by John Wilcox
‘You recruit them yourself. We have lists of chaps wanting to do their bit. Johannesburg is the best place. It’s full of uitlanders – they’re the locals, but adventurers and originally from all parts of the Empire, some of them miners, disenfranchised by the Boers and the cause of all this trouble in the first place and anxious to have a go at them. You will need a handful of good NCOs and, say, three commissioned squadron commanders to work with you, and we can supply these from our mounted infantry units – and I’ll get you the ponies you want. We’ve captured enough Boers to supply these.’ The wintry half smile reappeared. ‘Our cavalry chaps wouldn’t dream of using ’em. But you can have ’em. So …’ His voice tailed away for a moment and then came back strongly. ‘You are in, then, Fonthill, eh?’
Outside a wagon creaked and a distant voice barked a command. Simon sighed. ‘Very well, General. Very well. I shall take the Queen’s shilling again – words I never thought I would say.’
‘Good. Never doubted it, although the chief will be surprised. Now, you will need to be commissioned again, of course, and your man given warrant officer rank. Come back here tomorrow and see my ADC. He will set you up with the bureaucracy of the thing and also introduce you to the people you will need for provisioning, setting up your recruiting office and so on.’
The general stood up and held out his hand. ‘Delighted to have you back, Colonel. You should start your planning now. You will get your marching orders from French, when you are ready.’
Fonthill gripped the outstretched hand. ‘Thank you, sir. Ah. One more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘If I’m to be hunting Boers out on the plain and up in the hills, I will need the best intelligence I can get.’
‘Indeed you will. I will make sure that our people help you all they can.’
‘Thank you for that, sir. But I had rather different thoughts.’
Kitchener lifted a bushy eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In my experience, in all these damned colonial wars in which I have been involved over the last twenty years, it’s natives who know what’s really going on. It’s their country, after all. I have brought with me my farm manager from Rhodesia. He’s originally a black Malakala, the son of a chieftain, but he has hunted in the Transvaal for years. He has no love for the Boers and he is the best tracker I have ever seen. Good thinker and fighter, too. I would want him to recruit a small gang of trackers who would work with us out on the veldt and liaise with local natives to bring us news of the movements of the commandos.’
‘Hmm.’ Kitchener’s face was impassive as usual but it was clear that, perhaps, this could be an unconventional step too far. ‘We have our own intelligence sources, you know.’
‘Yes, but they don’t seem to have worked too well. I guarantee this would work better.’
‘Very well. But you must not arm them. To do so would be against the rules of warfare out here. There is a kind of unofficial agreement with the Boers about this and I would not wish to give them further propaganda opportunities on this score.’
‘I agree to that.’ But, Fonthill added to himself, with the exception of Mzingeli.
Kitchener held up his hand. ‘One last thing. I should warn you that this won’t be easy. This country is vast and you can hide an army on the veldt and in the valleys. These fellers know what they are about. Botha, of course, beat us at Colenso and Spion Kop and de Wet is as slippery as an eel.’
One eyebrow in the bronzed face came down in a frown and the other went up, as though in consternation. ‘We thought we had de Wet fair and square back in July this year. He was penned in and more or less surrounded in the Brandwater Basin, in mountainous country in the middle of the Free State. Somehow, during the night, he moved two thousand six hundred horsemen, five guns, four hundred wagons – a column stretching three miles – over a pass, within a mile of the British camp. He got clean away, taking the Free State president and government with him. Now he’s running riot in the great plains either side of the Vaal River. He’s a tough customer, Fonthill. Nab him and the war is half won.’
‘I’ll do my best, sir.’
Fonthill stepped down from the stoep of the house into the warming sunshine of a typical Transvaal spring day. The purple jacaranda blossom lining the street reminded him of Bloemfontein years before, and birds were singing. Then a platoon of British infantry, dressed in anonymous khaki and wearing wound puttees around their calves and cloth-covered pith helmets on their heads, marched by and smartly saluted a major astride a beautifully groomed stallion. The officer raised his riding crop to the rim of his hat in languid reply.
Simon lifted his eyes to the heavens. He was back in that world! What would Jenkins – not to mention Alice – say? A world of saluting, of obeying orders blindly without equivocation. A world of conforming to army regulations. A world dominated by senior officers whom not only the enemy but their peers in Europe (and almost certainly the United States of America) now looked upon with derision, given their performance so far in this war against armed farmers.
He shrugged his shoulders. Well, he must carve out his own destiny within the parameters outlined by Kitchener, a man who surely was of a competence well above that of the men who had led the British soldiers to their deaths at Colenso, the Modder and Spion Kop. And yet Kitchener’s own experience had been confined to fighting aboriginal warriors, armed only with muskets and spears. He himself had yet to be truly tested in this new sort of warfare. Who would win out there on the unforgiving veldt?
Fonthill strode away back to his hotel, his brain buzzing.
CHAPTER THREE
On hearing the news, Alice was surprisingly unperturbed. ‘Well, my love,’ she said, looking up from the cablegram she was composing, ‘I didn’t think we’d come all this way just for you to serve tea to the troops. If you are going a-soldiering again, then better and safer that you are within the formal structure of the army. Apart from which,’ she slanted a quick grin at him, ‘it will be quite nice to be a colonel’s wife again.’ Her first husband had been Simon’s first commanding officer in the 24th Regiment of Foot.
Jenkins, on the other hand, revealed his displeasure predictably. ‘I’d sworn I’d never go back into the bleedin’ army again, bach sir, you know that,’ he fulminated. ‘I’d be back on a charge again as soon as I’d swallowed my first pint o’ beer. That’s not the life we’ve lived this past twenty years, look you. We’ve bin out on our own, like, fearin’ no man and not ’avin’ to salute anyone. Free as the air we was, see. Now what are we goin’ to be doin?’
‘Fighting the Boers, that’s what. And you won’t be on a charge, you will be issuing them. You will be my RSM.’
The frown gradually faded and was replaced by a faint smile. ‘What? Regimental sergeant major. Me? Now, that’s a thought. It’s quite intrug … intrigo …’
‘Intriguing?’
‘That’s what I said. But out there, tryin’ to catch the Boers. Livin’ in the saddle, day in an’ day out. With respect, bach sir, you’d better get some ridin’ lessons in. I’ll show you.’
‘You’ve been trying to show me for more than twenty years. I can ride perfectly well, now, thank you very much and, anyway, there won’t be time for that. But I will need you to vet these recruits’ horsemanship. We will need only the best and I shall want you to assess them all. We will only take the best marksmen, too. So we will need to get them down to the butts and I shall want you to oversee that. Lots of work to do, Sarn’t Major, starting tomorrow. We go to Johannesburg to start recruiting, so avoid bars and the beer, and that’s an order. Now I must see Mzingeli.’
The tracker sat and listened to what Fonthill had to say with his usual, imperturbable courtesy. When asked if he would join in fighting the Boers, he nodded.
‘Yes, Nkosi,’ he said. ‘I do not mind that. They whip me often. The farm is looked after so I can stay. But you want me to find others?’
‘Yes. Perhaps about a dozen. Good trackers, like you, a
nd native people – ideally from both the Transvaal and the Free State – who know the veldt and who will be able to talk to the Kaffirs on the farms. The Afrikaners on the homesteads are unlikely to give us information but their black boys will, if approached in the right way. We need to know where the commandos ride and how many they are. Do you think you can arrange that? We can guarantee a pony for each man and good wages.’
‘Oh yes. I will put out word. There could be many who will come.’
‘Splendid. Start recruiting at once but take only the best. They will not be uniformed so they must bring their own work clothes. I want them able to ride with us by the end of the month.’
The next day, as Alice prepared to keep her appointment with Lord Kitchener, determined to trade information about de Wet in exchange for whatever he could tell her for the Morning Post on his plans for fighting this new guerrilla war, Simon and Jenkins were kitted out in new uniforms and Fonthill briefed a transport major and then an armourer on the needs of his new unit. It was decided that it should be called ‘Fonthill’s Horse’ and Simon fought off the armourer’s suggestion that each man should carry a sabre and only a short-barrelled Metford carbine as a firearm.
‘Those bloody things are only popguns and will be outranged easily by the Boers’ Mausers,’ he said. ‘And we won’t be making death-or-glory charges, waving our toothpicks. I want the latest .303 Lee Enfield rifles, so cut a hole in the bottom of the regulation saddle buckets so that they can carry them.’
And, to the supply captain: ‘No. We don’t want regulation helmets. We shall need wide-brimmed hats, with one side of the brim pinned up, in colonial style. We are going to be irregular troops, so give us plain khaki tunics but with painted, not brass buttons. And can you put a strip of native beadwork around the base of the hat crowns? Good man. Give us a bit of style.’
On the matter of his officers, Fonthill had no choice. Two captains from mounted infantry units were seconded to him. The first, a survivor of the bloodbath that was Colenso, John Wills, was a thirty-year-old Hampshire man with a clipped moustache and quiet manner. He was diffidently enthusiastic about the task allocated to the new unit. ‘We need a new approach, sir,’ he murmured. ‘I like the sound of it.’
The second, a twenty-seven-year-old, clean-shaven and far more boyish captain from the Warwicks, named Cecil Cartwright, had only just arrived in South Africa but he had come with the reputation of being a fine horseman who had been with Kitchener at Omdurman. ‘Couldn’t think of a better posting, Colonel,’ he grinned, wringing Fonthill’s hand.
The third of the squadron commanders was also to serve as Simon’s second in command. Major Philip Hammond had been seconded – on the insistence, Simon was told, of Lieutenant General John French, Kitchener’s cavalry commander – from the Hussars and had been in the van when French had stormed into Kimberley, the home of Cecil Rhodes, after he had taken his cavalry on its famous ride outflanking the Boer army. Tall, with a cavalryman’s wide moustache, he seemed older than his thirty-five years and regarded Fonthill with deep-set blue eyes that reminded Simon of Kitchener’s.
‘Do sit down,’ gestured Fonthill, in the small hut on a mine site in Johannesburg that had been allocated to him for interviewing. ‘I shall be relying heavily on you, Philip, for this is my first command in the field and, although, of course, I am very familiar with action, I shall regard us as a team, if I may. So please let us start off with you calling me Simon.’
‘Ah, very kind, Colonel,’ said Hammond in what Fonthill immediately recognised as a cavalryman’s drawl, ‘but I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. Would … ah … feel just a touch uncomfortable doing so. And perhaps not a good example to the junior officers, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
Fonthill shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t mind you saying so, at all. In fact, you have leave to say anything you like to me, now or in the future. But I should tell you that I intend to command the column as a very irregular force, operating on the edge, so to speak, of the main army. I believe that this is the only way we are going to be able to match and catch the Boers out on the veldt and in the hills, where I intend to pursue them. And we shall be mounted infantry, not cavalry.’
Hammond flicked up the edges of his moustache. ‘So I understand, Colonel. May I ask, though, if General French appreciates your … ah … views and so on?’
‘French?’
‘Yes. Lieutenant General John French. He commands the cavalry. I understand that you will be reporting to him.’
‘I see. I have no idea because I haven’t met French yet. But I have taken my orders from Lord Kitchener, who approves of the way I intend to operate. And, to repeat, we will not be part of the cavalry.’
‘Quite so. My … ah … slight apprehensions were purely based on the need for discipline in any unit of the army, particularly one operating far from base, so to speak.’
‘Discipline will be maintained, Major, I assure you, although we shall not be polishing buttons out on the veldt nor having kit inspections every other day.’
‘Of course not, sir. Didn’t wish to give the wrong impression, don’t you know. But may I raise just one other point?’
‘Of course. As I say, as my second in command you are free to raise anything with me you wish.’
‘Good of you, Colonel. Good of you. Yerse … It was the question of your senior warrant officer, Sergeant Major Jenkins.’
‘What about him?’
‘I understand that, like you, he has not served in the army for more than twenty years?’
‘That is true.’
‘Quite. And that he had only held the rank of lance corporal in the 24th before, in fact, being reduced to the ranks and serving time in detention.’
‘That it also true.’
‘Yerse … Just wondered, d’you see, if he’s quite the chap to be leading the NCOs and the men. A regimental sergeant major usually has years and years of service – and good conduct, of course.’
Fonthill sighed. This is what he had feared, but he made an attempt to be ameliorative. ‘I understand your question, Philip,’ he said. ‘But speaking of service, Jenkins was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal back in the eighties when, with me, we slipped through the Mahdi’s lines surrounding Khartoum to take Wolseley’s message to General Gordon. And, like me, he was lashed by the Mahdi when we were captured. He has also served with me – in a most irregular manner,’ he stressed the words, ‘in the Zulu war, in Wolseley’s fight with the bPedi tribe, at the battle of El Kebir in Egypt, when we invaded Matabeleland with Rhodes’s force, and in China, from which we have just returned and where we got caught up in the Boxer Rebellion.’
Hammond opened his mouth to speak, but Fonthill held up his hand. ‘I have seen Jenkins,’ he continued, ‘fight unarmed and beat a Zulu armed with assegai and shield, take on a Thug in India and kill him with his bare hands, and been grateful to him for rescuing me from a Pathan camp high in the Hindu Kush. He has saved my life countless times and if I have to go into battle here against the Boers again – as we did on Majuba Hill nineteen years ago – there is no man I would rather have with me. If our NCOs and men listen to what Jenkins has to say and follow him, then they will perform well.’
Nearby, a mining drill bumping into life broke the brief silence that ensued. Hammond cleared his throat. ‘Quite so, Colonel. Quite so. I was, of course, not aware of all that. I shall look forward to meeting the … ah … sergeant major in due course. Look forward to it, very much.’
‘Good. Now if you have no more questions, I would be most grateful if you would give Jenkins a hand when the time comes to vet our recruits in terms of riding abilities. I want only good horsemen. Jenkins is one himself and, as a cavalryman, your eye will be invaluable. We hope to start doing this in a couple of days’ time.’
Fonthill stood and extended his hand. The major took it, gave a slight bow and strode out of the room, spurs clanking. Simon sat down again on his camp chair, tilted it back and stared
at the ceiling. This was not a good start. The army, of course, at its bloody worst!
Ah well! He and Jenkins would just have to learn to put up with it.
That afternoon, Fonthill, together with Hammond and Jenkins, interviewed the six sergeants and eight corporals who had been seconded to the new unit. They were all regular soldiers and, Simon was glad to see, not one had been put forward from a cavalry regiment. Perhaps French did not wish to spare any of his horsemen for this untried, very irregular, flying column. Fonthill didn’t know and he didn’t care, but he was pleased that all of them were of a certain seniority, all had been in action in the war so far and all had come from mounted infantry.
Hammond was strangely quiet during the interviewing process, merely going through their records – particularly checking to see if any had ever been demoted (they had not) – but Simon was pleased to see how easily Jenkins fitted into his new role. He asked pertinent questions such as how each man regarded the accuracy of the Lee Enfields, whether they habitually fired high or low and how and when they used the new safety catches fitted for the first time to a British army issue rifle. He also demanded to know how each man would take charge of a company about to advance on an entrenched enemy if the officer commanding was wounded or killed. Would they advance in open order or close order and, if so, what would be the distance set between each man? It was clear from the answers that these men had both suffered and learnt from the perils in attacking in close order in the early campaigns. It was also clear from Jenkins’s questions that he retained enough memories of his army training – and from the many actions he had shared with Simon – to understand what was needed in modern warfare. Fonthill was proud of his man and secretly hoped that he had impressed Hammond also. Of this, there was no sign. For the major hardly addressed a word to Jenkins, after the first introduction.
