and a Royal Artillery battery of seven-pounder guns, as well as the new continuous-firing Gatling guns mounted on limber wheels.
It was the rifles that would stop an attacking formation by a wall of timed-volleys. Even at five or six hundred yards, the aimed and coordinated fire of trained infantry using the Martini-Henry would be lethal to any assault.
Durnford’s horsemen were moving leisurely towards the eastern foothills. Now it was the senior man of the Natal Volunteers, Boss Strickland, who grinned and elbowed his way through a cheering mob of his men about the guard-tents. Their clothes were shabby by contrast with the spotless white-and-scarlet of the British regiments, but their self-confidence was at a peak.
The hunter moved aside and remained in earshot by unobtrusive attendance to his tethered mount. He could hear easily enough the loud argument that developed as Strickland entered the colonel’s tent. Pulleine had come to defend Natal, but Strickland and his friends had followed him for booty. These mercenaries were anxious to be off the leash and into the villages. Strickland’s tone was half a drawl and half a sneer. Pulleine’s reply was breathless with exasperation.
“Once and for all, Mr. Strickland! This camp is to be held securely until Lord Chelmsford returns. Then you may seek his leave to do as you please. Those are my orders—and your orders.”
“Supposing his lordship ain’t back this side of dark?”
“He will be.”
“Supposin’ he ain’t?”
Pulleine made no reply.
“All right.” Strickland had moved so that he was now almost blocking the tent-opening with his bulk. “Then supposing I was just to ride my men out. Shoot us in the back, would you?”
Pulleine swung round.
“I’ll do better than that, Mr. Strickland. I’ll court-martial you!”
Strickland laughed as if it was the best thing he had heard in months.
“No, you won’t, Pulleine. Not me. I ain’t one of your regimental flunkeys. Court-martial me? If you was to do that, my friend, you wouldn’t get back over the Buffalo River alive. There’s fifty men ’d see to that.”
Strickland showed the manner which had served him so well in the Durban markets and the diamond mining settlements of the Transvaal.
“I’ll tell you what though, Colonel. I’ll go half way with you. We’ll take a patrol along the north plateau presently. No further. From there, we can survey the front of the Conical Kopje and see the back of it. We’ll sit quietly there until Lord Chelmsford comes back safe. After that, we’ll press on. Not before.”
Pulleine hesitated, but Strickland gave him no respite.
“Give our fellows a square deal, Pulleine, or I shan’t be answerable for ’em. I daresay this stolen regimental mascot nonsense is up to one of them. I’ll give you that. But let them alone and there’s enough in a quick swoop to keep them happy for a month or two.”
Pulleine hesitated. Long years of military command had accustomed him to deference and dignity. Men of Strickland’s cut were beyond him. How far did his authority extend over this civilian riff-raff?
“Very well, Mr. Strickland. The northern plateau and no further. You will take the heliograph. You will respond to all signals flashed from this camp. In the event of a recall being sounded, you will return at once.”
Strickland pushed aside the tent flap, still grinning. Presently the bearded mercenaries of Pulleine’s Lambs rode two by two towards the north plateau, escorted by Captain Shepstone of Durnford’s mounted detail. They passed the forward line and a red-coated picket of the 24th Foot, commanded by Lieutenant Pope. Presently they caught up with a mounted vedette of the Natal Cavalry on the eastern slope.
Heat had stunned the plain into silence and stillness. At the western end of the camp, under the great rock itself, the lines between the tents were now almost deserted. Far out across the plain, the pickets and vedettes of the forward posts wilted in the glare. The rocket-battery with its trough-like launchers was almost level with the Conical Kopje as it approached the camp. On the eastern hills and the Malagata range to the south, there was still no sign of Lord Chelmsford’s column.
The mercenary riders of the Natal Volunteers had begun to pick their way leisurely through the fierce light that shone back from pale stone ridges. They were across the dry and broken course of the river donga, its boulders scattered along the plain from north to south.
Presently they were far enough forward to look down on the approaches to the Kopje. As they dismounted to wait for Chelmsford’s return, it