Part 9 (1/2)
In spite of obstacles upon obstacles the troops were progressing. The heavy guns surmounted the rugged mountain-paths, and the savage cruel tyrant pa.s.sed from mocking defiance to alarm, as his scouts brought him tidings of the slow and determined march, higher and higher towards his stronghold, of the punitive force which conquered slowly and steadily every physical difficulty.
Then there were rumours that King Theodore was beginning to repent, and that he was ready to give up his many prisoners, releasing them from their long captivity. But the expedition still rolled onwards and upwards--cavalry, infantry, and the heavy and light mountain guns--ready to carry Magdala by _coup de main_ if it were feasible, or bring the tyrant into submission by a prolonged siege.
Though everything seemed to be done very deliberately, the advance never stayed, with the troops still healthy and well, the losses only occurring among the transport animals as the result of accident, hard usage, and disease. It was a varied little army which composed this expedition, horse and foot--light-mounted Hussars, st.u.r.dy infantry, and dark-browed men of India in their picturesque uniform,--green frocks, red sashes, and scarlet turbans. The picturesque was not lacking, either, in the work of surmounting the stern rugged pa.s.ses, where the engineer officers with their sappers cleverly and speedily constructed bridges over gully and gash.
The progress by this time had become steady and methodical. The losses were terrible, but fresh animals arrived to take the place of those which were swept away by disease. The chief halts were made at the stations formed at the wells, many of the latter being constructed on the new ingenious principle which came into note at that time. These wells were afterwards familiar at home as Abyssinian wells. Thus slowly, but steadily, our lightly burdened troops continued on their way, each day bringing them nearer to where Theodore had gathered his forces in the mountain aerie, which he had believed impregnable.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
JOTTINGS BY THE WAY.
During the advance Henty relates that three of the officers of the 4th Regiment of Foot were witnesses of a horribly barbarous custom practised among the natives of Abyssinia, a custom which shows the callousness of the natives to the sufferings of the animals in domestic use. The practice was recorded by James Bruce as witnessed by him during his travels in Abyssinia, towards the end of the eighteenth century, in connection with his attempts to discover the sources of the Nile. Upon his return, when he described the manners and customs of the people of Abyssinia, his narratives were received with mingled incredulity and ridicule, and the practice now in question was treated as an outrageous traveller's tale. Certainly the problem whether nature would readily heal the wound described gave some excuse for want of faith in what approaches the marvellous.
The operation described by Bruce, but which has been denied by all subsequent travellers, and by the Abyssinians themselves, probably through some feeling of shame at their own barbarity, was that of cutting a steak from the body of a living ox. Our officers came upon the natives just as they were engaged in the act. The unfortunate bullock was thrown down, and its four legs were tied together. The operator then cut an incision near the spine, just behind the hip joint.
Next, separating the skin from the flesh, he cut two other incisions at right angles to the first, this enabling him to lift up a flap of skin four or five inches square. After this, by cutting with his knife diagonally, so as to pa.s.s the keen instrument partly under the skin, he cut out a lump of flesh larger in length and width than the flap of skin. The hole made was then filled with a particular preparation, and the flap of skin was replaced and plastered over with mud. Finally, the feet of the poor animal, which had kept up a low moaning while the operation was going on, were untied, and it was given a kick to make it get up. It should be mentioned that the operator cut two or three gashes in the neighbourhood of the wound, apparently as a sign to show that the animal had been operated upon in that part. The officers observed that several of the other cattle of the same herd were marked in a precisely similar manner. It was remarked, too, that during the operation the poor animal bled very little, and half an hour afterwards was found walking about and feeding quietly.
Anatomists have denied, Henty continues, the possibility of an animal being able to walk after such treatment; but here was the indisputable fact. There is the possibility that the antiseptic nature of the huge plaster, used to fill up the vacancy from which the piece of flesh had been cut, was sufficient to make it heal in the pure clear air of mountain Africa.
Fortunately, from our few losses--unfortunately, from a scientific point of view--we have no record of how clean-cut wounds in the human being fared in Abyssinia. On the other hand, the rapid healing of flesh and muscle on the lofty tablelands of the Transvaal during the Boer War was almost marvellous.
Everywhere on his way to the front Henty found something fresh to describe. One day there was to be rocket practice, the operators being the Naval Brigade, with its frank-looking, free-and-easy Jacks, who were anxious to be ready to astonish the natives with their singular missiles. There was not room in the valley where they were in camp, so the plan was tried of drawing the tubes up one hill and firing across to the next hill, about two thousand yards away.
There were twelve mules, each with a tube and a supply of ninety rockets. There were four men to each tube, besides the one who led the bearer. At the word ”Unload!” the tubes, each about three feet in length, were taken off the mules and arranged in line upon a sort of stand, with an elevator, which could be adjusted to any required angle.
The order first given was to try ten degrees of elevation, and at the command ”Fire!” a stickless rocket rushed from the tube like a firework, and buzzed through the air to the opposite hill. Three rockets were fired at this elevation, and then three from an elevation of five degrees, all apparently pa.s.sing to their mark in a way likely to strike terror into the hearts of the defenders of Magdala.
These men of the Naval Rocket Brigade, who had come up to join the military, proved to be an admirable body of men, ready to endure fatigue and hards.h.i.+p with the good temper peculiar to sailors. Contrary to what might have been expected, seeing how little marching a man-of-war's man is accustomed to get, they marched better than soldiers, and never fell out, even on the most fatiguing journeys. Their quaint humour provided great amus.e.m.e.nt to the troops, and the way in which they talked to their mules, which they persisted in treating as s.h.i.+ps, was irresistibly comic.
Henty mentions one sailor who was leading a mule with a messmate walking behind, when they came to where a body of soldiers was stationed. This did not seem to concern the sailors, who had been given orders to carry out, and so they went straight on. ”Hallo, Jack!” cried one of the soldiers good-humouredly. ”Where are you coming to?”
”Coming?” said Jack. ”I ain't a-coming anywheres. I am only towing the craft. It's the chap behind who does the steering. Ask him.” It was always the same with the tars. The mule's halter was either the tow-rope or the painter. They starboarded or ported their helm, tacked through a crowd, or wore the s.h.i.+p round, in a most amusing way. On one occasion an officer called out: ”Sergeant-major!” There was no answer.
”Sergeant-major!” (louder). Still no reply. A third and still louder hail produced no response. ”Boatswain, I say, where _are_ you?”
”Ay, ay, sir!” was the instant answer from the man who was close by, but who had quite forgotten that in the service ash.o.r.e of the Rocket Brigade he took the new rank of Sergeant-major.
The Jacks made curious friends.h.i.+ps during the advance, and a good deal of comrades.h.i.+p soon existed between them and the Punjabis, although neither understood a word of the other's language. During a halt the cheerful sailors would sometimes get up a dance to the music of the band of the soldiers from the Five Rivers Region. The band played well, seated in a circle and looking extremely grave, while the sailors would stand up in couples or octettes and solemnly execute quadrilles, waltzes, and polkas, to the great astonishment of the natives, who crowded round looking on in wonder at what to them seemed a profound mystery.
The Punjab Pioneers seem to have been a splendid regiment, and their services under their gallant major proved to be most valuable during the expedition, for their leader divined the spots where water ought to be found, and it was dug for until a gus.h.i.+ng supply of the precious necessary was forthcoming.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
KING THEODORE AT BAY.
At last the spot was reached where the army could take up its position to look across at Magdala, which appeared like a three-topped mountain with almost perpendicular sides. And here the whole force rested and girded up their loins for the final struggle.
The advance had been long and wearisome; but as soon as the men were refreshed by a rest all was excitement, and the next morning the troops were again in motion. Henty started early in the full conviction that something would take place, while the men in his neighbourhood, who had been suffering after their last march the night before from want of water, were looking eagerly forward to reaching the welcome stream that could be seen flowing at the bottom of the ravine below.
Here, however, came a disappointment. There was abundance of water in a river eighty yards wide, and waist deep; but it was the colour of coffee with milk, and nearly opaque with mud. In fact, it was like a dirty puddle in a London street just after being churned up by an omnibus.
However, there was nothing for it. All had a drink, and then the men filled their canteens before they prepared to wade across.