With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born LeaderHenty, G. A. (George Alfred)
General
With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader
Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
South African War, 1899-1902 -- Fiction
"I have been thinking it over. There are two ways of doing it. We can
go on board a ship touching at Durban and going on to Lorenzo Marques.
I don't say that we could not all do it, but it would be better to
choose only four; a larger number would excite more observation. Those
who go will of course take dynamite with them. We can buy that at
Durban. At Lorenzo Marques we should assume the character of four young
Irish fellows. We know there are lots of them already up there, and
Germans too, fighting in the Boer ranks and I am glad to know that they
got peppered at Elandslaagte, although that is not to the point. We
should go as four Irish lads who have come across from America to fight
for the Boers. We have heard plenty of Irish in the mines and at
Johannesburg, so shall be able to put enough brogue in our talk to
pass. I know from what I have heard that a trip to the Portuguese
officials would be quite sufficient for them to pass anything without
examination; but even if they did open our cases and find dynamite in
them, we could account for it by saying that we had been told before
starting that it would be the handiest thing to take with us, and would
be of more assistance to the Boers than anything we could bring them.
"No doubt some of the passengers would know that we got on board at
Durban, but if any questions were asked we could account for that by
saying that the ship we came over in, was going on to Australia, and
therefore we had been obliged to land and take another on to Lorenzo
Marques. Once landed, we should of course take a train for
Komati-poort, and slip off it after dark at some station a few miles
from there. Then, you know, we could first reconnoitre the bridge, and
when we had settled on the best place for the dynamite, we could put it
there the next night. I know a good deal about the use of dynamite. It
is not like gunpowder, that you have to put in a hole and fasten up
tightly, you only have to lay it upon an iron girder or arch, and light
your fuse and leave it to do its work."
The boys listened with increasing surprise to his proposal.
"And what is your other plan?" Peters asked after a long pause.
"The other plan is that we should all take a passage in some small
craft, which we could hire, to St. Lucia Bay, and then go up through
Zululand and Swaziland, which extends to within a short distance of
Komati-poort. Both tribes are friendly enough with us, and hate the
Boers like poison. Of course in that case we shall take the dynamite
with us, and then must be guided by circumstances as to our course and
what we should do when we got to the bridge."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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