by John Wilcox
Jameson swung his head around slowly to take it all in. ‘By Jove, Fonthill,’ he said, his voice little above a whisper. ‘You know, I was never certain we could do it. After all,’ he gestured with a dismissive hand, ‘this lot were not soldiers. Just farmers really. All volunteers. Oh, they could shoot and defend themselves, but they knew little about military discipline, standing firm under attack and all that sort of thing, and they all remembered Isandlwana, don’t forget. Bringing ’em this far in the face of an enemy outnumbering them by twenty-five to one and winning two engagements I have to say is an achievement. Yes, I know it’s not over yet, but I feel it is bar a bit of shouting. Eh?’ He looked up at Fonthill, rather like a puppy demanding praise.
Fonthill nodded slowly. ‘I agree.’ He regarded the little doctor with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. He was reluctant to give him the praise he so clearly desired, but he could not help but wonder at how a general practitioner from Edinburgh with no military training and little experience of the African bush, low or high veldt, could turn himself into such a determined leader and logistician. How was Rhodes, slippery, ambitious, driving Rhodes, able to recruit and motivate such men? He sighed. ‘Yes, Doctor, I do think it’s all over now. But tell me: did you have any strategic reserves you could call on if the columns from the east and the south had been overwhelmed on the march, as could so easily have happened?’
The doctor grinned. ‘Not a sausage.’ Fonthill thought of the women and children left unprotected back on their farms in Mashonaland. Then he recalled that Jameson had the reputation of being a compulsive but skilful poker player, a born gambler.
‘I see,’ he said. Jameson and Rhodes, he reflected, were a well-matched pair.
The column - now a single homogenous unit - laboriously dismantled the laager, inspanned and resumed its advance south towards Bulawayo. Alice continued to scribble intensely, occasionally swearing when she forgot to write in cablese to save the Morning Post precious pennies. Mzingeli slipped inscrutably back into his role as tracker, riding with Fonthill and Jenkins to provide meat for the column; the Welshman made no secret of the fact that he was now solely motivated by the thought of reacquainting himself with Fairbairn’s liquor stock; while Simon relapsed into contemplation of the future - would Alice agree to keep their holding in Mashonaland, and could their differences over the war and Cecil John Rhodes be reconciled?
For all his defence of the man to Alice, Fonthill still could not make up his own mind about Rhodes. Was he a visionary patriot and a hero of the Empire, in the mould of Clive, Cabot and Wellesley, or a selfish brigand, crushing all opposition in his pursuit of land and glory on the African continent? Back in Fort Salisbury, before setting out, he had heard rumours that the same ambivalence was prevailing back home in political circles. On the whole it was said that the liberals distrusted Rhodes and saw him as a piratical figure, while right-wing politicians applauded the fact that he was accumulating imperial real estate at no cost to the exchequer. In that context, Simon wondered how General Lamb would have regarded the invasion and the subsequent war. At least, he pondered, the original road-building incursion had been bloodless. So perhaps he would be credited with helping to keep Rhodes from invading with all guns blazing. In fact, of course, he had had little opportunity to influence Rhodes. Rhodes was the supreme puppet master, pulling strings from Cape Town that influenced events far, far away. Why, the bloody man had started and conducted a war without even visiting the battlefield!
When they were some seven miles away from Bulawayo, the marching column was startled when they heard a rumble like a roll of thunder and saw a dense cloud of smoke rising to the south. Lobengula had set fire to his kraal, put a match to his store of powder and cartridges and abandoned his capital. There was to be no last-ditch stand against the invading white men.
For the victorious entry into the smoking capital, Jameson, ever the Scot, found from somewhere a pipe major of the Royal Scots Regiment, who led the Mashonaland settlers into the heart of the ruins, where the company’s flag was hoisted on the site of the king’s inner kraal.
Alice, riding at the head of the column with Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli, just behind the pipe major, Jameson and the two majors, let out a cry of delight when she saw the incongruous figure of Fairbairn sitting on the roof of his store. She dismounted and ran towards him.
‘Mr Fairbairn, oh, I am so glad that you have survived,’ she cried.
The Scotsman removed his pipe from his mouth. ‘So am I, lassie,’ he called down. ‘So am I. I thought it would be touch and go, but the king, bless him, was a perfect gentleman to me to the end. When he was blowin’ up the place, he issued instructions that I was not to be harmed. And nobody touched me.’ He grinned, and then sadness descended on his face. ‘I don’t know what’s goin’ to happen here now, but one thing’s for sure: I shall miss the old devil.’
Alice smiled. ‘Do you know, so will I. But where has he gone?’
Fairbairn gestured with his pipe. ‘Took his sons, some of his wives and a few thousand of his warriors and trekked up north. Maybe he’s tryin’ to cross the Zambezi; maybe he just wants to hole up in the bush. It’s anybody’s guess.’
‘One more important question, Mr Fairbairn. Those kind people who helped me to escape, you remember, the man who lost his hand?’
‘Oh aye, I remember.’
‘What happened to them?’
The Scotsman paused before replying. Then: ‘I’m afraid de Sousa’s men caught up with them. They were found with their throats cut. Even the mule was killed.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Fonthill. This is a cruel country, so it is.’
Alice felt tears start into her eyes. She turned to Simon, who had joined her. ‘Those two gave their lives so that Mzingeli and I could escape, yet I hardly knew them. I feel so . . . guilty.’
‘I’m sorry, Alice.’ Simon called up to the Scotsman. ‘Mr Fairbairn, I shall ever be in your debt for what you did for my wife. I can’t thank you enough.’
Fairbairn waved his pipe. ‘Difficult times, Mr Fonthill. Difficult times. We must stand by each other.’
The question of the whereabouts of the king immediately became a burning issue. Alice sent off a trusted young settler back to Salisbury with her cable for the Morning Post, which ended with: ‘But where is the king? Peace cannot be made until he is found.’
A couple of weeks later, the column from the south arrived. It had seen little serious fighting but had been delayed by the desertion of King Khama’s men, who had formed a not insignificant part of the unit. Shortly afterwards, the tall, rather dishevelled figure of Cecil John Rhodes galloped into the home of his old adversary and immediately locked himself into conclave with Jameson.
The explosion that had so singularly marked Lobengula’s retreat had torn apart the centre of his kraal, destroying his own house and the huts of his inDunas and wives, although, strangely, it had left standing and virtually unsinged the great indaba tree under which he had sat to dispense judgement. It had also left undamaged the other beehive dwellings that stretched out on to the plain and formed the suburbs of the city. These had now become inhabited again as the people of Bulawayo hesitantly returned and realised that the white invaders were not intent on harming them.
Fonthill, Alice, Jenkins and Mzingeli lived in their bivouac tents that had sheltered them on the march. Presuming that the war was now over, Fonthill was anxious to return to Fort Salisbury to see how his farm was faring under the care of Joshua and Ntini, who had been left to tend it, but he found his wife strangely reluctant to leave Bulawayo.
‘I am beginning to realise,’ she told him, ‘that this chapter cannot be closed until the king is found. There has to be a formal peace treaty, with Lobengula signing it, but he has gone off with the remainder of his army up north, it seems. While he is out there with his men he will be perceived to be a threat and I must report what happens to him.’ Her grey eyes took on a steely glint. ‘I want to be sure that the old boy i
s not disadvantaged by Rhodes and Jameson any more than is inevitable. I shall be watching them like a hawk.’
Fonthill sighed. A handful of journalists had arrived with the Tuli column, all of them dismayed by the lack of action they had been able to report on the journey north and resentful but resigned that, once again, Alice Griffith of the Morning Post had scooped them all. The current attitude amongst them - and, indeed, throughout Fleet Street it seemed - was jingoistic. The King of Matabeleland had to be found and punished for allowing his impis to wash their spears. Simon knew that Alice would be hypersensitive to their reportage and anxious to effect a balance. It was a difficult time for everyone among the smoking debris of Lobengula’s ‘Place of Man Who Was Killed’.
The day after Rhodes’s arrival, Fonthill received a note from the great man asking if he could spare him a minute. He walked to the tent that Jameson had set aside for the Cape premier and found the two men sitting and talking at a single trestle table. Apart from the table and three camp chairs, the tent was completely unfurnished.
‘Ah, Fonthill.’ Simon smiled at the well-remembered high squeak of a voice and took the hand that was offered to him. The big man was wearing his customary old cricket flannels and, despite the heat, a tweed jacket that had certainly seen better days. Underneath a large black tie that was only loosely knotted, his shirt was open at the throat and his waistcoat gaped to reveal his paunch. The air of an eccentric, bohemian country squire was emphasised by the lock of reddish-grey hair that curled boyishly over his forehead.
‘Do sit down,’ said Rhodes. ‘Jameson has been telling me how very helpful you have been, both on the journey north with the settlers’ column and with the fights you’ve had on the way here. Helpful. Yes, most helpful. Damned helpful.’
Simon shrugged. ‘Oh, I did little enough. The doctor here did a most amazing job in getting these columns together, and Forbes and Wilson did good soldierly work.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Mind you, that turned out to be not so difficult, given that we had Maxims and the cannon. The Matabele were completely outgunned.’
‘Mmm.’ Rhodes’s protuberant eyes seemed to bore into Fonthill. ‘Got your land all right? Started your farm up there? Eh?’
‘Yes thank you. We didn’t suffer as much as many others in the storm and the rains and we have more or less established it. I want to get back there now, because I haven’t seen the place for weeks and I fear I can’t stay out in these parts too long. My wife is anxious to get home to Norfolk.’
Rhodes nodded and gave a half-smile. ‘Yes, of course. Miss Griffith. I have a feeling, from what I’ve heard and read in the Morning Post, that your good lady is not exactly in tune with what I have been trying to do here in Matabeleland.’
Simon returned the smile. ‘I think, indeed, that would be fair to say, sir. I know that, in her role as the Post’s correspondent here, she would be grateful to have a word.’
‘Of course, of course. I’ve no complaints. Rough with the smooth, you know. That’s what those of us in politics have to do. Take the rough with the smooth.’
‘Quite so. How are things progressing with establishing a formal peace?’
Jameson spoke for the first time. ‘Ah, that is what we wished to talk to you about, Fonthill. We can’t exactly say that things are going well.’
‘Indeed not.’ Rhodes opened a small humidor on the table and pushed it towards Fonthill. ‘Cigar?’
‘No thank you, sir.’
‘It’s the damned Imperials, you see,’ said Rhodes, selecting a cigar, snipping off the end and then lighting it with some ceremony. ‘Would you believe it, Fonthill, I have been told by the Colonial Office in London that all the negotiations with the king to settle the peace have to be conducted with the high commissioner that the Colonial Office has set up in Salisbury. I mean to say, my dear fellow, I have paid for this damned war myself, and what I haven’t paid for my company has. For Whitehall to jump in now and insist that it wants to settle the way this country is to be run in future is not only unfair but a damned cheek.’
He blew out a stream of blue smoke. ‘What’s laughable about it all is that before we can seal a peace with Lobengula, we have to find him. The High Commissioner and the Colonial Office haven’t any idea where he is or how to go about trying to find him. Who has to do that? Why me, of course.’ Rhodes leaned across the table. ‘Well, I have no intention of letting the bally Imperials mess things up at this late stage. We will find the king and we will settle things with him in an honourable and satisfactory way for all concerned. Jameson here is already working on it.’
Dr Jameson leaned forward, the light reflected in his rimless, circular spectacles. ‘Yes. I wrote a letter to the king and sent it off with one of his inDunas who stayed behind here and who had a rough idea of where the old rascal has gone. I told him that if he would come back to Bulawayo he would be safe and would receive friendly treatment. Well, I received a reply this very morning.’
He held up a wrinkled piece of paper. ‘Most of Lobengula’s letters used to be written by Fairbairn, one of the traders here, but this one - according to Fairbairn, who knows the man’s hand - seems to have been written by that Portuguese feller that was always causing trouble.’
Fonthill stiffened. ‘De Sousa, the man known as Gouela?’
‘Yes, that’s the chap. He must be with Lobengula. The king says he will come in but he is concerned about what happened to the two inDunas who were killed at Tuli. He is also worried about where he could live in Bulawayo, his houses having been burned down.’ Jameson sniffed. ‘I think he is just playing for time, so I am mounting a patrol to go and bring him in. We are calling it the Shangani Patrol, for we believe Lobengula has gone up that way with the remnants of his army. Nothing too heavy: we shall ask for volunteers and I shall want no more than about three hundred men.’
Fonthill whistled. ‘How many are supposed to be with the king?’
Rhodes intervened. ‘We don’t know accurately,’ he said. ‘Could be as many as three thousand, but after the hidings these impis have received in recent weeks, we don’t expect any real resistance. Three hundred good chaps will do the job well.’
And cheaply, Simon thought to himself. But Jameson was continuing.
‘I am putting Forbes in command, of course, with Wilson along as his deputy, but given that the rains are due to break any day now and the bush up there can be pretty thick, Rhodes and I would be most grateful if you, your Welshman and your tracker could go along to lend a hand. Particularly in scouting,’ he waved a hand airily, ‘and that sort of thing.’ He leaned forward again, almost conspiratorially. ‘To be frank, I am just a touch concerned about the friction between Forbes and Wilson, and the younger chap can be perhaps a little headstrong. Your experience and knowledge - not to mention the fact that you know the king personally - would be invaluable.’
‘I do hope you will say yes, Fonthill,’ added Rhodes from behind a curtain of smoke.
Fonthill’s mind flashed to two puff adders, a searing pain in his chest, a pockmarked face close to his and the smell of cheap pomade. A chance to settle the score?
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Splendid,’ Rhodes and Jameson responded in chorus. And as though to seal the agreement, a sudden crash of thunder broke over the roof of the tent, and immediately a downpour sounded on the canvas overhead and filled the interior with a noise like a hundred war drums beating. The rains had begun.
Chapter 19
Fonthill’s jaw dropped in incredulity. ‘Rations for only three days!’ he repeated. His horse drooped its head in the sheeting rain and Simon pulled down his hat brim to protect his face. ‘That means we will be out of food by tomorrow. Whose stupid planning was that?’
‘Can’t be helped.’ Forbes’s face was set in stoical gloom. ‘There was little to spare back in Bulawayo and we had no time to go hunting before we set off. Jameson said we could live off the countryside.’
‘Not in this weather we can’t. Even if we’re
lucky enough to get one buck, that’s not going to feed three hundred men. You know that, Forbes.’
‘Yes, well . . . Wilson was in charge of provisioning. We shall just have to go on short commons until this damned rain lifts. I’ve sent a message back to Bulawayo pleading for more rations.’
The two men, hunched on their mounts, were plodding at the head of the column as they headed northwards. Fonthill stole a glance behind him at the men straggling out behind. Three hundred volunteers had not exactly sprung forward from the ranks when Jameson had sent out his call. The men had been away from their homes for several months already, the lure of loot had receded, for Lobengula had taken his most prized cattle with him, and the prospect of tracking the king into the treacherous bush had little appeal. Every man knew what the rainy season meant: flooded trails, rivers in spate and general misery for travellers. Eventually a force of sorts had been gathered from the three columns, including that from the south, but these were not disciplined troops, and murmurs of discontent were already to be heard as the Shangani Patrol had passed through Inyati, which had been a station of the London Missionary Society. They found that the station had been wrecked and looted and it was clear that Lobengula had a large force with him. No-one knew exactly how far ahead he was, but he was out there somewhere, with a last impi covering his retreat. The uncertainty added to the mud and the unceasing downpour to unsettle the amateur soldiers pursuing him.
