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

Having satisfied his curiosity, he returned to his carriage, first ascertaining that the leather goods he had bought for Mr Hunter were on board the train and duly labelled.

Soon the last of the passengers came tearing across to the train, ticket in mouth and a heavy bag in each hand, and he had barely flung open a door and sprung in before the engine gave a loud grunt and they were off.

It was a long run up to the tip of Natal, and the latter part of it somewhat slow and tedious, in spite of occasional snatches of lovely scenery; but at last they reached Newcastle, and pulled up in the station.

“Twenty minutes’ wait here, sir,” said the guard, putting his head in through the window. “You can get something to eat on the platform if you like.”

Jack jumped out at once, bought a bag of buns, and drank a glass of milk. Then he walked out of the station and into the town, thinking he would like to have a glimpse of it. But it was getting dusk, and lights were already appearing. Still, he went for some distance, forgetful of the fact that the minutes were rapidly flying, and that the moment for the departure of his train was getting very close.

Suddenly he looked at his watch, and found with a start that in three minutes it would leave. Darting through the street, he ran towards the station at his fastest pace, only to find, when he reached it, that the outside door was closed and to hear the guard’s whistle sounding.

It was an awkward dilemma, but Jack was not to be beaten. Running along towards the front part of the platform, he climbed some rails, crossed a siding full of coal wagons, between which he dived, and rushed up the incline on to the platform only to see the train steaming off. More than half the carriages had already passed him, and the first of the trucks at the tail of the train was abreast of him.

Jack determined not to be beaten, and, calmly judging the time, he grasped the hand-rail in the centre of the last van of all, and swung himself on to the narrow step which was secured along the side. Next moment he was carried on into the darkness without a soul having seen him join the train.

“Well, I caught it after all!” he murmured to himself with an exclamation of satisfaction; “but I shall never be able to hold on here for long. Besides, there’s no saying when I may be jerked off, or smashed against a signal-post. There’s a door along there, and I’ll see whether I cannot open it and get into the van.”

Climbing along the footboard, with his body held as close against the van as possible, he was not long in reaching the door and in wrenching it open. The rest was easy, and in a few moments he was safely inside, with the door closed.

To his surprise he found that there was a dim oil-lamp burning at the end, not that he could see it very well, for a wall of small cases was built between him and it. But, by climbing on to this and peeping over, he was able to see that it was a small lantern slung from the roof, and swinging backwards and forwards and from side to side as the van jerked.

But what was, perhaps, more surprising than all, was to find four men seated on as many boxes in the space that was walled off, playing a game of cards. They were typical Boers; that is to say, three of them were big, bearded men dressed in rough suits and felt hats, whilst the fourth was none other than Piet Maartens, more carefully clothed than his companions, and with a clean-shaven and evil-looking face. Close beside each man was a Mauser rifle and a bandolier full of cartridges.

“Whew!” whistled Jack under his breath, climbing stealthily down. “What are those men doing here, and armed too! What does it mean, I wonder?”

For a few moments he sat on the floor puzzling his brains, and then a suspicion that he had accidentally made a discovery dawned upon him.

“They’re up to no good, those fellows,” he said to himself, “and it looks very much as though they were in charge of this van-load of boxes. I wonder what’s inside them! Let me see. They’re labelled ‘Grapes – to be kept cool’, and are addressed to President Kruger himself.”

Having inspected the outside of the cases, Jack’s suspicions led him to test the weight of one of them, for, like every other Uitlander, he had heard that quantities of ammunition and arms were being secretly imported by the Boers.

“Phew!” he muttered, hurriedly putting it back in its place. “Not grapes, but Mauser cartridges, I’ll be bound. It’s twenty times as heavy as a case of grapes would be.”

There was no doubt now that Jack had hit upon something more than curious, and, having discovered a van loaded presumably with grapes but undoubtedly with Mauser cartridges, and in charge of a party of Boers whilst still in an English colony, his curiosity led him to persevere and probe the matter thoroughly.

“I’ll just see what is at this end now,” he thought, “and if I find the same I shall certainly get out of this as soon as possible. Those fellows would have no hesitation in shooting me to ensure my keeping a silent tongue; and Piet Maartens would certainly help them to get rid of me.”

Jack now crept across the narrow space which had been left opposite the doors of the van, and inspected the end nearest the engine. It, too, was apparently full of cases of grapes, but on climbing along on the top – for the boxes were here several tiers in thickness – he came to another large space left in the centre of them, and on lowering himself into it and feeling about with his hands, discovered no fewer than three Maxim guns jammed close together, whilst beneath them, packed loosely in straw, were piles on piles of rifles, undoubtedly of the Mauser pattern, as he could tell to a certainty by the shape of the breech-lock. Here was a position for a young lad to find himself in! By the merest accident he had managed to get into an extremely dangerous situation, and common sense advised him to quit it at once.

Stealthily climbing out of the hiding-place again, he waited till a sudden roar, as the train ran over a small culvert, gave him an opportunity to open the door and slip out of the van.

Clinging to the rail, he made his way along the footboard, stretched across to the truck in front, and soon had the satisfaction of finding himself sitting on top of a truck-load of fine coal.

But Jack’s surprises were not ended by any means, for as he went on all-fours to creep into a safer position, there was a sudden tearing sound, and one leg went deep down through the coal, to be followed instantly by the other. Next moment he was standing on the wooden flooring of the truck, with a layer of coal round his middle, while, strangely enough, his legs were quite free to move about.

Jack was as sharp as most lads of his age, and though he could not exactly see through a brick wall, he could certainly, now that suspicion had sharpened his wits, get to the bottom of this new discovery.

With the greatest care he swept the coal aside till he came to a tarpaulin some five inches beneath it, which was evidently stretched across the truck. Through this he had already forced a hole, and he had soon completely disappeared beneath it, and, nothing daunted by the novelty or danger of the situation, had begun to grope about in the dark. From end to end of the truck he crawled, going over every inch of the space, and when his inspection was finished he had counted two more big guns of some description, besides a vast number of Mauser rifles.

“Ah, this is really serious!” he muttered gravely to himself. “A van-load of grapes, which are really cartridges, for President Kruger, and a truck-load of coal, hiding no end of guns, not to mention those hidden by the cases of grapes. And I suppose the other trucks in front are just the same. I wonder now where they are going to! I’d very much like to find out; but just now, if I want to see the Hunters again, I had better get back to my own carriage.”