Tom Burnaby Part 30

Tom let the man grovel there, and paused before he answered. Then he upbraided him for his meanness and folly in refusing help to his neighbour Barega when in dire extremity, and declared that he deserved to be left to meet single-handed the devastating Arabs.

"You are a coward, Uchunku," he said. "You stood aloof from your neighbour in distress, and then, when you find that all your other neighbours have seen the wisdom of joining my people and accepting my leadership, you come and whine like a puppy to be taken in. I will have mercy on you; I will admit you to our confederacy; but you will have to prove yourself worthy. You will be given no place of trust, your men will not be allowed to bear arms, until you have shown that you are loyal, and ready to carry out all my commands."

The miserable chief abjectly promised to do anything, even the most menial work, to merit Kuboko's favour. Tom cut him short, bade him get up, and ordered him to attend the palaver next day with all his men.

Tom would have been more than human if he had not felt a thrill and glow of pride next day, when, at the appointed mote-hill, he found a great concourse of natives awaiting him. The three chiefs of the former palaver had most effectively fulfilled his instructions. Each had brought a group of petty chiefs, and each of these had come with several of his warriors, so that the whole a.s.sembly numbered nearly three hundred men, armed in their several ways. They were Bantu negroes of various races, some of them tall, splendid specimens of humanity, some short and thick-set, all muscular and in the pink of physical condition.

Until Tom came in sight with his small escort, they had kept up a constant chatter, the sound of which travelled across the country like the noise of a vast army of rooks or gulls. But as Tom ascended the hill a silence fell upon the throng. Hundreds of eyes looked curiously at the man of whom they had heard so much. When he reached the brow of the hill, moved as by one impulse the crowd raised their spears aloft and cried aloud: "Kuboko! Kuboko! Waize! Thou comest!" and it was then that Tom thrilled with the thought that all these simple, untutored negroes were looking to him as their leader, and relying on him to save them from the awful fate they must inevitably meet if their inhuman oppressors had their will. And thus, when he had gathered them about him in a large ring, there was a deep note of earnestness in his voice as he addressed them. He thanked them first for coming so readily at his wish, and briefly explained to them the arrangements he had already made with the three superior chiefs, impressing on them the seriousness of the effort soon to be made to rid them for ever of their age-long foes, and the necessity for all to work together without jealousy or self-seeking. Much of what he said he knew must fall on deaf ears; he could not expect them to forget the habits and ideas that were part of their blood; but if he could only gain their confidence, he hoped that his personal influence and example would succeed in effecting something, however little.

When he had won their approval of his general scheme, he ventured to put to them another proposal which he felt would meet with opposition. It was that, when the great day came, they should bring all their women and children, with their valuable possessions, to Mwonga, until the fight was over. A low murmur of disapproval ran round the ring, then the negroes began to gesticulate and argue excitedly until loud shouts of "Nga! Ngabuse!" their strongest negative, filled the air. Waiting patiently through the uproar, Tom at length held up his hand, and after some minutes succeeded in stilling the storm. Then, in the same even quiet manner, he began to reason with them.

"Why do my brothers shout so loudly into the sky? Is Kuboko deaf that he cannot hear? Is he stupid that he cannot understand? I, Kuboko, have but two arms and two hands. I cannot take all my brothers into my grip and drag them whither it pleases me. No, but I speak plain words to my brothers, and if they are not good words then my brothers can go their own way. Listen, men of a hundred villages, how can you hope to hold your huts against the attack of a strong and cruel foe? See, I take this spear-shaft in my hand, I lay it across my knees and snap it in two; you could do the same. But now I take five spear-shafts together, and though I strive and strain I cannot break so much as one of them. What think you of that, my brothers?"

The old ill.u.s.tration, so happily remembered, had an instant effect on the keen natives, to whose minds the practical so strongly appeals.

Allowing a little time for the lesson to strike home, Tom went on:

"Now, what of Mwonga? Think how it is placed--on a hill, a steep path at one end, a precipice at one side, an ever-flowing stream, a well-kept stockade. Have we not already driven the Arabs from it, not once nor twice? I have no thought of doing favour to Mwonga. It is not my village: my village is far away, over mountains and rivers, on the other side of a big water stretching farther than any eye can see. My village awaits me, and when my work is done I long only to go back to it and see my fields and huts and the faces of my own people again. But while I am here I want to help you, and you, and you, my brothers, every one of you. Make, then, a great camp at Mwonga until the Arabs are beaten and hunted away. Only Mwonga has been able to defy them. Does any chief know of a better place? If so, let him speak."

There was a long pause. Each chief consulted with his own men. Then one of the three princ.i.p.al chiefs called for silence, and declared that Kuboko's words were good. A long and excited discussion ensued, until at length they agreed to Tom's proposal, provided the village could be sufficiently enlarged to contain all their dependents in case of need.

Tom at once called for the services of a thousand men to extend the stockade, widen the ditch, and build new huts for the accommodation of the guests. This was also agreed to, and then Tom endeavoured to get an idea of what his total force of fighting-men would amount to. He took some time to question each chief as to the strength of his own contingent, and to make the necessary deductions due to their incurable love of boasting; but the number actually arrived at, including his own force of Bahima and Bairo, fell not far short of four thousand. Then the a.s.sembly broke up.

One of the lesser chiefs, during the latter part of the conference, had been looking with great interest at Mbutu, who stood by his master's side. He was a tall Muhima, lithe and strong, with an Egyptian cast of feature and the strange melancholy expression so characteristic of his race. Looking very puzzled, he edged gradually nearer to Mbutu, and, as Tom turned to go down the hill, took the young Muhima by both arms, and gazed searchingly into his face.

"What is it, Mbutu?" said Tom. "Come along."

"Mbutu!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the chief; then smiled, and shook the boy's arms up and down excitedly, talking very rapidly and earnestly the while. Mbutu listened at first in fascinated amazement, but by and by his expression changed, he clasped the stranger's neck, and, turning to his master, said simply:

"Him my brudder, sah! Him Mboda!"

Then he explained. When his village had been raided and burned some years before, he had believed that he alone of the male population had escaped alive. He had seen his father and two brothers killed, and knew that the women would be carried into captivity. But it now appeared that a few of the younger men had evaded the clutches of the Arabs and got away into the forest, under the leadership of Mboda, his third brother, and that, when the danger was past, they had returned, built a village several miles west of the one that was burned, and gradually gathered about them a few men and women of their own stock. Of this small village Mboda was now chief, and he had been among the most eager to join the coalition against the enemy he had so good reason for hating.

The delight of the brothers at their unexpected meeting was so manifest that Tom invited Mboda to return to Mwonga and stay for a few days.

Mboda eagerly accepted the invitation, and sent word to his village by one of his men.

On Tom's return to Mwonga, the operations arranged were immediately put in hand and pressed on in spite of the constant rains. When the new stockade was completed, the enclosure was more than half a mile square, and there was room for the temporary accommodation of fifteen thousand people. The hole in the wall of the reservoir was filled up, so that the supply of water needed by so vast a host might be kept as large as possible; and the defences were further strengthened by a solid earthen embankment impenetrable to bullets. Another measure of Tom's, at first the cause of much grief and dismay among the Bairo, was the levelling of the banana plantation on the south-east of the village. But when the news was carried round among the allies it made a vast impression. The chiefs recognized that not they alone were required to make sacrifices, but that the people of Mwonga themselves submitted even to the loss of a flourishing plantation at the bidding of Kuboko.

But all this Tom felt was but child's play to the work of training his men. He knew, from what he had read of operations in which native troops had been engaged, in the Soudan and k.u.masi, for instance, how impulsive the negro is, how p.r.o.ne to get out of hand, how apt to fight "off his own bat", without the least idea of co-operation. It was hopeless to attempt the training of the whole body of his allies; it would take years of vigorous drill, and the constant attention of British non-commissioned officers, to eradicate these defects and implant new ideas and habits in the native. All that he could hope to do was to bring his own men, and especially the select body of two hundred and fifty, into something like order. He worked unsparingly.

He got the men to fall in in double ranks, and arranged them according to their height, making them number and form fours in the good old way he remembered at school. When it came to "Left!" and "Right!" he had some trouble at first, and the operation of changing ranks was almost too much for the Bahima, not to speak of Tom's patience. Marking time presented no difficulty, and when the willing negroes had once learned the difference between right and left it was not long before the orders "Right form", "Left form", "Move to the right in fours", and the other mystic cries of the barrack-yard, were carried out with fair precision.

All these military commands Tom gave in English, and he often smiled to think of the surprise which his uncle, or any other British officer, would feel if he were dumped down suddenly one day at Mwonga's village and heard the curt expressions of English drill bawled within the stockade.

The four hours' drill was kept up every day, and the monotony of it was compensated by the eagerness and aptness of his pupils. Before, they were a mob; now, they were gradually gaining the power to work together and becoming a serviceable force. This was strikingly shown in their volley-firing. After repeated efforts, Tom almost despaired of breaking the men of firing haphazard, antic.i.p.ating the word of command, blazing with eyes shut in every possible direction. But patience won the day, and at last he was able to advance men against them in sham-fight to within twenty yards without a trigger being pulled before the word was given.

The manufacture of gunpowder having proved successful, it was a comparatively easy matter to make slugs for the muskets. Every sc.r.a.p of old iron, bra.s.s, copper, lead, in the place was utilized for this purpose, and at last the musketeers were provided with sufficient ammunition, Tom considered, to last them through a month's brisk fighting.

Having brought them into something like order, he next set about the equipment of an equal force of pikemen. He had read something of the good service done by pikemen in the wars of the seventeenth century, and he was indeed amazed to find how details that had lain unnoticed in his mind now came crowding to his recollection. He got his men to cut strong staffs, sixteen feet long, from the forest trees, and to each he fixed, by means of a thin plate of iron four feet long, a lozenge-shaped pike-head, made by the Bairo smiths under his direction. Thus the head could not be accidentally broken off, or cut off by the Arabs'

scimitars. The men so armed he trained to act with the musketeers. In close fighting order the musketeers were drawn up in two ranks, the front rank kneeling, the rear rank standing, while the pikemen stood behind, their pikes projecting in front of the musketeers. In charging, the pikemen led the way, supported by the musketeers with bayonets or clubbed muskets.

Tom was, of course, entirely in the dark as to where the expected engagement was to be fought--whether in the forest, in the open outside the village, or again behind the stockade; but he was determined to be prepared for any contingency. Ill-armed as his force was, he recognized that he might have to fight a defensive campaign for a time, trusting to wear the enemy out, and to seize a favourable opportunity for taking the offensive. It was a risky policy with a negro force; he could place full reliance only on the pikemen and musketeers; the great body of the allies was little better than a rabble, and man for man less dependable, because less used to regular fighting, than the Arab auxiliaries. But he hoped that his special troops would be sufficiently well drilled to give a good account of themselves if fighting took place in the open, while in the forest the others could certainly hara.s.s the enemy, probably cut off his supplies, ambush him, and attack him at a disadvantage.

All this time Tom had been gleaning various items of information as to the routes by which the enemy might be expected to come. There was, of course, the path through the forest, along which he himself had been carried to the village, but he learnt that there were two other possible ways, to the west and east of the direct route. These, however, would involve the crossing of at least two broad rivers, and the rainy season being barely over, the streams would be so swollen as to render fording impossible.

He would gladly have fortified the approaches to the village had this been possible, but after carefully weighing the pros and cons he reluctantly decided that he must be content to extemporize stockades when the approach of the Arabs was announced. Until the peril was imminent he could not count upon sufficient a.s.sistance from his allies to enable him to construct defensive works on all the paths by which the expected invasion might be made, and his own troops were clearly insufficient for the purpose.

The long-awaited signal came at length. On the night of November 28, a date which Tom carefully marked in the pocket-diary he had obtained from Herr Schwab, the faint taps of a drum were heard far away to the north.

A few minutes later a distinct roll came from the nearest post. At distances of six and three miles the signal drummers had pa.s.sed on the message received by them from posts farther afield. Reading the message by the prearranged code, Tom made out that a small force had been sighted sixty miles from the village. Surmising that this was merely the advance-guard, he calculated that the main body would take at least five or six days to arrive, and he resolved to wait until the morning before calling up his levies.

Soon after daybreak a courier came panting into the village, and announced that the line of runners had transmitted to him the news that a huge force of Arabs was advancing along the forest-path a mile or two in the rear of the advance-guard.

The village drummers were at once called on to signal the news to the allied chiefs, and runners were despatched to them all confirming the intelligence. The chiefs were each to send their women and children into Mwonga under a small escort, with not less than six weeks' supply of food. The warriors who were used to forest fighting were to muster at the edge of the forest, and await orders from Kuboko. The remainder, men of the plain, with no special skill in woodcraft, and dreading the forest as an unknown region of unimaginable terrors, were to concentrate to the north-east of the village, and hold themselves in readiness to move in any direction at a moment's notice. By making forced marches, all the fighting-men of the allies had arrived at their appointed places by the morning of the next day. It was a glorious morning, and, looking round from the village on the eager host, their spear-heads glittering in the sunlight, Tom drew good augury, and felt his heart leap within him.

His force numbered four thousand one hundred all told, and as yet he was wholly without definite information of the size of the Arab army. It was important that every possible means should be taken of worrying and reducing the enemy while marching through the forest, enc.u.mbered, as no doubt they were, with carriers and baggage. They included, Tom felt sure, a very large number of men armed with rifles and muskets, but their superiority in this respect would be to a great extent neutralized among the trees. His first care, therefore, was to despatch five hundred of his best forest-fighters, divided into twenty bands of twenty-five each, into the forest, to dig pits, plant stakes, and employ every device known to them to delay and hara.s.s the advance. They were not to penetrate into the forest for more than thirty miles from their base, in order that they might be easily supplied with food, and readily recalled if need arose.

Tom's next step was to arrange with the katikiro for the defence of the village against a possible flanking attack. He could not be sure that the line of the advance now signalled would be the line of the real attack; for all he knew, the Arabs might divide their force, advance in two directions, and, while making a feint in their immediate front, throw all their strength upon the village, hoping to take it unawares.

The katikiro during the last few weeks had proved himself one of the most intelligent and persevering of all Tom's lieutenants, and Tom had complete confidence that his courage and determination would not fail at the critical moment. To him, therefore, he entrusted the defence of the village. He gave him a thousand of the plainsmen, of whom sixty were armed with muskets, and also the whole of the cadet corps, who, being young and hot-headed, he thought would be all the better for the restraint of the stockade. The force was, he knew, quite inadequate to hold the extensive line of fortifications if the place was seriously a.s.saulted; but it could, he hoped, hold its own behind the stockade for a day or two, allowing time for Tom himself to return to its a.s.sistance.

Before leaving the village, Tom took the katikiro aside to give him final instructions. Msala was talking to the medicine-man at the time, and the latter scarcely attempted to conceal a malignant scowl as Tom approached. He moved reluctantly away, evidently curious to learn what Tom's business with the katikiro was.

"Msala," said Tom, as soon as he judged Mabruki to be out of ear-shot, "I have given you an important post, because I know that you are fearless, and because I trust you. The village, and the lives of the thousands of people in it, are in your hands. You must on no account leave your post unless you receive a direct order from me. If I want you to leave it, I shall send a messenger to you, and he will bring with him, as a proof that his message is genuine, a leaf out of my pocket-book with this mark upon it." He drew a circle, with two diameters intersecting at right-angles. "You see that? Whatever messenger comes to you from me will have a leaf like that, and I will leave this with you, so that no possible mistake can be made. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Msala, his face aglow with the importance of his duties; "I will obey the words of Kuboko, and he shall find that I am as bold as a lion and as wise as an elephant."

"Very well then. Now I myself am going into the forest with my picked men. You may not see me for many days; but do not get down-hearted.

Let us hope that when you and I meet again we shall have made our account with the enemy."

CHAPTER XVII

Treachery

Fording a Stream--Preparing a Trap--Ensnared--A Panic--Mystery--Prompt Measures--Scouting--The Arab Camp--A Burly Pikeman--Preparing to Spring--De Castro Escapes

The force made a brave show as it marched out next morning amid the cheers of the thousands of men, women, and children left behind. The katikiro stood at the north gate, proud of his office, and yet envious of the men who were advancing to meet the enemy. At one side of him stood Mwonga, at the other Mabruki the medicine-man, who had recovered something of his old authority with the influx into the village of a vast horde who had not witnessed his discomfiture by Kuboko. Some, indeed, of the Bahima had pleaded that Mabruki might be allowed to accompany them, so that they might benefit by what magical power was still left to him; but Tom had resolutely refused their request, asking them bluntly whether they had not more confidence in his strong arm than in Mabruki's basket and bell. And therefore the only face that scowled on the departing army was Mabruki's.

The van was led by the two hundred and fifty pikemen, their pike-heads polished to a silvery brilliance and flashing in the sunlight. They were followed by the musketeers, with Tom and Mbutu at their head. Then came a select band of fifty, who were to be entrusted with the throwing of the hand-grenades, and with them were a number of Bairo, laden with ammunition. Behind these came the remainder of the force--spearmen and archers, all eager, confident, burning to meet the foe; and carriers with food and cooking-utensils.

A vast rumour filled the air as the force pa.s.sed on, the men chattering and laughing, some of them chanting the war-songs of their tribes, others inventing songs on the spur of the moment and repeating the words to the thousandth time to the same weird music. These songs for the most part sounded the praises of Kuboko. "Kuboko is stronger than many lions," sang the men of the plains, who knew what the strength of lions was. "Kuboko is mightier than the horn of a bull," sang the Bahima, prizing their cattle above all things. "Kuboko, the maker of fire, who poureth out the water-spout!" sang the Bairo, whose imagination had been seized by Tom's deeds during the siege. Tom was not puffed up by their ingenuous laudation. He was, rather, touched by their simple confidence, and more than ever resolute to use what power he had, whatever opportunity Providence threw in his way, for their ultimate advantage.

Between the village and the edge of the forest lay a stretch of about fifteen miles of fairly open country, dotted here and there with clumps of bush and with shade trees.

On the way the force overtook a party of pioneers, sent out by Tom in advance, armed with spades, mattocks, knives, and similar implements for cutting away the brushwood, erecting stockades, and performing the other operations necessary in the forest. At every third mile Tom ordered his men to erect a rough redoubt or block-house of earth and wood, by means of which communication might be maintained with the village if it should be invested. At each of these he left a small garrison with arms and provisions. The last redoubt before entering the forest was of larger size than the rest, and in it he left a larger garrison and a more plentiful store of food and ammunition. There was, he judged, ample time for this work of construction, for the African native is extremely quick; and, besides, the Arabs could scarcely reach the outskirts of the forest within four days at their best speed, and that period might be almost indefinitely extended if the warriors already despatched to hara.s.s them carried out their instructions thoroughly. Tom saw that, having to deal with an army no doubt immensely superior in point of numbers as well as of armament to his own, he could only impede their march; he could not hope to stop it. A general engagement could hardly be risked. It might easily result in the total destruction of his force and the subsequent storming of the village. It was his object, therefore, to fight a series of small engagements while the enemy were still in the forest, and he hoped, by carefully choosing the moment, to win such success as should give his men new confidence in themselves, each other, and him.

Entering the forest at length, he was soon met by messengers sent back by the leaders of his skirmishers, with the information that the Arabs were advancing in great force behind a screen of native levies, who were thoroughly skilled in forest-fighting. All that the chiefs had been able to do was to maintain a running fight, laying simple ambushes, darting in spears and arrows whenever they saw an opportunity, and retiring as soon as the head of the main force appeared.

From the description given by the native couriers, who reached him almost every hour from the front, Tom, making due allowance for exaggeration, concluded that the hostile force numbered in all some five thousand men, with an almost equal number of carriers. They were marching in a column nearly five miles in length, the narrowness of the forest track rendering it almost impossible to proceed except in single file.

On the second day, Tom, marching now at the head of his troops, came to a broad stream, which, as he had learnt already from his scouts, was in full flood from the recent rains. He was hardly prepared to find it so broad and deep as it was, and though it could easily be swum, it was necessary to find a ford if the food and ammunition were to be got across in safety. The bank was steep, and covered with rank bush growing as high as a man. "Better try myself; it will be quickest in the long run," he said to himself, and, sliding down the slippery bank, he waded into the water. It was icy cold, and as he walked towards the middle of the stream, and the water rose as high as his chest, he gasped for breath. The current was fairly strong; he could scarcely keep his feet; and at last he found it impossible to do so. But only a few yards to the right he noticed that the water was swirling and foaming, and, swimming to that point, his feet, as he expected, touched bottom on some rocks. There he waded across, clambered up the bank, and ordered his men on the other side to cut a new path down the shelving bank opposite the ford he had so opportunely discovered. There the whole force crossed, the water reaching a little above their knees, and Tom, having seen the pa.s.sage safely completed, and now shivering with cold, was glad to swallow a dose of the quinine included with a few indispensables in Mbutu's bundle.