Cruelty of Fate
Page 5
Grooming standards were somewhat lax on Foreign Service. Men made just enough effort to keep their hair cropped off their collars and from falling into their faces. Moustaches were encouraged by Queen’s Regulations, while beards—which were prohibited on Home Service—were allowed.
Well-Seasoned Material, by Lieutenant William Lloyd
Like many of his similarly young companions, twenty-two-year-old Corporal Harry Davies had never felt a razor against his face. Devoid of whiskers, he looked like a schoolboy wearing his older brother’s uniform as a lark. In contrast, Private Jonathan Allen was the same age but sported a full beard, making him appear much older. Many of his mates said it made him look distinguished.
“I’m going to look ridiculous once I finally have to shave this off,” Allen often said. “My cheeks and chin will still be pale white, while the rest of me face has been charred by the African sun.”
In addition to their bedraggled appearance, and like many battalions who spent years on Foreign Service, 1/13th was terribly understrength. Eight months had passed since a draft of new recruits was dispatched from England. This wasn’t even close to sufficient to keep up with the number of sick and injured invalided home, plus the plethora of time-expired soldiers who elected not to re-enlist. These often came in waves, as groups of soldiers tended to join the Colours with their mates. Between officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted ranks, an infantry company was authorised up to a hundred total soldiers. Instead, the companies of 1/13th Light Infantry managed scarcely seventy men each.
Despite being mostly ‘seasoned bush fighters’ the average age of a private soldier within the battalion was just twenty-four. There were a handful of soldiers scattered about the companies in their thirties. The oldest was a private from A Company who recently reached his fortieth birthday and was scheduled to retire within the next six months. Conversely, the youngest, who came from the previous draft of new soldiers, were now nineteen. Yet even they were experienced fighters, having arrived in time to take part in some of the fiercest battles of the Xhosa War. The months of sleep deprivation, bland rations, and endless days of marching over rugged terrain had battered even the most ‘boyish’ among them into hardened veterans.
C Company had just sixty-eight soldiers, eight of whom were within a few months of their enlistments expiring. Only one of the two subaltern billets were currently filled, and this by a young lieutenant named George Pardoe. Though just twenty-three years of age, he carried with him a wealth of experience beyond his years. In 1877, when the British Empire annexed the Transvaal, Lieutenant Pardoe was selected to carry the Queen’s Colour into Pretoria during the reading of the annexation proclamation. Soon after, he fell gravely ill and had to be invalided home. However, within a few months he made a full recovery and re-joined his Regiment the following spring.
During the fighting against Sekhukhune he twice narrowly escaped death; once when an enemy musket ball clipped the collar of his patrol jacket, leaving a gash on the side of his neck. His other ‘dance with death’ happened during the fighting at Tolyana Stadt, when the cylinder of his revolver became stuck. Keeping his cool demeanour, despite an enemy warrior rushing forward to disembowel him, he managed to load a single cartridge and fire it into his assailant’s face mere seconds before the warrior could stab him through the bowels. Appearing completely unfazed by the ordeal, he calmly drew his sword and led two sections of infantry in the final assault on the heights. His courage in the face of annihilation earned him the respect of the entire battalion, from Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert down to the youngest enlisted soldiers.
Lieutenant George Pardoe
Subaltern, 1/13th Somerset Light Infantry
The company’s other subaltern, Lieutenant Henry Walsh, was detached to the Imperial Mounted Infantry and assigned to No. 3 Column. This meant even more work for their officer commanding, Captain George Thurlow, as well as the company’s senior non-commissioned officer, Colour Sergeant Arthur Fricker. Luckily for the company, both men were knowledgeable veterans. Thurlow was thirty-five years of age and had held his commission for seventeen years. Fricker was aged thirty, with twelve years with the Colours, albeit new to his current responsibilities. In an unfortunate stroke of timing, three of the four section leaders either retired or had their enlistments expire within a week of each other back in September. The exception was then-Sergeant Fricker. This led to a hectic period for Captain Thurlow, who sought to find men with adequate experience and leadership qualities to replace them. A pair of young corporals, scarcely into their twenties, were promoted into two of these positions. A sergeant from D Company, Lewis Walker, was transferred into the remaining billet and took over Harry Davies’ section. This was further exacerbated a month later, when C Company’s colour sergeant, William Pegg, was killed during the attack on Tolyana Stadt against the rebel, Sekhukhune. This led to Arthur Fricker’s promotion and a scramble to find another replacement section leader. A corporal from A Company named Michael Ring, who despite more than a decade with the Regiment had deliberately avoided further promotion, was compelled to accept the sergeant’s billet.
“At least the sun will dry us out,” Private George Hill muttered as he removed his boots and socks, which he then wrung out. Hill was twenty-five years old and a former cobbler’s apprentice from Glastonbury. He’d grown up playing around the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, which local legend stated was the location of King Arthur’s tomb. And because he’d spent much of his teens learning the cobbler’s trade, Sergeant Walker had tasked him with keeping the section’s footwear in serviceable order.
“What time is E Company relieving us?” another soldier asked.
“As I told you six times already,” Harry said with irritation, “our relief will be here by 6.00.”
“First the Xhosa, then the Pedi, now the bloody Zulus,” another young private named William Grosvenor grumbled, pulling off his rain-soaked greatcoat. “I wonder if the damned Zulus can put up more of a fight than the sodding Pedi!”
From August to October of the previous year, 1/13th served as part of a combined-arms column led by Colonel Hugh Rowlands, VC, in a violent suppression of Sekhukhune and his followers. Three companies from the Battalion, including C Company, took part in the final assault upon the hill known as Tolyana Stadt on 27 October. The rebels were soundly routed, and Rowland’s column suffered just eleven wounded; seven of whom were from the assault force of redcoats. Tragically for C Company, their colour sergeant died of his wounds the following day. Sekhukhune himself had managed to escape, along with most of his followers.
“I think Colour Sergeant Pegg felt the rebels under Sekhukhune could fight,” Harry chastised.
“Of course, corporal,” Hill said. “And I’m certain you still concur.”
“The nagging ache in my right thigh tells me as much,” the NCO replied. Harry had been just a few feet from Colour Sergeant Pegg, taking a musket ball to the leg almost immediately after his company’s senior non-commissioned officer was mortally wounded. His injury, though still causing him pain months later, had not proven serious. It had passed through the outer thigh, tearing a long, hideous gash, which prevented him from accompanying Lieutenant Pardoe during the final assault on the heights. Ironically, the cleaning and stitching of the wound hurt worse than getting shot. The young corporal was ever-grateful to both the surgeons and the Almighty for keeping the wound free from infection.
“After Tolyana Stadt, Sekhukhune ran from us,” Allen noted. He then asked aloud, “I wonder if the Zulus will actually fight?”
“Sekhukhune is little more than a minor chieftain with a tiny fiefdom to lord over,” Harry remarked. “Cetshwayo rules over a vast empire, which I hear rivals that of Napoleon. I predict the Zulus are itching for a fight as much as we are.”
Harry Davies was into his fifth year with the Colours, having finished recruit training in mid-December of 1874. He’d been given just three days of home leave for the Christmas holiday before being dispatched w
ith a draft of new recruits to Malta, where the battalion was posted. He would have almost no time to familiarise himself with the Mediterranean island. Scarcely a week after his arrival the 1/13th received its orders sending them to Southern Africa. The youngest son of a prominent banker from the town of Bridgwater in Somerset and highly educated, it surprised many of his mates that Harry had elected for a career with the Army.
“You know, corporal, I’ve still yet to figure out what you’re doing here,” Allen remarked.
He and Davies had gone through recruit training together, where they’d been bunk mates. The two were close friends, though since Davies’ promotion two years prior, Allen almost never called him by his given name, at least not in front of the other soldiers.
“Most of us joined the ranks to keep from starving to death in the gutter…” Private Albert Page started to say.
“Not me!” George Hill interrupted. “I enlisted because I could no longer stand the smell of dog shit every time I had to fetch leather from the tannery.”
“…and yet you could have had a rather posh job at your father’s bank,” Page finished.
“As I’ve told you, my father doesn’t own the bank,” Harry remarked with a tired sigh.
“Yes, but he runs it,” Private Hill piped in. “Certainly he could have found you a comfortable position wearing a dapper suit and sitting behind a desk all respectable like.”
Allen then asked, “Not to mention a wage that is, what, ten times what Her Majesty pays you for wearing the uniform?”
“Something like that,” Harry confessed. “Even a corporal’s pay is scarcely any more than a common labourer’s back home. But between my three older brothers seeking employment at the bank and the substantial dowries required for my two sisters, there wasn’t much in the way of favours or influence left by the time I came of age.”
“Oh, I’m certain you could have worked in the cloakroom or dusted hats for all the bankers,” Private Page spoke up. He was sitting with his back against a short pile of rocks, running a rag over his rifle while checking the lever and breach.
“And it’s still better than where I grew up,” Allen recalled. “Your father was at least able to afford you an education. Mine was too pissed up after toiling in a textile factory for sixteen hours a day to even remember that he had a son. Mum wasn’t any better. Most nights she fell asleep at her spinning wheel in the weaver’s cottage. I don’t know whether it was from never seeing the sun or the opium which she constantly stank of, but her face never seemed to have any colour. She was maybe forty when I left home, yet I swore she looked like she could be my grandmum. I was supposed to work in the weaver’s cottage, too, but found it easier, not to mention less dangerous, to beg on the streets. I don’t think they even noticed when I disappeared one day to find the nearest recruiting office. Mind you, I had to walk all the way from fucking Minehead!”
“Well, at least it got you used to the long marches,” Hill said with a laugh. He then scowled as he removed one of his boots to check the sole. He reckoned they had marched over 500 miles during the past three months, and the bottoms were completely ruined.
The men’s banter continued as they shook the rain from their clothes and helmets. Harry’s was cracked on the side from where a musket ball from one of Sekhukhune’s followers had clipped the side of his head. Harry reckoned that, had he not been doubled over in pain, having almost simultaneously taken a musket ball to the outside of his thigh, the shot that nicked his helmet would have likely gone through his face or throat. He constantly reminded himself that he was lucky to be alive, but this did little to assuage his discomfort when it rained, and a steady stream leaked through his helmet and into his face. To contend with this, he’d taken to wrapping a tattered shirt around his helmet, which looked ridiculous, but helped keep the entire helmet from falling apart. His was certainly not the only one. Every helmet donning the head of a Somersetshire soldier was battered with the fabric torn in numerous places. These were of the older ‘India pattern’ with a larger brim that provided more protection from the sun, but became a hinderance when trying to fire one’s rifle from the prone position.
“Well,” Allen said, standing and stretching his arms overhead as he scanned the horizon to the east, “at least the mud and rain have made those nice, clean uniforms of the Perthshire boys look a bit more respectable!”
Harry chuckled as he ran a rag over his rifle before walking to another position about twenty yards to their right, where four more soldiers from his section had spent the night. Under ideal conditions, the four sections which made up an infantry company had up to twenty-five soldiers each. However, Harry and his section leader, Sergeant Louis Walker, had only fifteen men under their charge. Most private soldiers left the Army after their six-year enlistment expired, and drafts of new recruits to replace them were extremely rare. Off to their extreme left, another section from C Company, under the command of Sergeant Richard Evans, was going through the same morning routine.
As he finished checking the nearest sentry post, Harry saw his section leader and the other three sergeants of the company meeting with Colour Sergeant Fricker near the base of the slope.
At thirty-seven years of age, Lewis Walker was among the oldest members of C Company. Married with four children, his oldest son was a seventeen-year-old bandsman with the Regiment, who often spoke about wishing to join the ranks as a regular soldier once he turned eighteen. His wife, Margaret, and their younger children lived in King William’s Town over 500 miles to the south, near the southernmost tip of the African continent. While many families of soldiers from 1/13th lived in King William’s Town, those from the 3rd ‘Buffs’ Regiment resided in East London, thirty-five miles east. The soldiers and families often became close, and Margaret Walker’s dearest friend was the wife of a sergeant from 2/3rd Buffs. After the annexation of the Transvaal two years earlier, Lewis considered moving his family to the newly-established fort at Pretoria, that they might be closer. However, this would have involved Margaret and the children making a journey of over 600 miles with no trains or regular coach services available. He begrudgingly accepted that it was better for his family to remain where they were, even though the constant crises the battalion dealt with meant he had not seen Margaret or the children in two years.
“Oi, Harry!” the sergeant called up to him as soon as he’d finished the meeting of section leaders. “Tell the lads to stow their kit. Change of plans, old boy. Looks like the colonel wants us to pack it in and be ready to march.”
The sergeant’s face was hidden beneath the thick, ratted beard he’d been growing since the battalion arrived in Natal. While on Home Service, he’d always kept a short, smart-looking moustache, or been clean shaven when on leave. Though he often complained about how uncomfortable his beard was, he would laugh and say his wife was so used to it she would no longer recognise him once they returned to England and he was compelled to shave.
Corporal Davies nodded in acknowledgment and gazed back towards the camp. He could hear the notes of reveille being sounded by the plethora of buglers while soldiers, volunteers, and African warriors alike roused themselves from their slumber.
“Looks to be the start of a long day,” Harry noted under his breath.
With many grumbles and slews of profanity, the men of C Company, 1/13th rolled up their soaking wet greatcoats and stuffed them into their packs, tying their equally drenched bed rolls to the outside. Sergeants and corporals were ordered to conduct a quick weapon and kit inspection before marching their soldiers back to the main camp, where they still needed to take down their tents and pack the wagons. Harry noticed that one of the straps on Private Grosvenor’s pack was coming undone, Private Hill’s trousers were starting to split along his backside, and the sole was coming loose on one of Private Allen’s boots. However, their critical kit, particularly their Martini-Henry rifles, were clean and fully functional. Each soldier had also managed to keep his ammunition pouches free of rainwater.
“Hey, at least it’s dry under here!” Private George Hill said with a macabre laugh, lifting the flap of their section’s bell tent.
“Lot of good that did us, spending the night soaking our arses off on sodding picquet duty,” another soldier bickered.
“Keep complaining and you can have picquet duty every night,” Harry Davies countered.
It took roughly ten minutes for the section to break down their tent, account for all the tie-down ropes, knock mud off the splintered wooden stakes, and heave the lot onto their wagon. Three of their soldiers were otherwise occupied; Jon Allen was helping William Grosvenor repair the strap on his pack. Meanwhile, George Hill sat on a rock, nude from the waist down, hastily attempting to stitch up his trousers.
The rest of the section was assisted by a handful of soldiers from another section and one of Harry’s fellow corporals, James Shepard.
“Can’t be waiting on you slow bastards all morning!” Shepard said, with a good-natured grin.
Slightly shorter than average with blonde hair and blue eyes that betrayed his family’s Germanic ancestry, he possessed a youthful face that made him look like a schoolboy from Eton. In fact, James was fast approaching thirty and had just completed his eleventh year with the Colours. A soldier who’d spent a troubled first few years in the ranks, he’d received his corporal’s stripes two years prior, around the same time as Harry. Despite the difference in age and background, they’d become close friends ever since earning their non-commissioned officers’ chevrons.