Tom Willoughby's Scouts Part 19

Collecting the ten men whom he had already chosen, Tom pa.s.sed out through the barricade and advanced to meet the German.

"Good day, Mr. Willoughby," said Major von Rudenheim, saluting. "You will remember me, no doubt. We were on board the _Hedwig von Wissmann_ together."

"I remember you, Major," replied Tom, a little puzzled by this tone of friendliness; "but I was not aware that I had come within your line of vision."

"Oh yes, I saw you," returned the major with a slight smile, "and I have heard a good deal about you since. But you have got yourself into a very awkward position, young man."

He spoke in the tone a benevolent uncle might have used towards a small boy.

"Yes, your people have found it awkward," said Tom, smoothly.

"You take me too literally, Mr. Willoughby. But youth is often adventurous, and thoughtless; you do not quite realise the consequences of your rash actions. It is a pity that a private quarrel should have led you to take steps which bring you into conflict with the military power. The outbreak of war, of course, made you a public enemy; but if you had not been in such haste to pay off old scores it would have been easy to arrange for your departure into British territory."

"I a.s.sure you, Major, what you call a private quarrel had nothing whatever to do with my action. We will leave my private affairs out of the question. As you say, I became a public enemy. Well?"

"You do not understand, perhaps, that we should be justified in treating you as a spy." The major's tone was not quite so friendly now.

"I don't understand what you are driving at," said Tom, bluntly.

"Hadn't you better come to the point?"

A flicker of annoyance pa.s.sed over the German's face. It vanished instantly, and when he spoke again it was in the suave tones he had employed at the beginning of the interview.

"I come to make a reasonable--a friendly arrangement. There are certain Germans, I believe, in your hands. I am not sure whether----"

"To save time--I have a sergeant, two privates, and Mr. Reinecke."

"Ah! And also certain askaris----"

"Africans, not Germans."

"But in our service, therefore Germans. Also a number of natives who were being recruited for our army--potential Germans. Now, since it is obvious that you cannot maintain your position indefinitely, you will no doubt see the reasonableness of the proposal I put to you, namely, that you surrender the German subjects you hold as prisoners, in exchange for a safe-conduct for yourself and any twelve men you may select, to the British lines."

"And the rest? Besides the men, I have many women and children. What will you do with them?"

"That will be in the discretion of my superiors. The non-combatants will no doubt return to their employment, from which they were enticed away.

As for the able-bodied men, technically they are mutineers and liable to be shot. But in consideration of their ignorance they may possibly be pardoned and allowed to re-enlist."

"It is hardly a _quid pro quo_, is it?" said Tom. "You must be aware that I could at any time during the past two or three months have made my way to the British lines with all my able-bodied men without a safe-conduct. You propose that I should save my skin at the expense of handing back those poor creatures to the slavery they have been glad to escape from?"

"What are the n.i.g.g.e.rs to you, Mr. Willoughby? The war, _ipso facto_, has dissolved your partners.h.i.+p with Mr. Reinecke. Your interest in the plantation and its workers has lapsed."

"Far from it: my interest in the workers is greater than ever. I enticed them away, you say; and believing that, you invite me to betray them! Upon my word, Major von Rudenheim, those who sent you with an invitation like that must have so low a standard of honour that I should prefer not to trust to any a.s.surances on their part."

"You impeach my honour, sir?" cried the German, with an angry glare.

"I take it that you are obeying orders, Major," replied Tom, quietly.

"Those n.i.g.g.e.rs, as you call them, are under my protection: I say that any one who proposes that I should abandon them on the terms you offer holds _my_ honour very lightly. I don't think there is anything more to be said."

"Only this, sir. You reject a reasonable offer: I have not stated the alternative. The n.i.g.g.e.rs are under your protection! It will not serve them. They will be exterminated, and you----"

"Yes?"

The major laughed.

"You will fall--on the field of honour!" he said with a sneer, "or be captured and shot."

And with that he turned on his heel and strode off at the head of his men.

CHAPTER XVIII--A GOOD HAUL

The interview with Major von Rudenheim left Tom soberly reflective.

There could no longer be the least doubt that he was to be attacked.

The attempt to come to terms with him seemed to show that the Germans were now under no illusions as to the strength of his position, and wished to avoid operations which must involve the employment of a larger force than the objective, from a strictly military point of view, warranted. But their prestige was at stake throughout the whole region.

The native tribes, always restive under their galling yoke, would run out of hand when it became generally known that the German power was being set at defiance by an Englishman with a handful of negroes, and that Germans were held in captivity. The menace of a great rising of the blacks would grow increasingly serious, and the higher authorities, having proved the uselessness of light measures, would now organise an expedition in strength.

Tom felt confident in his ability to hold his own behind his defences, provided they were not attacked by artillery; and the country between the nullah and Bismarckburg, at all times difficult, was now rendered so much more difficult by the rains that the transport of guns would be a formidable undertaking. It might prove to be impossible. In that case the attack should fail. Tom had under his command a hundred and forty-seven able-bodied men, of whom a score were trained askaris, some fifty Wahehe were fairly efficient with the rifle, another thirty could handle fire-arms well enough to do considerable execution at short range, and the remainder were expert with the spears they had made for themselves. Behind their fortifications, each man would perhaps be equal to three outside.

On the other hand, the difficulties of the defence were serious enough.

Provisions were running perilously low; if the nullah were besieged, the end must come in about ten days. There was, further, the question of the wounded. Casualties were bound to occur; the medical stores brought from the plantation would be of little use in dealing with gunshot wounds: there were no surgical appliances whatever. If Tom had known beforehand what he was to learn before many days had pa.s.sed, he might have met Rudenheim's offer with a counter-proposal, instead of rejecting it outright. New to warfare, he was ignorant of what fighting with modern weapons means; but he foresaw suffering, and felt some uneasiness in contemplating a possible long casualty list.

It was time to dispatch another messenger to Abercorn. Neither of his former messengers had returned; possibly neither had got through; but with the crisis imminent it was right to put the position clearly before the British authorities. He adopted the same plan as before: sent duplicate notes on successive days, announcing his expectation of attack, and stating his determination to resist as long as his provisions lasted.

Feeling it unwise to leave the nullah himself, he allowed Mirambo to lead short shooting expeditions in the neighbourhood, to replenish the larder. He devoted all his own energies to the maintenance and strengthening of his fortifications, the drilling and exercising of the men, and the allotment of duties to the non-combatants. Of these last every man, and many women, had their definite tasks--to bring food and ammunition to the fighting-posts, to remove and tend the wounded, and so on.

His plan of defence was to post twenty men on the cleft at the north end of the nullah, in case the enemy should again attempt an entrance by the "back door," and to employ all the rest in the nullah itself. Seventy men were told off to hold the first line--the barricade and the trenches on the flanks; the remainder, in support, were to man the communication trench, which led to a fold of the cliff face about a hundred and fifty yards in the rear, and gave complete cover from enemy fire.

Waiting for critical events always puts a strain upon even the stoutest-hearted. A schoolboy dreads the interval between the "call-up"

and the headmaster's thras.h.i.+ng more than the thras.h.i.+ng itself. The soldier in the trenches knows more of the agony of fear when he awaits the word of command than when he is actually going "over the top." As day followed day, and no message came through the chain of scouts, Tom found constant activity the only sedative for his overstrung nerves.

Two little incidents relaxed the tension. One morning, just as he was leaving his hut, he heard a terrible shriek from the lake side. Rus.h.i.+ng forward, he saw, near the brink, a woman waving her arms frantically, and calling to a little toddling child, who was wading in the shallow water towards a bright flower a few yards away. In an instant Tom saw the cause of the mother's agitation. Just beyond the glowing blossom, a few inches above the surface, lay what appeared to be a log of greenish wood. Tom sprang into the water, caught up the child, and darted back; and the seeming log sank with a gurgle and disappeared. Crocodiles had been rarely seen since the occupation of the nullah; apparently they had been scared away by the noise of so many people, which, however, had now lost its terrors for them. Tom gave the child back to his grateful mother, and, using one of the few phrases in the Wahehe tongue that he had picked up, bade the woman be careful.

It was in the afternoon of the next day that one of the messengers, sent out more than a week before, returned: the other was never seen again.

The man was very proud of his success, and exhibited a small bra.s.s rod given him as a reward by the m'sungu in Abercorn. Tom was more interested to learn whether he had brought an answer to his message, and the negro produced from his loin-cloth a small dirty envelope. Tearing it open, Tom took out the still dirtier folded sc.r.a.p of paper, which he recognised at once as a leaf from his own pocket-book. One side bore his message, now almost illegible; on the other he read the few words--

_Hold fast._ _T. Burnaby, Major._

"He's short of paper, I suppose," Tom thought; he learnt later that in the army a superior officer writes his reply to a communication from a subaltern on the back. "But he might have said a little more. Doesn't promise anything. Cold comfort, Major Burnaby. Yet it _is_ comfort after all. He wouldn't say 'hold fast' if he didn't think there was a chance. Still, I'm glad I sent a second message: hope he gets it."

Towards ten o'clock on the fifth morning after the interview with Major von Rudenheim, Tom was superintending work on the parapets of the trenches when a message came from the nearest of his scouting posts.

From hill to hill had been shouted the news that a large column of white men, askaris and porters, was marching along the Neu Langenburg road from the direction of Bismarckburg.

"At last!"

Tom's exclamation had something of relief, from the strain of suspense; something of anxiety, for what was to come. It was not certain, of course, that the nullah was the enemy's objective, but he must act as if it were. Within a few minutes every man had gone to his allotted post.