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Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 27. Night Work |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. NIGHT WORK By a sudden effort I threw off the dreamy sensation--the feeling that I was half-stunned by the pressure of the task I had undertaken, now that it had suddenly grown so much greater than I had anticipated--and I walked alongside the wagon-box, breathing hard, and planning that at the first sound of approaching enemies I would rush forward to where Joeboy was tramping beside the foreloper, assagai in hand, and make a dash with him for liberty. But the minutes glided by, as the line of wagons, all going on with the regularity of some great, elongated machine, rolled easily along over the soft earth, the rested bullocks pulling steadily under the guidance of their leaders and drivers. In vain I listened for the furious rush of horses and the challenges and orders to stop; then, by degrees, I began to grasp the fact that, though hundreds of Boers must have heard the wagons start, not one gave heed to the crack of whip, the cries of the black drivers, or the creaking and rumbling of the wheels. The moving of wagons of stores was quite a matter of course; somebody had given orders for their position to be changed, and that was all. These sounds were nothing to the weary men, rolled up in their warm blankets, making the most of their night's rest. Doubtless it awoke many; but they only listened for a moment, and then turned over to sleep again. Oxen, their drivers, and the wagons had nothing to do with the enemy. Had there been a trumpet-call, a single shot, or a loud order, to a man they would have sprung up to rush to their horses, saddled, and been ready to attack or defend; but the shifting of some wagons during the night--what was that? Nor was the Boer force a carefully drilled cavalry brigade, with its transport-corps under the strictest discipline, every man part of a machine which only moved by order, and whose stores and supplies were under the most severe regulation and guard; it was a loose, irregular horde, whose officers had to permit the men to fight very much as they pleased, so long as they fought well and advanced and retreated at the word. It took time to reason all this out, and to get to believe that our bold ruse was succeeding to a far greater extent than I had ever dared to hope. There it was all plainly enough--all real; the wagons were going steadily along, the first guided by Joeboy, and the rest following with their black conductors quite as a matter of course. As far as I could make out in the darkness, we were going along parallel with the lines of the sleeping Boers. Growing more excited now, I began to wonder how soon Joeboy would turn the heads of the leading bullocks and strike out for the fortress; then my thoughts drifted into a fresh rut, and I speculated as to how long it would be before we came upon some outpost and were turned back. Hardly had this idea crossed my mind, sinking my spirits almost to despair, when a great figure loomed up before me. Joeboy was at my side. "Got um all, Boss Val," he said in a low tone. "Doppies come and stop us soon. Say, 'Where you go?'" "Yes; and we shall be turned back," I replied quickly. "Um? No. Joeboy say, 'Big boss tell us to go right away other end.' Joeboy hear and know how Doppie talk, and Joeboy say right words." "Are you sure?" I said in Boer Dutch, to test him. "Um? Yes. Know what to say, like Boss Val know. Always talk like Boer before Joeboy come and live with Boss Val." "Of course," I whispered, with a feeling of relief. "Um! Boss Val jump in wagon and say nothing. Go to sleep like. Doppie coming." He gave me a push towards the wagon and went forward at a trot. Yielding to his influence, I climbed in at the front, past the driver, and drew the curtains before me, only leaving a slit through which I could hear what passed. I was not kept waiting long. As far as I could judge, about a dozen mounted men cantered up, and a thrill ran through me as a familiar, highly-pitched voice cried in English, with the broadest of Irish accents: "Whisht now, me sable son of your mother! What does this mane?" "Moriarty," I said to myself; and, with my heart beating fast, and a strange feeling of rage flushing up to my head, my right hand went to my revolver and rested upon the butt as I strained my ears to listen for every word. My thoughts, of course, flashed through my brain like lightning; but the answer to the renegade captain's words came slowly, Joeboy replying in deep guttural tones, using Boer Dutch, to say: "I don't know what you mean, Boss?" "Ugh! You soot-coloured, big-lipped baste!" snarled Moriarty; and then in Boer Dutch, "Where are you taking the wagons?" "Over yonder," replied Joeboy. "Why? Who told you?" "Big boss officer man," replied Joeboy calmly enough. "Say want more mealies there. Make haste and be quick. Ought to have gone there last night. Wake all up and say come along." "Oh," said Moriarty thoughtfully; and then, as I waited with my trepidation increasing, to my great surprise and relief he said a few words to those with him, which I could not catch; then aloud, in Dutch, "All right. Go on." When he began speaking Moriarty did not stop the wagons, which had crawled on in their slow and regular ox-pace, so that I was taken nearer and nearer till I was in line with the group of horsemen, and then past them; then the voices grew more indistinct. As the last words were uttered the patrol or outpost, whichever it was, trotted off, leaving me wondering what the broad-shouldered black just before me on the wagon-box might be thinking about what had passed, and my peculiar conduct in taking refuge inside. "A shout from him, if he is suspicious, might bring them back," I mused; so, under the circumstances, I decided to keep up the appearance of having got in for the sake of a rest, and sat back upon one of the sacks. However, I was not permitted to stay long inside, for as soon as the mounted Boers were out of hearing Joeboy came to the front of the wagon and called to me in his deep tones--speaking in Boer Dutch--to come out. I stepped out past the driver, yawning as if tired, and leaped down, to walk on with the black. "Hadn't you better turn the heads of the leading bullocks now towards the laager, Joeboy?" I said. "Um? Did," he replied, "soon as Doppie captain went away. Going straight home now." "Ah!" I ejaculated. "Capital! But we shall be stopped again and sent back." "Um? Joeboy don't think so. Doppie over there, and Doppie over there," he said, pointing in opposite directions with his assagai. "You think we shall not meet another party, then?" "Um? Can't hear any," he replied. "But about the drivers and forelopers? When they find where we're going they'll want to go back to the lines." "Um? No," said Joeboy decidedly. "Black Kaffir chap. Not think at all. Very sleepy, Boss Val. Jus' like big bullock. You an' Joeboy tell um go along and they go along." "But suppose they turned suspicious and said they wouldn't go with us?" "Um?" said Joeboy, and I heard him grind his teeth. "They say that, Joeboy kill um all: 'tick assagai in back an' front. All big 'tupid fool. Ha! ha! Joeboy almost eat um." He laughed in a peculiar way that was not pleasant, and it moved me to say: "Don't attempt to touch them if they turn against us. I'll threaten them with my pistol." "Um? Boss Val think better shoot one? No; Boss Val mustn't make Doppie come. Joeboy say 'Trek,' and they no trek, he 'tick assagai in um back." "No, no; there must be no bloodshed." "Um? Blood? No; only 'tick in little way. Make um go like bullock. Make um go like what Boss Val call 'tampeed.' Black Kaffir boy not say 'Won't go.' Be 'fraid o' Joeboy." I thought it very probable, and said no more. Leaving him with the foreloper of the first wagon, I stood fast and listened intently while the whole of the six great lumbering wagons, drawn by their teams averaging four-and-twenty oxen, crept past me. The forelopers walked slouching along, shouldering a bamboo sixteen or eighteen feet long, without so much as turning their heads in my direction; and the drivers on the wagon-boxes were sitting with heads down and shoulders raised, apparently asleep and troubled about nothing. They all trusted to the front wagon for guidance, as their teams, until the oxen were tired, needed no driving whatever, but followed stolidly in the track of those in front. So slow!--so awfully slow! when I wanted them to go in a thunderous gallop! Yet I knew this was folly. I wanted to play the hare, though I knew that in this case the tortoise would win the race; for to have hurried meant some accident, some breaking of the heavy wains: a wheel off or broken, the giving way of trek-tow or dissel-boom. There was nothing for it, I knew, but to proceed at the oxen's steady crawl, which had this advantage: the wagons made very little noise passing over the soft earth, the oxen none at all worth mention. But it was agonising, now that we had started and actually been passed on by the enemy's patrol, to keep on at that dreadful pace, which suggested that, even if we did go on without further cheek, when day broke we should still be within sight of the Boer lines and bring them out in a swarm to turn us back. It seemed to me we must have been creeping along for an hour, though perhaps it was not half that time, when suddenly the first team of oxen was stopped, the wheels of the first wagon ceased to move, and the whole line came, in the most matter-of-fact way, to a stand. No one seemed to heed, and the oxen went on contemplatively chewing their cud. "What is it?" I said, running up to Joeboy. "Um! Cist!" he whispered. "Doppie coming." I could hear nothing, and it was too dark to see, so I stood listening for quite a minute, knowing well that the black must be right, for his hearing was wonderfully acute. Then in the distance I heard the sound of trotting horses coming along at right angles towards us; and as it occurred to me that the patrol would come into contact with us about the middle of our long line, I began to wonder whether Joeboy would be able to get the better of the Boer leader again. Nearer and nearer they came, and a snort or the lowing of a bullock would have betrayed us; but the stolid beasts went on ruminating, and, to my utter astonishment, the little mounted party rode past a couple of hundred yards behind the last wagon, as near as I can tell, and the sound of the horses' hoofs and chink of bit against ring died away. "Ha!" I ejaculated, with a sigh. "Um?" said Joeboy, who had come by me unheard. "Yes, all gone. Doppie big fool. No see, no hear. Joeboy hear; Joeboy see wagon and bullock long way off. Doppie got wool in um ear an' sand in um eyes." "So have I, as compared with you, my big black friend," I thought to myself; "but I don't want you to call me or think me a big fool, so I'll hold my tongue." "Doppie can't hear now," said Joeboy. "All agone. Not hear any more.-- Go on. Trek!" he cried in his deep, guttural tones; and the bullocks dragged at the great tow-ropes, the axles groaned, and away we went again in the same old crawl hour after hour, but without further alarm, though in one prolonged agony of anxiety, during which I was always looking or listening for pursuers. Then came another trouble: the darkness was greater than ever. It was a cloak, certainly, for our proceedings; but there was not a star visible to guide us in our course towards the old stronghold. "Think we're going right?" I asked again and again. "Um? Joeboy think so," he always replied. "Wait till light come. Soon know then." Words of wisdom these, of course; but though we kept on in what we believed a straight line for our goal, the line we were taking might be right away from the camp, or we might be proceeding in a curve which would bring us within easy reach of the enemy--perhaps as near as when we started. Truly we were in the dark; and as the air grew colder towards daybreak, everything looked, if possible, blacker still. "Morrow morning," said Joeboy, suddenly coming back to where I trudged alongside one of the wagons, whose drivers appeared to be all asleep. I looked in the direction he indicated, and there was a faint dawn low down on the horizon. "Then we're going wrong, Joeboy," I said; "that's the east." "Um!" he said. "Too much that way. Going right now." I looked back in the direction of the Boer camp, but nothing was visible there. It seemed as if the darkness lay like a cloud upon the earth; but, upon turning again to look in the way the heads of the oxen were pointed, I could see what looked like a hillock in the distance. Fixing my eyes upon it, I could gradually see it more distinctly, and in a few minutes' time made out that what had seemed like one hillock was really two--the one natural, the other artificial: in other words, the pile of ironstone and granite in one case, the built-up stronghold in the other. "Joeboy," I said, beckoning him to one side after a furtive glance at the black foreloper, "we're a long way off, and the Boers will miss the wagons and see us soon." "Um? Yes," he said coolly. "Do you think that you can get the bullocks to go faster?" "Um? No," he said. "Must go like this." "But the Boers will come after us as soon as they see us." "Um? Yes; but can't see us yet. When Doppie see us Boss Denham see us too, and come along o' fighting boys." "Yes; I had half-forgotten that," I replied. Not thinking of anything more to say, I trudged on. At last, as the light grew stronger, Joeboy turned to me to say: "Boss Val see Doppie now?" I looked back in the direction of the enemy's lines and shaded my eyes; but nothing was discernible. "I can't see them yet," I said. "Um? No. Joeboy can. Can't see a wagons yet." "They can't see the wagons?" I cried. "How do you know?" "Come on horses after us," he said. "Gallop fast." "Of course," I replied, and looked anxiously at our great, lumbering prizes, wishing I could do something to hurry the bullocks on; but wishing was vain, and I knew all the time it would be madness to attempt to hasten the animals' pace, and likely only to end in disaster. The darkness, which had appeared to be low between us and the Boer lines, now began to turn of a soft grey, which minute by minute lightened more and more, and rose till it looked like a succession of horizontal streaks, beneath which lay something disconnected and strange, but which gradually took the form of a long line of horses, broken here and there by little curves which, by straining my eyes, I made out to be wagon-tilts seen through the soft pale-bluish air. Next, on turning sharply to look in the direction of our comrades, there were the old piled-up walls of our stronghold clearly marked against the sky. "It's a long, long way yet, Joeboy," I said. "Yes, long way," he replied. "Can you see the Boers on the move?" He shook his head, and then hurried to the foreloper, a heavy-looking black, who was signalling to him. _ |
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