With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader, G. A. Henty [best novels to read .TXT] 📗

"I suppose we have a journey to Pretoria before us," Sankey said. "I don't care so much about myself, because that is only the fortune of war, but I am awfully sorry that you are taken, Chris, and all through my beastly folly in not taking shelter as you told me."

"Oh, we may just as well be together, Sankey. Besides, I don't mean to go to Pretoria, I can assure you. I believe I could walk now if I tried; but you may be sure I don't mean to try. I should advise you to avoid making any movement with your arm; make them put it in a sling. When they start with us, we had better be sent up with wounded prisoners rather than with the others. They won't look so sharply after the wounded, and it will be very hard if we cannot manage to slip away somehow. I hope the others will find the horses all right, or that if they don't the horses will find their own way back."

"Oh, they are safe to find them," Sankey said confidently. "There will be a hunt for us when it is found that we have not joined the others. Anyhow, they will search to-morrow. I am quite sure that some of our fellows will be out the first thing in the morning, and I dare say they will take a couple of the natives with them. If they start at the point where we turned off they will track the horses down that donga without any difficulty, and even if they have strayed away they will soon have them."

"Yes, I suppose they will be all right," Chris agreed. "Of course we have got the spare horses, but we should miss our own, and I think they are as fond of us as we are of them."

As the sun got low two of the Boers brought up four ponies which were grazing some little distance from the river. They lifted Chris on to one, and helped Sankey to mount another, and then taking their seats on the other horses, rode off at a walk, and arrived an hour and a half later at a camp in a hollow behind Fort Wylie. Here they were put into a large tent, where some thirty wounded prisoners were lying. A German surgeon at once examined and again bandaged their wounds.

"You are neither of you hurt badly," he said in English. "A fortnight and you will have little to complain of. These Mauser bullets make very slight wounds, except when they hit a vital spot. You are a good deal better off than most of your comrades here."

As it was now dark they lay down at once, after taking a basin of excellent soup. The German ambulance was scrupulously clean. The more serious cases were put in beds, those less severely wounded lay on the ground between them; for the number of wounded to be dealt with was very large, and in the tents in which the Boers were treated were many terribly mangled by fragments of shrapnel and lyddite shells. The boys were some time before they went off to sleep, for their wounds smarted a good deal. However, they presently fell off, and it was broad daylight when they woke. Chris lay where he was, while Sankey got up and went round the tent. The men all belonged to either the Devon or the Queen's Own regiment. Most of them were awake, and all asked anxiously for news from Chieveley, and looked disappointed when they heard that it was likely to be some time before a fresh attempt was made to relieve Ladysmith.

"They are all right there. Of course they were disappointed that we did not get in, but they have provisions enough to last for some time yet."

"The Boers don't seem to think so," one of the men said. "As they were carrying us in here I heard one of them say that they had certainly got Ladysmith now, for the provisions there were pretty nearly exhausted, and in a few days they would have to surrender. If they did not, they meant to carry it by assault."

"I don't think they will do that," Sankey said confidently.

"Not they," the soldier replied scornfully. "They will find that it is a very different thing meeting our chaps in the open to what it is squatting in a trench, and blazing away without giving us as much as a sight of them. It is a beastly cowardly way of fighting, I calls it. I was not hit till just the end of the day, and I had been blazing away from six in the morning, and I never caught sight of one of them. I should not have minded being hit if I could have bowled two or three of them over first."

After breakfast the surgeon said to the two lads: "You will be sent off in half an hour; all the slight cases are to go on. There may be another battle any day, and room must be made for a fresh batch of wounded."

"Very well, sir," Chris replied, "as we have to go, it makes no difference to us whether it is to-day or next week."

"You are colonists, I suppose, as you have not the name of any regiment on your shoulder-straps?"

"Yes, sir; we belong to Johannesburg. I know your face. You are Dr. Muller, are you not?"

"Yes; I do not recognize you."

"I am the son of Mr. King, sir; and my comrade is the son of Dr. Sankey."

"I know them both," the doctor said. "I am not one of those who think that the Uitlanders have no grievances, and I am not here by my own choice. But I was commandeered, and had no option in the matter. Well, I am sorry for you lads. For though I believe that in the long run your people will certainly win, I think it will be a good many months before they are in Pretoria. They fight splendidly. I watched the battle until the wounded began to come in, and the way those regiments by the railway advanced under a fire that seemed as if nothing could live for a minute, was marvellous. But brave as they are, they will never force their way through these hills. They will never get to Ladysmith. Well, perhaps we shall meet some day in Johannesburg again."

"Yes, doctor. I suppose we shall be taken up in waggons?"

"You will, for a time, certainly. But I don't know about your friend."

"Oh, do order him to be sent up with me, doctor, that is, if it will not hurt him too much. You see, his wound is really more serious than mine, as the ball has gone through the bone."

"Yes. I have a good many cases of that sort, but all seem to be healing rapidly. However, I will strain a point and give instructions that he is to be among those who must go in the waggons."

"Thank you, sir," both boys said; and Sankey added: "We are great friends, sir. Though I don't care for myself, it would be a great comfort to us to be together, and my wound really hurts me a good deal."

"I have no doubt it does," the surgeon said. "You can't expect a ball to pass through muscle and bone without causing pain."

Half an hour later some natives came into the tent, and under the directions of the surgeon carried out Chris and three others whose wounds were all comparatively slight, and placed them in a waggon which already contained eight other