In the Whirl of the Rising. Mitford Bertram

Ancram?” said Lamont.

      The other stared. There was a grim directness in the question. Both were thinking the same thing. It seemed an odd question to be put by a man who had been publicly accused of cowardice. Its propounder was enjoying the other’s confusion.

      “Fighting?” echoed Ancram.

      “Yes. Because if you are you’ve come to the right shop for it. You’ll get plenty if you remain in the country, and that before very long too.”

      “Why? Who is there to fight?”

      “The Matabele.”

      “But I thought they were all conquered – licked into a cocked hat.”

      “So did, so do, a lot of other people who ought to know better. But they’re not. Let this rinderpest go a little further, and when the Government has shot a few more of their cattle – then we shall see.”

      “By Jove! I had no idea of that.”

      “Or you wouldn’t have come,” Lamont could not help appending. He had detected a note of consternation in Ancram’s tone. And Ancram was one of those who had stood by and endorsed the accusation of cowardice hurled against himself.

      “Oh yes, I would,” answered the other, with rather a forced laugh. “But I say, Lamont, what about you two fellows – and others in a lonely place like this? Where would you come in?”

      “Nowhere, unless we got wind and scooted in time. But that’s just the difficulty.”

      “Phew! But don’t you take any precaution?”

      “Not any. We take our chance instead. Chance is the name of a very great god up-country, as you’ll find out if you stop out here long.”

      “Well, it would be a jolly good job if we did have a war,” rejoined Ancram airily. “Give us lots of fun. I should enjoy it.”

      Peters looked quickly up.

      “Fun! Enjoy it!” he repeated. “D’you hear that, Lamont? Wonder how much fun he’d have voted it – how much he’d have enjoyed it – if he’d been along with us on the retreat from the Shangani.”

      “Oh, damn the retreat from the Shangani!” burst forth Lamont. “Ain’t you sick of that sick old yarn yet, Peters? Because I am.”

      Ancram stared. There seemed nothing to warrant the ill-tempered outburst – unless – Ah, that was it. Lamont had hoisted the white feather in some way while on the expedition referred to, and of course was shy of hearing it mentioned. But, strangely enough, Peters didn’t seem to resent the tone or the brusque interruption. On the contrary he inclined to the apologetic.

      “Oh, keep your hair on, Lamont,” he answered deprecatingly. “You know, Ancram, I shouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been for – ”

      “Will you have another whisky-and-selz, Ancram, or will you try some black tea?” interrupted Lamont, speaking quickly. “Can’t offer you any milk with it because of the drought, except tinned, and that makes it entirely beastly.”

      “I should think so,” answered Ancram, again wondering at the rudeness of the pointed interruption. “But isn’t it the deuce on the nerves? Keeps you awake, and all that.”

      “In civilisation it would. Not up here. I’ve often, while lying out in camp, polished off three big beakers of it – black as ink, mind – and dropped off fast asleep when only half through my first pipe.”

      “By Jove! that knocks a good old superstition endways, anyway.”

      “Good job if they were all knocked endways. Now here’s another – ” And then Lamont, fastening on to another topic proceeded to thresh it out, and, in fact, for him, became quite voluble, so much so that Peters could not have got a word in edgeways even if he had wanted to, which he did not. At him Ancram stole more than one glance, expecting to descry an offended look. But he descried nothing of the sort. Peters went on placidly with his supper, nodding occasional assent to the other’s remarks. But Lamont had got what he wanted; he had got clean away from the retreat from the Shangani. There was no possibility of reopening that subject, short of dragging it in by the tail. All of which set the new arrival wondering still more.

      “Then if these Matabele chaps were to rise,” went on Ancram, “you – we – should all get our throats cut?”

      “From ear to ear,” supplied Lamont, with grim uncompromising crispness.

      “Oh, come. I say, Lamont, you’re getting at a fellow, don’t you know.”

      “No, I don’t. But if you don’t believe me ask Peters.”

      “The Captain’s – er – oh! – ah! – I mean Lamont’s right,” declared Peters, half briskly, half deprecatorily, as he noted the positive scowl which wrinkled his friend’s dark brows. The reason wherefor was that the latter, having held a subordinate command during the war of occupation, had experienced much trouble in convincing Peters and others that they were not to call him ‘Captain’ ever after. That sort of tin-pot aping of military rank was bad enough while they were on active service, he declared – afterwards it was simply poisonous, and there were enough ‘captains’ and ‘majors’ and ‘colonels’ knocking about Matabeleland to stock a whole Army Corps with, if they had been genuine.

      Again Ancram wondered. What the deuce did it all mean, he tried to unravel, that a tough, hard-bitten frontiersman, such as he had already estimated Peters to be, should care twopence for the frown or smile of a fellow like Lamont, whom he himself had seen show the white feather on an occasion when there was the least possible excuse of all for it – indeed, he wished he himself had been at hand at the time, instead of arriving on the scene just after the rescue had been effected? Yet, somehow, there was something very solid, very square, about this, as even he realised, involuntary host of his, sitting there the very embodiment of self-possession, devil-may-care-ishness, even masterful dominance. It did not fit in, somehow, with that scene in the falling dusk, by the frozen mere at Courtland, on Christmas Eve.

      “But,” he persisted, “do you really and seriously mean, Lamont, that if these chaps were to break out to-night they would cut all our throats?”

      “Really and seriously, Ancram. But didn’t I tell you that the great god Chance was a ruling factor up here? You’ll soon tumble to his little ways. Here – try some of this Magaliesburg,” pushing a large two-pound bag towards him.

      “Er – thanks. I think I’ll stick to my mixture. The fellows at Pagadi gave me some of that the other night, and I didn’t care for it.”

      “Oh, that’ll pass. You’ll soon not look at anything else,” chipped in Peters briskly, filling his own pipe. He had sized up the new-comer as being very raw, very green. But then he had seen plenty such before. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, listening intently.

      “D’you hear that, Lamont?” he said eagerly.

      “Yes,” was the answer, after a moment of careful listening.

      “Why – what – what is it?” broke in Ancram, and there was a note of scare in his voice. In the light of their previous conversation it must be at least the Matabele war-cry, he decided.

      “There it is again,” said Peters. “Did you hear?”

      “Yes,” answered Lamont. “You may be in luck’s way yet, Ancram, and get a shot at a lion. They are over there, in the Ramabana Forest, though whether they’ll be there still to-morrow is another thing. Let’s get outside and listen.”

      Ancram, to be candid with himself, would much rather have remained inside. He had an idea that a lion might pounce upon him the moment he set foot in the darkness outside.

      In the soft velvet of the black sky a myriad of stars hung. So near did they seem that the flash of flaming planets was even as the burning of distant worlds. The ghostly stretch of veldt around was wrapped in darkness and mystery, and from afar, just audible on the waft of stillness, came a succession of hollow, coughing roars.

      “Don’t send up