As the crystalline early light gave way to a shimmer of heat-currents, I glimpsed an isolated Boer farmhouse or two, and once we passed a distant wagon drawn by a plodding line of yoked oxen.
Hunger gnawing as the day wore on, I foraged in the locomotive toolbox, where I found the driver’s and fireman’s lunch-cans. As we gratefully munched black bread and biltong, and washed it down with good Dutch beer, I asked Raffles what he thought was in the goods trucks.
“Nothing of much value, Bunny,” he said, his face as black and oily as my own, “or there’d have been more than one guard on the train.”
Only once, in the great loneliness under the sun, did we see armed men — a group of horsemen, with bandoliers and slung rifles, who were near enough for me to see their stem, heavily-bearded faces.
“A Boer kommando,” said Raffles.
He pulled the dangling cord of the steam-whistle to give them a cheery salute, but they made no acknowledgement, not so much as a wave.
“I’m afraid we’ll find more of those fellows when we get to the Boer frontier station,” Raffles said.
“So we crash through at speed?” I suggested.
“And get fired at?” said Raffles. “No, Bunny. Firing would alert the Portuguese over on their side, make them wonder what was wrong, and try to stop us to find out.”
“But they’re neutral, Raffles!”
“Would they take a neutral view of train-robbers, Bunny? We can’t be sure, and I don’t much like the. possibility of internment in Portuguese East for the duration.”
“Oh, dear God!” I said.
Repeatedly, after that, I stopped shovelling coal, wiped sweat from my eyes with a bit of cotton-waste, and peered ahead anxiously through one of the two small round windows of the locomotive cab.
When at last I spotted, far ahead along the rails, a cluster of sheds come into view, my throat went dry. I saw the small figures of men, some of them on horseback. There seemed quite a lot of them — most of them armed, I noted, as Raffles slowed down our rate of approach and pulled the steam-whistle cord, loosing off three short blasts of greeting.
“Behave naturally!” Raffles shouted to me. “Stick your black face out with an affable smile, and wave as we pass through!”
“If we pass through!” I shouted back.
My heart thumped as I peered ahead through the round window. There was no barrier across the line. It stretched straight ahead, between the sheds and the waiting men, into no-man’s-land, as the locomotive chugged slowly, hissing exhaust-steam, into the little station — and kept moving.
I leaned out from the footplate, with a smile and a wave to the men as they watched the locomotive steam slowly past them, followed by the clanking goods trucks. I could see that the men were expecting the train to stop, but it was not until the guard’s little van at the rear was gliding past them that I heard from one of the men a shout of surprised inquiry.
“They’re shouting,” I called to Raffles.
“Acknowledge,” he called back.
I leaned out, looking back at the men, and nodding as though with vigorous understanding, at the same time waving to them in reassurance — and farewell.
None of them moved. They just seemed surprised. Their figures dwindled as Raffles opened the throttle a little and our speed discreetly increased.
“Now for the Portuguese, Bunny!”
Again our speed decreased, as we steamed, chugging sturdily, towards a cluster of small buildings with whitewashed walls, typically Portuguese. Raffles sounded our whistle, and I saw men emerging from the buildings — short, dark men in dusty green uniforms, with white cross-belts. and slung rifles.
As we steamed slowly past the soldiers, Raffles and I, from our respective sides of the locomotive cab, protruded our grimy faces, showing our teeth affably as we waved our greetings. One or two of the men waved back, amiably enough. But as the goods trucks went on clanking slowly past them, and the guard’s little van followed, I was dreading an outburst of shouts — and, possibly, of shots.
Nothing of the kind happened. I could hardly believe my eyes as I looked back at the soldiers gazing after us in mild surprise as they receded behind us. I gave them a final wave and turned to Raffles.
“By God,” I shouted, exultant, “we’re through! We’ve done it!”
“Now for Beira,” said Raffles, with a grin, “We’ll take no risks of internment, When we get near town, we’ll abandon this train for someone else to find and take in. Well sneak down to the dock area under cover of night and try smuggling ourselves aboard some ship, outward bound. Come on, now, stoke up! Give me steam!”
“Farewell to Oom Paul!” I yelled, as I seized the shovel again and the locomotive began to pound along, with quickening respirations and blasts of the whistle, on our journey to freedom.
When we finally reached London, after many delays, difficulties, and enforced wanderings, we learned that the hostilities in South Africa were virtually over. Pausing only long enough to report at the Yeomanry depot, and to visit our civilian tailor in Savile Row, we went north at the invitation of a chap we had been at school with, a young Argyllshire laird called Kenneth Mackail, for a week’s fishing.
“Ye bonnie banks and braes,” Raffles remarked, as, his dark hair crisp, his tweeds immaculate, a pearl in his cravat, he leaned with me beside him on the rail of the little side-wheeler steamer plying up Loch Long from Glasgow to Dunoon, where Ken was to meet us. “How do they look to you, Bunny?”
“After all we’ve been through,” I said, contemplating the northern sunshine mellow over the tranquil waters of the loch, and breathing the air redolent of the heather on the distant moors, “they look enchantingly peaceful to me.”
“They’ll be ringing with gunfire soon,” Raffles reminded me. “It’ll be the twelfth of August in a few days — the ‘Glorious Twelfth,’ when everybody comes north for the opening of grouse-shooting.”
“I’m glad Ken Mackail doesn’t own a moor,” I said. “My war-worn nerves are only equal to a little quiet fishing.”
Ken was waiting for us on the jetty at Dunoon. A slightly-built, wiry chap with sandy hair, he wore the kilt, with a dirk in his stocking. He had brought his dogcart, and the cob in the shafts trotted off with us sturdily on the long, jolting ride to Mackail Lodge, which was up among the moors.
“There’s one thing,” Ken said presently, as we clattered along, “which I feel I should mention. You chaps are just back from active service in South Africa, whereas I was out there — as you know — as correspondent for a newspaper with a strongly anti-war policy.”
“Different people, different views,” said Raffles, tolerantly. “In the main, Bunny Manders and I go through shot and shell with judiciously open minds.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Ken said, in his rather serious way. “The fact is, I’m involved in a bye-election, down in Glasgow. I’m standing for Parliament on a platform of generous peace terms for the Boers. Polling will be on the fourteenth, so I’m afraid I shall be busy on the hustings, down in Glasgow, most of the time you’re here. My ghillie Macpherson and his wife, my housekeeper, will look after you very well.”
“We have no fears on that score, Ken,” said Raffles.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
The road, a rutted track corkscrewing up over the moors, was traversing now the edge of a gorge where, deep down on our left, a stream out of the highlands tumbled merrily over falls, foamed among rocks, and broadened out here and there into fishworthy pools. I was mentally reviewing the salmon and trout lures in my fly-case when I saw another dogcart bowling down the track towards us with the horse at a rapid trot.