Fire Across the Veldt

by John Wilcox

  Simon shook his head sadly. Le Gallais had died of his wounds, as had many of his men. If only Knox had come up more quickly …!

  Hammond returned later that afternoon. He had somehow missed de Wet’s return but had picked up his trail on his second and final retreat, only to lose him again. So de Wet, President Steyn and the majority of the commando had got away once more. Was there no way of pinning down this fighting Pimpernel?

  Fonthill gave orders forbidding his own men from taking part in the looting and, that evening, he took count of the casualties to his small force. It had got away comparatively lightly, for it had been only peripherally involved in the fighting at the kraal. He had lost only one man killed and five wounded.

  The next morning, just as Fonthill was contemplating the wearisome business of attempting to pick up de Wet’s trail again, two telegrams arrived, brought up from Knox’s base camp. The first, from Kitchener, congratulated Knox on ‘his’ victory – which, of course, disgusted Fonthill. The second, however, was addressed to Simon himself and was from General French. It congratulated him on finding de Wet and leading the attack but tersely requested that he should immediately bring his column to meet him at the little town of Machadodorp. No explanation was given for removing him from the hunt for de Wet in the Free State. Fonthill shook his head wearily. Was he being blamed for allowing the Boer leader to escape again?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In fact, he was not. Neverthelesss, the reality was worse. At a conference attended by Fonthill and the rest of French’s senior officers, the general explained that he had been ordered to combine his cavalry and units of mounted infantry into one great column which would march one hundred and seventy miles north to the edge of Johannesburg to clear the countryside between the two railway lines from the south that converged there. This had become necessary, he explained, because the Transvaal had followed the Orange Free State into wholesale guerrilla war. The objective was to burn the farms, break the dams, take the cattle and so destroy the elements that fuelled the Boer resistance and enabled the raiding commandos to remain out in the field.

  So began one of the most depressing passages in Fonthill’s life.

  He found himself and his little column subsumed into a giant force which, although mounted, bore little resemblance to the fast-moving units of cavalry with which French had founded his reputation. Burdened with guns and heavily laden wagons, this turgid line stretched for five miles and wound its way northwards at the speed of a pregnant ox. As it moved, it spread out and carried out its destructive work, harried all the way by marauding Boers, who picked at it like locusts in a cornfield, to the point where, on arrival at the outskirts of Johannesburg, French found that he had haemorrhaged a third of his wagons, twelve hundred oxen, more than three hundred horses and sustained a hundred casualties.

  For Fonthill and his men, hand-picked to ride light and fast and fight the Boer commandos at their own game, the worst part of the trek was clearing the farms.

  It would have been impossible to burn every farm that dotted the veldt and the orders were to burn only those which showed open resistance, were known to have harboured commandos, or were close to the railway lines where damage had been done. Simon, ranging out from the body of the main column, deliberately spared most of the homesteads he encountered, unless he was fired upon. Nevertheless, he had his orders: farms were to be burnt to set an example to their neighbours.

  The pattern, then, had often to be repeated. He would send a troop out ahead when a farm was sighted, to circle it and ensure that it harboured no antagonistic burghers. He always hoped that resistance would be met, for it made what followed easier to bear. Most of his fellow commanders, he knew, would ride up, order the family out and immediately set fire to the building and drive off whatever cattle remained, usually allowing their men to loot the homestead. Instead, Fonthill brought out the family and then ordered his troopers to help the wives and children to bring out the furniture and pile it on wagons before finding straw to set the buildings ablaze. He would then tell the family to ride to where the nearest railhead was situated so that they could be taken in care.

  It was heartbreaking work. ‘We didn’t join for this, bach sir,’ observed Jenkins, while helping a very old Dutch grandmother climb onto a rickety cart. ‘I thought we was supposed to be fightin’ the fierce Boer, not ’elpin’ ’is family to move ’ouse, look you.’

  Fonthill nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. He could not bring himself to hate the Boers, despite their scant regard for observing the ‘rules’ of conventional warfare. In addition to their use of illegal exploding cartridges, stories were now common of the capture of armed burghers wearing British regimental clothing to add to others concerning their shooting, out-of-hand, captured unarmed Kaffirs working for the British. Nevertheless, he could not rid himself of the basic truth that they were fighting for their land, for their freedom.

  He hated the scorched-earth policy that he was being forced to implement.

  It was not a view, however, shared by many of his officer colleagues. Major Hammond, for instance, had immediately questioned the practice of troopers helping the families of the farmers to remove their furniture. ‘Don’t you think we’re making it a bit too easy for them, Colonel?’ he had drawled one evening as they sat at bivouac under the stars. ‘Against orders, too, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t accept my commission to fight women and children,’ replied Fonthill. ‘This war is bad enough as it is, without us extending the boundaries of hate needlessly.’

  He studied Hammond by the firelight. The man clearly retained his dislike of his commanding officer – and he was certainly not made to serve in an irregular unit such as Fonthill’s Horse. His home was among the squadrons of the Household Cavalry, where wars were fought by gentlemen in ways that had been established years ago and had become enshrined in the annals of the regiments concerned. His questioning of the lack of sabre and lance when Fonthill had ordered a charge with rifles was typical. It was clear that he could not think beyond certain well-ordered lines. Why did he not request a transfer, wondered Simon? Did he still have his orders to watch over his CO and report back to General French on his failings?

  The young officers of the regular army who were serving in the more formal units in the great column were made of similar stuff, Fonthill noted. The difference between them and his own young subalterns were marked. These breezy young volunteers from the cities – not the well-endowed shires – of England and the wide-open spaces of Australia, New Zealand and the mines of Johannesburg were less contemptuous of the Boers. They were as courageous as the undoubtedly brave young regulars, but more independent in spirit and more open in mind.

  Jenkins brought the subject up as he and Fonthill rode together one day in a rare moment of intimacy while on the trek.

  ‘I ’ave to say it, bach sir,’ he said, ‘but yer average young British officer of the line is a bit stupid, ain’t ’e?’

  ‘And I have to agree with you, 352.’

  ‘An’ I suppose that’s why yer average British general is a bit stupid, too, don’t yer think?’

  ‘Well, not all of them, of course. Certainly not Wolseley, nor Roberts or even Kitchener. But yes, I’m afraid that, in general, you are right.’

  ‘Why is that, then, d’yer suppose?’

  Simon sighed deeply. ‘I suppose it goes back to the fact that, with the upper classes, the clever boys in the family did not go into the army; in fact only a trifling percentage of sixth-form boys in our public schools choose the service for a profession. Boys with good income are generally jobbed into the crack regiments, like the Royal Horse Guards or the Life Guards, without any examination whatever. Now I ask you, 352, in what other profession would social position and money be allowed to override the claims of merit? Unless a boy has money of his own he cannot go into the smart regiments because the pay is too low and the standard of living is too high. And yet these regiments so often get the chance to lead in battle.
All this, I think, helps to explain the tragedies we faced at Isandlwana in Zululand, at Majuba nineteen years ago and in the early days here in Natal and the Free State.’

  ‘Yes. Right. I see all that.’

  ‘But that’s enough. I am beginning to sound like a socialist, which I certainly am not. Let’s just leave it that I am very happy with the sort of young officer that we have in our own unit. Very happy.’

  The purpose of the great sweep, however, was not only to destroy the farms but also to push before the advancing British lines those scattered members of the Boer commandos caught out on the veldt towards the new lines of forts that Roberts and Kitchener had set up like a great net across the plains. This was partially successful in that numbers of the burghers were caught like fish in the net and forced to surrender, but even more of them slipped through between the forts and rode out again across the veldt.

  In the south, de Wet himself had seemingly not been at all deterred by his narrow escape at Bothaville. Within days, he had regrouped, slipped between the newly built southern forts stretching between Bloemfontein and the Basutoland border and captured the little town of Dewetsdorp, named after his father. In the process, he defeated and captured the British garrison of five hundred Gloucesters and Highland Light Infantrymen. Within a twenty-five to fifty mile radius of Dewetsdorp there were five British forces, yet none of them were able to close in and prevent the town’s capture. When relief did arrive, de Wet had slipped away again. How was he able to do it?

  Simon learnt a little of the Boer leader’s secret from a fellow officer in the Mounted Infantry, Captain Molyneux Steele, who had been captured by de Wet earlier in the year and been his unwelcome guest for several weeks before his release. The difference in military ability between the Boer leader and his own CO, Colonel Ridley, had been marked, he confided to Fonthill. Steele’s capture had been completely due to the fact that Ridley had posted no scouts and was unaware that de Wet’s laager was ‘just over the hill’. As a result, he was easily captured as he rode, alone, across the veldt. In contrast, de Wet, the farmer, was a ‘completely professional’ soldier who was meticulous in methods of command.

  ‘His hand was everywhere,’ he told Simon. ‘He rules his mob by the strength of his right arm and character. Superficially all was disorder in the laager, but there was order in the disorder.’ There were no tent lines in the camp, no dressing by the right or by the left, but every wagon, cart and tent was laid out in the same relative position, wherever they laagered. As a result, the Boers could strike camp with extraordinary speed. The whole laager could be on the move within ten minutes of the alarm or order being given.

  This compared unfavourably with the British system whereby the black Africans were left to inspan the animals unassisted, harnessing twelve mules or sixteen great trek oxen to each wagon. In de Wet’s laager, everyone lent a hand with the transport, as each man had been trained to do since boyhood. Discipline was also severe. Sentries who slept on duty were punished by being tied to ant heaps and shot if they moved. The general was rarely without his whip, which he employed liberally.

  Steele had also been able to glimpse de Wet’s method of employing his rearguard to such famed effect. ‘He gets his wagons under way then places his fighting men in position,’ he explained. ‘Then he hands over to his second in command. After this, he gallops, usually alone, to the head of the wagons and drives back to the rearguard any skulker by fierce invective or his sjambok. Once there, he resumes command. He truly is a wonderful man, so full of energy.’

  De Wet, Steele confided, hated having his commando impeded by the burghers’ wagons, but, despite his orders and pleading, the Boers refused to give them up. This meant that the commando could only flee at the pace of an ox, which could barely do thirty miles a day. How, then, did the man consistently evade the thousands of British soldiers who pursued him? The secret seemed to lie in the corps of professional scouts that de Wet had recruited to serve him. The British had left this important part of field intelligence to conventional mounted troopers, but the Boer general had trained a special elite of horsemen who ranged invisibly far and wide and were acutely sensitive to the moves of the British pursuers and also to possible escape routes that might lie ahead. The combination of the speed of inspanning and early intelligence enabled the mercurial de Wet always, it seemed, to stay one move ahead of the pack baying at his heels.

  Listening to all this, Fonthill was thankful that he had had the foresight to employ native trackers and also to eschew the use himself of cumbersome supply wagons. These two elements in his preparations surely had enabled him to find the elusive Boer general and to attack him. Even so, this forceful amateur warrior had escaped again and was even now, it seemed, about to cross into the Crown Colony.

  It was at this point that Kitchener, now firmly in command after the return in triumph of Lord Roberts to London, hardened his policy of rounding up the Boer families left on the veldt by the commandos. Now, as he had intimated to Alice, he set in train the building of internment or ‘concentration’ camps specially to house not only the Afrikaner refugees, but their Kaffir servants as well. This imposed an extra burden on Kitchener’s army, of course, already stretched as it was by the need to protect its long supply lines and pursue the guerrilla bands now raiding in the Transvaal as well as the Free State.

  For Simon, it posed an additional moral problem. He had already decided that he would refuse to carry out any further farm burning and the prospect of his specially selected men being used now as escorts for this round-up of civilians caused him further heart-searching.

  His problem was compounded by the hardened attitude of Alice, whom he had visited, of course, on his arrival at Johannesburg with the rest of French’s great column. At first glad to see him, she had grown increasingly distant, it seemed, as his stay at their little hotel lengthened while Fonthill waited for further orders. She questioned him unrelentingly about his role in the farm clearances and also asked him to give an interview on the subject to a correspondent from the Daily Mail, which he refused to do. It was one thing to help his wife in her work, he reasoned, and quite another to extend that indulgence – at some risk to his position in the army – to a stranger. All in all, then, it was a huge relief when orders came through for him to mount up his column and ride south immediately. His old adversary, General Christiaan de Wet, it seemed, was on the loose again and was very close to crossing the border with the Cape Colony. Clearly, the Boer invasion of the Colony was now a very real threat.

  Riding as hard as his care for his little Basuto ponies would allow, Simon’s column reached Bethulie, close to the Orange River, the border with the Colony. General Knox had resumed his dogged pursuit and sensed that he was near to his prey. To his disappointment, Fonthill was placed under his command again. However, the general once again welcomed him wholeheartedly and immediately put him in the van of the hunt, giving him a free hand to roam out ahead of the main column.

  Simon immediately sent out his black trackers to scour the area for news of the Boer. The net had already been thrown wide. Kitchener, taking strategic control of the hunt himself, had placed troops along the south, Cape-side of the Orange and drawn in other units in support of Knox, so placing a huge semi-circle around the river, enclosing most of the fords where de Wet could conceivably cross to enter the Colony. News had filtered through that the Boer leader had under his command two other daring commandants in former Cape rebels, P.H. Kritzinger and Gideon Scheepers. It threatened to be, then, a reasonably sized invasion of the Colony, rather than a daring pinprick.

  It was hard riding for Fonthill’s little command. Once again, he had eschewed the use of supply wagons and had confined his column to the backs of its horses in complete self-reliance, living off the country. The trouble was that the country was now wet, damned wet.

  Heavy rain was marking the end of the old year 1900 when hard news came in at last. Simon, his officers and Jenkins were crouched under oilskins around a hi
ssing fire, chewing biltong in the darkness, when a soaked Mzingeli threw himself off his horse and reported, ‘Boers just the other side of Bethulie, Nkosi. Big commando.’

  ‘Good.’ Fonthill threw his remaining biltong onto the fire. ‘How far away?’

  ‘Two miles. Maybe three.’

  ‘Saddle up, gentlemen. We will attack him at once.’

  ‘Not on our own, surely, Colonel?’ Hammond rose more slowly than the others.

  ‘Certainly. We can stop him riding on, if not hold him completely. Sarn’t Major, send a good galloper back to the general at the main camp. Tell him that de Wet is camped just to the east of Bethulie with his main commando and to come on quickly. Tell him that we are attacking him.’

  Within minutes, the troopers were mounted, their heads down in the pouring rain, and setting off, following the lead set by Mzingeli and his tracker. Except for the weather, it was a repeat of Fonthill’s attack at Bothaville, and as he rode, he planned his attack, remembering what Captain Steele had told him about de Wet. With his small force, he could not attempt to defeat the commando in a pitched battle. But there was, perhaps, a chance of capturing the Boer general and riding off with him. Steele had told him that the man usually slept in the middle of his commando. A strike, then, directly into the heart of the camp, crashing straight through the defences, and picking up de Wet and carrying him off in the confusion and darkness. No attempt to exchange musketry with that tough rearguard: a strike, straight to the centre and, if they could not carry off de Wet, then they must kill him. Surely, with the head severed, the snake would die.