by John Wilcox
He awoke with a start to realise that someone was laughing at him. A rifle barrel was poked in his ribs and an Afrikaan voice jeered, ‘Come on, Khaki. Time to stop dreaming and get on your feet.’ Three Boers – dressed untidily in half-buttoned British army tunics, but Boers all the same, judging by their unkempt beards and slung bandoliers – were looking down at him and grinning.
Damn! Simon threw aside the oilskin and rose unsteadily to his feet, slipping his wounded arm back into its sling.
‘Ah, wounded, eh?’ The Boer with the rifle still at his ribs frowned. ‘Where did you get that, then? And what are you doing out here, with a wounded arm?’
‘I cut myself shaving,’ said Fonthill coolly. ‘And I was just taking some exercise in your lovely sunshine.’ He gestured upwards to where the rain now seemed to have increased in intensity.
‘Don’t joke with us, English.’ The Boer leader was now scowling. Then he looked closer at the badges of rank on Simon’s jacket and turned with a grin to his fellows. ‘Ah, friends. We have captured a full colonel. What a catch. Come on. We take him to the general.’
Ah. The general! Fonthill’s mind raced. Would that mean de Wet, or one of the other commando’s leaders? If it was de Wet he must follow closely the direction in which he was taken so that, if he could escape, he could bring the column quickly up to the attack. But that must be his plan of action whatever the camp to which he was taken. His hopes were quickly ended, however, for one of the burghers produced a black handkerchief and tied it tightly across his eyes.
‘You don’t see where we take you, Colonel,’ he said. ‘And if you try to gallop off, we shoot you. Understand?’
Simon nodded. There was nowhere to gallop to, anyway.
They rode for little less than half an hour and Fonthill realised that he must have laid down to rest infuriatingly close to the enemy’s camp. What now? He knew that the commandos rarely kept prisoners, for they were only an impediment to them in their fast-moving strikes. When retained, however, they did have a reputation for treating them well – or as well as their own stringent rations and living conditions allowed – before releasing them on the open veldt. Would they, however, keep a colonel? His capture could be a modest propaganda coup for them. He remembered how much the Boers had made of capturing Winston Churchill, that scion of English nobility, earlier in the war. But that was then and this was now. These commandos probably had no time for propaganda. They were just hard fighters, living from hand to mouth – and without proper clothing, judging by the uniforms these three were wearing. Or was this another example of the ‘dirty warfare’ tactics they were said to be practising, using captured uniforms as disguise to creep up to unsuspecting English outposts? Ah well. All would soon be revealed.
He could tell by the noise surrounding him that the little party had entered the Boer camp. He was helped down from his mount, although the cloth was kept tightly bound round his eyes, and then led to where he could smell woodsmoke and, deliciously, the smell of coffee.
After being kept waiting for perhaps five minutes he heard an interchange of conversation in Afrikaans before the blindfold was removed. He blinked and stared into a familiar face, with its high cheekbones, hard eyes and neatly cut beard. ‘Good morning, General de Wet,’ he said.
A slow smile crept across the Boer’s weather-beaten face. ‘Ah, Mr Fonthill. I see that you didn’t stay a civilian long. A colonel now, then. And you have been chasing me. By golly, you have. Obviously annoyed because I took your horses. Though you got them back soon enough, eh? Come and sit down. Would you like some coffee?’
‘Thank you. I certainly would.’
The general squatted on the ground next to the fire and beckoned to Fonthill to sit beside him. ‘This coffee is foul,’ he said, ‘because, thanks to you, we can’t get proper grains now. So we make it from old bedsocks and God knows what. Here, try it.’
Simon took a sip and wrinkled his face. ‘General,’ he said, ‘if I had to fight on coffee like this I would have surrendered months ago.’
‘Ach, man. It will take more than bad coffee to make us give in. Now, tell me, Colonel. Where is your column exactly? I know it is not far away looking for us. But I know you weren’t leading it because I have scouts out behind us. What on earth were you doing out here, with your arm in a sling, all on your own?’ Without waiting for a reply, de Wet shouted out a string of orders in Afrikaans, clearly giving instructions for the camp to break up and move on.
Fonthill decided that it would be pointless to dissemble. He told de Wet of his wound, his trip to Pretoria for medical treatment and his anxiety to join his column. ‘So you see, General, like you, I was looking for my column.’
De Wet did not reply immediately and instead barked out a series of further instructions, clearly not happy with the pace of the inspanning. Simon took advantage of this to look around him carefully. This commando was huge, bigger by the look of it than those they had encountered already: perhaps sixteen hundred to two thousand horsemen. They were manoeuvring several large Krupps cannon into place behind oxen – ah, and he thought they had captured all de Wet’s artillery at Bothaville! – and the difficulty of doing so was the cause of the general’s annoyance.
But it was the Boers themselves that most aroused Fonthill’s interest. The few he had seen in his previous encounters with them were not as badly clothed, primitively shod nor as gaunt in appearance as these men now. Many wore only roughly cut hide sandals on their feet, or went barefoot. Their original farming clothes, where worn, hung in tatters and many, like the patrol that had captured him, wore badly fitting British army tunics and breeches. He also observed that many carried captured Lee Enfield rifles or British carbines to complement their Mausers. This was a rag-tailed army if ever there was one.
De Wet caught his eye. ‘Not smart, eh, Colonel? But, by God, we can still fight. Because we fight for our country, you see. Now, will you give me your word as an English gentleman,’ he allowed himself a steely smile at the phrase, ‘that what you have just told me is the truth? As you can see, we are moving out anyway, so whatever you say, we will not be waiting here for your column or my old friend General Knox.’
‘Yes, General. I give you my word that what I have just told you is the truth.’
‘Good. I believe you. Now, we must take you with us while I decide what to do with you. We have taken recently to stripping our prisoners of their clothing – not because we wish to punish them, but because, as you can see, living on commando means hard riding and we need to wear what we capture.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘The word is, General, that you have broken the terms of the Hague Convention by wearing our uniforms to give you an advantage in attacking.’
De Wet shook his head vigorously. ‘Not true. We wear your clothes to stop us getting … what is the English word? Ah yes. Pneumonia.’ He chuckled for a brief moment and then his face lapsed back into a seamed expression of fierce purpose. ‘We don’t care what you say. But speaking of this Hague thing. Is not your burning of farms and putting our women and children behind barbed wire breaking the terms of that? Eh?’
Fonthill frowned in return. ‘I do not approve of that either—’ He was interrupted by de Wet who spoke sharply to him in Afrikaans and then interpreted.
‘I am sorry. I speak my language. I forget. I said that I had heard that you have burnt farms, too, but that you have been kind to the families. We appreciate that.’
Simon marvelled at the intelligence that carried these details across the veldt so quickly to the fighters at the front. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I understand why Roberts and Kitchener were driven to do it. They had to cut off your supply of relief horses, food and drink – the supplies that kept you out on the veldt raiding our railway lines, lines of supply and townships. Your method of fighting, General, is a difficult one to combat. You know that. So more … er … unconventional methods had to be introduced to stop you.’
‘Well. They do not stop us. But they make u
s angry. Very angry. We now invade the Cape Colony – and there are other commandos down here, on this side of the border, to raise rebellion here. It could end the war in our favour. We shall see.’
Fonthill shook his head sadly. ‘No it won’t, General. We just have too many men for you. You are vastly outnumbered and outgunned. You ought to stop the slaughter now and negotiate. Kitchener will listen. He is not Milner.’
De Wet stood, his face like thunder. ‘On your feet, English,’ he said. ‘We move out. The war goes on.’
Fonthill stood. His horse, rifle, bandolier and revolver, of course, had all been taken from him but he was not bound in any way – probably because of his wounded arm – and no immediate guard was put on him. Everyone was busy around him and he remembered what Captain Steele had told him about the speed with which the Boers inspanned. Here, they were running between their tasks of dismantling their bivouac tents, untethering the horses, harnessing the oxen and manhandling the cannon into place.
He watched them with growing interest. These were the men who were leading the British such a merry dance, the men they were fighting; these were the hard core of the opposition, the ‘bitter enders’, as the burghers who had already surrendered called them. They looked like ruffians with their unshaven faces, blackened teeth, broken hat brims and tattered clothing. These fighters were the reason that British Tommies were burning farms, rounding up women and children and imprisoning them behind barbed wire on the open veldt. These were the enemy: farmers who could outshoot and outride professional soldiers, who prayed and sang hymns at every opportunity and who, not infrequently, flogged their Kaffir servants until their backs ran red with blood. These were the Boers.
Fonthill sighed and, now dismounted, trudged forward as the commando moved out.
He looked upwards to find the sun to give him an indication of the direction in which they were heading, but the sky hung down like a sagging, grey envelope and it was beginning to rain again, not heavily but in a soft curtain which added to everyone’s misery. At least the ground was soft enough to leave plenty of traces for Hammond to follow – if, that is, he was following. Simon noticed that many of the burghers were without horses and others were walking and leading their tired beasts. It was clear that the strain of being constantly pursued was telling heavily now.
Sixteen oxen, he counted, were yoked to each of the wagons, which seemed to carry flour and ammunition, and eighteen to the Krupps guns. He thought that de Wet had given up such encumbrances. Evidently not.
Eventually, the commando came to what appeared to be a shallow lake that stretched before them. It was some thousand paces broad and long and offered no easy way around it. It was here, on hearing curses uttered ahead as the commando halted, that Fonthill realised that about ninety men who trudged in a guarded band before him were, in fact, British. It was clear that they had been captured by the commando and their horses commandeered. The pursuers were too close for the men to be released. Simon realised that he was lucky not to be guarded and decided not to join them. Better to stay loose, if he could.
The lake turned out to be only some three feet deep but the reality was that, in terms of its deterrence, it could have been thirty feet, for the bottom was glutinous mud. It was, in fact, a swamp. Horses and men could struggle through it with difficulty but the wagons and the cannon quickly became bogged down. Men were despatched to help the oxen by pushing the wheels until they too were caked in mud and looked like red-eyed creatures from some horror tableau. De Wet was ever present, screaming orders and laying about him with his whip.
Fonthill realised, from the desperation now written plainly on the general’s blackened face, that he must know that British troops were not far behind him. If he was to escape, Simon realised, this was the time and place to do it.
Thirty oxen were now inspanned to each gun and, eventually, each was sucked through the mud and out the other side of the swamp. But the wagons resisted all efforts to move them and remained firmly embedded just a few yards from the beginning of the swamp. Eventually, de Wet gave up the struggle and ordered them to be pulled back on to firmer ground. He summoned a grey-bearded burgher whom Simon took to be a senior officer and spoke to him urgently, gesturing with his whip to the surrounding terrain.
De Wet splashed back through the churned-up water to the head of the column, most of which had now crossed the swamp. There he pointed with his whip and pulled away some three hundred men, clearly choosing those with the fittest horses, and gestured for them to join the elderly burgher on the other side of the swamp. Immediately the men dismounted, and led their horses through the quagmire, where the leaders dispersed them among the undergrowth under the eye of greybeard. Ah! Simon realised that the famous rearguard was being mounted, with the aim of holding up the pursuers while the main commando escaped.
For the moment, all was confusion and he decided to seize the moment, idly moving towards where the wagons were still being pushed back, as though to help the men moving them.
Then he deliberately slipped in the brown glutinous water, quickly discarding his identifying arm sling as he did so, and emerged, dripping, covered in mud, looking brownly anonymous, just like the rest of the mud-covered Boers. Quietly, he began to move towards the edge of the swamp, where a thicket encroached into the water. Under its cover, Simon bent low and moved slowly away in a tangent, setting a course to take him around the edge of the rearguard.
Expecting at any moment to hear a shout and then a gunshot from behind, Fonthill moved on with his heart in his mouth, walking, half crouching, sometimes crawling, in a wide arc until he felt it was safe to turn back to pick up the spoor of the commando, which, hopefully, would lead him back to the pursuing British troops. It took him an hour before he came upon the beaten ground that showed where the Boers had passed, then, turning resolutely to the left, he tucked his aching arm into his unbuttoned shirt and marched towards freedom.
It was not long before he heard the snort of a horse and the creaking of well-worn leather. He pulled back into the undergrowth. It would be just his luck to be shot by a British outrider. In fact, it was the welcome sight of Mzingeli that met his gaze through the tangled leaves. The black man was bending low over his horse’s neck and scanning the ground carefully.
‘Mzingeli,’ he called.
The black man’s rifle appeared as if by magic and was presented to him. ‘Who you?’ he demanded, glaring at the mud-covered, scratched apparition before him.
‘Simon Fonthill, old chap. And am I glad to see you.’
‘Nkosi! Is it really you?’
‘Yes it is. I’ve just been taking a mudbath. How close is the column?’
‘Right behind me. Where you come from?’
‘From de Wet’s commando. Its rearguard is about half an hour ahead of you. I was captured but I escaped. Take me back to the column, there’s a good chap. I don’t want to be shot as some sort of mud monster.’
Mzingeli leant down and extended a hand to lift him onto the saddle behind, but Fonthill shook his head. ‘I’ll walk. I’ve hurt my arm. Lead on. Best be quick, I have urgent news for Major Hammond.’
Within minutes the two met the British advance guard, troopers riding cautiously, spread out across the trail. When they recognised Fonthill, they let out a cheer, which led to Hammond riding forward.
‘Good God! It’s Fo—the colonel.’ He dismounted. ‘Colonel, where the hell—’
‘I’ll tell you all about it in a moment, Hammond.’ Fonthill kept his voice level. ‘De Wet’s commando is about half an hour ahead of you. He has been held up by a swamp that stretches for about a thousand yards either side of the trail and ahead of it. He has got about eleven hundred burghers through it, with three pieces of artillery, and they are moving on. But his wagons got stuck so he has left them at the edge of the swamp. They will look empty but, in fact, he has deployed his rearguard all around them, probably dug in by now and hidden by the undergrowth, so you could ride straight into a trap.’
‘Ah, quite so, sir. Thank you. And you …?’
‘I was riding to catch you up but somehow got ahead of you and was captured by the Boers. I escaped,’ he grinned, ‘as you can see, in the swamp. Have you been in action with them yet and where is General Knox?’
‘No. No action. Couldn’t catch ’em up because we started about two days behind them, as far as I can see. The general has followed a false trail – obviously laid by de Wet – and is about a day’s march behind us, I would say.’
‘Bloody hell! Now, where can I wash?’
Hammond turned and bellowed orders. A soldier appeared with a sponge, soap, leather fold-up bowl and a canteen of water.
‘Thanks. Hold on for just a moment, while I clean up. Then I shall resume command.’
‘Er … very well, Colonel. I suppose that rearguard won’t go away.’
The mud had dried on Fonthill’s tunic, shirt and riding breeches and he scraped it away with a knife. Then he gestured for the trooper to sponge his back while he soaped his face, breast, and hair and then threw the remains of the water over his head. Towelling himself down as best he could with one hand, he had a sudden thought.
‘Where’s the RSM?’ he demanded of Hammond.
The major fixed his gaze somewhere over Fonthill’s shoulder and replied in his distinctive drawl. ‘I’m afraid he’s under arrest, sir.’
Simon let the towel fall and, with his jaw dropped, regarded Hammond incredulously. ‘What? Under arrest? On what charge, for God’s sake?’
The drawl sounded even more languid in reply. ‘Drunk in the face of the enemy, sir.’
Simon took a deep breath and forced himself to remain silent while he resumed slowly towelling his hair. ‘Where is he now, then?’ he demanded eventually.
‘At the rear, under the care of one of the troop sergeants.’
