Tom Willoughby's Scouts Part 7

At the plantation drill was in full swing. Some askaris had come from Bismarckburg under the charge of a German non-commissioned officer, the former as guards and examples, the latter to train the new recruits.

Drill went on all day and every day, the German giving his commands in a Bantu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as yet they had fired no shot. They were all sullen and resentful; but cowed by the presence of the armed askaris and in constant fear of the whip, they gave no utterance to their feelings in face of their taskmasters, pouring out their hearts only in the seclusion of their own huts and sheds.

Reinecke himself was now seldom at the plantation. Mirambo believed that he was busy at headquarters at Bismarckburg. The askaris had said that a great force was being prepared to attack the English in Abercorn, and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in the white man's country far away; of many great cities which the Germans had taken; how the King of England and his war chiefs had been hanged by the people, enraged at defeat. Soon there would not be a single Englishman in the whole of Africa.

"Do they believe that stuff?" said Tom. "It's all nonsense."

Mwesa was not at all sure that he had not believed it himself, for how was a simple African to deny what was told him with such a.s.surance?

Indeed, even among the Germans, settlers and soldiers alike, in those early days of the war, no rumour was too fantastic to find easy credence. Conceit is a hotbed for credulity. But Tom's vigorous a.s.sertion that it was all nonsense was enough to convince Mwesa.

"Dey silly fellas, sah," he said scornfully. "Mwesa him English: he know all right."

Tom knew nothing of the relative strength of the British and German forces in East Africa; but having a Briton's invincible faith in the British Navy, he could not believe that the German colony, cut off from Europe as it must be, could really measure itself against the resources of the British Empire. But he remembered how, in the past, British carelessness and want of foresight had bred disasters only painfully retrieved, and he felt no little anxiety as to how far Northern Rhodesia was prepared to resist the expedition which the Germans were organising.

He was only the more eager to join his fellow-countrymen, and take his part in the fight, if fight there was to be. At school he had been colour-sergeant in the cadet corps, and looked back with reminiscent pleasure on the field days, when, in the intervals of business, he had munched apples in a farmer's orchard or solaced himself and his squad with junket in a dairy. "Rummy," he thought, "if all that swat were to turn out useful after all. But here it will be minus the apples and junket."

This being his state of mind, he was doubly curious about the healing properties of the stuff"--Mirambo's plasticine, he called it--that Mwesa had brought from his uncle. He was aware almost at once of a lessening of the pain in his ankle. After the second application the swelling was sensibly reduced; within a week he found himself able to walk freely.

Mwesa took the cure as a matter of course.

"What's the stuff made of?" Tom asked him.

Mwesa shook his head gravely.

"Berry good medicine: Mirambo him savvy all same."

And that was all that Tom could get out of him.

CHAPTER VII--TOM SEIZES THE OCCASION

Tom had many occasions during the next ten days to rejoice in the possession of an excellent servant. Mwesa was everything in turn--hunter, cook, valet, hospital orderly; and in every capacity he was efficient. His snares and traps stocked the larder; the grain, he had brought from the plantation was eked out with wild fruits gathered in the forest; and out of the one simple cooking-pot he produced as great a variety of good things as a conjurer out of a hat. Always with the same gravity and the same muttering of spells, he anointed and ma.s.saged Tom's ankle daily, and never failed to sing the praises of his uncle Mirambo. His constant cheerfulness acted as a tonic on his master's spirits, and with reviving health Tom felt braced to endure whatever hardship the future might bring.

At last the day came when he declared that he was ready to start for Abercorn. He had talked over his plans with Mwesa, handicapped, however, by the fact that neither he nor the negro knew the route or the character of the country to be travelled. The extent of his information was that Abercorn lay somewhere to the south-west, and from a hazy recollection of a map glanced at during his voyage from England he guessed that the town was forty or fifty miles away. Under the most favourable conditions he could hardly hope to cover that distance in less than three days: if the country was specially difficult the journey might last even weeks.

It was unfortunate that Reinecke's plantation lay across the direct route. In order to avoid it, he must make a considerable detour, which would add he knew not how many miles to the journey. And then he would have to cross the main German road connecting Bismarckburg on Lake Tanganyika with Neu Langenburg about twenty miles north-west of Lake Nya.s.sa. This, the only practicable highway, might be crowded with transports and would certainly be patrolled; but he hoped by careful scouting to discover some part of its great length where, either by day or by night, he could safely make the crossing.

Deciding to attempt a start at dawn on the following day, the two made their simple preparations. Mwesa stuffed into his wallet all the edible fruits he could gather, and after cooking the last meal, took his pot to the lake, and washed it thoroughly. He filled with water a couple of gourds, one of which he fitted with a gra.s.s thong for slinging over Tom's shoulder. Tom cleaned his rifle, bathed in the lake, keeping a wary eye open for crocodiles, and washed out his only shirt, with a sigh for the contents of his travelling case, now, he supposed, appropriated by Reinecke.

They were about to turn in early that evening when Mwesa jumped up suddenly and darted out of the low entrance to the hut. Tom, surprised, followed him, and found him standing in an att.i.tude of expectancy just outside. A few moments later he heard a human cry, faint and m.u.f.fled, as if coming from a great distance. Mwesa was greatly excited.

"Two time," he cried, turning his head in the direction from which the sound had come.

"You heard it before?" Tom asked.

Mwesa held up his hand enjoining silence. They waited. A minute or two pa.s.sed; the cry was repeated, and Mwesa, still more excited, said:

"Mhehe call; man belong me."

"One of your own people! It must be some one from the plantation.

Answer him ... No, wait. Reinecke may be setting a trap for us. Perhaps he has visited the pit and discovered my escape, and guesses I may be somewhere in the forest."

Again they heard the cry.

"Who knows you are with me, besides Mirambo?" asked Tom.

"Mushota, no more, sah. Mirambo say no tell: berry wise man, Mirambo."

"Then I think we had better answer: it may be Mirambo himself. But we will not call here; let us get away from the hut. It will not do to risk bringing an enemy here."

It was now nearly dark. Adopting Mwesa's precaution, they climbed one of the trees that formed the boundary of their enclosure, dropped to the ground outside the zariba, and made their way into the nullah. The cry was repeated once more; this time it was louder. When they had walked nearly a quarter of a mile down the nullah, Tom ordered Mwesa to answer, and the boy let out a curious series of notes, like the dropping scale of the hornbill. There was a shout in response.

"Mushota, sah," cried Mwesa, his big eyes gleaming. "He say what place me be."

"Tell him."

Mwesa directed his cousin, and in a few minutes the lad, so strangely like him, came bounding along in the middle of the watercourse. The two negroes embraced, and Mushota, his features and arms working with excitement, poured out a story in a torrent of clicks and gurgles, every now and then glancing at Tom, who stood a little apart.

Mwesa's expressive countenance showed that the story affected him deeply. He turned to his master, and seemed to strive to find English words in which to repeat what he had heard.

"Come, let us get back to our hut," said Tom. "We can only just see to find our way. You can tell me all about it as we go."

Tom had two natural gifts rare in one who was little more than a schoolboy--patience and sympathy. He could be stiff enough with his equals in rank and education; but with this faithful negro lad, ignorant, struggling to express himself in a strange and difficult language, he was so patient that Mwesa's stumbling utterance became more coherent as he told Mushota's story, and Tom was able to grasp its essentials.

It concerned Mirambo. The old hunter, once a chief and a warrior of renown among his own people, had not taken kindly to the methods of the German drill-sergeant. Day after day he had been flogged by the overseers for slowness of movement or some other fault in drill, and at last the German sergeant, who had hitherto left punishment to the Arabs, had kicked the man in the presence of the whole company of recruits.

Mirambo had retaliated with a swift blow that knocked the German off his feet. The sergeant, when he got up, was on the point of shooting the negro; but the head overseer, interposing, explained that Mirambo was Reinecke's best hunting man, and the sergeant had then ordered him to be chained up until Reinecke returned from Bismarckburg. Only a few days before, a negro had been shot for a similar offence, and Mushota feared that his father would suffer the same fate. Knowing the whereabouts of the white man who had befriended his cousin, he had stolen out at midday when even the indefatigable German rested, and had come to beg the m'sungu to save his father.

"But why come to me? What can I do?" asked Tom, astonished at the confidence with which Mwesa put his cousin's plea. It was almost laughable that they should seek help of him, a fugitive, one whom Reinecke had tried to kill, a single man without resources in an enemy's country.

"Sah English," exclaimed Mwesa. "Sah savvy big medicine, white man medicine. Sah boss, no fear."

Touched by this childlike faith in the power either of the English name or of "white man medicine," which he supposed to mean some magic art, he was at a loss what answer to make. He was willing enough to help, but quite unable to see how. It seemed best to temporise--to refrain from immediately dashing the negroes' hopes, and to explain to them presently how impossible was the feat besought of him.

"We will talk it over in our hut," he said, and was then sorry he had deferred the inevitable disappointment, for Mwesa clapped his hands and laughed, and said to Mushota a few words that set him laughing too. His caution had only strengthened their belief in him.

The two negroes chattered together the rest of the way to the hut, and Tom was left to his by no means pleasant reflections. How could he break the unpalatable truth to these simple souls? What would be the effect on them? He could enter into their feelings through the recollection of an incident of his own childhood. His father had promised him, a child of five, the present of a horse, and he remembered the bitter tears he shed when the horse turned out to be a wooden toy instead of the expected creature of flesh and bone. The negro is always a child.

And then he found himself thinking: "Why not risk a visit to the plantation? It's running my head into a noose, perhaps; but after all I owe to Mwesa I may at least show him that I'm ready to do what I can.

He can get in and out: why shouldn't I? Reinecke is absent. I don't suppose he ever confided to the Arabs his pleasant intentions with regard to me; perhaps I might venture to tackle them (provided the drill sergeants aren't about), and get them to release Mirambo.... What tosh!

of course that's impossible: still, I might at least reconnoitre, and I'll be hanged if I don't."

It was dark when they reached the hut, but the slight glow from the fire that Mwesa had kept always burning in the enclosure revealed to Tom the look of hopeful contentment on the faces of the two negroes. They all squatted at the entrance, and Tom asked:

"When will Reinecke be back?"

Mwesa translated to his cousin. The answer was, "To-morrow night."

"How many Germans are at the plantation?'