The Storyteller.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 52, 27 December 1900, Page 23

The Storyteller.

AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS.

It was a black day for the Border Guides when, after a skirmish in the beautiful Stormberg country, they came to number their casualties. Th^ men, Q tnr<ly yr>nng oolnni^ts mo<»t of them, had signed for threemonths. The three months were just up, and, seeing that they had lost their commander almost all their officers, and twothirds of their men, there seemed nothing for it but to disband the corps. The men stood about in the shadow of the kopje at whose foot their camp was pitched. Most of them leant against their horses' sides, and stared dismally before them. They felt something in the position of the man whom circumstances have turned out of his house, and who stands, homeless and forlorn, in the road outside. The fierce joy of battle had faded to a re-action deadly cold and depressing : the long, low mound to their right hid thirty-two of the gay comrades of yesterday ; their wounded even now journeyed groaning in the ambulance waggons towards the nearest railway station. Dead and wounded disposed of, there appeared nothing left for the remainder to do but to return to their homes or to attach themselves to such other volunteer corps as would accept their services. There was nothing else to do, and yet it was not strange that the thought of either of these alternatives should strike a cold chill to their hearts. Nothing draws men closer to each other than campaigning does ; nothing breeds comradeship so fast as the rough-and-tumble of the hardships and dangers of life on the veld. The idea of separating, of forming new ties and new companionships, presented itself to their minds as an inexpressibly dreary one, so that the youngest of them all, little Dickie Smith, of the Aliwal district, was moved to exclaim bitterly : ' They might just as well have killed the lot I' Yesterday such a speech, as calculated to damp the general spirits, would have been received with unqualified indignation ■ today, if his hearers moved at all, it was only to glance at the malcontent and mutter that they agreed with him. Dickie had lost his cousin and bosom-friend in the fight that morning, so perhaps a little grumbling was excusable. But Luiz Basto, a slim swarthy Portuguese, who had been one of the first to present himself at the recruiting office in Queenstown, turned his head and stared at Dickie with an indescribable expression. Long afterwards DicKie remembered the smooth dark face and its strange look. Even now it made him wonder a little. After making his protest he strolled away to where some of the men were busy over the grave of their comrades ; his bony horse followed him, whinneying, its nose over his shoulder. The men were roughly tracing, in stones or cartridge-cases, the names of some of those whose bodies lay beneath, and Dickie stood watching them. After a little he collected pebbles and added his cousin's name to the list. Presently the quarter- master crawled out of his tent, hugging to his bosom a small sack of tobacco, at sight of which the eyes nearest him brightened perceptibly. ' The last,' he announced with a cheerfulness somewhat strained. ' It'll easy go round — now.' Then he stopped, dismayed at what he had said ; but the general spirits were already so low that they could not be brought lower. and his mistake passed unobserved. The first pipe was not half smoked and there was still some daylight, when suddenly the figure of a horseman appeared on the rising ground to the left of the camp. By virtue of long Ufa £e, 70 men sprang to their arms in a flash, and were ready for whatever might occur, though a sense of rest and security was over them ail, and the armistice which had been arranged for the burial of the dead had still an hour to run. The firet horseman drew rein as he reached the top of the rine ; and now he was joined by a second, whom the men at once recognised as one of their own pickets. The other was as obviously a Boer — an elderly man with a beard that reached his wiist, and clothes in the last stage of dirt and disorder. In this la^t respect the Border Guides were not in a position to be critical, most of them being themselves attired, as they put it, in ' rags held together with clay." The old Boer came quietly riding down towards them. He looked about him, as he came, from under shaggy grey eyebrow t,, and they saw that he carried his left arm in a sling, and his reins lay loosely in his right hand. Luke Carnaby, who had been second in command oi the illfated guides, came out of a tent and went forward to meet him. Carnaby waß older than moat of the others ; he had iv fact n ached the ripe age of SI, and was looked upon in consequence as a person of vast experience. He was an immense favorite with his corps, a born leader of men and as perfect a rifle-&hot and horseman as a border farmer may be, and that is saying a great deal. He saluted gravely as the iioer rode up, and the old man dropped his rein to pull off his battered hat ; after replacing which he held out his hand and shook Luke Carnaby's in a matter-of-fact way. ' You speak in my language ?' he began in Dutch. ' Yes, of oourse, you are an Afrikander ; we are all Afrikanders here.' He glanced at the young faces about him, and his eyea came back to Luke Garnaby. ' I should know you,' he said. ' You are kin to Jamea Carnaby, of the Eastern Frontier ; his son, is it not so V ' Yes, his son,' said Luke. The old fellow gravely held out his hand again. 1 1 am Gert van Reenen, and I knew your father well,' he said. 'Wj fought side by side against the Galekas, in the early days on

the Frontier. And now ' — he smiled whimsically, and came to an expressive pause : presently adding, ' This world is a very strange place. Have you any tobacco V A dozen pouches were thrust forward ; he took the nearest and %n filling a pipe as deplorable as the rest of his outfit. The •»< stood about him, waiting for him to speak again ; but until the pipe was filled and lit he uttered no further word, though all the time his eyes did not cease to wander from faoe to face, from tent to tent, from the rocky slopes of the kopje to the mound at its foot. At last he said : ' I Bee that my son is not here — unless he lies yonder.' He nodded towards the grave, and smoked calmly, awaiting his answer. 'He cannot be there,' Luke hastened to say. *It is some comrades of ours only who are buried there. Will you off -saddle and drink a cup of coffee V But Ger+ van Reenen shook his head and gathered up his reins. ' I must find my son,' he said. 'Since the fight this morning we missed him. He ia young — scarcely turned 16 ; and hia mother was loth to let him come.' He was moving away, when a thought seemed to strike him and he turned a wistful face on Luke Carnaby. 'My boy is your first cousin,' he said. • I thought at first I would Dot tell yor:. I married your father's sister, Luke.' Luke stared, remembering the young aunt who had married a Dutch farmer, and gone away with him to live in the Orange Free State, nearly 20 years before ; soon after which event Luke's father died, and intercourse between the two families by degrees grew slighter, and at last ceased altogether. Luke had almost forgotten that he had an aunt or cousins, and he looked at his new-found uncle in something like dismay. ' Good-day,' said the old man, once more preparing to depart. Luke pulled himself together. ' But you are not going like that,' he cried, his hand on the bridle. ' Tell me more about my cousin, how he looks, and how you missed him. And get off and rest yourself ; you are hurt, mynheer.' Old Gert glanced down at his bandaged arm, and smiled. ' Hurt ? Yes,' he Baid. ' To-morrow, they say, my arm must come off ; but I will find nay son first. Yonder is your comrade who hit me ; I saw his face as he rode on. It was a good shot.' He looked across at Dickie, and nodded and smiled encouragingly : ' A very good shot,' he repeated. ' What is your son like ?' Luke asked again. ' Let me help you down.' ' Do you remember your aunt V the old man asked. ■ I was a child when ahe went away, but I think I do,' said Luke a little doubtfully. ' Then you will know Christian when you see him. No, I will not get down. Good-day to you all.' He shook Luke's hand again, and rode slowly away in the direction in which he had come, while they stood silently watching him out of sight. The ptars still shone in the sky the next morning, and Luke was rolled comfortably in his blanket, when a despatch-rider came into camp with a letter from a very great personage indeed. Drowsy Luke tore it open in a great hurry, to find that it authorised one Luke Carnaby, a lieutenant in the Border Guides, to organise a corps of not more than 100 men : himself to be in command thereof. Luke sprang to his feet with a beating heart ; and outside the tent 70 men awaited him. And that was how the Border Guides became known far and near in the Storinberg country as Carnaby's Scouts.

11.

In the days that followed, Captain Carnarby had small leisure to think of his own affairs. His little band of men crept slowly and steadily northward, feeling the way for the mighty army that followed them, living- a life of toil and privation and danger, for which, such 13 the nature of man, the hot excitement of their days more than atoned. One night the Fortune of War, against which no commisariat arrangements can be expected adequately |to provide, decreed that Oarnaby's Scouts should find themselves, tentless and foodies*, spending a miserable night in a kloof amongst the hills of the South -Eastern Free State. They had ridden through a burning day, and in the late afternoon there had arisen such a storm as only the Free State is capable of. A lightning flash had killed two horses, the drenching rain had soaked every man of them to his shivering skin, and converted the veldt into a kind of shallow lake and the track into a rushing rivulet. A fire could not have been allowed under any circumstances, even had other fuel been at hand than soaked brushwood and mimosa-scrub, And, to crown till their miseries, there was not a pipeful of tobacco between them. Carnaby's Scouts repaired up one side of the kloof to the highest and driest spot available, and aat about hugging their knees for comfort, and envying the horßes cropping their fill of the coarse veldt grass. They had, however, been in worse straits than this, and they wtre too tired to be kept awake by a little discomfort. So they crawled under rocks and slept like the dead ; and when, in the grey dawn, the noise of rifle shots awakened them, the general feeling was that to rouse one at such an hour from the eider-down of mud and pebbles and mimosa twigs showed a certain want of consideration on the part of the enemy. A scout come galloping into camp. As he topped the rise and his figure showed out for a moment against the saffron sky, his horse came to a sudden stop. Then horse and rider fell in a heap, from which presently the latter emerged and came running, glancing back nervously over his Bhoulder at every few yards. Other guards rolled in, and now the crack of the rifles was nearer and the bullets were whistling overhead. The grassy slope

was crowned by a rampart of rocks which formed a Bmall natural fortress, capable of affording some sort of protection to mea and *??•' f Dd here the little foroe took U P a Position. Dickie Smith and his friend, an American scout of renown, crouched side by side in their places, watching with strained eyes aa the light grew But there was nothing to be done : the enemy, except for a tew feeble Hashes here and there, was nowhere to be seen, and though some of the men blazed away with great energy, there is little satisfaction to be gained from wasting igood ammunition on rocks and brushwood, when all that you possess is in the belt on your shoulder, and the chance? cf a further eupply arc cxt-cme'y remote. 'Get clear before it is lighter,' said Luke Carnaby, and a man and horso slipped silently away to the rear. Another man followed on foot. Should the swift messenger for help fail the slower and less conspicuous one might fare more fortunately. The two vanished into the shadows, and at the same moment the rifle shots out yonder ceased as suddenly as they had bygun. The first shafts of sunlight turned the far mountains rosy, and bending lower, brought hill after hill out of obscurity : the misty shadows of the kloof were dispersing, its thousand innocent inhabitants furred and feathered, came forth to a morning world fragrant and dim with dew. But still the enemy made no sign, and Luke Carnaby, straining his eyes through his field-glasses, knew that the Bilenoe boded him no good. ' That Portuguese, Basto,' said Dickie. 'Eh ? ' ' Umph ! ' grunted his neighbor, who was a man of few words ' Queer thing, 1 said Dickie. ' That fight in the Storinberg, you remember. How did the Boers know our plans ? And now atrain Queer thing.' B ' Where's Basto now ?' asked the other. ' Went on patrol yesterday and hasn't come back. Dashed queer thing,' mused Dickie. 1 A pity,' said the American. His mouthed closed grimly, but he opened it again to say, ' I guess I'll know him again when I see him. 'And in the meantime,' Dickie added, 'he has set us up here to make a target for our friends opposite. Never knew Carnaby taken in like this before. Strikes me we are in a bit of a hole." He laid his rifie across his knees, and began fingering the sights ' Twelve hundred,' said the American, nodding at the opposite slope. Dickie fired at random into the maze of rocks and bristles, and Lake Carnaby looked round over his shoulder. ' Steady there with the ammunition,' he said quietly. It waa one of those moments which force a man to realise that, however clever he may be at his work, he is still only human The enemy, who he, Carnaby of Carnaby's Scouts, could at that moment have proved conclusively to be thirty miles away, was all about them, obviously well informed of their position and movements, and probably laughing in his nnwashed sleeve at their stupidity. Luke, raging behind a calm exterior, saw himself completely outwitted, bested at all points, by what agency he could not then stop to think. He chafed bitterly under the inaction which he knew waa the only possible course for him to pursue. He turned round to say something to his men. when all at once they were ducking and bending to avoid a sptut.erin j volley which was poured in on them from the other hide of the kloof. An answering volley echoed from their rear. The noise of the rifles went thundering along the hilte and waked them roughly from the repose of years. But the great blue mountains looked on gravely from afar, and took no part in the struggle of these men. blood-brothers as they were, fighting, they scarcely knew why, for a cause which which was no more to them than a name. The blue mountains had looked on other fights as meaningless perhaps, in the dead dark days of blood and savagery. The Boers dodged on foot about the rocky slope. When one of them showed for a moment, which was seldom, he was instantly the mark of a dozen rifles ; but for the most part the English reserved their fire, peeing, even without their leaders' »oinewhat emphatic hints on the subject, the futility of expending cartridges on an almost invisible enemy. Slowly but certainly the cordon grew closer. In the rear the Boers, under cover of a projecting spur, had drawn within a few hundred yards ; but here they did not 'command the English position, though they effectually cut off retreat. In front things were still more serious The Boers advanced with consummate skill, creeping from rock to rock and from bush to bnsh until they reached the bottom of the kloof. Here waa open ground for a space, and here the English concentrated a deperate fire ; but in vain. Boer after Boer rolled over ; a dozen figures lay on the narrow strip of grass ; but still others came on undaunted, and as fast as they reached cover they began to come up the hill. Again the fusilade stopped, and now the air was full of other Bounds. The groans of the wounded Boers lying below, the shriek of an injured horse elope behind him, Binote on Dickie's ear out of the sodden stillness. The horse was plunging about amongst the others, creating dire confusion, and it was necessary for someone to go and put an end to its sufferings with a bullet. Dickie arose from his crouching position smong the stones, and walked across to do so, and when he came back he remained on his feet looking eagerly down the hill, his tall young figure dark against the eky. ' Lie down ! ' cried the American in the gruffest of bass voices Hib hand closed like a vice upon Dickie's ankle, and in a moment that young gentleman was measuring his length upon the ground. 'You young f 00l t ' paid the American sternly. 'Go and make a target of yourself somewhere else if you must- not just alongside the finest scout in the Britißh Army ! ' Dickie jeered at him, and got on hia feet again as soon as possible, for something of considerable interest was going on below. A tall Boer had popped out from behind a rock quite close to them— bo that they could note diatinotly every detail of his rough and

ragged dress-and waa call.ng on them in bad English to surrender. He slipped back behind his shelter just in time to avoid the shower of bullets which, by way of reply, whistled indignantly about ' Not yet ! 'shouted Luke Carnaby, feeling in his pockets for revolver cartridges. Luke's face showed still that look of quiet self-possesHon which in the hour of danger gives a man power over his fellows ; but his deep-set eyes were blazing, and his heart was sick with the horrible passion for revenge which seizes the best of men when he has watched friends and comrades stricken down beside him. n W n^ e - B^ r pUt ° Ufc < w 8 again< 'X am aOTT y>' h <> «id in his own quaint tongue. 'Wo do not want to shoot any more of you.' He disappeared once more, and how or when he subsequently slipped away no one had leisure to notice ; for at that moment a deeper, more distant thunder broke through the intermittent crackle of the rifle fire, and away over a hill to southward, plain for all anxious eyes to see came a puff of Bmoke with a yellow flash in the heart of 'L^T^Lfr^Stil^ other and laughed - and a cheer iv, ' And **«''* al T l ri e°t,' said Luke's lieutenant, standing at hi 8 elbow. 'By Jove, I didn't think it possible that our expreS would get through He synod and emptied the last treasured drops from his water-bottle. Then he bent down to twist a blood-stained handkerchief tighter round his leg, just below the knee. ' Never would repeated) - he picked up hia rifle -* Luke glanced round to where five motionless figures lay side by side close behind him, their broad hats over their f£ces ; glanced behind these at the rough shelter of branches with which attempt had been made to protect a dozen wounded from the blazinjr sun. They will have to make haste,' he said ; and even as he spoke his paQlOn gave a httle Btart < a little S»*V, and rolled over at Luke looked at him once, and turned away, hia brain whirling as the horrible, feverish desire for revenge shook him again The enemy, willing enough before to play a waiting game/knew that they must soon be outnumbered and came pressing on They exposed themselves recklessly and gave Luke many opportunities • and three or more of them fell before he filled his magazine for ♦ im £' and u flun £ the empty bandolier aside He was still untouched, but that last effort on the part of the Boers scattered the dead and dying thick around him. There was no longer time to carry them to the rear : they lay where they fell, and the sight and sound of them kept their leader's passion at red heat TW« h V h v. e1 !? 1 * oa the nearer lights:" and those Boers who had guarded the rear began riding past down the hill, in full retreat. At this the fire from below ceased abruptly, and the°eSin enim 1 " 086 t0 **""* and Sent & <l aaveriQ & cheer after hill £?ll 7 hT,° 88 tl \f kl °£ f they Could Bfte the Bows limbing the hill to the hollow where they hart left their horses. A shell, burstnig noisily at the bottom of the kloof, hastened their movements. mSSSSi^S^k^ddSi 17 near the Scout8 * fillin * their 'I say,' shouted Dickio Smith, wild with excitement, to the Boera galloping past. 'I say, I wish you would go back and ask those chaps of ours to tike care what they're about. They're shelving the vXS. n ° anSWCr ** thiS reqUCBt < he b <* a * <*«*^ ' " Heft Burghers, liedcr," ' he chanted at the top of his voice. 5 y °^ n £- B ° er ' r ?g? g f° me distance b eh ind his retreating comrades, turned his head to look : and as he did bo his horse, struck by a riflebullet, dropped dead under him. Man and horse rolled over for 20 feet down the hill-side, and then lay stil! Luke, sparing a glance for them as his eyes swept the prospect, thought that the rider too wag killed : but after a few minutes the latter began with some difficulty to extricate himself irom his dead steed, and presently stood upright. His comrades had none of them observed hia mishap, and were lonpince out of sight. The English, busied with their wounded, took no heed of him: and presently, finding himself almost uninjured, he began to climb up towards the spot where he had fallen, and where his rifle still lay. He picked up the rifle and sat down on a atone, considering what to do next. Dickie, having done his share towards aiding the wounded, returned to his post near Luke. The two stood watching, as shell after shell burst on the hill from which the Boers had made their first advance The gunners had found the range now : their missiles dropped with pitiless accuracy, and men and horses fell to every The Dutch boy watched too. He saw his friends flyimr and falling as the shells burst amongst them, and his eyes narrowed and grew hard. He looked to see if his rifle had been injured by its fall. J * But nineteen-year-old Dickie felt his heart swell with triumph, bince daybreak he and his companions had held their own • for many hours, and at the cost of many lives, they had kept their position ; and now it was over aud the victory was to them. He Bprang on a rock and waved his grimy old hat round his head, and shouted at the full pitch of his voice, ' God Save the Queen 1 ' At 50 yards it was an easy shot. Dickie dropped like a itone. The smile was still on his face as he lay, but his eyes, turned on Luke, widened piteously. ' God Save the Queen 1 ' said Dickie again • and died. The Dutch boy crouched low, clutching his rifle. He saw Luke s face for a moment, white and terrible, with blazing eyes— the face of an avenger. But the long kloof grasses closed softly over his nead as he fell, and it was with tenderer thoughts, of tragrant earth and blue-eyed lobolia blossoms, and of a purple butterfly that fluttered for a moment above him. that hia childish life ebbed away. *

And now the hills echoed to the clatter of horses' hoofs, the rattle of wheels, the hoarse shouting of orders. A squadron of Lancers thundered past, and following these a long line of Ambulance waggons appeared below, and the men came racing up the slope with their Field Hospital apparatus. Presently Luke found himself under orders to lead his men to the rear. So Camaby'a Scouts were mustered, and Luke sat his tall chestnut in front of them and looked at them with a countenance void of expression. More than one man came to him and shook his hand, with murmura uf an uufuitunatc mistake,' and 'a gallant stand ' : but he scarcely saw or heard them. He looked at the remnant of his men, drooping wearily in Llieir saddles ; at the bu a y Field Hospital, the stretcher-bearers ranging hero and there over the field, the thousand evidences of distress and pain which were thick abous him. From over the brow of the hill came sounds of strife ; a wounded horse in the kloof shrieked humanly ; up in the blue sky innumerable vultures hung, waiting. ♦My God ! ' said Luke to himself, ' What is it all for ?' He turned his horse, and slowly led his men away. In their oblique passage down the hill, they passed the Bpot where the Dutch boy was lying. Luke in passing bent from his saddle to look at him. The boy lay on his back, pressing down the fragrant sun-warmed grasses. His eyes looked straight up into Luke's. The old Boer was right. Luke Carnaby knew his young cousin, Christian van Reenan, as soon as he 83W him. — Exchange.