Part 29 (2/2)
CHAPTER TWENTY
Peter Pienaar Goes to the Wars
This chapter is the tale that Peter told en, where aiting for our boat
He climbed on the roof and shi+nned down the broken bricks of the outer wall The outbuilding ere lodged in abutted on a road, and was outside the proper enceinte of the house At ordinary times I have no doubt there were sentries, but Sandy and Hussin had probably ed to clear them off this end for a little Anyhow he saw nobody as he crossed the road and dived into the snowy fields
He knew very well that he must do the job in the twelve hours of darkness ahead of him The immediate front of a battle is a bit too public for anyone to lie hidden in by day, especially when two or three feet of snowkenspeckle Now hurry in a job of this kind was abhorrent to Peter's soul, for, like all Boers, his tastes were for slowness and sureness, though he could hustle fast enough when haste was needed As he pushed through the winter fields he reckoned up the things in his favour, and found the only one the dirty weather There was a high, gusty wind, blowing scuds of snow but never co snoas as soft as butter That was all to the good, he thought, for a clear, hard night would have been the devil
The first bit was through farmlands, which were seamed with little snow-filled water-furrows Now and then would come a house and a patch of fruit trees, but there was nobody abroad The roads were crowded enough, but Peter had no use for roads I can picture hi every now and then to sniff and listen, alert for the foreknowledge of danger When he chose he could cover country like an antelope
Soon he struck a big road full of transport It was the road from Erzerum to the Palantuken pass, and he waited his chance and crossed it After that the ground grew rough with boulders and patches of thorn-trees, splendid cover where he couldThen he was pulled up suddenly on the bank of a river The
It was a torrent swollen withfifty yards wide Peter thought he could have swu 'A wet man makes too much noise,' he said, and besides, there was the off-chance that the current would be too e
In tenof trestles, broad enough to take transport wagons It was guarded, for he heard the tramp of a sentry, and as he pulled hi wooden huts, obviously some kind of billets These were on the near side of the streae A door stood open and a light showed in it, and from within ca like a wild aniabble that the voices were Gere It was an officer, for the sentry saluted The man disappeared in one of the huts Peter had struck the billets and repairing shop of a squad of Ger ruefully to retrace his steps and try to find a good place to swim the stream when it struck him that the officer who had passed hirey sweater and a Balaclava helmet, for even a Gerht in Anatolia The idea cae and trust to the sentry not seeing the difference
He slipped round a corner of the hut and marched down the road The sentry was now at the far end, which was lucky, for if the worst ca the stiff Ger past him, his head down as if to protect him from the wind
The man saluted He did more, for he offered conversation The officer ht, Captain,' he said in Gerot a shell in his lot They've begun putting over soht in Ger the road when he heard a great halloo behind him
The real officer must have appeared on his heels, and the sentry's doubts had been stirred A whistle was blown, and, looking back, Peter saw lanterns waving in the gale They were co out to look for the duplicate
He stood still for a second, and noticed the lights spreading out south of the road He was just about to dive off it on the north side when he are of a difficulty On that side a steep bank fell to a ditch, and the bank beyond bounded a big flood He could see the dull ruffle of the water under the wind
On the road itself he would soon be caught; south of it the search was beginning; and the ditch itself was no place to hide, for he saw a lanternup it Peter dropped into it all the same and made a plan The side below the road was a little undercut and very steep He resolved to plaster hiainst it, for he would be hidden from the road, and a searcher in the ditch would not be likely to explore the unbroken sides It was always a -place was the worst, the least obvious to thefor you
He waited until the lights both in the road and the ditch cae with his left hand, where so the toes of his boots into the wet soil and stuck like a li, but the s were like whipcord
The searcher in the ditch soon got tired, for the place was very wet, and joined his co the lanterns into the trench, and exploring all the immediate countryside