Having relieved him of his rifle and bandolier, the Boers led Yorke with them along the road until they had passed the kopje, and then turned off to the left and took him to where several fires were burning at the back of the hill. A strong party of Boers were sitting round, some smoking, others eating their supper. "Whom have you got there, le Clus?" enquired one of them with a white cockade in his hat.
"He says that he is a British officer, mynheer. He was coming along the road when he tumbled over our wire, and we had him in a moment."
"He was walking along the road, was he?"
"Yes."
"Then he hardly can have been sent to spy out our position and strength," the man said. "If he had been, he would not have kept to the road. Why, he is quite a boy!"
"He says he is not a spy, mynheer, but has been sent out to carry a message to the British on the Modder. He claims to be in uniform, and so to be treated as a prisoner of war."
[Pg 171]
supper
A STRONG PARTY OF BOERS WERE SITTING ROUND. SOME SMOKING, OTHERS EATING THEIR SUPPER.
The conversation had been in Dutch, and the field cornet then said in English to the prisoner, "Have you any papers about you?"
"I have only this little scrap," Yorke said. "It is written in a cipher, and I suppose the English general will understand. It is only a lot of figures."
The Boer opened it and held it so that the light of the fires would fall upon it. "3104, 8660, 241. It is like that all the way down. Do you understand the cipher?" he asked.
"As it is a military cipher, it is only the generals who would know it. These things are kept very secret, and no cipher would be told to a young officer like myself."
"Why should they choose you to carry it?"
"I can only suppose," Yorke said with a smile, "because they thought that I could be better spared than older officers. Besides, I am a good runner, and would bet that if I had twenty yards start none of your men would overtake me."
"Perhaps not, my lad, but a rifle bullet would travel faster than you."
There was a laugh among the Boers standing round, which was what Yorke had aimed at, knowing the importance of keeping them in good temper.
"Well, in the morning I shall send you on to Boshof," the field cornet said. "I do not know anything of the usages of war, and whether your uniform will save your skin or not; I will leave it to others to settle. But you must be a bold young fellow to have undertaken such a job, for it is ridiculous to suppose that you could get through in that uniform, and you would probably be shot by the first of our men you met without his stopping to ask any questions. Will you give me your word that you will not try to escape to-night? If so, I will not tie you up."
Two or three of the men grumbled. "I know these English officers," he said, "and am willing to take his word. Still, to prevent any risks, two of you must take it by turns to watch him."
[Pg 172]
Yorke looked indifferent till he spoke to him in English, and then said, "I will give you my word of honour, sir, not to attempt to escape to-night, but I don't say that if I can get a chance afterwards I won't do so."
"That is all right. I don't think you will get a chance. At any rate, I accept your word that you will remain here quietly all night."
So saying, he reseated himself by the fire and began to puff at his pipe. Yorke thought it would be best to imitate his example. He had, when at the farm, taken to smoking occasionally; he did it in self-defence, for sometimes, when there were several Dutch visitors, the room was so full of smoke that he could scarcely breathe in it. He therefore took out his pipe, filled and lit it, and sat quietly down near the field cornet. He then took from his pocket a flask, which had been filled for him at the mess with whiskey, and handed it to the cornet. The Boer's eyes twinkled, and he took a long draught of it.
"That is good stuff," he said, "a good deal better than they sell us at your stores."
"Please pass it round, cornet. I am afraid it won't go very far, but you are heartily welcome to it. I don't drink it myself, but I generally carry it in case I should get hurt anyhow, or sprain my ankle among your rocks. I may as well hand you this pistol too," Yorke said—it had been unnoticed in the dark by the men who had taken his rifle—"it is certain that your people will not let me keep it, and you may as well have it as another; but I do not suppose your cartridges will fit it." He had dropped his own on the way.
"As you say, I may as well have it as another," the field cornet said taking it. "Besides, it might go off by the way, and it is well to avoid the possibility of accidents. Now, as you have given me your word of honour that you will not try to escape to-night, will you assure me, on your word of[Pg 173] honour, that you have not come out to gather information—in fact, that you are not a spy?"
"Willingly, sir. I give you my word of honour that I am not sent out on any such mission. I was simply told to make my way to the Modder, and, so far from trying to make out your arrangements, my great object was to try to avoid coming near any of you."
"What he says is true, I am certain," the Boer said in Dutch to his companions. "I am sure by his face that he is not lying. It is a shame to have sent a lad like this on such an errand. However, I will send a strong letter with him in the morning to the commandant at Boshof, and assure him that there is no question whatever that this young officer's story is true, and that he is entitled to be treated as a prisoner of war. We have not gone into this fight in order to kill as many Englishmen as possible, but because we want to help our friends of the Transvaal to keep their independence; and I for one hope that there will be no more bloodshed than necessary. Young fellows like this simply do what they are ordered, just as we do.
"Of course we both do our best when we are fighting. Certainly we have no ground for animosity against England; she has always kept her engagements with us, and we have been just as independent as if there were no one in South Africa but ourselves. We have always been good friends with the English who live among us. Once it comes to killing spies they could kill a hundred of our men to every one we could kill. We know everything that passes in Natal or Cape Colony from our friends there, and it is only natural that they should want to know what is passing among us. If we shoot a man on the ground that he is a spy, they may shoot hundreds of Dutch, who are sending us news from among them. We have not heard of their shooting one; and I say if we find an Englishman doing what so many of our men are doing let us stop his work by imprisoning[Pg 174] him until the war is over. If the Transvaalers like to act differently we cannot help it. They hate the English. Why, I don't know, for they have all got rich at their expense. Still, they do hate them.
"Before this began I was as good friends with my English neighbours as I was with my own people, and I see no reason for any change. They are not fighting us; it is we who are fighting them. I don't say that Steyn was wrong in joining our kinsmen across the Vaal; that is his business and that of the men we elected. Anyhow, we are bound by them; we and the Rooineks have got to shoot each other till one of us gives in. I am sure we shall all do our best to win. We have shown them that we can fight, and they have shown us that they can fight; but when it comes to shooting in cold blood I will have nothing to do with it. In the first place, because I call it murder; and in the second, because where the English have got one man sending them information from our side, we have got a thousand doing the same from theirs. We should be fools indeed if we were to set an example and take one life, for our action might entail the shooting of all our friends in the colonies."
"There is a good deal in what you say, mynheer," one of the others agreed, "and I am sure you are right. For my part, when I see our shell bursting in there, I often say to myself, 'It is the women and children that are suffering from this.' Let us fire at their forts—though I don't see that that does much good—but leave the peaceful people alone; they won't give in because a few hundred women are killed. It does not seem as if we should take the town by force. At any rate, we have made no attempt to do so at present, and are not likely to. We shall starve them into surrender, and might just as well leave them alone till they have eaten their last crust. For my part, I think we ought to have made a rush and finished the business directly we got here. We should have lost a good many men, but that would have been the end of it. The end will come just the same, but we shall[Pg 175] have killed many women and children and some soldiers, and we shall have lost in the long run as many as we should have done if we had attacked the place before they had time to build their forts and prepare for us."
"I don't see the use of keeping up this fire myself, Isaak," the field cornet said; "but again, that is not my business, my orders are to hold this kopje, and I mean to do so. My heart aches whenever I see a shell burst in the middle of the town, but our commandant has got to account for that, not I. It is time now for the men on the hill to be relieved, and let the next two to go on guard duty get their rifles, and keep watch over this lad. I have no fear of his trying to escape; but you say he had another with him, for all that we know there may have been three or four, and they may try to crawl in and get him off."
The idea that Peter might attempt this had already occurred to Yorke, and he sincerely hoped that the Kaffir would not do so. One of the men brought an armful of straw and put it down for him between two rocks. Here he lay down. The two men told off sat themselves on the ground in front of him after lighting their pipes, and in a short time all was quiet. Yorke soon went off to sleep. In the middle of the night he was startled by one of his guards leaping to his feet and shouting "Who's there?"
"What is it, Jans?" the other said.
"I heard the rattle of a stone over there on the right;" and he again challenged.
No answer came.
"It was only a hare," the other grumbled. "Don't fire, Jans, whatever you do. We shall be rousing everybody, and a nice temper they would be in with you for disturbing them."
"I don't believe it was a hare," the other said. "It sounded like a rock that had shifted its place when someone trod on it. It was too big a stone to move with the weight of a hare. Well, if I hear anything else I will send a bullet[Pg 176] in that direction, whether it wakes the camp or not. You heard what the field cornet said. Someone may be trying to get in to help this lad to escape."
Yorke lay awake for some time, and then, as everything remained quiet, he went off to sleep again. In the morning he breakfasted with the field cornet, and had a bowl of cocoa and milk, with bread broken into it.
"Now," the latter said when he had finished, "I must send you on to Boshof. If I could have my own way, lad, I would send you back into the town, and you could tell them there that we are keeping a sharp look-out, and that it is of no use any one trying to get through. But I can't do that; I must send you off to Boshof. Four of my men have to go there to buy provisions, and they will look after you. I have written a letter to the commandant, and hope that he will treat you well. They won't be starting until this afternoon, as they will sleep there and come back in the morning. Of course they will ride, and you can have one of my ponies. Mind," he went on with a smile, "it will be the slowest of the lot I have, for your promise not to escape expired this morning. The four men will all be on better ponies than yours, so it will be of no use your trying to get off."
"I sha'n't try," Yorke laughed; "even if they could not overtake me, they could shoot my pony. I don't want to be made a target for four of your rifles. My chance has not arrived yet. When it does, I shall take it."
At three o'clock the party started, the field cornet shaking hands warmly with Yorke, and saying as he mounted: "I am sorry we caught you, lad. You could have done us no harm if you had got round to your people at the Modder. Though, perhaps, you are lucky in not being able to get farther, for you might fall into the hands of the Transvaalers, and, although they are our friends, I must acknowledge that they are a pretty rough lot."
"I am very much obliged to you for your kindness, for[Pg 177] you have treated me as well as our men would have treated you if you had fallen into their hands."
A minute later he was riding along the road with two of the Boers on each side of him. The distance was some five-and-twenty miles, and, sometimes walking, sometimes cantering, they reached the town between six and seven. Yorke had chatted cheerfully to one of his guards, who spoke English, feeling apparently but little anxiety as to his position.
"Where do you suppose they will send me?" he asked.
"The orders are to send all prisoners to Pretoria; but most likely, in the first place, they will send you to Bloemfontein, and from there you can be taken up by rail. All the prisoners taken in Natal are sent up that way—not, of course, through Bloemfontein, but by the line through Standerton. I don't suppose you will be there very long, for, of course, as soon as we have driven all your soldiers out of the country, we shall send the prisoners after them."
"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched," Yorke laughed. "The war has been going on two months, and you have not done much towards it yet."
"No," one of the guard admitted, "but we have killed thousands and thousands of your troops in Natal, and we shall finish with those on the Modder directly they advance again. All our people in Cape Colony are only waiting for orders, when they will rise to a man. We are expecting every day to hear that Ladysmith has fallen. Then Joubert will drive your people to take to their ships at Durban. We shall leave enough men here to starve your garrison, and shall then march to Cape Town with the Transvaalers. We don't expect any fighting on the way, because our people will have risen and captured the place long before we arrive there."
"It all sounds easy enough, doesn't it? But at present you see, you have not taken Ladysmith; you have not defeated Buller's army; you have not starved Kimberley; you have[Pg 178] not even taken Mafeking; and the Dutch in Cape Colony have not risen. When all these things have happened, you may find it clear sailing. But you must remember that, although you were all prepared for war, Britain was not. At present we have not more than fifty thousand men here, and you have found it difficult to deal with them. She could send, and will send, if necessary, five hundred thousand more."
"That would be a big lot," the Boer said doubtfully; "but with the Dutch in Cape Colony we should not be afraid of them."
"Well, you have seen that they can fight, anyhow," Yorke said. "You have the advantage in all being mounted, and in the nature of the country; that is all in your favour while we are attacking you, but it would be in our favour were you attacking us. Besides, I don't see what you men of the Free State have to do with it. If we were driven out, and you had a republic, Kruger would be president, and the Transvaal the master. You were a great deal better off as you were. You know, everyone knows, how hard their government is. Kruger and his people would keep all the riches for themselves. Do you think that you would get a higher price for your cattle, and would be in any way better off for the change?
"I think that you would not; there would be monopolies of everything, as in the Transvaal. You would have to pay twice as much for the goods you wanted to buy as you do now. Perhaps you do not know the story of the monkey who took a cat and made it pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him. Well, I think that if you drive us out of South Africa, you will find that the Transvaal would be the monkey, and the Free State the cat. If we win, which is possible, unlikely as it seems to you, you will certainly lose your independence, for, without a shadow of cause of complaint, you have wantonly taken up arms against us. You will have lost a great number of lives, and be worse off than[Pg 179] you were at the beginning, though nothing like so badly off as if you had been under Kruger. You know very well that under our rule the Dutch in Cape Colony have nothing to complain of. The government are Dutch, the Dutch have as free a voice as the English in electing their assembly and making their own laws; and we may be sure that were the Free State annexed, you would, after a time, be as free as are the Dutch in our colony."
"It is a bad business," one of the men said. "I wish Steyn and Reitz had been anywhere before they dragged us into it. However, now we are in it, we have got to go through with it, but I can tell you a good many of us would not have come out on commando but that we had to choose between doing so and being shot. Well, I hope that it will soon be over one way or other, and that I can get back to my farm."
"Who is commandant at Boshof? Is he a Transvaaler or a Free Stater?"
"One of our people. He is a good man, and is a brother-in-law of our field cornet. Most of us are Free State men about here. Many of those round Kimberley, and two-thirds of those at Spytfontein, are Transvaalers, but the main part of their force is in Natal."
Then the subject of the conversation was changed. The Boers asked many questions about Britain, showing astounding ignorance of its distance from the Cape, and the population.
"But Russia, Germany and France are all going to invade Britain," the Boer said, "and I hear that they are going to divide it between them; so what you say about so many troops coming over here is all nonsense."
Yorke laughed. "There is no more chance of those three countries combining against us than there is of their flying; but if they did, we should not be afraid of them."
"Why, I hear that they have all got very much bigger armies than you have."
[Pg 180]
"That is true enough; but our navy is larger than all theirs put together, and they would have to thrash that before they could do anything."
"Why couldn't they march their armies into England and leave your fleet alone?"
"Because Britain is an island, and there are more than twenty miles between it and the nearest point of France; so that as long as our fleet is master of the sea, they can do nothing. Even if they did beat our fleet, they would have to get ships to cross in. It requires a tremendous number of ships to carry a big army with horses, artillery, and stores. All the ships of France collected at one spot could not carry an army across capable of beating ours. Russia has practically no ships at all, so her troops could do nothing; and at the worst, although Germany could send more men over than France, there is no need to fear her, for she would never join France and Russia against us. She is not good friends with France, and not very good friends with Russia; and if Br............