Almost at once an answering flash came from the opposite shore. It went out but then came on again flickering rhythmically.
‘They’re Morsing us,’ exclaimed Luvia. ‘Fancy their knowing Morse.’
‘Nothing strange in that,’ said Basil; ‘all of them are the children or descendants of sailors.’
‘Hi! Give me that lamp.’ Luvia snatched the lantern from Li Foo and pulling off his coat flung it over the steady light so as to obscure it entirely for the moment. By lifting the coat up and down, so as to show the light in long and short intervals, he was able to reply.
Sir Deveril signalled that he had six men with him and that another forty-one men and youths were being fetched from various parts of the island. All would carry firearms although some of these would be of an oldfashioned kind. As soon as enough men arrived to form a first detachment of thirteen he would send them across but as it would probably be the best part of half an hour before the first lot had collected and set off, he did not think they could reach Satan’s Island under the hour.
‘An hour,’ gasped Basil, ‘but just think what may be happening to those girls!’
‘The natives will almost certainly hold a feast of victory and the girls will be all right till then.’ De Brissac tried to comfort him.
‘But it’s nine o’clock already and we’ve got to cross the island.’
‘An’ the balloons’ll have to make seven trips before all four lots of Deveril’s folk get over,’ Luvia added. ‘Holy Mike! I hadn’t thought of that. It’ll be close on two before they’ve all landed.’
‘We can’t possibly wait all that time,’ Basil broke out. ‘I’ll go mad if I stay here.’
De Brissac made a wry grimace. ‘I know what you must feel, mon vieux, but what else can we do?’
‘Go ahead without waiting for the rest; spy out the land and try to create some sort of demonstration to keep those devils busy until Deveril’s people come up.’
‘That would be a forlorn hope indeed,’ De Brissac shrugged. ‘We are almost certain to be caught and killed and, in any case, having the best part of five hours’ start of the main body how could we possibly occupy the natives for so long?’
‘If we can find a good hiding-place near their village we could shoot down into it. That would give them something to think about. If we wait for the rest we won’t get there before daybreak and God knows what will have happened to the girls by then. We must go on—we must.’
‘I’m with you,’ Luvia muttered thickly, ‘but how’ll we know the way to go?’
‘I’ve an idea of it,’ Basil said. ‘There’s a great barrier cliff at the far end of the island and the native village lies just below it—a little nearer to the eastern coast than to the west.’
‘Right,’ agreed De Brissac with sudden decision; ‘in that case we’ll go ahead. It is sheer madness but, as you say, the only chance of helping the girls before morning.’
Luvia began to flash a message to the opposite shore letting Deveril know what they meant to do, while the others loaded up their burdens. Leaving one of the lanterns to guide Sir Deveril in they set off on their march. De Brissac led the way with his machine-gun strapped to his shoulders. The others followed humping the heavy cases of ammunition and two rifles apiece.
A few hundred yards inland they passed some scattered trees. As they penetrated farther the land became more thickly wooded. None of them spoke but each was busy with thoughts which centred round the captive women. Within five minutes of leaving the shore the little forlorn hope was deep in the dark, silent forest.
19
The Forlorn Hope
The forest was mainly pine and larch with occasional tall cedars. They found the going to be comparatively easy as there was little undergrowth. Apart from large patches of bramble, which delayed them for a little here and there, they were able to move forward in a straight line, at a good speed, over the springy carpet formed by the fallen pine-needles of countless years.
The machine-gun, rifles, and cases of bullets which they carried weighed heavily upon them, and De Brissac decreed that, to avoid wearing themselves out, they must halt regularly every ten minutes for a short rest. Occasionally they struck thicker patches of the forest where the night sky was shut out entirely, but, for the most part, they were able to catch glimpses of star clusters in one direction or another and several times they caught sight of the Southern Cross gleaming high in the heavens to the southward.
De Brissac was not relying upon the stars for guidance as he had brought his prismatic compass with its luminous needle. Knowing the metal of the machine-gun he carried would seriously affect its orientation he laid the gun down each time they halted and walked some distance from it with his compass before checking their direction.
Basil alone had a rough idea of the geography of the island and, from the scale to which the map in the great hall had been drawn, he estimated that they had about seven miles to go.
The three white men were all muscular and in excellent condition, while Li Foo was of the thin, sinewy type that can stand up to tremendous exertions without showing any trace of fatigue, so De Brissac was able to push forward at a steady speed that ate up the miles without fear that any of his companions would find the pace too hot; yet, loaded down as they were, and having to rest every ten minutes, the journey seemed interminable.
They spoke little. Each was busy with his thoughts. Basil and Luvia were wrought up to such a pitch of sickening anxiety about what might be happening to the girls that they felt no weariness and were constantly pressing De Brissac to curtail the short periods of rest on which he insisted.
The Frenchman was too good a soldier to give way to them. The pace he set was too swift to keep up over a long distance without regular halts; he knew that the only chance of their arriving at their destination still in a condition to undertake the desperate exertions of a fight lay in their forced march being carried out with military precision.
Half an hour after they had started the moon came up and its light glimmered ghostlike in the wider clearings. Their footsteps were muffled by the thick carpet of pine-needles and an eerie silence caused them to speak, when they spoke at all, in lowered voices. Only the occasional snapping of a twig underfoot and their laboured breathing broke the hushed quiet, except once or twice when a small animal scurried away at their approach, until, during their fifth halt, Basil whispered ‘Listen!’
They remained stock-still, and, faintly through the windless night, there came to them the muffled throb of native drums: ‘Hell!’ exclaimed Luvia, ‘the party’s started.’
De Brissac nodded. ‘They’ve been waiting for the moon to get up. Savages nearly always depend on moonlight to illuminate their midnight gatherings.’
‘We must hurry—hurry!’ cried Basil, grabbing up his cases of ammunition.
‘Put those down,’ ordered De Brissac sharply. ‘We’ve another minute to go yet. You’ll need all the strength you’ve got when we arrive.’
‘But we must get on—we must!’ Basil reiterated. ‘Just think what the girls are going through.’
‘I know, mon ami, I know. But we have only covered about half the distance. It is imperative that we should arrive as strong and fit as we are now. By exhausting yourself you will only defeat your own purpose.’
‘You no worry, Misteh,’ Li Foo said soothingly. ‘Blacks eat and drink first. Takum Missie after.’
‘That sounds sense, Li Foo,’ agreed Luvia brightening a little. ‘The girls’ll be all O.K. for a bit yet, I reckon.’
‘I only hope to God you’re right,’ Basil muttered, and they set off again.
As they advanced the war drums grew louder, a steady, rhythmic tattoo that beat with maddening insistence upon their ears as they hurried forward.
Some five miles from the shore the forest ended abruptly and they came out upon an open stretch of downland which sloped gently upward. The drums had now taken on a more rapid beat and the night air seemed to quiver with t
heir throbbing. De Brissac’s party were beginning to feel the strain of their exertions; the guns and ammunition cases seemed to have doubled in weight since they set out. The night was mild and fine but all four men were sweating profusely as they laboured up the slope.
Another mile and they reached its crest, which De Brissac estimated must be a good hundred feet above sea level. Immediately they breasted the rise they could see the light of a great fire in the distance, far below them down in the valley. De Brissac called a halt and scanned the moonlit panorama through his night-glasses. Against the glow of the fire he could just make out a number of low buildings and some darker patches a little to the east which, thrown up in the moonlight, suggested a big cluster of hutments rather than a patch of trees. Beyond the native village there rose a solid black patch clearly outlined against the starlit sky to southward, which they knew must be the great cliff with the high table-land that occupied the whole of the southern end of the island.
Grabbing up their weighty burdens they hurried on again down the slope and a hundred yards farther came upon a patch of mealies. To its left they struck a track which led in the direction of the village and, from this point, they found that the land on either side of them was in a state of rough cultivation. Every few hundred yards, at some distance from the track, there showed the outline of a native kraal, but all of these were deserted and it was obvious that their inmates had left them to attend the gathering about the fire.
Half a mile farther on they came to another slight rise which hid the fire from them for a few moments and, when they reached its top, they halted once again. The village was now only a quarter of a mile distant and could be seen in some detail. The huts to the east numbered a good two hundred. No light showed among them and all the natives were congregated in a big, open space which was ringed about by half a dozen larger shacks. In its centre the fire was burning brightly, and against the lurid flames the outline of a long, snake-like chain of natives could be seen as they wound in and out following their leader in a slow, rhythmic dance. Each man took two steps forward, one step back, then stamped with all his force upon the earth in time to the beat of the tom-toms. Their stamping echoed dully across the valley, but no other sound came from them; they danced with vigorous gestures, shaking their spears and knobkerries above their heads but maintaining complete silence.
A hundred yards to the west of the open space there was a single building forming three sides of a square and far greater in extent than any of the others. Round it the moonlight showed a high palisade fencing in a great compound. Without any of the watchers remarking on it each knew, as he gazed at the big, dark building, that it must be the dreaded Marriage House, and that in it the Negroes kept the concubines, common to the whole community, which they either captured or reared there in slavery, apart from their own women.
De Brissac was studying the terrain through his glasses to select the most suitable spot for the forlorn hope that he led to make its attack. He knew that the natives did not lack courage. After having been beaten off with serious loss from the Gafelborg by rifle and revolver fire two mornings before, they had attacked the ship again, knowing that they must face heavy casualties if they were to succeed in looting the vessel of its drink and women. Once he set up his machine-gun and opened fire upon them, it was quite certain that they would charge it, and there were several hundreds of them. It was vital that the rescue party should choose their position with the utmost care in order to have a clear field of fire and such protection as the ground on the best chosen site could offer.
He made up his mind at once that, even at the expense of further time, they must make a wide circle round the village so that they could get the towering cliff as a protection for their backs.
When he told the others of his decision they could not possibly argue with its wisdom and, humping the ammunition cases again, they set off in a diagonal direction, across a field, towards the westernmost corner of the palisade that fenced in the compound of the Marriage House.
When they were within a hundred yards of it De Brissac turned further westward again to give it a wide berth and so avoid being seen by any sentries who might be posted about it; but Basil checked him.
‘The girls are in that place somewhere. There doesn’t seem to be anyone about. We could scale that palisade if one of us stood on the other’s shoulders. Now’s our chance to get them out while those devils are still busy dancing.’
De Brissac shook off his hand impatiently. ‘Mon Dieu! You must be crazy. There are probably two or three hundred other women inside that place as well as the girls. Even if there are no sentries and you got inside, the women would start screaming and we should all be massacred within ten minutes.’
Reluctantly Basil followed him in the new direction he had taken. They filed across lower ground where the fire was hidden from them for some distance by the western side of the compound.
As the ground rose again and they came opposite the northwest corner of the palisade, Luvia suddenly whispered ‘Wait!’ and sank down on to his knees. The others followed his example; from where they crouched he pointed out the tall, dark silhouette of a solitary Negro who was standing near the corner of the palisade leaning upon a spear.
They crawled a hundred yards farther away, so as to get out of his range of vision, before rising to their feet again and plodding up on the higher ground towards the cliff.
At last they reached it and stood panting there. It rose almost sheer above their heads, apparently unscalable, with broken patches on its face only in the higher parts, which were thrown up by the moonlight. Farther to the east and almost opposite the bonfire De Brissac could see some big rocks just at the foot of the cliff, and he decided that somewhere there he should be able to find the well-protected position for which he was seeking.
Gasping and sweating they covered the last four hundred yards till they came to the great pile of rock and stone which formed part of a landslide. This broken ground was higher than the rest, shelving steeply away at each side and gently down in front towards the village, which lay about six hundred yards distant. They scrambled up to the highest rocks and found a large flat piece in front of which rose two higher peaks forming a small natural fort; it seemed to have been placed there for them by Providence.
De Brissac set up his gun while the others prepared the belts of ammunition for it and laid out in a row the six Winchesters they had brought with them.
From their new elevation they could see the village much more clearly than before. Hundreds of men and women formed a great circle round the fire. All crouched cross-legged upon the ground except in one place where a canopy had been erected and an enormously fat Negro in gaudy trappings was sitting on a sort of throne. He was evidently the chief. Round him were gathered his principal councillors and a number of witch-doctors in fantastic costumes with grotesque animal masks upon their heads. Among them Harlem could be clearly distinguished as he was still clothed in his dungarees and an old tweed jacket.
The dance had changed, having become much more violent, while the dancers no longer maintained their silence; instead, each man was emitting wild blood-curdling howls at irregular intervals. The rapid tattoo of the war-drums was inciting them to a positive frenzy.
De Brissac had been quickly thinking out a plan of campaign. He knew, from the many Negro war-dances he had witnessed, that the natives could not maintain this wild pace for long. Another ten minutes or so and the dance would be over. Anything might happen after that, and he could not hope that Sir Deveril would be able to bring his force of forty-seven armed whites into action for another three hours at least; even allowing for the fact that, not having to carry the gun and ammunition, or make the circuit of the village before attacking, which had taken his own party the best part of three-quarters of an hour, they would march more quickly. If his party were to hold the fort for three hours and keep the natives occupied for so long it was essential that Sir Deveril should know the best way to relieve them if
they were still alive when he came up. Turning to Li Foo, De Brissac placed his hand upon the Chinaman’s shoulder.
‘You are a brave fellow and a clever one. I’m going to give you a special mission, which may save our lives if you do it properly.’
‘Ho, yess! Jus’ yo tellum dissa fella,’ said Li Foo promptly.
‘Good. I want you to go back the way we came for about two miles, until you reach the rising ground that overlooks the village on the opposite side of the valley from here. The high part from which we first caught sight of the village is three-quarters of a mile or a mile from the woods. You are to remain there until you see Sir Deveril and his people coming out of the woods up the slope. You can hardly miss them as there will be the best part of fifty men, and they must cross the bare ground of the crest on their way to the village. The chances are that by the time Sir Deveril arrives we shall either be fighting here—in which case you’ll be able to see the flash of our arms—or dead; but you’ll know if we have been in action because you’ll hear the sound of our firing quite clearly across the valley. If we have not attacked or been attacked, you are to lead Sir Deveril and his men to us here by the way we came; then we can all act together and surprise the village. If we have already been in action and our firing has ceased you’ll know that we have been killed or captured and Sir Deveril must use his own discretion as to what plan he adopts, but, if we are still fighting when Sir Deveril comes up, this is what I want him to do.
‘He is to send a small party of his men south-east, down into that main maze of hutments you can see there, which is now deserted. The few men that he sends are to set those huts on fire, which should draw off the natives who are attacking us. In the meantime he is to march his main body to the south-west until he reaches the point where we saw the sentry guarding the Marriage House. It is practically undefended so he should be able to take it by a surprise attack and save the women from being butchered out of spite; then he can use it as a rallying-point if the blacks prove too numerous for his men. Once he gets inside it should not be difficult to hold owing to the strong stockade all round it. If he succeeds in capturing the Marriage House without difficulty he is to press on east, straight through the circle where the natives are dancing now towards the place where his small party have set the main group of huts on fire. In that way he should be able to take the natives in the rear while they are trying to save their goods from being burnt. Is that all clear?’
Uncharted Seas Page 29