The Claw Part 25

Afterwards we climbed to the top of the highest of the rocks to get a view of the whole wide veldt lying shimmering in the sunshine with far-off hazes and veils of purple and amethyst, draped about the horizon like the robes of a G.o.d.

As we stood looking a cloud of dust appeared upon the road, and presently we made out the figure of a man on a light horse approaching the camp. He was coming from the west and, therefore, towards Fort George, and when we realised this we knew that he was not from the town, but from the front--some one with news.

Colonel Blow jumped up, and forgetting good manners and me ran for the edge of the rock and began to climb down as fast as he could. But I as swiftly followed him, and when he reached level ground I was there too.

Then we took hands and frankly ran for the camp, stumbling over ruts and stones, and tripping in ant-bear holes, but covering the ground at a speed I had never achieved before except in an express train. But in spite of our haste the newcomer had arrived first, and we found him dismounted, standing at the head of a pale-coloured drooping horse, with every one in the camp cl.u.s.tered round him. I remember thinking that it was the first time I had ever seen a horse that looked so exactly like the pale-coloured horse Death is supposed to ride when he goes abroad.

I wondered what made me think of it at that moment.

I did not recognise the man's face as one I had ever seen; but when Mrs Burney rushed forward and flung her arms round his neck I realised that this was her husband, whom I had often seen before. Yes: it was Robert Burney the scout! Yet why should dust and fatigue and a stubbly beard so terribly alter a man as he was altered? It is true that his coat hung in tatters, we could see his bare feet through his ragged boots, and his cheek-bones seemed almost piercing through his cheeks. But as he stood there looking at us I realised that it was in his eyes that the change lay. I never saw a man with such hard, calm eyes. If it had been a woman who stood there with those eyes I should have believed that she had wept until she had no more tears, and could never weep again.

But this man's iron face, haggard and weary though it seemed, was not one that could be a.s.sociated with tears. Yet it is true that when I looked into the fearless, still eyes of Robert Burney I thought of tears--tears that were frozen in the heart and would never be shed.

Neither were they dumb, those eyes of his that were so calm. When we had looked at him in silence for a moment, some knowledge leaped out to us from them and entered into our very hearts, paling our faces and chilling our blood so that we stood there shivering in the warm sunshine while we waited for him to speak. Fear had us by the throat, and in the heart of every one "terror was lying still!"

Some name trembled on every lip, and each one of us longed to shout a question: but tongue clave to palate, lips were too dry to open. It was revealed to us in some strange way that Robert Burney had more to tell than the mere fate of one man.

At last he moistened with his tongue his cracked and dust-thickened lips, and spoke quietly:

"A lot of our fellows have been surrounded and cut up."

No one cried out. No one fainted. We just stood there quietly round him, staring into his eyes and listening. No one wept, except Mrs Burney, who had her man safe back in her arms.

"Wilson from Victoria--Alan Wilson, with eighteen men, went across the Shangani River on the King's spoor. We understood that the King was deserted all but a few hundred men, and Major Wilson was to see how the land lay. His idea was to get the King that night if possible and bring him in; but when he reached the scherms it was too late and too dark to do anything; only, he saw that the numbers round Lobengula had been underrated, and that the natives were threatening and hostile. He sent Napier back with information to Major Forbes for reinforcements, but Major Forbes did not think it safe to move that night and sent Captain Borrow instead with twenty men. Ingram and I had already gone on ahead and joined Wilson, and when Borrow reached us we were camped out in the bush about half a mile away from the King's scherms. We lay there all night under arms, in pitch darkness and drenching rain; we could hear the voices of the natives in the bush round us. Several hours of the night Major Wilson and I spent in trying to find three men who were lost. They had got separated from the rest of us, and Wilson wouldn't rest till he knew they were all right. It was so dark that I had to feel for the spoor with my hands, and eventually we found them by calling out their names continually but very softly, and we got back to camp together.

"With the first glint of dawn we saddled up and rode down to the King's waggon again, and Major Wilson called in a loud voice to Lobengula to come out and surrender. Immediately we were answered by the rattle of guns, and a heavy fire! They had evidently been 'laying' for us. We dismounted and returned the fire, but as soon as the natives began trying to get round us we mounted and retreated about six hundred yards, when we again dismounted and returned the fire from behind our horses.

Then as they began to take to the bush round us we rode off again. Two of our horses had been shot, so two horses had to carry double.

"We rode slowly down the spoor made by the King's waggons the night before, Major Wilson and Captain Borrow behind us consulting as to what to do. Major Wilson then called me and asked me to ride back and get the main column to come on at once with the Maxims. I rode off with two other men, and we hadn't gone a hundred yards when hordes of Matabele rushed out on us from the bush ahead, waving their a.s.segais and yelling.

We galloped to the left where the river lay, and by hard riding got away through a shower of bullets.

"When we got to the river we found it in flood, and we had to swim over.

Of course, it was too late then for the main column to cross.

"Immediately after we got away from the last lot of natives we heard Wilson and his party come up to them, and heavy firing commenced. I looked back just before we got out of sight and saw that our fellows were surrounded.

"There must have been thousands... our men in an open s.p.a.ce without cover of any kind... surrounded by those shouting, ferocious devils mad for revenge!

"They were the pick of our forces--the very flower--thirty-four of the finest fellows in the country--in the world!"

He paused a little while, and his throat moved in a curious way that fascinated my eyes, so that I could not think about his news, but only about what was choking him.

"It is still hoped that some of them escaped. But I don't think so...

It is true that some of them might possibly have got away--_if they had tried_. By hard riding those with the best mounts might, _but they were not the kind of men to leave their chums_. No: you can take it from me they fought it out there--side by side--to the bitter end.

"But before that end came you can believe that they put up a fight that the natives of this country will never forget. I guess they showed those devils how brave men can die."

After a long time some one spoke. Some one had the fearful courage to stammer from twisted lips a question:

"Who were they? Tell us the names." Robert Burney's steady glance pa.s.sed from face to face, and he gave us the names.

"Alan Wilson," he repeated lingeringly, as though he loved the sound of those two words; and there is indeed something gallant-sounding, something intrepid and chivalrous, in the rhythm of that man's name whom other men so much loved--that dauntless leader who instilled the spirit of courageous adventure and loyal comradeship into every one with whom he came in contact; whose comrades so loved him that it is certain they followed him to death as gaily as they would have ridden by his side to victory.

"Alan Wilson--Borrow--Kirton--Judd--Greenfield--" Sometimes he paused for a moment, but he never repeated a name twice and he gave us every one of the thirty-four. Some one checked them off, slowly and relentlessly, like a clock ticking and bringing us at each tick nearer to some dreadful doom. When he had finished a sigh pa.s.sed over us like a ghostly wind.

Some of them were names we knew well; some we had never heard before; all were names to be thereafter written in our memories, and in letters of scarlet and gold across the deathless page of Fame. In other places many a woman's head would be bowed to the dust, many a bereaved heart torn and broken, while yet it thrilled with pride for the glorious "Last Stand" of those thirty-four dauntless men.

But for most of us standing there, hanging upon the words of Robert Burney, breathing heavily after every name as from a deathblow escaped, all that it seemed possible to feel at that moment was a savage joy; a joy so painful that it seemed as if it must burst the heart that felt it.

G.o.d knows we grudged Fame to none for their n.o.ble dead. We mourned with them, and would weep for them. But at first, just at first, in that great pain of relief, we could not help that little ghostly sighing wind of relief and thanks that escaped from our dry lips--thanks to G.o.d for the omission of the special name we loved from that terrible roll-call of Honour.

Alas! for one among us who could not so thank G.o.d--for the wife of one of the only two married men who fell with that heroic band. When we realised what had befallen her we gathered round her. We could do nothing to comfort her. No one tried to beguile her from her grief with words. But it seemed a kind thing to do to shelter her stricken eyes from the gay and flaunting sunshine.

All was not yet told. There had been other engagements. After the loss of the Wilson patrol the main column had retreated down the Shangani River to Umhlangeni, and all the way were continuously attacked.

Moreover, they had run short of food and been forced to eat some of their horses; their boots had given out; many of them were obliged to march with their broken feet thrust into the regulation leather wallets; fever also had attacked them. Another list of casualties was necessarily attached to this retreat. One of the nice cheeky boys had been killed; Mrs Shand's husband wounded; Dr Marriott--

When Burney came to this name his eyes rested for a moment on Mrs Marriott's listening face, and by something that came into his expression I knew that his news for her was of the worst. G.o.d knows if she too read his look aright, but she was the first to speak:

"What news of my husband, Mr Burney?" For a moment Robert Burney's voice stuck in his throat; then he spoke out clearly, looking at the fragile, ashen-faced woman with actually the glint of a smile on his face, for as a brave man he had a kind of joy in saying what he did.

"He died a splendid death, Mrs Marriott, saving d.i.c.k Saurin's life."

Elizabeth Marriott showed that she was made of the material of which heroes' wives should be made. She smiled too--a proud, bright, almost a gay smile. Then she turned to me and said softly so that no one heard but I:

"That is my gift to you, Deirdre Saurin." I kissed her, and my tears streamed down my face, falling upon hers; but suddenly they were dried in my eyes, and I could weep no more. Some fateful words, spoken almost brokenly by Robert Burney, had fallen upon my ears: "Tony Kinsella is missing." It was as though some one had thrust a sword into my heart and I could feel the life-blood ebbing away from me, leaving me cold-- cold as some frozen thing in the Arctic Sea. Though the sun shone so gaily upon us there I shivered with bitter cold.

It was a desolate home-coming. As soon as the sun went down a ma.s.s of slate-coloured clouds that had been crouching in the south-west like some stealthy winged monster waiting to pounce, spread itself out swiftly and enshrouded us in grey, misty rain.

The men hurriedly _inspanned_ and urged us into the shelter of the waggons, then started to walk ahead in silent, gloomy groups. No woman walked, except Mrs Burney; we could see her far behind, clinging to her husband's arm, gazing into his face, caring nothing for rain--why should she? Mrs Rookwood, proud to have been asked to do so, minded the Burney baby and tried to hide the gladness of her eyes from those who had little enough cause to rejoice. Her news had been good; George Rookwood had done well and was returning on some special errand in a day or two.

The children were bunched together in a little scarlet cl.u.s.ter at the end of the waggon, watching silent and wide-eyed two of their number who were weeping huddled against their mother. She sat between them with a white, thoughtful face on which there was no sign of tears, though her news had been bad enough to wipe all hope and joy from her life.

"Hush, children," she kept gently repeating. "_We don't know for certain_... Mr Burney said there might be... that some thought there was still hope... we can't be sure... but if it is--if he should be--he would like us to take it bravely--not to--not to make a fuss... but I don't think it _can_ be true... surely it can't be true." Her afflicted eyes searched our faces for some gleam of hope. But we had none to give. We were fighting each our own devils of despair.

The mental exaltation that had sustained Mrs Marriott had given place to physical exhaustion and she lay against my shoulder with a strange heaviness, still as a stone, her eyes closed. Annabel Cleeve fainted quietly, twice, before we reached home, and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe and Mrs Valetta did what they could for her. But the latter's pale, haunted face was not one in which to seek comfort. Once her glance crossed mine like a rapier flash, but I was sick and cold with pain, and had neither pity nor disdain in my heart for her. My mind was busy with its own misery. I was striving to "rear the changeling Hope in the black cave of Despair." My thoughts set me in torment, and I could remember nothing but the words of Robert Burney:

"He was last heard of out scouting with two other men near the Shangani River. They were surrounded and attacked by a party of twelve natives armed with rifles and a.s.segais. One of them, Britton, managed to get away and ride to the main column for help, and when he got back with a patrol an hour later the other fellow, Vincent, was lying there wounded, surrounded by the bodies of dead natives, but Kinsella was nowhere to be found--and has never been heard of or seen since. Vincent could tell nothing but that just before he became unconscious Kinsella was still standing over his body shooting--"

Not to know! Not to know! Torturing visions stole upon me; visions of men lying wounded to death; parched with bitter thirst; waiting, waiting for reinforcements that never came; for help that would never come!

Then the terrible yet merciful remembrance that it was all so long ago!

Many, many days had pa.s.sed since it happened. If those splendid, heroic men lay there still they must be of the great, n.o.ble company of the dead. I looked up at the grey arch above me, blurred and dim with rain, and thinking of the unsheltered dead, lying with eyes wide open to the skies, was thankful that it fell so gently and pityingly down.

"O loved ones lying far away, What word of love can dead lips send?

O wasted dust! O senseless clay!

Is this the end? Is this the end?

"Peace, peace! we wrong the n.o.ble dead To vex their solemn slumber so.

Though childless and with thorn-crowned head Up the steep path must England go--"