Chapter Six.
A Christmas in the Veldt
At six o’clock upon a hot morning of African December, Lieutenant Parton, of the Bechuanaland Border Police, came out of his bedroom at the Vryburg Hotel, equipped for a long two days’ ride. He was a smart officer, and the cord uniform, big slouch hat, looped up rakishly at one side, riding boots, and spurs, became his tall figure well enough.
In itself the blazing two days’ ride and the prospect of some trouble at the end of it were hardly sufficient to warrant the air of deep thoughtfulness now gathered upon his dark and serious face; yet, as he strode across the little courtyard beneath the mean shade of the two or three straggling blue gum-trees, the grim knitting of his brows indicated that somehow he was not altogether pleased with the journey that lay before him.
But the lieutenant had some reason for his burden of care. The object of the expedition upon which he was setting forth was the arrest of some native cattle-stealers at a Bakalahari kraal, far out to the westward, in the more desert portion of British Bechuanaland. There had been a sudden call for troopers of the Bechuanaland Border Police up in the northern protectorate, and it happened that the only man Parton could take with him as orderly upon this particular morning was the very last person in the world with whom he would have chosen to spend several days – probably a week or more – in the closest intercourse. Trooper Gressex, now waiting outside in front of the hotel, was that man.
Although the one was a lieutenant close upon his captaincy, the other plain trooper in the frontier force, the two men had once been social equals at home, and, at school and elsewhere, upon terms of considerable intimacy. Gressex (formerly known as Tom Mainwaring) had migrated from London society and a career of sport and pleasure, after coming somewhat suddenly to the end of his financial tether. He had made his plunge into obscurity and had re-appeared as an unknown trooper in the Bechuanaland Border Police.
Parton had quitted service in a line regiment in India, where he saw little prospect of promotion, and had accepted a commission in the same Border Police force. The two men had first encountered one another, in their now altered circumstances, some three months back. Upon the South African frontier such striking changes of condition are being constantly met with, and are borne by the less fortunate, almost invariably, with a good-humoured, if somewhat reckless, philosophy.
In this instance Partons discovery of his old schoolfellow’s altered lot had not been altogether a welcome one; and on this particular December morning he had, as has been hinted, a special reason for desiring any other trooper as his orderly upon the expedition in front of him.
The lieutenant entered the coffee-room of the squat, corrugated-iron hotel, and ate his breakfast. In ten minutes he appeared upon the street, ready for his horse. Trooper Gressex, who was leaning against the stoep, holding his own horse and Parton’s, saluted as his officer came forth, and answered the formal “Good morning, Gressex,” with an equally formal “Good morning, sir.”
The two men mounted and rode away, no slightest sign having fallen to denote that they had ever occupied any other relations than those of officer and man.
Having ridden quietly half-a-mile out of the town, Parton lighted his pipe and set his horse into a canter. Gressex rode upon his flank, and the two steadily reeled off mile after mile of the vast sweep of grassy, undulating plains over which their route lay. Hour after hour they rode through the blazing day, off-saddling every three hours and giving their nags a brief rest according to invariable South African custom. At night, having compassed more than fifty miles, they finally halted, and prepared to camp just within the shelter of a patch of woodland, which here broke the monotony of the grass veldt. The horses, after a longish graze, were tied up to a handy bush; the two men, having eaten a supper of tinned “bully beef” and brewed a kettle of coffee, lay upon their blankets and smoked by the pleasant firelight. The few scraps of conversation which they exchanged related solely to the expedition before them, Gressex having more than once made the journey to Masura’s kraal.
Aloft the infinite calm of the far-off, dark-blue heaven, now spangled with a million stars, seemed to invite deep and peaceful sleep after a hard day’s riding. A refreshing coolness now moved upon the veldt, the tender airs whispered softly through the long grasses, a cicada droned drowsily in the thorn-bush; all nature promised rest. At nine o’clock both men, lightly wrapped in their blankets, with their feet to the fire and their heads pillowed in their saddles, were fast asleep.
At one o’clock in the still, early morning Gressex was awakened by the sound of a voice. He rose softly upon his elbow and looked about him. The stars shone more gloriously than ever, but the Southern Cross had fallen from its erect position and now lay over upon its side. The veldt was perfectly quiet, save for the plaintive wailing of a far-off jackal, which had got their wind and was crying out the news to his fellows. Even the cicada had ceased its weary drumming. As Gressex lay upon his elbow listening, he perceived that the sounds he had heard came from Parton, who was talking fitfully in his sleep. It is hard to follow a man whose tongue labours with the difficulties of a slumbering brain, and Gressex was not much interested in puzzling out the intricacies of his officer’s drowsy speech, but one word fell upon his ear which instantly fixed his attention. The word was “Ella.”
“Ella,” muttered the sleeping man, in a curiously sententious way, “I tell you I can’t do it. It’s not the least use thinking further about him. You’ll never see him again; why harp upon a broken string? Some day I hope you’ll be kind and give…”
Gressex had, after that one word, small difficulty in following the halting speech of the sleeping man. He waited impatiently for other sentences, but the voice was hushed again. That name, “Ella” told him a good deal. It told him that, although in their long ride of the previous day Parton had not reverted in the slightest degree to their former friendship and its environments, his mind now, during the hours of sleep, was running busily in old channels. The word “Ella” and its associations roused many a pang and many a memory in the soul of Gressex, as he lay there under the silent stars. A hundred questions and doubts shaped themselves in the trooper’s mind for the next hour or more. At last sleep again overtook him and he remembered no more till pale dawn came round and he awoke. Already the little coqui francolins – the prettiest of all the African partridges – were calling with sharp voices to one another near the pan of water fifty yards away, and an early sand-grouse or two were coming in for their morning drink. It was time to be breakfasting and away. The embers were blown up, fresh wood was put on, and the kettle boiled for coffee. The two men, after an exchange of “Good morning,” breakfasted almost in silence, the horses were got in from their feed of grass, saddled up, and the journey was resumed.
The blazing morning passed, as in all these long veldt rides, in monotonous fashion. At three o’clock, in the hottest period of the afternoon, the two men emerged from a long two hours’ stretch of bastard yellow-wood forest. Suddenly Parton, who was a little in front, reined up with a “Sh!” upon his lips. Gressex followed the lieutenant’s glance and saw what had arrested his progress. Half a mile to the right, just outside the forest, a troop of noble gemsbok were resting beneath a patch of acacia thorn trees: some were lying down, some standing, but all, even the usually tireless sentinel nearest the waggon-track, were overcome by the heat, and – for such suspicious game – a little relaxed in their watchfulness. Such an opportunity was too tempting to be passed by. A plan of operations was quickly evolved as the two men withdrew their horses within the shelter of the wood. It was curious to observe how instantly the prospect of sport had broken down the thick hedge of reserve between them. They now whispered together rapidly and with intense animation.
Gressex turned his horse’s head and rode back through the forest in a semicircle towards the game. Presently he dismounted, fastened his horse to a bush, and then with the greatest caution stole towards the troop. At last, from behind a screen of bush, he has the game well before his gaze. They are a hundred and fifty yards away; between them and the watcher’s clump of bush is open grass veldt, and there is no possibility of getting a foot nearer. Gressex sits down, sidles imperceptibly to the left hand, and now has in front of him a fair shot. Even now there is not a breath of suspicion among the dozen great antelopes out there in the open. Gressex can note easily their striking, black and white faces and spear-like horns. The shade of the acacias is somewhat scanty, and he can see plainly the splashes of the sunlight gleaming through the foliage bright upon their warm grey coals. Now he takes aim at the bull nearest, draws a long breath, and pulls trigger. The Martini-Henry bullet flies true, and claps loudly, as upon a barn door, on the broadside of the gallant beast. The gemsbok leaps convulsively forward and scours away up wind. In the same instant there is dire commotion among the troop; the recumbent antelopes spring up wildly, and with their fellows stretch themselves at speed – and few animals can rival this antelope in speed and staying powers – in rear of the stricken bull. Gressex hurriedly fires another shot and misses clean.
And now, as Parton had foreseen, his opportunity has come. The troop will cross his front within less than half a mile. He gallops full tilt from the sheltering woodland and rides his hardest to cut them off. He is perfectly successful – so successful that he cuts off the main troop from the two leading antelopes, and, while the animals stand for a moment in utter bewilderment, he jumps off and gets his shot. The bullet flies high, yet luckily. The vertebra of the big cow he aimed at is severed on the instant, and she falls in her tracks, “moors dood,” as a Boer would say – as dead as mutton.
At the report of Parton’s rifle, the troop scatters and flees again. Parton jumps into the saddle and tears after Gressex’s wounded bull, which, three hundred yards in front, is manifestly failing fast. The stout pony, now thoroughly excited with the chase, gains rapidly; the gemsbok is pumping its life-blood from mouth and nostrils, and cannot stand up much longer. But, suddenly, without warning, Parton’s nag puts its foot into a deep hole hidden by the long grass and goes down. Parton is shot violently over its head and comes heavily to the veldt. In the next three seconds Gressex’s gemsbok fails suddenly, and, sinking quietly to earth, breathes out its last.
Gressex himself is quickly on the spot and first applies himself to Parton, who now sits ruefully with his hat off, gathering his scattered senses and nursing a broken left arm. Gressex has once helped to set a man’s arm in the hunting field, and he now goes to work. First he cuts quickly from a piece of fallen wood two flattish splints, then he unwraps one of the “putties” from his legs. This winding gear makes an admirable bandage. Next he proceeds to set the damaged limb. Luckily it is the fore arm, and after a painful ordeal of pulling, endured with set teeth by Parton, Gressex adjusts the broken bone and binds on the splints. With the other “putty” a sling is then extemporised. Parton has some brandy in a flask in his saddle-bag. He takes a pull at this, and while Gressex cuts off the heads, tails, and some of the meat from the slain gemsbok and fastens them upon the saddles, he sits with somewhat more ease and contentment smoking a welcome pipe which the trooper has filled and lighted for him after the operation. Half an hour later the journey is resumed again. It was a long twenty miles to the Bakalahari village to which they were travelling. The pace was slow, out of consideration for the wounded arm, and it was not until well on into the night that they rode into the beehive-like collection of round native huts, and called up the two Border policemen stationed there.
For two days the swollen and painful state of Parton’s arm prevented him from taking further action in the affair of the cattle-stealers, which had necessitated his sudden patrol. Meanwhile he rested, gleaned quietly all the intelligence that was to be gleaned, and prepared for action.
He interviewed, of course, Masura, the native chief settled here, and made a casual inquiry as to the stolen cattle, but he was careful not to let it appear that he had made a special journey on that account. The chief, it was well known, was not well affected to Government; but he protested that no stolen cattle or cattle-stealers had come into his country, and appeared to be anxious to aid in any inquiries that might discover the marauders. To lull his suspicions, Parton, on the second day of his arrival, requested him to send out runners to his various cattle posts so as to ascertain whether fresh stock had lately come in. This the chief promised to do on the following day.
But Parton had meanwhile, thanks to the alacrity of the two troopers quartered in the town and to a native spy of theirs, gained exact information of the whereabouts of the stolen cattle and their thieves.
They stood at a remote and little known cattle post of this very chief, some twenty-five miles from the town, and Parton had now laid his plans to ride out during the night and make their recapture early next morning. There might be some resistance, and he settled therefore to take with him the two troopers stationed here, as well as Gressex and a couple of natives upon whom he could depend. Meanwhile, although busied in his official work, Parton had had time in these two days to be much exercised by the private anxieties that galled incessantly his mind. For several days he had borne their harassing companionship. Two letters, one read and re-read many times within the last five days, the other unopened and unread, which lay within the breastpocket of his tunic, contained the secret of all this mental harassment; these letters burnt upon his conscience much as a blister burns the flesh against which it is laid.
Since their arrival at the village Parton’s demeanour towards Gressex, which had suddenly altered after the episode of the hunt and the broken arm, had changed again. During the excitement of the chase and under the quick and kindly attentions of Gressex when his arm was broken, his old friendliness had reasserted itself. Twice the name Mainwaring had escaped his lips as he thanked his trooper gratefully for his ready and tender help. And upon that long evening’s ride his manner had softened greatly; almost in the dim starlight he had gone back to the old days again.
Yet something within him had just stayed his tongue and had hindered a recognition which in itself would have been a mere act of grace, lessening no whit the discipline and respect ordained by their present difference in rank.
As for Gressex he had ceased to wonder at his old friend’s curious demeanour. The mental exclamation that rose within him – “He’s a proud devil, after all. I should hardly have thought it of Parton!” – very well expressed his feelings, and he now made the best he could of the companionship of the two troopers – very good fellows they were – with whom he was quartered.
At twelve o’clock upon the third night of his arrival in the Kalahari village, Parton, who had now made every preparation, rode very silently and with every circumstance of caution, out into the night. With him were his three troopers and the two native allies – one a Bushman, the other a Griqua – who had acted as his spies and were now to show him the road. His broken arm was by no means yet at ease; but Parton, whatever else his demerits, had plenty of pluck, and just now, in his state of mental tension, inactivity was a very curse to him.
The huts where they were quartered lay upon the outskirts, and the party quitted the village so silently that not even a native dog raised its alarm. Sometimes walking their horses rapidly, sometimes cantering – though the action caused Parton to grind his teeth with pain – they passed in less than five hours over the wilderness of grass and bush that lay between them and the cattle post they sought. The Griqua, who had a horse of his own, rode, the Bushman trotted always in front of the party, finding his way in the starlight with an unerring and marvellous precision. There were four huts at the cattle post. These were speedily rushed in the dim early morning, just as the faintest hint of dawn began to pale the night sky. The inmates were all asleep, but the final rattle of horse hoofs and the furious barking of the kraal dogs roused them. It was too late. Gressex and his fellow troopers each carried and secured without a blow their respective huts, which contained a few Bakalahari men, women and children.
Parton, by a stroke of ill luck, happened to walk into a hut in which four Bechuanas – three of them the very cattle thieves he was in search of – lay together. These men were all disaffected and turbulent border ruffians, and they had arms ready at hand. In a few words of Sechuana the lieutenant, as he stood within the hut, called upon them to surrender. It was pretty dark, and the first reply Parton got to his summons was an assegai through his shoulder, which brought him down. His revolver went off uselessly, and in an instant he had three out of the four men on top of him Gressex, in the next hut a few yards off, heard the shot and Parton’s stifled cry, and, leaving the Griqua to take charge of his capture, dashed round to his lieutenant’s relief. In five seconds he was in the fray. The three men struggling with the wounded officer were impeding one another, and beyond a gash or two with their assegais had done little injury. Gressex ran in among them, loosed off his carbine at the nearest man and settled him, struck another with his empty weapon a blow on the arm which broke it and disabled its owner, and threw himself upon the remaining native, who had Parton still by the throat. But in that instant the fourth occupant of the hut who had been standing back in the dark shade watching the struggle, came in. He lunged with the assegai he had snatched up at Gressex’s broad back. The sharp blade shore through the trooper’s tough cord tunic and flannel shirt and drove deep into his right lung. At this moment another trooper appeared with a blazing wisp of grass. By the light of it, as he flung it upon the floor, he could take in the whole scene. His carbine was undischarged; he levelled it instantly at the man attacking Gressex and dropped him with a bullet through the heart.
Here then was the situation. The cattle post was captured, two of the thieves were slain, another disabled; the rest of the dozen inhabitants of the kraal were safe under guard, the Bushman – delighted to pay off some old scores – standing sentinel over one hut with a long Martini in his hand and a diabolical grin of exultation on his face. The stolen cattle, as was presently ascertained, were safe in the ox-kraal, with the rest of the stock running at this post. But against this, Gressex was badly wounded and the lieutenant somewhat cut and battered.
Gressex stood stooping in the hut, the assegai sticking half a foot into his back. Despite that horrible thrust he had still all his wits about him.
“Warton,” he said grimly through his teeth to the trooper, who still stood with smoking carbine, “thanks for settling that chap. Now pull this damned thing out of me. Pull before I fall down. I feel a bit sick.”
Warton laid hold of the spear and, exerting his strength, managed to extract the spear-head. A little torrent of blood poured forth. While Parton, who had now got to his feet, pressed his right hand upon the wound, Warton managed to strip off Gressex’s tunic Gressex was now very faint. They laid him upon his side, pulled away his flannel shirt, and then bound up the hurt as tightly as possible. Then from the lieutenant’s flask they managed to pour some brandy between the wounded man’s lips, from which blood was already oozing. There was only one thing to be done with the sufferer. The bleeding must be stopped somehow, and he must lie where he now lay. Only the extremest quiet could save him.
In an hour Parton had recovered from his own hurts. He had luckily received nothing worse than a nasty gash in his left shoulder and sundry cuts and bruises. His broken left arm was unhurt, thanks to Gressex’s careful setting. The struggle seemed to have cleared the lieutenant’s head. His eye was bright, his mind made up. Gressex had for the second time in a few days done him a great service. He had risked his very life this time for a man to whom he owed little enough, if he but knew all, and he now lay apparently at the point of death.
Parton’s doubts and struggles had all vanished into thin air. The fight and Gressex’s ready bravery had braced him – as a fight braces always a good Englishman – and brought to the surface all his better nature, and he now sat down to write certain letters with a calm mind. He had his pocket-book and an indelible pencil, and having seen that all his captives were secure, and the cattle safe in the adjacent veldt, where they were feeding under charge of the Bushman, he sat down in the red sand, with his back against a hut, and began to write. Before his writing is completed, it will be well to glance at those two letters in his breast pocket, of which mention has been previously made. Here is the opened letter, addressed to Lieutenant B.F. Parton, Bechuanaland Border Police: —
“International Hotel, Cape Town, 12th December, 189 —
“Dear Mr Parton, —
“The address of this letter will probably surprise you. I received your letter in London on the morning I left for South Africa, whither I have come with my uncle, Colonel Mellersh, and my cousin, Kate Mellersh, on a trip we have long planned. We are staying at Cape Town for a few days, and are then going on to Kimberley to see the diamond mines, and perhaps make an expedition into the Transvaal or Bechuanaland.
“I must first reply to your letter. I am sorry, more sorry than I can express, that you should have reopened that old topic, which I quite thought and hoped, for the sake of your own peace of mind, had been finally dismissed, if not forgotten, nearly three years ago. My mind is as fully made up as it was when I last saw you, nor is it ever likely to change in the way you seem to suggest and hope for. I grieve very much to have to again say this to one whom I respect and like, but it is better to make clear at once that there is not the slightest prospect of any change in my sentiments.
“I must tell you frankly that I have the very strongest of all reasons for this – the reason that my affections have long since drifted in another direction – the direction (I may as well at once say here) of our mutual friend, Mr Mainwaring.
“You say in your letter that if ever you can be of service to me I may command you at any time. I take that expression to be a sincere one, and I am going to put it to a very severe test. Mr Mainwaring, before he left England, purposely avoided seeing me – quite from a mistaken motive – but wrote me a letter telling me of his affection for me, and saying good-bye, as he supposed, for ever. If he had seen me instead of sending that letter, a great deal of misery might have been avoided. I have been unable to glean the slightest hint of his whereabouts until a week before I left England. Mr Mainwaring has within the last few weeks come into some considerable property from an old uncle (from whom he expected absolutely nothing) who has quite lately died, and has now no reason to remain in exile longer. For more than two years I have been moving heaven and earth to get at his whereabouts, and I only received a letter, three days before I sailed, from his cousin and family lawyer, Mr Bladen, who had always refused absolutely before this to disclose his whereabouts, telling me that Mr Mainwaring (under the name of Gressex) is a private in the Bechuanaland Border Police, stationed either at Mafeking or Vryburg. Mr Bladen at the same time informed me of his cousin’s piece of good luck, and assured me that he was only waiting for certain legal documents to write out to Mr Mainwaring informing him of his fortune. As there seems a doubt about his actual address, I am now going to ask you to deliver the inclosed letter, if possible, into Mr Mainwaring’s hands, or, if you cannot see him personally, to send it by special messenger or post it. I am asking, I know, a great deal from your friendship, but I trust to you to help me in this matter, which is to me of very vital importance. You know me sufficiently, I think, to be aware that I am not trying to find Mr Mainwaring because ‘his ship has come in.’ I have – I am almost ashamed to say it – ample means of my own, and Tom’s good luck has nothing to do with the question. But I do want to find him at once, and I can only think of you, as an officer of his regiment, as the likeliest person to help me. Pray, pray, forgive me the double burden that I fear I may be putting upon you by this letter.
“We shall be at Kimberley on the 15th inst. Please address any letters or telegrams to me at the Central Hotel there.
“Believe me, yours always sincerely, —
“Ella Harling.”
Ella’s letter, addressed to “Mr John Gressex, Bechuanaland Border Police. (To be forwarded),” still lay unopened in Parton’s pocket. It had remained there these five days past, although the man to whom it had been addressed had ridden and rested for some days within six feet of it. Fifty times a day had Parton cursed himself for a villain in detaining it, and yet – and yet – he could not give Ella up and help Tom Mainwaring, and so – even after the affair of the broken arm – it had stayed there within his tunic.
Parton’s first note was to Ella Harling, telling her of Gressex’s (Mainwaring we may now call him) serious condition, and begging her, if possible, to come up by rail at once from Kimberley to Vryburg and thence drive as rapidly as possible the hundred miles across the veldt to Masura’s-town, where she would find a trooper who would bring her out to the cattle post where Mainwaring lay. That, as Parton said to himself, was something off his mind. It was some little expiation for the wrong he had done Ella and his old friend, and he felt pounds better already.
His next letter was to the officer in command at Vryburg during his absence, reporting affairs, and requesting that two more troopers should be at once sent to Masura’s-town, to aid in bringing in the prisoners and cattle, and to keep in check any attempt by the disaffected Masura to create trouble. He requested also that a light waggon might be dispatched for the wounded man, with certain nursing comforts and drugs that might be useful. He begged that, if possible, a doctor should also be sent, as the case was an urgent and serious one. One of the troopers, mounted on the best horse – the lieutenant’s – was despatched with these letters, with directions to put Miss Harling’s note into an envelope, carefully addressed, before posting it at Vryburg. The trooper was partially told Mainwaring’s story, and put upon his honour not to read the contents of the letter, at present envelopeless. He was a good fellow, and made a big ride, covering the 120 odd miles to Vryburg in two days on the single horse.
For the next seven days Parton had his hands pretty full at the desert cattle post. He had to guard carefully his prisoners, to see that the cattle were not re-stolen or re-captured, and to overawe Masura, who came out to know why his men were being killed and his cattle seized; and above all he had the heavy charge of nursing Tom Mainwaring, who for some days was spitting blood and in a state of high fever.
For three days and nights Parton nursed him most tenderly and carefully, feeding him with milk and thin mealie-meal gruel and beef-tea made from a slaughtered ox.
Thanks to a sound constitution, Mainwaring turned the corner, and on the fifth day from the affray began slowly to mend. He was still so weak that Parton, burning though he now was to complete his expiation and ease himself of his remaining load of trouble, feared to risk the telling of strange and exciting news. On the morning of the seventh day, however, Mainwaring seemed so much stronger, and the arrival of Ella Harling, if she came at all, must be so near at hand, that Parton delayed no longer. He made a full confession of his delinquencies, told Mainwaring all that had happened, of his recent stroke of good fortune, and finally handed him Ella’s letter.
“Tom,” he said at the end, “I have behaved to you all through the piece like a perfect beast. You, on the other hand, have played the game like a man. You helped me over the broken arm and finally saved my life in that scrimmage – very nearly at the expense of your own. I think I must have been mad. I can only humbly beg your pardon and ask you to try to forgive and forget, and to remember that if I fell I was sorely tried and tempted.”
Tom Mainwaring put up his hand – it had become a very thin hand in these few days, though the tan had not gone from it – and said in a husky voice, for he was very feeble:
“Don’t say another word, old chap. You have made a mistake – ran out of the course a bit – but you’re all right at the finish. And you’ve nursed me like a brick. I should have been a dead man by now if it hadn’t been for all your kindness and thought. Don’t let’s ever have another word about the past. You’ve done the right thing, and few men would have cared to be tried as high as you have been. I’ve had the luck this journey; yours will come.”