CHAPTER XXII—The Conquest of a Colony

Slowly the guide lowered his rifle. All eyes turned to the south, from which direction had come the shell. For a moment, in the valley, in the enclosure of the fort, there reigned a death-like silence—the silence of suspense. The bombardment of the fort ceased as at a stroke.

The calm voice of Fernando broke upon the stillness.

"The British!" said he. "The soldiers from the Coast!"

Hardly were the words from his lips than a great salvo of cannon thundered in the valley, and went echoing far above the tree-tops of the forests, over the ridges of the mountains, towards Maziriland.

And once again, though the little fort was left in peace, the air was alive with shells, which flew upon their way, shrieking and hooting as if in savage glee. Shrapnel burst high overhead, with white puffs of smoke, the bullets falling like hail into the ranks of the astonished Germans. Segment-shells struck the rocks, breaking into fragments that flew far and wide, inflicting the most terrible of wounds.

The German troops, in good order, shepherded by their officers, retired down the hill, to face this new and far more formidable danger. They assembled on a long spur that jutted into the valley, which they deemed the most suitable position whence to oppose the advance of the British.

"Is this true?" cried Harry. "Is it, indeed, the English?"

"Look!" cried Jim, pointing over the parapet.

A long line of glittering bayonets appeared upon the sky-line, advancing like a running wave upon a low-lying, sandy beach. They came forward without checking, each man keeping his distance from his neighbour, as though they did no more than execute some simple movements on parade. They were in far more extended order than the Germans.

Even as the khaki lines advanced, the Mauser rifles spoke from the hills, and the white dust caused by the bullets flew at their feet. They answered back in volleys, each one of which sounded like the "rip" of tearing paper. The sunshine glittered on the steel of their bayonets, their polished buttons, and the badges on their coats.

Their manoeuvres were like clockwork. When one party advanced, another fired; and thus the long lines of infantry were ever firing, ever advancing upon the enemy’s position.

A battle fought under such conditions—which are rare enough in these days when the spade has become an even more important weapon than the rifle—is one of the most magnificent and impressive sights it is possible to see. One catches only glimpses, now and again, of fleeting, crouching figures, running from rock to rock, from cover to cover, appearing and disappearing like gnats in the light of the sun. And all the time a great roar of musketry rises to the heavens—a kind of interminable "crackling" sound, like that of green wood upon a fire, only a thousand times greater in volume and more continuous.

Above this the guns toll ceaselessly, shaking, as it seems, the very ground itself with a series of sullen "thuds", filling the atmosphere with great vibrations, drum-like echoes, and rolling clouds of smoke.

Jim Braid and Harry Urquhart stood side by side upon the parapet of the ancient, crumbling fort. As the gods of Olympus reviewed the struggles of the Greeks and the Trojans, so those two looked down upon the wide amphitheatre where the conflict was taking place, where men were marching shoulder to shoulder into the very jaws of death.

They could see both sides at once. They could see the Germans on the ridge, firing rapidly into the advancing British troops; they could see the British coming on and on, regardless of danger, heeding only the words of command shouted from line to line.

Far in rear, upon a hill-top, a heliograph blinked and flickered in the sun. There was the officer in command. Thence, by means of his signallers, he controlled the army at his feet, disposing his battalions as a player moves his chessmen on a board.

The two boys stood transfixed in bewilderment and admiration.

"Oh," cried Jim, "what wouldn’t I give to be there!"

His heart was with his own countrymen, the thin, khaki lines that were driving straight forward with the tenacity of a pack of hounds that hold the fox in view.

From either side gun after gun spoke in quick succession, until it was as if the world was only thunder and flashes of fire and clouds of yellow smoke. As often as each gun was fired it was loaded and fired again. The noise of the batteries was as persistent as the barking of a chained, infuriated dog.

And then from everywhere, from out of the grass, from behind the rocks, from little undulations in the ground, arose thousands of small khaki figures.

Their ranks were undisturbed; they were even as the staves upon a sheet of music. Line after line extended from one side of the valley to the other, and, in the rear of all, the helio still blinked and glittered, there where the brains of the machine were working the destruction of prophets of "Frightfulness", champions of World Dominion.

A bugle sounded in the air, its thin, piercing notes carrying far. Each of the boys experienced a thrill of pride and exultation, a sensation of sublime excitement, as the British lines answered the bugle with a charge.

Line after line, amid the thunder of the guns, swept up the ridge towards the enemy, the bayonets flashing, the bugle speaking again and again.

And then came a cheer that rent the air—a British cheer—howbeit from the throats of gallant Haussas—that drowned the musketry, that rose superior even to the constant growling of the guns.

Before that mad, headlong onslaught the enemy gave way. The Germans were swamped, as a tide carries away a castle on the sands. As one man, they broke and fled, panic-stricken and defeated.