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Book Four – Chapter Four.
King Kara-Kara’s Armada – The Battle on the Lake – Terrible fighting

Briefly stated, the news which the scout had brought from the mainland was to the effect that King Kara-Kara, who held the white men at his court as slaves, having heard of the prosperity and wealth of the king of the hundred isles, and that he also owned a white slave, had determined to invade the island territory.

From the hill-top, at a safe distance, this scout had beheld Kara-Kara’s camp with his own eyes, and he assured King Googagoo that the army was a well-armed and a vast one, and that they were already busily engaged in cutting down trees and making dug-outs.⁴

“So,” said Harry, “the tables are turned. Instead of our making war on Kara-Kara, Kara-Kara is going to make war upon us.”

“Let them come,” replied Googagoo, “I care not; you have taught me to put my trust in Heaven. I do so, and feel sure that the Great Eye which looks upon us from beyond the clouds, will keep us safe and give us the victory.”

Although there were now thunderstorms and rain almost every day, Harry made himself busier with his little army than ever.

He picked out the best, quickest, and boldest men for officers – and I need hardly say that both Walda and Somali Jack had high appointments – and he kept drilling the men and amazons from morning till night.

Nor did he forget the commissariat This was to be very simple – little else, in fact, save dates and rice and water.

Often now of a night great fires could be seen gleaming among the wooded hills on the distant horizon, showing plainly enough that King Kara-Kara’s men were far from idle.

So the time wore on, and the wet season passed; the lake was no longer lashed into foam by driving squalls, but slept as peacefully under the blue sky as if waves had never yet been invented.

Harry was now wholly ready for action, and he had almost made up his mind to carry the war into the enemy’s country before he had time to attack the islands.

The king and he had a long palaver over the particulars of this plan. His majesty had very great faith in his navy.

“My boys,” he said, “can fight as well on the water as they and my brave amazons can do on shore. Let them come. We will cripple them, sink them, then the work of utterly destroying them on their own shore will be easy indeed.”

Harry, on second thoughts, would have preferred surprising Kara-Kara by night, but he acquiesced in the king’s wishes.

They would be ready, therefore, and wait. How or when would the enemy come? By night or by day? and in what formation?

Tall signal-posts were built on every island, to give warning of the approach of the foe, and round every isle sentinels were stationed day and night, with great fires built and ready to light.

For there was no saying from what direction the attack might be made. In all probability they would steal round the lake under the shadow of the land, and under the cover of the darkness, and attack Googagoo at the place where he was most vulnerable.

More than once, in the starlight, small canoes had been detected gliding about at night, but were speedily chased and put to flight. They were spies without a doubt.

The island fleet had been by no means a first-class one, consisting for the most part of large dug-outs with outriggers, like great gates at each side This last certainly gave them extra stability and prevented their turning over, but it greatly lessened their speed.

Even the flagship, which the king’s barge might well be called, was rather an unwieldy craft. She was the only one that had sailing power, and that was merely a clumsy square sail, on one centre mast.

But Harry had gone in for naval reform – as far as practicable, and with all the enthusiasm of a British sailor.

He had the men – for every one of these islanders was amphibious in a manner of speaking – what he wanted was the ships.

Some new boats were accordingly made of a light wood that had been cut down years ago. He made these broader in the beam, so that he managed to dispense with the abominable way-stopping outriggers. Seven in all of these were constructed, the bottoms being made shapely and smooth, the sides light and thin, and the whole arrangement capable of double the speed.

These new boats were to contain a crew of picked archers, the very best shots in his little army, which consisted of eight thousand men all told. There were also one thousand amazons.

Harry, in the forthcoming expedition to the mainland, wanted to leave these women folks – “leave the ladies” – that is how he politely worded it – at home. But the king, who was to command in person, would not hear of such a thing. They were his body-guard, and so go they must.

Attention was now turned to the royal barge, and she lay bottom upwards for a week to be strengthened by skin and pieces of thin iron, so that when she was again launched, she looked a sturdy, useful craft indeed.

Extra oars or paddles were placed in every war-boat, and spears and daggers innumerable.

Between a few of the islands, and quite out of view of the enemy, a great naval review was held, and everything passed off in a most satisfactory way.

Still, by taking away the outriggers Harry had considerably increased the risk of capsizing in his boats. So he took the matter into still more serious consideration, the result of which was that he constructed a small fleet of special war-boats, each one consisting of two of the ordinary dug-outs lashed together side by side, and he found to his great joy that even these had as much speed in them as the clumsy outrigger canoes.

The islanders were now ready for battle either by land or water.

Scouts were sent to the hills to spy out the doings of the enemy.

They returned with tidings to the effect that they had over two hundred large dug-outs afloat, and that each of these had outriggers. That their army consisted of nearly 20,000 warriors, armed with spears, and clubs, and broad knives.

It was only a question now of time, so Harry waited. He himself was to command in the naval engagement, the king would be otherwise engaged as we shall presently see.

Whether it was that King Kara-Kara did not possess much ingenuity, or was a staunch Conservative of the old school, or trusted entirely to his great numbers and power, I know not; certain it is, however, that he chose to make the attack upon the islanders in the simplest fashion possible.

He put to sea one morning early with all his fleet of over one hundred and fifty large boats, each containing about twenty oarsmen and warriors, and in three extended lines began slowly pulling towards Googagoo’s private island.

Harry saw through his tactics at once, for after all war is very much like a game of draughts, and skill goes a long way, while the more you can guess your opponent’s thoughts the surer you are of victory: so Harry rightly guessed that Kara-Kara’s plan of action was first to capture the island king’s palace and stronghold, king and all, then take the other islands one by one.

“It is a very pretty arrangement,” said Harry to his host, “if it can be successfully carried out.”

“Let them try,” cried the king, who was dressed in his war clothes, with spear, and sword, and short stout battle-axe, and really looked imposing.

“Let them come on; I am now burning for the fight.”

“So am I,” cried Harry, laughing and spitting in his hand – the hand that held a drawn ship’s cutlass.

“I go away into my tent now to pray,” continued the king. “Then I make my army kneel and pray. Oh, I do not fear. See, the clouds are rolling up and hiding the sun. The sun fears to look on the battle: but the Eye, the Eye that will guide us to victory, is far beyond the sun. Your Book tells me so.”

“It is,” said Harry, solemnly. “Good-bye.”

Then he shook hands with the king and hurried away to action.

He had had a skiff of great speed built expressly for this great day. His oarsmen were two, with a child to steer, and Somali Jack with the rifles in the stern sheets.

There were only fifty cartridges left!

On came Kara’s great fleet.

They had three miles and over to row, and they were allowed to do more than two-thirds of the distance before ever Harry ordered his boats to shove off to meet them.

Greatly to his surprise and joy he noticed that the enemy’s boats were far too much crowded to permit anything like freedom of action among the men.

“That scores one for us,” he said to himself.

The swift boats were now ordered off. These – as already stated – were manned with archers, and were now told to meet and harass the foe with clouds of arrows, but on no condition to close with them.

They were to hang on both flanks of the approaching fleet, and fire low, well, and steadily. These were in command of Walda.

The king’s barge was next ordered out. She was manned by thirty of the bravest and biggest of the islanders, and each had, in addition to a spear, a ponderous battle-axe.

Her duty was to capsize the enemy’s boats by seizing the outriggers, or at least to try to do so.

Away sped the archery boats with just one wild hurrah! and to see the swiftness with which they bounded along to meet Kara-Kara’s fleet considerably astonished its sailors. They were still more astonished however, when, while still about two hundred yards distant, the archery boats divided into two lines, one skimming along each flank and pouring in a murderous fire of arrows.

It was evident the foe was taken aback. Men were being pierced through body and head, and falling dead in all quarters.

A side movement was made by the enemy with the view of crushing the venomous little archery boats. But Walda’s voice was now heard shouting, “Boro! Boro!” (back! back!) high over the din of the battle.

The enemy now saw the inutility of any flank movement, and once more advanced in lines, redoubling their efforts to reach the island.

King Googagoo’s barge got round and advanced in the rear, and then out came Harry with his fleet.

He took his time.

There was no need for hurry, it was to be a hand-to-hand engagement, and the longer that cloud of arrows fell on the foe the better. The more fatigued the enemy the more chance would Googagoo’s fleet have of coming off triumphant.

At last the hostile canoes met with a terrible rush.

By Harry’s orders the outriggers were to be cut away from Kara-Kara’s boats as soon as possible, and every effort made to capsize them. But above all were they to beware of getting their own double boats boarded and carried by storm.

The battle now raged with terrible fury. Boat after boat of the enemy had her outriggers hacked away and got capsized.

Harry was here, there, and everywhere, shouting orders, guiding and encouraging his fleet.

He was a fleet in himself – the very genius of the battle.

The commander of the hostile canoes was a huge savage, who stood in the bows of a large canoe and shouted his orders in a voice so sonorous that it was heard everywhere. He seemed to bear a charmed life, for again and again Somali Jack fired at him, but no bullet found a billet in that fierce giant’s body.

But canoe after canoe – by this captain’s orders – was detached to attack Harry’s boat, for well the fellow knew that could he but silence our hero the battle would soon be won.

Each and all of the boats sent on this detached duty came to grief. In vain spears were hurled towards the skiff, for Jack’s rifle instantly came into deadly play, and at close quarters he liberally drilled them by twos.

On the other hand, the archers were not idle, and any boat that got out of line was their particular prey.

The fiercest fighting of all raged around the king’s bark with its giant seamen. Its captain was a man of herculean strength and all a savage’s wild ferocity. Wielding aloft a mighty battle-axe he dealt death and destruction around him wherever he went. Many a canoe the barge capsized. Many were the attempts made to board her, not only from the warlike canoes, but by the drowning wretches in the lake; the latter were ruthlessly hacked down, the former hurled back bleeding into the water or into their dug-outs.

At last the barge found itself inside the enemy’s line, and alongside the stalwart commander’s big canoe.

In a moment the outriggers at one side were broken into splinters, then the giants found themselves face to face, Kara-Kara’s naval commander having leaped, panther-fashion, on board the barge and closed with its captain.

It was a fearful tussle while it lasted, but soon the giant rose bleeding but triumphant, and Kara-Kara’s chief lay dead with his head hanging over the gunnel of the boat.

Then the barge fought its way back into the open water, and the battle was continued boat to boat and breast to breast.

But it was soon evident to Harry that, deprived of their captain, the enemy were getting the worst of it and giving way.

Presently oars were seized by the foe, their dead and even their wounded were pitched into the lake, and the retreat began.

Harry at once called off his men. He meant to cripple, if not destroy, the foe in a way that would save the lives of his own fellows. The double boats fell back at once, and the enemy, or what remained of them – for at least five hundred must have fallen in this terrible melée– commenced pulling away with might and main towards their own camp on the distant shore.

“Follow and harass them halfway to their own shore.”

This was the order given to the archers.

I draw a veil over the terrible scene that followed.

The blood of the archers was up. All their savage nature was on flame.

They saw red, so to speak, and red enough they made it for those unhappy boats.

Not only halfway towards their own shore, but nearly all the way did they chase them, until their arrows were completely expended.

Then back came the archer-fleet, having hardly lost a single man.

Back they came, bending merrily to their paddles and singing some wild chant that mingled strangely with the scream of the carrion birds that now nearly darkened the air, or, perching upon the floating bodies, had already begun their fearful feast.

Book Four – Chapter Five.
The Battle on the Mainland – Death or Victory

From an elevated plateau on his private island, King Googagoo had witnessed all the battle. His whole army stood around him, ready, if need should be, to repel the enemy.

But the enemy were beaten, routed, and almost annihilated.

Harry had always been a hero with this kindly-hearted king, now he was almost a god.

“You are a great man!” the king shouted, rushing to meet and shake him by the hand. “Oh, brother, what should I have done but for you! Our warriors would have been tortured, burned, slain, and our wives and little ones dragged away into a captivity worse than death.”

Harry pointed skywards.

“Yes, yes, I know,” cried the king. “It was the Eye; I knew He would give us the victory.”

“Stay,” said Harry, seriously, “I fear the worst fighting is still before us. On shore I mean, for hardly will the enemy care to or dare to attack you by water again. We must land this very evening. The foe is now beaten and demoralised, let us follow up our success without a moment’s delay.”

And so it was arranged.

The wounded were seen to, and as soon as the sun went down, which he did in a flood of calm beauty that night, just as if no bloodshed, grief, and murder was on the earth, the expedition started.

It started not in boats altogether, but along the strange sunken natural roadway, where from the shore Harry had first seen the king’s barge moving apparently of its own accord. Had the enemy known of this expedition from the hundred islands, things might have turned out differently from what they had done.

Enough men and amazons were left to defend the island in case of a repulse, the boats took the arms of all sorts and the provisions, the men themselves walked through the water or swam.

By midnight the whole army to the number of nearly seven thousand, all included, stood on the shore, and the boats were hauled up and hidden among the trees.

Raggy had been left at home in charge of the island, and a very proud Raggy he was in consequence.

“I nebber was a king befoh,” he said to himself, as he strutted about and gave orders to the Amazons, any one of which might have laid him cross-knees and flogged him. “I nebber was a king befoh, and now I means to be one king all over.”

If being a king all over meant occupying Googagoo’s tent, being led out to dinner precisely as his majesty had been, and eating as much curry as he could get down, then undoubtedly Raggy was a king all over.

Long before the dawn appeared in the east, Googagoo’s army had commenced the march towards the enemy’s camp, guided by Walda.

At the king’s right hand was Harry, who was generalissimo in all but name. His majesty might fight well, but he could hardly be expected to direct the manoeuvres of a great battle so well as a British officer.

By daybreak Harry had drawn up his men in battle array on the brow of a hill, almost within stone’s throw of the enemy’s big camp beneath.

In numbers Kara-Kara’s men were as three to one of Harry’s army, but, having vantage ground, the latter hoped to provoke the foe to attack.

In this they were disappointed, for although there was skirmishing, as the day went on, between the outposts, nothing serious occurred; King Kara-Kara made no attempt to storm and capture the hill. His motto seemed to be “Wait.”

By twelve o’clock Googagoo’s patience was exhausted.

“I love to fight,” he said to Harry, “but to lie idle with the spear in my hand is not good for Googagoo. Let it be now.”

Then Harry, after visiting all his lines, speaking words of encouragement and issuing commands, gave the order to advance, he himself leading in person, sword in hand.

Kara’s army lay at arms, in vast squares or impis, along a wide and sparsely wooded valley, Harry’s hill being on the east of him, the lake to the north, and a dense forest land behind and to the west. It was a difficult position to attack, but they had come here to fight and must face every odds.

It must also be to a great extent a hand-to-hand engagement.

Now unlike a battle with guns and rifles, a fight of the nature Googagoo was now to engage in could not be of long duration. Harry knew that, and resolved to make his onset as telling as possible. He had two advantages over Kara: his men were well drilled, and they possessed a most deadly weapon in the cross-bow.

At the very moment the signal of advance was given by Harry, wild shouting arose from the ranks of the enemy, accompanied by the rattle of tom-toms and the blaring of innumerable chanters. But the foe showed no intention of coming on, so the Googagoo men and amazons marched steadily to meet them.

There was no racing or shouting. To have run would have meant to lose wind, and Harry knew well the value of breath in a hand-to-hand fight. A movement was first made towards the south with the view of out-flanking the enemy. This had the desired effect, and Kara’s swarms now came on in that direction.

Harry threw his archery-men out in skirmishing order now, in two lines, and the orders were to advance steadily to within a hundred yards of the enemy, then commence firing, one line supporting the other, but the whole army falling back towards the hills as the foe advanced.

This was to prevent the latter closing, when of course the cross-bows would be of no more use.

The battle began, and for a time raged on two sides, the amazons having partially out-flanked the foe. The army as at present might be represented by the capital letter L, the short limb being the side facing southwards and fronting the terrible amazons, the long limb the main body of Kara’s army driving back – as they thought – Googagoo’s archers towards the hills.

But while this driving back process was taking place, Harry’s side was not losing a man, while the field was soon strewn with the dead and wounded of the enemy.

The latter began to stop short and waver, the arrows poured in upon them in clouds, and for a time victory appeared to be inclining towards the side of the island king.

Soon, however, Kara-Kara himself was seen running along behind his lines and shouting wild words of command to his men.

Their charge was now redoubled in fury as well as in speed, and it became at once evident to Harry that the cross-bows would in a few minutes more become useless in line, and his ranks be broken by the enemy through force of numbers.

He quickly, therefore, formed up into two English squares with the Scottish triangle in the centre, both he and the king being inside the latter.

Hardly had he done so, ere the impis of the savage foe closed on them, those on the outsides of each phalanx receiving the shock at spear’s point, while archers from the interior poured in a steady fire from their murderous cross-bows.

The Karaites fell back after a time, defeated and foiled, and Harry’s triangle then charged into their very midst, delivering by far and away the most furious and successful charge of the day.

For a time now it seemed to be a drawn battle.

It might have been well, now for Harry had he retreated farther, and probably gained the eastern hills, for, excited by fighting, Kara’s army would undoubtedly have followed them.

He did not, however, and in less than an hour he lost all opportunity of fever being able to do so.

On came the enemy once again, and this time they managed completely to surround Googagoo’s army.

Not his amazons, though; these fought with spear and axe in the rear of the enemy, and it is quite impossible to describe the terrible fury of each of their onsets.

For three long hours the battle raged.

The sun was now beginning to decline. The enemy seemed as determined as ferocious, and as numerous as before, while Googagoo’s ranks were sadly thinned.

They still kept their stand, however, against all the odds that Kara could fling in front of them.

Fight they must.

It was victory or death with them.

For defeat meant annihilation, it meant that not one man or amazon would ever return to the islands to tell the terrible tale, and that the islands themselves would soon have to capitulate, and come under the sway of the cruel King Kara-Kara.

The sun began to decline towards the western woods, but still the battle raged on. The words of Scott came into Harry’s head even now as he saw his brave fellows falling on all sides.

 
“What ’vails the vain knight-errand’s brand?
Oh! Douglas, for thy leading wand!
    Fierce Randolph for thy speed!
Oh! for one hour of Wallace wight,
Or well-skilled Bruce to rule the fight,
And cry Saint Andrew and our right.”
 

The battle raged on.

One of Harry’s squares had already been broken, and it being impossible to re-form again, the men had fought their way through the cloud of savages around them and joined the ranks of the amazons.

Hope was beginning to fade even from Harry’s heart.

He could not bear to hear the plaint of poor King Googagoo.

“Where is He who fights for the right?” he was saying.

“Where is the Eye who beholds all things?”

Where is the Eye? Look. Whither shall we look? Look far away towards the western horizon yonder. Are those the crimson clouds that herald the sunset? No, they are too low down on the plain, and a rolling canopy of blue is rising up and meeting the sun.

The southern woods are all on fire. The battlefield itself is soon —

 
“Wreathed in sable smoke.”
 

And out from the fire, it would seem, there now rushes an enemy that King Kara-Kara has but little reckoned on meeting.

No wonder he withdraws his men from the sadly weakened phalanxes of the island king, and tries to make his way southwards.

Here he is opposed by the stern fierce amazons, and their ranks are soon strengthened by a cloud of savages, spear-armed, who rush up behind them and fall upon the enemy in their front.

 
“Scarcely can they see their foes,
Until at weapon’s point they close,
They close in clouds of dust and smoke,
With sword-sway and with lance’s thrust;
    And such a yell is there
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
    And fiends in upper air;
Oh! life and death are in the shout,
Recoil and rally, charge and rout,
    And triumph and despair.”
 

Neither King Googagoo nor Harry could tell what the meaning of this sudden attack on the ranks of Kara-Kara meant. It seemed like an interposition of Providence. So, indeed, they both considered it, and doubtless they were right.

Meanwhile Kara’s army, now sadly thinned, fought like veritable fiends.

Escape there seemed none.

The hills to the east were guarded by the island men, there was the lake behind them, the new foe in front, and the woods in the west were all ablaze.

The route was soon complete and the carnage dreadful to contemplate.

So terrible are these fights between African kings that it is no exaggeration to say, that out of all the thousands that Kara-Kara had brought into the field hardly one thousand escaped alive, and they had to force their way through the burning forest, many falling by fire who had come scathless from the field.

King Kara-Kara was among the killed.

He was found, next day, in the midst of a heap of the bodies of those who had rallied round him to the last —

 
“His back to the field, and his feet to the foe.”
 

In his hand he still clasped the spear he would never use again.

 
“Reckless of life, he’d desperate fought,
    And fallen on the plain;
And well in death his trusty brand,
Firm clenched within his manly hand,
    Beseemed the monarch slain.”