With Rifle and Bayonet Part 23

"We are much obliged for your kindness and for the terms you offer," he called out, "and are only sorry we cannot accept them. We are willing to retire from this house to Kimberley, if you will promise to let us go unmolested, but we will not surrender. Miss Russel, too, refuses to leave us. Now let me advise you again to leave us alone. We have already shown you that we are determined not to be taken, and we mean it more now than we did before. Grant us a free and safe pa.s.sage into Kimberley and end the matter. If you refuse, then you must take the consequences, for my men are fully prepared to fight till they are killed."

"How many of you are there?" asked the Boer craftily.

"Ah!" replied Jack with a knowing smile, "there are just as many here as there were last night. Promise us a safe pa.s.s into the town and I will give you our numbers."

"It is impossible," was the curt answer. "I have done all that man can do. My comrades and I admire your bravery, and therefore have offered you these terms. You refuse for the second time. Very well, I am sorry, my young friend, for you compel us to kill you. It is a pity your wisdom does not match your bravery. I shall return now, and when I reach our lines the guns will commence again."

The Boer nodded and cantered away, and five minutes later the storm of sh.e.l.l had once more commenced to plunge through the farmhouse.

First plugged sh.e.l.ls were used, that is, sh.e.l.ls without explosive contents and devoid of fuses; and these for the most part rushed through the walls, merely increasing the havoc already wrought. Then the one-pounder, quick-firing gun, familiarly known as the pom-pom, a terrible weapon against troops exposed in the open, joined in the awful din, and sent murderous projectiles hurtling through the house. But by some lucky chance the majority of the sh.e.l.ls failed to explode (probably because the foreign contractors had filled a large proportion of them with saw-dust), and merely burst their way through the shattered house without doing much damage. For an hour the cannonade continued, and just before it finished it was increased by the firing of a Maxim, which had been galloped up to closer quarters.

By this time Frank Russel's farm was a ruin; doors, windows, and walls were in pieces, and the roof was gashed in all directions. Only the kitchen seemed by some chance to have escaped. And down below it all, in the bomb-proof cellar, Jack and his friends sat waiting for another rush, Eileen quietly boiling a kettle over a spirit-stove and preparing to make some tea, while the men smoked on serenely, laughing and chatting when a momentary lull allowed them to do so, and ready at any moment to hurry upstairs and man their posts again.

"That is the last burst!" exclaimed Frank Russel, with an easy laugh as the distinctive rat, tat, tat, tat of the Maxim reached their ears.

"Get ready, lads! they'll be coming soon. When they find we're still alive and kicking, they will be wondering whether we are ordinary men or not. It was a splendid idea of yours, Jack, to make use of this cellar.

Tim and I, with another of the Kaffir boys, dug it out and bricked it round some years ago. It's a good storehouse for cartridges, but I never thought it would mean the saving of our lives. Ah, that is the very last!" he added as a one-pounder sh.e.l.l burst overhead and carried away a good portion of the roof.

Jack immediately pushed his head up through the trap, and as the Maxim had stopped, crawled across the floor, clearing a path through the scattered woodwork and debris. Then he peered through a small aperture made by a sh.e.l.l, and looked earnestly across the veldt. As he had expected, the Boers were advancing, bringing their guns with them.

"They are pus.h.i.+ng forward," he cried, "but I fancy they do not mean to rush us. It looks as though they would sh.e.l.l us again. If they do we must still keep quiet, for if they attack at close quarters and in force, a surprise will help us more than anything."

By this time the hors.e.m.e.n were within 600 yards, and here the guns halted, while the Boers spread out and advanced towards the front of the little farmhouse. Almost immediately the Hotchkiss opened fire, and soon after the rattle of the Maxim and the continuous rip, rip of the bullets overhead told the defenders that it was as yet unsafe to venture up from their cellar. Jack had already slipped down there, but now, rifle in hand, with bayonet fixed, he stood close to the ladder, ready to rush up as soon as the time arrived. A glance at him was sufficient to show that this young Englishman had firmly made up his mind not to give in till the last drop of his blood had been shed; and Frank Russel and Wilfred were evidently determined to back him up through thick and thin. They were without doubt in a tight corner, and might expect to be rushed at any moment; but for all that, the dangers they had already pa.s.sed through seemed only to have increased their doggedness.

Dressed in corduroy riding-breeches, gaiters, and spurs, and with the sleeves of his s.h.i.+rt turned up over his elbow, Jack looked fit for any work. A pipe was in his mouth, and his thin lips encircled the stem closely with what was next door to a smile, showing that, however young and inexperienced he might be, Jack was certainly by no means dismayed at the thought of the coming struggle.

"This is going to be the hottest and stiffest fight of all," he cried, so that all could hear; "and mind you, it will not do for any one of us to show so much as a finger. They are coming from the front, and we three will look after them there, opening fire when they are about sixty yards away. Some of them who have the pluck will get close up to the house, and will try to force their way in through the broken walls. If we fail to shoot them down Eileen will be able to stop them, for she will take her post half-way up this ladder, so as to be out of the fire."

"But, Jack," Eileen began to expostulate.

"You will do as I say, or else we will show the white flag at once,"

exclaimed Jack earnestly.

"The lad's right, Eileen," Frank chimed in. "It's going to be hot work up above, and you can help us far more by doing as Jack says than by taking a place by our sides. But--look out, lads! It's time we hopped up again."

All three instantly scrambled out of the cellar and took their places, while Eileen climbed a few rungs of the ladder and stood there, rifle in hand, and with her head just below the level of the floor.

Meanwhile Jack had darted to the back, and then to either side of the house, and having made sure that none of the Boers were in that direction, rejoined his comrades. Looking out through an aperture, he saw that about forty men had dismounted and were creeping forward in extended order, while in the centre was the Maxim, which had just stopped work for fear of injuring its own side.

"Mark that Maxim!" said Jack sharply. "If we drive off these fellows we can easily make it next door to impossible for them to remove it, for at this distance we could shoot down any man who approaches it. But our duty now is to look after these fellows. Frank, you take those of the left. I'll look after those directly in front of me, and Wilfred will manage those on the right. Let them get within sixty yards, and then fire fast and steady. Keep the magazine for closer quarters."

Lying full-length on the ground, they pushed the muzzles of their rifles a few inches through the loopholes and waited.

"Now I think we can begin," said Jack, when the Boers were well within the distance he had named. "Are you ready? Then fire!"

Taking a careful aim, the three pulled their triggers, and as many of the Boers threw up their hands and fell forward upon their faces. The remainder at once dropped full-length upon the gra.s.s and wriggled forward, firing after going a few feet, for they were still ignorant of the force opposed to them behind the shattered walls of the house, and therefore abstained from rus.h.i.+ng. Had they done so, there is little doubt that they would quickly have overwhelmed the little garrison; but the average Boer dislikes nothing more intensely than to fight in the open and attack a position in which the enemy lurks in complete concealment. But to take the house there was absolute need for this, and believing that after all there were not many opposed to them, they ventured to approach.

And now the superiority of khaki clothing was fully sustained, for instead of being barely visible, each one of the Boers formed a black bull's-eye against the waving veldt, and was an easy target for the rifles of Jack and his friends.

Loading and firing rapidly and steadily, they picked off one rec.u.mbent figure after another, and after five minutes' work, when their rifles were becoming so hot that they could scarcely hold them, the enemy stopped and hesitated, and then fled in confusion, pursued still by the merciless bullets. When they reached the Maxim they stopped, and three of their number commenced to place it in position so as to rake the farmhouse.

But Jack and his two friends, helped now by Eileen, concentrated their fire upon it, and picked off the Boers. More at once rushed pluckily forward to take their places, but suffered the same fate, and soon, stung by the bullets which still spattered amongst them and struck puffs of dust from the ground, the enemy bolted out of range, leaving their Maxim behind them.

"By Jove, if we only possessed a few more rifles," exclaimed Wilfred impetuously, "we would go out and bring in that gun. But it's impossible as things are, and I expect we shall have something else to think of shortly."

But, contrary to their expectations, nothing occurred, on sh.e.l.ls flew overhead, and the Boers seemed to have disappeared from sight Jack climbed up on to the table and mounted on the chair. Then he searched all round with his gla.s.ses, and made out a number of men riding off in the distance towards Kimberley. He climbed up the iron sheets on to the top, and looked out behind. Here, too, all seemed deserted, but the sight of a half-hidden figure behind one of the low houses a mile away told him that they were still watched by the enemy.

"They've left us alone for a little," he said, "but there are men all round us. The guns have gone, and I expect our friends have ridden back for reinforcements. You may be certain, though, that they have left sufficient behind to make it impossible for us to approach that Maxim.

Well, I suppose we have nothing to do but wait. To-night, if we can last out so long, the garrison in Kimberley will make a sortie, but I think we are too far out for them to reach us."

"That is so, Jack," Frank Russel said. "We cannot expect direct help from them, but by making a sortie they will draw away some of these fellows who are watching us."

"Then I vote we make a bolt for it!" Wilfred cried excitedly. "It will be our only chance, and if we don't take advantage of it we shall never get any."

"Yes, we must make a rush," Jack agreed, "and by striking out here at the back, and away round to the left, we ought to manage it. To go straight ahead to meet a sortie party would mean that we should be surrounded."

"You're right, lad, perfectly right!" Frank Russel cried. "We're playing a move with men who are as slim as slim can be, and to get away we must beat them at their own game. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. It is just what any ordinary set of fellows would do if they were in a close fix like this. They'd rush towards the comrades who were coming out to help them. Our friends the Boers will expect us to do that, and we'll disappoint them."

"Then it is agreed we make a rush," said Jack. "Let us have a look at the ponies."

Going into the kitchen, they found that Prince and one of the Boer ponies alone remained alive, Vic and the others having been struck down by the sh.e.l.l.

Jack stepped up to the body of the little animal which had proved a true friend to him, and patted her gently on the neck. Then he climbed on to the table again and out on to the roof.

For three hours nothing happened, and then a large force of Boers appeared, and having reached their old position, out of range of the defenders' rifles, they pulled up and put two big guns in position.

For an hour they poured a perfect torrent of sh.e.l.l at the house, smas.h.i.+ng it to pieces and bringing that part over the cellar down with a crash upon the ground.

But though it was sufficiently terrifying to Jack and his friends below, it did not damp their ardour. Carefully popping up their heads, they ascertained that there were yet many posts in which they could kneel and fire and still not be exposed to the enemy. And if the worst were to happen, the cellar itself would form a last site for defence, from which they could hope to keep the Boers away for a considerable time.

It was now getting dark, and after a short pause, probably to fetch up more ammunition and cool the guns, the bombardment again commenced, one of the sh.e.l.ls setting fire to the wreckage above the bomb-proof chamber.

In an instant big tongues of flame burst forth, and a dense volume of choking smoke eddied into the cellar.

The sight filled the Boers with pleasure, as a faint cheer showed, and almost immediately afterwards they started forward, in open order, and rushed for the house.

"Out with the fire!" Jack cried sharply. "Those fellows cannot reach us for some minutes yet. Quick! Pa.s.s up those buckets to me!"

Standing on the top rung of the ladder, with the smoke blowing in his face and almost smothering him, he stretched down his hands, grasped the buckets pa.s.sed up to him, and dashed the contents over the blazing timber. Two were sufficient, and in a minute the fire was subdued, and he had kicked out the surviving embers with his feet.

Then all four took the best places they could find, and, waiting till the Boers were close enough to make their aim fairly certain, opened fire upon them. But the dusk was already almost turning into night, and, undeterred by the bullets, the enemy was rapidly closing in upon them. Things looked very black, and common sense would have suggested an honourable surrender. But the excitement of the struggle had taken fast hold of Jack and his friends, and their blood was thoroughly roused. They had defended the house for many hours, and now, just at the moment when help and rescue were expected, they were not going to give up the unequal struggle till the very last moment had arrived.

Even Eileen was firmly determined upon this point. Encouraged by the resolute pluck of her father and these two young Englishmen, she seemed to have forgotten her s.e.x for the time being, and now, crouched behind a tumbled portion of the iron roof, her rifle spoke out repeatedly and truly, and sent many a Boer to his last account, or limping from the field.

But the impossible could not be expected. In spite of a gallant defence, the host of Boers were now close at hand, and a hail of bullets was directed at the house and at the four spitting points of flame which showed where the muzzles of the rifles were hidden.

"It's all up, lads," shouted Frank Russel. "Shall I shout to them to cease their fire?"

"Wait, what is that?" Eileen cried, clutching her father by the arm.

"Guns in the distance, Father, and rifle fire. It is the sortie!"

Pausing for a moment, the defenders crouched behind their shelter and listened eagerly and with beating hearts. Shouts and volley-firing reached their ears, together with the well-known rattle of a Maxim, and almost instantly the Boers who were attacking them called anxiously to one another, and, leaping to their feet, rushed in the direction of the sounds at their fastest pace.