Bones Part 19

[Footnote 5: Probably a corruption of the word "English."]

Here a little river, easily fordable, and not more than a dozen spear lengths across flows from one wood into another. Between the two woods is a clear s.p.a.ce of thick gra.s.s and shrub. In the spring of the year the banks of the stream are white with arum-lilies, and the field beyond, at a later period, is red with wild anemone.

The dour fugitives on the other side of the stream have a legend that those who safely cross the "Field of Blood"--so they call the anemone-sprinkled land beyond--without so much as crushing a flower may claim sanctuary under the British flag.

So that when Bizaro sighted the stream, and the two tall trees that flanked the ford, from afar off and said: "To-day we will walk between the flowers," he was signifying the definite character of his plans.

"Master," said one of the more timid of his muster, when they had halted for a rest in sight of the promised land, "what shall we do when we come to these strange places?"

"We shall defeat all manner of men," said Bizaro optimistically.

"Afterwards they shall come and sue for peace, and they shall give us a wide land where we may build us huts and sow our corn. And they also will give us women, and we shall settle in comfort, and I will be chief over you. And, growing with the moons, in time I shall make you a great nation."

They might have crossed the stream that evening and committed themselves irrevocably to their invasion. Bizaro was a criminal, and a lazy man, and he decided to sleep where he was--an act fatal to the smooth performance of his enterprise, for when in the early hours of the morning he marched his horde to the N'glili river he found two thousand spears lining the opposite bank, and they were under a chief who was at once insolent and unmoved by argument.

"O chief," said Bosambo pleasantly, "you do not cross my beautiful flowers to-day."

"Lord," said Bizaro humbly, "we are poor men who desire a new land."

"That you shall have," said Bosambo grimly, "for I have sent my warriors to dig big holes wherein you may take your rest in this land you desire."

An unhappy Bizaro carried his six hundred spears slowly back to the land from whence he had come and found on return to the mixed tribes that he had unconsciously achieved a miracle. For the news of armed men by the N'glili river carried terror to these evil men--they found themselves between two enemies and chose the force which they feared least.

On the fourth day following his interview with Bosambo, Bizaro led five thousand desperate men to the ford and there was a sanguinary battle which lasted for the greater part of the morning and was repeated at sundown.

Hamilton brought his Houssas up in the nick of time, when one wing of Bosambo's force was being thrust back and when Bizaro's desperate adventurers had gained the Ochori bank. Hamilton came through the clearing, and formed his men rapidly.

Sword in hand, in advance of the glittering bayonets, Bones raced across the red field, and after one brief and glorious melee the invader was driven back, and a dropping fire from the left, as the Houssas shot steadily at the flying enemy, completed the disaster to Bizaro's force.

"That settles _that_!" said Hamilton.

He had pitched his camp on the scene of his exploit, the bivouac fires of the Houssas gleamed redly amongst the anemones.

"Did you see me in action?" asked Bones, a little self-consciously.

"No, I didn't notice anything particularly striking about the fight in your side of the world," said Hamilton.

"I suppose you did not see me bowl over a big Congo chap?" asked Bones, carelessly, as he opened a tin of preserved tongue. "Two at once I bowled over," he repeated.

"What do you expect me to do?" asked Hamilton unpleasantly. "Get up and cheer, or recommend you for the Victoria Cross or something?"

Bones carefully speared a section of tongue from the open tin before he replied.

"I had not thought about the Victoria Cross, to tell you the truth," he admitted; "but if you feel that you ought to recommend me for something or other for conspicuous courage in the face of the enemy, do not let your friendship stand in the way."

"I will not," said Hamilton.

There was a little pause, then without raising his eyes from the task in hand which was at that precise moment the covering of a biscuit with a large and generous layer of marmalade, Bones went on.

"I practically saved the life of one of Bosambo's headmen. He was on the ground and three fellows were jabbing at him. The moment they saw me they dropped their spears and fled."

"I expect it was your funny nose that did the trick," said Hamilton unimpressed.

"I stood there," Bones went on loftily ignoring the gratuitous insult, "waiting for anything that might turn up; exposed, dear old fellow, to every death-dealing missile, but calmly directing, if you will allow me to say so, the tide of battle. It was," he added modestly, "one of the bravest deeds I ever saw."

He waited, but Hamilton had his mouth full of tongue sandwich.

"If you mention me in dispatches," Bones went on suggestively.

"Don't worry--I shan't," said Hamilton.

"But if you did," persisted Lieutenant Tibbetts, poising his sticky biscuit, "I can only say----"

"The marmalade is running down your sleeve," said Hamilton; "shut up, Bones, like a good chap."

Bones sighed.

"The fact of it is, Hamilton," he was frank enough to say, "I have been serving so far without hope of reward and scornful of honour, but now I have reached the age and the position in life where I feel I am ent.i.tled to some slight recognition to solace my declining years."

"How long have you been in the army?" asked Hamilton, curiously.

"Eighteen months," replied Bones; "nineteen months next week, and it's a jolly long time, I can tell you, sir."

Leaving his dissatisfied subordinate, Hamilton made the round of the camp. The red field, as he called it, was in reality a low-lying meadow, which rose steeply to the bank of the river on the one side and more steeply--since it first sloped downward in that direction--to the Ochori forest, two miles away. He made this discovery with a little feeling of alarm. He knew something of native tactics, and though his scouts had reported that the enemy was effectually routed, and that the nearest body was five miles away, he put a strong advance picquet on the other side of the river, and threw a wide cordon of sentries about the camp.

Especially he apportioned Abiboo, his own sergeant, the task of watching the little river which flowed swiftly between its orderly banks past the sunken camp. For two days Abiboo watched and found nothing to report.

Not so the spies who were keeping watch upon the moving remnants of Bizaro's army.

They came with the news that the main body had mysteriously disappeared.

To add to Hamilton's anxiety he received a message by way of headquarters and the Ochori city from the Administrator.

"Be prepared at the first urgent message from myself to fall back on the Ochori city. German Government claim that whole of country for two miles north of river N'glili is their territory. Most delicate situation. International complications feared. Rely on your discretion, but move swiftly if you receive orders."

"Leave this to me," said Bones when Hamilton read the message out; "did I ever tell you, sir, that I was intended for the diplomatic service----"

The truth about the Ochori border has never been thoroughly exposed. If you get into your mind the fact that the Imperialists of four nations were dreaming dreams of a trans-African railway which was to tap the resources of the interior, and if you remember that each patriotic dreamer conceived a different kind of railway according to his nationality and that they only agreed upon one point, namely, that the line must point contiguous with the Ochori border, you may understand dimly some reason for the frantic claim that that little belt of territory, two miles wide, was part of the domain of each and every one of the contestants.

When the news was flashed to Europe that a party of British Houssas were holding the banks of the N'glili river, and had inflicted a loss upon a force of criminals, the approval which civilization should rightly have bestowed upon Captain Hamilton and his heroic lieutenant was tempered largely by the question as to whether Captain Hamilton and his Houssas had any right whatever to be upon "the red field." And in consequence the telegraph lines between Berlin and Paris and Paris and London and London and Brussels were kept fairly busy with pa.s.sionate statements of claims couched in the stilted terminology of diplomacy.

England could not recede from the position she had taken. This she said in French and in German, and in her own perfidious tongue. She stated this uncompromisingly, but at the same time sent secret orders to withdraw the force that was the bone of contention. This order she soon countermanded. A certain speech delivered by a too voluble Belgian minister was responsible for the stiffening of her back, and His Excellency the Administrator of the territory received official instructions in the middle of the night: "Tell Hamilton to stay where he is and hold border against all comers."

This message was re-transmitted.

Now there is in existence in the British Colonial Service, and in all branches which affect the agents and the servants of the Colonial Office, an emergency code which is based upon certain characters in Shakespearean plays.

I say "there is"; perhaps it would be better and more to the point if I said "there was," since the code has been considerably amended.