By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War, G. A. Henty [100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

English officers. Captain Glover of the royal navy was in command, with Mr. Goldsworthy and Captain Sartorius as his assistants. There were four other officers, two doctors, and an officer of commissariat. This little body had the whole work of drilling and keeping in order some eight or ten thousand men. They were generals, colonels, sergeants, quartermasters, storekeepers, and diplomatists, all at once, and from daybreak until late at night were incessantly at work. There were at least a dozen petty kings in camp, all of whom had to be kept in a good temper, and this was by no means the smallest of Captain Glover's difficulties, as upon the slightest ground for discontent each of these was ready at once to march away with his followers. The most reliable portion of Captain Glover's force were some 250 Houssas, and as many Yorabas. In addition to all their work with the native allies, the officers of the expedition had succeeded in drilling both these bodies until they had obtained a very fair amount of discipline.

After strolling through the camp the visitors went to look on at the distribution of arms and accouterments to a hundred freshly arrived natives. They were served out with blue smocks, made of serge, and blue nightcaps, which had the result of transforming a fine looking body of natives, upright in carriage, and graceful in their toga-like attire, into a set of awkward looking, clumsy negroes. A haversack, water bottle, belts, cap pouch, and ammunition pouch, were also handed to each to their utter bewilderment, and it was easy to foresee that at the end of the first day's march the whole of these, to them utterly useless articles, would be thrown aside. They brightened up, however, when the guns were delivered to them. The first impulse of each was to examine his piece carefully, to try its balance by taking aim at distant objects, then to carefully rub off any little spot of rust that could be detected, lastly to take out the ramrod and let it fall into the barrel, to judge by the ring whether it was clean inside.

Thence the visitors strolled away to watch a number of Houssas in hot pursuit of some bullocks, which were to be put on board the steamers and taken up the river to the great camp. These had broken loose in the night, and the chase was an exciting one. Although some fifty or sixty men were engaged in the hunt it took no less than four hours to capture the requisite number, and seven Houssas were more or less injured by the charges of the desperate little animals, which possessed wonderful strength and endurance, although no larger than moderate sized donkeys. They were only captured at last by hoops being thrown over their horns, and even when thrown down required the efforts of five or six men to tie them. They were finally got to the wharf by two men each: one went ahead with the rope attached to the animal's horn, the other kept behind, holding a rope fastened to one of the hind legs. Every bull made the most determined efforts to get at the man in front, who kept on at a run, the animal being checked when it got too close by the man behind pulling at its hind leg. When it turned to attack him the man in front again pulled at his rope. So most of them were brought down to the landing place, and there with great difficulty again thrown down, tied, and carried bodily on board. Some of them were so unmanageable that they had to be carried all the way down to the landing place. If English cattle possessed the strength and obstinate fury of these little animals, Copenhagen Fields would have to be removed farther from London, or the entrance swept by machine guns, for a charge of the cattle would clear the streets of London.

After spending an amusing day on shore, the party returned on board ship. Captain Glover's expedition, although composed of only seven or eight English officers and costing the country comparatively nothing, accomplished great things, but its doings were almost ignored by England. Crossing the river they completely defeated the native tribes there, who were in alliance with the Ashantis, after some hard fighting, and thus prevented an invasion of our territory on that side. In addition to this they pushed forward into the interior and absolutely arrived at Coomassie two days after Sir Garnet Wolseley.

It is true that the attention of the Ashantis was so much occupied by the advance of the white force that they paid but little attention to that advancing from the Volta; but none the less is the credit due to the indomitable perseverance and the immensity of the work accomplished by Captain Glover and his officers. Alone and single handed, they overcame all the enormous difficulties raised by the apathy, indolence, and self importance of the numerous petty chiefs whose followers constituted the army, infused something of their own spirit among their followers, and persuaded them to march without white allies against the hitherto invincible army of the Ashantis. Not a tithe of the credit due to them has been given to the officers of this little force.

Captain Glover invited his visitors to pass the night on shore, offering to place a tent at their disposal; but the mosquitoes are so numerous and troublesome along the swampy shore of the Volta that the invitations were declined, and the whole party returned on board the Decoy. Next day the anchor was hove and the ship's head turned to the west; and two days later, after a pleasant and uneventful voyage, she was again off Cape Coast, and Frank, taking leave of his kind entertainers, returned on shore and reported himself as ready to perform any duty that might be assigned to him.

Until the force advanced, he had nothing to do, and spent a good deal of his time watching the carriers starting with provisions for the Prah, and the doings of the negroes.

The order had now been passed by the chiefs at a meeting called by Sir Garnet, that every able bodied man should work as a carrier, and while parties of men were sent to the villages round to fetch in people thence, hunts took place in Cape Coast itself. Every negro found in the streets was seized by the police; protestation, indignation, and resistance, were equally in vain. An arm or the loin cloth was firmly griped, and the victim was run into the castle yard, amid the laughter of the lookers on, who consisted, after the first quarter of an hour, of women only. Then the search began in the houses, the chiefs indicating the localities in which men were likely to be found. Some police were set to watch outside while others went in to search. The women would at once deny that anyone was there, but a door was pretty sure to be found locked, and upon this being broken open the fugitive would be found hiding under a pile of clothes or mats. Sometimes he would leap through the windows, sometimes take to the flat roof, and as the houses join together in the most confused way the roofs offered immense facilities for escape, and most lively chases took place.

No excuses or pretences availed. A man seen limping painfully along the street would, after a brief examination of his leg to see if there was any external mark which would account for the lameness, be sent at a round trot down the road, amid peals of laughter from the women and girls looking on.

The indignation of some of the men thus seized, loaded and sent up country under a strong escort, was very funny, and their astonishment in some cases altogether unfeigned. Small shopkeepers who had never supposed that they would be called upon to labor for the defense of their freedom and country, found themselves with a barrel of pork upon their heads and a policeman with a