by John Wilcox
‘Very good, sir.’
Later, as Fonthill’s men were erecting their low bivouac tents, Mzingeli and three of his scouts rode in. They confirmed that the Boers were some ten miles away.
‘They riding to the south-west, Nkosi,’ reported Mzingeli. ‘Don’t know if they come this far. But it is a big commando. About thousand men. Some wagons but no big guns.’
Simon nodded. ‘Good.’ He smiled and put a hand on the tall man’s shoulder. ‘I hate to ask you this, Mzingeli,’ he said, ‘but I would like you and your men to go out again. Fan out and spread the word among whatever farms you can find that this fort is badly defended – just a few shallow trenches, that’s all. Grab some hot food here before you go and come back when you have put out the rumour.’
‘Ah. Understand. You want him to come to you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I spread the word.’
Fonthill then sent out two riders. The first to Fort Prospect to the east, informing the commanding officer there of the danger of an impending attack, and the other to the west, back to Glencoe, reporting the presence of Botha nearby and asking for reinforcements. Then he set his troopers to join Chapman’s men in deepening the trenches and directed that a special, half-scooped-out, low rock-walled command post be dug out and erected behind the line, from which he could command the defence. Here, he could establish a small reserve and also ensure that Alice was safe. He looked high up to where Chapman’s eighty men were on the mountain top. Should he bring them in to add to the main defences? He decided against it. If Botha tried to establish men up there or on the slopes to fire down on the camp, they would provide a deterrent. Then he waited.
The night passed peacefully, as did the next day, so enabling the trenches to be completed. The remainder of the black trackers came in and Mzingeli himself returned with his three men. They had all met Kaffirs to whom they had given the message that the white men at the forts were not expecting attack and were not ready for it. Fonthill and his men settled down to wait.
The attack came during the early hours of darkness, surprisingly, for the Boers usually liked to launch an assault just before dawn. A little before midnight the mountain peak became lit up by gun flashes and the crackle of musketry echoed down to the ridge below. The defenders ran to their positions in the trenches and Fonthill and Chapman stood in their redoubt, abortively focusing their field glasses in the darkness on the top of the peak.
‘Damn,’ murmured Chapman. ‘I hope they’ve not been overrun. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left them up there on their own.’
‘No,’ said Fonthill. ‘They’ve done their job. We just might have been caught with our pyjama bottoms down here, being attacked at this time of night. Let’s hope they can hold out.’
But they could not. After about two hours of what was obviously fierce fighting, the firing on the mountain flickered and then died away completely. ‘They’ll come at us now,’ said Simon, half to himself and half to Alice, who now stood at his side, Chapman having joined his men in the line. He squinted forward in the darkness. ‘Damn. What we need is bright moonlight.’
As if on cue, the darkly purple clouds parted and a bright moon peeped through. It was just in time to illuminate a mass of Boers spilling out from the base of the mountain and running fast towards the line of trenches.
‘Blimey,’ muttered Jenkins. ‘There’s ’undreds of ’em.’
‘Hold your fire,’ shouted Fonthill, turning his head and repeating the order so that his voice echoed along the line. ‘Wait until they pass the markers and wait for the command.’ Parties of men had spent the day putting down white-painted markers around the camp, at three hundred and two hundred yards, so that their rifle sights could be adjusted accordingly. Now, as the dark figures swarmed past the furthest posts, an officer in the trench nearest the redoubt shouted ‘At three hundred yards, FIRE!’ The command echoed along the line and the trenches exploded in flame and smoke.
Simon heard Alice draw in her breath sharply as the leading line of attackers crumpled and fell. But the others – and there were plenty of them – came on running, jumping over the bodies of their fallen comrades, some kneeling to take aim and fire, but most of them propelling themselves forward as fast as they could run, their rifles swinging to and fro with the rhythm of their movement.
‘Rapid fire!’ screamed the order from the trenches. ‘Fire at will!’
Again the volleys rang out, this time supplemented by more ragged fire as the defenders pumped their bolt mechanisms to thrust cartridges into the chambers of their rapidly heating rifles. All along the line, white smoke hung like a wraith above the defenders.
Fonthill ran his tongue along his dry lips and tasted again the sharp, sour, tang of cordite. He wasn’t sure if he felt fear or just excitement. ‘Now they’ll fall back and start sniping,’ he said.
But they did not. The Boers continued to run on into the fire, passing the two-hundred-yard posts so that their ragged clothing could now clearly be seen, some of them wearing British khaki tunics but with buttons now sadly tarnished. As the range shortened, more of them fell, throwing their rifles forward with the impetus of their charge as they collapsed.
‘Good God!’ murmured Simon. ‘I’ve never seen Boers charge like this.’
‘Aye, bach,’ Jenkins echoed in awe. ‘They’re comin’ on like stupid bloody Englishmen.’
‘What brave men,’ whispered Alice. ‘What magnificent, silly, brave men. Don’t they know they’ll never win this stupid war?’
Simon shook his head. ‘I’m beginning to believe they just might. I’ve never seen ’em fight like this. If they keep coming on like this, they could run through us. There are so many of ’em.’ He turned to the men grouped around him in the redoubt. ‘Fix bayonets,’ he shouted. Then he turned back to Jenkins. ‘Number the reserve, quickly,’ he ordered. ‘When I give the order, take the first fifty to the right, spread out thinly and support the line. I’ll take the others to the left. Number now.’ He looked down at his wife. ‘If we have to go, Alice, you stay in here and stay low.’
She nodded, dumbly, her eyes wide, but Simon noted that she had filled three pages of scribbled notes.
In fact, there was no immediate need for the reserve, for it was impossible for the attackers to continue their rush forward in the face of such fierce firing and the Boers first paused, then crumbled, turned and retreated, spreading out quickly across the rough ground and seeking cover from where they could begin to return fire.
Jenkins, perspiration trickling down his face, nodded. ‘I reckon, you gettin’ the word out, bach sir, that we was poorly defended, ’as done the trick, see. They didn’t make out the trenches in the poor light and they thought as ’ow they could just run straight through us. Now, I bet they just bugger off back to their ’orses, as usual.’
Fonthill was standing, his field glasses to his eyes, and he didn’t respond for a moment. Then he said: ‘Somehow I don’t think so. They have massed a second line back there at the base of the mountain. They will come on again when they’ve regrouped. I’m just going down to the line to check on our casualties. I won’t be a minute. I’ll be back before they charge again.’
‘No, Simon.’ Alice called. But he vaulted the low stone wall and was gone.
‘’E’ll be all right, missus,’ reassured Jenkins. ‘’E knows what ’e’s doin’, look you. ’E’s a proper soldier now, see.’ And his great grin lit up the redoubt.
Alice nodded back to him, her eyes sparkling with tears. Then she bent her head again and resumed scribbling.
Simon’s head could be seen as he made his way along the trench, talking and clapping hands on shoulders. For a while he disappeared round the bend of the line and then he was back, half crouching now and skipping over the kneeling men, before he climbed up the reverse side of the trench and ran back to the redoubt with bullets plucking at the earth beneath his feet. He vaulted over the low wall.
‘Just in time, bach sir,’ said Je
nkins. ‘’Ere they come again.’
The charge this time was presaged by a stuttering volley from the Boers sheltering behind rocks and declivities in the surface of the ground. But this was Boer gunfire, unerringly accurate, and men began toppling backwards from the wall of the trench, blood trickling from black holes in their foreheads, their helmets clattering away as they fell onto their backs. Then the rush began.
Simon turned to the men of the reserve. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Supplement the fire. Fire over the heads of the men in the trenches. Set your sights at three hundred yards and then open up with rapid fire.’
Soon the redoubt, too, was overhung with clouds of white smoke as the reserve lent their support to the men in the trenches. And still the Boers came on, their white eyes bulging in their dirty, bearded faces, firing as they ran and as they neared the lines. This time they reached within one hundred yards of the trench before fading away, seemingly reluctantly, to retrace their steps, leaving dishevelled bodies all around them on the bloodstained ground.
Fonthill waved away the smoke and looked up at the indigo sky, now studded with stars. ‘I hope to God the moon stays out,’ he murmured. ‘If they keep coming on and we can’t see ’em until the last minute then we could be in trouble.’
‘I think they’re pullin’ back, anyway.’ Jenkins pointed. ‘They’re goin’ back to the base of the ’ill.’
Simon focused his field glasses. ‘So they are. Maybe they have had enough.’
But it was not so. After a few minutes it could be seen that the Boers were now crawling forward and reverting to their conventional tactics of making the most of whatever cover they could find and firing steadily and accurately. They were, of course, excellent bushmen and they seemed to disappear into the terrain, only the occasional rifle flash revealing their presence.
‘Keep your heads down,’ yelled Fonthill to the defenders ahead of him. ‘Save your ammunition until they charge again.’
As the night wore on the situation lapsed into stalemate, with desultory rifle fire being exchanged between the two sides. It was dangerous now to leave the redoubt, but Fonthill slipped away again to go down to the line to check on the number of casualties and the state of the ammunition. He found that Major Chapman, now embedded in the line with some of his men from the Dorset Regiment, had been wounded in the leg, although not badly. The officer, however, refused to leave the trench for the comparative safety of the redoubt.
The two men briefly discussed the situation. ‘I’ve never know Boers hang on like this,’ confessed Fonthill. ‘Have you?’
Chapman shook his head, grimacing with pain from his shoulder. ‘It’s most strange. But we know that Botha is a most determined chap and I guess this is his last chance of breaking through into Natal. Kitchener is pumping in men all the time to protect the frontier. What’s the state of the ammunition, Colonel? We must be low now.’
‘Not too bad but it all depends how long he keeps pounding us. We have an average of about thirty rounds per man. If—’ He broke off as the first rays of the rising sun lit up the scene. ‘Damn! Here they come again. I’d better get back. We may need our reserve this time.’
From the base of the mountain, men could now be seen running forward again and, from surprisingly near the trenches, Boers suddenly sprang from their sniping positions and joined in the rush forward. Once again, it was an act of great bravery, for the defenders now had their weapons perfectly adjusted to the range and their volleys swept along the leading ranks of the attackers, cutting them down like a giant scythe reaping a cornfield.
This time the tide surged up almost to the lip of the trench walls and Simon and Jenkins led out their reserve troops to kneel behind the trenches, bayonets presented, to add their close-range fire to that of the troopers before them. Even greater carnage would have ensued but for the fact that the British rifles were now overheating and causing cartridges to explode in the breeches and to jam the guns. As it was, the Boers fell back again and resumed their sniping.
So it continued throughout the long, hot day, for the rain clouds had now completely receded. The courage of both attackers and defenders was undaunted, with the Boers creeping closer and closer between attacks and then rising to their feet with a shout and sprinting once again into the mouths of the British guns. It was clear that they were resolved to wipe away this opposition to their path to the south.
By late afternoon, Fonthill scrambled down again to the line and, in the confines of the trench, conferred with Chapman and the senior officers. Ammunition, they reported, was now down to about ten rounds per man.
Simon wiped his brow. ‘Be sparing now, then,’ he ordered. ‘No reply to sniping. Just keep rounds back to be used only to fight off frontal attacks.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘Are your Zulus armed?’ he demanded of Chapman.
‘Yes. They’ve been firing from the line. But they are awful shots.’
‘That’s not the point. If we have to surrender when the last rounds are fired, then the Boers will almost certainly kill them if they are found in possession of rifles. I think you should let them leave now, if they wish. They should be able to filter out round the back between attacks. I’ll make the same offer to my blacks.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Fonthill scrambled back to the redoubt and sought out Mzingeli and put the proposal to him. The tracker shook his head. ‘I stay, Nkosi,’ he said. ‘Too old to run now. And I never run from Boers before. But I ask my boys.’
He came back shortly with the same answer. ‘They stay,’ he said. ‘They don’t think Boers win here. They want to keep jobs, anyway.’
‘Well,’ reflected Jenkins. ‘I only ’ope they’re right. It’s true we can’t ’ang on much longer.’
Within minutes, Chapman sent back a similar message. Alice, still crouching and writing, made a careful note.
‘Wait a moment.’ Simon raised his binoculars to his eyes, risking to stand up fully erect in the redoubt to get a better view of the base of the mountain. ‘Yes, dammit! I think they’re going. Look.’ He handed the glasses to Mzingeli. ‘My eyes are tired. What do you think?’
Gravely, the black man nodded. ‘Yes, they go now. They are collecting wounded and mounting horses. Yes. They go.’ He handed back the glasses. As he did so, a muffled cheer came from the trenches below them to confirm the fact, and Alice, her blouse stained with perspiration, put her arms around Simon’s neck.
‘Thank God, it’s over,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think I could have stood much more of this carnage.’
Simon kissed her quickly and looked again through the field glasses. ‘Botha must have taken a hell of a beating he couldn’t afford,’ he murmured. ‘He had plenty of men when he arrived here but he must have expended so many lives and so much ammunition with these attacks that I can’t see him still trying to get through to the south. He’ll be on his way back to the Transvaal now, I reckon, if not with his tail between his legs, then at least with it tucked into his pocket.’
He lowered the glasses and turned back to Mzingeli. ‘Get your trackers out to follow them to make sure that this is not a feint, but don’t stray too near. They will be mean and looking for revenge.’ He eased himself over the low stone wall. ‘I must check our casualties and see to the wounded.’
It ensued that the defenders had lost about a quarter of their men but the Boers had inevitably suffered many more casualties. In fact, it was a double defeat for them, because later that day a rider came in from Fort Prospect ten miles away to report that it, too, had resisted a Boer attack and had lost only nine casualties to the Boers’ forty. A party sent to the top of the mountain confirmed that the eighty men posted there had put up a stout defence but had been outnumbered by the Boers and been forced to surrender after two hours. They remained in post but bereft of most of their clothing, taken, as usual, by the enemy.
Fonthill pondered whether to form a pursuit party to harry the Boers’ retreat, but the defenders were exhausted after their long night
and day of fighting and he decided against it. Botha must be left to fight again another day.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As indeed he did. Fonthill’s trackers reported that the Boer leader had turned back into the Transvaal with the remains of his commando, passing near the charred remains of his own farm, clearly having given up his attempts to invade Natal. But it was equally clear that he was far from finished as a fighting unit. As Fonthill was himself retracing his footsteps back into the Transvaal, news came through that a reinforced Botha had struck again, much further north. Near Bethal, he had surprised a British column led by Colonel Benson and wiped it out, with the loss of one hundred and sixty-one dead and the colonel himself.
Hearing of the defeat as he rode back with his own column, now depleted again – although Chapmen’s men had borne the brunt of the casualties at the Fort – Fonthill shook his head with disbelief.
‘It’s like fighting the Hydra,’ he told Alice. ‘You cut off one head and another one grows. Will they never give up?’
It seemed not. As the spring wore on the better weather appeared, providing lusher grazing for cattle and horses and, it seemed, giving new heart to the scattered commandos. In the wild country of bush, hills and sunken rivers west and south-west of Magaliesberg in the Western Transvaal, de la Rey pushed the shrewd British General Kekewich to a hard-fought draw and then, a few days later, at Kleinfontein, he decimated the rearguard of General Methuen, capturing supplies and wagons. Just outside Bloemfontein, in the Free State, two hundred British troopers clearing a farm were surprised and completely overwhelmed. In the far south, deep into the Crown Colony, small, independent Boer forces led by Smuts and Kritzinger were reported to be ranging far and wide, not raising active rebel support, to be sure, but winning skirmishes, looting, causing arson, pulling down fences and even flogging and murdering natives.
