by David Gilman
The train carrying Baxter’s battalion rolled along its narrow three-gauge track that made the carriages swing and sway across a landscape of dreary sameness. Flat-topped hills and mountains stood bare, treeless, without even scrub bush to soften their rugged outlines. For two days and nights of mind-numbing monotony they travelled towards the border of the Cape Colony whose Afrikaners had yet to decide whether to throw off the British yoke and join the war or to stay neutral. Some had volunteered for the British and thus torn their families apart. As loyalties hardened this wretched war would squeeze blood from stone.
*
The Royal Irish troop train rattled past Naauwpoort. It was a sobering sight for the Irish as the train slowed. More than eight hundred sick and wounded men were quartered there.
‘So they’re just sheep farmers, these Dutchies, are they?’ quipped Mulraney. ‘They’ve given Uncle Bob a shearing, that’s for sure.’
Soot billowed backwards from the engine, and Flynn spat the black grit from his mouth. ‘And if I don’t start seeing a blade of grass or a tree soon enough I’m transferring to the Mounted Infantry. This is no place for a foot soldier. What the feck is a man supposed to take cover behind?’
‘You and you bloody horses,’ said O’Mara, a Liverpudlian Irishman. ‘Jeezus, you can shovel their shit but you’d break your fucking neck just trying to climb into the saddle.’
‘O’Mara’s right, Flynn. You’d look like a sack of shite on a nag,’ Mulraney added.
‘Aye, well, I’d have a better chance of outrunning a boojer’s bullet if I was clinging to a nag’s neck, not like these poor bastards, blind and lame.’
Mulraney stuck a cigarette between his lips, balanced himself as he lit it and gazed across the bleak horizon. ‘One of the fellas at the camp said it doesn’t rain for nine months of the year, parched to buggery it is, like this, then it pisses down and all this red soil gets covered with a carpet of grass and flowers.’
Flynn took the cigarette from his fingers and drew in a lungful of smoke. ‘Fuck the flowers, that red dirt is probably our lads’ blood, that’s what brings the buggers into bloom.’
Mulraney took back his cigarette. ‘And when you take a bullet up the arse I’ll wager a bloody great thorny cactus’ll grow.’
They laughed, gripping the sides of the swaying truck, but the shattered bodies of the wounded they passed were a sobering sight. Better to die quick than have yourself ripped apart by shot and shell. Better yet was to kill the bastard enemy first.
CHAPTER TEN
Craggy mountain ranges and sun-baked plains seared their own peculiar harsh beauty into every soldier’s dust-gritted eyes near the border of the Orange Free State and Natal Province. The dust caught the back of Lieutenant Baxter’s throat. The damned horizon seemed so distant, though he knew it to be no more than three miles away. Or so his training had always told him. Had anyone ever sent a man to the horizon and measured it? Like many things he expected the information to be vaguely accurate. The best way to judge distance was to locate an enemy and watch his shots fall. How many thousand yards for various guns, how deadly the rapid-fire pom-pom would be. A weapon that the British Army had decided not to purchase, but which the Boers had seized on with glee. When would he ever get to test himself? Jumbled questions flitted through his mind.
He discarded what was left of his cigarette and shifted in the saddle to watch the company of Royal Irish go about their work. He had expected a more glorious war, despite the fact the army was fighting irregular troops who had the advantage of knowing the desolate landscape. And what they were doing now was far from damned glorious. It was downright shameful. The Irish troops in particular carried memories and a history of their own countrymen being forcibly removed from their land. And here they were burning out Boer homesteads and imprisoning their women and children. Baxter sat grim-faced on his horse as his men put the dirt farmer’s stone and sod-roofed house to the torch.
‘Not exactly giving the enemy a good thrashing, would you say, lieutenant?’ Flynn said to Baxter as the wife and four grimy-faced children of various ages were eased away from their burning home and put on a flatbed wagon hitched to oxen. The woman cursed at the men in her guttural language. Their cow was tethered, the family’s half-full sack of corn confiscated.
‘Our orders are to deny the enemy any safe refuge, no place to rest, nowhere to resupply,’ the lieutenant answered, without allowing his true feelings to show. ‘Shoot the cow, Flynn.’
Flynn looked back to where the small patrol of half a dozen men with bayonets fixed guarded the poor woman and her children. ‘With respect, Mr Baxter, do we honestly think that by killing this poor woman’s cow we’re gonna help win this war?’
Lieutenant Baxter eased his horse past Flynn, levelled his revolver and shot the cow dead. The woman’s scream of abuse and the children’s cries echoed across the veld.
A stony-faced Baxter turned on Flynn. ‘We have our orders, Flynn. You’d do well to remember that.’ He turned his horse and led the men across the rock-strewn ground, black smoke billowing into the stark blueness of the sky testament to the fulfilment of their duty.
The nasty business of war was already changing the young Mr Baxter, Flynn thought to himself as he spat the acrid taste from his mouth.
*
There were others who found the war more to their taste.
A day’s ride away from the burning house, Belmont’s troop of dragoons and colonial volunteers pushed hard across the veld. Individual items of clothing distinguished them from other soldiers: drab khaki trousers and jackets, brass buttons dulled to stop the chance of them glinting to a sniper’s eye, and slouch hats to keep the sun at bay. Rough and ready, dirt-laden and vicious, they were closing in on a Boer encampment belonging to a commando that had been raiding for months.
Unaware of the impending threat Oom Piet was laying kindling on to the cooking fire. Turning to the tin-roofed house that had once been a farmer’s shelter: ‘Do we have any salt left?’ he called to the boy who had unpacked their bedrolls and found them the best shade. The old man knew they had run out of salt more than two weeks ago but when the question was answered it gave Oom Piet the excuse to complain again about eating freshly cooked food without the essential condiment. The damned English. They were devils who took a man’s salt from the table and then burned the table for good measure.
The fifteen commandos had hobbled and fed their horses with what little grain they had, then began to gather in the clearing to spit-roast a goat. Oom Piet raised his head from the smoke and crackling wood when he heard the first gunshot. Its crack bounced around the boulders as the first man fell, muscle and blood torn from his body. Confusion held them in a moment’s fatal hesitation as Belmont’s men stormed into the clearing. The Boers ran for their horses, trying to find cover and retaliate, but they were too exposed. Some managed to return fire, but they were instinctive shots, not aimed, fired in hope that they would help the escaping men reach the boulders.
The rattle of gunfire created the shock that Belmont wanted. His horsemen went to work with their sabres, slaughtering the men on the ground, while those on the flank shot escaping commandos with carbine and revolver. It was the perfect killing ground and the terror of dying by the sword caused the bravest of fighters to scream for mercy. The old man had stumbled from the fire as a bullet ricocheted and torn into his arm, the pain dropping him to his knees. He watched as the horsemen swung their horses this way and that, slashing through the swirling dust with cruel swords. As if by some miracle the kneeling man remained unharmed. The attack was over in minutes. Torn and bloodied bodies lay where they fell, and the old man saw that four other men survived, wounded but cornered and surrendered. Where was his grandson? He saw one of the riders dismount and drag the crying boy from the shelter of the rocks. Cowed and shaking the boy cried out when the soldier cuffed him across the head and then threw him into the clearing. Oom Piet beckoned the boy to him as the survivors were pushed together and so
ldiers stripped the bandoliers from them.
The Boers watched as one of the men eased his horse forward, and gazed at those beneath the troopers’ rifles.
‘Do any of you Dutchies speak English?’ Belmont asked.
None of the men answered. Those who were wounded could barely stand, trembling as shock began to take hold of their bodies. The old man’s arm felt raw. ‘Meneer, I speak a little.’
Belmont turned his gaze on to the old man. Sixty-five if he was a day, Belmont thought. Was he their leader? The old man was dressed no differently to the others. Patched homespun clothes, worn boots and tobacco-stained beard. ‘Where are the others? There are more men than this in your commando.’
‘Asseblief, we surrender to you, sir. There are no more men.’
Belmont’s eyes followed the skyline in case others were watching, but he knew that had there been other commandos they would already have heard the crack of a Mauser and seen men, his men, dying. His scouts had made certain no one else was hiding but it was second nature to let his own eyes confirm it.
‘You’re wearing a British Army jacket under your own,’ Belmont said.
‘Sir?’ Oom Piet answered.
Belmont tugged his own field jacket. ‘British Army.’ And pointed again at the old man.
‘Oh ja. Our clothes they are old. We take this from a supply wagon. We need everything. We have nothing.’
‘And slaughtered British troops to get them.’ Belmont sighed, almost bored with the obvious. He nodded to the troop sergeant and the bolts of a half-dozen carbines rammed home bullets into their breeches.
The old man stepped forward and pointed at the raiders. ‘You come here and attack my country. We are farmers and poor people. We are men who have worked this land with our bare hands. And now you will murder us? In cold blood?’
‘Yes, I’m going to kill you. I have no use for prisoners,’ said Belmont.
The boy was trembling and a pool of urine seeped through his trousers into the dirt. Oom Piet took another step towards Belmont, his arm raised this time in supplication. ‘Sir, the boy. He is only twelve years old. I beg that you let him live. Take him with you. Meneer, I beg you.’
‘Where’s your dignity, Dutchy? No man should ever beg,’ Belmont said and shot the old man in the head. The boy cried out; another of the Boers quickly held him, turning his own back to the soldiers who levelled their rifles. The gunfire echoed; the bodies fell. The protector’s shielding body was shot through, killing both man and boy.
Far beyond rifle range, Liam and the rest of the commando heard the rattle, like torn lightning, and pulled up their horses. Liam’s field glasses showed him the cavalry troop leaving. By the time he and his men rode down through the hills there would be nothing they could do except bury their dead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The SS Calabash had been acquired by the shipping controller and acted as Her Majesty’s Transport No. 93. Calabash’s twin three-cylinder steam engines gave her a service speed of eleven knots. During the nineteen-day voyage Radcliffe went down each day into the aft well deck where stables had been fitted for the transport of horses. The cramped conditions and the rolling ship meant the livestock were penned in tightly packed stalls. Radcliffe knew its confinement would stiffen and weaken the horse’s muscles so he groomed the horse every day, vigorously wielding the brush, hoping his efforts would help keep the beast supple. Once they sailed further south, beyond the north Atlantic gales, and the sea calmed, he would ease the horse into the narrow confines between the stalls, walking him back and forth in the short passageway. And each day the bond between man and horse grew.
The sheltered harbour of Table Bay gathered the ship into its calm waters. The buffeting south-westerly wind had made the passage over the last couple of days very rough. The top of the broad, flat-headed mountain that rose before them was smothered in a billowing cloth of white tumbling cloud beneath which goods trains sat along the dockside, their open boxed carriages waiting to shuffle the human cargo from the troopships to the front line. For some there would be no enjoying the pleasures of Green Point Camp; the war’s urgency required their presence now. A hundred vessels cluttered the bay and harbour: not all modern steamers, but a host of tall ships, their masts bristling like a small forest clinging to the shoreline. Wagons laden with sacks and boxed goods vied for position, their African drivers urging the mules and horses on, ready to be checked by their headmen, who acted as intermediaries between their workers and the Harbour Board. Steam cranes landed cargo, lowered into willing hands to empty the nets and pack wagons or boxcars. Coal smoke clung to the air despite the breeze as steam trains shunted back and forth the length of the harbour. War was good for business.
Radcliffe insisted on supervising his horse, which was being winched down from the ship. He eased its bridle on carefully and then walked it along the quayside, sensing its urgent desire to run after its long confinement. Its head raised and nostrils flared as it smelled the air and the first scents of Africa. Troops shuffled to one side, forming into ranks as sergeants bellowed; African levies manhandled the cargo; and the shunting clash of metal couplings from the trains rattled the length of the quay. The bustle of the harbour and the hiss from the steam engines made no impression on the horse. It looked left and right, but made no effort to bolt at unusual sounds or yelling men. It was as if, like Radcliffe himself, it wished to view this new world and all it offered.
An hour later Radcliffe returned to where Pierce, his face tilted to the sun, sat hunched against the wheels of a boxcar with their blanket rolls and saddlebags at his side. Nothing more, they knew, would be needed for where they were going. Radcliffe eased the horse up the ramp and made sure the bridle rope was secured.
The rolling cloud was turning black, gathering the moisture from the cold Atlantic. A smattering of rain swept down the mountain’s face, light droplets that briefly interfered with the sheltered warmth.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Pierce said.
‘I spoke to some English supply officer down the ways who’s organizing this train. He said it happens sometimes. Said it was unseasonal. It blows over.’ He smiled at the disgruntled Pierce. ‘He didn’t say when.’
‘You’re just a man of pure joy who takes uncommon pleasure in another man’s misery.’
‘Then you might be happy to know that your presence here has already upset the Cape Colony’s bureaucrats, but I’ve saved you from probably being held at the docks here, and most likely put into forced labour.’ He unfolded a sheet of paper that bore an official stamp and handed it to Pierce.
‘Native labourers need a Plague Pass to leave the dock area. Alex Baxter organized it along with the military passes when I wrote to him.’ Radcliffe picked up his blanket roll as Pierce studied the document.
‘So that’s me with a clean bill of health,’ he said.
‘Well, I couldn’t see a man of your age humping bales. But there’s another problem, Ben, and best we face it up front.’ He looked up at the passenger carriage. ‘You’re the wrong colour to travel in the couple of carriages they have.’
‘Now where have I heard that before?’ Pierce said.
‘Thing is, it’s a lot more comfortable on those wooden benches than in the cattle trucks,’ Radcliffe told him reluctantly. ‘My pass lets me travel in the carriage.’
‘Well, you have yourself a fine trip,’ said Pierce.
‘I thought you might take a less than positive attitude about that, so I spoke to that fine English officer and he said that because you’re an American he can give you honorary white status.’
‘I’ll be damned,’ said Pierce again, shaking his head. ‘Isn’t that something I’ve always wanted,’ he added sarcastically.
‘Well, it’s convenient. And you being an old man and all, I thought your backside might appreciate being white for a few days.’
‘A white ass. You are kidding me?’
‘No,’ said a straight-faced Radcliffe.
‘And what did
you say to that English officer of holy miracles?’
‘I said you weren’t that old. And that the black goes all the way through to your white bones.’ Radcliffe threw his blanket roll into the cattle truck next to the horses. ‘Unfortunately,’ he added, and clambered into the wagon to share the hardship with his friend.
‘And how long ’til we get to the front line?’ said Pierce.
‘The British are fighting battles across the north is all I know. Two days by the sound of it,’ Radcliffe said, giving his friend a hand up into the boxcar and the rancid smell of the horse stalls next to it. Pierce struck a match and laid its flame across the tobacco in the pipe’s bowl.
‘The Irish?’
Radcliffe shook his head. ‘Not sure. But we’re going in the right direction.’
There was grim satisfaction that they were now in the place where they believed Edward was fighting with the Royal Irish and that tempered any tiredness from the voyage or ache in their limbs from the cramped quarters. They had lived rough in the past and would do so again. A soldier’s forbearance seldom left him and both men settled down close to the beasts. It would take some hours until the train began to haul its cargo to the campaign and until then the clanking of equipment and the shouted commands of NCOs to their men would go on. Radcliffe and Pierce would feed themselves and stay out of the army’s way as much as they could. Dirt was already ingrained in their hands and their own smell of stale sweat mingled with the horses’ pungency. Their situation lacked the niceties of city living where hot water and gas lamps wrapped their comforting veneer. Pierce grunted with pleasure as he settled his head against his saddle. Being this rough and ready, allowing yourself to stink and not caring, was a freedom in itself.
*
Nearly eight hundred miles north of the windswept docks at Cape Town, a lone rider, lost in the great expanse of the veld, brought his horse to a halt. The heat penetrated every fibre of his clothing, and although he had stripped off jacket and shirt, it was not enough to ease the sweat that clung to his undervest. The wide-brimmed felt hat shielded his face, but could not hide the concern he felt at being so lost. A day and a half ago he’d been told at a railway junction that flying columns of British troops were operating somewhere to the north and that an Irish regiment had passed through a week before. Edward Radcliffe sensed he had dared himself too far. Death would claim him if he didn’t find more water soon and the old horse he’d bought with the last of his money was fit only for the slaughterhouse. He’d scrimped and saved every penny of his father’s allowance and now it was gone. The steamship ticket, the hand-me-down jacket and trousers and the forty-year-old single-shot Martini–Henry rifle had taken everything. At each step of the journey those he did business with took his money and fleeced him under the guise of helping the stranger.
