Frederick Brereton - With Rifle and Bayonet - A Story of the Boer War

“Yes, everyone says the same, Turner,” replied Jack, “and from what I can understand, trouble is certain to follow. Some say it will lead to war, and others say it is likely to be merely a kind of storm in a tea-cup. Whatever happens, though, I expect I shall stick to Johannesburg till the Hunters clear out I’ve thrown in my lot with theirs, and I couldn’t very well leave them, you know. Besides, I am not anxious to do so.

“If matters come to a head before August, then I shall stay in the country and see the trouble through; if not, why, I suppose I shall have to go back to England and begin to cram for the army, a grind which I don’t fancy at all.”

“Then the chances are you will be in the thick of it, Somerton, for by August there will either be war, or old Kruger will have knuckled under. I can tell you this, at any rate: the Boers have been arming for years, and if I were in your shoes I should certainly smuggle in some weapon, a revolver for choice. And mark my words, you’ll have need of it before long or I’m a Dutchman! Now what do you say to a spin round the town or down to the quays?

“Joko! We want a couple of ‘rickshaws’. Bustle up and fetch them!”

Jack and his friend were soon bowling along through the streets of Durban, and spent a pleasant afternoon together.

On the following day Jack called on the agents again, and having come to an agreement with them, and arranged that the goods should be despatched by the train which left for Johannesburg the next morning, he sauntered through the town in the direction of his hotel.

“I wonder whether Turner was right about that revolver!” he suddenly thought, a window full of sporting guns and rifles having caught his eye, and caused him to remember the conversation of the previous day. “If all these Boers are really arming it might come in very handy some day. Yes, I will buy one, with plenty of ammunition, and see whether I cannot hide it away where a pretty close search would not discover it.”

To make up his mind was to act, and within a few minutes Jack was in the gun-shop.

“I want a revolver of some sort,” he said. “Something which would be useful, and at the same time not too big and heavy.”

“Then you couldn’t do better than take one of these Mausers,” the owner of the shop, an Englishman, replied. “They lie much flatter than a revolver, are not given to jamming, and fire ten shots in rapid succession. Come in here, sir, and try one. I have a range specially fitted up.”

Jack followed the man into a big shed behind, and here, for an hour, he practised with various pistole, finally deciding upon a Mauser.

“There will be a run on that weapon soon, sir,” remarked the shopman knowingly, “and if all is true that one hears, or indeed only half one hears, the Boers have been buying a heap of them.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that too,” replied Jack, “and also that they take precious good care that none of the Uitlanders get hold of any.”

“That’s so, sir; but still, I dare say there are many of our countrymen who have managed to smuggle in arms. That Mauser you’ve bought could be easily managed if fixed with a good deal of padding beneath the arm.”

“Ah, I dare say!” Jack answered casually, and then left the shop.

“That was a good idea,” he thought, as he walked back to the hotel, “and I’ll just see how I can manage it.”

Arrived at the hotel, he first begged a reel of cotton, a needle, and a small piece of dark serge from the manageress, and then retired to his room. He was wearing a navy-blue suit at the time, and whipping the coat off, he first fitted the Mauser pistol beneath the waistcoat, pushing the muzzle up till it rested in the right armpit.

“Now, all I have to do is to open the seams down each side and let them out,” he murmured. “Then I will sew on a kind of inner pocket, and as soon as it is finished I must pad the waistcoat all round with cotton-wool. It will make it awfully hot, and I dare say I shall make rather a muddle of it, as I never was very grand at sewing. Still, it’s got to be done, and after all, what does it matter how neat the stitching is?”

It took a good two hours to let out the seams and add the pocket, but at last that part was completed, and he sallied out to buy some cotton-wool.

Then he placed the wooden holster of the Mauser in the pocket, and arranged the wool on either side of it and between it and the waistcoat, securing it by cross stitches. An hour later the other side was similarly padded, and he tried the waistcoat on.

The cotton-wool he found had certainly made all the difference. Both sides beneath his arms were well rounded off, and it would require a good deal more than a casual glance to detect that matters were not as they were meant to be. Then he put on the coat, buttoned it up, and, standing in front of the glass, practised drawing the weapon.

It was wonderful how quickly he could change himself from an unarmed English youth to one with a deadly Mauser, with ten bullets between himself and disaster. To thrust his hand beneath his coat, touch the spring, and unbutton the flap of his hidden pocket was the work of only a moment, and an instant later the pistol had by its own weight slipped out, and the butt was in his grasp, while the holster remained in its old position ready to conceal the weapon again.

Jack practised diligently with and then without the glass, and finally, feeling satisfied that he was now prepared in case of accidents, donned his hat and went out for a walk.

No one suspected him, or looked after him as though they had noticed that he was carrying hidden arms, and even Turner, when he accidentally ran across him, not only failed to perceive that Jack had something beneath his arm, but once more dilated on the possibilities of trouble in the future, and urged him to buy some weapon before returning to Johannesburg.

“You’d better do as I say, old chap,” he said persuasively. “Those Boers are bad ’uns to deal with at any time, but when they are armed and you are not – and they know it too – well, it’s apt to go hard with the poor Uitlander.”

“Ah, well, I fancy I’ll take my chance, or perhaps get a revolver next time I come south to Durban!” answered Jack with a quiet smile. “You see, from all accounts they are awfully suspicious fellows, and no one can pass into the Transvaal with so much as a cartridge; at least, that’s what I have been told.”

“Yes, Somerton, there is that difficulty about it,” Turner answered, wrinkling his forehead. “Well, I shouldn’t think that any Boer would be ass enough to search you. You don’t look the sort of fellow to smuggle arms; in fact, if you’ll excuse my saying it, old chap, you’re about the most innocent-looking and harmless young Englishman of my acquaintance. But I must be going now. So long, old horse, and mind you, if you think of that revolver, or want anything sent up to Johnny’s Burg, drop me a line, and I’ll get it forwarded to you somehow or other.”

The two young fellows shook hands, nodded, and went their different ways, Jack to various shops to carry out sundry small commissions with which Mrs Hunter had entrusted him, and Fred Turner to his office.

On the following morning Jack was whirled to the station on a rickshaw, and, leaping to the ground, paid the Zulu “boy”, who, as a matter of fact, was a fine, big, strapping man of about thirty-five, with a long scar down the side of his face, evidently the result of some old assagai stab, but which, curiously enough, served only to make a naturally jovial expression all the more pronounced.

Then he carried his bag, which contained all his purchases, to the train, and placed it on the seat he intended to occupy.

He had arrived a good ten minutes before the time announced for the departure of the Pretoria and Johannesburg express, and employed it in walking up to the engine, which he admired as a very fine specimen of machinery. Then he strolled back along the platform, dodging the passengers, who had now commenced to arrive in large numbers, and finally reached the end of the train. It was rather longer than usual, he noticed, and curiously enough, tacked on to the back of the guard’s van there were six trucks open and one closed, five of the former filled with an assortment of wooden cases labelled “Sugar”, while the sixth was loaded with a consignment of finely-broken coal.