Charge! Part 1

Charge!

by George Manville Fenn.

Chapter One.

Home, Sweet Home.

"Hi! Val! Come, quick!"

"What's the matter?" I said excitedly, for my brother Bob came tearing down to the enclosure, sending the long-legged young ostriches scampering away towards the other side; and I knew directly that something unusual must be on the way, or, after the warnings he had received about not startling the wild young coveys, he would not have dashed up like that.

"I dunno. Father sent me to fetch you while he got the guns ready. He said something about mounted men on the other side of the kopje, so it can't be Kaffirs. I say, do back me up, Val, and get father to let me have a gun."

"Ugh! you bloodthirsty young wretch!" I cried as I started with him for our place, now partly hidden by the orchard-apple and pear trees-I had helped to plant seven years before, when father really pitched his tent by the kopje, and he, Bob-a little, round-headed tot of a fellow then-Aunt Jenny, and I lived in the canvas construction till we had built a house of stone.

The orchard was planted long before the tent was given up-all trees that father had ordered to be sent to us from a famous nursery in Hertfordshire. How well I remember it all!-the arrival of the four big bundles wrapped in matting, and tied behind a great Cape wagon drawn by twenty oxen, whose foreloper was a big, shiny black fellow, who wore a tremendous straw hat, and seemed to think that was all he needed in the way of clothes, as it was big enough to keep off the sun (of which there was a great deal) and the rain (of which there was little). In fact, he wore scarcely anything else-only part of a very old pair of canvas trousers, which he made comfortable and according to his taste by cutting down at the top, so as to get rid of the waist, and tearing close in the fork till the legs were about three inches long.

I remember it all so well: seeing the foreloper come striding along by the foremost pair of oxen, holding one of them by its horn, and carrying a long, thin pole like a very big fishing-rod over his shoulder, for use instead of a whip to guide the oxen. Yes, I recollect it as if it were only yesterday. I looked at him, and he looked at me. My eyes were fixed upon those trousers; and I burst out, boy-like, into the heartiest fit of laughter I ever had. As I laughed his eyes opened wider and wider, and the corners of his mouth began to creep back farther and farther till they nearly disappeared. Then, suddenly, his mouth flew open, showing a wonderfully white set of teeth, and he gave vent to "Yer-her! Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk! Yor-hor!" Then he helped to outspan the oxen, and I showed him and the man with the wagon where to find water. At every order I gave he opened his mouth and laughed at me; but he eagerly did all I bade, and followed me back to the wagon to help in unloading the bundles of trees, taking the greatest interest in everything, and lifting the boxes and packages of stores which had come with the trees, no matter what their weight, as if he enjoyed putting forth his tremendous strength.

"Well, Val," said my father as he took out his big knife to cut the string, and then carefully unlaced it-for string was precious out in the desert-"I thought I'd chance a few; but it's quite a spec, and I'm afraid they'll be all dried up. However, we'll try them; and now they are here we must get them in at once. Mind, I shall look to you to make them grow if they are still alive."

"How am I to make them grow, father?" I said.

"With water, my boy. You must bring down buckets from the spring till we have time to dig a channel; and then they'll shift for themselves. I hope they'll grow, for it will be pleasant for you and Bob to sit under them sometimes and eat apples and pears such as your father used to have in his old orchard at home."

"Yes, father," I said; "and for you too."

"Perhaps, my boy; perhaps," he said, with a sigh. "We shall see.-Here, Jenny!"

My aunt was already at the door, in her print sun-bonnet, and looking very cross, I thought.

"Yes," she said.

"Give these two men a good hearty meal; I dare say they're pretty hungry."

"It's all ready, John," she said.

"That's right, my dear," said my father; and then, as if to himself, "I might have known." Turning to the short, thick-set Dutch Boer in charge of the wagon, father told him to go to the big wagon-sheet supported on poles, which we used for a dining-room, and then clapped the big black on the shoulder, bidding him go too.

"Get two spades, Val," he said as soon as the men were gone; "and you, Bob, come off that bundle of trees. It wasn't sent all these thousands of miles by ship and wagon to make you a horse."

I fetched the spades while my father went on unpacking the little trees, Bob being set to help by unlacing the string from the pleasant-smelling Russian mats. Before the new arrivals were cast loose, the big black, with a tremendous sandwich of bread and bacon, had joined us, and showed at once that he meant to help. After taking a big bite, he put his sandwich down while he carried trees to the places where they were to be planted, and after putting them down, returned for another bite, giving me a grin every time.

Then the spades were taken up; and by that time the Boer had eaten and drunk as much as he could, and gone to sit on the big chest in front of the wagon, where he filled his pipe and began to smoke, never offering to help, but watching us with his eyes half-closed.

"Here, steady, n.i.g.g.e.r!" said my father, smiling; "we're not going to bury bullocks. Little holes like this just where I put in these pegs.-You keep him in hand, Val. I never saw such a strong fellow before."

The great black fellow grinned and dug away, making the rich and soft dry earth fly as he turned it out; while he laughed with delight every time I checked him, and followed me to another place.

By that time he had finished his sandwich, and a thought occurred to me.

"Here, Bob," I said; "put down those pegs"-for he was marching about with us, looking very serious, with the bundle of pegs under his arm. "Go and ask Aunt Jenny to cut another big bit of bread and a very large slice of bacon, and bring 'em here."

Bob ran off, and the big black looked at me, threw back his head, and laughed, and laughed again, as he drove the spade deeply into the rich loamy soil; and when the bread and bacon came he laughed, and bit with those great white teeth of his, and munched and chewed like the lying-down oxen, and dug and dug, till my father said, "No more to-night," and bade me carry in the spades.

That night, before going to bed, tired, but happy with the thoughts of our orchard to come, I walked with father beneath the great stars, going round the place-father with his rifle over his shoulder-to see if all was safe.

We went straight to the wagon, to find the oxen all lying down chewing their cud, and from under the tilt there came a deep, heavy snore; but there was also a rustling sound, a big black head popped out, and the man said, in a deep, thick voice:

"Boss, hear lion?"

"No," said my father sharply. "Did you, boy?"

"Iss. Oom! Wawk, wawk, wawk. Boss, lissum."

We stood there in the silence, and for a full minute I could hear nothing but the deep snore of the Boer and chewing of the oxen. Then, distinctly heard, but evidently at a great distance, there was the tremendous barking roar of a lion, and my father uttered a deep "Ha!"

"Boss shoot lion," said the black in a quiet, contented way; and from out of the darkness beneath the great wagon came the sound of the foreloper settling himself down once more to sleep. I remember wondering whether he had anything to cover himself, for the night was fresh and cold. I asked my father.

"Yes; I saw him with a sheepskin over his shoulders. He won't hurt."

We were interrupted by no lion that night, and at the first dawn of day we were out with the spades again; our black visitor, under my direction, digging the holes for the trees, while father planted, and Bob held the stems straight upright till their roots were all nicely spread out, and soil carefully placed amongst them, and trampled firmly in.

This went on till breakfast-time, when Aunt Jenny called us, and the Dutchman came and sat with us, while the great Kaffir carried his portion away, and sat under the wagon to munch.

After the meal the Boer lit his pipe, sat down on a piece of rock, and smoked and looked on till midday, by which time the fruit-trees were all planted, and the big Kaffir had trotted to and fro with a couple of buckets, bringing water to fill up the saucer-like depressions placed about each tree. Then Aunt Jenny called us to dinner, and after that the Boer said it was time to inspan and begin the journey back.

Oh, how well I remember it all!-seeing my father opening a wash-leather bag and paying the Boer the sum that had been agreed upon, and that he wasn't satisfied, but asked for another dollar for the work done by his man. Then father laughed and said he ought to charge for the meals that had been eaten; but he gave the Boer the money all the same; and Aunt Jenny uttered a deep grunt, and said afterwards in her old-fashioned way, "Oh John, what a foolish boy you are!" Then he kissed her and said, "Yes, Jen. I always was. You didn't half-teach me when I was young."

This was after we had watched the wagon grow smaller and smaller in the distance on its way back, and after the great black had stood and looked down at me and laughed in his big, noisy way.

Then once more we were alone in the great desert, father looking proudly down at his little orchard, and Bob walking up and down touching every tree, and counting them over again.

"Begins to look homely now, Val," he said; "but we must work, boy-work."

We did work hard to make that place the home it grew to.

"It's for you, boys," he said, "when I'm dead and gone;" and it was about that time I began to think and understand more fully how father was doing it all for the sake of us boys, and to try and ease his heart-ache. Aunt Jenny set me thinking by her words, and at last I fully grasped how it all was.

"I believe he'd have died broken-hearted, Val," she said to me, "if I hadn't come to him. It was after your poor dear mother pa.s.sed away. I told him he was not acting like a man and a father to give up like that, and it roused him; and one day-you remember, it was when I had come to keep house for him-he turned to me and said, 'I shall never be happy in England again; and I've been thinking it would be a good thing to take those boys out to the Cape and settle there. They'll grow up well and strong in the new land, and I shall try to make a home for them yonder.' 'Yes, John,' I said, 'that's the very thing you ought to do.' 'Ah,' he said, 'but it means leaving you behind, Jenny, dear, and you'll perhaps never set eyes upon them again.' 'Oh, yes, I shall, John,' I said, 'for I've come to stay.' 'What!' he cried; 'would you go with us, sis?' 'Yes,' I said, 'to the very end of the world.' So we came here, Val, where there's plenty of room, and no neighbours to find fault with our ways."

That's how it was; and now I can admire and think of how Aunt Jenny, the prim maiden lady, gave up all her own old ways to set to and work and drudge for us all, living in a wagon and then in a tent, and smiling pleasantly at the trees we planted, and bringing us lunch where we were working away, dragging down stones for the house which progressed so slowly, though father's ideas wore modest.

"For," said he, "we'll build one big stone room, Val, and make it into two with part of the tent. Then by-and-by we'll build another room against it, and then another and another till we get it into a house."

Yes, it was hard work getting the stones, and we were busy enough one day in the hot sunshine, about a month after the wagon had been with the trees and stores, when Bob suddenly stood shading his eyes, and cried:

"Some one's coming!"