“You’re right, sergeant; and it would have been better if I had given the order to do so at first.—Here, dismount, my lads, and hobble your cobs.—Here, I’ll help you to get Mr Lennox down, sergeant. Stop a moment; let’s try and find a patch of heath or grass or something first.—Hullo! what’s here?” he cried a minute later, after dismounting and feeling about.
“What have you found, sir?”
“Ruts—wheel-marks made, of course, by our guns or their limbers. Can’t we tell our way by those?”
“No, sir. It makes things a bit simpler; but we had a gun and wagon at each end, and we can’t tell in the dark which end this is. If we start again by this we’re just as likely to make straight off for the Boer camp as for ours.”
“Yes; we’ll wait for daylight, sergeant,” said Dickenson. “We’re all tired out, so let’s have two or three hours’ rest.”
A few minutes later Lennox, still plunged in a stupor-like sleep, was lifted from the sergeant’s pony, and at once subsided into the bed of short scrub found for him; the ponies, well hobbled, were cropping the tender parts of the bushes; and the weary party were sitting down.
There was silence for a few minutes, and then the sergeant spoke in a whisper.
“Think it would be safe for the men to light a pipe, sir?”
“Hum! Yes,” said Dickenson, “if they light the match to start their pipes under a held-out jacket and in the shelter of one of the big stones.”
He repented directly he had given the consent, on account of the risk.
“But, poor follows!” he said, “this will be the second night they have been out on the veldt, and it will help to keep them awake.”
Lennox was at the end of a couple of hours sleeping as heavily as ever. Dickenson had seated himself close by him so that he could lay a hand upon his forehead from time to time; and he judged that the poor fellow must be in pain, for each time there was a sharp wincing, accompanied by a deep sigh, which resulted in the touch being laid on more lightly. It was only to satisfy himself in the darkness that his comrade was sleeping and not sinking into some horrible state of lethargy; and finding at last that there was no apparent need for his anxiety, the watcher directed his attention to listening for sounds out upon the veldt, and divided the time by making surmises as to the experiences through which Lennox must have passed.
Captured and escaped! That was the conclusion to which he always came, and he wished that Lennox would wake up and enliven the tedium of the dark watch by relating all that he had gone through.
The lion made itself heard again and again, but at greater distances; and the prowling jackals and hyenas seemed to follow, for their cries grew fainter and fainter and then died out into the solemn silence of the veldt, which somehow appeared to the listener as if it were connected with an intense feeling of cold.
Then all at once, as Dickenson turned himself wearily and in pain from the crushing he had received when the stone slipped, he became conscious of something dark close by, and his hand went involuntarily to his revolver.
The next minute he realised that what he saw was not darker, but the sky behind it lighter, and he sprang to his feet.
“You, sergeant?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” was whispered back. “Be careful; one never knows who may be near. The light’s coming fast.”
Coming so fast that at the end of a quarter of an hour Dickenson could dimly make out the steep kopje by Groenfontein away to his left, and the low, hill-like laager that they had destroyed twenty-four hours before low down on the opposite horizon.
“Why, sergeant,” he whispered eagerly, “if we had started again in the dark we should have gone right off to where the Boers might have been.”
“Yes, sir, and away from home. That’s the worst of being in the dark.”
“As soon as it’s a little lighter,” whispered Dickenson, “we had better carefully examine this place. It is quite possible that there may be a patrol of the enemy occupying it, as we have done.”
“Yes, sir, likely as not, for—”
The sergeant clapped his hand over his lips and dropped down upon his knees, snatching at his officer’s jacket to make him follow his example.
There was need enough, for all at once there was something loudly uttered in Dutch, replied to by another speaker, the voices coming from the other side of the woodland patch.
In another minute there was quite a burst of talking, and, making signs to his two companions, the sergeant stepped softly to where the ponies were browsing and led them in amongst the trees, which stood up densely, until they were well hidden.
The next idea was to lift Lennox well under cover; but he was not touched, for he was still sleeping, and already so well hidden that it would not have been possible for any one to see him if passing round outside the trees and the thin belt of scrub.
“Get well down there, my lads,” said Dickenson then. “We’ll try and hold this little clump of stones if they do find us. If they do, we must give them a wild shout and a volley. They need not know how few we are.”
The men crouched down among the stones while the pale grey dawn was broadening, and waited in the full expectation of being discovered; for though a mounted patrol might in passing fail to see the men, the chances were that it would be impossible to go by without catching sight of the ponies.
It was evident enough to the listeners that the Boer party had passed the night in this shelter, and that they must have been sleeping without a watch being kept; otherwise, in spite of the quiet movements of Dickenson and his men, their arrival must have been heard; and now, as they crouched there, rifle in hand, all waited in the hope that the party would ride off at once in the direction of the ruined laager.
But Dickenson waited in vain, for the crackling of burning sticks told that the enemy did not intend to start till they had made their breakfast, and the young officer’s brain was busily employed debating as to whether it would not be better to try and drive them off with a surprise volley, putting them to flight in a panic. Under the circumstances he took the non-commissioned officer into consultation.
“If you think it’s best, sir,” said the sergeant, “do it; but you can’t get much of a volley out of four rifles, and if you follow it up by emptying your magazines there’ll be no panic, for they’ll know what that means.”
“What do you advise, then?”
“Waiting, sir. We’re only four. There’s Mr Lennox, but that seems like bringing us down to two instead of making us five. As we are we’re in a strong position, and they may ride right away without seeing us; and that’s what we want, I take it, for we don’t want to fight—we want to get Mr Lennox safely back. If they don’t ride straight off, and are coming round here and see us, we can try the panic plan while they’re mounted. They’re pretty well sure to scatter then. If we fire now they’re not mounted, they’ll take to cover, and that’ll be bad, sir.”
“Yes. It means a long, dull time,” replied Dickenson. “We’ll wait, sergeant; but how long it will be before they know we’re here I’m sure I don’t know. I’ve been expecting to hear one of the ponies neigh every moment, and that will be fatal.”
“Oh, I don’t know, sir. You never can tell. They may take fright even then after the startlings we’ve given them. They’re brave enough chaps so long as they’re fighting from behind stones, or in ambush, or when they think they’ve got the whip-hand of us; but a surprise, or the thought that we’re getting round their flank and into their rear, is more than they can stand.”
“Silence!” whispered Dickenson. “I think they’re on the move.”
But they were not, and the sun was well up before sundry sounds pointed to the fact that the enemy were preparing to start.
For sundry familiar cries were heard, such as a man would address to a fidgety horse which declined to have its saddle-girth tightened. The men were laughing and chatting, too, until a stern order rang out, one which was followed by the trampling of horses—so many that the sergeant turned and gave a significant glance at Dickenson.
“Now then, which way?” thought the latter. “If they come round this side they must see us, and they are bound to, for here lies their laager.”
He was right, for the trampling came nearer, and it was quite evident that the little party were riding round in shelter of the patch of wood, so as to get it between them and the English camp before striking straight away.
They were only about a dozen yards distant, dimly seen through the intervening trees, and Dickenson was in the act of glancing right and left at his men when a chill ran through him. For Lennox, who had lain perfectly still in the shadow beneath the bush where he had been laid, suddenly began to mutter in a low, excited tone, indicating that he was just about waking up. It was impossible to warn him, even if he had been in a condition to be warned; and to attempt to stir so as to clap a hand over his lips must have resulted in being seen.
There was nothing for it but to crouch there in silence with hearts beating, and a general feeling that in another few seconds the order must come to fire.
The moments seemed to be drawn out to minutes as the Boers rode on, lessening their distance and talking loudly in a sort of formation two or three abreast, till the front pair were level, when one of them raised his hand to shade his eyes, and drew his comrade’s attention to something in the distance.
“It’s a party of the rooineks,” he said in his Dutch patois; “or some of our horses left from that wretched surprise yesterday.”
“I shall never do it in the dark,” said Lennox half-aloud, and Dickenson’s heart seemed to cease beating.
“What do you say, behind there?” cried the first speaker sharply, but without turning his head.
“I say they’re rooineks,” said one of the three who came next.
“Yes, they’re rooineks, sure enough,” said the first Boer; “but that’s not what you said just now.”
“Yes, I did,” was the surly answer; “but every one here’s talking at once.”
“Yes,” growled the first speaker. “Silence, there! Halt!”
The men reined up in a group, while the first man, who seemed to be in command, dragged out a much-battered field-glass, focussed it, and tried to fix the distant objects. But his horse was fresh and fidgety, waiting to be off.
“Stand still!” cried the Boer savagely, and he caught up the reins he had dropped on the neck of his mount and gave them a savage jerk which made the unfortunate animal plunge, sending the rest into disorder, so that it was another minute before steadiness was restored.—“Mind what you’re about, there,” cried the leader. “Keep close to the bushes. Do you want to be seen?”
He raised his glasses to his eyes again for a few seconds, closed them, and thrust them back into their case.
“There’s too much haze there,” he said. “Can’t see, but I feel sure they’re some of our ponies grazing.”
“Going to round them up and take them back with us?”
“I would if I was sure,” was the reply, “but after yesterday’s work we can’t afford to run risks. Curse them! They’ve got enough of our stores to keep them alive for another month.”
Every man was gazing away into the distance, little suspecting that only a few yards away four magazine-rifles were covering them, and that at a word they would begin to void their charges, with the result that at least half-a-dozen of them, perhaps more, would drop from their saddles, possibly never to rise again. And all this while the little British party crouched there with, to use the untrue familiar expression, their hearts in their mouths, watching their enemies, but stealing a glance from time to time at the shadowy spot beneath the thick bush, wondering one and all what the young lieutenant would say next.
“He must give the order to fire,” said the sergeant to himself as he covered the leader. “We shall have Mr Lennox speaking out louder directly and asking where he is.”
The sergeant was quite right, for all of a sudden Lennox exclaimed:
“Why, it’s light! Here, where am I?”
But it was directly after the Boer leader had shouted the order to advance, and the little body of active Bechuana ponies sprang forward, eager to begin cantering over the plain, not a man the worse for his narrow escape, as they burst out chatting together, Lennox’s exclamation passing quite unnoticed, even if heard.
“Ha!” ejaculated Dickenson, exhaling his long-pent-up breath. “I doubt if any of them will be nearer their end again during the war.”
And then, after making sure that the Boer party were going off at a sharp canter, and that the risk of speaking or being seen was at an end, he crawled quickly to where Lennox lay upon his back, his eyes once more closed, and sleeping as soundly as if he had never roused up into consciousness since early in the night.
“Lennox—Drew,” whispered Dickenson, catching him by the arm, but only eliciting a low, incoherent muttering. “Well, you can sleep!”
“It’s not quite natural, sir,” said the sergeant. “He must have been hurt somewhere, and the sooner the doctor has a look at him the better.”
“Yes,” said Dickenson thoughtfully.—“That was a close shave, sergeant.”
“Yes, sir—for the enemy. If we had fired they’d have gone off like frightened sheep, I feel sure now.”
“Yes, I think so too. But we must not stir yet.”
“No, sir; I’d give those fellows time to get out of sight. We don’t want them to see us. If they did, they’d come swooping down to try and cut us off. What do you say to trying if we can make out what’s wrong with Mr Lennox? I think he must have been hit in the head.”
“Yes; let’s look,” said Dickenson: and after planting a sentry to keep a sharp lookout from a sheltered spot on each side of the little woodland patch, he set to work, with the sergeant’s help, to carefully examine his rescued comrade, but without the slightest result, save finding that his head was a good deal swollen in one part, and, lower down, his left shoulder was puffed up, and apparently excessively tender from either a blow or wrench.
“It’s beyond us,” said Dickenson, with a sigh. “We’ll make a start now, and get him into the doctor’s hands.”
“Yes, sir; we might make a start now,” said the sergeant. “Wait a few minutes, sir, while I saddle up the ponies. I’ll be quite ready before you call the sentries, sir.”
“I’ll try and wake Mr Lennox, then,” said Dickenson, “and we’ll get him on to the pony first.”
“I wouldn’t, sir, if you’ll excuse me,” said the sergeant. “If he’s half-insensible like that from a hurt to his head, it’ll be best to let him wake up of himself.”
“Perhaps so,” said the young officer; “but I don’t like his being so stupefied as this.”
The preparations were soon made, and the sergeant led the horses together, just as Dickenson rose from Lennox’s side, took out his glass, and joined the sentry on their side.
“Can you make out anything?” he said.
“Only the same little cluster as the Boers did, sir. I think it’s ponies grazing.”
He had hardly spoken before there was a hail from the other side of the little wood.
“What is it?” shouted the sergeant.
“Boers coming along fast. I think it’s the same lot coming back. Yes, it must be,” cried the sentry. “I’ve just come across their pot and kettle and things. This must be their camp.”
“Over here,” shouted Dickenson. “Now, sergeant, we must mount and be off, for we shall not have such luck again.”
“No, sir,” said the sergeant gruffly. “Will you help, sir?”
Dickenson’s answer was to hurry to his friend’s side, and in a very short time he was once more on a pony, with the sergeant keeping him in his place; while the others sprang into their saddles and rode off, manoeuvring so as to keep the enemy well on the other side of the woodland clump, and managing so well that they did not even see them for a time, the Boers riding back toward their old bivouac; and for a while there seemed to be no danger.
But it was terribly slow work keeping to a walk. Twice over the pony on which Lennox was mounted was pressed into an amble, but the shaking seemed to distress the injured man, and the walking pace was resumed, till all at once there was ample evidence that they had been seen, a distant crack and puff of smoke following a whistling sound overhead, and directly after the dust was struck up pretty close to one of the ponies’ hoofs.
“The game has begun, sergeant,” said Dickenson calmly.
“Yes, sir. Shall we dismount and give them a taste back?”
“We out here on the open veldt, and they under cover quite out of sight? No; press on as fast as we can, straight for Groenfontein. They must have it all their own way now.”
“Hadn’t we better try a canter again, sir?”
“Yes, sergeant, if we are to save his life. Forward!”
They were nearly half a mile on their way, and slowly increasing the distance; but it was quite time to take energetic action, for, to Dickenson’s dismay, the Boers were not going to content themselves with long shots, and all at once ten or a dozen appeared round one end of the little wood, spreading out as they galloped, and coming straight for them in an open line.