Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer > This page
Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 13. Realities Of War |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. REALITIES OF WAR I glanced round at the little group of men, every face wearing the same serious aspect; then I lowered my eyes to continue my task of trying to restore Denham to his senses, while the moments glided by, and many shots were fired at our position; yet there was no change in the officer's condition. "He isn't dead--is he?" said one of the troopers. "Dead? No!" I cried angrily; but even as I spoke a chill of horror ran through me, for the utterly inanimate state of my new friend suggested that the shock of the blow might have been fatal. "But he doesn't seem to have a spark of life in him, poor chap!" "He'll recover soon," I said as firmly as I could, and determined to put the best face upon the matter. "But we can't wait for 'soon,'" cried another man impatiently. "In less than a quarter of an hour the Doppers will be down upon us, and then it's either a bullet apiece or prisoners." "We must carry him down to where the Colonel is with the rest of the troopers," I said. "No, no. Set him on a horse." "He can't possibly sit a horse," I said firmly; "and if you put him on one it will take two men to keep him in his place." "We can't spare them," cried the first man who had spoken. "We want all our rifles to be speaking as we retire." Just then a thought struck me. "He must be carried," I said. "It can't be done, sir," was the reply. "The men can't be spared. One of us must have him in front of the saddle as we retreat." "No, no," I said. "Here, wait a minute.--Joeboy!" I shouted, and, shield and assagai in hand, the black dashed to my side as if to defend me from some attack. "Can you carry this officer on your back down the valley, Joeboy?" I said. "Um!" was the prompt reply. "You take my spears." "Yes. Hang them to my saddle," I said. "Quick!" The next minute I helped to raise the insensible man carefully on to the black's broad back as he bent down on one knee, Denham's arms being placed round Joeboy's neck; and then, at his request, the wrists were bound together with a sash. "Now," I said, "can you do it?" "Um!" was the reply; and, without a word being uttered by way of order, the man rose softly to his feet and set off at a slow, steady walk down towards the little force of mounted rifles waiting, a couple of miles or so away, to receive our news. No sooner were we well out of the cover which had sheltered us than the firing increased, showing that our movements were under observation; but the pattering shots, which seemed to strike every spot save where we moved at a pace regulated by Joeboy's steady walk, had no effect upon the discipline of the little party. The sergeant, a middle-aged man, like a Cornish farmer, now took the command. He ordered half the party to follow close after their wounded officer, and halted the second half, who stood dismounted and covered by their horses, to reply to the enemy's fire. Instead of checking the shots, our reply seemed only to increase them; but we had the satisfaction of knowing that the fire was concentrated upon us, and that Lieutenant Denham and his bearer were running no risk of being brought down. This was kept up for fully ten minutes, during which our friends had got some distance. Then the order was given to mount; and, giving our horses their heads, we went in single file clattering along the stone-strewn and often slippery track, followed by a scattered shower of bullets, horribly badly aimed, for we had taken our enemies by surprise. We could not go very fast; but the pace was fast enough to overtake our companions soon, who formed up under the best cover they could find, leaving us room to pass and ride on to where Joeboy trudged manfully on, and then draw rein and walk our horses, listening to the pattering of the Doppers' bullets and the steady and regular reply of our men. "Has he moved or spoken, Joeboy?" I said anxiously as I rode alongside. "Um!" replied Joeboy. "'Fraid he gone dead, Boss Val." "No, no!" I said, laying my hand against Denham's neck. "I believe he is only stunned. Are you getting tired?" "Um!" growled the great black. It seemed wonderful what expression he could put into that one ejaculation, which sounded now as if he were saying, "Tired? No: I could go on like this till dark." I said no more, but fell back into my place, where I found the next man eager enough to talk. "They brag about the Boers' shooting; but I don't think much of it, nor of ours neither, if you come to that. I don't wish any harm to them who made all this trouble; but I should like for our boys to bring down a man at every shot. It would bring some of the rest to their senses. I say, you don't think young Mr Denham's going home, do you?" "No," I said sharply. "I think he only wants getting on to a bed, to lie till the shock of his hurt has passed away." "Yes, that's it," said the trooper; "bed's a grand thing for nearly everything. I never knew how grand it was till I came on this business and had to sleep out here on the stones. You haven't begun to find out what it is to be away from your bed at times." "I've slept out on the veldt or up in a kopje scores of times," I replied, "and have grown used to it." "Oh!" said my companion, glancing at me to see if I was telling the truth. Then, apparently satisfied, he continued: "I wish those who made this war had to do all the fighting. I'm sick of it." "Already?" I said. "Yes; I was sick of it before we began to hit out. What's the sense of it? Here am I, five-and-twenty, hale, hearty, and strong, trying to get shot. But of course one had to come. I mean to make some of them pay for it, though." "But you volunteered." "Of course. I say, though, I don't wonder at you making a run for it. Nice game to have to fight on the enemy's side! I should like that--oh yes, very much indeed! My rifle would have gone off by accident sometimes and hit the wrong man. I say, though, oughtn't the Colonel to hear all this firing, and come up to help us?" "That's what I've been thinking," I replied. "I should be very glad if we saw him on ahead. But we must have a couple of miles to go yet to join them--mustn't we?" "Yes, quite that; but, my word!" cried my companion, "they're going it now. They're firing shots enough to bring down every one of our rear-guard." "Yes; and it will be our turn again directly, when they trot on." "They ought to be here by now," continued my new comrade. "I don't believe they'll come." "Why?" I said anxiously. "They'll all be shot down." "Nonsense," I said. "Listen; those are their rifles replying." "I suppose so," was the reply, given thoughtfully. "But what a strange echo the hills give back here!" "Yes," I said. "That's why it's called Echo Nek." "I suppose so; but--but--Here, I say, those are not echoes we can hear now." "Nonsense! What can they be, then?" "Some one else firing. Can't you hear? It sounds from right in front." "Well, that's how echoes do sound. The reports come down the pass and strike against the face of the rocks, and are reflected off." "That's all very nicely put, comrade," said the young man, "and I dare say it's scientific and 'all according to Cocker,' as my father used to say; but you're not going to make me believe those are echoes we can hear right in front. Now, you listen." I did as he suggested, and the rattling of the Boers' rifles came plainly enough, their many reverberations, as the reports seemed to strike from side to side, almost drowning the feeble replies of our own men. Then, after a perceptible pause, fresh reports were heard, and certainly these seemed to come from some distance away in front. "There!" cried my companion triumphantly. "What do you say to that?" "That the shots echo again from some high hills in front." "Boss Val," cried Joeboy just then, and I touched Sandho with my heels, making him spring on to where the big black was straining his neck to look back, but trudging steadily on all the while. "What is it, Joeboy?" I said anxiously. "Has he moved or spoken?" "Um! Not said a word; but some one shooting over-over." He nodded his head in the direction we were going, and now I grasped the fact that I had before doubted--namely, that firing was going on in our front. I drew the sergeant's attention to it directly, and he nodded. "That settles it at once," he said. "Here have I been telling myself it was all my fancy; but now you hear it I feel it must be fact." "I hear it; so does my man, and the trooper who rides next to me." "Yes; and we can all hear it now," said the Sergeant. "Well, it's plain enough. We're in a tight place, my lad, for there's only one answer to it, and it explains why the Colonel hasn't sent us some support, for he must have heard the firing." "What do you make of it, then?" "That the Doppers are better soldiers than we give them credit for being, and they've got round to the Colonel's rear somehow, and shut him in this giant hogs'-trough of a valley." "Think so?" I said anxiously, as I thought of the Lieutenant. "I'm sure of it. Now then; that's not our business. Halt! Right about! Take position behind those stones. Dismount and cover the retreat. Here they come." The clatter of the horses of the other party came plainly to our ears as we took our places ready to reply to the Boers' fire. I had intended to have another look at the wounded man before this took place, and was therefore much disappointed; but there was no help for it, and I stood with Sandho fairly well sheltered behind a stone five feet high, upon which my rifle rested. Then the party we were to relieve cantered by, with two men wounded and supported on their horses; and as I watched the puffs of smoke and listened to the bullets spattering and splaying the rocks, with the buzz of the high shots now sounding so familiar, I wondered at being able to take it all so coolly. "I suppose it's because I'm beginning to get used to it," I thought. Then I began to speculate as to what would happen now if the sergeant was right, and we were to be attacked front and rear; and what it would feel like if I were hit, as seemed very likely now that the enemy were getting so near. But I glanced right and left at my companions, just in time, to see the Sergeant start back, to stand shaking his right hand vigorously, and directly after I saw the blood beginning to drip from his finger-ends. "Much hurt?" I asked, hurrying to his side, dragging out my handkerchief the while. "No!" he roared; "only a scratch. Back to your place, sir! Who told you to leave? Here; stop! As you are here you may as well tie that rag round it." He said these last words more gently, and smiled as I rapidly bound up his injury as well as I could. "Thank ye, my lad," he said. "I must preserve discipline, and we're getting pressed. Taken off a bit of the middle finger--hasn't it?" "Half of it, I'm afraid," I said. "What have you got to be afraid of? Might have been worse. Suppose it had been the first finger; then I shouldn't have been able to draw trigger--eh? That'll do--won't it? I'm in a hurry." "I haven't stopped the bleeding," I replied. "Never mind. Mother Nature will soon do that. Now then, back you go. Show them how you young farmers can shoot." I was on my way back to my place when the clattering of hoofs made me turn my head, and I saw a man in the Light Horse uniform come galloping up, utterly regardless of the danger he ran from obstructing stones. "Back!" he shouted. "Retire on the main body as fast as you can go. Colonel's orders." We were in full retreat at once, after emptying our rifles upon the steadily advancing enemy, who came on, running from stone to stone, cleverly taking advantage of every bit of cover. We soon came in sight of the men we had relieved, who were hurrying to the rear as fast as they could get their wounded men along; while, to my great satisfaction, there was Joeboy striding along at a tremendous rate: it was a walk, but such a walk as would have compelled me to trot to keep up with him. He could not have kept it up much longer, I could see, for the perspiration was streaming down his face and neck, and he was breathing hard; but at the end of another quarter of a mile, as the firing in front grew louder and louder, I saw about a couple of dozen of the troopers coming to our help, four of whom dismounted, giving up their horses to comrades, and quickly spreading a blanket upon the ground. It struck me at once that Joeboy would refuse to give up his load; but I got up to him just in time, and at a word from me the young officer, still perfectly insensible, was lifted from the big black's shoulders, laid upon the blanket, and then the four men took the corners in a good grip and trotted off at the double. Joeboy, grinning with satisfaction, now took hold of my saddle-bow and ran by my side till we reached the strong position in a great notch in one side of the valley, where the Colonel was defending himself against a large body of the enemy coming on from the plains below. It was a capitally chosen spot, as I soon saw, for there was a smooth open part in front of the notch, which backed right into the side; and the stones across the path, front and rear, formed capital breastworks for the dismounted men who lined them, all the horses having been turned into the gap in the huge wall, where they were quite out of the line of fire. "Splendid!" said the Sergeant to me, as we waited to take our turn at the defence. "But we shall be attacked on both sides," I said. "Oughtn't we to get in there with the horses?" "No, you recruit, you," said the Sergeant. "We shall be between two fires; but don't you see how the enemy will be crippled? Every shot that goes over us, whether it's upward or downward, goes among the Doppies. They're firing at us, but at their own friends as well." "Of course," I replied. "I did not see that." "I didn't at first," he said; "but our Colonel's got his head screwed on the right way, and the position is famous. Well, why don't you say 'Hurrah!' or 'Bravo!' or something of the sort?" "Because I don't feel satisfied," I said. "You young fellows never are," said the Sergeant. "What's the matter with you now?" "We can hold out, of course," I said, "as long as our ammunition lasts; but what about afterwards?" "Bother afterwards!" he said sharply; "a hundred things may happen before it comes to afterwards." "Then, if they determine to hold on, they can force us to surrender." "Never," said the Sergeant; "so no more croaking." "But what about provisions?" "Every man has his rations in a satchel." "But water?" "Every man has his bottle well filled, my lad." "But when the water-bottles are empty and the food is done? What about feeding the horses? What about watering them?" "Yah!" growled the Sergeant savagely. "Call yourself a volunteer? What do you mean by coming here prophesying all sorts of evil? Do you want to starve the horses and see 'em die of thirst? Here, I say, my lad," he whispered, "don't let any of the boys hear that. You've hit the weak point of the defence a regular staggerer. You're quite right; but we must hold on, and perhaps after a good peppering they'll draw off. If they don't, it means forming up and making a dash, and that's what the Colonel won't do if he can help it, on account of the loss." I had no more time for talking, for directly after I was ordered to take my place behind one of the stones to make the best use I could of my rifle in keeping back the enemy, who were now descending the pass in great numbers, while the firing from the rear was so furious that it was plain enough that the ascending force was stronger than the one with which they were trying to join hands. _ |
||