He looked at his watch. Allowing for the slow pace of the children and the laden men over difficult country, he calculated that the head of the straggling column had probably covered two-thirds of the distance to the nullah. It would be at least another hour before they reached its entrance, and a second hour before the people and the stores were far enough up to be out of harm’s way. The question was, then, could he check the pursuit for two hours? By the time he had posted his men just within the belt of trees, where they commanded the whole space in front, he had been rejoined by all his scouts. The report of the last comers was even more alarming than that of the first. According to them, a great throng of ferocious askaris, like a swarm of wild bees, was dashing on with the speed of antelopes. Though he was aware of their habit of exaggeration, Tom was conscious of a consuming anxiety, but had self-command enough to present a calm and smiling front to the natives, in whom the least sign of wavering on his part would have started a panic. Through Mwesa he gave them the order not to fire until he whistled, resolving at the same time to cut himself a wooden whistle at the first opportunity. The men had been posted barely twenty minutes when, through the thinner woodland on the opposite side of the clearing, Tom caught sight of a few scattered negroes in uniform. "Scouts feeling their way forward," he thought. The askaris moved rapidly, but cautiously, flitting from tree to tree in a series of short rushes. Marking one of them, Tom fired. The man instantly slipped behind a trunk; his fellows had all disappeared. Analysing later his frame of mind at the moment of firing, Tom had to admit that his aim had been intentionally bad, and justified his action with the excuse that his object was merely to delay the enemy. At bottom, however, he was really loth to kill his man--a feeling which has, no doubt, seized many a young officer in his first fight. In after days he often debated with himself and discussed with others how far humanity is compatible with war, and the conclusion that he came to was that war must be abolished, or humanity would perish. If man must kill man, whether the agent be bullet, shell, bomb, poison gas, or any other abomination, logically there is nothing to choose between them: the vile thing is war itself. But at this moment he had no time for reflection: he acted purely from a humane instinct, not realising what war meant, ignorant of the methods in which the enemy was prepared to wage it. His ill-aimed shot had not been without effect. The enemy had vanished, and Tom’s men, in their simplicity, whooped with delight. Tom however, was under no delusion. One or more of the askaris had no doubt stolen back through the wood to report that they were in touch with the fugitives; the rest were still lurking among the trees.