Part 68 (1/2)

The jewel Bough had left on the veld had belonged to him once. Well, it should be his again. He swore that with a blasphemous oath. Thenceforward he proceeded warily, feeling his way, formulating his plan, a human tarantula, evil-eyed and hairy-clawed, calculating the sudden leap upon its prey; an adder coiled, waiting the moment to strike....

XLIV

Saxham was shooting on the veld, north of the Clayfields, in a ginger-hued dust-wind and a grilling sun. Upon his right showed the raw red ridge of the earthworks, where two ancient seven-pounders were entrenched in charge of a handful of Cape Police. The pits of the sniping riflemen scarred across the river-bed some fifty yards in advance. Upon his left, some two hundred yards farther north, the recently resurrected s.h.i.+p's gun, twelve feet of honeycombed metal, stamped on the flank ”No. 6 Port,” and casting solid shot of eighteenth-century pattern, projected a long black nose from Fort Ellerslie, and every time the venerable weapon went off without bursting, the Town Guards occupying the Fort and manning the eastern entrenchments raised a cheer.

Saxham, emptying and filling the magazine with cool, methodical regularity, kept changing his position with a restlessness and recklessness puzzling alike to friends and foes. Now he aimed and fired, lying ”doggo” behind his favourite stone, while bullets from the enemy's trenches flattened themselves upon it, or buried themselves harmlessly in the dry hot soil. Now he moved from cover, and shot squatting on his heels, or sprawled lizard-like in the open, courting the King of Terrors with a calm indifference that was commented upon by those who witnessed it according to their lights.

”Begob!” said Kildare, ex-driver of Engine 123, who, with the Cardiff man, his stoker of old, was doing duty at Fort Ellerslie _vice_ two Town Guardsmen permanently resting, ”'tis a great perfawrumance the Doc is afther givin' as this day!” He coolly borrowed the gunner's sighting-gla.s.ses, and, with his keen eyes glued to them and his ragged elbows propped on the Fort parapet, he scanned the distant solitary figure, dropping the words out slowly one by one. ”Twice have I seen the fur fly off av' wan av' thim hairy baboons av' Boers since he starrtud, an' supposin' the air a taste thicker, 'tis punched wid bullet-holes we'd be seem' ut all round 'um, the same as a young lady in the sky-in-terrific dhressmakin' line would be afther jabbin' out the pattern av' a shoot av'

clothes.”

”And look you now, if the man is not lighting a pipe,” objected the Cardiff stoker, whose religious tendencies were greatly fostered by the surroundings and conditions of siege life. ”Sitting on a stone, with the rifle between his knees and the match between his two hands, as if the teffel was got tired of waiting, and had curled up and gone to sleep.” The speaker sucked in his breath and solemnly shook his head, adding: ”It is a temptation of the Tivine Providence, so it is!”

”Sorra a timpt,” rejoined Kildare, reluctantly surrendering the gla.s.ses to the gunner, a grey ex-sergeant of R.F.A., ”sorra a timpt, knowin', as the Docthur knows, that do what he will and thry as he may, no bullut will do more than graze the hide av him, or sing in his ear.”

”And how will he know that, maybe you would be telling?” demanded the Cardiff stoker incredulously.

”I seen his face,” said Kildare, jerking a blackened thumb towards the gunner's sighting-gla.s.ses, ”minnits back through thim little jiggers, an'

to man or mortal that's as sick wid the hate av Life, an' as sharp-set with the hunger for Death as the Docthur is this day, no harrum will come.

'Tis quare, but thrue.”

”I've 'ad a try at several kinds of 'ungers,” said the R.E. Reserve man, who acted as gunner's mate. ”There's the 'unger for glory, combined with a smart uniform wot'll make the gals stare, as drives a man to 'list.

There's the 'unger for kisses an' canoodlin' wot makes yer want to please the gals. There's the 'unger for revenge, wot drives yer to bash in a bloke's face, and loses you yer stripes if 'e 'appens to be your Corp'ril.

Then there's the 'unger for gettin' under cover when you're bein' sniped, an' the 'unger for blood, when you've got the Hafridis, or the Fuzzies, or the Dutchies, at close quarters, and the bay'nits are flickerin' in an'

out of the dirty caliker s.h.i.+rts or the dirty greatcoats like Jimmy O!

There's the 'unger for freedom and fresh hair when you're shut up in a filthy mud cattle-pound like this 'ere Fort, or a stinkin' trench, with a 'andful of straw to set on by day an' a ragged blanket to kip in by nights. But the 'unger to die is a 'unger _I_ ain't acquainted with. I'm for livin' myself.”

”I was hungry when you began to jaw,” snarled the man who had been clerk to the County Court. His lips were black and cracking with fever, and his teeth chattered despite the fierce suns.h.i.+ne that baked the red clay parapet against which he leaned his thin back. ”I'm hungrier now, and thirsty as well. Give the bucket over here.” He drank of the thick, yellowish, boiled water eagerly and yet with disgust, spilling the liquid on his tattered clothing through the shaking of his wasted hands. Then he turned to the wall, and lay down sullenly, scowling at the lantern-jawed sympathiser who tried to thrust a rolled-up coat under his aching head.

”They'll be bringin' us our foddher at twelve av the clock,” said Kildare, with a twinkle of inextinguishable humour in his hollow eyes.

”Shuperannuated cavalry mount stuped in warrum kettle-gravy, wid a block av baked sawdust for aich man that can get ut down. 'Tis an insult to the mimory av the boiled bacon an' greens I would be aiting this day at Carricknavore, to say nothin' av' the porther an' whisky that would be was.h.i.+ng ut down. Las.h.i.+n's and lavin's there 'ud be for ivery wan, an' what was over, me fadher--G.o.d be good to the ould boy alive or dead!--would be disthributin' amongst the poor forninst the dure----”

”Beg pardon, sir.” Another of the famine-bitten, ragged little garrison addressed the question to the officer in charge of the Fort battery, as he stepped down from the lookout with his field-gla.s.s in his hand. ”Can you tell us the difference of time between South Africa and England?”

”Two hours at Capetown. I'm not quite sure about the difference at Gueldersdorp.” The Lieutenant went over to the ancient smooth-bore, and conferred with the gunners standing at her breech. The winches groaned, the heavy ma.s.s of metal tilted on the improvised mounting, as the man to whom the Lieutenant had replied said, with a quaver of longing in his voice:

”'Two hours! My G.o.d, suppose it only took that time to get home!”

”It 'ud be a sight easier to 'ang on 'ere,” said the R.E. Reserve man who acted as gunner's mate, ”if there was such a thing as a plug o' baccy to be 'ad. Wot gives me the reg'lar sick is to see them well-fed Dutchies chawin' an' blowin', blowin' an' chawin', from mornin' till night----” He spat disgustedly.

”When honust men,” groaned Kildare, ”would swop a year av life for a twist av naygurhead. Wirra-wirra!”

There was a dry and mirthless laugh, showing teeth, white or discoloured, in haggard and bristly faces. Then a short young Corporal, who had been leaning back in an angle of the earthwork, hugging his sharp knees and staring at nothing in particular with pale-coloured, ugly, honest eyes, grew painfully crimson through his crust of sun-tan and grime, and said something that made the lean bodies in ragged, filthy tan-cord and dilapidated khaki, or torn and muddy tweed, slew round upon the unclean straw on which they squatted. All eyes, were they hunger-dull or fever-bright, sought the Corporal's face.

”Dessay you'll think me a greedy 'ound,” said the Corporal, with a painful effort that set the prominent Adam's apple in his lean throat jerking, ”when you tyke in wot I've got to s'y. It makes me want to git into me own pocket and 'ide, to 'ave to tell it. For me an' you, we've shared an'

shared alike, wotever we 'ad, while we 'ad anythink--except in one partic'lar.” The Adam's apple jumped up and down as he gulped. He was burning crimson now to the roots of his ragged, light-brown hair, and the tips of his flat-rimmed, jutting ears, and the patch of thin bare chest that showed where his coa.r.s.e grey back s.h.i.+rt was unb.u.t.toned at the neck.