Tom Willoughby's Scouts Part 22

"The madmen!" thought Tom. "How do they suppose they can escape? But where is the sentry?"

Women and children, shouting and screaming, thronged the sh.o.r.e, but there was no armed man among them.

Tom watched the scene as if fascinated. The positions of the men on the raft had evidently been arranged with care to ensure its balance, which was disturbed from moment to moment by the violence of their blows. In spite of all, they were making progress towards the lake-side. Suddenly, in a moment, Fate said her last word to Curt Reinecke. Intending to strike a snout that had just slid on to the raft almost at his feet, he overreached himself, the raft tilted, and he was in the water. The shriek that rose from the unhappy man rang long in Tom's ears. At the spot where he had fallen there was a furious swirl as the crocodiles crowded together, and disappeared into the depths of the lake.

For a moment Tom was paralysed with horror. Then collecting himself, he hastened down to the lake, and summoned the women to a.s.sist him in launching the large raft on which food was taken to the prisoners.

Reinecke's fate had given the others a short respite. Before the reptiles returned to the surface the Germans had transferred themselves from the one raft to the other, and pale, cowed, trembling mortals, were paddled to the sh.o.r.e.

Tom had no time to question them, or to inquire about the missing sentry. The sound of scattered shots drew him at his best speed towards the trench. When he reached it, he found that his men were sniping at individual askaris who were hurriedly making their way, not up, but down the nullah. Surely the enemy were not withdrawing?

"Me hear shots long way off, sah," said Mwesa, running towards his master excitedly.

Tom thrilled from top to toe.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Sure nuff, sah. Mirambo he say no: old ears, sah, no can hear, same as me."

Tom wondered. Could it be true? Was the long-expected relief coming at last? Could there be any other explanation of distant firing? He strained his ears for the welcome sound. He gazed towards the end of the nullah. There were certainly signs of activity there. And then came the sound that could not be mistaken. Somewhere to the south rapid rifle fire was going on.

For a few moments all other feelings were submerged in overpowering thankfulness. Then the possibilities of the situation struck upon his mind. It was clear that some of the enemy had been withdrawn to meet this attack in their rear. Had they all gone? Had the conquest of the nullah been wholly abandoned? That must be put to the test.

He sent Mirambo out with a dozen sharpshooters to feel his way down the nullah. Stealing along under cover of the bushes, the men had gone nearly two hundred yards before the sound of shots reached the trench.

A scout hurried back to report that the whole of the enemy force was retreating. Tom instantly collected all his remaining fighting men, and led them down after Mirambo's party.

Presently another scout came with the news that the enemy had not all left the nullah, but had manned the old trench just within the barricade. Tom felt his way forward cautiously through the bush, and overtook Mirambo where he had halted about a hundred yards from the trench. Southward the crackle of rifle-fire was growing louder and more distinct. It would be a pity to lose an opportunity of routing the troops who still remained in the nullah, dispirited as they must be by the knowledge that a fight was going on in their rear.

Tom jumped at the chance of employing against the enemy the manoeuvre which the enemy had unsuccessfully employed against him. He ordered the greater part of his men to creep through the trees and bush on each side, taking care to avoid making the least noise, and to halt when they came within fifty yards of his old trench, now manned by the enemy. At the same time, to divert attention, he sent word to the men he had left at the bend to fire a shot occasionally, aiming at the cliffs.

When all was ready he gave the signal, and with a vociferous whoop eighty men sprang from their places of concealment and followed him in a whirlwind dash upon the trench. The askaris there, taken aback by this sudden charge of an enemy who had hitherto stood wholly on the defensive, had no ears for the commands of their German lieutenant.

Without pausing even to fire one volley, they sprang out of the trench, sprinted over the ruins of the barricade, leapt the moat or crossed by the hurdles, and fled helter-skelter into the forest, flinging away their arms as they ran.

Tom's men dashed after them in a flush of enthusiasm; among the pursuers none were nimbler or more excited than the captured askaris. Tom shouted to them to take the fugitives prisoners, and not to use their weapons except against those who resisted. As for himself, he put every ounce of what little energy remained to him into the chase of the German officer, who, finding himself deserted by his men, had shown a clean pair of heels. Tom was up with him before he gained the forest. The German, aware that he was outrun, suddenly swung round and half raised his arm to fire his revolver. But he was a shade too late. Tom hurled himself upon him with all the impetus gained in his sprint across the clearing, struck the revolver from his hand with his left fist, and with his right dealt the officer a smashing blow on the chin that sent him headlong backward with a crash.

Leaving him to be picked up by some of the older and less fleet-footed of the negroes, Tom hurried on towards the sounds of firing. He had no need to go far. Fugitives from the nullah had reached their comrades, who were falling back before a force of white men and Rhodesian police advancing on a wide front. Realising that they were between two fires, the enemy gave up the hopeless struggle, and scattered to right and left, seeking safety in the pathless forest. The firing ceased, and within ten minutes of leaving the nullah Tom was grasping the hand of a tall bronzed Englishman who bore a major's crown upon his sleeve.

"Tom Willoughby, I suppose," said that officer, looking with a quizzical smile into the tired brown eyes on a level with his own.

"You're Major Burnaby?"

"Yes. A nice little scoop, eh? Now, we've no time to lose. Take me to your nullah. Your people must trek at once. We've cut the wires on the Neu Langenburg road. Two detachments half a mile apart are holding a place clear for our crossing. With luck we'll get through before they send up troops from Bismarckburg. But we must hurry."

CHAPTER XXI--WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS

An hour later a singular procession marched southward through the forest. At the head went a number of Msetu's scouts, with an advanced guard of strapping Rhodesian planters, young and middle-aged. Behind these, a detachment of Rhodesian native police, their broad black faces shining. Then, a happy throng of women and children, each bearing a bundle. These were followed by a number of white men and black, all wearing bandages about an arm or a leg or the head. Then, twenty or more couples of native soldiers with the Red Cross upon their sleeves, carrying field ambulances on which lay still, bandaged figures, white and black. Next, four Germans, among whom the stiff bulky form of Major von Rudenheim was conspicuous, and thirty odd askaris--prisoners guarded by Rhodesian police. Then Major Burnaby, with Tom Willoughby, Mwesa in close attendance behind. Then a large body of native porters, stepping lightly under the heavy burdens on their heads. Following these marched the whole body of the Wahehe fighting men, led by Mirambo; six of them drew a mountain gun; and finally, at an interval, the rearguard of British planters, volunteers in the service of the Empire.

There is no need to relate the details of their uneventful journey.

Next day, in a pelting rainstorm, they crossed the Neu Langenburg road, where their numbers were increased by two small detachments of Rhodesian police under British officers, whose watch upon the road had not been molested. Late on the third day the procession, weary, drenched, but at the top of high spirits, filed up the hill into the little town of Abercorn.

It is perhaps worth while, however, to record two conversations.

When the arrangements for the evacuation of the nullah had been made, Major Burnaby had leisure for a little talk with Tom Willoughby, over a bottle of excellent hock from the case Tom had captured on the Neu Langenburg road.

"Oh, that's all right," said the major, in response to Tom's warm expression of thanks. "You owe it to my old father-in-law, you know--Mr.

Barkworth."

"Indeed!"

"Yes: he took a fancy to you on the boat. Dear old man! His heart's as young as it was when I first met him in Uganda twenty years ago--when I was about your age. He was mightily perturbed about you when we got word that the mad dog had broken loose. Wrote off at once to Reinecke, whom he knew long ago, asking him to pa.s.s you across the border with a safe-conduct, and became quite ill when Reinecke replied that you had been accidentally killed. He gave a very circ.u.mstantial account of your accident, by the way."

"He was a good liar," said Tom.

"Was?"

"Yes, he's dead--horribly. He came to attack me, and I collared him and put him on the island in the lake. I suppose he grew impatient when he heard the firing, couldn't wait for the end, and got his fellow-prisoners to make a sort of a raft. Our sentry deserted his post, with the most praiseworthy intentions, and Reinecke took advantage of his absence to launch the raft. He was attacked by crocodiles; Reinecke lunged at one, and toppled over. I saw the whole thing: the recollection makes me sick."

"Poor devil! He was a tricky sort of fellow, according to Mr.

Barkworth."

Tom related the incidents that had led to his occupation of the nullah.

"He deserved no better fate," remarked Major Burnaby at the close of the story. "Fellows like him make one unjust, perhaps--I mean, one would rather not regard him as a typical German. Unhappily his countrymen are doing their best to make the name of Germany odious."

"What are they doing, sir? What's the war about? Of course I've heard nothing."

Major Burnaby gave an outline of the public events that led to the war--events which all the world knows.

"But the real origin of the war is Germany's tigerish greed," he said.

"One can understand that a great nation, flushed with unexampled success, conscious of power and the possession of many good qualities which only an a.s.s would deny, should look with a certain envy and jealousy on our little islands as the owners of a world-wide empire.

There are wrong-headed and sentimental people at home who make excuses for her, ask how we could expect her to be content with the present position of things, say we deny her means of expansion, and so on. But they shut their eyes to the fundamental contrast between Germany and ourselves. Our Empire is a gradual, almost an accidental, growth: much of it has been so to speak thrust upon us: you've only to read history to know that. We have taken up the burden of rule in barbarous countries, or countries like India and Egypt, where civilisation had decayed, and which but for us would be either bear's gardens or hotbeds of slavery and oppression. I don't say that our motives have always been of the purest or our methods always the best; but I do say that we have never, as a state, set before us the deliberate aim of grabbing what doesn't belong to us, forcing all civilisations into our particular mould, and subjugating all other nations by sheer brutal terrorism.

That is what Germany is doing. She hasn't a notion of honour. She was bound to respect the neutrality of Belgium; a few days before she threw her troops across the frontier she a.s.sured the Belgian Government that she had no intention of doing so. She forced on the war when Austria was hesitating, simply because she thought she saw a unique opportunity of gaining a quick and easy victory, smashing Russia, smashing France, grabbing valuable territory, filling her coffers with millions of foreign gold, and reaching a position in which every country in Europe, and ultimately in the whole world, would be her very humble tributary.

She will allow nothing to stand in her way: no treaties, no scruples of honour, no considerations of humanity. She is simply Brute Force personified; the whole nation has gone mad in the worship of militarism; and she will never come to a better mind, there will be no security in this unhappy world, until her idols are broken by the application of the same force in overwhelming measure. That's our job, my dear fellow, and we must go through with it, whatever the cost."

The other conversation took place in a planter's house at Abercorn. Mr.

Barkworth had just heard from Tom's lips the full story of all that had happened to him since their parting on the landing stage at Bismarckburg.

"H'm!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old man. "Tom," he said, turning to his son-in-law, "he's your namesake. Eh? Tom's a good name--better than riches! Young Tom must have a commission, eh? Want to fight, young Tom?"

"Not particularly, sir. I mean, I don't want to fight; but there's only one thing to be done with a bully--hit him hard. That seems to be the position; and I'll do my best."

"Sound doctrine, my lad. I'm a man of peace; but I read of a Man of Peace who once flogged a pack of rascals out of the Temple of Jerusalem.

No soft words; but stinging whips. Please G.o.d, we'll whip Germany into good behaviour. But now, the practical point. Infantry? Cavalry?

Artillery? What's it to be?"

"He seems rather good at organising scouts," Major Burnaby put in.