Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force Part 6

"Hullo!" exclaimed Wilmshurst, as a couple of Haussa scouts hurriedly and stealthily rejoined the advance guard. "Tarry Barrel and Spot Cash have tumbled upon something."

"Hun he lib for stop, sah," reported Tari Barl.

"Stopping to make fight?" asked the subaltern eagerly.

The Haussa shook his head, and moved his jaw after the manner of a person eating.

"Lib for stop for grub," he exclaimed. "After that on him go."

"How far?" demanded Wilmshurst.

Tari Barl indicated that the scouts had followed two distinct spoors for more than a couple of miles without actually sighting any of the retiring enemy.

Acting upon this information the advance guard marched into the ground on which the Huns had recently halted. Examination of the refuse and other traces revealed the fact that the enemy had been there but a few hours previously, for the ashes of the extinguished fires were still hot. That the march had been resumed in a leisurely manner, showing that as yet the hostile detachment was unaware of the close pursuit, was evident by the systematic way in which the fires had been put out and earth thrown lightly over the embers.

"We'll halt just beyond this spot," decided the company major, when the rest of the four platoons joined the advance guard. "Hanged if I fancy bivouacking on the site of a Boche camp. What do you think of the fresh spoors, MacGregor?"

"That's the princ.i.p.al line of retreat, I think," replied the Rhodesian.

"They can't go very much farther, for it will be pitch black in twenty minutes."'

"Just so," agreed the major. "Set the men to work, Mr. Wilmshurst.

Mr. Laxdale, you will please send a runner to the colonel and tell him that we've proposed bivouacking here till dawn."

Until it was quite dark the Haussas toiled, building sangars and constructing light connecting trenches with abattis of sharp thorns sufficient to deter and hold up a rush of bare-footed Askaris, since there was no knowing that after all the enemy had been informed of the presence of the pursuing column.

In silence the men ate their rations, no fires being allowed, and sentries to outlying piquets having been posted, the troops slept beside their piled arms.

"What do you think of our chance of overtaking the bounders?" enquired Wilmshurst of MacGregor, as the former prepared to visit the sentries.

"We ought to surprise them just after dawn," replied the Rhodesian.

"I'm just off to see the major and get his permission to try and discover their position."

"But it's pitch dark," remarked Dudley. "You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Man, you'd be bushed for a dead cert."

"I don't know so much about that," replied MacGregor confidently. "The fellows up at Umfuli often used to chaff me, saying that I had eyes like a cat. Believe I have. At any rate I'll risk it, and if I'm not back an hour before dawn my name's not MacGregor."

"Let me know if the major agrees," said Wilmshurst. "I don't want my sentries to take pot shots at you when you return--and they are all jolly good marksmen," he added in a tone of pride, for he had good reason to pin his faith upon the Haussas' accuracy with a rifle.

It was not long before MacGregor returned.

"Fixed it up all right," he announced, "and now I'm off. If, just before dawn, you hear the cry of a gnu you'll know it's this johnny returning, so please keep the sentries well in hand."

The subaltern accompanied the Rhodesian past the alert sentries; then, with Wilmshurst's good wishes for the best of luck, MacGregor vanished into the night. In vain the young officer strained his ears to catch the faint noise of the Rhodesian's footsteps or the crackle of a dry twig under the pressure of his boot, but not a sound did the scout give of his progress.

"Hanged if I'd like to take on his job," soliloquised Dudley, as he slowly felt his way to the next pair of sentries. "I'd have a shot at it if I were told off for it, of course, but this darkness seems to have weight--to press upon a fellow's eyes. S'pose it'll end in having to send out parties to bring the fellow in."

Truth to tell, Wilmshurst was not particularly keen on his brother's chum. Why, he could hardly explain. It might have had something to do with MacGregor's conduct when the lioness charged. But since then the Rhodesian had shown considerable pluck and grit, and his voluntary offer to plunge into the bush on a pitch dark night was a great factor in his favour, in Dudley's opinion.

The subaltern's soliloquy was cut short by the dull glint of steel within a few inches of his chest--even in the darkness all bayonets seem to possess self-contained luminosity--and a voice hissed, "Who come?"

Rea.s.suring the sentries--there were two at each post--Wilmshurst received the report that everything was all correct.

"Macgreg, him go," declared one of the Haussas, Macgreg being the name by which the Rhodesian was known to the black troops.

Wilmshurst was astonished. He had heard nothing of the scout's movements, yet the sentry, fifty yards away, had declared quite blandly that MacGregor had pa.s.sed the outlying post.

"How do you know that, Bra.s.s Pot?" asked the subaltern.

The Haussa chuckled audibly, and holding his rifle obliquely with the bayonet thrust into the ground, placed his ear to the b.u.t.t.

"Macgreg him go and go," he answered, meaning that the Rhodesian was still on the move.

In vain Wilmshurst tested the sound-conducting properties of the rifle.

Normally of good hearing he failed to detect what to Private Bra.s.s Pot was an accepted and irrefutable fact.

"Very good," said the subaltern, without admitting his failure. "If you hear foot of Macgreg come this way before sergeant come for reliefs then you send and tell me. Savvy?"

"Berry good, sah," replied the Haussa.

Having twice visited the sentries Wilmshurst returned to the bivouac to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep. It seemed as if he had only just dozed off when he was awakened by Sergeant Beta Moshi, who informed him that the men were already standing to and that the brief tropical dawn was stealing across the sky.

"Has Macgreg returned, Bela Moshi?" asked Wilmshurst, stretching his cramped limbs, for he had not removed his boots during the last forty-eight hours, and with the exception of a brief interval had been on his feet practically the whole of that time.

"MacGregor?" exclaimed Laxdale, who happened to overhear his brother-officer's question. "Yes--rather. It seems that he struck our main camp about an hour or so ago. The colonel's sent to say that we are to attempt an enveloping movement. The Boches are in force on a kopje about five miles on our light front--about eight hundred of 'em according to MacGregor's report."

"That's good," declared Wilmshurst. All the same he felt rather sceptical. The spoor of the right-hand column of the retiring Huns hardly bore out the Rhodesian's statement, but evidently the scout knew his business.

"Is MacGregor accompanying us?" he asked, as the three subalterns prepared to rejoin their respective platoons.

"Fancy not," replied Danvers. "He's pretty well done up, I imagine.

The scrub's a bit thick out there, and a fellow can't crawl far without picking up a few thorns. Plucky blighter, what?"

"A" Company was to work round to the right of the hostile position, "B"

operating to the left, both having two hours' start of the remainder of the battalion, which was to deliver a frontal attack simultaneously with the flanking movement.

With the night-mists still hanging in dense patches over the scrub tactics were resumed. Wilmshurst had good reason to be delighted with his men as the scouts and advance guards slipped off to their detailed positions. At a hundred yards they were lost to sight and sound, threading their way with the utmost caution through the long gra.s.s like experienced hunters stalking their prey, while the various units kept well in touch with each other by means of reliable runners. Other methods of communication were out of the question. Flag-waving and heliograph would have "given the show away" with the utmost certainty.

All feelings of physical tiredness vanishing under the magic spell of impending action, Wilmshurst led his extended platoon toward their allotted positions. It was slow work. The ground was difficult; every spot likely to afford concealment to a hostile sniper had to be carefully examined. The absence of bird life was ominous. It meant that either the returning Huns had disturbed the feathered denizens or else the advance of the Haussas had driven them over the enemy position, in which case the wily Hun would "smell a rat."

It was noon before Wilmshurst gained his preliminary objective. The tropical sun was beating down with terrific violence, the scrub offering scant shelter from its scorching rays. Already the previously-dew-sodden ground was baked stone-hard, the radiating heat imparting an appearance of motion to every object within sight.

Literally stewing, the subaltern threw himself flat on the ground under the slight shadow of a dried thorn bush, and waited, at intervals sweeping the bare outlines of the kopje with his prismatic gla.s.ses.

Thirty long drawn-out minutes pa.s.sed. According to plan the enveloping movement ought to have been completed an hour ago, but not a sign was given that "B" Company had arrived at their position--a sun-baked donga at a distance of fifteen hundred yards behind the kopje.

Up crept Bela Moshi, his ebony features distended in a most cheerful looking grin.

"Hun him lib for sit down, sah!" he reported. "Five Bosh-bosh (his rendering of the word Boche) an' heap Askari--say so many."