by John Wilcox
Perhaps someone had caught sight of Jenkins’s rifle, or it could have been the reflection of the sun off the shining buckles of one of the KAR troopers, but someone in the lead party pointed ahead and shouted.
‘Damn and blast,’ whispered Simon, ‘I wanted more of ’em.’ But he pushed the barrel of his own rifle forward, sighted quickly at the man who was still pointing, and fired. To his rather surprised satisfaction, the man flung up his hands and collapsed. It was the signal for the clump of rocks housing the troopers suddenly to come ablaze with firing as the men followed Fonthill’s lead.
Through the haze of blue smoke that floated across the rocks, Simon caught a glimpse of the two men carrying the machine gun both fall to the ground. More of the askaris were now breaking cover from the thicket and rushing forward, two of them bending down to retrieve the Maxim.
‘Get the machine gunners,’ screamed Fonthill and heard Jenkins’s gun fire twice, bringing down the men attempting to lift the big gun.
Looking over the track, Simon could see and hear firing as the second party of Germans broke their cover and charged forward. But, as he watched, the leading troops all collapsed and fell under the rapid firing of the KARs – volley firing, for Fonthill could hear, even above the rattle of musketry, the stentorian voice of the sergeant calling, ‘Even numbers fire; reload; odd numbers fire; reload.’ What splendid training!
Suddenly, he became aware that the firing on both sides of the railway track had ceased.
‘They’ve ’ad enough. They’re buggerin’ off.’ Jenkins’s voice was a mixture of triumph and relief.
Sure enough, the askaris seemed to have melted away – all, that is, except for the bodies that lay inert among the stones and sand and for the pitiful attempts of the wounded to seek help, raising hands and heads. The scene was repeated on the other side of the track.
Fonthill hauled himself upright. ‘Sergeant,’ he yelled. ‘Do you have any wounded?’
‘No, sah.’
‘Good. Take your men and pursue the enemy. Take care, though. They may have laid another ambush.’
‘Yes, sah.’
He called to his own men. ‘Soldiers, on your feet now. Well done. Anybody hurt?’
No hands were raised. ‘You three men.’ He called to a lance corporal and the two men nearest. ‘Do you have first-aid kits?’ They all nodded.
‘Good. I want you to go with Mzingeli here and see what you can do – on both sides of the track – for the German wounded. Those that can walk, get them to help you with the others and take them all back to the train and put them on board and stand guard over them.’ He raised his gaze. ‘The rest of you come with me.’
‘Not at a bloody run again, bach sir, I do ’ope.’ Jenkins had now predictably lost his hat; his black hair was plastered over his forehead and the rest of his face was streaming in perspiration.
‘Oh, don’t make such a fuss. I want to get back in time to capture a few of those German blacks before these KARs kill ’em all. Someone has got to move those bloody stones off the track. Unless, that is, you are volunteering for the job. No? Come on, then.’
There was a full corporal in the few men left in Fonthill’s section. ‘Corporal,’ he called. ‘Get three men to pick up that Maxim. It could prove useful. Then take the men on at a trot. Be on your guard because the Germans may still resist. Those that you find at the place where they rolled down the rocks, put them under guard until I come up. Off you go now.’
He began walking, picking his way carefully between the wounded and the dead, Jenkins puffing along behind him followed by the three men carrying the machine gun. The marksmanship of the colonial troops had been exemplary and, at short range, it had cut down most of the German askaris, with, here and there, a few white faces dotted amongst the dead. Simon wondered about returning to bury the dead, then thought better of it. The ground was hard and vultures were already circling. Better to leave them to clear up.
After a few minutes he heard desultory firing from up ahead and then silence. Ten more minutes of walking and they passed the bodies of three askaris, obviously left as some form of rearguard and witness, once again, to the KARs’ skills with their Lee Enfields. Then the railside track began to climb and they found themselves looking down onto the defile through which the line had been cut.
Down below, clustered around the rocks, were a handful of the askaris, plus one European officer, all standing their hands in the air and surrounded by the colonial troopers.
‘Well done, Sergeant,’ called Fonthill and began to scramble down to join the little group. ‘No one wounded?’
‘No, sah. We had to kill three more, though.’
‘So I noticed. I will make sure that you and your men are commended. Now,’ he turned to the white officer, a thin man with a whispy beard.
‘Colonel Fonthill,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘I hope you speak English?
‘Lieutenant Wolfgang Schmidt,’ said the German, taking Simon’s hand. ‘Building contractor in Dar es Salaam until three months ago.’ He gave a wry smile.
Fonthill returned the smile. ‘Now turned demolition expert, I see. Well, Lieutenant, I’m afraid I must ask you to now undo the work you did a few minutes ago. Please instruct your men to take these rocks off the line so that we can resume our journey and we can take you into custody, I’m afraid.’
The German pulled a long face but gave instructions in Swahili and his men, obviously relieved that they were not going to be shot out of hand, began the work.
Simon called to his corporal. ‘Jog back to the train,’ he said, ‘and ask the driver to bring the locomotive and the carriages here. Make sure that the prisoners and the wounded there are under guard.’
‘Very good, sah.’
Within the hour, the train had chugged its way forward, using the cattle catcher on the front of the locomotive to ease the largest of the rocks aside off the track, and the prisoners had been been safely housed under guard in the open trucks. The body of Lieutenant Daniels had been recovered, wrapped in a blanket provided by Lieutenant Schmidt and laid carefully in the lead compartment. Then with a triumphant toot on the steam whistle the train continued its journey to Kisumu.
CHAPTER FOUR
There were no further attempted attacks on the line but it was long after dark when the little lakeside town was reached. The stationmaster was summoned from his cottage nearby, a magistrate found and the prisoners marched away to the town jail. A small escort was formed to take the body of Lieutenant Daniels to the mortuary and lodgings were found in a hotel for Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli, the latter not without argument, as usual, because of his colour.
The next morning, Simon reported to the senior British officer in the town, who happened to be a naval lieutenant commander, named Evans. The man was puzzled by Fonthill’s arrival, for the strictest security had been imposed on his journey and Simon warned the commander of the importance of keeping the news of the impending attack under the tightest of wraps.
‘Which way do you intend to go in?’ asked Evans, sucking on his pipe.
‘I thought it would be safer to go up around the north of the lake and slip south across the border on the other side. I know the frontier is not strictly patrolled and felt that it would probably be the best way for the raiding force to go in, too.’
‘Good God, no!’ exclaimed Evans. ‘There is no way you – and certainly not several thousand men – can tramp right round the lake and enter GEA without the Germans knowing. The alarm would be raised as soon as you sniffed at the frontier. No, no. Go straight across the lake. We can take you over.’
‘What, and the invading force too?’
Evans extracted his pipe and used the stem to point at a large map of Lake Victoria pinned to his wall. ‘Yes. Straight across as the dear old crow flies, old chap.’
Fonthill frowned. ‘But I understood that the Germans have ships on the lake and regularly patrol it.’
‘Used to, old boy.’ There was a defi
nite note of pride in Evans’s voice. ‘We’ve just sunk their eighty-ton steamer Muensa and even if they did manage to refloat her, her two seven-pounder guns would be no match now for the little fleet we’ve managed to put together. We’ve now got six steamers, including two of one thousand tons each, plus three tugs.’
He leant back and puffed his pipe proprietarily. ‘As I am sure you know, Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa, with a surface area of about 27,000, square miles. But now we control it completely. We could take Sir John French’s BEF across to the German side without the slightest hindrance. And what’s more,’ he leant forward, ‘I reckon we can take your little army across during the night without the enemy having the faintest idea of what’s going on.’
Fonthill nodded slowly. ‘That certainly does change things. So you could take me and my two men across to the other side of the lake, say, tomorrow night during darkness?’
‘Certainly. Where do you want to be landed?’
‘As near as possible to Bukoba so that we can reconnoitre the town and be picked up again the following night.’
‘Fine.’ Evans allowed the pipe to leave his mouth long enough to grin. ‘Know the place reasonably well, as it happens. Used to go across and have a drink once or twice with my German opposite number.’ He used his pipe stem again as a marker. ‘Just north of the town, about here, there is quite a wide beach, shallow enough for us to land you and the chaps to follow, but far enough, I would think, from the town and its defences to escape detection. We will drop you ashore and you can see for yourself. Would you be happy with that?’
Fonthill leant across and extended his hand. ‘Very happy. Thank you.’
‘Good. But you have probably underestimated the length of the voyage. It’s about 180 miles from here to Bukoba, so we shall need to set out tomorrow morning to make the crossing and allow you to land under cover of darkness. So we would need to set sail at about 10 a.m. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
Evans insisted on coming with them and the following morning they assembled on the jetty at Kisumu and then boarded a steam pinnace. A course was set to the south-west, and five men – Fonthill, Jenkins, Mzingeli, Evans and the young sub lieutenant commanding the pinnace – clustered together in the vessel’s little cabin to drink rum and study an old map Evans had managed to acquire of Bukuba and its environs.
‘I doubt if this will be of much use to you,’ said the sailor. ‘It’s quite a bit marshy, as I remember the place. So you will have to be careful in planning the attack. Now, let’s have another spot of rum and I suggest you close your eyes for as long as you can. I will wake you when we are near to the opposite shore. We won’t run you in. But we will put you in a dinghy and row you onto the beach. Much quieter.’
The moon was high and disconcertingly shedding a bright light across the water when the pinnace hove to, the shoreline a distant but distinctly darker smudge to the west, and the dinghy was lowered into the water. The three men shook hands with Evans, then they clustered together in the little craft as a brawny seaman dug in the oars and they headed for German territory.
The sky was just beginning to redden in the east as the prow of the dinghy crunched onto the shingle shore. Fonthill looked around anxiously, but there were no dwellings on the shoreline, only low shrubbery lining the edge of the beach. They slipped calf-length into the water and waded to the shingle before running to the protection of the greenery, as the seaman backed the oars and the dinghy slipped away into the vastness of the lake.
‘Where to now, bach sir?’ asked Jenkins.
‘Well, according to Evans and this old map, the town is about a couple of miles down there,’ he nodded, ‘to the left. It straddles the Kanoni River and it’s on a small marshy plain, surrounded by hills and a few limestone kopjes. But,’ he squinted around, ‘the first thing to do is to make sure that this beach is big enough to land about 1,500 troops. You two go that way,’ he pointed to the right, ‘and I will take a look the other way. Back here in ten minutes.’
The little party broke up and reassembled well within the ten minutes. The three squatted under a low mimosa tree.
Jenkins smoothed his moustache. ‘Looks good enough where we’ve been,’ he said. ‘There’s an ’ouse we could see through the trees right at the far end. P’raps some kind of custom place, by the look of it. But nobody seemed to be there. The good thing was that all the beach is shingle. Firmer, look you, than sand. So we could bring guns ashore.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘I quite agree. But the beach is a bit on the small side and it will be some time before everyone gets ashore, so surprise will be everything. Let’s take a walk and see what’s between here and the town. Remember, if we see anyone, just nod, don’t talk. And,’ he recovered a revolver from under his shirt ‘we mustn’t use these unless we are in obvious danger. Right, let’s go.’
Through the fringe of trees and scrub that lined the beach, they found a dirt track road lying parallel to the shoreline. The sun was beginning to rise but no one was about. They pushed on up and over a ridge, and made their way through what Mzingeli confirmed was a matoke plantation, before being confronted by a larger hill. Simon made a note. This could be a good defensive position for the Germans and would have to be taken quickly by the invaders.
The nearer they came to the town, the more marshy the ground became and it was necessary sometimes to wade through water chest-deep. Fonthill noted that Bukoba itself did seem to be surrounded by a series of ridges that looked down onto the town, all of which would have to be taken by the attacking force.
The trio continued their walk, carrying now a rake, a fork and a spade that they had taken from a farm backing onto the marsh. Splashed by mud, they now looked in the early light like farm workers, but they met only a few black labourers who gave them a surly wave. The town itself did not seem to be large and, in this early morning, was largely unpopulated. When Simon had noted the exact position of the wireless mast and transmitting station, he decided that they had seen enough and that it would be unwise to linger longer and risk their discovery and so reveal the purpose of their mission.
Accordingly, they sauntered back to the beach and crept under the shade of bushes to avoid the heat of the afternoon sun. Taking it in turns to stand guard, they found it not unpleasant, dozing, eating their sandwiches and drinking a little rum and water from their flasks, which they had left hidden before setting off on their reconnaissance.
A few hours later, a pinprick of light flashed on and off out on the lake, and Simon responded with his own torch. Within minutes, the low profile of the dinghy emerged from the darkness and they scrambled aboard, insisting this time at relieving the seaman and taking it in turns to row.
The pinnace, which, with an anxious Evans aboard, had stood out in the middle of the lake while they were ashore, was waiting for them and they immediately steamed back towards Kusumu. Simon disclosed little of what they had seen to Evans, who seemed to respect his reticence, and they slept for most of the return crossing. Fonthill was glad to find the Mombasa train waiting with steam up. He was anxious to report back to General Wapshare but equally anxious that no news of the planned raid should leak from any quarter before he did so. The fewer people who knew about it in Kisumu the better.
They quickly regained their bags and rifles from their hotel and boarded the train, this time guarded by a different section of the KAR, led only by a sergeant, who saluted them and put them in the leading carriage. Although they sat, their rifles at the ready, throughout the dusty, hot journey, keenly looking ahead and to the sides for possible ambush, the trip was uneventful and they regained Mombasa towards the end of the following day.
Having telegraphed ahead, they were met at the station by a grinning Alice. ‘News, news,’ she cried, as they stepped down onto the milling platform.
‘Don’t tell me the war is over,’ cried Fonthill in mock distress. ‘I’m banking on winning the VC in this show.’
‘No, no. Of course not. B
ut Wapshare has been replaced.’
‘Good lord. Why? He did well enough at Tanga. It wasn’t his fault that the thing was a mess.’
‘I don’t really know, but he has already gone off to command the 33rd Division in Mesopotamia. The word is that he is disappointed because he regards it as a demotion and a censuring for what happened at Tanga.’
‘Hmm. Well a divisional command on an active front certainly shouldn’t be seen as that. But who is taking his place?’
‘My favourite general. Mickey Tighe. He has already taken over and wants to see you immediately on your return.’
Simon pulled a face. ‘I hope he doesn’t want to cancel the attack on Bukoba. I reckon we can pull it off.’
‘I doubt it. He’s a fighting general, if ever there was one, and I am glad he has been promoted.’ Alice smiled and ran her hand over Simon’s stubble. ‘Look, you’ve got time to come to the hotel and have a bath and shave. He can wait. He’s only a major general, after all.’
They all grinned and piled into a rickshaw and headed for the hotel.
Bathed and shaved within the hour, Fonthill reported to the C-in-C’s Headquarters and, although he was in mufti, of course, received a smart salute from the huge Sikh at the guard post. Without delay he was ushered in to meet the Major General.
The two men shook hands, Tighe’s blue eyes twinkling as he did so.
‘I’ve already met your wife, Fonthill,’ he said. ‘A remarkable woman, as I had always heard. I do congratulate you, my dear fellow. My God, she’s as feisty under fire as any young subaltern I have ever met.’
Simon nodded and pulled a face. ‘Well thank you, General. You are quite right. She worries the life out of me, even though I have grown used to her, crouching there with pencil and notebook at the firing line in so many campaigns now. But tell me …’ He paused and frowned. ‘I do hope you are not going to pull out of the Bukoba show, are you?’
Tighe puffed out his cheeks. ‘Good God, no. Well I hope not. It all depends on what you tell me. You know, we never met in India, I believe, not even on the frontier during the Pathan Uprising. But I know all about you. So I am anxious to have your report now. Fire away. Is it possible?’
