Part 31 (1/2)

Tom had a certain advantage in the mobility of his force. Never more than a day's march from a food-supply, he was able to dispense with the greater part of his carriers; for his troops were able to take with them sufficient for their immediate needs. Retaining only one thousand carriers to bring up supplies from the large redoubt, he employed the rest in a.s.sisting the troops to fell trees and build abattis at various defensible points along the route.

He found, however, that after deducting the troops left behind in the village, and the garrisons of the redoubts, he had scarcely more than two thousand five hundred men to meet the Arab advance. The question was, how to dispose of this force to the best advantage. Learning from the couriers at the end of the third day's march that he had come within ten miles of the head of the Arab army, he halted at a particularly dense part of the forest, and proceeded, at a distance of some fifty yards from the track, to cut a path a mile and a half long parallel to it. Darkness was falling, the Arabs would certainly halt for the night, and by employing all his men he hoped to complete the clearing of the new road by the morning. At the same time he built a stockade of trees masked with shrubs at the southern end of the main track. His plan was to arrest the enemy by the stockade, which was so artfully located at a slight bend in the path that it could not be seen until they were within a yard of it, and then to attack them in flank from the bush. By cutting the parallel road he had made it possible for his men to move up and down at will over a length of a mile and a half, and to choose the best positions for pouring in their fire upon the surprised and congested enemy. The task was completed long before dawn, and there was time for the whole force to s.n.a.t.c.h a little much-needed sleep before the hard work that might be expected on the following day.

A year before, Tom would have found it difficult, almost impossible, to realize what forest fighting meant. Here he was in an immense forest, stocked with trees from one hundred to two hundred feet high, their dense foliage interlocked overhead, the gaps between them filled with an undergrowth of matted bush, rubber shrubs, creepers, and dwarf-palms, so thick that the eye could never penetrate more than twenty yards at the farthest. The path was a mere foot-track, along which it was only possible to march in single file. At some points, where the soil was soft, the path had in the course of generations been worn down to a lower level, and seemed like a railway cutting between high banks of dead leaves and debris. At other points it wound round a fallen tree, no one having taken the trouble to remove the obstruction. Here and there, too, great festoons of monkey-ropes, mingled with orchid blossoms, hung from tree to tree across the track, so thick that progress was impossible until they had been lopped down with knives and axes.

Tom, as he lay on the bank to rest, felt the oppression of the confined s.p.a.ce even more than he had felt it during his previous wandering through the forest. The recent rains had caused a rank smell to rise from the decaying vegetable matter all around him, and he would not allow himself to think of the ever-present dangers of malaria. The night was cold. Not wis.h.i.+ng the enemy to discover his position or the positions of his men, he had given orders that no fires were to be lighted, and, but for the cloth which Mbutu had brought by his instructions, he would have s.h.i.+vered all night long, and in all probability been prostrated with racking pains in the limbs. As it was, he rose from his brief sleep cold and hungry, but feeling ready for anything, and indeed anxious to meet the long-looked-for enemy at last.

After a breakfast of bananas and potato-bread, he sent messengers forward to instruct the skirmishers and scouts to fall back. He thought that if the hara.s.sing attacks ceased for a whole day, the Arabs might conclude that their enemy had become disheartened, and might thereby be tempted to relax their vigilance.

At the farther end of the newly-made parallel track there was a large tree, which, dominating the intervening s.p.a.ce and overlooking the main path, provided a convenient refuge from which it was possible to obtain a good idea of the strength and composition of the enemy's force as it came in sight. Tom found that he could easily climb the tree to such a height that, while secure from observation himself, he could act as his own intelligence officer and not have to trust to the magnifying eyes of his men. If the Arabs were ten miles away the day before, he concluded that it would probably take them the whole day to reach this point, the forest being dense, and the path obstructed in many places by the encroaching bush. He knew that his men would not be very willing to fight during the night, and there seemed every likelihood that the action would not begin until the next day. It turned out according to his expectation. The Arabs, after the hara.s.sing movements of their enemy on the previous days, had evidently resolved to take advantage of the lull to enjoy a thorough rest, for the whole day went by without a sign of them. Tom again camped with his men for the night, placing sentries for several hundred yards along the path to prevent anything in the nature of a surprise.

He was up with the dawn again, and sent forward a few scouts to reconnoitre. These returned by and by, and reported that the enemy had marched forward only three miles the previous day, and were now about seven miles away. Being anxious that they should be surprised as completely as possible, Tom refrained from sending forward many scouts, lest some incautious action should give the Arabs warning. In the afternoon, judging that the force must be drawing near, he placed some seventeen hundred men along the parallel road, and eight hundred behind the stockade, ordering the musketeers among the latter not to fire until they were actually attacked, or until they heard firing in their front.

About three o'clock he sent forward two Bairo to ascertain the distance of the enemy, and climbed into his crow's-nest in the tree. Suddenly, in the silence of the forest, a shot rang out. ”One of my scouts. .h.i.t, I'm afraid,” said Tom to himself. The waiting warriors stood in an att.i.tude of tense expectancy, every man gripping his weapon, and leaning forward in readiness to move in whatever direction he was ordered. Half an hour pa.s.sed, and then one of the scouts came swiftly down the path, emerging as it were from a curtain of green. Tom, looking at him, saw fear in his face. His eyes were standing out of his head, his features twitching as though pulled by some unseen string; he was shaking like an aspen. ”This won't do,” thought Tom; ”that fellow will scare the rest.”

He slipped down the tree, and met the man before he had been seen by any of his comrades. Laying a firm hand on his shoulder, he bade him tell his news. The man collapsed in a limp knot on the ground, and with many a spluttering stumble explained that as he and his mate were creeping along in the bush beside the path, a shot had come from who knows where, and his companion had fallen dead beside him.

”How far ahead was this?”

”Master, how should I know when fear came rustling behind me? I ran, master; my feet carried me as on the wind.”

”Where are the enemy?”

”In the bush, master, tens upon tens of them. But I saw none of them; no, I saw nothing but the smoke of the fire-stick in the forest. I am very sick, master, and my old father lies sick at home. Will the master let me go and nurse him?”

Tom sternly bade the man climb the tree before him and hide in the foliage. ”Good heavens!” he thought, ”if they all turn out like this coward!” But he refused to harbour such a thought, remembering their conduct during the siege. He climbed the tree after the man, waited some twenty minutes, and then saw, fifty yards away among the trees, the head of the Arab column coming slowly along the path. The way was led by half a dozen stalwart Arabs armed with rifles, walking warily, looking right and left for signs of the enemy. They pa.s.sed, and were followed by fifty Manyema armed with rifles and axes; beyond these he could not see.

They came cautiously along; they pa.s.sed down the main path, silently, watchfully, but without throwing out skirmishers. There was a gap of two hundred yards, and then came the main column of Manyema, armed for the most part with spears. They were marching close behind one another, and Tom's plan was to allow them to occupy the mile and a half on the main track between his tree and the stockade, and then to fall upon them while crowded into this narrow tunnel through the forest. He counted fourteen hundred of the Manyema; there was another gap; then, just as the head of the force of turbaned Arabs was emerging into view, armed with rifles and pistols of various make, a shot from the direction of the stockade announced that the obstacle had been discovered. Dropping from his perch, Tom gave the long-awaited signal to his men waiting in ambush, and an irregular fire broke out down the line of men scattered under cover along the parallel track. The musketeers numbered only about two hundred in all, but Tom reckoned on the surprise counting for a good deal, and the puffs of smoke leaping out from the brushwood at various points, with the clash of explosions, and the demoralizing effect of the hand-grenades, impressed the startled Arabs with the idea that a much larger force than their own was opposed to them.

The surprise was complete. Met by a musket-fire and a discharge of spears and arrows from behind the stockade, the Manyema could not advance; on their left flank there was evidently a well-armed force in ambush; on their right was thick forest, in which they could only find shelter by cutting a way. They halted irresolutely, seeking cover wherever they could. Slugs whizzed through the air and slapped against the trees; the firing of bullets was heard as the rifle-armed Manyema fired erratically at their invisible enemy. But after the first shock they pulled themselves together, and soon realized that they possessed better weapons than their adversaries. They began to move forward again towards the stockade, and Tom, pa.s.sing down the line, saw that it was time to strike home. Ordering his men on the path to stand firm, he hurried to the stockade, upon which the Manyema had not as yet ventured to make a serious attack. He instructed a party of the musketeers to keep up a steady fire so long as there was no danger of hitting their friends; then, placing himself at the head of the remainder, he led them round the left of the position, and, forcing his way through the thinnest part of the scrub, with a cheer charged down upon the Arab column. The Bahima followed him, raising their sonorous battle-cry. This was too much for the already demoralized enemy. Finding themselves attacked both in their front and on their flanks, the Manyema lost heart, and, turning their backs, began to push along the path in full retreat.

This was a signal to the force on the parallel path to re-double their fire; slugs, grenades, spears, and arrows, fell thick and fast; the Manyema quickened their pace, and, with no thought now of attempting to defend themselves, crowded and jostled one another in their eagerness to flee. Back they ran, higgledy-piggledy, into the Arabs, who were hastening in the other direction to join in the fray, ignorant of what had been going on. The two columns thus meeting brought each other to a halt; but the Manyema behind, goaded now to frenzy, pushed on regardless of their comrades, until soon there was a struggling heap obstructing the narrow path. The panic was communicated to the Arabs, who, after firing a few wild shots, some of which found billets in their own men, turned about and led the flight. Now the Bahima, with savage yells, came pouring out of the forest on to the main path. Every yell had a note of triumph, a tone almost of reckless gaiety, as the men pierced and hacked among the panic-stricken foe. The enemy had by this time fairly taken to their heels, bolting along the narrow track like scared rabbits, impeding each other's movements, trampling dead and wounded ruthlessly underfoot. On and on pressed the Bahima, springing across fallen bodies, heedless of their own wounds, carrying the pursuit for miles, until they found themselves checked by a reserve of Arabs strongly posted in a clearing which had been chosen as the camping-place for their baggage and carriers. Tom, who was foremost among his men, now ordered the recall. Some of his more headstrong warriors did not hear or neglected to obey the signal, and fell victims to their own recklessness.

Hurrying back to the stockade, Tom left five hundred men there to dispute the Arab advance, with orders to hold the position as long as possible, but to retire if they were hard pressed. It was now dusk. No further attack was likely until the dawn, and Tom decided to retire five miles along the path to a position he had previously noted as offering great advantages for defence. It was the river he had crossed during his second day's march. Apparently this was fordable only at the one spot, and the steep shelving bank, itself strongly in favour of defenders posted at the top, could be made doubly formidable by means of a stockade. After fording the river on the rocks, the enemy would have to clamber diagonally up the bank by the path Tom's men had cut, as the undergrowth was too thick to allow of an easier path being made under a determined fire. The bank, muddy and slippery at any time of flood, had been rendered doubly difficult by the recent pa.s.sage of so many men. A few feet beyond its top, therefore, on the level ground, Tom set his men to build a strong stockade across the path, with a total length of some thirty feet, and curved inwards at each end in order to permit of a flanking fire. The large number of active men employed soon felled enough trees for the purpose; they were split into lengths of about six feet, and planted in the ground close to one another, with transverse logs lashed to them with rough rope, and every interstice filled up with earth and rubbish. It was so placed that a defending force could dominate the whole width of the river, and Tom felt pretty sure that one man within the stockade was fully equal to half a dozen without. The advantage of the position was still further increased by the fact that it was out of sight from the opposite bank, for Tom was careful to leave the intervening scrub untouched, so that it formed an opaque screen.

The stockade having been completed in a thoroughly workmanlike manner by the afternoon of the next day, Tom sent orders to the men he had left farther in the forest to retire as rapidly as possible upon this new defensive position, where he intended to make a serious stand. There was always the chance that the Arabs, finding the direct road blocked, would attempt to get through by cutting another path, but Tom hoped that any such move would not escape observation, and that the time consumed in cutting the new path would enable him to fall back and prepare for meeting the attack elsewhere.

His calculations were rudely disturbed. A few hours after his messengers left he received astonis.h.i.+ng news from his base. He was sitting by the stockade, enjoying a well-earned rest and a meal, when a Muhima came panting up from the direction of the village, and threw himself on the ground with respectful greeting. Rising at Tom's order, he reported that he had a message from the katikiro; that he had run until his heart was jumping in his throat and his legs were like running water. What was the message? Oh! it was that the katikiro was sending eight hundred men to the burning mountain, as Kuboko had ordered, to remain there until Kuboko came to them. He would do anything that Kuboko bade him, especially as he had Kuboko's mark; but he entreated Kuboko to remember that his force, bereft of eight hundred men, was now so weak that he could not keep an enemy out of the village. The eight hundred would start in three cookings after the messenger left, and the katikiro hoped that Kuboko would be pleased with him.

Tom was thunderstruck. Eight hundred men to the burning mountain, to start in three hours! What could it mean? There was a terrible mistake somewhere, but how could Msala have made such a mistake after the clear instructions given him? He was not to move a man from the village unless he received a direct order, accompanied by a leaf from the notebook, with a pencilled diagram that was to be the indispensable guarantee of the genuineness of the message. No such order had been sent. Tom cudgelled his brains vainly for an explanation. The message could not have originated with his own force, for if any of his lieutenants had taken fright he would have asked for reinforcements and not sent the eight hundred to the volcano, twenty miles on the other side of the village. Could an enemy be approaching in that direction?

But the katikiro's messenger had distinctly said that the order had been received from Kuboko. Tom puzzled and puzzled, canva.s.sing every possible solution of the mystery. The thought suddenly flashed into his mind: Could there be foul play somewhere? Was it no mistake of the katikiro's, but a deliberate plot to denude the village of its garrison, and hand it over to the enemy? Surely a flanking movement could not already have been effected without his knowing it? Good heavens! was the smiling Msala a villain? It was difficult to think so, for he had been Tom's strongest and most faithful helper. The suspicion was dismissed at once. Then he must be the victim of a ruse. That was just as difficult to understand. The man had spoken of Kuboko's mark. The katikiro must, then, have received a paper with the diagram drawn upon it. No one else, so far as Tom knew, had seen the mark. Had Msala lost the paper given him? Had someone discovered the meaning of it and used it for a treacherous end? There could hardly be a second leaf, for the only paper among them all was contained in Tom's pocket-book. Stay! He took out his pocket-book and turned over the leaves. It struck him that someone might have tampered with it. It was to all appearance intact.

He ran over the leaves rapidly in the opposite direction. There should be a loose leaf corresponding to that which had been torn out to give Msala. Where was that? He searched for it with growing uneasiness; held the book by its back and shook it violently. No loose leaf fell; it was gone! The book shut with a clasp, so that it was impossible that the odd leaf had fallen out of itself. It must have been abstracted.

Someone had played him false!

With Tom thought and action went together.

”Who brought the message to the katikiro before you started?” he asked.

”Mkinga,” said the man. ”Mkinga came first. He came to the village and spoke to the katikiro; he talked a long time, and gave the katikiro a piece of white rag. I was by, for I am the katikiro's servant, and I saw, and I know that I speak the truth. Yes, he talked to the katikiro, and the katikiro held out the white rag and frowned, and asked Mkinga where Kuboko was, and all that had happened, and Mkinga told him, and the katikiro said: 'It is well,' and bade Mkinga go back to Kuboko and say that his servant the katikiro would obey his lord's bidding, and knew his lord's mark on the white rag.”

”Mkinga!” exclaimed Tom. ”Was there a man named Mkinga among our troops, Mbutu?”

”Yes, sah. Mkinga lazy man, sah; no work, no do nuffin; grumble, grumble all time, sah.”