Blunted Lance

by Max Hennessy

  Then he saw a small neat figure, which he knew to be his father, followed by the taller shape of Ellesmere, spur forward, both waving frantically as they urged the infantry to greater speed. A few Boers, seeing the new danger, began to fire towards the infantry and Dabney realised that it was only a matter of a minute or two before one of the Boer marksmen spotted his father and picked him off.

  ‘Horseholders forward!’ he yelled. ‘Mount! Draw swords! Infantry, fix bayonets!’

  There were no infantry and no bayonets but the Boers had never liked steel, and they were already beginning to edge away. Swinging into a ragged line, sabres sparkling in the sun, the cavalrymen spurred forward, and the Boers started to mill about in confusion. Leaping his horse into the river bed, Dabney began to force his way along it, followed by his trumpeter, his orderly and Sergeant Ackroyd. All round him other horses were dropping down, colliding, swerving, occasionally falling, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight began to take place before the Boers began to scramble out and bolt for the slopes behind.

  Halfway along the river bed, he ran into the North Cape Horse who were driving a large number of Boers before them. Seeing the new force of mounted men approaching, jabbing with swords and stamping them into the ground, the Boers flung down their rifles and raised their hands, yelling for mercy.

  As the firing died away, the infantry stormed forward and, gathering his men about him, Dabney sent them in a scrambling charge back through the defiles, so that those Boers who had fled up the slopes and were now scrambling down the reverse side found them waiting to cut off their retreat. There was a little scattered shooting then white flags and handkerchiefs began to appear. With their horses gone and their wagons lurching across the plain far to the north in the direction of Jacobspoort, there was little else the Boers could do but surrender.

  As Dabney swung away, the 19th arrived from the left, the senior major in command. He looked grim and angry, and as they moved past, Dabney saw his brother. There was blood on his tunic and his arm was bandaged. His face was grey and sick-looking.

  ‘Come on, old man!’ he called. ‘Now’s your chance! Don’t stop until you get to Donotsfontein!’

  They had rounded up the prisoners when his father rode up. His face was grim and he looked tired and, for the first time in his life, Dabney realised that his father was an old man. As the Lancers swung away, followed by Burger’s men, Ellesmere joined the General then, their faces shadowed by the peaks of their caps, they headed to where Dabney stood with his trumpeter and Sergeant Ackroyd, grinning all over his face.

  As they met, Dabney saluted.

  ‘I think, sir,’ he said, ‘that it’s all over and that we’ve won.’

  Part Two

  One

  ‘And that’s how it was. That was how we won the Battle of Graafberg.’

  Joshua Loftus Colby Goff smiled at his grandfather. To him, the man sitting alongside him in the gig was tremendously old, a small slight man with a fuzz of white hair about his ears, gnarled hands and a straight small body that was everlastingly erect.

  ‘Next day,’ the old man went on, ‘we broke through to Donotsfontein and everybody came running out to see us. Black men, brown men and white men. The pavements were lined with people, all yelling and cheering like lunatics.’

  ‘It’s in a book I’ve got, Grandpa,’ Josh said. ‘“How we liberated Donotsfontein.” With maps and everything. There’s a picture of you and Lord Ellesmere looking at a map and one of father getting his medal.’

  Sir Colby Goff looked at his grandson. He looked like another Dabney, small, slight, dark-haired and dark-eyed, his face intelligent, sensitive and full of humour. Because it was his grandmother’s birthday and there were to be a bonfire and fireworks, he had insisted on joining his grandfather to help in the preparations.

  The day was brilliant, just one more brilliant day in a brilliant period of summer. Every day that summer seemed to have been one long heat-filled delight, full of the hum of bees and the song of birds beneath a cloudless sky. The bonfire stood ready in the middle of the lower meadow behind the house, waiting for the first brand to be thrust into the straw beneath the logs and brushwood, and they had gone down on the thin excuse of making sure everything was ready.

  Because his father was with the Regiment and not due home until later, and his mother was preoccupied with a younger sister, the old man had driven over to Josh’s home to fetch the boy, promising him they should spend the whole day together. Nothing ever pleased the boy more than being with the old man, and nothing pleased the old man more than the boy’s company. It was as if their ages had skipped a generation, because they were incredibly close, had the same interests, laughed at the same jokes, and enjoyed the surroundings of Braxby in exactly the same way. The old man’s pleasure came from the boy’s interest, and the boy’s chief delight was in listening to the old soldier’s stories of his battles.

  ‘Was Graafberg why they made you a sir, Grandpa?’ he asked.

  Sir Colby Goff rested the reins on his knee as he lit a cigar. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Bit before that. But Lord Roberts gave me a Division. Graafberg was the first real victory, y’see. Came at just the right time after a lot of setbacks. Didn’t amount to much, though, I suppose.’

  ‘There were a lot of prisoners – as many as at Modder River. Papa told me.’

  ‘But it raised no siege, my boy. Just got Buller moving.’

  ‘They call you “Goff of Graafberg” though, don’t they? I’ve seen it in the papers. The Regiment wears it on its drum cloths. When he stayed here that time, Lord Kitchener said it was the one thing that got the war going again. He said it was why they made you a field marshal.’

  The old man gave a wry smile. ‘A field marshal’s baton’s all too often a consolation prize when you retire.’

  ‘Field marshals never retire.’

  ‘No, but the people at the top make sure they don’t interfere. We’re always on the active list, of course – me, Roberts, Evelyn Wood – but, by God, I wouldn’t like to have to fight a war run by a lot of old dodderers like that, would you? All right at organising things, naturally, because we know King’s Regulations back to front – you’d have to be a bit of a donkey not to, after the years we’ve spent in uniform – and that’s why they don’t put us out to grass like generals. They consider we’re experienced enough to be helpful when they need advice, y’see. That’s what we are: A military aid committee.’

  The boy moved closer in the seat. ‘Tell me again, Grandpa. What happened afterwards?’

  The old man made himself comfortable, clicking his tongue to set the pony in motion. How much the boy understood of what he told him he had no idea. He never talked down to the child and somehow he felt that a lot of what he said was absorbed.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘when he learned what had happened at the Graafberg, Lord Roberts sent French forward. The Boers were holding a place called Klip Drift and French took a chance and charged straight through the centre of their line. After all that effort, in the end all it needed was imagination of the sort that Roberts had, and the sort of courage French showed. While they were still celebrating, Cronje surrendered at Modder River. Graafberg tended to get forgotten.’

  ‘That’s a shame, Grandpa.’

  The Field Marshal studied his grandson thoughtfully. Not really, he thought. A lot of men had done a good job that day. His plan had been a sound one and it had come off in spite of Robert’s silly blunder and the disaster to the 19th Lancers. No man liked to see his own regiment involved in disaster but it had been a disaster, redeemed only by Dabney with Johnson’s half-squadron and the North Cape Horse on the other end of the front.

  ‘If father got a medal for Graafberg,’ the boy asked, ‘why didn’t Uncle Robert?’

  The Field Marshal lifted his head, jerking himself back to the present. He seemed to spend most of his time t
hese days somewhere in the past.

  ‘You don’t give medals for the sort of thing your Uncle Robert did,’ he said.

  ‘It was brave.’

  ‘It was also a bit stupid, Josh.’

  And it had damned Robert’s military career for good. Lord Roberts had not been slow to offer praise both for the Field Marshal’s plan and for Dabney’s skill at interpreting what was needed, but he had also been furious at the loss of a squadron of desperately needed cavalry, and he had demanded a report. The Field Marshal had not enjoyed condemning his own son but there was no alternative and he had accepted at that point that Robert would never make a soldier and was better out of the army and in business as he seemed to wish.

  He frowned, remembering it all with sadness. Damn silly, he thought. Silly enough to leave Robert in charge of a remount depot for the rest of the war where he could do no harm, while Dabney, given a job in Intelligence, had commanded an advance column, scouting ahead of the army and along its flanks, raiding Boer farms for news of De Wet and De La Rey. He had once seen him come in out of the blue, his squadron reduced to a mere forty-two, his soldiers ragged, bearded and sick, half the horses unfit after a hundred and forty miles in six days. But, with methods more suitable to bush rangers than cavalry, they had brought in information which had helped sweep the Boers down towards Portuguese East. With the Graafberg, it had been sufficient for him to pick up a DSO and his future seemed secure.

  Just ahead of them, a group of men were walking slowly back to the Home Farm and the boy eyed them keenly.

  ‘Will the Ackroyds come to the fireworks, Grandpa?’

  ‘The Ackroyds always come and Sergeant Ackroyd built the fire. You’d better ask him to make sure.’

  As the gig drew alongside them, the men stopped and touched their caps. Ellis Ackroyd, a little greyer now and a little stouter, smiled. ‘Bonfire all right, sir?’ he asked.

  The Field Marshal gave the boy a nudge and he leaned forward.

  ‘It should go up splendidly, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘We hope anybody who wants to see the fireworks will come along.’

  Ackroyd’s smile widened. ‘That they will, Master Josh.’

  ‘Boys coming, Ellis?’ the Field Marshal asked.

  ‘Not Tom, sir. He’s with the railway at Doncaster. But Hedley’s coming.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘Well, sir. Thanks to your help. We could never have got him to university on our own.’

  The old man grunted, faintly embarrassed. ‘Had to do our bit, Ellis. Can’t let these clever fellers down, can we? What’s he going in for?’

  ‘He don’t know yet, sir. Something brainy, I expect.’

  As the pony moved on again, Josh sat in silence for a while then he spoke thoughtfully. ‘Grandpa, why didn’t they make you a lord? Field marshals are always lords.’

  ‘Evelyn Wood never got to be a lord.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  The old man chuckled. ‘Edward VII. When he was Prince of Wales. Started chasing your grandmother round the shrubbery. She was younger in those days and jolly pretty. I told him he’d better stop – and pretty damn’ quick, too.’

  ‘Why would he chase Grandma round the shrubbery?’

  The old man coughed in his confusion. ‘Liked to run races, boy. That sort of thing. Great one for running races with the ladies. Not done in Yorkshire, though. All right for London, but not here. So he went on to Tranby Croft and while he was there a feller was caught cheating at cards. Nasty business.’

  The boy was puzzled. At his age, a king could do no wrong, and the old man had to explain.

  ‘He didn’t even want to up me to field marshal,’ he said. ‘But the army insisted. They told him all about Balaclava, y’see, and Tshethoslane and Isandhlwana and a few other places like Omdurman and the Graafberg, and the army can make its feelings felt when it wishes. What I got was a baronetcy. And that’ll go to your Uncle Robert who’s bound to get one for services to commerce before long, anyway, so you’ll have to go through life as a perfectly ordinary person.’

  There was a long silence as the pony trotted towards the house. At the front door, a groom, inevitably another Ackroyd, appeared from the stables and took the animal’s head.

  As they moved to the library, Josh studied his grandfather. He always found it hard to realise that this man who seemed so old and frail had once been young enough and strong enough to have ridden with the Light Brigade at Balaclava. He had often studied the pictures in his books and tried to decide which one of the frantic horsemen braving the Russian shot and shell was the old man. According to what he’d been taught at school, Balaclava had been a victory, but his grandfather always insisted it was nothing of the kind, and that, too, was hard to understand. He glanced again at the old soldier at his side, slight, erect, brisk. History went back through him and, through his father, Josh’s great-grandfather, to Waterloo, and through his forefathers, to the victory of Wandewash, after which his great-great-great-grandfather had been given this land at Braxby and two hundred and fifty pounds to raise a regiment of light dragoons—

  The Regiment. He never thought of it as the 19th Lancers, which it had become in the years after Waterloo. Just as The Regiment. The Regiment had filled the whole of his life since he had been old enough to think and there had been more occasions than he could remember when he had stood among the spectators near the saluting base, pinching his female cousins and kicking his male ones as they had waited for the green-clad Lancers to march past. The Clutchers, they were called. The Widowmakers. Goff’s Greens. Even his name was part of their title.

  ‘Grandpa,’ he said abruptly. ‘Will there be a war between Germany and France?’

  The old man’s face looked bleak for a moment. ‘God forbid, boy.’

  ‘What if there is? Will England be in it?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it. Everybody else will – treaties and so on – but we haven’t got any and we seem for once to be the only ones who aren’t touched.’

  The boy considered. ‘What if we were? Would I have to go?’

  ‘Bit young, boy.’

  ‘How about you?’

  The old man chuckled. ‘Bit old. They’d find a job for me, I suppose – givin’ pep talks to young soldiers.’

  There was another long silence. ‘Grandpa, what if there was a war and we were in it? Would that mean that Father and Uncle Karl-August would be fighting on opposite sides?’

  The old man hesitated. ‘It’s happened before, boy,’ he said at last.

  ‘It’d be a bit difficult if Father found himself face-to-face with Uncle Karl. What about Uncle Karl’s father, the Graf?’

  ‘Like me. Bit beyond it now, boy. They’ll use him for pep talks, too.’

  ‘What sort of things do you tell them in a pep talk, Grandpa?’

  The old man considered. ‘The meaning of the Regimental motto. How to be patriotic and brave. All that nonsense.’

  ‘Is it nonsense?’

  ‘Sometimes. But it works. Then I’d tell them all about saluting and bearing themselves like good horse-smelly British soldiers.’

  ‘What would the Graf tell the Germans?’

  ‘How to bear themselves like good horse-smelly German soldiers, how to salute the flag and how not to bolt their sausages.’

  They both laughed, the boy rolling on the floor, the old man hunched in his chair, his frame shaking silently at the boy’s mirth. Then the boy sobered suddenly.

  ‘I wouldn’t like fighting against Cousin Constantin.’

  ‘Might never happen, boy. Pray God it won’t. War’s a terrible thing. I was at Isandhlwana and I rode into the camp and found them all dead—’

  ‘That will be enough of that!’ The words came from the doorway and the old man shrank back in his chair, winking at the boy.<
br />
  Lady Goff studied her husband, her violet eyes dis-approving. She was white-haired now but had lost none of her beauty, despite the lines on her face, and none of her shape. The old man’s heart filled with pleasure at the sight of her.

  She was regarding him with mock horror. ‘I expect you’re frightening the life out of the child again.’

  The boy grinned. ‘Not really, Grannie. I like to hear Grandpa’s stories.’

  ‘All about battle, murder and sudden death.’

  ‘What’s a man’s life but battle, murder and sudden death?’ the Field Marshal growled. ‘Especially if he’s a soldier.’

  The old lady frowned, her eyes unhappy for a moment. ‘It won’t happen to Josh. He might even decide not to be a soldier.’

  ‘God forbid that he goes into business like his Uncle Robert.’ The Field Marshal frowned. ‘And if you saw him in the green of the Regiment, you know it’d make your heart turn over with pride.’

  ‘Probably,’ Lady Goff conceded. ‘Probably with fear also.’ She frowned. ‘Surely you read the papers? The Kaiser’s been waving his sword again.’

  The Field Marshal tried to change the subject. ‘Bonfire’s all ready,’ he said. ‘Ellis Ackroyd’s got the fireworks. Don’t it make you proud on your birthday?’

  ‘It makes me feel old.’

  ‘Don’t look a day over forty.’

  She gave him a quick smile, almost a grin, the sort of smile that had jerked at his heart when he was young and had never stopped since, and it made him think about his son, Robert, once more. He’d heard rumours that he was having an affair in Leeds with the wife of Lord Balmael. Knowing Lord Balmael, he wasn’t surprised. Balmael was in the Guards, a dim, stupid, honourable man whose father had been a self-made rough-diamond and whose wife was much the same. But Robert was a Goff, and Goffs didn’t go in for that sort of thing. It jabbed at his liver and he tried hard to push it to the back of his mind before it gave him a headache.