by Max Hennessy
‘Great God and all His pink angels!’ The General reached for his glasses. ‘What the hell’s Morby-Smith up to?’
‘Sir, it’s a single half squadron. The rest of the regiment’s moving up to support them.’
‘For God’s sake, Ned, get the infantry moving! Those fools have started before we’re ready!’
Furiously angry that his plan had gone wrong, the General watched Ellesmere send a galloper across to where the infantry were waiting among the trees and scrub. Out on the veldt, Trim’s little fight was still going on unabated and even seemed to be attracting more Boers, but his casualties, according to the latest information, were heavy and it had required a steady nerve to leave him to his fate to make sure the infantry were at their start line at the right time.
Ellesmere’s galloper came back at full speed on a lathered horse. ‘The guns aren’t in position yet, sir,’ he announced.
‘We’ll have to do without them.’ The General tapped the pommel of his saddle in irritation. ‘The blasted Boers’ll be able to bolt before we’re on to them now.’
He lifted his glasses, frowning as he saw the half squadron of horsemen on his left front wheel into line and begin to move forward. The rest of the regiment was galloping up on their right in support and, as the single squadron broke into a gallop, the greater mass of men swung behind them to form a second, longer line.
Looking back, Robert saw that Morby-Smith had got the rest of the 19th into position to support him, but they were a long way behind. In front, he could see puffs of smoke coming from the end of the Boer trenches. There was little to be seen of the men who were firing, however, beyond a small group standing by a group of rocks, and what looked ominously like a gun. Even as he ordered the Charge, he was aware that he had made a mistake but that it was now too late to do anything about it. With his men dismounted, despite the indifferent shooting of British soldiers, he could have silenced the group by the rocks, but the sudden fusillade had panicked him and the only thing he could think of was to attack.
The first glint of the sun appeared between a gap in the hills in the east. It was in his eyes and made it difficult to see the Boers. He drew a deep shuddering breath. They were committed now.
The drumming of hooves increased and at that moment he saw a flash and a shell burst among the horses. From the corner of his eye he saw animals go down and he held his sabre more tightly, his thumb pressing the back of the hilt in line with the blade, alert to grip more firmly at the moment of impact. The hooves about him beat a steady rhythm, but the excitement was getting hold of the riders now and the horses were almost out of control. The gun fired again and there was another crash as more horses and riders went down.
The pace had quickened and they were almost at a gallop, the reins loose, the horses’ rumps bunching together.
‘Give points!’ he yelled. ‘Give points!’
He had been concentrating so hard on the single gun, he had not noticed the increase in the musketry and it dawned on him now that bullets were whipping and cracking all round him. Turning to check his command, he realised riderless horses were breaking away across the slope now and several men were already stumbling to the rear on their own two feet.
Then he saw the gun fire again and the flash at the muzzle seemed to coincide with another flash just in front of him. His horse pecked, stumbled forward and wavered and, as he hauled at the reins to keep its head up, its forelegs buckled and it crashed to the ground. Flying over its head, he slid on his side, his sword and helmet gone, the hard shape of his revolver jabbing into his middle until, blinded with dust, his mouth full of grit, he came to a stop against a small boulder.
On the other side of the front, Dabney was watching through his glasses. The half-squadron advancing on the Boer trenches seemed to have disappeared, and the supporting line two squadrons long to be scattering in retreat, a few of the riders taking cover in one of the gulleys and trying to keep up a fire on the Boer trenches.
Johnson was watching the hills for the flash of light from his signallers. In Dabney’s opinion, Johnson wasn’t the most imaginative of men. Brave, bigoted, hide-hound, a prodigy on the polo field or at steeplechases, he was a firm believer in ceremony and seemed lost in front of the enemy. Yet it was obvious something ought to be done at once because Dabney could see the infantry trying to push forward in a sleet of rifle fire and finding it difficult.
‘I think, sir,’ he attempted, ‘that we ought to be on the move.’
‘I’ve had no signal,’ Johnson said.
For God’s sake, Dabney thought, a cavalryman was supposed to have an eye for this sort of thing, was supposed to know the exact moment to launch his men! It seemed clear that, with the little attack at the far end of the line brought to a halt and the infantry still struggling, a hammer blow on the opposite flank couldn’t be anything else but useful.
‘I suspect we might not get a signal, sir,’ he said. ‘The infantry might not even get going unless we give them a bit of help.’
Johnson looked worried and Dabney gestured.
‘With respect, sir, a little pressure here might draw a few of the enemy towards us and that would surely help. The rest of the Regiment seems to have sacrificed themselves on the left, perhaps for the same reason.’
Johnson remained uncertain but in the end he decided to move forward. ‘We’re going to be under fire from the hills,’ he said.
‘If we move fast enough, sir, we ought not to get too many casualties.’
‘All right. But not too fast. I want to keep the column under control.’
They moved forward warily, Johnson’s eyes constantly on his men. Dabney was fidgeting in his saddle, waiting for the first blast of fire, and he could see Meyer Burger trying to speed up the advance. Johnson persisted in a controlled advance however, until, as they approached the southern-most tip of the Graafberg, the Boers on the Kwathambas opened fire. A shell dropped just behind them, then another in front. The next one, Dabney knew, would have the range exactly and he edged his horse forward in the hope of persuading Johnson to move faster. But Johnson was still concerned with his fear of losing control, and he moved his arm up and down to warn against advancing too quickly. By this time Burger’s men had moved away from the Lancers and were heading obliquely towards the shelter of the Graafberg.
As the third shell dropped, Dabney was covered with grit and dust and he saw Johnson reel in the saddle. Grabbing the reins and, with Ellis Ackroyd helping on the other side, he kicked his horse to a gallop and shouted to the following men.
‘Come on,’ he roared. ‘Fast as you can!’
They reached the cover of the Graafberg, followed by the North Cape Horse. Burger had seen the shell fall and the increase in speed and had instinctively swung his men back to join Dabney.
Reaching a point where they couldn’t be seen from the peaks, they stopped and Ackroyd lowered Johnson from the saddle. His face wore a petulant expression.
‘I told you we’d come under fire,’ he said angrily and promptly fainted.
Dabney straightened up. As senior regular officer, he seemed to be in command. For a moment, he felt nervous at the responsibility, but the feeling passed.
He turned to Burger. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Suppose we split the column and push ahead with one half on the forward side of the Graafberg while the rest go round the back.’
Burger stared at the hills. ‘It might work,’ he said.
By this time, on the opposite end of the range of hills, Robert was aware of absolute failure. To right and left of him in the gulley were what was left of the two and a half squadrons of the 19th Lancers, driven back in a seething mass of clubbed and broken horsemen. Morby-Smith was dead, shot through the head, stretched at Robert’s feet in the dust, only a few yards from the body of his son. The soldiers, the straps of their sun helmets on their chins, were lining the edge o
f the gulley, firing blankly into the distance where it was quite impossible to see anything at all. The horses were further along with the horseholders behind a small rise and there were considerably less than when they had started.
He realised now that he had failed completely to do as he had been ordered and that, as a result, both Morby-Smiths were dead, two other officers and a great many men were wounded, and they had achieved nothing at all. In their present position, the Boers could have held off a whole army corps because the land in front of them was too flat to give any cover once the infantry had left the trees. He could see white stones and bits of rag on sticks and knew the Boers had marked off the ranges; their shooting, as usual, was magnificent, and bullets kept kicking up the gravel so that he had to spit the dust from his lips.
Above, the sky was a deep blue and the sun was increasing in heat. All around him the air was full of the crack and whine of rifle bullets, and he had a suspicion that, not only was the whole regiment being held back by a mere thirty or forty men, but that other Boers were creeping round behind them. He glanced at Morby-Smith, sick with misery. Father and son both dead because of his mistake. He knew he would have to live with it for the rest of his life. As he raised his head, he saw several pairs of eyes on him and he knew what his men were thinking. The Morby-Smiths had both been popular and they were already blaming him.
His sergeant crept up to him, keeping his head well down.
‘What do we do, sir?’
‘We stay where we are. We can at least keep the Boers busy.’
The sergeant grunted. He was a reservist and had served the whole of his time in the army without being in action. It was bothering him now that his first action might also be his last.
‘I think we’re cut off, sir,’ he said.
‘You’re undoubtedly right, Sergeant,’ Robert said tartly. ‘But at the moment there’s nothing we can do but hang on. We shall be relieved before long.’
The sergeant didn’t seem to share his optimism.
Robert looked along the line of men. They were clearly restless and aware that more of their comrades were dead than ought to be dead. He had a feeling it was something he would never live down. He could see men looking over their shoulders and knew they were worried about being surrounded and captured. One or two of them, even, were making no attempt to fire, but were crouching down as if they considered they were already as good as prisoners of war.
He stood up. ‘I think we ought to try to move round to the left, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘I suspect the Boers are trying to get behind us.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘I think it might even be better if we pulled back a bit.’
‘Nobody asked you what you thought, Sergeant,’ Robert snapped. ‘And don’t cower like that when you talk to me. Stand up.’
The sergeant gave him a sour look and straightened up. As he did so, his right eye seemed to explode, spattering Robert with blood, and he flopped back in the gulley and sat staring at Robert with one dead blue eye. As Robert stepped forward, his helmet was jerked from his head and he felt a thump in his upper arm that spun him round and flung him down alongside the sergeant. For a moment, he was dazed, then the medical corporal bent over him.
‘It’s nothing, sir,’ he said. ‘Just a flesh wound. It ain’t touched any bones.’
His look seemed to suggest that it was Robert’s own fault and, biting his lips to prevent himself crying out with pain, it was at that moment that Robert finally decided he wasn’t cut out for a soldier.
Watching from the willows, the General, unaware of the bullets striking sparks from the nearby rocks, saw his attack come to a halt.
In an attempt to salvage something, the artillery was struggling up. Dust swirled and a bugle shrilled, then the guns started to fire, the gunners counting aloud after each shot to give the regulation interval. But the Boer trenches had been cunningly sited and the General suspected they weren’t achieving much, despite the fountains of earth and stones he could see being flung into the air. As for his infantry, they had come to a full stop. They had risen, their company commanders blowing their whistles, the men firing volleys, and doubled forward, their heads bent to the Mauser fire like a cornfield bending to the wind. But now the advance was halted and he could see the dun-coloured figures hiding behind ant hills and clumps of thorn. The metal storm coming from the hidden trenches stirred the dust in little spurts as if it were alive and there was a steady rearwards trickle of wounded.
Staring across the sun-drenched plain, the General frowned. Finding a scapegoat would help nobody. In the end, the responsibility was his. The army made no allowances for lack of skill or courage in subordinates and the blame always came back to the man at the top.
A Creusot field gun barked from the Boer position and a riderless horse galloped back from where the cavalry had been stopped. A group of infantrymen passed, the sergeants calling the step, a young officer urging them to keep calm. ‘Steady, chaps. Don’t lose your heads. It’s nothing.’ A shell landed nearby with a scream and a crash and a shower of fragments that hummed through the air like birds. A team of oxen abandoned by their native driver stood just in front, patiently chewing the thin dewy grass, oblivious to their danger.
Frustrated and bitterly disappointed, the General frowned. ‘No more defeats,’ Robert had said, and here he was already on the brink of one. He knew what his men would think. Elderly generals. Old hands from old wars who hadn’t kept up with the times. But the plan had been a good one, he knew, good enough for him to risk his own son in the Boers’ rear. If they didn’t start moving soon, there would be no return for Dabney.
Behind the hills, the half-squadron of Lancers and the mounted volunteers were moving at a canter along the lower edge of the slope. A few scattered shots were fired at them from the top, but it wasn’t much. Two or three saddles were emptied and a riderless horse stopped, its reins trailing, and began to nibble at the sparse grass alongside the body of its rider.
There was little more than a few hundred yards of the gauntlet still to be run but the fire was growing stronger, and Dabney was beginning to wonder if he were wise to persist. It was obvious someone had committed a frightful blunder on the opposite end of the front, and he had no wish to compound it with another on this side. Yet his father had insisted that there must be no more mistakes, no more defeats, and it was up to him to push himself and his men to the limit.
Behind him he heard the rattle of musketry as Burger dismounted his men and started to enfilade the Boer trenches. The sound swelled as the Boers returned the fire. By this time, the outposts on the Graafberg must have guessed horsemen were moving towards the Boer rear, but he was hoping they’d be round the back before the outposts could draw the attention of the main Boer force, occupied now by Burger and the rest of the column.
On his left the hills opened in a gap and the rolling sound of musketry came louder to his ears. Rifle fire was still spattering down around them and another horse went down with a crash and a jingle of harness. But now, in front of him he could see a cloud of knee-hobbled Boer ponies guarded by two or three men on horses and one or two on foot, standing near a string of wagons.
‘Horses, transport, everything,’ he breathed.
He turned to the leader of the North Cape Horse and gestured to the gap in the hills. ‘There’s your spot. Find yourselves a good position and keep ’em busy.’
As the mounted volunteers streamed away, Dabney turned to the half-squadron of Lancers.
‘Draw swords,’ he said. Swords were out of date but they were silent and on this occasion better than rifles.
He heard the swish as the weapons were unsheathed, and set spurs to his mount. As they thundered forward, the Boers by the wagons looked up and started to scatter in alarmed confusion. A few rifle shots snapped out at them and a man clutched at his chest and rolled from the saddle, then they were
among the hobbled ponies. One of the Boers, an old man nearing seventy, turned towards Dabney, his rifle raised and he found himself staring into the muzzle of the gun. But for some reason, the old Boer couldn’t manage to pull the trigger, any more than Dabney could bring himself to run the old man through. Instead he whacked him over the head with the pommel of the sword and saw him drop to the ground, then they were among the ponies, cutting at ropes, scattering the horseholders, and in no time the animals were galloping in a loose bunch across the veldt towards the north accompanied by an odd slouch-hatted rider bolting for safety.
As a group of the Lancers set off in pursuit, he yelled at Sergeant Ackroyd. ‘Fetch ’em back, Ellis! Fetch ’em back!’
As Ackroyd spurred away, he shouted to the rest of his men. ‘Rally! Rally on me! We have other business!’
Eventually all but one or two rallied and they spurred their tired horses to the eastern gap in the Kwathambas. There Dabney found himself almost behind a group of Boer riflemen who were blazing away at a group of hidden British soldiers in a gulley further along.
On his left he could hear the rattle of rifle fire. The Boers on that end of the line were being joined by more Boers, who were running. The North Cape Horse had clearly arrived in position and, dismounted, were pouring in a heavy fire from the rear to drive the Boers along the river bed.
‘Dismount,’ he yelled. ‘Horseholders up!’
As the men swung from the saddles, they were flinging themselves to the ground and starting to fire without being told what to do. They were doing deadly work because they were almost at point-blank range and the Boers had been completely surprised. Glancing over the river bed, he saw Burger and his mounted volunteers appear from among the rocks where they had been hiding and begin to move forward. As Ackroyd rejoined him, he saw the infantry, pinned down just beyond the shelter of the scrub, also rise to their feet and begin to walk forward as the Boer fire slackened.
