Chapter Thirty Five.
“Is it too late?”
Waybridge, having delivered his contract stock, had intended staying the night at Fort Isiwa, but some news which was brought in at that post decided him to start for home at no longer notice than it took him to saddle up, and to get there as fast as his steed could carry him.
It was rather late when he clattered into Komgha, but, late as it was, quite a number of men were astir. There was no help for it. He must perforce off-saddle if only for a quarter of an hour, after the pace at which he had pushed his horse, and that all uphill.
“Anything in this news?” he asked eagerly as he gained the stoep at Pagets and called for a very long brandy and soda.
“Or is it all a yarn?”
“Yarn? Not much. The Gaikas have broken out, and are burning all the farms within reach. Yours among ’em, I expect, Waybridge.”
“Mine among ’em! But, good Lord! man, my people are still there.”
The other whistled blankly.
“Didn’t they come in?” he said.
“No. We didn’t believe in the scare, you see. Devil take that confounded horse of mine! I shall have to give him a few minutes more, and then I’ll push him along if I kill him. Won’t any of you fellows come with me? Women in danger, you know.”
“Rather, I’ll go,” answered the man he had been talking to. Others joined, and soon a compact dozen started off to get their horses – if they could find them, and somebody else’s if they couldn’t – and whatever arms they happened to own.
“That you, Waybridge? Yes, it’s time you started. They are beginning to send up rockets at your place.” And Harley Greenoak, who had ridden up unperceived in the excitement, dismounted, and walked up the steps.
“I should think so,” said Waybridge, impatiently. “By the way, Greenoak, I wish you’d sent us some sort of warning. I’d have taken it from you.”
“Couldn’t, earlier than this moment.”
The rescue party now assembled. There were fifteen in all. But the presence of Harley Greenoak had the effect of sending up their confidence in themselves and each other. They felt as if their little force had suddenly been doubled.
“Have you been with Sandili, Greenoak?” said Waybridge, as they rode forth.
“No. With that fighting son of his, Matanzima. He’s practically baas, and he means mischief. He’d have let me be killed, but I happened to do him an important service some time back, and whatever may be said about there being no gratitude in a Kafir, there is. I’ve seen it in too many instances. Look. There are no less than six places ablaze.”
They were travelling at a smart canter. Glow after glow had arisen, at intervals over the dim moonlight waste. The barbarous orgy was in full swing. But no such glare hovered over the site of Waybridge’s homestead. Clearly, therefore, the Gaikas had not succeeded in capturing the place. The rocket flights had now ceased.
“That young Selmes is a plucky chap,” muttered Waybridge, more to himself than to the others. “It’s a Godsend he should be on the place.”
“He’s all that,” said Greenoak. “We shall find your crowd all safe, never fear.”
A little more than an hour’s sharp riding and they topped the last rise. There stood the homestead, white in the moonlight. An exclamation of relief escaped Waybridge. But on a nearer approach this feeling was dashed.
“There’s been a fight,” he said quickly. “Those are dead Kafirs, and, there are no lights showing.”
The dark, motionless forms lying in front of the house, and discernible in the moonlight, told their own tale. What other motionless forms would they find within? Instinctively they put their horses at a gallop now.
“Easy, easy!” warned Greenoak; “that line of quince hedge may cover any number. We don’t need to rush bang headlong into a trap.”
The warning told. Wildly excited as the men were now, such was the influence of its utterer that they slackened pace. Waybridge thought he had never known what tense, poignant anxiety was until that moment.
“I’ll go forward and make sure,” he said thickly. “If – if – anything has happened in there – it can’t matter what happens to me, and – ”
He rammed the spurs into his horse’s flanks. But before he had shot ahead fifty yards, a sight met his eyes – met the eyes of all of them – which caused such a wild burst of relief that it could only find vent in a ringing cheer.
Upon the stoep several figures were now standing, and prominent among them the tall form of Dick Selmes. Harley Greenoak, whose feeling of relief was certainly not inferior to that of the others, shook a disapproving head.
“We want to bring this off quietly,” he said. “We don’t want to let the whole Gaika nation know we’re here, and that’s about what all this hullabaloo is likely to effect.”
“It’s all right, old chap. We’ll give ’em fits if they give us the chance,” said one man, airily. Him Greenoak at once set down as a fool.
They galloped up to the house, and there was a vast amount of handshaking and congratulation all round. Harley Greenoak held aloof.
“Who’s on guard at the back, Dick?” he said drily, when he could get in a word.
“At the back? Oh, we don’t want a guard now, old chap,” was the airy response. “We’ve beat ’em off, made ’em run like so many curs. It was the rockets did it, and the rockets were Mrs Waybridge’s idea. But it was Elsie who generalled the whole scrap. My hat, but you should have seen her swinging that axe! She ‘downed’ them one after another as hard as they came in. It was fine strategy, I can tell you.”
“And didn’t A’ tell ye that A’d mak ony sax o’ yon heathen black sauvages wish they’d never been born?” said the Scotswoman, complacently. “And A’ just stopped short at one.”
“Well, you didn’t give them time to wish they’d never been born, or anything else,” answered Dick.
“Ay, but they’ll be wishin’ it the noo, A’m thinking,” was the dry rejoinder, which, with its uncompromising Calvinism, evoked a great laugh.
“Take care that Hazel doesn’t go in there, Elsie,” Dick managed to whisper, referring to the kitchen, which had been the opening scene of the drama, and where lay the four bodies of those first slain by that intrepid Amazon.
The said bodies, however, were promptly dragged outside, and the sight of these, together with those lying around the house, rendered it unmistakably clear that a most gallant defence had been made. The while the feminine side of the garrison was busy getting out liquid and other refreshment for the relief party, though its consumption must of necessity be hurried, for Greenoak had advised immediate removal to the settlement, and Waybridge was already inspanning the Cape cart. Fortunately the Kafirs had not been able to get at the horses, the stable door being commanded by the firing-line. And the urgency of such advice was to receive prompt confirmation.
An exploration of the garden had been judged advisable, and this, accompanied by several others, was undertaken by Greenoak. Here they found one more body – and a badly wounded Kafir. He was shot through both legs, but had managed to drag himself into cover.
“It is Kulondeka,” he said, recognising his questioner. “Then I will speak. There are several more wounded lying about – yes. The people have gone, but they will come again, with many others, before sunrise. Take the white women and go, Kulondeka – now, at once. I know you. You and the other saved me, yonder, the day we fought Ndimba’s people with sticks. Go. Lose no time.”
Greenoak rejoined the others, feeling pretty anxious. They were by no means out of the wood yet. A large marauding band might appear at any moment, and, after all, their number was a mere handful. So it was with a modicum of relief that he saw the cart inspanned, and its inmates duly installed. But having seen them once started, with their escort, Greenoak slipped back to the garden with the remains of a bottle of brandy in his hand, and administered an invigorating drink to the badly wounded savage.
“Your people will find you here,” he said, “and the others. Now, you have felt how hard the white man’s blow can fall. Tell them.”
After the peril and relief a reaction ensued.
“I suppose those horrible wretches will burn down the house,” Mrs Waybridge remarked, as they sped along. “Or, at any rate, plunder it of everything.”
Hazel, for her part, thought the enemy would do both, when he saw the extent of his losses during the defence, for, of course, under the circumstances, the dead had been left just as they fell. But, not aspiring to the part of Job’s comforter, she refrained from recording an opinion.
Those forming the relief party laughed good-naturedly among themselves as they noted how uncommonly close to the Cape cart Dick Selmes would persist in riding, some of the younger ones with a tinge of envy. He, for his part, was keeping up a string of lively talk and banter with its occupants, and he was doing it with an object. Hazel had shown wonderful pluck during the stirring events of the night, but the ghastly sights she had witnessed, and the terror she had undergone, would be likely to come back to her now in the reaction of feeling safe, and he wanted her to forget them. So he rattled on, keeping their attention turned in a more salutary direction; whereby shows out another side of that missing link which the girl had decided had been supplied. He had learnt to think.
The following day, and for days after, all manner of scare rumours kept coming in, of homesteads burnt, of such inmates as were unable to escape in time surprised and massacred, of stock swept away, and crops destroyed. And then the savages began to watch the main road, to cut off express-riders, or small parties; indeed, it was not long before they waxed bolder, and news came of a fierce attack upon several companies of a regiment of foot, on its march to the Komgha. To make things worse, the so-called “conquered” paramount tribe swarmed back into Gcalekaland again, joining hands with the now revolted Gaika clans within the Colonial border. Thus the war, officially declared to be over, had, in actual fact, only just begun.
A few nights after its plucky defence, Waybridge’s homestead went the way of the rest, but not before he had managed, with the aid of a few daring spirits, to make a dash out there and bring away some of the more portable effects, and to bury, or otherwise hide, others. But he did not complain. The marvellous escape of his household, where others had died cruel deaths, alone precluded that. In other ways, too, he had been lucky, in that for some time past he had gradually been selling off most of his stock, so that his loss was comparatively small.
As the days went by Dick Selmes began to look with wistful eyes at this or that commando passing through, or at this or that patrol starting to reconnoitre the countryside or keep the road open. Hazel, reading what was in his mind, was furtively watching him. One day, when they were alone together, she said —
“Dick, my darling. You are eating your heart out because you want to go off again to this wretched war, and perhaps get killed. You are not content to stay and take care of poor little me.”
She had grown wondrously tender towards him since the night of peril they had shared, in pursuance whereof she had laid an embargo upon any more needless adventures on his part.
“It isn’t that, sweetheart,” he answered. “I’m only too happy here – with you. But I seem to be hanging back – sort of skulking – while every other fellow who can shoot straight, or not, is in the field.”
She laughed softly.
“Skulking! You? Why, you’ve done the share of any ten men since the beginning of the war. No – no – Dick. If that’s all that’s troubling you, why it needn’t. And now, look here, you are to go on escort duty. You are to escort me – home.”
Dick’s face brightened.
“But, dearest, you are forgetting,” he said, with a puzzled look. “The road isn’t safe yet – not by a long chalk – for you to travel under such a small escort as myself and Greenoak.”
“It’ll be a bigger one. The Commandant is sending a lot of Police to King Williamstown in a day or two, and he says I may travel under their escort. Will you make one of it?”
“Won’t I!” he answered delightedly.
Chapter Thirty Six.
Envoi
The partridges were lying well, springing up in fine coveys from the turnips, or from corn-sheaves on the stubble, or in twos and threes, as the coveys were broken up. A soft haze hung over the fair English landscape, with its green meadow or golden stubble and vernal woodland, the latter hardly beginning to show the gorgeous wealth of autumn colour which would soon enwrap it; for it was the Glorious First.
“By Jove, Greenoak,” said Sir Anson Selmes, “we thought we’d got a few record bird-shots this side of the water. But even they don’t touch you. Why, man, I don’t believe you’ve let a bird go by this morning; all killed dead too – no runners.”
The two were walking together, gun on shoulder, an old and favourite pointer of Sir Anson’s trotting at their heels. The morning’s shoot was over and they were making for the spot where, in the cool shade of a spreading tree, luncheon was laid out and waiting. About half a field off our friend Dick was converging on the rendezvous, with the keepers and dogs, apparently engaged in animated converse with the former.
“Oh, as to that, Sir Anson, you couldn’t miss a bird with a gun like this,” was the modest reply; the gun being, in fact, one of a valuable pair which had been sprung upon Harley Greenoak as a surprise present from Dick and his father conjointly.
“And as to that,” rejoined the latter, “there are a good many men who’d miss a good many birds with a gun like that or any other. But how things shape themselves. When I turned the lad over to you, I knew he’d find plenty of adventure, and perhaps some risk, but the last thing I ever dreamed of him finding was a bride – and such a bride – ha-ha! And the daughter of an old brother officer of mine, at that. Why, I had almost forgotten Brandon’s very existence.”
“Well, when I saw how things were tending, it gave me some anxious times, I allow,” said Greenoak, “recognising that fathers are fathers, and naturally like to have a say in such matters. All the same, I tell you candidly, Sir Anson, that from the first I thought Dick would be extremely lucky if ever he managed to bring that off.”
“And you thought right. Lucky dog indeed. Why, the girl is a treasure.”
It was even as the old gentleman had said. He had held an Army commission in his younger days, and he and Hazel’s father had been subalterns together. But the latter, tired of waiting for his step, had exchanged into a regiment ordered to the Cape on active service, and at the close of hostilities had sold out, married, and settled down as a colonist, and a very fairly successful one he became. All this had come out in the course of Dick’s engagement, and Sir Anson, delighted at the prospect of once more foregathering with his former comrade-in-arms, had concluded to take a run out and look into matters himself. His welcome had been all that he could have desired, and Hazel won the old man’s heart – even as she had won that of his son – on sight. Thus everything ran on oiled wheels, culminating in a big wedding at the nearest district town, at which nothing would satisfy Dick but that Harley Greenoak should officiate as his best man. And the latter, ruefully comic over the incongruity of the rôle in his case, was obliged to comply.
“Hallo, dad!” now sang out Dick, as they all met at the rendezvous. “Has Greenoak been ‘wiping your eye,’ or is it t’other way on?”
“No, certainly not the other way on, Dick,” was the answer. “Greenoak’s a record. But – hasn’t Hazel come yet?”
“N-no. Wait though – oh – yes. There she is. I hear wheels.”
A minute later and a neat dog-cart drove up, halting at a gate on the further side of the field. Hazel had alighted before Dick could get there, and as the pair returned together, laughing and talking, the two older men watched them, each with his own particular form of satisfaction at his heart.
“What a couple they make,” said Greenoak, more to himself than to the other. But it was overheard and heartily seconded.
Hazel was looking lovely in her fresh, plain, summer costume, which set off her dark, piquante beauty to perfection.
“Good sport?” she cried merrily. “Ah, yes, rather,” as her eyes fell upon the rows of “little brown birds” laid out upon the grass with a few hares and a rabbit or two. Then, still laughing and talking, she set to work, aided by Dick, to extract and lay out the contents of the hampers, and soon there was popping of champagne corks, and the glasses creamed with their fizzing contents, and all fell to with a good appetite.
“There’s something very restful about this English scenery,” remarked Greenoak, gazing dreamily out over the rich meadowland and soft, towering foliage, to where, away in the distance, the gables and chimneys of the Hall were irregularly glimpsed.
“Yes, and to-day might almost be an African day,” said Dick. “It’s so still and lovely, and cloudless.”
“Oh, talking of Africa,” cried Hazel, “I’ve just got a lot of news – mail letters – came soon after you had started. Dick – Mr Greenoak – what do you think? Elsie is going to be married!”
“No!” shouted Dick; and he threw back his head and roared. “Oh, that’s good. Who to?”
“I don’t remember the man, but he was one of the party who came to our rescue that night. He’s got a farm in the Chalumna district.”
“He didn’t see the play she made with that axe,” laughed Dick. “That might have scared him off – eh?”
“Perhaps that constituted the attraction, Dick,” said Sir Anson. “Useful sort of wife to have, you know, in such a troublesome neighbourhood.”
“She says that now her ‘bairn’ has left her – that’s me,” went on Hazel – “she might as well look out for herself. And so – she did.”
“What a howling joke!” cried Dick. “Good old Elsie! We’ll ship her out no end of a tea-service – and things – eh, dad? What other news, dear?”
“The Commandant has resigned.”
“Pity, fine old boy the Commandant. Why did he chuck?”
“He couldn’t pull with the present Government. They hampered him too much.”
“Beastly shame! They don’t know a good man when they’ve got him. Who succeeds him – Chambers?”
“No, they’ve put in another man. Mr Ladell has been promoted Inspector. Oh – and that man who helped you in that absurdly foolhardy adventure, Dick – Sketchley – has been made a sergeant. That’s all the F.A.M. Police news.”
“That part’s good, anyway. What about the Commandant? Hasn’t he got anything better?”
“There’s some talk of giving him Basutoland.”
“Oh, well, that’s not so bad. The fine old chap’ll have lots of time to hunt butterflies and lizards up there.”
“They say there’s likely to be trouble up there,” went on Hazel. “Now, Mr Greenoak, what will South Africa do without its ‘providence’?”
“Yes. I knew that,” said Greenoak, ignoring the last question. “The Commandant and I have often talked it over as more than a possibility.”
“Then you’ll be there, old chap,” cried Dick. “Oh, for certain you’ll be there.”
“Maybe. I’m thinking of returning soon.”
“Not until you’ve had some pheasant shooting, Greenoak,” said Sir Anson. “I swear you shan’t go from here till you’ve had some pheasant shooting, and that won’t be just yet. So you’re anchored for the present, you see. Now,” he went on, “fill the glasses. I’m going to propose a toast. Here it is. ‘All our good friends across the water, coupled with the name of Harley Greenoak.’”
The latter looked, if he could look such a thing, a trifle nervous.
“I can’t make a speech, Sir Anson,” he said, when they had drunk it. “Well, since I took charge of Dick there, I discovered more than once the truth of what you told me at the time. He certainly has an amazing aptitude for getting into holes, but then he manages to get himself out again.” (“Or you do it for him, old chap,” interrupted Dick.) “Well, then, as you have coupled your toast with the name of Harley Greenoak, I reply by proposing another toast, and that is ‘Harley Greenoak’s Charge.’”
“Here, Dick,” said Sir Anson, “open another bottle or so, and give the men a brimming bumper apiece. They must drink this toast too. I forgot in the other case, but they can drink Greenoak’s health as a toast to itself afterwards.”
The keepers and watchers, who were eating their lunch under a tree a little way apart, were called up and duly supplied with the invigorating sparkle. Then the health was drunk with enthusiasm —
“Harley Greenoak’s Charge!”