by Fred Stenson
The gunners were setting and levelling guns when eight hundred Boers galloped out of the papery mist. Botha had marched all night to tiger-spring Benson.
In the end, Benson and his men were sheltering in a field of anthills. Shot in the knee and crawling, Benson urged his men to fight. The colonel was shot again, and then a third bullet, a ricochet off another man, killed him. Benson had brought one hundred and seventy-eight men to protect the guns; one hundred and sixty-one were killed or wounded.
Standerton, November 1901
As the calendar turned to November, Rimington’s column was teamed with Lieutenant-Colonel Damant’s mobile unit. Damant was a six-foot four-inch former captain in the Rimington Guides. He was a native of South Africa, born at Kimberley, who wore dundrearies to his jaws. Rimington had been brought low by the death of his running mate Benson, but the sight of his former protege restored him.
Charlie Ross was not as optimistic. For him, the deaths of Benson and Gough were part of a cloud of evil portents that, collectively, threatened him with annihilation. When Rimington’s column got back to Standerton, Casey Callaghan came to Ross and said he’d accepted another assignment. This struck Charlie a powerful blow, a low blow, for Casey was his lead scout. He demanded at once to know what Casey was leaving him for; which bastard had poached him.
Casey said the bastard was the Canadian Government. A new MI contingent was coming from Canada, called the Second Canadian Mounted Rifles. Its commander was Maj. Tom Evans, and it was he who had asked Casey to be his intelligence officer at the rank of lieutenant. The rank was the same, but intelligence officer was a considerable lift in prestige. In any case, Casey was leaving for Cape Town.
“Never liked Evans,” Charlie said, staring away at nothing.
Casey could see that Charlie was determined to be morose and bitter, and did not argue with him. He was packed and ready, and began his goodbyes. Many attended his departure, but the important ones were ex-CMRs like Ed Hilliam and old scouting partners like Jeff Davis. The trouble between Jeff and Casey disappeared, and Casey wanted to talk to Jeff more than to any man.
“You take care of yourself, you crazy coyote,” Casey said at the end.
Frank stood back with the gawkers, the troopers for whom Casey was a legend. Frank’s and Casey’s fence was to remain unmended and, rather than watch Callaghan, Frank spent the moment admiring The General. Despite Frank’s mistreatment of him and countless other ordeals, the amazing buckskin was still sound. Not so Dunny, who Frank had just arranged to leave here at Standerton with a black Christian named Paul.
After Casey rode out, Charlie Ross turned and searched the faces behind him. His expression was desperate until his gaze lit on Jeff Davis. Charlie pointed at the scout and hooked his finger, beckoning him to his tent.
When Jeff came out a half-hour later, he was Charlie’s new lead scout. At their bivouac, Frank congratulated Jeff, who shrugged and said, “It’s going to make things different.”
Frank thought he meant different in the sense of difficult to drink, under Charlie Ross’s teetotal nose.
“I mean, Charlie doesn’t want us both.”
He let this soak in before he continued.
Charlie had told Jeff that he was Charlie’s partner now. As far as Adams was concerned, he was still acting like a horse-holder. It would do him good to get out of Jeff’s shadow.
In the middle of saying this, a different thought had struck Charlie Ross. Giving his moustache ends a twitch, he’d told Jeff to tell Frank he was a corporal. It seemed to have occurred to Charlie in the moment of criticizing Frank that he was short of corporals and that Frank was more experienced than many.
“You’ll need to find another stripe,” said Jeff.
What bothered Frank was not the news but that Jeff did not seem concerned. He did not act sorry to be leaving Frank behind. It reminded Frank of early in the war, when Jeff had hived off from Ovide and Frank to get on the path toward scouting. That had been about Ran After and changing the thinking of her father. What this was about Frank did not know. There had to be something that Jeff still wanted from the war, something he could pursue more easily outside Franks company.
The resupply at Standerton took a new turn when five hundred remounts jumped off a train. Frank saw the horses in the railway corral, and there was some decent horseflesh there. He saw Jeff and Charlie standing with other officers and their ADCs. Rimington and the giant Damant were present. It looked like an argument, and Charlie was kicking the ground and yanking his hat brim.
When Jeff came from the corral, Frank asked him what was aggravating Charlie. He also wanted to know what he should be doing now that he was a corporal.
“They gave Charlie all the renegades. They think the Canadian Scouts are roughriders.”
From this, Frank could understand Charlie’s temper fit. That the Scouts were bronc-twisters had never been very true, but slightly more so in the days under Gat Howard. The level of horsemanship had dropped off the table when they switched to Rimington and lost so many men. Among those who went home were the toughest riders.
“Charlie told me to give you three troopers. You’re supposed to find them horses that won’t kill them.” Jeff nodded toward a trio leaning on the corral. “Why not take them? They look green enough.”
Jeff left him to it, and Frank went over and introduced himself. He told the boys to disregard his private’s stripe; he was a corporal and in charge of them today. He found a rope and led them inside the paddock.
Two were Australian; the other, a Canadian. All three said they could ride, which of course they would say. The Canadian, Danny, was from Saskatchewan District, and had worked on a ranch near Regina, so it might be true of him. He smiled most of the time and reminded Frank of himself before the war.
First, Frank showed them the hoolihan throw, the overhand toss where you didn’t swing the rope and scare the horses. He demonstrated on the first horse that went by. The four of them got it snubbed and saddled. Meanwhile, Frank had caught a second horse and they snubbed it to another post. He picked the Aussies to go first.
Both were on the ground soon enough. Frank asked Danny if he liked either of the two broncs the Aussies had tried to ride. He said he liked the bay, which was the stronger, meaner horse of the two. Frank had to mount up to rope the bay gelding a second time. When they had him ready, Danny stayed on for several jumps before hitting the dirt. He apologized to Frank for falling off and said he’d like to try again. Frank helped him rope the bay a third time, but suggested they leave him fighting the post while they looked for something less mean-eyed for the Australians.
The Aussies, Bert and Toby, were no bushrangers, and Frank looked for horses that were broke at least. By the end of the day, the Aussies had horses they could ride. Danny had been up and down with the bay several times and was beginning to get the upper hand.
That evening, in the absence of Jeff, Frank went and sat with the men he knew: Ed Hilliam and some other CMR vets. He expected them to keep their distance, maybe even display some active ill feeling. After all, these were the ones who knew about his attacks on Pete and Greasy and the question mark hovering over his disappearance from Aas Vogel Kranz.
But, from the moment he sat down, it was not like that. When they told a story from some time Frank was part of, the speaker would nod at him or even ask if he remembered how certain things had gone.
It made Frank wonder if his poor reputation had been tied to Casey. With Callaghan gone, maybe the others felt Frank had been ostracized enough. It could also be that they had forgotten everything except his familiar face.
Villiersdorp
When Frank and Jeff split up so Jeff could assume his place at Charlie Ross’s right hand, the unlikely truth was that Frank had drawn the better assignment. Someone found him a corporal’s stripe to sew on and, since his three greenhorns liked him, they were left in his charge. They made a foursome for patrol and Cossack post duty.
On the other half of
the bargain, Jeff was working for Charlie Ross in his darkest and most erratic mood. Charlie firmly believed that officers in the highest echelons of the British army were out to get him. If you asked him why he thought that, he would say, “Because they goddamn are!”
Besides enemies, there were omens, and Charlie believed in those. He classed the deaths of Gough and Benson as omens. Botha’s escape at Chrissie Lake was a harbinger. Sometimes, it was hard to know the difference between an enemy and an omen. Take the desertion of Casey Callaghan. Did Casey or Tom Evans have it in for Charlie? Or had it been an act of the fates, coming at a bad time, as those always did?
Charlie Ross had lost little in the exchange. Jeff Davis was as skilful and savvy as Casey, in some ways more so. But it was not in Charlie’s nature to feel uncheated.
The evening after the remount rodeo, a black spy brought news to Standerton that a Boer commando with a big herd of cattle was approaching Villiersdorp. Rimington’s column, supported by Damant, set out at dusk to cover the distance in the dark. That night, the Canadian Scouts paid for the misconception that they were roughriders. At a watering stop, a scout’s new horse kicked him in the lower leg and broke the bone. Later, as they approached Villiersdorp, another new horse blew up and threw its rider. The big horse kicked the young Canadian Scout in the head on his way to the ground. Everyone found it hard to believe that the young fellow was dead. Frank felt sick, imagining that this dead boy had been one of his.
That they attacked the commando at Villiersdorp and captured two thousand cattle might have pleased Rimington, but Charlie Ross was not consoled. A man kicked to death in the dark was a portent so black Charlie was frightened to think what it might lead to.
Blijdschap
Kitchener had launched a few drives since Swaziland, using his growing blockhouse system to hem in the enemy. The drives usually went in a straight line then wheeled to crush the Boers against the blockhouses and the barbed wire. But it had not worked as well as Kitchener had hoped. Often, the Boers squirted out the sides. Sometimes they weren’t there in the first place.
In his latest drive, Kitchener was going after Christiaan De Wet in the Orange River Colony with fifteen thousand soldiers in fourteen columns. This drive would be more like a wheel, or a snail, with all of the columns curling in on the same preordained spot, trapping the Boers inside. As one of the fourteen columns, Rimington was given a starting point, a trajectory, and a secret end point (near Frankfort).
On this drive, Frank took his two Boer horses and only visited Dunny long enough to give Paul more money for her keep. For the first time ever, he avoided his dun mare’s eye.
While they marched and converged, Jeff Davis visited Frank most every night. Frank wondered if it was triggered by Jeff’s having liquor to share, because he unfailingly did. Frank joined Jeff in a drink or two, but lately had no desire for more than that. He wasn’t sure why except it had to do with the three young soldiers in his command. He was enjoying them and almost enjoying the war, and did not care to have a rum-cloudy head in the morning. Whether that mattered to Jeff, Frank could not say. Jeff kept visiting and imbibing his usual measure.
One night, Jeff pulled a paper from his pocket and unfolded it.
“This is Charlie’s latest letter to the Lethbridge News. He asked for my opinion.”
Frank read the page through a couple of times. It included a description of the scout killed by his horse and the other one whose leg was broken. For no apparent reason, it jumped from there to the Pongola River and described the horses who had died and the men laid low by fever. Of himself, Charlie had written: I’ve had six horses killed under me. I’ve had a bullet go through my tunic.
Frank thought of Jim and Madeleine reading this sorrowful stuff. It would undo the good of his own letter. “Tell him it’s sorry,” Frank suggested.
On another night, Jeff told Frank about a conversation with Colonel Rimington. Rimington had a big tent where he liked to meet his officers. Most times, Charlie Ross took Jeff along.
Pinned to Rimington’s tent walls were maps and sheets. In big printing on one, Jeff had read:
1. LINDLEY—SENTIMENT!
2. WOMEN—ELLIOTT!
3. PIET—TRAITOR!
At the bottom, Rimington had scrawled: Make him come to you!!!
At the most recent meeting, Jeff had pretended to fall asleep. He stayed that way when it was over and the others were leaving. Someone wisecracked, “Our Indian guide appears to be missing a troop movement.”
After the rest were gone, Rimington jabbed Jeff’s shoulder. Jeff jumped up and apologized.
“Damn boring session, Davis. I’d have slept too if I wasn’t in command.”
As he put on his hat to go, Jeff made a gesture toward the maps and sheets.
“It’s all about Christiaan De Wet, isn’t it?”
Rimington looked abashed. “Bit of a hobby of mine. I’d like to catch him.”
Jeff looked closer at a marked-up map. “So these are places you know he’s been?”
“Yes. And the approximate dates.”
Jeff saw several arrows pointing to Lindley, each one dated.
“Lindley was burned, wasn’t it?” Jeff asked.
He had Rimington’s interest now.
“I ordered the burning. As my map developed, I saw how often De Wet returned there. Went out of his way to do so.”
“Do you know why?”
“Never did figure it out—what personal event, or if he had farmed in the area. But I burned it because I was sure there was sentimental attachment. I wanted him to hate me personally.”
Jeff pointed at the sheet with Lindley—Sentiment! as number one.
“So these are things he’s sentimental about?”
Rimington laughed. “I certainly hope you’re not a spy. Yes, you’ve got it. Sentimental. Emotional.”
Rimington stepped up to the sheet and pointed at number two.
“Do you happen to remember when Elliott captured the laager of Boer women? No? Maybe you were in Transvaal. What happened was that Elliott took the laager, and De Wet and De La Rey happened to be having a secret meeting not far away. Against all sense, the two generals abandoned their secrecy and attacked Elliott. They were getting the better of him, but our reinforcements arrived and they had to run. But do you see what a terrific risk they took? I’d never known De Wet to do that. To be so emotionally drawn.”
At that point, Rimington’s ADC came in with an important message, and Jeff had to leave.
Frank asked Jeff about the third thing: Piet—Traitor! Would he go back and ask Rimington about it?
“I don’t have to. I figured it out.”
Piet had to be Christiaan’s brother Piet. Earlier in the war, he was a Boer commandant. A change came over him as a result of the Boers besieging a town—Lindley again, before it was burned. Several commandos, including Piet’s, could not force the British garrison there to submit. Finally, British reinforcements came and chased them off.
This inability to take the Lindley garrison caused Piet to desert. He not only surrendered but asked to fight for the British against his own people. Since then, he had put together a gang of Boer turncoats and wanted the British to recognize them formally under the title National Scouts.
Frank was still unsure how Piet fit the list, since the other two were things Christiaan De Wet liked. Jeff reminded him that Rimington had said sentimental and emotional. Piet was on the list because Christiaan wanted him dead. Rimington believed the general could be coaxed out of his icy control for a chance to kill his brother.
Since then, Jeff had asked around among the old Rimington hands, and they said that Mike Rimington had tried several times to get Piet De Wet to join him as a permanent part of Rimington’s column. Piet wasn’t interested, but Rimington started rumours that Piet was with him. If he could convince the older De Wet, true or false wouldn’t matter. Make him come to you!
In late November, Rimington’s column was marching in a trian
gle formed by Reitz, Bethlehem, and the burned town of Lindley. The colonel’s maps and charts had led him here, despite the fact that no one had seen Christiaan De Wet in a month.
What Rimington had learned to do was look at the grass. As the climate moved into African summer, the prairie had improved but was better in some places than others. It was a fair assumption that De Wet would know where the grass was best, and that he would have his horses there. The grass in the triangle was the best Rimington had found.
Still, the column was wandering uncertainly, until Rimington’s scouts brought in a Boer prisoner who was terrified of being tortured. Rumours of British atrocities were floating around in the Boer world. Rimington’s bullies did their best to act out the Boer’s fears. Suddenly he blurted out that Christiaan De Wet was gathering commandos at a farm called Blijdschap. The only problem was that this Boer immediately repented his betrayal and would not tell them where Blijdschap was. After more serious goading, the Boer finally told what he knew, and it was not much. He had no idea of the exact location of Blijdschap, and the position he gave them was so approximate it was almost useless.
Rimington put the Boer under double guard and insisted his captors stay inside the tent and never take their eyes off him. The colonel gathered his unit leaders and top scouts. He told them the news and the lack in it—the unknown location of Blijdschap farm. He emphasized how important it was not to ask any Boer for help. “Where is Blijdschap?” in the wrong ear, and De Wet would be lost to them again.
Knowing what not to do did not translate into knowing what should be done, and Rimington encouraged the group to make suggestions. No one spoke, the reason being that the most important decision was whether to move independently or to wait for help, something Rimington would have to decide on his own.
