Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 8 )( Page 5) Lost In The Veld

There was plenty of wood near by, and thinking anxiously of the damp matches I looked about for dry tindery grass so that any spark would give a start for the fire.  As I stooped to look for the grass I came on a patch of bare ground between the scattered tufts, and in the middle of it there lay a half-burnt match; and such a flood of relief and hope surged up that my heart beat up in my throat.  Where there were matches there had been men!  We were not in the wilds, then, where white men seldom went--not off the beaten track: perhaps not far from the road itself. You must experience it to know what it meant at that moment.  It drew me on to look for more!  A yard away I found the burnt end of a cigarette; and before there was time to realise why that should seem queer, I came on eight or ten matches with their heads knocked off. For a moment things seemed to go round and round.  I sat down with my back against the rock and a funny choky feeling in my throat.  I knew they were my matches and cigarette, and that we were exactly where we had started from hours before, when we gave up the chase of tie koodoo. I began to understand things then: why places and landmarks seemed familiar; why Jock's spoor in the molehill had pointed the wrong way; why my shadow was in front and behind and beside me in turns.  We had been going round in a circle.  I jumped up and looked about me with a fresh light; and it was all clear as noonday then.  Why, this was the fourth time we had been on or close to some part of this same rise that day, each time within fifty yards of the same place; it was the second time I had sat on that very rock.  And there was nothing odd or remarkable about that either, for each time I had been looking for the highest point to spy from and had naturally picked the rock-topped rise; and I had not recognised it, only because we came upon it from different sides each time and I was thinking of other things all the while. All at once it seemed as if my eyes were opened and all was clear at last.  I knew what to do: just make the best of it for the night; listen for shots and watch for fires; and if by morning no help came in that way, then strike a line due south for the road and follow it up until we found the waggons.  It might take all day or even more, but we were sure of water that way and one could do it.  The relief of really understanding was so great that the thought of a night out no longer worried me. There was enough wood  gathered, and I stretched out on the grass to rest as there was nothing else to do.  We were both tired out, hot, dusty, and very very thirsty; but it was too late to hunt for water then.  I was lying on my side chewing a grass stem, and Jock lay down in front of me a couple of feet away.  It was a habit of his: he liked to watch my face, and often when I rolled over to ease one side and lie on the other he would get up when he found my back turned to him and come round deliberately to the other side and sling himself down in front of me again.  There he would lie with his hind legs sprawled on one side, his front legs straight out, and his head resting on his paws.  He would lie like that without a move, his little dark eyes fixed on mine all the time until the stillness and the rest made him sleepy, and he would blink and blink, like a drowsy child, fighting against sleep until it beat him; and then--one long-drawn breath as he rolled gently over on his side, and Jock was away in Snoozeland. In the loneliness of that evening I looked into his steadfast resolute face with its darker muzzle and bright faithful eyes that looked so soft and brown when there was nothing to do but got so beady black when it came to fighting.  I felt very friendly to the comrade who was little more than a puppy still; and he seemed to feel something too; for as I lay there chewing the straw and looking at him, he stirred his stump of a tail in the dust an inch or so from time to time to let me know that he understood all about it and that it was all right as long as we were together. But an interruption came.  Jock suddenly switched up his head, put it a bit sideways as a man would do, listening over his shoulder with his nose rather up in the air.  I watched him, and thinking that it was probably only a buck out to feed in the cool of the evening, I tickled his nose with the long straw, saying, "No good, old chap; only three cartridges left.  We must keep them." No dog likes to have his nose tickled: it makes them sneeze; and many dogs get quite offended, because it hurts their dignity.  Jock was not offended, but he got up and, as if to show me that I was frivolous and not attending properly to business, turned away from me and with his ears cocked began to listen again. He was standing slightly in front of me and I happened to notice his tail: it was not moving; it was drooping slightly and perfectly still, and he kept it like that as he stepped quietly forward on to another sloping rock overlooking a side where we had not yet been.  Evidently there was something there, but he did not know what, and he wanted to find out. I watched him, much amused by his calm businesslike manner.  He walked to the edge of the rock and looked out: for a few minutes he stood stock-still with his ears cocked and his tail motionless; then his ears dropped and his tail wagged gently from side to side. Something--an instinct or sympathy quickened by the day's experience, that I had never quite known before--taught me to understand, and I jumped up, thinking, "He sees something that he knows: he is pleased." As I walked over to him, he looked back at me with his mouth open and tongue out, his ears still down and tail wagging--he was smiling all over, in his own way.  I looked out over his head, and there, about three hundred yards off, were the oxen peacefully grazing and the herd boy in his red coat lounging along behind them. Shame at losing myself and dread of the others' chaff kept me very quiet, and all they knew for many months was that we had had a long fruitless chase after koodoo and hard work to get back in time. I had had my lesson, and did not require to have it rubbed in and be roasted as Buggins had been.  Only Jock and I knew all about it; but once or twice there were anxious nervous moments when it looked as if we were not the only ones in the secret.  The big Zulu driver, Jim Makokel'--always interested in hunting and all that concerned Jock-- asked me as we were inspanning what I had fired the last two shots at; and as I pretended not to hear or to notice the question, he went on to say how he had told the other boys that it must have been a klipspringer on a high rock or a monkey or a bird because the bullets had whistled over the waggons.  I told him to inspan and not talk so much, and moved round to the other side of the waggon. That night I slept hard, but woke up once dreaming that several lions were looking down at me from the top of a big flat rock and Jock was keeping them off.Jock was in his usual place beside me, lying against my blankets.  I gave him an extra pat for the dream, thinking, "Good old boy; we know all about it, you and I, and we're not going to tell.  But we've learned some things that we won't forget."  And as I dropped off to sleep again I felt a few feeble sleepy pats against my leg, and knew it was Jock's tail wagging "Good night."