A Dash from Diamond City Part 53

But when morning came the General demurred to letting them go.

"You must wait a day longer," he said, "until my boys have done more, to clear the way, for your road must be full of revengeful Boers, the remains of the force we defeated yesterday, and I am certain that neither you nor your despatch would reach Kimberley if I let you go!"

"We are very anxious to be off, sir," said West, in a disappointed tone.

"And I am very anxious that the Kimberley people should have your good news, my lad," said the general, smiling, "and the news too of how we have taken the guns and stores meant to be used against Mafeking; but, as I have told you before, I don't want the news you are to carry to be found somewhere on the veldt, perhaps a year hence, along with some rags and two brave young fellows' bones."

"Thank you, sir," said West quietly; "but when do you think we might continue our journey?"

"That depends on the reports I get in from the men still away in pursuit."

The men in camp were in high glee, for they had been struggling hard for weeks to get to conclusions with the enemy, but without success, while now their highest expectations had been more than fulfilled; but there was plenty of sorrow to balance the joy, many poor fellows having met their end, while the number of injured in the hospital ambulances and tents made up a heavy list.

West and Ingleborough saw much of this, and spent no little time in trying to soften the pangs endured by the brave lads who lay patiently bearing their unhappy lot, suffering the agony of wounds, and many more the miseries of disease.

There was trouble too with the prisoners, and West and his companion were present when a desperate attempt to escape was made by a party worked upon by one of their leaders--a half-mad fanatical being whose preachings had led many to believe that the English conquerors were about to reduce the Boers to a complete state of slavery.

The attempt failed, and the leader was one of those who fell in the terrible encounter which ensued.

Both West and Ingleborough were witnesses of the resulting fight, for the attempt was made in broad daylight, just when such a venture was least expected, and, after those who seized upon a couple of score of the captured horses and tried to gallop off had been recaptured, the young men worked hard in helping to carry the wounded to the patch of wagons that formed the field hospital.

"Ugh!" said West, with a shudder, after he and Ingleborough had deposited a terribly-injured Boer before one of the regimental surgeons; "let's get down to the spruit and wash some of this horror away."

"Yes," said Ingleborough, after a glance at his own hands; "we couldn't look worse if we had been in the fight! Horrible!"

"It's one thing to be in the wild excitement of a battle, I suppose,"

said West; "but this business after seems to turn my blood cold."

Ingleborough made no reply, and the pair had enough to do afterwards in descending the well-wooded, almost perpendicular bank to where the little river ran bubbling and foaming along, clear and bright.

"Ha!" sighed West; "that's better! It was horrible, though, to see those poor wretches shot down."

"Um!" murmured Ingleborough dubiously. "Not very! They killed the sentries first with their own bayonets!"

"In a desperate struggle for freedom, though! But there, I'm not going to try and defend them!"

"No, don't, please!" said Ingleborough. "I can't get away from the fact that they began the war, that the Free State had no excuse whatever, and that the enemy have behaved in the most cruel and merciless way to the people of the towns they have besieged."

"All right! I suppose you are right; but I can't help feeling sorry for the beaten."

"Feel sorry for our own party then!" said Ingleborough, laughing. "Why, Noll, lad, we must not holloa till we are out of the wood. This last is a pretty bit of success; but so far we have been horribly beaten all round."

"Yes, yes; don't talk about it," said West sharply; "but look over there. We needn't have been at the trouble of scrambling down this almost perpendicular place, for there must be a much easier spot where that fellow is walking up."

"Never mind; we'll find that slope next time, for we shall have to come down again if we want a wash."

They sat down chatting together about the beautifully peaceful look of the stream, while Ingleborough lit his pipe and began to smoke.

"It does seem a pity," said Ingleborough thoughtfully, exhaling a cloud of smoke: "this gully looks as calm and peaceful as a stream on old Dartmoor at home. My word! I wish I had a rod, a line, and some flies!

There must be fish here. I should like to throw in that pool and forget all about despatch-bearing and guns and rifles and men using lances. It would be a treat!"

"It looks deep and black too in there," said West. "Yes, a good day's fis.h.i.+ng in such a peaceful--Ugh! Come away. Let's get back to the camp."

"Why? What's the matter?" cried Ingleborough, starting up, in the full expectation of seeing a party of the enemy making their way down the farther bank to get a shot at them.

But West was only pointing with averted head down at the deep black pool, and Ingleborough's face contracted as his eyes took in all that had excited West's horror and disgust.

For there, slowly sailing round and round just beneath the surface, were the white faces of some half-dozen Boers, wounded to the death or drowned in their efforts to escape the British cavalry, and washed down from higher up by the swift stream, to go on gliding round and round the pool till a sudden rising of the waters from some storm should give the stream sufficient power to sweep them out.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

THAT BASE COIN.

"Let's see; this will take us round by the hospital wagons," said Ingleborough. "I vote we go round the other way, for we don't want any more horrors now!"

They chose a different direction to return to their temporary quarters in the camp, one which took them round by the row upon row of captured wagons and the roughly-made enclosure into which the prisoners had now been herded, and where they were doubly guarded by a strong party of mounted infantry, who had stringent orders to fire at the slightest sign of trying to escape.

"They'll accept their lot now, I expect," said Ingleborough. "Who are these with this next lot of wagons? Non-combatants, I suppose!"

"Yes; drivers of the provision wagons and traders," replied West. "Why, that's the man we saw going up out of the spruit."

"Yes," said Ingleborough, and as he spoke West noted that the man who had been seated at the front of one of the wagons suddenly turned his back and walked round to the other side.

West turned to Ingleborough.

Ingleborough turned to West.

They stood looking enquiringly in each other's eyes for a few moments before the latter said suddenly:

"Which way will you go?"

"Left," said Ingleborough.

"And I'll go right."

They started at once, walking towards the wagon that had taken their attention, Ingleborough making for the front where the man had disappeared, and which necessitated pa.s.sing the team of bullocks crouching down to ruminate over the fodder that had been cut for them, while West hurried round by the rear, the young men timing themselves so exactly that they met after seeing a pair of stout legs disappear between the fore and hind wheels of the wagon where the man they sought to face had dived under.

Quick as thought, West and Ingleborough separated and ran back lightly and quickly, this time to come upon the man they sought just as he was getting heavily upon his legs again, evidently in the belief that he had not been recognised.

He was thoroughly roused up to his position, though, by Ingleborough's heavy hand coming down upon his shoulder and hoisting him round to face the pair.

"Hallo, Anson!" cried Ingleborough banteringly; "this is a pleasant surprise!" while West's eyes flashed as he literally glared in the cowardly scoundrel's face, which underwent a curious change as he glanced from one to the other, his fat heavy features lending themselves to the dissimulation, as he growled out slowly: "Don't understand."

"What!" cried Ingleborough, in the same bantering tone; "don't you know this gentleman--Mr Oliver West?"

"Don't understand!" was the reply, and directly after: "Goodnight, Englishmen; I'm going to sleep!"