by G. A. Henty
As soon as they had passed over the crest of the rise, and the British fire had ceased, Ammon Quatia leaped from his chair and threw himself among his flying troops, striking them right and left with his staff, and hurling imprecations upon them.
“If you do not stop and return against the whites,” he said, “I will send every one of you back to Coomassie, and there you will be put to death as cowards.”
The threat sufficed. The fugitives rallied, and in a few minutes were ready to march back again. It was the surprise created by the wonderful sustained fire of the breech loaders, rather than the actual loss they inflicted, which caused the panic.
In the meantime, believing that the Ashantis had retired, the naval contingent went back to their boats, when the Dutch vice consul, having ascended a hill to look round, saw that Ammon Quatia had made a detour with his troops, and was marching against the town from the east, where he would not be exposed to the fire of the fort. He instantly ran back with the news.
The marines and the thirty West Indian soldiers in the fort at once marched out, and met the Ashantis just as they were entering the town. The fight was a severe one, and for a time neither side appeared to have the advantage, and Frank, who, under the care of his guards, was a few hundred yards in the rear, was filled with dismay at observing that the Ashantis, in spite of the heavy loss they were suffering, were gaining ground and pressing forward bravely. Suddenly he gave a shout of joy, for on a rise on the flank of the Ashantis appeared the sailors of the Barraconta, who had been led round from the boats by Lieutenant Wells, R. N., who was in command. The instant these took up their position they opened a heavy fire upon the flank of the Ashantis, who, dismayed by this attack by fresh foes, lost heart and at once fled hastily. In the two engagements they had lost nearly four hundred men. Frank, of course, retired with the beaten Ashantis, and that evening Ammon Quatia told him that the arms of the white men were too good, and that he should not attack them again in the open.
“Their guns shoot farther, as well as quicker, than ours,” he said. “Our slugs are no use against the heavy bullets, at a distance; but in the woods, where you cannot see twenty feet among the trees, it will be different. If I do not attack them they must attack me, or their trade will be starved out. When they come into the woods you will see that we shall eat them up.”
Several weeks now passed quietly. There was news that there was great sickness among the white soldiers, and, indeed, with scarce an exception, the marines first sent out were invalided home; but a hundred and fifty more arrived to take their place. Some detachments of the 2d West Indian regiment came down to join their comrades from Sierra Leone, and the situation remained unchanged.
One night towards the end of August a messenger arrived and there was an immediate stir.
“Now,” the general said to Frank, “you are going to see us fight the white men. Some of the big ships have gone to the mouth of the Prah, and we believe that they are going to land in boats. You will see. The Elmina tribes are going to attack, but I shall take some of my men to help.”
Taking fifty picked warriors Ammon Quatia started at once. They marched all night towards the west, and at daybreak joined the Elminas. These took post in the brushwood lining the river. The general with a dozen men, taking Frank, went down near the mouth of the river to reconnoiter. The ships lay more than a mile off the shore. Presently a half dozen boats were lowered, filled with men, and taken in tow by a steam launch. It was seen that they were making for the mouth of the river.
“Now let us go back,” Ammon Quatia said. “You will see what we shall do.”
Frank felt full of excitement. He saw the English running into an ambuscade, and he determined, even if it should cost him his life, to warn them. Presently they heard the sharp puffs of the steam launch. The boats were within three hundred yards.
Frank stepped forward and was about to give a warning shout when Ammon Quatia’s eye fell upon him. The expression of his face revealed his intention to the Ashanti, who in an instant sprang upon him and hurled him to the ground. Instantly a dozen hands seized him, and, in obedience to the general’s order, fastened a bandage tightly across his mouth, and then bound him, standing against a tree, where he could observe what was going on. The incident had occupied but a minute, and Frank heard the pant of the steam launch coming nearer and nearer. Presently through the bushes he caught a glimpse of it, and then, as it came along, of the boats towing behind. The Elminas and Ashantis were lying upon the ground with their guns in front of them.
The boats were but fifteen yards from the bank. When they were abreast Ammon Quatia shouted the word of command, and a stream of fire shot out from the bushes. In the boats all was confusion. Several were killed and many wounded by the deadly volley, among the latter Commodore Commerell himself, and two or three of his officers. The launch now attempted to turn round, and the marines in the boats opened fire upon their invisible foes, who replied steadily. In five minutes from the first shot being fired all was over, the launch was steaming down with the boats in tow towards the mouth of the river, the exulting shouts of the natives ringing in the ears of those on board.
The position of Frank had not been a pleasant one while the fight had lasted, for the English rifle bullets sang close to him in quick succession, one striking the tree only a few inches above his head. He was doubtful, too, as to what his fate would be at the termination of the fight.
Fortunately Ammon Quatia was in the highest spirits at his victory. He ordered Frank to be at once unbound.
“There, you see,” he said, “the whites are of no use. They cannot fight. They run with their eyes shut into danger. So it will be if they attack us on the land. You were foolish. Why did you wish to call out? Are you not well treated? Are you not the king’s guest? Am I not your friend?”
“I am well treated, and you are my friend,” Frank said, “but the English are my countrymen. I am sure that were you in the hands of the English, and you saw a party of your countrymen marching into danger, you would call out and warn them, even if you knew that you would be killed for doing so.”
“I do not know,” the Ashanti said candidly. “I cannot say what I should do, but you were brave to run the risk, and I’m not angry with you. Only, in future when we go to attack the English, I must gag you to prevent your giving the alarm.”
“That is fair enough,” Frank said, pleased that the matter had passed off so well, “only another time do not stick me upright against a tree where I may be killed by English bullets. I had a narrow escape of it this time, you see,” and he pointed to the hole in the trunk of the tree.
“I am sorry,” the Ashanti general said, with an air of real concern. “I did not think of your being in danger, I only wished you to have a good sight of the battle; next time I will put you in a safer place.”
They then returned to the camp.
The next day a distant cannonade was heard, and at nightfall the news came that the English fleet had bombarded and burnt several Elmina villages at the mouth of the Prah.
“Ah,” the general said, “the English have great ships and great guns. They can fight on the seaside and round their forts, but they cannot drag their guns through the forests and swamps.”
“No,” Frank agreed. “It would not be possible to drag heavy artillery.”
“No,” Ammon Quatia repeated exultingly. “When they are beyond the shelter of their ships they are no good whatever. We will kill them all.”
The wet season had now set in, in earnest, and the suffering of the Ashantis were very great. Accustomed as many of them were to high lying lands free of trees, the miasma from the swamps was well nigh as fatal to them as it would be to Europeans. Thousands died, and many of the rest were worn by fever to mere shadows.
“Do you think,” Ammon Quatia said to Frank one day, “that it is possible to blow up a whole town with powder?”
“It would be possible if there were powder enough,” Frank said, wondering what could be
the motive of the question.
“They say that the English have put powder in holes all over Cape Coast, and my people are afraid to go. The guns of the fort could not shoot over the whole town, and there are few white soldiers there; but my men fear to be blown up in the air.”
“Yes,” Frank said gravely. “The danger might be great. It is better that the Ashantis should keep away from the town. But if the fever goes on as at present the army will melt away.”
“Ten thousand more men are coming down when the rains are over. The king says that something must be done. There is talk in the English forts that more white troops are coming out from England. If this is so I shall not attack the towns, but shall wait for them to come into the woods for me. Then you will see.”
“Do they say there are many troops?” Frank asked anxiously.
“No; they say only some white officers, but this is foolishness. What could white officers do without soldiers? As for the Fantis they are cowards, they are only good to carry burdens and to hoe the ground. They are women and not men.”
During this time, when the damp rose so thick and steaming that everything was saturated with it, Frank had a very sharp attack of fever, and was for a fortnight, just after the repulse of the attack on Elmina, completely prostrated. Such an attack would at his first landing have carried him off, but he was now getting acclimatized, and his supply of quinine was abundant. With its aid he saved a great many lives among the Ashantis, and many little presents in the way of fruit and birds did he receive from his patients.
“I wish I could let you go,” the general said to him one day. “You are a good white man, and my soldiers love you for the pains you take going amongst them when they are sick, and giving them the medicine of the whites. But I dare not do it. As you know when the king is wroth the greatest tremble, and I dare not tell the king that I have let you go. Were it otherwise I would gladly do so. I have written to the king telling him that you have saved the lives of many here. It may be that he will order you to be released.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE TIDE TURNED
From many of the points in the forest held by the Ashantis the sea could be seen, and on the morning of the 2d of October a steamer which had not been there on the previous evening was perceived lying off the town. The Ashantis were soon informed by spies in Elmina and Cape Coast that the ship had brought an English general with about thirty officers. The news that thirty men had come out to help to drive back twenty thousand was received with derision by the Ashantis.
“They will do more than you think,” Frank said when Ammon Quatia was scoffing over the new arrival. “You will see a change in the tactics of the whites. Hitherto they have done nothing. They have simply waited. Now you will see they will begin to move. The officers will drill the natives, and even a Fanti, drilled and commanded by white officers, will learn how to fight. You acknowledge that the black troops in red coats can fight. What are these? Some of them are Fantis, some of them are black men from the West Indian Islands, where they are even more peaceful than the Fantis, for they have no enemies. Perhaps alone the Fantis would not fight, but they will have the soldiers and sailors from on board ship with them, and you saw at Elmina how they can fight.”
The ship was the Ambriz, one of the African company’s steamers, bringing with it thirty-five officers, of whom ten belonged to the Commissariat and Medical staff. Among the fighting men were Sir Garnet Wolseley, Colonel M’Neil, chief of his staff, Major T. D. Baker, 18th Regiment, Captain Huyshe, Rifle Brigade, Captain Buller, 60th Rifles, all of the staff; Captain Brackenbury, military secretary, and Lieutenant Maurice, R. A., private secretary, Major Home, R. E., Lieutenant Saunders, R. A., and Lieutenant Wilmot, R. A.. Lieutenant Colonel Evelyn Wood, 90th Regiment, and Major B. C. Russell, 13th Hussars, were each to form and command a native regiment, having the remainder of the officers as their assistants.
The Ambriz had left England on the 12th of September, and had touched at Madeira and at the various towns on the coast on her way down, and at the former place had received the news of the disaster to the naval expedition up the Prah.
The English government had been loath to embark upon such an expedition, but a petition which had been sent home by the English and native traders at Sierra Leone and Elmina had shown how great was the peril which threatened the colony, and it had been felt that unless an effort was made the British would be driven altogether from their hold of the coast. When the expedition was at last determined upon, the military authorities were flooded with recommendations and warnings of all kinds from persons who knew the coast. Unfortunately these gentlemen differed so widely from each other, that but little good was gained from their counsels. Some pronounced the climate to be deadly. Others said that it was really not bad. Some warmly advocated a moderate use of spirits. Others declared that stimulants were poison. One advised that all exercise should be taken between five and seven in the morning. Another insisted that on no account should anyone stir out until the sun had been up for an hour, which meant that no one should go out till half past seven. One said take exercise and excite perspiration. Another urged that any bodily exercise should be avoided. One consistent gentleman, after having written some letters to the papers strongly advocating the use of white troops upon the coast instead of West Indian regiments, when written to by Sir Garnet Wolseley for his advice as to articles of outfit, replied that the only article which he could strongly commend would be that each officer should take out his coffin.
Ten days passed after the landing. It was known in the Ashanti camp that the Fanti kings had been ordered to raise contingents, and that a white officer had been alloted to each to assist him in this work. The Ashantis, however, had no fear whatever on this score. The twenty thousand natives who occupied the country south of the Prah had all been driven from their homes by the invaders, and had scattered among the towns and villages on the seacoast, where vast numbers had died from the ravages of smallpox. The kings had little or no authority over them, and it was certain that no native force, capable in any way of competing with the army of the assailants, could be raised.
The small number of men of the 2d West Indian regiment at Elmina had been reinforced by a hundred and twenty Houssas brought down the coast. The Ashanti advanced parties remained close up to Elmina.
On the 13th of October Frank accompanied the Ashanti general to the neighborhood of this town. The Ashanti force here was not a large one, the main body being nearly twenty miles away in the neighborhood of Dunquah, which was held by a small body of Houssas and natives under Captain Gordon. At six in the morning a messenger ran in with the news that two of the English war steamers from Cape Coast were lying off Elmina, and that a number of troops had been landed in boats. The Ashanti general was furious, and poured out threats against his spies in Cape Coast for not having warned him of the movement, but in fact these were not to blame. So quietly had the arrangements been made that, until late in the previous afternoon, no one, with the exception of three or four of the principal officers, knew that an expedition was intended. Even then it was given out that the expedition was going down the coast, and it was not until the ships anchored off Elmina at three in the morning that the officers and troops were aware of their destination. All the West Indian troops at Cape Coast had been taken, Captain Peel of the Simoon landing fifty sailors to hold the fort in case the Ashantis should attack it in their absence. The expedition consisted of the Houssas, two hundred men of the 2d West India regiment, fifty sailors, and two companies of marines and marine artillery, each fifty strong, and a large number of natives carrying a small Armstrong gun, two rocket tubes, rockets, spare ammunition, and hammocks for wounded.
The few Ashantis in the village next to Elmina retired at once when the column was seen marching from the castle. Ammon Quatia had taken up his quarters at the village of Essarman, and now advanced with his troops and took post in the bush behind a small village about three miles from the town. The Houssas were skirm
ishing in front of the column. These entered the village which had been deserted by the Ashantis, and set it on fire, blowing up several kegs of powder which had been left there in the hurry of the flight. Then as they advanced farther the Ashantis opened fire. To their surprise the British, instead of falling back, opened fire in return, the Houssas, West Indians, and natives discharging their rifles at random in all directions. Captain Freemantle with the sailors, the gun, and rockets made for the upper corner of the wood facing them to their left. Captain Crease with a company of marine artillery took the wood on the right. The Houssas and a company of West Indians moved along the path in the center. The remainder of the force remained with the baggage in reserve. The Ashantis kept up a tremendous fire, but the marines and sailors pushed their way steadily through the wood on either side. Captain Freemantle at length gained a point where his gun and rockets could play on Essarman, which lay in the heart of the wood, and opened fire, but not until he had been struck by a slug which passed through his arm. Colonel M’Neil, who was with the Houssas, also received a severe wound in the arm, and thirty-two marines and Houssas were wounded. The Ashantis were gradually driven out of the village and wood, a great many being killed by the English fire.
Having accomplished this, the British force rested for an hour and then moved on, first setting fire to Essarman, which was a very large village. A great quantity of the Ashanti powder was stored there, and each explosion excited yells of rage among the Ashantis. Their general was especially angry that two large war drums had been lost. So great was the effect produced upon the Ashantis by the tremendous fire which the British had poured into every bush and thicket as they advanced, that their general thought it expedient to draw them off in the direction of his main body instead of further disputing the way.
