The Kopje Garrison Part 15

"Who was it?" said Lennox shortly.

"You."

"I declare I didn't."

"Declare away, old man. I believe you went to sleep hungry."

"Oh yes, you may believe that, and add 'very' to it. Well, what then?"

"You went to sleep, began dreaming, and got up and smoked the lot in your sleep."

"You're five feet ten of foolishness," said Lennox testily as he lay down in his greatcoat.

"And you're an inch in height less of suspicion," said d.i.c.kenson, and he added a yawn.

"Well, hang the cigarettes! I am tired. I say, I'm glad we have no posts to visit to-night."

"Hubble, bubble, burr,"-said d.i.c.kenson indistinctly.

"Bah! what a fellow you are to sleep!" said Lennox peevishly. "I wanted to talk to you about-about-about-"

Nothing; for in another moment he too was asleep and dreaming that the Boers had bounded out of their wagons, overcome the sentries, seized their rifles, and then gone on from post to post till all were well armed. After that they had crept in single file up the kopje, mastered the men in charge of the captured gun, and then tied the two trek-tows together and carried it off to their friends, though he could not quite settle how it was they got the two spans of oxen up among the rocks ready when required.

Not that this mattered, for when he woke in the morning at the reveille and looked out the oxen were absent certainly, being grazing in the river gra.s.s in charge of a guard; but the Boers were present, lighting a fire and getting their morning coffee ready, the pots beginning to send out a fragrant steam.

Chapter Seven.

Friends on the Forage.

There were too many "alarums and excursions" at Groenfontein for much more thought to be bestowed upon the friendly Boers, as the party of former prisoners were termed, in the days which ensued. "n.o.body can say but what they are quiet, well-behaved chaps," Bob d.i.c.kenson said, "for they do scarcely anything but sit and smoke that horrible nasty-smelling tobacco of theirs all day long. They like to take it easy. They're safe, and get their rations. They don't have to fight, and I don't believe nine-tenths of the others do; but they are spurred on-sjambokked on to it. Pah! what a language! Sjambok! why can't they call it a whip?"

"But I don't trust them, all the same," said Lennox. "I quite hate that smiling field-cornet, who's always shifting and turning the corn-sacks to give them plenty of air, as he says, to keep the grain from heating."

"Why, he hasn't been at it again, has he?" said d.i.c.kenson, laughing.

"At it again?" said Lennox. "What do you mean?"

"Did he shout to you to come and look at it?"

"Yes; only this morning, when the colonel was going by. Asked us to go in and look, and shovelled up the yellow corn in one of the sacks. He made the colonel handle some of it, and pointed out that he was holding back the corn tied up with the white strings because it lasted better."

"What did the old man say?"

"Told him that, as the stock was getting so low, he and his men must make a raid and get some more."

"And what did Blackbeard say?"

"Grumbled and shook his head, and talked about the danger of being shot by his old friends if they were caught."

"Dodge, of course, to raise his price."

"That's what the colonel said; and he told him that there must be no nonsense-he was fed here and protected so that he should keep up the supply, and that he must start the day after to-morrow at the latest to buy up more and bring it in. Then, in a surly, unwilling way, he consented to go."

"Buy up some more?" said d.i.c.kenson, with a chuckle. "Yes, he'll buy a lot. Commando it, he'll call it."

That very day, growing weary of trying to starve out the garrison, the enemy made an attack from the south, and after a furious cannonading began to fall back in disorder, drawing out the mounted men and two troops of lancers in pursuit.

As they fell back the disorder seemed to become a rout; but Colonel Lindley had grown, through a sharp lesson or two, pretty watchful and ready to meet manoeuvre with manoeuvre. He saw almost directly that the enemy were overdoing their retreat; and he acted accordingly. Suspecting that it was a feint, he held his mounted troops in hand, and then made them fall back upon the village.

It was none too soon, his men being just in time to fall on the flank of one of the other two commandos, whose leaders had only waited till the first had drawn the British force well out of their entrenchments before one attacked from the east, and the other drove back the defenders of the ford and crossed at once, but only to bring themselves well under the attention of their own captured gun on the kopje, its sh.e.l.ls playing havoc amongst them, while the men of the colonel's regiment stood fast in their entrenchments. The result was that in less than an hour the last two commandos retired in disorder and with heavy loss.

"There," said Lennox as the events of the day were being discussed after the mess dinner, "you see, Bob, it doesn't do to trust the Boers."

"Pooh!" replied the young officer. "There are Boers and Boers, and one must trust them when they supply the larder. Good-luck to our lot, I say, and may they bring in another big supply. If they don't, we shall have to begin on those quadrupedal locomotives of horn, gristle, and skin they call spans. Ugh! how I do loathe trek ox!"

"Talking of that," said Lennox, "the cornet and his men ought to have been off to-night."

"Why?" said d.i.c.kenson, staring.

"Why? Because the enemy will be in such a state of confusion after the check they had to-day."

"To be sure; let's go and tell them so."

"I was nearly suggesting it to the colonel, but he would only have given me one of his looks. You know."

"Yes; make you feel as if you're nine or ten, even if he hadn't sarcastically hinted that you had not been asked for your advice. But I say, Drew, old fellow, I think you're right, and if Blackbeard thinks it would be best he'll go to the old man like a shot. No bashfulness in him."

Without further debate the two young men made their way across the market-square to the wagon where the Boers' dim lantern was swinging, pa.s.sing two sentries on the way.

"Not much need for a light," observed d.i.c.kenson; "one might smell one's way to their den. Hang it all! if tobacco's poison those fellows ought to have been killed long ago."

The cornet was seated on the wagon-box, with his legs inside, talking in a low tone to his fellows who shared the wagon with him, and so intent that he did not hear the young officers' approach till Lennox spoke, when he sprang forward into the wagon, and his companions began to climb out at the back.

"Why, what's the matter with you?" said d.i.c.kenson laughingly as he stepped up and looked in. "Think some of your friends were coming to fetch you?"

"You crept up so quietly," grumbled the Boer, recovering himself, and calling gently to his companions to return.

"Quietly? Of course. You didn't want us to send a trumpeter before us to say we were coming, did you?"

"H'm! No. What were you doing? Listening to find out whether we were going to run away?"

"Psh! No!" cried d.i.c.kenson. "Here, Mr Lennox wants to say something to you."

"What about?" said the man huskily.

"I have been thinking that, as you are going on a foraging expedition," said Lennox, "you ought to go at once. It's a very dark night, and the enemy is completely demoralised by to-day's fight."