Soldier of the Queen

by Max Hennessy

  Burger appeared alongside Colby, almost spitting with rage. ‘Three horses have gone over the side,’ he snarled. ‘Who chose this verdomde route?’

  As they reached the summit, sporadic firing broke out and several men were hit and one of them killed. The plateau proved to be more of a pasturage than they’d been led to expect, with thick bushes that blocked the view across the plain, and, sending Ackroyd ahead with three Transvaalers to reconnoitre, Colby was startled as they came hurrying back to announce that the plateau was full of Zulus.

  ‘It can’t be!’ Cosgro bleated.

  ‘It is,’ Ackroyd said with grim satisfaction. ‘What’s more, as far as I can see, the buggers are already slipping down the slope and getting round be’ind us.’

  ‘They can’t harm us much if we keep together,’ Colby said. ‘Let’s have the Cape Horse dismounted along the ridge and the Irregulars forward to watch the Zulus. They’ll probably bolt when they realise Morrow’s waiting for them.’

  For more than an hour they waited for signs of Morrow’s arrival below and, when nothing happened, Colby decided to move towards the western edge of the plateau to cover the route down. He had gone only a few yards in the darkness when a burst of firing behind him made him whip round in the saddle, and a message came forward that Zulus were in contact with the tail of the column.

  The light was increasing as he started back, but almost at once he heard yelling and was surrounded by running men. ‘They’re all round us,’ someone shouted in his face through the darkness. ‘Hundreds of ’em!’

  The firing behind them had increased and there seemed to be more coming from the plain; Morrow had either found the Zulus or the Zulus had found Morrow.

  Moving among the panicking men, Colby lashed out with fists and boots and riding crop until they stopped yelling and settled back to firing on the sniping Zulus who were now edging up the path they’d used. Then, as the light increased further, beyond the puffs of smoke that marked where they were, he saw the plain come into view. About three miles away several columns of Zulus were heading towards them and, snatching up his glasses, he could see yelling black faces, assegais beating against shields, and feathers blowing in the speed of their advance. The situation had changed in a second. There were enough warriors in the plain to overwhelm them and anybody caught on Tshethoslane was going to be trapped.

  The columns were already opening out into the Zulu battle formation of a head with horns, the tips spreading out to flank the kopje. The massed warriors, their black skins glistening, their red and white shields flickering in the increasing light, had moved to north and south of the hill and there would clearly be no escape for anyone unless they moved fast. Then, down on the plain, he saw Morrow’s troops in confusion among the scrub. He had foolishly broken up his column and his men were scattered in groups about the bush, the most distant of them already pounding westwards in terror before the advancing Zulus.

  ‘God damn Morrow,’ he snarled. ‘He’s humbugged me again!’

  The plateau terminated at the western end in a steep narrow path, muddy and dangerous after the rain. It descended in a series of switchback drops to the plain and was flanked by enormous rocks that lay in a ragged fringe choked by shrubs and vines. Everywhere else, the sides of the hill fell away in sheer precipices.

  ‘Is this what you call a route down?’ Colby snapped at Cosgro. ‘We’re riding horses, not mountain goats!’ He called Burger, his second-in-command, to him. There was nothing they could expect from Morrow. Having got them into a terrifying situation, he was in no position to help.

  ‘Let’s have the Kaffirs away,’ he said. ‘They have no horses and can make their own way down.’ Swinging round to Ackroyd, he jerked a hand to the west. ‘You go with ’em, Tyas!’

  ‘I’m stayin’ with you,’ Ackroyd insisted.

  ‘I’m damned if you are! There are women and children in Pietermaritzburg who’ll need you if anything happens to me.’

  Ackroyd gazed at him for a second then he turned to the edge of the plateau. Without hesitating, he led his horse over and began the terrifying descent of the muddy path.

  As the Kaffirs moved off the western rim, the Cape Horse began to pull back, still in good order. Mounting their horses, they began to ride across the top of the kopje towards the path. But, though they held their formation, the ill-trained units from Morrow’s column were already drifting after them, firing as they went at the Zulus who were sniping from behind the rocks. Reaching for his horse as the last of his men hurried past, Colby found himself surrounded by black figures. As they appeared in front of him, he fired at them and saw one of them fall, but not before a razor-sharp assegai had opened his arm. As he cantered towards the western lip of the plateau, more Zulus came pouring over the edge in a disorganised bunch, and digging in his spurs, he gave the horse its head and headed for a gap in their line.

  The shooting had broken the Kaffir contingent into a disorganised mob and they were sliding down the slippery path to the plain and scattering in all directions. The left horn of the Zulu impi was already almost round the hill and warriors were appearing from the folds and crevices of the ground to attack, while those who had circled the upper plateau were filtering down the baboon trails and working their way along the slopes to join in the butchery.

  With the entire command packed into the end of the plateau, intermingled with bellowing Zulu cattle, it was becoming impossible to move. The frightened Kaffirs prevented an orderly retreat, but braver men were setting their horses at the path and going down in ones and twos. As he reached the edge, Colby saw a horse slip and roll over the edge, carrying three others and their riders with it.

  A descent with horses seemed impossible, yet without a horse they were going to certain death on the plain, and more men urged their mounts at the slope, driven on by constant showers of bullets. Turning to form a rearguard, Colby was knocked flying by a group of bellowing terrified cattle and rolled over the edge of the plateau to a small ridge below. Bruised and dazed, he scrambled to his feet to see Cosgro pushing his way through the press of men. He was using his fists to fight his way clear and Colby turned from the line he was forming to hold back the Zulus, to knock him flying with a tremendous clout at the side of the head.

  ‘Stand still and face up the slope!’ he roared.

  ‘It’s too late!’ Cosgro yelled.

  ‘Where’s your bloody horse?’

  Cosgro’s face was strained as he pointed.

  ‘You’d better get it!’ Colby snapped. ‘Unless you can run faster than the Zulus. Nobody’s going to get away without one.’

  Cosgro turned away, but, after two or three steps, Colby saw him swing aside and vanish into the press of men again. Then, noticing a small party of the rearguard trapped against a pile of rocks, he gathered a few men about him and led a rush up the slope to enable them to break free. Another stand held the Zulus for a few more vital minutes, then they swept forward again, stabbing and slashing at the horses, and the fight began to disintegrate into a rout as men and animals slithered down the path, dislodging dirt and boulders as they went. Then, as the carcass of a horse rolled down, sweeping aside everything in its path, the Zulus swept after it and the rearguard melted away.

  The impi on the plain had swept round the kopje now and as the last of his men broke free, Colby looked around to see if there were any more. He had managed to get away most of his command, though isolated men were still picking their way down and he stormed backwards and forwards across the slope, a revolver in one hand, a sabre in the other, to allow them to reach the grassland. Most of the Boers were already moving away but there were still a few struggling to find mounts. More horses than men had been lost and a few of the riders had swept up dismounted soldiers behind them.

  His own horse lost as he had been knocked down the slope, Colby grabbed a big grey as it came past, but it had been wounded in the side and he was just wondering how long it would stay on its feet when rocks, dislodged by the Zulus, c
ame rolling down and he was swept aside by a rush of men running to escape them and rolled the rest of the way down to the plain. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw the grey above him on its back and thrashing about in a crevice.

  As a riderless horse came past, he swung to the saddle. Running men were being stabbed and he heard their yells of fear as they tried to hide in the grass. Among them was Cosgro, and Burger stopped to pick him up. Cosgro was limping and the Afrikaner dismounted to help him, but before he could swing up behind, Cosgro kicked at the horse’s flanks and it leapt away, sending Burger sprawling.

  Spurring his horse, Colby raced across the front of the Zulu line under a shower of assegais. The Afrikaner had scrambled to his feet and was facing them, working the bolt of his rifle, his face bleak.

  ‘Get up! Get aboard!’ Colby yelled.

  ‘By Christ, man!’ Burger yelled as he swung up behind Colby. ‘If I ever meet that verdomde skellum–!’

  As they galloped away, another riderless horse crossed their path. Turning over the one he was riding to the Boer and pushing up a running man behind him, Colby began to round up more men and horses and send them westwards, riding double towards Umbogitwini. Then, livid with rage, he turned to look for Morrow. But he could see nothing and the crackle of musketry in the distance began to grow weaker and finally died altogether.

  Most of his men were safely away when he set off after them, riding slowly because his horse was limping badly and the saddle was slipping. Dismounting, he carefully straightened it and tightened the girth. The animal was clearly in pain, its stride hesitant, but it was enough to dodge the groups of warriors dotting the plain and, collecting a few Kaffir Irregulars and men on limping horses, he organised them into a unit able to defend itself. As he saw the base camp appear in front, a horseman caught up with him from behind with the news that Morrow was dead.

  As they stumbled in, it occurred to Colby that he had ridden forty miles or more every day for the last week and hadn’t slept or laid down for forty-eight hours. Reaching the first of the wagons, the stumbling horse he rode crashed to the ground, blowing bloody froth from its nostrils. Someone shot it for him and he staggered the rest of the way stiff-legged to collect more men and horses before setting out again to find what was left of Morrow’s command.

  As he returned a second time, Ackroyd was waiting for him. He wore a bandage round his head but he managed a shaky grin.

  ‘Where’s Cosgro?’ Colby snarled.

  ‘Gone off to Chelmsford to let ’im know what ’appened?’ Ackroyd said.

  ‘Who sent him?’

  Ackroyd pulled a face. ‘I think ’e sent ’isself, sir.’

  The disaster was complete. Morrow and most of his command had been lost. From Colby’s half-column alone seven officers and fifty-one men had been killed and several others wounded. The Kaffirs had been wiped out, the rocket tube and its carriage lost, the Natal Irregulars decimated and the North Cape Horse crippled.

  The night was cold and quiet. Most of them were hungry and cold and many had lost all their belongings. A few horses and a few unexpected survivors stumbled in. No one was in any doubt who was to blame, and the battered column was mutinous, the Colonials swearing they’d never be commanded again by an Imperial officer.

  Sitting gloomily in his tent, staring at the map, wondering in a depressed mood whether to stay where he was or head rearwards, Colby’s mind was made up for him when a rider appeared, bringing a message from Brosy la Dell.

  ‘Colonel thrown from horse. Leg broken. You are senior officer. Goff’s Gamecocks need a Goff to take command once more.’

  He drew a deep breath of satisfaction. It was every soldier’s ambition to command his own regiment and the message left him in no doubt about what to do. There was no one capable of taking command of what was left of Morrow’s column if he disappeared and the only sensible thing to do was take it back to Potgeiter’s Drift and turn it over to Wood.

  As he rose to give the orders that would get it under way, Ackroyd appeared. His face was grim.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘One of Deyer’s men came in, sir.’

  Colby whirled. ‘What the hell do you mean? Deyer’s men were all butchered.’

  ‘Not this one, sir. ’E’s got a slit in his leg as long as your arm but ’e managed to dive into the donga and get away. ’E was out there for three days. ’E saw the fight at Shithouse Lane and came in on a riderless horse ’e caught.’

  Colby was frowning. ‘How the hell–?’ he began. Then he stopped. ‘Cosgro said they were all dead.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But this chap says they were all alive and fighting when ’e bolted. Three of his men had dismounted and he didn’t even stop to give ’em orders. ’E ’opped it as soon as the Zulus appeared.’

  Colby glared at Ackroyd with red-rimmed eyes. ‘You’d better be sure of what you’re saying, Tyas,’ he snarled.

  Ackroyd pulled a face. ‘I know what I’m saying, sir. I know what it means, too. ’E was shoutin’ it around the camp, so I put ’im under a guard so nobody could talk to ’im. I thought you’d want to see ’im first.’

  Seven

  The 19th Lancers were in poor shape when Colby took over at Greytown. After a month below decks in the transports, the horses were as thin as whippets. They were refusing to touch the grass, while the two hundred pounds of man and accoutrements plus saddle and equipment they were being asked to carry was proving too much for them. They had staring coats and a tucked-up look, and could cover only ten miles in twenty-four hours, with a rest every third day and ASC detachments to carry fodder. The men, unused to field conditions, were in an angry mood: despite the edict issued by Chelmsford against pipe clay, Canning had tried to keep them up to peacetime standards and they were finding life difficult in the heat.

  ‘We’ll wean the horses to local grazing,’ Colby decided at once as he and Brosy la Dell sat with the adjutant and the squadron officers in the little office that had been set up in the back room of the only hotel Greytown could boast. ‘And we’ll cut equipment to the bone. From now on, officers will be limited to forty pounds packed in a single valise. They will abandon their hammocks, washstands and indiarubber mattresses.’

  ‘They’re not going to like it,’ Brosy murmured.

  ‘Then they’ll have to learn to lump it,’ Colby snapped. ‘The Zulus move fast and we have to do the same. There’ve already been too many disasters and it seems to me that there’s something wrong with the army. It needs to pull its socks up and realise it exists for fighting, not going on picnics.’

  ‘Halts,’ he continued. ‘The habit of dismounting to rest the horses will be constantly practised. Whenever there’s time to justify the “Sit easy”, there’s time to dismount. When reforming ranks after remounting, the horses will stand square. In action there will be complete control at all times, otherwise we’ll arrive where we’re going in small groups, and then there’ll be no more impact than of a single troop arriving in good order. Our safest bet is the weight of the horses and the Zulus are quick to take advantage of loose riders.’

  He glanced at the notes he’d made. ‘On the march: laagering and entrenching will always be undertaken. The men won’t like that, because British cavalry’s always taken the view that it’s above such mundane things. In America they learned to look after themselves and not just sit in their saddles waiting for someone else to do it for ’em. There’ll be a stand-to at dusk and two hours before dawn when we operate on our own; otherwise, according to what Lord Chelmsford orders. I expect there to be a lot of alarms and excursions but we’ll learn to deal with ’em.’

  ‘Officers’ mess?’ the adjutant asked.

  ‘There won’t be one. Officers will mess by companies and I expect they’ll soon learn to live off chunks of stringy slaughter beef like everybody else. It’s better simmered than parboiled, incidentally. They’ll breakfast off the remains of their suppers. They won’t like that either, but it’ll do them no harm. There’ll be no hard
liquor for the men.’

  ‘And the officers?’ the adjutant asked.

  ‘God help anybody I find with it when his men can’t have it. Any man found drunk will be in trouble, and so will his officer. A sharp eye will also be kept on equipment. Otherwise it’ll disappear. The Kaffirs run off horses and transport after dark if they get a chance. Even Lord Chelmsford lost his horse and found it in the camp of a mounted volunteer unit. We shall not lose our horses. One last thing: this is a bad country for disease. We shall take the greatest care with sanitation. Regimental police will make sure that any Kaffirs we employ will not perform their ablutions within the camp. Horse lines will be moved regularly. Manure will be buried. Latrine pits will be regularly filled and changed. And when we camp alongside a river, water will not be drawn downstream of our own or anybody else’s horse lines.’

  As they rose the officers disappeared in a thoughtful silence. At the door Brosy turned and smiled his lazy, good-natured smile.

  ‘I think it’s going to be hell,’ he said.

  Within a week orders came to join the main column at Landman’s Drift and units began to move up to the Buffalo River from all over Northern Natal.

  Chelmsford’s new regiments, fresh from England, were finding South Africa hard going. Most of them had been scraped up from the depots and were largely new recruits, weighed down with needless impedimenta. Though they were carried to Pietermaritzburg by train, their first marches were almost too much for them, and the precautions attending the nightly laagering were backbreaking and seemingly endless.

  With them had come a horde of newspapermen and foreign observers, who had finally noticed that the sputtering native war in South Africa was bigger than they’d thought and had arrived to see what was happening. Almost the first of them Colby met was Von Hartmann.