Chapter 20. At Home

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_ It was now found necessary to give the worn-out troops a long rest. They had been on constant service, for months; the stream of invalids that had been sent down to the coast daily increased, and the sick list had already reached an appalling length. The want of fresh rations was very much felt, and any large combination of troops not only caused great discomfort, but engendered various diseases, smallpox among them. In addition to this, as the black soldiers always go barefooted, their feet had got into a deplorable state.

The halt, however, had a good effect; and there was general satisfaction that it was unlikely that they would be called upon to make further efforts, as no news came of fresh gatherings of the enemy.

Colonel Willcocks now saw that the time was come to issue a proclamation promising, henceforward, to spare the lives of all rebels that surrendered. This was done, with the result that large numbers of the enemy came in. Almost all of them declared that they would have surrendered, long ago, had they not feared to do so.

On October 6th, the Commandant and British Resident held a state levee. It was attended by all the friendly and submitted kings. These vied with each other in their pomp; they were dressed in gorgeous robes and carried their state umbrellas, while their attendants danced round them, beating drums and blowing horns. After the palaver was over, target practice took place, with the guns. Canvas dummies were riddled with bullets by the Maxims; and stockades, specially constructed for the purpose, were demolished by the big guns. The natives retired, greatly impressed.

Two days later, Colonel Willcocks got up a rifle meeting for a cup; and he himself took his place among the competitors.

Five days later, news came that a fresh force of the enemy had gathered. Two columns were sent out--one of seven hundred and the other of five hundred men--but, though they traversed a wide stretch of country, they had no fighting. They received, however, the submission of a number of chiefs and villages.

The new commander of the Ashanti force was captured, tried, and hanged. The queen also was caught and, on the 24th of April, a telegram was sent home with the words:

"The campaign is at an end."

There can be no doubt that this expedition will lead to great results. The natives of Ashanti and the surrounding tribes have received a lesson that will not be forgotten for a great number of years and, long before that time, it may be hoped that civilization will have made such strides there that there will be no more chance of trouble. They have been taught that they are absolutely unable to stand against the white man; that neither distance, the thickness of their forests, stockades, nor weather can check the progress of British troops; and that resistance can only draw down upon them terrible loss, and the destruction of their villages and crops.

They had received no such lessons in the previous expeditions. That of Governor Sir Charles M'Carthy had been entirely defeated, and the governor himself killed. Another expedition, in 1867, met with a total failure. Sir Garnet Wolseley, in 1873, marched to Coomassie but, though he burnt the place, he had at once to fall back to the coast. In 1895 Sir Francis Scott led an expedition which, for some reason or other, met with no resistance.

Now Ashanti had been swept from end to end, and fire and sword had destroyed the major part of the villages. Garrisons were to be left, at Coomassie, strong enough to put down any local risings; and the natives had been taught that, small as our army might be in their country, it could at any time be largely augmented, at very short notice. Most of all, they had learned that, even without the assistance of white soldiers, the native troops--whom they had hitherto despised--were their superiors in every respect.

The completion of the railway to Coomassie has enabled troops to be sent up from the coast, in a few hours, to the heart of the country; and the numerous companies formed to work the gold mines will, in themselves, prove a great check to trouble as, no doubt, the miners will, in future, be well armed.

Colonel Willcocks left the headquarters staff a few days after the despatch of his telegram. He rode through a two-mile avenue of troops and friendly natives and, on arriving at Cape Coast, had a magnificent reception. Major C. Burroughs remained in command of Coomassie, with a strong garrison.

A few days later, the rest of the force moved down to the coast. Lisle and Hallett were carried down in hammocks, for both were completely worn out by the hardships of the campaign and, as there was no limit to the numbers of carriers that could be obtained, they gladly acquiesced in the decision of the medical officer that they ought to be carried. Both, indeed, had the seeds of fever in their system and, when they arrived at Cape Coast, were laid up with a sharp attack. As a result they were, like the great portion of the officers who had gone through the campaign, invalided home.

A day after his arrival in London, Lisle was visited by his friend Colonel Houghton, at whose house he had spent most of his leave when he was last in England.

"I saw your name in the paper, yesterday, as among the returned invalids; and thought that I should find you in the hotel where you stayed before."

"I wrote yesterday afternoon to you, sir."

"Ah! Of course, I have not got that letter. And now, how are you?"

"I am a little shaky, sir, but the voyage has done wonders for me. I have no doubt that I shall soon be myself, again."

"You have not seen the last gazette, I suppose?"

"No, sir."

"Well, there was a list of promotions, and I am happy to say that you have got the D.S.O. for your services. I dare say you know that you succeeded to your company, just six months ago?"

"No, I did not know that. I knew that I stood high among the lieutenants, and expected to get it before long; but I am proud, indeed, of the D.S.O."

"To have won the V.C. and the D.S.O. is to attain the two greatest distinctions a soldier can wear.

"Now, you had better come down with me to my place in the country; the air of London is not the best, for a man who has been suffering from African fever."

"I certainly want bracing air, and I shall be only too glad to go home with you; for I feel it is more my home than any other in England."

As soon as Lisle began to recover a little, Colonel Houghton introduced him to his neighbours, who made a good deal of the young soldier. Five years had elapsed, since he had started with the Pioneers for Chitral, and he was twenty-one.

Soon after he went to the colonel's, he was speaking to him of his friend and constant companion in the late campaign; and the colonel at once invited Hallett down. Hallett accepted the invitation, and soon joined them. He had pretty well recovered, and the campaign had knocked all his little laziness and selfishness out of him. He also had received the D.S.O.

"I am sure, Colonel Houghton," he said one day, "that I owe a tremendous lot to Lisle. He was always cheerful, and his unmerciful chaffing kept me alive. I am quite sure I should never have got through that time, when we were lost in the forest, if it hadn't been for him. I was a confirmed grumbler, too; but he never let me indulge my discontent. Altogether you have no idea, Colonel Houghton, how much he did for me."

"Well, you know, Captain Hallett, how much he did for me."

"No, sir," Hallett said, in surprise; "he has often spoken to me of you, and of your kindness to him; but he did not tell me about anything he had done for you."

"Well, he saved my life at the risk of his own. If he has not told you the story, I will."

And he related the manner in which Lisle had won his V.C.

"Why did you not tell me about it, Bullen? It was a splendid thing to do. You did tell me, I remember, how you got the V.C. by helping to get an officer out of the grasp of the Afridis, but you gave no details."

"There was nothing to tell about it, Hallett. I only did what I am sure you would have done, in my case."

"I am by no means sure of that," Hallett said. "I am always slow in making up my mind about anything; and should never have thought of putting a wounded officer on my horse, and sending him off, while I remained to be cut to pieces. I hope I should have stood by him, and been cut down with him; but I am certain that I should not have thought of the other thing, with the Afridis rushing down upon me, only thirty yards away.

"You ought to have let me know about it. You did bully me a great deal, you know; and though it was all for my good, still I think I should have put up with it better, if I had known that you had done such a thing as that."

"I think you put up with it very well, Hallett. Chaffing you, and getting you sometimes into a rage--which was pretended, rather than real--did me a lot of good. I am sure I should have given in, several times, had you not acted as a sort of tonic; and had I not been sure that it did you as much good as it did me."

A month after Hallett's arrival, the colonel said, one morning:

"Good morning, Lisle! I am going out with the hounds, tomorrow. They meet near here. As you are not great riders, I won't press you to go with me but, at least, you will ride with me to the meet. It is sure to be a good gathering, and you will probably meet some nice girls; who will, no doubt, have much greater attractions, for young fellows like you, than a gallop round the country."

"They have no particular attraction for me, sir," Lisle laughed. "It will be time enough for that, in another eight or ten years. It is more in Hallett's line."

"But we shall be chaffed, if we don't ride after the hounds, Colonel," Hallett said.

"Not at all," the colonel replied, "you have a first-rate excuse. You are only just recovering from fever. That would get you no end of commiseration and pity."

"In that case," Lisle said, "I think I should prefer staying at home. I don't feel that I need the least pity, and don't want to get it on false pretences."

"It won't be false pretences," the colonel said. "I have taken care that all the ladies I shall introduce you to should know what you did for me, and how you did it."

"I am sorry to hear it, Colonel. It is really hateful, being regarded as a man who has done something, especially at my age. However, I shall leave Hallett to bear the brunt of it. I know that he is on the lookout for a wife."

"I don't think you know anything of the sort, Lisle. It will be time for that when I get my majority."

"Ah! That is all very well, Hallett; I know you took a good half-hour dressing your hair, previous to that dinner party last week."

"It has to be brushed. It was nearly all cut off, when we were in Cape Coast, and one doesn't want to go out looking like a fretful porcupine."

So, laughing and joking, they started the next morning. There was, as the colonel had predicted, a large meet. Many ladies came on horseback, and others in carriages. The two young officers were soon engaged, chatting and laughing, with the latter.

"Do you mean to say that you are not going to ride, Captain Bullen?" one of the ladies on horseback said.

"In the first place, Miss Merton, I am an infantry officer and, except for a few weeks when I was on the staff of Colonel Lockhart, I have never done any riding. In the second place, I am forbidden to take horse exercise, at present. Moreover, although no doubt you will despise me for the confession, I dislike altogether the idea of a hundred men on horseback, and forty or fifty dogs, all chasing one unfortunate animal."

"But the unfortunate animal is a poacher of the worst kind."

"Very well, then, I should shoot him, as a poacher. Why should a hundred horsemen engage in hunting the poor brute down? Bad horseman as I am, I should not mind taking part in a cavalry charge; but hunting is not at all to my taste."

"You like shooting, Captain Bullen?"

"I like shooting, when there is something to be shot; in the first place, a dangerous animal, and in the second, an animal that is able to show fight. I have several times taken part in tiger hunts, and felt myself justified in doing so, because the animals had made themselves a scourge to unarmed villagers."

"I am afraid that you are a sort of Don Quixote," the girl laughed.

"Not quite that, Miss Merton; though I own I admire the good knight, greatly. We are going to move off, now, to the covert that has to be drawn; and I know I shall shock you, when I say that I sincerely hope that nothing will be found there."

The whole party then moved off, and the hounds were put into a covert. Five minutes later, a whimper was heard. It soon spread into a chorus, and then a fox dashed out from the opposite side; followed, in a couple of minutes, by the whole pack.

"Well, that is fun, is it not, Captain Bullen?" said a girl, to whom he was talking, in one of the carriages.

"It is a pretty sight," he said, "and if the fox always got away, I should like it. As it is, I say honestly that I don't."

The meet now broke up, and the carriages dispersed. Hallett and Lisle accepted an invitation to lunch with the ladies to whom they were talking. Two hours later, Lisle was on the point of leaving, when a groom rode up at full speed.

"Is Captain Bullen here?" he asked.

With a presentiment of evil, Lisle went out.

"The colonel has had a bad accident, sir. He was brought in, half an hour ago, by the servants. I understand that he asked for you; and three of us at once rode off, in different directions, to find you."

Lisle called Hallett and, in five minutes, they were mounted and dashed off. As they entered the house, they were met by the surgeon.

"Is he badly hurt'?" Lisle asked, anxiously.

"I fear that he is hurt to death, Captain Bullen. His horse slipped as it was taking a fence, and fell on the top of him. He has suffered severe internal injuries, and I greatly fear that there is not the least hope for him."

"Is he conscious?" Lisle asked, with deep emotion.

"Yes, he is conscious, and I believe he understands that his case is hopeless. He has asked for you, several times, since he was brought in; so you had better go to him, at once."

With a sinking heart, Lisle went upstairs. The colonel was lying on his bed.

"I am glad you have come in time, my dear boy," he said faintly, as Lisle entered. "I am afraid that I am done for, and it is a consolation for me to know that I have no near relatives who will regret my loss. I have had a good time of it, altogether; and would rather that, as I was not to die on the battlefield, death should come as it has. It is far better than if it came gradually.

"Sit by me, lad, till the end comes. I am sure it will not be long. I am suffering terribly, and the sooner it comes, the better."

The ashy gray of the colonel's face sufficed to tell Lisle that the end was, indeed, near at hand. The colonel only spoke two or three times and, at ten o'clock at night, passed away painlessly.

Upon Lisle devolved the sad work of arranging his funeral. He wrote to the colonel's lawyer, asking him to come down. Hallett had left the house at once, though Lisle earnestly begged him to stay till the funeral was over. The lawyer arrived on the morning of the funeral.

"I have taken upon myself, sir," Lisle said, "to make all the arrangements for the funeral, seeing that there was no one else to do it."

"You were the most proper person to do so," the lawyer said, gravely, "as you will see when the will is read, on our return from the grave."

When all was over, Lisle asked two or three of the colonel's most intimate friends to be present at the reading of the will. It was a very short one. The colonel made bequests to several military charities; and then appointed his adopted son, Lisle Bullen, Lieutenant in His Majesty's Rutlandshire regiment, the sole heir to all his property.

This came almost as a surprise to Lisle. The colonel had indeed told him that he had adopted him, and he was prepared to learn that he had left him a legacy; but he had no idea that he would be left sole heir.

"I congratulate you, sir," the lawyer said, when he folded up the paper. "Colonel Houghton stated to me, fully, his reasons for making such a disposition of his property and, as he had no near relations, I was able to approve of it heartily. I may say that he has left nearly sixteen thousand pounds. The other small legacies will take about a thousand, and you will therefore have some fifteen thousand pounds, which is all invested in first-rate securities."

"I feel my good fortune, sir," Lisle said quietly, "but I would that it had not come to me for many years, and not in such a manner."

The meeting soon after broke up, and Lisle went up to town and joined Hallett at the hotel they both used.

"Well, I congratulate you heartily," Hallett said, when he heard the contents of the will. "It is a good windfall, but not a bit more than you deserve."

"I would rather not have had it," Lisle said, sorrowfully. "I owe much to the colonel, who has for the past three years given me an allowance of two hundred pounds a year; and I would far rather have gone on with that, than come into a fortune in this manner."

"I can understand that," Hallett said; "the colonel was a first-rate old fellow, and his death will be an immense loss to you. Still, but for you it would have come three years ago and, after all, it is better to be killed hunting than to be shot to pieces by savages.

"Well, it will bring you in six or seven hundred pounds a year, a sum not to be despised. It will enable you to leave the army, if you like; though I should advise you to stick to it. Here are you a captain at twenty-one, a V. C. and D. S. O. man, with a big career before you and, no doubt, you will get a brevet majority before long."

"I have certainly not the least idea of leaving the army. I was born in it, and hope to remain in it as long as I can do good work."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I shall go down there again, in a fortnight or so."

"Would you be disposed to take me with you?"

"Certainly I shall, if you will go. I had not thought of asking you, because everything must go on quietly there, for a time; but really I should prize your company very much."

"Well, the fact is," Hallett said, rather shamefacedly, "I am rather smitten with Miss Merton, and I have some hopes that she is a little taken with me. I heard that she has money but, although that is satisfactory, I would take her, if she would have me, without a penny. You know I have three hundred pounds a year of my own; which is quite enough, with my pay, to enable us to get on comfortably. Still, I won't say that, if she has as much more, we could not do things better."

Lisle laughed.

"I thought you were not a marrying man, Hallett! In fact, you have more than once told me so."

"Well, I didn't think I was," Hallett admitted, "but you see, circumstances alter cases."

"They do, Hallett, and your case seems to be a bad one. However, old man, I wish you luck. She is an exceedingly nice girl and, if I were ten years older, I might have been smitten myself; and then, you know, your chance would have been nowhere."

"I quite feel that," Hallett said; "a V.C. is a thing no girl can stand against.

"If you will take me, I will go down with you and stay a little time, and then try my luck."

"That you certainly shall do. I can hardly do anything in the way of festivities, at present; but there is no reason why you should not enter into anything that is going on."

So they went down together. Ten days later, all the families round came to pay visits of condolence; and to each Lisle said that, although he himself could not think of going out, at present, his friend Hallett, who had come to stay with him for a month, would be glad to join in any quiet festivity. So Hallett was frequently invited out, Lisle accompanying him only to the very quietest of dinners.

One evening Hallett returned in the highest glee.

"Congratulate me, my dear fellow," he said. "Miss Merton has accepted me and, after she had done so, I had the inevitable talk with her father. He told me, frankly, that he had hoped that his daughter would make a better match. I of course agreed with him, heartily; but he went on to say that, after all, our happiness was the first consideration, and that he felt sure that it would be secured by her marriage with me. He said that he should allow her four hundred pounds a year, during his and her mother's lifetime. At their death there would be a small addition to her allowance, but naturally the bulk of his property would go to her brother. Of course, I expressed myself as infinitely grateful. I said that he had not enquired about my income, but that I had three hundred pounds a year, in addition to my pay; and should probably, some day, come into more. He expressed himself as content and, as I had expected, asked me whether I intended to leave the army. I said that that was a matter for his daughter to decide; but that, for my part, I should certainly prefer to remain in the service, for I really did not see what I should do with myself, if I left it. I said that I had been very fortunate in having, to some small extent, distinguished myself; but that if, after some experience of India, she did not care for the life, I would promise to retire."

"'I think you are right,' he said. 'It is a bad thing for a young man of seven or eight and twenty to be without employment. Your income would be insufficient to enable you to live, with comfort, as a country gentleman; and you would naturally find time lie heavy upon your hands, if you had nothing to do.'

"He was good enough to say that he thought his daughter's happiness would be safe in my hands and, as she would be able to have every luxury in India, he thought that the arrangement would be a very satisfactory one. It is awfully good of him, of course, for she could have made an infinitely better match."

"You have, of course, not settled anything about the date, Hallett?"

"No; I expect we shall settle about that when I see her, tomorrow. Of course, it must be pretty early, as we had letters, yesterday, to go up to town to be examined by the board; and we have both picked up so much that, I fancy, we shall be ordered back to our regiments pretty sharply. You see, every man is wanted at present and, as we both had a year's leave before we went out to West Africa, it is not unnatural that they should send us off again, as soon as they can. I dare say, however, they will give us a couple of months; and I suppose we shall want a month for our honeymoon, in which case we ought to be spliced in a month's time; if she can get ready in that time, which of course she can do, if she hurries up the milliners and other people."

"I have no doubt she could, in the circumstances," Lisle laughed. "Well, old man, I do congratulate you most heartily. She certainly is a very charming young woman. I expect I shall not get leave again, till the regiment comes back; which will be another five years yet, and perhaps two or three years longer, if there is any action going on anywhere. I can tell you I am not so hot about fighting as I used to be. The Tirah was sharp, but it was nothing to West Africa, which was enough to cure one of any desire to take part in fighting.

"If we are going to have a fight with Russia, I certainly should like to take part in that. That would be a tremendous affair, and I fancy that our Indian soldiers will give a good account of themselves. If it is to be, I do hope it will come before I leave the army. I am certainly in no hurry to do so."

"You would be a fool, if you were," Hallett said. "Thanks to your luck in getting a commission at sixteen, and to the loss of so many officers in the Tirah, you are now a captain at twenty-one, certainly the youngest captain in the service. Of course, if there is no war, you can't expect to continue going up at that pace; but you certainly ought to be a major at thirty, if not before. You may command a regiment within five or six years later, and be a brigadier soon after that, for you will have that by seniority. Of course, if you marry you will have to consider your wife's wishes; but she is not likely to object to your staying on, if you get to be a major, for a major's wife is by no means an unimportant item in a regiment."

"Ah! Well, we needn't think about that," Lisle laughed, "especially as, if there is war with Russia before we come home, a good many of us will certainly stay out permanently. Well, old man, I do congratulate you, most heartily."

Miss Merton, after some demur, agreed that it would be just possible for her to be ready at the end of a month. Three days later the two friends went up to town and, after undergoing a medical examination, were told that they must rejoin their regiments in a couple of months. As both regiments were in India, they decided to return in the same ship.

"I am not sorry that we are off," Lisle said, when they met on the deck of the P. and O. steamer. "I was getting desperately tired of doing nothing and, after you had gone off with your wife, on the afternoon of the marriage, I began to feel desperately lonely. Of course, I have always been accustomed to have a lot of friends round me; and I began to feel a longing to be with the regiment again and, if we had not agreed to go out together, I think I should have taken the next steamer."

Six weeks later Lisle rejoined his regiment, where he was heartily welcomed.

"Now you are a brevet major, Mr. Bullen, I am afraid that you will cease to be useful to us all; for of course we cannot be sending an officer of that exalted rank about to do our messages. However, several nice boys have joined, while you have been away."

"I shall always be happy to be employed," Lisle laughed, "and I dare say I am no older than many of the subalterns."

"I suppose you have had hard times?"

"Very hard. I thought that the Tirah business was about as hard as one would have to go through, in the course of one's soldiering; but I was greatly deceived. When I say that for six months I hardly ever had dry clothes on, and that I waded something like a hundred rivers, you may guess what it was like.

"And we had our full share of fighting, too. I was very fortunate in only getting hit three or four times, with slugs; but as we were for the most part fighting against men hidden in the bush, it was unsatisfactory work, though we always did lick them in the end. I can assure you that I do not wish for any more service of that kind.

"Have the tribes been quiet since I went away?"

"Quiet, as far as we were concerned. Of course, there have been a few trifling risings along the frontier but, as a whole, even the Zakka-Khels have been quiet. I don't think there will be any trouble, on a large scale, for some time to come."

"Then there is a prospect of a quiet time; that is to say, if the Russians will keep quiet."

"That is a very strong 'if,' Major Bullen; but I think that, if there is trouble, it will be in China."

"In that case, no doubt a good many regiments will be sent from here. I hope that it will be our good fortune to be among them."

"Well, in that case," the colonel said, with a laugh, "you will have to restrain your ardour, and give a chance to other men. You have got the V.C. and the D.S.O., which ought to satisfy you; to say nothing of having got your company, and brevet majority, at the age of twenty-one. You must be content with that, otherwise the regiment will rise against you."

"That would be very unpleasant," Lisle said, with a laugh. "I will try to suppress my zeal. I can assure you that I am perfectly conscious of the incongruity of being in such a position, at my age."

At present Lisle is with his regiment, and the prospect of a war with Russia is no nearer than it was.

[THE END]
George Alfred Henty's Novel: Through Three Campaigns: A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti

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