CHAPTER XVII.
WITH THE SECOND DIVISION.
Meanwhile the events of the war were treading thick on each other in Zululand. A fresh disaster had ensued at the Intombe river, where a detachment of the 80th Regiment was cut to pieces, and again old soldiers spoke with sorrow and disgust of the blunders and incapacity of those at head-quarters, who by their newfangled systems had reduced our once grand army to chaos.
Such alarms and surprises, like too many of the disasters and disgraces which befell our arms in these latter wars, were entirely due to the new formation of our battalions. 'That the destruction of the regimental system by Lord Cardwell has been the original cause of all our reverses, surprises, and humiliation, there can be little hesitation in saying,' to quote Major Ashe. 'The men at Isandhlwana were not well handled, it must be admitted, but it has since leaked out that many of them would not rally round their officers, but attempted safety in flight. Dozens of the men, sergeants, and other non-commissioned officers, have since disclosed that they did not know the names of their company officers, or those of their right or left hand men.'
Hence, by the newfangled system, there could be neither confidence nor cohesion. Elsewhere he tells us that the once-splendid 91st Highlanders, 'the envy of all recruiting sergeants, could only muster 200 men when ordered to Zululand,' but was made up by volunteers from other regiments—men all strangers to each other and to their officers, and whose facings were all the colours of the rainbow. Then, after the Intombe, followed the storming of the Inhlobane Mountain, where fell the gallant Colonel Weatherley, and the no less gallant old frontier farmer Pict Nys, who was last seen fighting to his final gasp against a horde of Zulus, across the dead body of his favourite horse, an empty revolver in his left hand, a blood-dripping sabre in his right, and more than one assegai, launched from a distance, quivering in his body.
The cry went to Britain now for more troops; and fresh reinforcements came, while the army in Zululand was reconstituted by Lord Chelmsford at Durban.
There, amid a brilliant staff in their new uniforms fresh from home, was one central figure, the ill-starred Prince Imperial of France, who had landed two days after the battle of Kambula, and had been appointed an extra aide-de-camp to the general commanding.
The army was now formed into two divisions: one under Major-General Crealock, C.B., and another under Major-General Newdigate, while a flying column under Sir Evelyn Wood was to act independently. Hammersley's squadron of Mounted Infantry was attached to the Second Division, with the movements of which our story has necessarily alone to do.
The 16th of April saw it marching northward of Natal, and on the 4th of May Lord Chelmsford, who had joined it after church parade—for the day was Sunday—suggested that a reconnaissance should be made towards the Valley of the Umvolosi River to select ground for an entrenched camp, and for this purpose Hammersley's squadron and Buller's Horse were ordered to the front.
The local troopers under that brilliant officer were now clad in a uniform manner—in brown cord breeches, mimosa-coloured jackets, long gaiters laced to the knee, and broad cavalier hats, with long scarlet or blue puggarees. The open collars of their flannel shirts displayed their bronzed necks; and picturesque-looking fellows they were, all armed with sabres and rifles of various patterns, slung across the back by a broad leather sling. Their horses were rough but serviceable, and active as mountain deer.
After riding some miles over grassy plateaux and rugged hilly ground, tufted with cabbage-tree wood, on a bright and pleasant morning, the local Horse were signalled to retire, as it was discovered that a great body of Zulus were watching their movements.
Unaware of this, Hammersley, with his Mounted Infantry, rode on for three miles, till they reached a great plateau near a place called Zungen Nek, where the pathway, if such it could be styled, was bordered by mimosa thorns, and where two bullets mysteriously fired—no one could tell from where, for no enemy was to be seen—whistled through the little squadron harmlessly, though both were as close to Florian as they could pass without hitting him, and one made Tattoo toss his head and lay his quivering little ears angrily back on his neck.
At this time some officers who had cantered to the front from where the division was halted, saw the dark figures of many of the enemy creeping along in the jungle, and watching them so intently that they were all unaware of their retreat being cut off by twenty of the Mounted Infantry under a sergeant—Florian.
'Forward, and at them!' cried the latter, as his men slung their rifles and galloped in loose formation, sabre in hand, to attack the savages, but suddenly found themselves on the edge of some precipitous cliffs, some three hundred feet in height, which compelled them for a moment or two to rein up till a narrow track was found, down which they descended in single file in a scrambling way, the hoofs of the rear horses throwing sand, gravel, and stones over those in front.
When the sounds made by the descent ceased, and the soldiers gained a turfy plateau, nothing could be seen of the foe, and all was silence—a silence that could be felt, like the darkness that rested on the land of Egypt. Then there burst forth a united yell that seemed to rend the welkin, and a vast horde of black-skinned Zulus, led by Methagazulu (the son of Sirayo), who had recovered from the wound he received at Ginghilovo, came rushing on, brandishing their assegais and rifles.
This ambuscade was more than Florian anticipated, and believing that all was lost, and that he and his party would be utterly cut off to a man, he gave the order to retire on the spur, and they splashed, girdle deep, through a ford of the Umvolosi, on which, as if by the guidance of Heaven, they chanced to hit.
With yells of baffled rage the savages followed them so closely that Florian and another trooper named Tom Tyrrell, who covered the rear, had to face about and fire by turns, till the open ground on the other side was reached.
'A close shave that business,' said Tom breathlessly. 'I thought that in three minutes' time every man Jack of us would have been assegaied.'
Galloping out of range, Florian's party now rejoined that of Hammersley, who congratulated them on their escape, and they all rode together back to head-quarters. But these movements had alarmed the whole valley of the White Umvolosi.
On every hand, in quick succession, signal fires, formed of vast heaps of dried grass, blazed on the hill-tops; vast columns of black smoke shot upwards to the bright blue sky, and were repeated from summit to summit, showing that the whole country was actively alive with armed warriors, who in many places could be seen driving and goading their herds of cattle into rocky kloofs and all kinds of places inaccessible to horse and foot alike.
From the summit of the Zungen Nek a full view of the beautiful valley through which the Umvolosi rolls could be obtained, and near a place there, called Conference Hill, were seen, like a field of snow, the white tents of the Second Division shining in the bright, sunny light.
Twenty-three days it remained encamped there, and during that time a vast amount of useful information regarding the topography of the country in which the coming campaign would be, was furnished by the reports and sketches made by Colonel Buller, the Prince Imperial, by Hammersley, and even by Florian, who was a very clever draughtsman, and on many occasions was complimented by the staff in such terms as made his young heart swell in his breast.
But the sketches of none surpassed those of the handsome and unfortunate Prince, whose passion for information was boundless, and the questions he was wont to ask of all were searching in the extreme.
One day, when out on a reconnaisance, the Mounted Infantry were suddenly fired upon from a kraal, and in the conflict that ensued many were killed and wounded, especially of the enemy, who were completely routed.
The great and unfathomable mystery of death was close indeed to Florian on that day, and around him lay hundreds who had discovered it within an hour or less. He had narrowly escaped it by skilfully dodging a ponderous knobkerie flung at his head as the last dying effort of a warrior whose black and naked breast had been pierced by a bullet from Tom Tyrrell's rifle, and from which the crimson blood was welling as if from a squirt; and so close was the weapon to doing Florian a mortal mischief that it took the gilt spike close off the top of his helmet.
And now, on the very evening before the division broke up its camp and marched, occurred an event which proved to Florian, and to his favourite captain too, the chief one of the campaign.
How little those who live at home at ease can know of the delight it gives an exile to have tidings, by letter or otherwise, from those who are dear to them in the old country when far, far away from it! No matter how short the sentences, how few the facts, or how clumsy the expressions, they all seem to show that we are not forgotten by the old fireside; for even amid the keen and fierce excitement of war the soldier has often time for much thought of friends and home, especially in the lonely watches of the night, and a pang goes to his heart with the fear that, as he is absent, he may be forgotten.
Florian had often envied the delight with which his comrades, Tom Tyrrell or poor Bob Edgehill, who perished at Isandhlwana, and others received letters from distant friends and relatives; but month after month had passed, and none ever came to him, nor did he expect any.
In all the world there was no one to think of him save Dulcie Carlyon. How he longed to write to her, but knew not where she was.
At last there came an evening—he never forgot it—when the sergeant who acted as regimental postman brought him a letter—a letter addressed to himself, and in the handwriting of Dulcie!
His fingers trembled as he carefully but hastily cut open the envelope. It was dated from Craigengowan, a place of which he scarcely knew the name, but thought he had heard it mentioned by Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw on the eventful day when he and Shafto visited that gentleman at his office.
After many prettily expressed protestations of regard for himself—every word of which stirred his heart deeply—of joy that he was winning distinction, and of fear for the awful risks he ran in war, she informed him that the situation obtained for her had been that of companion to Lady Fettercairn, 'and who do you think I found installed here as master of the whole situation, as heir to the title and a truly magnificent property—Shafto! Perhaps I am wrong to tell you, lest it may worry you, but he has resumed his persecution of me. He often taunts me about you, and fills me with terror lest he may do me a mischief with Lady Fettercairn, as he has already contrived to do with his cousin, Miss Finella (a dear darling girl) and Captain Hammersley, the officer whose life you so bravely saved at Ginghilovo, and who, I now learn, is in your regiment. It was an infamous trick, but it succeeded in separating them and nearly breaking Finella's heart.'
The letter then proceeded to detail how Finella, to her extreme dismay and discomfiture, had dropped Hammersley's pencilled note; how Shafto had found it, and intercepted her in the shrubbery on her way to the place of rendezvous, and would only restore it on receiving, as a bribe, a cousinly kiss, which she was compelled to accord, when he rudely seized her and snatched several before she could repulse him; how Hammersley had passed at that fatal moment, and misconceived the whole situation, since when, language could not express the loathing Finella had of Shafto. That was the whole affair.
'You know Shafto and all of which he is capable,' continued Dulcie; 'so poor Finella is heartbroken in contemplating the horrid view her lover must take of her, but is without the means of explaining it away, nor will her great pride permit her to do so.'
Dulcie under the same roof with Shafto, and apparently the bosom friend of Hammersley's love! Florian had now a clue to some of the bitter remarks that, in moments of unintentional confidence, his superior had uttered from time to time.
That Shafto and Dulcie were in such close proximity to each other—meeting daily and hourly—filled Florian's mind with no small anxiety. He had no doubt of Dulcie's faith, trust, and purity; but neither had he any doubt of Shafto's subtle character and the mischief of which he was capable, and which he might work the helpless and unfortunate girl if he pursued, as she admitted he did, the odious and unwelcome love-making he had begun at Revelstoke.
As he read and re-read her letter in that hot, burning, and far-away land, how vividly every expression of her perfect face, every inflection of her soft and sympathetic voice, came back to memory, till his heart swelled and his eyes grew dim. How self-possessed she was, with all her gentleness; how self-reliant, with all her timidity.
'Should I show this letter to Hammersley?' thought Florian. 'The communication in it must concern him very closely—very dearly, and my darling, impulsive little Dulcie has evidently written it with a purpose.'
Then Florian remembered that though suave and condescendingly kind to him, especially since the episode at Ginghilovo, Hammersley was naturally a man of a proud and haughty spirit, and might resent one in Florian's junior position interfering in the most tender secrets of his life.
Florian was keenly desirous of fulfilling what was evidently the wish of Dulcie—of befriending her friend, and perhaps, by achieving a reconciliation, conferring an unexampled favour upon his officer; yet he shrank from the delicate task, while giving it long and anxious thought.
He tossed up a florin.
'If it is a head, I'll do it. Head it is!' he exclaimed, and went straight to the tent of Hammersley, whom he found lounging on his camp-bed, with a cigar in his mouth and his patrol-jacket open.
'What is up?' he demanded abruptly, as if disturbed in a reverie.
'Only, sir, that I have just had a letter,' began Florian, colouring deeply, and pausing.
'From home?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I hope it contains pleasant news.'
'It is from one who is very dear to me.'
'Oh, the old story—a girl, no doubt?'
'Yes, sir.'
'The more fool you: the faith of the sex is writ in water, as the poet has it.'
'I hope not, in my case and in some others, Captain Hammersley; but if you will pardon me I cannot help stating that in my letter there is something that concerns yourself and your happiness very nearly indeed.'
Hammersley stared at this information.
'Concerns me?' he asked.
'Yes, and Miss Finella Melfort: permit me to mention her name.'
The red blood suffused Hammersley's bronzed face from temples to chin, and he sprang to his feet.
'What the devil do you mean, MacIan?' he exclaimed sharply; his supreme astonishment, however, exceeding any indignation to hear that name on a stranger's lips. 'I know well that you are not what you seem by your present position in life; but how came you to know the name of that young lady?'
'She is mentioned in this letter, sir—the letter of the only being in all the world who cares for me,' replied Florian, with a palpable break in his voice.
'Mentioned in what fashion?' asked Hammersley curtly and with knitted brows.
'Please to read this paragraph for yourself, sir.'
'Thanks.'
Hammersley took the letter, and saw that it was written in a most lady-like hand.
'Dulcie?' said he, just glancing at the signature; 'is she your sister?'
'I have no sister. I think I have told you that I am alone in the world.'
'I have a delicacy in reading a young lady's letter,' said Hammersley, whose hand shook on perceiving by the next glance that it was dated from 'Craigengowan.'
Florian indicated the long paragraph with a finger; and as Hammersley read it his face became again deeply suffused.
'Permit me again, my good fellow,' said he as he read it twice, as if to impress its contents on his mind; and then, returning the letter with unsteady hand to Florian, he seated himself on the edge of the camp-bed and passed a hand across his forehead.
'Thank you for showing me this! You can understand what I felt and thought on seeing the episode this young lady explains so kindly in her letter—God bless the girl! It seems all too good to be true.'
'You do not know the vile trickery of which this fellow Shafto is capable,' said Florian.
'I do,' replied Hammersley, remembering the affair of the cards. 'Finella!' said he, as if to himself, 'how her memory haunts me! By Jove, she is a witch, a sorceress!—like that other Finella after whom she told me she is named, and who lived—I don't know when—in the year of the Flood, I think. I thank you from my soul, MacIan, for the sight of this letter, and it will be a further incitement to me to further your interests in every way within my power. Heaven knows how gladly I would betake me to my pen; but this is no time for letter-writing. By daybreak we shall be in our saddles, and on the spur to the front.'
Florian saluted his officer and withdrew, leaving him to the full tide of his new thoughts.
So she was true to him after all! The whole affair, so black apparently, seemed to be so simply and truthfully explained away by Dulcie's letter that he could not doubt the terrible misconception under which he had laboured, nor did he wish to do so. The tables were completely turned.
It was he—himself—who had cruelly wronged, doubted, upbraided, and quitted Finella, and now from him must the reparation come. His mind was full of the repentant, glowing, and gushing letter he would write her, renewing his protestations of love and faith, and imploring her to forgive him; but when could that letter be written and sent to the rear?—for the division advanced by dawn on the morrow, and there would scarcely be a halt, he supposed, till it reached Ulundi.
And how could a letter reach her from the Cape at Craigengowan unknown to Lady Fettercairn?—who, he knew but too well, was bitterly opposed to his love for Finella, and for many cogent reasons the adherent of Shafto.
How would it all end with them both now?
In a runaway marriage too probably, unless he got knocked on the head in Zululand, a process he rather shrank from now, as life seemed to be invested with new attributes, greater hopes, and greater value.
Finella's mignonne face came before him; the small, straight nose, with thin, arched nostrils; the proud yet soft hazel eyes, with thin, long lashes; the firm coral lips; the abundant hair of richest brown; and with all these came, too, the memory of her favourite perfume, the faint odour of jasmine that clung to her draperies and laces.
In a similar mood to some extent, but without the sense of having aught to explain or a reparation to make, Florian lay in another tent at some little distance, contemplating the contents of a pretty white leather toy, lined with pale blue satin—a case containing a photo—altogether an unsuitable thing for the pocket of a soldier's tunic, or to place in his haversack, it may be among cooked rations, shoe-brushes, and a sponge for pipeclay; but it contained a poor reflection, though delicately tinted, of Dulcie's own sweet face.
He continued by turns to re-read her letter and contemplate her photo till the daylight faded and the moon, golden not silver coloured, shone amid a sky wherein dark blue seemed to blend with apple green at the horizon, lighting up all the lonely landscape, and making the blue gum trees and euphorbiæ stand out in opaque silhouette, while the—to him—new constellations of that southern hemisphere seemed to play hide-and-seek, as they sparkled in and out in the cloudless dome of heaven.
As there he lay, full of his own thoughts and tender memories, he was all unaware of two evil spirits that hovered near, and were actually watching him. Both were evil-visaged personages, and though clad in the ordinary costume of Cape Colonists belonged to the Natal Volunteer Force.
One had two hideous bullet wounds but lately healed—one on each cheek—and his jaws were almost destitute of teeth, as Florian's pistol had left them; for this personage was no other than Josh Jarrett, the ex-landlord of the so-called hotel at Elandsbergen; and the other was Dick of the Droogveldt—one of the two ruffians that had pursued Florian on horseback till his fall into the bushy donga concealed him from them.
On the destruction of the town of Elandsbergen by the Zulus these two worthies, for the sake of the ample pay given to the Colonial troops, and being incapable of obtaining any other means of livelihood, had joined the Volunteer Horse, and while serving in that capacity had discovered and recognised Florian.
'He's a boss now in the Mounted Infantry; but I'll be cursed if I don't put a lead plug into him on the first opportunity—kill him as I would a puff-adder!' said Josh Jarrett fiercely, as he mumbled the last words into the mouth of a metal flask filled with that villainous compound known as Cape Smoke, while they grinned, but without fun, and winked to each other portentously.
'Hopportunities we'll 'ave in plenty, with the work as goes on here,' responded Dick of the Droogveldt (which means a dry district), 'and that cursed fellow shall never quit Zululand alive, all the more so that they say he is to be made an officer soon.'
For Dick, like Josh, was one of 'Cardwell's recruits,' as they are named, and had been a deserter from a line regiment. So their appearance in camp probably accounted for the two mysterious shots that Florian had so recently escaped.[*]
[*] For many interesting details of the Zulu War, I am indebted to the narrative of Major Ashe; but more particularly to the Private Journal of the Chief of the Staff.