Fire Across the Veldt

by John Wilcox

  Alice scowled. ‘So I distracted you when the Pathans attacked us in the orange grove in Afghanistan, did I? I killed at least one of them myself. And what about when we had to laager and the Matabele surrounded us? Who manned – or rather, womanned – one of the wagons, with just a hunting rifle? And who shot that Boxer in the shoulder in China when he was about to butcher you, eh? And who killed the awful Gerald in Peking when he had taken a bead on you with his rifle? Who? Why me, of course. Your dear little frightened wife. That’s who. Distract you, my foot. I wasn’t in the way, then, now was I?’

  Fonthill looked at his wife’s flushed face and couldn’t help but grin. He held up his hand again, in supplication this time. ‘Darling, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I concede that you are twice the fighter I am and probably almost as good as Jenkins. I didn’t mean to impugn your courage or your value in a fight when the chips are down.’ His grin turned to a frown. ‘But don’t you see? If we are attacked I have much greater responsibilities now and you would add to them. I would be worried about you and you would be a distraction. I am sorry but I’m afraid you must stay here and report on K’s tea parties. Now kiss me and let me go. I have much to do.’

  Still scowling, Alice put her arms around him and kissed him soundly. ‘Go then,’ she murmured into his ear, ‘but if you get yourself killed and I’m not there I shall never forgive you and I shall certainly never let you sleep with me again. So there.’ She poked her tongue out. ‘Off you go and I hope you never find bloody Botha.’

  Back in the camp, Fonthill found that Jenkins had arrived before him. The Welshman came bustling over. ‘’Ere,’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘Great news. ’Ammond ’as gone. Packed ’is gear and buggered off. Without so much as a goodbye kiss or farewell word to me. The word is that ’e’s gone back to some fancy cavalry lot, see.’

  Simon grinned and nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Although I didn’t think it would be as quick as that.’ Then he recounted his conversations with Kitchener and French.

  ‘So ’e was be’ind the police visit to Nandi.’ Jenkins’s eyes narrowed. ‘The bastard. Telling all them lies, look you. An’ frightenin’ Nandi, as well.’ He spat. ‘I’ll ’ave ’im for that. You’ll see. ’E’s a genuinely nasty piece of work. I’ll see ’e pays for it.’

  Fonthill put his hand on his old comrade’s shoulder. ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind, 352,’ he said. ‘The commander-in-chief specifically ruled out any witch-hunts or reprisals. We are well rid of him. Now, go and ask Captain Forbes to see me. I shall promote him; he will command A Squadron and we can get on with the war.’

  Shortly before dawn the next morning, the column paraded and loaded horses, mules and men into the open rail trucks and set off under a leaden sky towards the south-east. Rain was in the air and the atmosphere was cold, so Fonthill ordered the issue of rum to every man. Somehow, the issue seemed to have been exceeded in the case of C Squadron, under the command of the irrepressible Captain Cartwright, for there was loud singing from their wagons as the engine spluttered into life. Fonthill let it go. It was going to be a long and uncomfortable journey.

  The journey from Johannesburg to Glencoe, where Fonthill had decided to detrain, was some two hundred miles. Uncomfortable, certainly, because the trucks, of course, were open and the weather cold and wet, but the line was clear and the little train rattled along at fifty miles an hour so that it was early afternoon when it wheezed to a halt at Glencoe. Fonthill had chosen the place as a central point near the Transvaal-Natal border from which he could ride quickly to confront Botha, once he had news of him. In consequence, Mzingeli and his trackers with their horses were the first to leave the train, with orders from Simon to spread out along the frontier immediately to bring back news of the Boer raider.

  The rest of the column were descending in a confusion of noise from horses, mules and men when Jenkins, a wry grin on his face, found Fonthill.

  ‘I think you’d better come with me, bach sir,’ he said. ‘Up to the steamer locomotive, like.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, what’s the problem now?’

  ‘You’ll see. Come on.’

  They made their way through the throng of men and animals to the head of the train, where they were just in time to see the driver, his grin cutting a white swathe across his grimed face, handing down from the footplate a lady in riding boots, breeches and serviceable jacket, a familiar apple-green scarf at her throat but with a smudge of coal dust across her cheek.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, bestowing on the man the most gracious smile. ‘That really was a most enjoyable journey.’

  ‘Alice!’ screamed Fonthill. ‘What the hell …? How dare you disobey my orders.’

  ‘Oh hello, Colonel,’ replied his wife sweetly. ‘I do hope you and the men didn’t get too wet. I had a lovely ride, I must say. I was allowed to pull the steam whistle at Newcastle. It was great fun.’

  Simon refused to smile. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can just turn around and get back up there on the footplate and ride back to Johannesburg. You are not staying here.’

  Alice smiled at the driver who handed her a much battered leather valise. ‘Ah, thank you.’ She turned back to her husband. ‘Oh, don’t be such a grouch, Simon. You may be in the army, dear, but I am not and if you won’t let me stay with your column, then I shall just buy a horse and ride out onto the veldt and find Botha for myself. From what I have read, he is a perfect gentleman and should make good copy. Apart from which,’ she sniffed, ‘I have to confess that that steam has ruined my hair, and much as I enjoyed the ride, I am damned if I am going to get back on that train just yet awhile, thank you very much.’

  Jenkins coughed. ‘I’ll find ’er a tent an’ bedroll, bach sir. Better I think.’

  ‘What? Oh, very well, dammit. Oh, Alice. What on earth am I going to do with you?’

  ‘Oh, it’s quite simple, dear.’ She took his arm companionably and walked him away from the hissing steam. ‘Just let me camp by myself on the edge of the column – as I did, incidentally, when Chelmsford crossed the Buffalo and invaded Zululand not far from here. I shall stay out of your hair and look after myself – I have bought provisions – and all I would require is that you would let me know when something is about to happen, so that I can be there to report on it. Now, that’s not a lot to ask, is it?’

  ‘Alice, I hate it when you are arch. What is French going to say when he hears that I – seemingly – took my wife with me on this mission?’

  ‘Well, darling, he need never know. Threaten to shoot any of your men who look as if they are going to tell him.’

  Fonthill shook off her arm. ‘Now you’re being arch again.’

  ‘No I am not. If the matter comes out I shall certainly explain that I hitched my own lift here – actually, it cost me twenty pounds but I shall not claim on the army for that. And, Simon, of course we will not live together out here. I shall keep my distance. I am not your wife, I am a journalist for the Morning Post accredited to Lord Kitchener’s army out here. And I sense that there is going to be a good story here. So stop making a fuss, there’s a good dear.’

  ‘Very well. But I warn you, Alice, life can be – no, it will be – hard with a column like this. We ride roughly and we sleep in the open when we are out on the veldt. You will get no favours from me.’

  Alice smiled beguilingly again. ‘Accepted, Colonel. Well, just one little favour, please, when you … er … we ride out. I shall need a horse, dear, otherwise I doubt if my legs will allow me to keep up with you.’

  ‘You shall have a horse, but don’t call me “dear”.’

  ‘No, darling.’

  ‘Alice!’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Just joking.’

  ‘Well, don’t!’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Fonthill suddenly realised that their conversation had been observed by a ring of grinning troopers, some of whom were clearly assessing Alice admiringly. He frowned.

  ‘Get about your duties,’ he shouted. ‘Do you h
ave no orders?’

  Sheepishly, they disbanded and Simon was relieved when Jenkins came back with a pony, already saddled and bridled. ‘’Ere we are, Miss Alice,’ he said. ‘’E’s a nice little beast. Your tent is bein’ pitched for you on the edge of A Squadron over there,’ he pointed. ‘But not too near ’em,’ he added hastily. ‘The colonel is not too far away – and neither am I, if you want anythin’, that is.’

  ‘352, I would kiss you, if I was allowed to. Thank you very much. Au revoir, Simon. Oh, would you care to have dinner with me in my tent tonight, dear?’

  ‘Alice!’

  ‘Sorry, just joking.’

  She picked up her valise and led the pony away, nodding and smiling at the troopers as she made her way to the lines of A Squadron. Simon and Jenkins exchanged glances.

  The Welshman bent his huge moustache into a great smile. ‘I’ve said it before,’ he said, ‘and I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ it again, bach sir, but she’s a magnificent woman, your missus. A wonderful lass.’

  Fonthill gave a rueful smile. ‘That may be so, but she can be a bit of a handful when she wants to be. Like now! Come on, fetch Forbes and Cartwright and let’s visit the resident military and see if there’s news of Botha.’

  There was, indeed. In the poky office of the artillery captain who was commander of the garrison at Glencoe they found a scene of great activity. A telegraph was chattering in one corner of the room and the captain was scribbling at a tiny desk, while subalterns and runners were toing and froing all about him.

  He looked up with a frown as they entered. He stood and extended his hand. ‘Welcome, Colonel, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Sorry I was not at the siding to meet you but news has come in that Botha has struck just along the way, so to speak.’

  ‘Really.’ Fonthill stepped forward. ‘Where? Do you have a map?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Sorry I can’t ask you to sit down. No seats.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Show me.’

  The captain unrolled a large map and jabbed a grimy finger to an unmarked spot just north of the town of Vryheid, some fifty miles almost due east of Glencoe. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s near the main crossing point of the Buffalo River on the border.’

  Fonthill grunted. ‘As you say, damned near to us. What happened?’

  ‘Well, I don’t have all the details but it seems that Major Hubert Gough had been newly arrived with his battalion of mounted infantry to help guard the frontier at the crossing at de Jager’s Drift. Botha caught him by surprise, in filthy weather, outflanked him and completely cut up his right-hand company. Gough had two field guns but the Boers captured them and Gough himself was captured, although he escaped during the night and made his way to the nearest British patrol.’

  ‘So. What was the result?’

  ‘It seems that Gough was completely beaten. One captain and nineteen men killed, five officers and nineteen men wounded, six other officers and two hundred and thirty-five men taken prisoner. But there’s more: Botha captured one hundred and eighty Lee Metford rifles, thirty thousand rounds of ammunition, two hundred horses and the two field guns.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Jenkins whistled.

  Fonthill frowned. ‘It would be the horses that would be most precious to him. Did he keep them?’

  ‘That seems to be the only good news. It seems he found the British horses useless because Gough had ridden them to death. And the field guns were too ponderous for him, so he sent them, the horses and the prisoners – stripped, of course – back to the British lines.’

  ‘Yes, but where is he now? Did he cross the Buffalo?’

  ‘No. It was in spate, so he couldn’t. Nobody knows where he is now. He could be coming towards us or he could be just probing along the Buffalo, looking for a crossing.’

  ‘Hmmm. Are you reasonably strong here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We have enough men, although we have called up reinforcements.’

  ‘Good. Let me look at that map again.’

  Fonthill took it, swivelled it around and called Forbes, Cartwright and Jenkins to look over his shoulder. He traced the course of the river to the east and looked up at the captain. ‘What are these two places?’

  ‘Ah. Fort Prospect and Fort Itala. They are two British camps astride the Buffalo, virtually in Zululand.’

  ‘Are they garrisoned?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I don’t know at what strength.’

  Simon looked up at his subordinates. ‘I have a feeling in my water that that’s where he will strike next. He will want to cross the border, of course, but he would love to do it with a flourish, not skulk across it in the middle of the night. And even if the river is too high here, he would love to follow up his success over Gough by knocking over these two camps, before he has to retreat back into the Transvaal. They seem to be comparatively remote, well away from the British forces here. They look vulnerable.’ He thumped the table. ‘I gamble that’s where he will strike next. Gentlemen, let us give our chaps one fairly dry night under canvas, after their wet rail trip, and then we move out first thing in the morning. Even if Botha is not planning to hit this way, perhaps we can entice him. Thank you, Captain. Look to your defences, just in case I am wrong.’

  ‘Very good, sir. Thank you – and good luck!’

  Fonthill strode away, leaving the others to scamper after him, for there was a renewed spring in his step now. After all the recent months of chasing de Wet and burning farms, here seemed an opportunity at last of bringing a Boer general to battle. Oh, he would be vastly outnumbered by the sound of it, but if he could fight from a defended position, then that would even out the odds and there would be British garrisons already in situ at these forts to swell his numbers. He looked up at the sky. Should he move out now? No. The men would fight better after a decent night’s sleep.

  He turned his head. ‘Come on, you three. Keep up. We might have a battle to fight.’

  Just before dawn the column saddled up and moved out, Fonthill leaving orders for his trackers to meet at Itala. That night Simon had invited Alice to eat with him, his officers and Jenkins in a large army hut near the railway line. He explained Alice’s presence among them by inferring that she had gained HQ’s permission to join a column out in the field. Then he had outlined the risk he was taking in striking out to the east, but no one demurred. In fact, they all nodded in agreement at his analysis, Alice, of course, saying nothing but busily making notes. They moved now in all-pervading greyness, the drizzle soaking them to the skin. But they rode on. Fonthill was determined to reach the forts before Botha struck.

  The distance to the nearest of the camps, Fort Itala, was some forty miles and the journey fringed the border into Zululand. It confirmed to Fonthill that he was right to think that Botha would select this route as his entry into Natal. Kitchener was relying to a large extent on the Zulus to defend their own border and Simon sensed that the tough, pragmatic Boer would choose these spear-wielding warriors – traditional enemies of the Afrikaners – rather than the British, with their modern weapons, as opponents if it came to a fight. He would bank on brushing aside the small army outposts at the two forts. The questions remained: could he get there before the Boer and was the Buffalo in spate?

  They were forced to camp the night in the open under groundsheets that provided little shelter from the unrelenting rain that now thundered down like vertical stair rods. Head bowed, Fonthill trudged through the sodden ground to find where Alice lay shivering, her head just visible under her waterproof. He handed her a small flask.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘whisky. It might warm you up. Sorry, darling. When we both said “for better or worse” I think this was what God had in mind for the worse bit.’

  She reached out a grateful hand. ‘I think you have deliberately engineered this to teach me a lesson. But thank you, Simon.’ She unscrewed the cap and took a swig. ‘Just what was needed. The good thing about this weather, I suppose, is that it should hold up Botha, do you think?’

  Sim
on nodded, sending raindrops showering from the tip of his nose. ‘Yes. But more importantly, it will deny him grazing fodder for his horses. He’s been riding for days from the north in this sort of weather. His mounts will be knackered and won’t be able to feed in this mud. It will all deny him the chance to roam freely into Natal, even if he crosses the Buffalo or the Tugela further south. At least, I hope so. Can’t stop, my love. Got to make my rounds. Sleep as well as you can and keep taking the medicine.’

  He knelt down clumsily and kissed her before moving on.

  The column was raised early and it pressed on through the day, Fonthill driving the pace so that they reached the first of the British encampments shortly after midday. The name of Fort Itala flattered it. Established only a month before, it was merely a collection of tents surrounded by shallow trenches, all huddled on a ridge at the foot of a small mountain. But Fonthill was relieved to find three hundred mounted infantry, under the command of a Dublin Fusilier, Major A.J. Chapman, well established and in good heart.

  Chapman was delighted to have reinforcements and the two men shook hands. ‘My Zulu scouts tell me that Botha is not far away,’ he said, ‘although it is not certain that he is intending to attack us. I have posted eighty men onto the top of the mountain which might just surprise him, if he tries to do so.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Fonthill frowned. ‘We might have to entice him. How far away is the other fort and what sort of state is it in?’

  ‘Prospect? Matter of fact, it’s a far better defensive position than this one. It is a proper redoubt with rock walls impervious to rifle fire and barbed wire surrounding it. Fewer men than here but it should be all right.’

  ‘Good. We can concentrate here, then. I will get my men to help you complete those trenches, but I would hate Botha to think that we would be a hard nut to crack so that he doesn’t come on. Don’t throw the earth high at the front. Flatten it out as though we haven’t dug at all. That might lure him in and, between us, we can give him a bloody nose. Start now. We might not have much time. Thank God the rain has stopped.’