Part 9

"Now, Mr Intelligence, I don't want you here any more. You have got to find out something about this road. I shall expect you to know all about those farms by this evening. So get along with your robbers. You can call yourself an egg-and-milk patrol, if you like. I should like some eggs for breakfast. Unless we strike Burghers, I halt at the first convenient water after eleven--from eleven until two. Go and find that water, and don't get shot."

Back again to the front. By throwing a circle the main body is avoided, and ten minutes' canter brings you to the advance-guard. To the brain of the advance-guard would have been perhaps a more truthful statement, for the subaltern commanding the leading troop is riding alone along the post-cart road. His men are but dots strung out on either flank like buoys in the Hoogly. The subaltern himself is full of importance, grievances, and map-study.

Subaltern. "Why haven't you given me a guide?"

Intelligence Officer. "There is only one road, and that is as clear as a pikestaff."

Sub. "It is the principle that I go on."

I. O. "Well, continue to go on it. You are doing all right."

Sub. "That is not the point. I ought to have a guide and an interpreter. This is not the only road in the whole bally country, I presume?"

I. O. "Well, here we are. There are five of us. You only have to command us. That's what we are here for."

The subaltern with evident disapproval took stock of the Intelligence officer and his following--the Tiger and three nondescript black boys.

Sub. "Have you been here before?"

I. O. "Never."

Sub. "Have your boys?"

I. O. "I cannot say. They speak no known language!"

Sub. "Great Heavens! I call it murder to send us out like this."

A dragoon sergeant galloped in from the right flank.

Sergeant (in great state of excitement). "Please, sir, mounted men have just crossed our front."

Sub. "Which way?--how many were there?"

Sergeant. "About five thousand, sir!"

Sub. "Great Caesar's ghost! Five thousand!--did you count them, sergeant?"

Sergeant. "No, sir; nobody saw them, sir: it was only their tracks. There are so many they are all over the place, so I think that there must be about four or five thousand!"

I. O. "I'll send my men to look at them!"

Sub. "Yes, do. I'll go too; but I will first send a note back to the column."

I. O. "I wouldn't do that yet. It may only be a herd of springbok!"

The subaltern did not disguise his look of scorn at this reflection. But John the Kaffir, with the aid of the Tiger, announced that the tracks in question had been made on the previous day by Major Twine's squadron--perhaps eighty strong. So much for circumstantial evidence. But this is nothing. It is not fair to judge new troops on their first day on the veldt. If that sergeant is alive to-day, you might stake such credit at the bank as you possess that he would not only give you the correct number to within five of the group which made the spoor, but would also give a fair description of the nature of the party and the pace at which they had travelled. Such is experience.

At eleven o'clock, except that the ridge of hill had been left behind, it seemed that no impression had been made upon the great waste of Karoo in front of us. But the road led down into a pretty little glen, formed by the shelving banks of a tiny river. In the early days some wandering Voortrekker had chanced upon the fascinating spot, had marked down the crystal stream and fertile grazing. Here he had out-spanned his team, drawn fine with days of trekking, and his bivouac had grown into a permanent abode. Here he had lived and died, and no doubt his great-grandchild now owned the pretty little homestead where the column was to make its midday halt. All Dutch homesteads are the same, yet there are not two alike, which is a paradox in which every one who has trekked across the veldt will agree. There are the same kraals and cattle-runs. The home plantation surrounded with stone walls. The same outhouses and forage-lofts. The artesian well, with its fluttering windmill. The dam with dirty water, the little low-roofed dumpy dwelling, washed white, half-swing doors, low stoep, and trellis front. It is in their topographical surroundings only that they differ. The one will stand bleak and exposed upon a dreary plain, the other will nestle coyly behind a grove of pointed gum-trees in some kloof or gully. Chance and nature alone decide if in structure and setting they please the eye. Man is indifferent. A house is to shield him from the elements, not to improve the landscape or impress the passer-by.

Although the Intelligence officer knew little about the science of his new office, yet he had common-sense, which is a soldier's most valuable attribute, and he knew better after eighteen months of war than to ride haphazard into a farm-house, even though the farm-house was in Cape Colony. He borrowed two men from the advance-guard, and, with the aid of the Tiger and his boys, reconnoitred the environs before he sent back to the general to tell him that he had found an ideal spot for the midday halt. Then as the advance-guard occupied the nearest eminences, he handed his horse over to one of the boys and walked up to the stoep of the farm-house. The farmer and his frau stood on the verandah to welcome him, and, as is their wont, their family of girls of all ages crowded in the open door behind their parents to gain a view of the Kharkis. Just as the inevitable hand-shake had taken place, up cantered the Tiger.

"Here we are, sir. These are the kind of people we have to deal with," and he produced two gaudily framed pictures--President Kruger and President Steyn. "Our worthy host made a miscalculation this morning, for I found a Kaffir girl hiding these in the bushes."

"What do you mean?"