Tom Willoughby's Scouts Part 18

"How do you know?"

Mwesa looked down at Tom's feet.

"Dey hab got big boots like sah. Sah come see."

Tom went down with him into the midst of the long gra.s.s and the bushes that covered the centre of the ravine. Broken twigs and branches and long swathes of trampled gra.s.s marked the recent pa.s.sage of men, and Mwesa pointed out on the damp soil the impressions of heavy boots, and showed him that in the freshest the heels were up, not down, the ravine.

A few minutes' investigation in both directions placed it beyond doubt that, not long before, a body of men had marched westward into the forest.

"Too late!" muttered Tom. "But we must make sure. Mwesa, scout along to the cleft. Be quick, for it will be dark soon."

He returned to his party, dragging his weary limbs. In twenty minutes Mwesa came back, hot and breathless.

"All gone, sah. Haroun him stay: big birds dey find him."

Tom shuddered. The vultures were already at work. "Come, let us get back," he said. "Get some of the men to make a _machila_. I can't walk another step, and we can't venture the climb down in the dark."

With two rifles and some pliant tendrils a litter was soon constructed, and reclining on this Tom headed the march home. He was tired and disappointed; the men were crestfallen: some asked why the m'sungu did not pursue the askaris. But Tom was in no condition to follow up the enemy, even if his reason had favoured the idea. He could only guess at what had happened: that the lieutenant, alarmed by the distant shouts, had gone forward, discovered the dead Arab, inferred that Reinecke also had come to grief, and concluding that the game was up, had withdrawn his men hurriedly and in something of a panic. To pursue in darkness would be folly. Tom consoled himself for his disappointment with the reflection that, after all, more prisoners would have been a nuisance--so many more mouths to feed, and a burden to the guards.

The homeward journey was slow and laborious: only by the touch of their bare feet could the Wahehe distinguish in the darkness the tracks they had made as they came. Tom slumbered a part of the way, and when, at a late hour, they regained the nullah, he waited only to hear that nothing had disturbed the peace and to arrange for Reinecke's accommodation during the night, before seeking his hut and throwing himself, worn out, upon the mattress of plaited gra.s.s which some of the women had made for him.

Next morning, after ten hours' unbroken sleep, he rose, a little stiffly, to face the work of another day.

"First job, to dispose of Reinecke," he thought.

The German was in a furious temper.

"You wish to kill me," he cried, when Tom came to him. "You put me in a wretched native hut, without a fire, without blankets, to perish of cold, to be struck with ague. As a prisoner of war--you call it war?--I demand proper treatment, according to international law."

"I don't know anything about international law," said Tom; "common law and common sense would set you dangling from a tree, I suspect. But I'm not your judge. While you're here you'll be treated like the other prisoners. You'll join them on the island yonder."

"I must have a separate hut. In Germany officers and men are never lodged together: it is forbidden."

"We are not in Germany," said Tom, curtly. "The hut is large enough to hold you all: there's no room on the island for another, even if time could be spared to build it. If you feel contaminated by the company of fellow Germans you can spend your leisure in making for yourself a part.i.tion: there's plenty of material on the island. You can then live in your own first-cla.s.s compartment: the men will probably prefer it."

Reinecke was patently surprised. The young cub, as he might have put it, seemed to have suddenly grown up. Even at that last dinner in the bungalow Tom had not taken quite this tone with him. He said no more at the moment: his thoughts were his own. In a few minutes he was punted across the lake on the raft, and left on the sh.o.r.e of the island to introduce himself to his fellow captives. Tom smiled as he watched them salute him, then step hastily aside as, without returning their salute, he pushed his way into the hut. In a few moments he came out and, gnawing his moustache, gazed across at the village, and up the side of the nullah. His lips moved: then he wheeled round and re-entered the hut, whence he emerged no more that day.

It was a busy day for Tom. He saw that the failure of Reinecke's expedition was sure to provoke the Germans to a serious attempt to deal with him. They would no longer hold him lightly, and suppose that he could be snuffed out by a handful of Askaris. When they came, they would come in force. It might be in a day or two; it might be perhaps after a week or more; much would depend on the state of the weather.

Were the interval long or short, it must be utilised to the full in strengthening his position.

An obvious precaution was to establish scouting posts between Bismarckburg and the scene of the previous day's adventures. Tom went over the ground with some of M'setu's men who were in his regular service as scouts, and fixed on two well-wooded knolls that commanded the track leading to the ravine. He surveyed the ravine itself with a view to fortifying it--or rather of blocking the way to the cleft--and came to the conclusion that this would involve too much labour, even if it could be achieved with any success. A more feasible scheme was to form barricades of rocks and trees at various points on the narrow cleft. These, held by a few men, would interpose awkward obstacles to any force that attempted to attack by the newly discovered back door.

Tom set some of his men to work at once in erecting three barricades, some thirty yards apart. Then he clambered down by the ladder, and realising that that ingenious contrivance would hardly bear the strain of frequent use, gave directions that it should be strengthened. By this means communication between the nullah and the cleft above would always be safe: while in the event of his men being forced back and followed by the enemy, the ladder could be cut away, leaving the attackers in the air, so to speak, nearly twenty feet above the ground.

All day the sky threatened rain, and distant rumbles of thunder were heard; but the storm held off until these preliminary measures had been carried out. Soon after dark the heavens opened. Thunder growled, cracked, bellowed: the air was one vast shaking noise. A vivid glare rose up from the horizon until all the world seemed on fire. Great bursts of light, now in one quarter, now in another, shot through the sky like gigantic squibs; and dazzling streaks of jagged brilliance rent the firmament. And then, in the midst of this wonderful phantasmagoria, it was as if the fire-maker set out to quench the universal conflagration. Down fell the rain, in sheets, in torrents, in cascades of hailstones as large as eggs. The people cowered, shivering, shrieking, in their huts. Out of the boiling lake the stream poured in angry flood, hissing and raving like a maddened beast let loose.

Tingling in every nerve, Tom watched the amazing storm for hour after hour: what were man's puny battles compared with this t.i.tanic conflict of the elements? And it was only when the thunder died away in sullen mutterings, and the lightning gave pale flickers and tired gleams, but still the rain roared unceasingly--it was only then that Tom became alive to the very practical question: would huts, stores, barricades, all be washed away?

CHAPTER XVII--A GERMAN OFFER

For the rest of the night Tom got no sleep. Listening to the rush of the torrent through the nullah he waited anxiously for the dawn. As soon as there was light enough, he went out to see what havoc the storm had wrought. The worst antic.i.p.ations were not realised, but the damage was serious enough. Some of the huts were broken down; one or two of those nearest to the stream had been washed away; the defences at the bend almost obliterated; and the barricade of trees at the entrance of the nullah showed many gaps. But the slope of the ground and the depth of the channel had been sufficient to carry off almost all the overflow from the lake, and there seemed to be no danger of the village on the higher ground at the north end being flooded out. The prisoners' hut on the island had suffered nothing except from leaks in the roof, and these Reinecke had at once set his subordinates to repair.

The rain had ceased, and as soon as it was possible to dig, Tom ordered his men to reconstruct the damaged defences. More trees were packed into the barricades, the ditch outside it was widened and deepened; the trenches on the slopes were recut and strengthened, and a communication trench was dug from each to the bed of the nullah, so that their garrisons could be reinforced at need, under cover from the enemy's fire. The trench and parapet at the bend were also restored, and at each end, some twenty-five feet above the bed of the nullah, a small blockhouse of rocks was erected, in which half a dozen men, through apertures left for rifle fire, could enfilade any attacking party that advanced on either bank of the stream.

Tom had hitherto made no attempt to communicate with the British authorities beyond the border. He reflected that their hands were full, and while he was in no immediate danger he hesitated to embarra.s.s them.

Now, however, when it was clear that the Germans would make a serious effort to deal with him, and major operations were interrupted by the rains, he resolved to try to get a message through to Abercorn, explaining his position. He wrote on leaves from his pocket-book a brief account of what he had been doing, made a copy, gave the duplicated messages to two of the best scouts from M'setu's contingent, and sent them off on successive days. The papers, which they carried folded in their loin-cloths, were addressed "The Commanding Officer, Abercorn." A single man should be able to cross the hills and the Neu Langenburg road without much risk of being caught. The journey might take three or four days, so that it would be at least a week before an answer could be received, even in the most favourable circ.u.mstances.

Several days pa.s.sed, on most of which rain fell. Feeling pretty sure that the enemy would not attack in such weather, Tom took every possible advantage of the breathing s.p.a.ce, improving the defences, drilling his men, and shooting game in the neighbourhood, in order to eke out his fast diminishing stores of food. He also practised his scouts in the system of shouting messages, and was not much surprised to find that some of his posts had been deserted: it was hardly to be expected that M'setu's men, undisciplined negroes, would show fort.i.tude enough to remain at their stations in pelting rain-storms. But since it was of vital importance that the scouting should be efficient, he considered how best to surmount the very real difficulty that had manifested itself. After a good deal of thought, he decided to reduce the number of posts, retaining only those that commanded the main routes, and to have these frequently inspected by Mirambo or some other trustworthy native. With Mirambo he himself made a round of the posts--a task that occupied him for two days--and as the result of this personal visit found himself able to devise a simplified scheme that promised to be successful.

The outermost line of posts was established on the hills north of the Neu Langenburg road, in such spots that any movement on about twenty miles of its course must be seen by at least one of his men. Taking this line as the base of a triangle, and the mouth of the nullah as the apex, he arranged for posts to be held along the sides, and also on perpendicular lines to the sides from the base. While he thus somewhat narrowed the area that was watched, he concentrated observation on the quarters from which danger was most to be expected, and, needing fewer men, was able to give them shorter spells.

On returning one day from a shooting expedition, he learnt that messages had been received not long before from a scouting post near the Neu Langenburg road. The first message was that an armed party had been seen marching from the direction of Bismarckburg; the second, that the party consisted of two white officers with a number of askaris, and had struck into a track which would lead past Reinecke's plantation to the nullah. One of the askaris carried a white flag.

"Parlementaires," thought Tom. "They want to negotiate? Well, I must hear what they have to say."

For a moment he thought of going out at the head of a party of his men to meet the enemy; but reflecting that he had no precise information of their number, and that their object might be to lure him from his defences, he decided to remain behind the barricade.

Presently another message came through his chain of scouts, announcing that the strangers had just pa.s.sed a post about ten miles from the nullah. After some two hours and a half he learnt that they were now within five miles. Thereupon he ordered his men to take up their allotted positions behind the barricade and in the trenches, and sent Mwesa to the nearest scouting post, about two miles distant, to watch for the enemy's coming, and to run back and tell him how many they were.

Mwesa was the only negro whom he could trust to form even an approximate estimate of their number.

In due time the lad came back with the report that the askaris were no more than twenty. Rea.s.sured that no attack was intended by so small a force, Tom awaited their arrival with composure.

"But they mustn't come too close," he thought, "or they'll see too much."

He scribbled in German a note on a leaf from his pocket-book--

"Mr. Willoughby presents his compliments," he wrote, "and has the honour to say that he, with ten men, will meet the recipient of this note, also with ten men, at the edge of the forest, three hundred yards from his position. Any attempt to advance across the clearing will be resisted."

"Run and give that to the commanding officer," he said to Mwesa, "and come back with his answer."

"Him say no come back," said Mwesa, looking uncomfortable.

"Not at all. He won't prevent you. Be quick."

The boy ran off, disappeared in the forest, and in twenty minutes was seen speeding back again.

"You have an answer?" asked Tom.

"Him look at paper, den laugh and talk to other man; me no savvy what say. Den he tell me all right."

"In English?"

"Yes, sah, he talk English same as me."

It was not long before a party of men emerged from the forest beyond the clearing, and halted. There were ten askaris, one of whom carried a white flag; and in the tall German accompanying them Tom recognised the officer who had been his fellow-pa.s.senger on the _Hedwig von Wissmann_ months before.