by John Wilcox
The Horns of the Buffalo
JOHN WILCOX
headline
www.headline.co.uk
Copyright © 2004 John Wilcox
The right of John Wilcox to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010
All characters - other than the obvious historical figures - in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
eISBN : 978 0 7553 8166 1
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Author’s Note
John Wilcox was born in Birmingham and worked as a journalist for some years before being lured into industry. In the mid-nineties he sold his company in order to devote himself to his first love, writing. He has published two works of non-fiction, PLAYING ON THE GREEN and MASTERS OF BATTLE; THE HORNS OF THE BUFFALO is his first work of fiction.
For Betty
Acknowledgements
A first novel is very special and I owe a debt of gratitude to a small group of people who helped to bring it to publication.
My agent, Jane Conway-Gordon, believed in it, gave constant encouragement and helped me prepare it for presentation to Headline, where Marion Donaldson further fine-tuned it with gentle competence. The staff of London Library were patient, as ever, in assisting me to step back in time with, I hope, a fair degree of accuracy. In Cape Town, the large and happy family of publisher Alan Ramsay informed me on all things South African and, in particular, Alan’s daughter Elize Ramsay guided this ignorant townie through the flora and fauna of the country. Lastly, I must thank my wife Betty, for not only trudging round old battlefields without complaint but also for proofreading so many pages and for knowing when to say, ‘You’ve gone a bit too far here, I think . . .’
J. W.
Chilmark,
July 2003
Prologue
1865
He broke out of the woods at a gallop and pulled up on the edge of a large field. Quickly he studied the terrain ahead and then cantered cautiously across the meadow towards the house that lay at its corner. Reaching the cover of an ivy-covered wall that fringed a formal garden, he spurred again, head down, along its warm red length, until he gained the shelter of a coppice. It was there that he met the soldier.
The infantryman was young and clearly near to exhaustion. His Confederate grey hardly seemed a uniform, so tattered was it, and the rifle slung across his back had hooked upon branches that had torn away as he ran through the undergrowth. He scarcely had breath to speak.
‘Thank God I’ve found you, Colonel. Message from General Lee, sir.’
‘What?’
‘The General says, sir, that the Yankees have captured the village ahead and that Grant is pourin’ in men to hold the ford. Sir, you are to take your regiment and mount a ’mediate attack across the river an’ move ’em all out.’
‘Do they have cannon?’
‘Yessir. Two batteries up on the top o’ the hill by the post office.’
The rider’s eyes narrowed as he weighed up his chances. If he made a frontal attack across the ford it would mean death for most of his command. From the hill the Northern guns could rake the crossing and the Yankees by now were probably entrenched in the gardens that flanked the main village road. Consequently they could add rifle fire to the cannonade from the hill. It would be a blood bath. But there was no other way across the river.
‘Can General Lee give me any more men?’
‘No, sir. General says you’ll have to do it without reinforcements. He can’t spare no men. But he says, sir, that he knows you can do it.’
‘Does he now.’ His thoughts ran ahead to consider the possibilities. Perhaps if he made a token attack at the ford, sufficient to keep the enemy occupied and draw his fire, he could take his main body of men across round Cooper’s Hill, down through Long Eaton and . . .
‘Simon. Simon. Where are you?’
The woman’s voice came from the big house. Reluctantly he walked out of the coppice so that he could be seen.
‘Yes, Mama. I’m here.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Only playing, Mama.’
The boy bent down and pulled up his sock so that it met his knickerbockers and ran fingers through his hair. It was important not to be untidy.
‘Please come here immediately.’
Simon Fonthill, ten years old, brevet colonel in General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, obediently trotted across the lawn to where his mother stood at the French windows. She was tall and her dress of purple brocade brushed the ground. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun and her eyes, which now gazed upon her son without any obvious sign of warmth, were of light blue. The mouth was wide and the overall impression was one of directness, self-possession and honesty. Unlike the rebel soldier in the coppice, it was clear that she was not to be commanded.
‘I will not have you running around the grounds like a barbarian. What about your holiday composition?’
‘I have finished it, Mama. And Papa said that I could go and play as it was a sunny day.’
Mrs Fonthill frowned slightly at the mention of her husband. The frown deepened as she saw the slight tear in the knickerbockers where the hawthorn had done its best to slow the fast gallop through the wood.
‘You have torn your trousers. Go immediately to your room, take them off and give them to Sarah to be mended. You will not be having tea today. But . . .’ she called him back as he began to trudge indoors, ‘your father wishes you to have dinner with us tonight. We have guests from the regiment coming. Ask Sarah to fill a bath for you and make sure that you wash yourself thoroughly.’
‘Yes, Mama.’
The staircase was wide and balustraded sensuously in great curves. From one of these he had once single-handedly fought back a horde of Indian sepoy mutineers who had attempted to take the first floor in an attack from the kitchen. He climbed the stairs now, not as disconsolately as the loss of tea would normally have made him. To have dinner with his parents was rare, particularly if Papa was having fellow officers from the regiment. Then, immediately, he felt that familiar surge in his stomach, that moment of breathlessness as though his heart had dropped a couple of inches and the rest of his body was trying to adjust; a second or two of sheer panic. Fear took him as he faced the prospect. He was being put on show. His father was parading him before his colleagues. Why? Was it because he wanted them to
inspect him and report back? Did Papa think that he would not be good enough to go into the regiment?
At the top of the stairs he paused. It was here that he had wrestled with the last mutineer and killed him by plunging a penknife into his armpit. Simon attempted to rationalise the prospect ahead - to weigh the pros and cons. It was a system he had worked out when first his heart had dropped those inches, some years ago. Was it so bad? Perhaps his father just felt that he was now old enough to begin to have dinner properly with them in the evening. Or - happy, warming thought - was Papa becoming rather proud of him and wanted to show him off?
He walked to his room more lightly. But the doubts returned as he sat on the edge of his hard bed. Mama suspected. She had tried, so obviously, to inject courage the first time she had taught him to jump his pony in the paddock: ‘Dig in your heels and lift him, boy. Attack the jump. Go for it. No, no. The horse knows you’re frightened, so he’ll be frightened too. Simon, don’t be frightened.’
His eyes filled with tears at the memory and he bent his head to hide them from Sarah as she bustled in.
‘Come on, Master Simon,’ she urged. ‘Don’t sit around mopin’ like. Take them knickerbockers off and give ’un to me. They got to be mended. Get a move on. We’ve got to ’ave our bath yet. I’ve run it for you.’
Sarah was from Wiltshire and didn’t much approve of living in Brecon, on the Welsh Borders, which she regarded as being on the edge of Celtic barbarity. But she liked her work. There was not too much to do with only Major and Mrs Fonthill in the house and their only child Simon when on holiday from school. And she was fond of Simon. She liked his shyness and his air of uncertainty. They allowed her to hustle and pretend to bully and be in command. Which, as a rather plump housemaid of twenty-two, she was rarely able to do with other folk.
She looked sympathetically at Simon. ‘ ’Ere, you ain’t bin cryin’, ’ave you?’
Simon straightened up. ‘Of course not. Here, have the trousers. I must have my bath.’
He threw them on the bed and then discarded his shirt, under-vest, long drawers and woollen socks. He wound a huge towel round his thin body and walked along the landing to the new bathroom, whose plumbing was a source of much respect for Mrs Fonthill in the county. At the door, he whipped out a dagger from a fold in his burnous and plunged it into the breast of an Arab who lunged at him with a scimitar, before entering the steam-filled room.
It was hot, the water. Scalding hot, in fact. The bathroom was one of the first to be installed in the Borders and the temperature controls were erratic, to say the least. But it was a great luxury to have hot water piped right to the bath, without the fuss and inconvenience of bringing great saucepans of water from the copper in the scullery. Simon peered through the steam. More cold was needed, and he groped for the big handle with the C embossed on the hub. How much to pour? How to judge? Touch it, of course. He did so with his right forefinger. Excruciating.
The Pathan chief smiled at him from the corner of the room. ‘If you don’t tell us where your cavalry is camped,’ he purred, ‘then we will boil you very slowly. Your skin will peel.’ He gestured to two of his tribesmen, who appeared through the steam. ‘Never,’ said Simon. ‘Throw him in,’ said the Pathan.
A test. A test of courage. To see if he had . . . what was it the games master called it? Yes, grit. That was it. He would put his hand into the bath water before he added the cold. And he would hold it there to prove to himself that he was brave, that he was good enough to be a soldier, like his father and grandfather. Then he could face the officers downstairs at dinner. Face them knowing he was all right.
Simon knelt by the side of the great curved bath and put his hand into the steam. The water looked black and the steam made his face perspire. At least, he thought it was the steam. He held his hand just above the surface and tentatively dipped a fingertip into the water, and held it there for a second. Aaargh! The pain was immediate and he snatched his hand away. The Pathan chief was grinning. ‘No,’ the boy cried. ‘No. I can do it.’ Again he put the hand into the steam and lowered it to the water. And there it stayed, an inch above the surface, shaking as he willed himself to immerse it.
Slowly he sank back, his hand wet from the steam but not from the water. He had failed the test. Thankfully the Pathan had disappeared. There was only the boy to contemplate his failure.
He was a coward, without question. He would never make a soldier. He groped for the cold tap as the tears mingled with sweat on his cheeks.
Later, after the bath had worked its gentle, reviving magic, the old rationality came to his help. The bath test had really been torture, hadn’t it? And good, brave soldiers often succumbed under torture. This was well known. You could be brave and give in when tortured. He had overheard his father relate how sepoys had done terrible things to captured English officers during the Mutiny. His spirits lifted further as he thought of his father. In India, Papa had won the Queen’s new medal for the bravest of the brave, the Victoria Cross. But he now refused to hunt, which meant that Mama rode out alone. Papa certainly could not be a coward, so it wasn’t the jumps that frightened him, although he didn’t like certain things. For instance, he hated thunder. Simon felt much better.
A murmur of voices from below indicated that the guests had arrived, and he tiptoed to the edge of the stairs to see. Beneath, the wide hall shone in the early evening spring sunlight. Indian rugs were scattered across the tiled floor, and the subcontinent’s influence was further marked by the tiger head mounted on the wall. Under it, tall shoots of pampas grass emerged erect as sentinels from matching terracotta urns. Opposite, two aspidistras squatted stoutly in porcelain vases, resting on twin tables whose mahogany had been polished until it gleamed.
Mrs Fonthill was at the door welcoming her guests. She looked handsome rather than pretty in her dinner gown, the black velvet showing off well her white skin and the pearls at her throat. Anyone who did not know her better would say that she was gently flirting with the two captains of the second regiment of the 24th Foot who smiled stiffly before her.
‘How very good of you to come,’ she said. ‘And how kind of the Colonel to spare you both from the depot. Who on earth will be left there to protect us from the Russians?’
The taller of the two took her hand and brushed it with his long moustaches. ‘Covington, B Company, ma’am. Have no fear. I think the Rooskies are too busy planning to take India from us to attack us at home right now.’
The sally brought polite laughter from them all and Simon, looking down, marvelled at how handsome the officers looked in their white and scarlet mess jackets and extravagantly tight blue trousers looped under their insteps. Mrs Fonthill gave her hand to the other captain and then walked them along the hallway.
‘It’s a pleasant evening, so do come through to the conservatory,’ she said. ‘Sarah will bring you sherry or whisky and George will be with you in a moment. He’s just gone to the wine cellar. Forgive me if I also leave you for just one minute. I need a word with Cook.’
They bowed as she turned away at the conservatory door. ‘Oh.’ She came back. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but our son will be joining us for dinner. I know it is slightly unusual - he’s only ten - but George, er, wants to bring him along a little. He won’t stay for coffee, of course.’
The officers bowed again and disappeared into the conservatory, followed by Sarah, blushing and anxious to please.
Simon crept quietly down the stairs, through the side door and out into the garden. He approached the conservatory treading softly, using all the training acquired during his years as a British spy on the North West Frontier, and was relieved to find a tall window open. The two Russian emissaries were speaking in low, guarded voices, but he could hear every word.
‘Fine woman, that,’ said the captain with the long moustaches.
His companion wore a monocle and ginger sideburns, which he had brushed forward in the approved style of the day. ‘I should say.’ He leaned forward c
onspiratorially. ‘To be frank, can’t quite see what she sees in a major on half-pay.’
‘Yes, particularly one who’s got a bit of a yeller streak.’
‘Oh I say, that’s goin’ a bit far, ain’t it? The feller did get a VC in the Mutiny.’
Covington tasted his sherry through the sieve of his moustaches. ‘But weren’t the circumstances a bit peculiar? I mean, he was knocked off his horse and, as far as I hear, flailed about him with his sabre like a madman in a blue funk. It was just a coincidence that his colonel was lyin’ nearby and a section came back to get ’em both. Everyone thought at first he had gone back for the CO, but he confessed later that he’d been knocked down. They gave him the medal almost straight away. But there were second thoughts afterwards. Couldn’t exactly take it off him, though, could they? Strange business.’
‘Ah. Is this why he’s known as Wobbly Fonthill?’
‘Quite. And because he’s given up ’untin’. They say he can’t take the fences any more. But a damned nice chap for all that. Just not cut out to be a soldier, perhaps. Not really, well, gutsy enough - and the men sense it. That’s why he’s on half-pay, I suppose. They live on her money, I think. She’s said to be quite ri—’
They were interrupted as Major Fonthill entered the room, apologetic and slightly flustered that his guests had arrived during his absence. Beneath the window outside, Simon lay down and silently buried his face in the long grass to hide the hot tears.
Chapter 1
1876
Simon Fonthill slowly drifted out of sleep and opened one eye and then the other. The whiteness was strong and dazzled him at first, so he closed his eyes again for a moment. Then, cautiously, he lifted his head from the pillow and looked around. He was alone in the room. He widened his gaze to take in the details. White, very white walls, unrelieved by pictures or any other form of decoration. One window with, in the distance, a glimpse of a green hill. Under the window a wooden table, with bowl and jug, white again, placed precisely on the table top. Another bed, empty, but the blankets severely squared above the three piled ‘biscuit’ mattresses. Beyond that a green painted wardrobe. Nothing else. He listened carefully. Not a sound.
