The Shangani Patrol

by John Wilcox

  The trader nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s damned unusual for a Matabele - let alone his wife - to go out on to the veldt after dark. And as for finding the mule useful, they will if they are left with it after de Sousa’s men catch them. I agree with you that they are being very brave. They’ve got guts.’

  The man and his wife left the store carrying several pots and pans - which Alice of course paid for - so giving a reason for their visit to any spying eyes. Half an hour later, Mzingeli began loading the mule, taking his time about it, before leading the animal round to the back of the store.

  The night was black when they set out. Alice embraced Fairbairn at the stable entrance, somewhat to his embarrassment, and shook the hands of the two Matabeles before they began leading the mule away to the left as Alice and Mzingeli dipped down into the donga to the right, feeling their way awkwardly on the stones that lined its bottom. Then darkness swallowed them all.

  Alice had plotted her course roughly. She had a compass that glowed dimly in the dark, and she planned to walk and then, as soon as the terrain allowed, ride through the night and the following days on a course that took them due east. When she judged it safe, they would turn to the north-north-east and follow a more direct route to Fort Salisbury. It was, she hoped, a course that might even take her into the path of Simon, if, as she fervently prayed, he had deduced on his return that she had gone to Bulawayo and followed her. The thought of that wriggling sack impelled her and they travelled quickly.

  On the sixth day after leaving the king’s kraal, and when they had broken out of the bush into a stretch of open country, Mzingeli’s sharp eyes picked out the tiny figures of two horsemen riding across the high veldt far to the north of them. Cautiously they wheeled their horses round and put them to the gallop towards the riders, keeping low in the saddle. As they neared, the figures turned to meet them, and within minutes, Alice was in the arms of her husband.

  Chapter 17

  After that first embrace, each clumsily reaching out to the other from their horses, the reunion was not as warm as Alice would have wished, although she had expected nothing less.

  ‘You’ve been to Bulawayo, of course?’ asked Simon, his brow like a low-veldt thundercloud. Their fidgety mounts circled each other as though they too were sparring.

  ‘Yes, I have. I wanted to make one last appeal to Lobengula to hold back his impis.’ She tossed her head. ‘And I might have succeeded if those fools in Tuli hadn’t murdered two of his inDunas he was sending on a peace mission.’

  ‘Yes, I heard about that.’ Jenkins and Mzingeli had discreetly moved away. Fonthill’s face remained set in stone and he spoke quietly but with vehemence. ‘Alice, there are times when I think I should throw you across my knee and spank you. You have been thoughtless, foolhardly and downright silly. Things have gone too far for one single person - journalist, politician, woman or man - to have the conceit to think that she could stop this war by arguing. You have put your life at risk and that of Mzingeli, and you have worried me to death. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  Alice flushed. ‘I may have been the other things, but I have not been thoughtless. I thought long and hard about what I believed I ought to do before I decided to do it. I am sorry that I had to force Mzingeli to come with me, but I couldn’t have reached Bulawayo without him. I am also sorry that I caused you worry, but I knew that if I told you of my intention you would prevent me from going.’

  She felt the tears begin to well up and gulped to hold them back. ‘As for everything else, I have no regrets. I failed, but I would do it again if there was a chance of success. Simon, for God’s sake!’ Her voice rose and she stood in her stirrups. ‘We are going to war, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives are going to be lost because of the ambition of some half-mad millionaire in Cape Town. It was worth risking my life and even that of Mzingeli to try and prevent that.’

  Jenkins chose this moment to ride up. He put out his hand, seized that of Alice and gave it a clumsy kiss. ‘Thank goodness you’ve come back safely, Miss Alice,’ he said. ‘We’ve both been very worried, look you. You must excuse us all if we’re a bit exisp . . . exagg . . .’

  ‘Exasperated?’ offered Alice.

  ‘I was just goin’ to say that, miss. But anyway, it’s lovely to see you without a spear stickin’ out of your . . . er . . . chest.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ The warmth of Jenkins’s words, the genuineness of his welcome and the long-suppressed fear of the snake finally released the tears, and they poured down her face. She reached a hand out to both men and clutched theirs. ‘I . . . am . . . so . . . sorry,’ she sobbed.

  ‘That’s a relief.’ Fonthill allowed his frown to disappear. ‘I didn’t fancy putting you across my knee. You’re far too heavy now.’

  She aimed a playful blow at him and the tension was released.

  ‘Mzingeli,’ called Simon. ‘Can you make us all tea?’

  ‘Yes, Nkosi. No milk. Black.’

  ‘Oh very well. Now, Alice, tell me what happened.’

  They squatted around a makeshift fire while Mzingeli boiled his billycan and Alice told her story. When it came to de Sousa, Fonthill’s jaw dropped in horror. ‘My poor love,’ he said and took her hand.

  Jenkins’s face set into a scowl. ‘I should ’ave put that shot through ’is ’eart,’ he said. ‘But I shall get ’im next time.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ said Simon. ‘As I keep saying, he’s mine. And we might have a chance yet. If Gouela is in Bulawayo this late in the day, that means he is going to fight with Lobengula. The king said that he was gathering his impis?’

  ‘Yes. We saw groups coming into the kraal from all parts, and Fairbairn told me that a large impi was due to arrive any day from Barotseland. It’s probably there by now.’

  Fonthill frowned. ‘Hmm. Major Patrick Forbes is about a day behind us with his force from Fort Salisbury, and Allan Wilson is coming up to join them from Victoria with a second, slightly larger column. I gather they are hoping to meet up at Iron Mine Hill, just over there,’ he jerked his head in the direction from which they had come, ‘near Umvuma. We must get back there pretty quickly, because Lobengula will know exactly what’s happening in his country and we don’t want to be caught out here by an impi trotting in to attack. Pack up and let’s mount.’

  As they rode, Fonthill reluctantly conceded to Alice that even at this late stage, Rhodes was playing politics. ‘This has got to be his war, you see. If he lets the column from Tuli engage with the Matabele, that means that the Imperials are involved, because the Tuli lot have regular troops with them, and Whitehall can dictate terms. So it’s a race between the two forces to see who takes on Lobengula first: our settlers from Salisbury and Victoria or the regulars and policemen from Bechuanaland. If we get there first and beat the king, then Rhodes can make it a company peace and keep out the government back home.’

  Alice tossed her head. ‘Typical!’

  They rode as hard as their horses could go, pausing occasionally to rest them, when Fonthill rose in his stirrups and searched the horizon behind them - they were still in open country - for any sign of a Matabele force coming up to confront the settlers’ army. Nothing moved on that plain, however, except for the occasional quick-darting ostrich and guineafowl. Towards dusk, they met the combined forces from Salisbury and Victoria.

  ‘My, they’ve moved fast,’ murmured Fonthill, as the column’s outriders rode towards them.

  The reason, of course, was that this small army was comprised completely of cavalry, and it presented a fine sight as it moved across the veldt in a jingle of harness, with two columns riding side by side. Rhodes’s personal fortune had provided not only the rifles, ammunition and horses, the latter scoured from all parts of Rhodesia and the Cape, but also uniforms for this citizens’ militia. Each man wore a jacket - many of them ill-fitting, but who cared about that? - crossed at the chest by a bandolier, with riding breeches, leather leggings, and a broad-brimmed bush hat, pinned up at one side
in jaunty colonial style. Underneath virtually every hat stretched a bushy moustache. Rattling along in the middle of the columns were light provision wagons and carts carrying five Maxim machine guns, and bouncing and banging further back were two Hotchkiss seven-pounder cannon. Light on artillery and numbers, yet still a formidable, fast-moving unit.

  ‘How many, d’yer think?’ asked Jenkins.

  ‘About seven hundred, now that the two columns have joined together,’ said Fonthill, his chin resting on his hand as he watched them approach. ‘Mobile, which is good. But not so good if we have to fight in the bush. Horses will be useless there.’ He sighed. ‘And it’s not many men compared with Lobengula’s impis.’

  ‘’Ow many ’as ’e got, then?’

  ‘Don’t know exactly.’ Fonthill frowned. ‘Between eighteen and twenty thousand, I am told.’

  ‘Blimey. Let’s just ’ope they don’t all come at once, then.’

  Alice drew her horse alongside and shielded her eyes. ‘Can you see any press people?’

  ‘Well, they don’t stand out. If they’re there, they’ll be dressed just like the rest.’ Fonthill gave a cynical smile. ‘They like to think they’re soldiers too.’

  Alice sniffed.

  Riding at the head of the columns were Jameson and his two senior officers, Majors Allan Wilson (newly promoted) and Patrick Forbes, a Sandhurst-trained regular officer who had distinguished himself in brushes with natives in the east and who Jameson had put in overall command of the force. Fonthill and his companions rode forward to meet them.

  ‘Fonthill!’ Jameson raised his hat. ‘And Mrs Fonthill. Glad to see that you are all reunited.’ Alice flushed and wondered what they had been told, but the doctor was introducing his officers.

  Wilson and Forbes seemed to be in competition to see who could grow the widest moustache in South Africa. Wilson, perhaps, shaded the contest, for his stretched down and stood out on either side of his chin. He was the younger and much the slimmer of the two, and had come up through the ranks. He carried an air of brisk confidence about the clash to come. Forbes was heavily built, stolid in demeanour and spoke little.

  ‘Already had a brush with the Matabele,’ said Jameson. ‘They came at us on our way up from Victoria, before we’d joined Wilson’s column. Came out of the bush without warning.’ Fonthill marked that the doctor’s tone was solemn and utterly without delight at having had the first encounter with the enemy. ‘We hardly had time to lift a rifle. We got a few of them, but not many. Alas, Campbell, our ordnance officer, was badly speared in the leg. I had to amputate, but he died the next day. We lost Ted Burnett, too, one of the transport officers with the column. You remember him, Fonthill?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I am so sorry. He was a good fellow.’ It quickly occurred to Simon that this was probably the first time that the doctor had had to revert to his original calling and operate on a wounded man after a clash with an enemy force. Would it be the last?

  Forbes grunted. ‘Not easy to put out pickets in the bush. I’d much rather fight them in the open.’

  ‘If they’ll let us.’ Fonthill tried to keep the note of warning from his voice. This was not his campaign. Nevertheless . . . ‘What are your plans for the campaign, Jameson?’

  The doctor removed his spectacles and polished them violently with his handkerchief. ‘We are going to sweep round and attack Bulawayo from the north. We will cross the Shangani river and hopefully catch Lobengula napping and capture him, of course.’

  Simon frowned. ‘If I remember rightly, Doctor, that means you will have to go through some sort of forest called . . .’ He turned his head. ‘What’s it called, Mzingeli?’

  ‘Somabula, Nkosi.’

  ‘Heavy woodland, is it?’ The question came from Forbes, whose mouth under his moustache was set in a grim line. He sought the answer from Fonthill, rather than Mzingeli. Was it beneath his dignity to address a native? Simon dismissed the thought. Forbes had campaigned with native troops and would know their worth.

  Fonthill diverted the question. ‘Mzingeli?’

  ‘Thick, Nkosi. Good place for . . . what is that word?’

  ‘Ambush.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, if it’s there we shall just have to push through it.’ Jameson spoke quickly, as if anxious to get on. He turned to Alice, who had been listening quietly. ‘May I ask, Mrs Fonthill, have you come from Bulawayo?’

  The two majors swung round in surprise. It was clear that they had no idea why she and the three men with her were riding vulnerably out on the veldt on the brink of war. Alice was not anxious to inform them. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘And was the place preparing for war?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very much so. Even Lobengula was stripped down and painted. He told me he had called his impis in and I understand that the last of them were due in several days ago.’

  ‘Really. Thank you. In that case, gentlemen, the sooner we get on and tackle them, the better. Oh, by the way, ma’am, there are no journalists with us. I understand, though, that some may be with the Tuli column - if that lot get here in time, of course.’

  He gave a grim smile, but Alice did not return it. She was not inclined to join in, however peripherally, with Mr Rhodes’s little games. Nevertheless, she was pleased that this was one war that, by the look of it, she could report without competition. She gave a brief nod of acknowledgement and fell back a little as the three officers urged their mounts forward.

  Jameson called back over his shoulder, ‘You’ll stay with us, of course, Fonthill? We would all be glad to have the benefit of your experience.’

  ‘Of course, Doctor.’ Fonthill turned to his wife. ‘Alice, I would much prefer it if you would continue on to Fort Salisbury. Jenkins and Mzingeli can escort you, and you should reach there in less than a week.’ He smiled, persuasively he hoped. ‘Jameson will be sending messengers back there to cable Rhodes and you will be well informed. What’s more, you can send your own reports to the Post from the cable station there without delay.’

  Mindful of the worry she had caused him, Alice bit back the derisory response on her lips and instead smiled winningly. ‘Thank you, dear,’ she said, ‘but I would much prefer to stay with the column. So much more comfortable, and I do so like the fresh air.’

  Jenkins smothered a grin, but Simon just frowned.

  It was quickly decided that it was too late for the troops to advance much further, and Jameson resolved to take advantage of the open nature of the terrain and camp then and there. Fonthill noticed that despite the fact that Forbes was nominally in command, the force of the doctor’s personality - or was it his command of Rhodes’s wallet? - ensured that he took the main decisions, at least when the enemy was not present. Pickets were pushed out, guards were mounted, campfires were lit and the force settled down for the night.

  For five days the two columns advanced, eagerly and yet nervously seeking action but finding none. Their scouts, with whom Fonthill and Jenkins ranged for much of the journey, could find no trace of the Matebele host, even though they rode through bush country that would be ideal for an attack. It seemed that Lobengula was holding his troops back to defend his capital - perhaps in Somabula Forest.

  As the weather worsened, with mist and light rain descending, the British outriders reached the beginning of the forest and halted. It seemed, in fact, not particularly worse in terms of density than any of the more thickly wooded bush country through which they had already ridden, but Fonthill confirmed with Mzingeli that this would be the last and probably the best place for the Matabele to attack before Bulawayo, now only some fifteen miles away.

  ‘What d’yer think, Fonthill?’ asked Forbes as Wilson and Jameson joined them at the head of the column.

  ‘Well, in one way it is tempting to push on through the forest during the night,’ said Simon. ‘The Matabele, like the Zulus, would never dream of launching an attack at night, so we might be able to reach the open ground on the banks of the Shangani on the other side. But
I fear that with no moon, and this mist about, we would probably lose our way. The column might break up and we would end up dispersed all over the bloody place.’

  He eased himself in the saddle and wiped the damp mist from his face. ‘My advice would be that we should camp here for the night, wait until there’s decent visibility after dawn and push on. The forest is too big to go round, I understand.’

  He shot a sharp glance at Mzingeli, who nodded.

  ‘Oh, we don’t want to make a diversion,’ exclaimed Jameson. ‘I want to get straight on to Bulawayo and have it out with Lobengula as soon as possible. If you agree, Forbes, I think we should do as Fonthill recommends.’