Monckton Advised Both Acland And Myself To Shoot Ourselves With
Our Revolvers If We Saw That We Were Overwhelmed, So As To Escape
These Terrible Tortures, And He Assured Us That He Should Keep The
Last Bullet In His Own Revolver For Himself.
This was my first taste
of warfare.
Monckton had had many fights with Papuans, and Acland,
besides, had seen many severe engagements in the Boer war, but he
said he would rather be fighting the Boers than risking the infernal
tortures of these cannibals. It all, somehow, seemed unreal to me,
and I could hardly realise that I was in serious danger of being
tortured, cooked and eaten. It is impossible to depict faithfully
our weird surroundings. We chatted on for some time, and tried
to cheer each other up by making jokes about the matter, such as
"This time to-morrow we shall be laughing over the whole affair,"
but the depressed tone of our voices belied our words, and it proved
to be but a very feeble attempt at joking. We longed for the moon,
though that would have helped us little, as it was cloudy.
It is quite unnecessary to go into further details of that awful
night. I know we all owned up afterward that it was the most trying
night we had ever spent, and for my part I hope I may never spend
another like it. None of us got a wink of sleep. I tried to sleep,
but I was too excited to do so; besides, all my pockets were crammed
full of rifle and revolver cartridges, and I had my revolver strapped
to my side, ready for an attack, or in case we got separated in the
confusion that was sure to ensue.
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