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George Manville Fenn
The Kopje Garrison
A Story of the Boer War
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066209971
Table of Contents
Chapter Two.
What they caught.
“Serve him right!” Dickenson growled more than spoke. “There’s another chap creeping away yonder so as to enfilade us from the left.”
“Well, you know what to do,” said Lennox grimly.
Dickenson uttered a grunt, and, paying no further heed to the bullets that kept on spattering about the rocks, every now and then striking up a shower of loose stones, waited, patiently watching a spot that he had marked down a couple of hundred yards away up the river to his left. For he had seen one of the most pertinacious of their aggressors draw back, apparently without reason.
“He couldn’t have known that I meant to pick him out for my next shot,” the young officer said to himself, “and he couldn’t have been hurt, so he’s up to the same sort of game as that fellow old Lennox brought down.”
He turned his head sharply, not on account of a bullet coming too close, but to learn the effect of another shot from his companion.
“Hit or miss?” he said gruffly.
“Hit,” was the laconic reply.
Dickenson had only glanced round, and then fixed his eyes once more upon the little clump of bushes he had before noted.
“That’s the place he’ll show at for certain,” he muttered, and getting the sight of his rifle well upon one particular spot where a big grey stone reared itself up level with the tops of the bushes, he waited for quite five minutes, which were well dotted with leaden points.
“Ha! I was right,” said Dickenson to himself, for all at once he caught a glimpse of the barrel of a rifle reared up and then lowered down over the top of the stone in his direction.
The distance was great, and the rifle-barrel looked no larger than a metal ramrod, but the clearness of the South African air showed it plainly enough; and hugging himself closer together, the young officer laid