The Sky And The Forest (31 page)

“If the twins are dead, and Lanu is dead, we ought not to have any more trouble,” said Talbot.

Fleuron turned back to the wounded man with a further question, and received an almost voluble reply. Twice at least Talbot caught the word “Loa.”

“No,” said Fleuron at length. “We shall still have to fight. There is this Loa still alive. He is undoubtedly a man, although whether Loa is his name or his title I still cannot say. He is at his town, up there, with his wives and the women of the country.”

“And his ivory too, please God,” said Talbot.

“Without doubt.”

Talbot looked round about him at the dead again.

“Too many men have been killed,” he said. “Who will gather rubber? The Baron will not be pleased.”

“The Baron?” Fleuron's gesture indicated deep contempt for the Baron's displeasure. “He ought to know, even if he does not, what we have been through here. And there will be the women left. We must restrain these devils when we reach the town. No killing -- not too much, at least. From the women we can breed. Thanks to polygamy in twenty years we can have this forest as full of men as a sausage is full of meat.”

Twenty years? The suggestion started Talbot on an unfortunate train of thought. Twenty years of discomfort, of loneliness, of misery and of bloodshed -- twenty years in the service of King Leopold. Talbot hated the thought of twenty years more of Africa; and yet if he were not to have to endure them it could only be because he was dead, and Talbot did not want to die. During the past two years he had once or twice touched the revolver at his belt, meditatively, and then withdrawn his hand, for Talbot was sufficiently afraid of the unknown to dread hurling himself through the dark portals of another world. He felt suddenly and desperately unhappy. To shake himself out of the mood he occupied himself with his task again.

“We must make ready, then,” he said, “for this move on Loa’s town.”

The way through the forest from the port to the town was clearly marked; it was something more like a road than anything else Central Africa could show. Clearly there had been a great deal of coming and going between the two places, with armies going out, and armies returning with plunder and slaves, with trading parties and messengers. But that portion of the Army of the Independent State of the Congo under Talbot's command made the advance from one place to the other with considerable caution, extended on a wide front, and scanning carefully every yard of the way ahead. The necessity for care was early borne in upon them, for there were pitfalls everywhere, and poisoned skewers concealed beneath the leaf-mould, and bent bows hidden in the undergrowth ready to let loose poisoned arrows at a touch on a strand of creeper. The forest had its human defenders, too; not many of them, but a few who flitted from tree to tree ahead of the advancing line and who sought opportunities of launching poisoned arrows from safe cover. The soldiery fired at these people whenever an opportunity presented itself, and often indeed when one did not. Sometimes the whole advancing line would break out into desultory firing, while Talbot raved furiously at this waste of ammunition on shadows that had no ears. Hardly any of the bullets discharged found a billet in a human target; only one or two lucky shots brought down bowmen who had incautiously exposed themselves.

Talbot, with his bodyguard about him, walked along after the skirmish line. He made use of his eyes as he walked, and he saw that his guard did the same; besides traps and pitfalls there was always the chance that one of those bowmen ahead had managed to creep through the line and was lying in ambush, arrow on string, waiting for a white man to shoot at. Although his pace was perforce leisurely, so as not to overtake the firing line, rivers of sweat ran down his skin in the stifling steamy air of the forest. Talbot looked back with regret to his sojourn in the
Lady Stanley
, under the open sky, with the chance of an unimpeded breeze. This gloomy forest, with the tree trunks standing like ghosts in the twilight, oppressed him the more forcibly because so much of the campaign up to now had been waged on the banks of the open river. He hated this forest, with its darkness and silence. Holding his revolver ready in his right hand, he mopped his face and neck continually with the grubby rag which had once been a handkerchief in his left.

Cries echoing back from ahead of him told him of a new development in the situation, and, continuing along the path, he soon discovered the reason for them. They had reached the outskirts of the town. But here there was something a little unusual for Central Africa -- a deliberate attempt to fortify the place. The path entered the abandoned clearings that ringed the town, as they did every town in this area, but the well-trodden and well-marked point of entrance was blocked by a stout palisade. The tangle of small growth and creepers, where it existed, was the best of defence against a surprise attack, but the belt round most towns was never continuous. It was always intersected by footpaths, and there were frequent broad gaps where the banana groves and manioc gardens were under cultivation. Always before it had been easy to force a way into a town by one route or another; this was the first time Talbot had ever seen any artificial obstruction to an entrance.

The palisade was lofty and dense; examining it from behind the cover of the nearest tree Talbot could see that there was another one twenty yards in the rear of it -- a remarkable precaution against surprise. The uprights were driven into the earth, and clearly extended into the undergrowth on either side of the gap, while the horizontal members were bound stoutly to the uprights by split cane; Talbot could see a kind of wicket gate in the palisade, but the split cane fastenings around it were so dense and numerous that it was obvious that it did not constitute a weak point in the defences. There was no glimpse to be got of any human defenders of the gate, but one of his Batetela headmen showed Talbot a long arrow with a jagged wooden head -- with poison in the barbs as usual -- which had come sailing over the palisade from some point in the undergrowth. There could be no doubt that at least a few archers were waiting, hidden, within sight of the palisade, so that any attempt to storm the defences without preparation would incur severe loss.

Fleuron came up to report; he had been with the advanced guard and on reaching the gate had moved along the defences to his right in search of a weak point.

“Dense undergrowth -- undergrowth of a difficulty quite incredible -- as far as I can see, Captain,” said Fleuron. “At the only weak point there was a palisade like this one. That was when I turned back. I left half my guard there. This Loa will have palisaded all points, one may be sure. I will try in the other direction if you wish.”

“There would be no advantage to be gained by that, I fancy,” said Talbot.

He could send a note back to the
Lady Stanley
and have the six-pounder sent up to him. A few rounds from the gun would make short work of those palisades. But the day was already far advanced; to unship the gun and bring it ashore, and mount it on its traveling carriage and drag it along the path, would take hours, days perhaps. Or he could make use of a more primitive method of attack; burning faggots piled against the palisades under a heavy covering fire from rifles would burn the palisades down. But that would take time too; he would have to wait for the embers to cool at first one barrier and then at the other.

“Oh, damn it all to hell,” said Talbot in a fit of pettish irritation.

He wanted to end this business quickly. He had enough men -- too many of them, for that matter. Why should he trouble to keep them alive? There could not be more than a few old men left to defend the town. He issued his orders harshly and savagely; and Fleuron, noticing the expression on his face, bit off short the protest he automatically had begun to raise at his first realization of what was in Talbot's mind. A hundred riflemen, strung among the trees, prepared to cover the attack. Fleuron and Talbot took rifles, too, but that was not for the same purpose. The Batetela headman and the twenty men with axes who were selected for the attempt looked at the rifles in the white men's hands. Those rifles, if they refused to move, meant certain and immediate death; the poisoned arrows from the defences meant death not quite so certain and not quite so immediate. Their teeth and eyeballs gleamed in the twilight as they chattered to each other debating the hideous choice. An angry word and an impatient gesture from Talbot settled their decision. They gripped their axes and they ran with despairing haste up the broad path. A shaft of sunlight reached over the tops of the trees and illuminated the little crowd as they came to the foot of the menacing palisade. Their axes rang against the stubborn cane fastenings. They hacked and hewed feverishly, with excited cries.

Here came the arrows, surely enough. Two men backed away, with feathered shafts hanging from the barbed heads driven deep into them -- the whole group followed their example and broke back again, but Fleuron stepped forward and shot one of them mercilessly, and they turned back again to their task. The rifles helped them; the Remington bullets went crashing through the undergrowth in search of the bowmen hidden there who launched those arrows. Fleuron shouted an encouragement -- or a warning. It reached the ears of the axmen and added to their exertions. Frantically they hacked and pulled, treading their dead and wounded underfoot. One man reached up and clutched the upper horizontal bar, flung his weight on it and was joined by two others, and their united exertions tore the thing down. Two uprights were dragged aside so that they leaned drunkenly in opposite directions. There was a passage of some sort through the first palisade, and Fleuron, yelling loudly, recalled the survivors of the axmen. By giving them a chance of life he could expect greater enthusiasm from those that would have to follow them.

The arrangements for the final assault were quickly made. A hundred spearmen on either side of the entrance were to attack straight before them, plunging directly into the undergrowth and struggling through as best they could. They might turn the flank of the defence should it be prolonged. Another body of axmen was collected to deal with the farther palisade. A hundred spearmen were to follow on their heels, and turn to right and left after passing the nearer palisade and seek out the defenders who might be hidden in the undergrowth along the entrance path. Spearmen, newly brought into the ranks of the Army from the forest, were cheaper than the riflemen who had been given training in the use of firearms. Along the path was ranged the main assaulting column, destined to burst through when the way should be cleared for them. They were excited and eager, keyed up at the thought of entering into the legendary mysteries of Loa's town.

Sweating and shouting, Talbot and Fleuron hastened about to get all in order.

“Go!” shouted Fleuron at last, and the attackers hurled themselves forward.

Talbot watched the axmen burst through the first palisade. The spearmen followed them. Throughout the belt of undergrowth came muffled shouts as the assaulting spearmen plunged and struggled in the entangling mass. As he had expected, the entrance path was sown thick with poisoned skewers, but he had sent in enough men to be able to bear losses. He saw one of the axmen climb straight up the second palisade, poise himself for a moment, and then leap down beyond it. Mad with excitement, the man did not delay a moment, but rushed straight ahead, waving his axe, towards the town. It was time.

“Go!” roared Fleuron again, and the waiting column charged yelling up the path.

For a while the whole entrance was jammed as they forced their way through the wreck of the first barrier; then they flowed on to reach the second one just as it began to give way. Talbot saw them pouring forward and nodded to his escort. They closed round him as they had been drilled to do; there was less chance of a poisoned arrow reaching him when he was surrounded by human bodies. They were wild with excitement, chattering and shouting as they hurried forward with Talbot in their midst. They entered the narrow path through the undergrowth, so narrow that the files on each side of him pressed up against him so that his nostrils were filled with the smell of their sweating bodies, and they picked their way through the shattered barrier while the undergrowth round them still echoed with the cries of the attackers plunging about after the last few defenders. They hurried up the path and through the second barrier, emerging into the main street of the town, the sunshine blazing down upon it.

Their point of entrance was about the middle of it; at the ends to the left and right it widened out into something like open squares; street and squares were lined with large substantial houses constructed of split boards thatched with leaves. At the far end to the right Talbot's eye was caught by a large area of greenery, with straggling trees emerging out of it, filling the whole centre of the square. That must be the sacred grove, and near it must be the chief's house and the treasury and the important buildings. It was thither that he directed his escort, hurrying down the street while around him he saw and heard the hideous sights and sounds of a town taken by assault. He would have to beat these fiends off their prey, but first he had better secure the treasury and put a guard over it.

But round about the grove there was no sign of any chief's house. This looked like the poorer end of the town, as one might say. Here were the forges with their stone anvils, a small heap of charcoal yet remaining, the boxlike bellows lying beside it, and everywhere inches deep in the dead sparks of a thousand years' of smith's work. The houses contained nothing except poor domestic utensils and moaning women. The sacred grove was not at all impressive on close inspection. It was small; a single short path led to a little clearing in the centre, and in the clearing there were a few human bones, but not very many, and no treasure whatever.

The palace of this Loa must be at the other end of the town after all. Talbot cursed and hastened back up the street. Halfway along he met Fleuron, busily engaged in the organization of conquest. His escort stood guard over a herd of frightened women who crouched and huddled together with rolling eyes as they heard the shrieks of those whom Fleuron had not been able to protect.