by John Wilcox
The Boers fired as they came, intended as much to instil fear as to kill, for few men can fire a rifle accurately from a galloping horse and, indeed, not one of the troopers were hit. More to the point, however, no one scrambled to his feet to run. Instead, a crackle of rifle fire ran along the thin line, bringing down perhaps ten of the horsemen as they thundered down the incline.
A panting Jenkins joined Simon and the pair threw themselves down a dozen paces or more behind the line. They just had time to fire a shot each from their rifles before the horsemen were upon them.
Fonthill’s mouth was dry as he glimpsed the terrifying wall of horseflesh rise as one unit above the line of spreadeagled troopers ahead of him before he closed his eyes, turned his head and buried his cheek in the grass. He felt the earth shake and clods of soil and grass fall all about him, then the noise and the storm had passed. He turned, wriggled upright and immediately felt a heavy blow in the middle of his back, which sent him sprawling down again, his rifle scattering away from him.
His head singing and the breath knocked out of him, he heard the crack of Jenkins’s rifle and then, as though from far away, the familiar voice, ‘Bach, are you all right? Come on. Sit up. They’re turning back.’
‘Yes. I’m all right. I think a hoof caught me in the back. Help me up.’
Jenkins’s strong hands hauled him to his feet and thrust his rifle and bayonet into his hands. Fonthill shook his head to clear it and spat soil from his mouth. The Boers had indeed ridden through the camp and were now dismounting beyond the far edge of the circle. But there was little cover for them there as they knelt to fire. Even so, the majority of the charging horsemen had survived the charge and now, after firing several shots, they rose and began to run towards the line of Cartwright’s men, thinly spread along the ground before them.
‘Look, bach!’
Jenkins’s cry made Fonthill turn his head to the right and saw the welcome sight of A Squadron, now safely mounted, riding hard in from the grazing ground, Hammond at their head. As though on the parade ground, the squadron wheeled to the right, presenting its long flank to the enemy, and pulled up to the halt. Then the whole squadron hurled themselves from their saddles, handlers doubled away to the rear with the horses and the remainder of the troopers knelt on the grass and delivered a crashing volley into the Boers now running towards the ring. The range was too short for them to miss and twenty or more of the Boers crumpled and fell. The remainder paused for a moment, long enough for the squadron to work their bolts and deliver another volley, Hammond standing tall among them, aiming coolly with his revolver. Immediately, the attack crumpled and the remainder of the Boers ran back to their horses, mounted quickly and rode away, their heels drumming into their ponies’ flanks.
‘Bloody well done, Hammond!’ Fonthill staggered towards the major. ‘Now get after ’em. Don’t let ’em get away, man.’
The major gave a cursory wave and shouted back for the horses. They were brought up on the run by their handlers and the squadron mounted, then, led by Hammond, it wheeled away and disappeared after the retreating Boers.
Fonthill stood unsteadily, Jenkins by his side, and watched them ride away. He turned and looked up at the hill. Rifles no longer ringed the rim.
‘We’ve beaten ’em. They’ve gone!’ He turned and shook Jenkins’s hand. Then he wheeled round. ‘On your feet, men,’ he shouted. ‘Captain Forbes. Captain Cartwright. Detail ten men under an NCO, each of you, from your squadrons and get them to double away to the grazing ground to bring in the remainder of the horses. We might still be able to get after the Boers. Quickly now!’
‘’Ere, bach.’ Jenkins’s hand gripped his arm. ‘Sit down. You’re staggerin’ a bit. Goodness me. You’ve not been drinkin’ now, ’ave you? In the face of the enemy, is it? Could be a capital charge. Dearie, dearie me.’
Fonthill grinned and slumped to the floor. ‘Let me get my breath. God, that horse winded me! And I assured everybody that they would jump around us.’
‘An’ you was right. I don’t think anybody ’as been struck who stayed down, see. ’Orses ’ave got sense. They don’t want to land on somethin’ uneven when they’re gallopin’. They know they might turn an ankle or ruin a fetlock. Trouble was, you got up too quickly, look you, an’ caught a late runner. Now, sit there a minnit, while I get this lot into shape.’
The Welshman turned and, with a voice like thunder, screamed: ‘On yer feet all of you, you idle lot. Unfix bayonets. Rifles at the slope. Fall in by troop, NOW! Move yerselves!’
Sitting, drawing in great draughts of air, Simon could not resist smiling. Jenkins had undoubtedly turned into the very model of a modern sergeant major. What’s more, the question mark over Major Hammond had been well and truly removed. The man had been as cool as a cucumber leading his men back into the fray. He was no coward. Fonthill felt relieved. To accuse a man falsely of cowardice was a dreadful thing. He knew, for it had happened to him many years before.
Leaning on his rifle, he hauled himself to his feet to see that the camp had regained some kind of order, with Jenkins bullying the men into ranks. The troopers had not returned with the horses and it was probably too late now to pursue the Boers who had been firing from the top. His thought now was for the wounded.
His small group of medics were tending six of the troopers who had been hit by the firing. In addition, two men lay dead. Behind him, he could hear moaning from the group of Boers who had been hit by Hammond’s volleys. He walked slowly to the medics. ‘Anyone hurt badly?’ he asked.
‘Don’t think so, sir,’ replied a corporal. ‘More or less flesh wounds, though we’ve lost two men, I’m afraid.’
‘So I see. Two of you carry on here and the others go over to the Boers and see what you can do for their wounded. Some of them have been badly hit, I think.’
Simon walked across to talk to one of the enemy wounded. He had had a bullet penetrate his thigh and was staunching the blood with a scrap of rag. Fonthill knelt beside him. He took a clean, folded handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to the Boer. ‘Put that on the wound,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit cleaner. One of our chaps will be with you in a minute.’
The man looked up. ‘We meet again, then, Colonel,’ he said with a pained smile. ‘Remember me? I captured you in the wood, that morning in the Cape Colony.’
‘Good Lord, so you did. So you are still with General de Wet?’
The Boer grinned ruefully. ‘Well, I was. Until a few minutes ago.’
‘So it was he who attacked us?’
‘Oh yes. He has a score or two to settle with you, I think. But …’ He winced as a shaft of pain ran through him. ‘No hard feelings, I think.’
‘I hope not. Lie still until our medics get here. We’ll look after you.’
Hammond eventually returned to report that the Boers had had too long a lead on them and had got away. In pursuit, however, he had seen another party riding to the east. ‘I think they must have been the fellers shooting down on us. Put the two together, mind you, and they would have probably outnumbered us still. Could have returned and had another go, don’t yer know. Don’t know why they didn’t.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘The Boers are strange fighters. I suppose de Wet has now got so used to striking quickly and then riding off again, like mosquitoes biting, in fact, that he doesn’t like to hang about. And he has become so accustomed to having a British force pursuing him just over the hill, so to speak, that he feels he must always be on the move.’
‘Quite so, Colonel. In fact, I’ve heard Lord Kitchener call these guerrillas “the Mosquito Army”. Damned appropriate, I suppose.’
Fonthill held out his hand. ‘Thank you, Philip,’ he said. ‘You handled the retrieval of the horses and that counter-attack extremely well.’
For a moment, the tall man looked embarrassed. Then he shook hands, gave a brief nod and strode away.
The missing pickets rode in shortly afterwards, carrying the bodies of two of their number slung ac
ross their saddles. They had been surprised in the darkness and they had had no chance to fight back. They had been held back under guard while the Boers had launched their attack and then released as the attackers had streamed away.
Why had the camp guards not heard the firing on that still night? No one seemed to know. Fonthill presumed that the sound had not carried around the kopjes that studded the plain. He shrugged his shoulders. Another unexplained peculiarity of this strange landscape.
Once the dead had been buried – among the Boers they numbered nineteen, plus another ten wounded – and the hurt men tended to, Fonthill ordered a late breakfast to be prepared. Then, shortly after midday they set off again on their trek north.
The column called into the nearest large town to deposit the wounded and then continued on its way, with its prisoners, by train and arrived at Pretoria two days after de Wet’s attack on them.
Fonthill found that Kitchener was away from his headquarters and that French was still out in the Eastern Transvaal on the trail of Botha. Hammond immediately applied for leave, which was granted, and, two days later, Simon was at last reunited with Alice, who had been out visiting the Boer civilian camps, checking on the improvements that had been made to them since the wide publication in Britain of Miss Hobhouse’s report.
They embraced warmly in the confines of Simon’s tent where the column had returned to its base just outside Johannesburg. This time there was no restraint between them and, after the initial embrace, Fonthill had no compunction about tying across his tent flaps to seal the entrance and leading his wife to his camp bed.
‘For God’s sake, Simon,’ Alice hissed, ‘we’ll break it.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He gently bit her ear. ‘I’ll pay barrack-room damages.’
They made companionable, middle-aged love, despite the constraints applied by the sturdy but narrow bed, and afterwards Alice felt whole and, somehow, clean again.
‘By the way,’ said Simon, gazing steadily at the canvas roof, ‘how’s your young friend, the good-looking one?’
Alice felt herself blushing and fumbled for her handkerchief to blow her nose. ‘Which one was that, then, dear?’
‘You know, the feller from the Daily Mail?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for ages. I don’t have to hunt with the journalistic pack any more. They’ve all been off out in the field in the Transvaal. I’ve been touring the camps.’ She turned to look at him ingenuously. ‘You know, that story I did about them caused a great rumpus but dear old K didn’t seem to hold it against me. And the conditions in those camps have improved immensely. Milner has taken them over, and whatever you say about that scheming old devil, at least he has great administrative skills. Comes of being a lifelong bureaucrat, I suppose.’
‘Good for you, darling.’ He kissed her left nostril and Alice felt relieved that she had steered the conversation away from Fulton.
‘Now,’ she said, rolling away onto the grass. She stood and began adjusting her clothing. ‘I want to hear all about this business at Reitz. I got your scribbled note but it didn’t tell me much. It sounds like a story. Can you tell me about it?’
‘I don’t see why not. Phew! This tent is stifling. Goodness knows what’s been going on in here. Let’s go for a walk. I’m not on duty. Come on.’
So the pair of them, their love rekindled, walked hand in hand away from the camp onto the grassland and Simon told her of the night attack on the president’s bungalow, Steyn’s fleeing in his nightshirt – she nodded her head in delight at this detail – the capture of the State’s exchequer and of the subsequent attack by de Wet. Alice scribbled furiously and then put down her pencil.
‘Sorry, my love,’ she said, adjusting a pin in her hair, ‘but this is a damned good story and I must get it on the cable. I shall get the train back to Pretoria right away. Have you told anyone else about this?’
‘Of course not. Only in my report to French, with a copy to Kitchener, and neither of them will have seen it yet.’
‘Good. Can you come with me to Pretoria?’
‘No. I have one or two things I must do. I’ll come tomorrow. Thank you for helping 352 in getting Nandi settled. I must see her and her children and make sure they are comfortable. Oh, and please ensure that stuff goes through the censor, or I’ll be in trouble for talking to some Fleet Street scribbler – not to mention sleeping with her.’
‘We didn’t sleep. Goodbye, darling.’
The mention of the censor planted a thought in Alice’s mind, which stayed with her through the brief journey to Pretoria. She had seen James Fulton only twice, briefly, since his seduction of her, and on both occasions she had forced herself to be quite civil, but nothing more. In retrospect, her act of unfaithfulness took on the aspect of a sordid aberration, robbed now of its excitement and glamour. She blamed herself for it, not Fulton. But what she could not forgive was the man’s betrayal of her in stealing her story. It was an act of professional deceit that simmered in her mind. She realised that his pursuit of her was probably prompted by the thought that she could be used to further his career. Her lip curled. The question of love, or attraction, probably never came into it. He should be taught a lesson…
Back in her hotel Alice concentrated on writing her story. She played down the fact that, once again, de Wet and Steyn had escaped – although she couldn’t resist colourfully describing the elderly president’s dash from the bungalow in his nightshirt, his beard flowing behind him – and emphasised the importance of the capture of his colleagues and of the money and the blow that this would be to the continuing resistance of the Free State. Dammit! She was a loving and supporting wife as well as an objective journalist. Simon should not be blamed for the escapes.
Alice duly delivered the cable to the young censor, who had no hesitation in accepting it, so laudatory was its tone. She returned to her hotel room and then drafted another story.
She wrote it out in pencil, occasionally crossing out a phrase or two to give it verisimilitude, and then read it with satisfaction. She scribbled on the top, as though it was an aide-memoire, ‘must: put into cablese and send first thing tomorrow.’
It read:
From our Special Correspondent in Pretoria.
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in South Africa, is to resign his post and return home. Britain’s leading soldier has taken this decision because of what he perceives to be his failure to end the war against the Boers.
He told the Morning Post in Pretoria that the constant strain of building blockhouses across the veldt and of combating the guerrilla warfare tactics of Boer generals de Wet, Viljoen, Botha, Smuts and de la Rey was adversely affecting his health and he had decided to retire from the army. He would, he said, return home as soon as a successor could be found. He then intended to find a country house, possibly in Kent, and devote the rest of his life to gardening and local affairs.
The Morning Post understands that Lieutenant General John French and Major General R.G. Broadwood are being considered by the Horse Guards as possible successors.
Lord Kitchener, who is 51, has always been considered to be in fine health. His constitution was never in doubt in leading a British and Egyptian expeditionary force across the Sudanese desert successfully to defeat the Mahdi’s hordes at Omdurman in 1898. It is understood, however, that the psychological pressures imposed by the guerrilla war in South Africa have now proved to be too much for him.
His forced departure from the post of commander-in-chief will undoubtedly prove to be a propaganda coup for the Boers at a time when they are showing themselves to be doughty warriors, even when severely outnumbered.’
Alice read it again and chuckled. What a damned good story! If only it were true and she had it exclusively! Never mind. It would fit neatly into the Daily Mail’s predilection for sensational scoops. Now to see if the bait would be taken.
She looked at her watch. Four p.m. All the correspondents in Pretoria att
ached to Kitchener’s HQ would have returned to the compound, writing their stories for tomorrow’s editions – if they had a story, that is. She scribbled a simple message to Fulton: ‘Would you have time to take tea with me in my room at my hotel today? I do hope so. I have something important to say to you. Please reply by bearer. Affectionately, Alice.’
Then she folded the message into an envelope, which she marked ‘urgent’, rang her bell and gave the message to the boy, slipped a ten-shilling note into his hand and instructed him to deliver it to James in the compound as quickly as possible. It was, she repeated to him, urgent and he was to repeat this to the recipient.
She sat back and pondered. Would it fetch him? Of course it would. If there were any doubt, the artful insertion of the word ‘affectionately’ would, she felt sure, tip the balance, stirring in him the thought that their relationship could, after all, be renewed passionately.
Alice retired to the bathroom that came attached as part of her little suite and carefully prepared herself for the encounter, brushing her hair and applying a faint touch of cosmetics. Then she arranged her ‘story’ on her writing desk, not too prominently but the pages left as though she had just finished writing, with her pencil across the leading page. Licking her finger, she plucked a hair from her head and, with infinite care, laid it on the top page, under the pencil so that a stray breeze would not blow it away. Then she drew up a chair by the window and waited.
The boy returned promptly and knocked on her door. The reply said: ‘Will be with you at approx 4.45.’ Good! She instructed him to tell the clerk at reception that Mr Fulton was to come straight to her room as soon as he arrived and then she resumed her seat, a little back from the window but near enough to see anyone who approached the hotel entrance.
