By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER XXIII: THE CAPTURE OF COOMASSIE

  Upon the afternoon of the arrival of the English column upon the Dah theking made another attempt to arrest their progress, with a view no doubtof bringing up fresh reinforcements. A flag of truce came in with aletter to the effect that our rapid advance had much disconcertedhim, which was no doubt true, and that he had not been able to makearrangements for the payments claimed; that he would send in hostages,but that most of those whom the general had asked for were away, andthat he could not agree to give the queen mother or the heir apparent.These were, of course, the principal hostages, indeed the only ones whowould be of any real value. The answer was accordingly sent back, thatunless these personages arrived before daybreak the next morning weshould force our way into Coomassie.

  The Dah is a river about fifteen yards wide and three feet deep at thedeepest place. The Engineers set to work to bridge it directly theyarrived, Russell's regiment at once crossing the river and bivouackingon the opposite bank.

  It was unfortunate that this, the first night upon which the troops hadbeen unprovided with tents, should have turned out tremendously wet.The thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and the rain came downincessantly. Tired as the troops were there were few who slept, andthere was a general feeling of satisfaction when the morning broke andthe last day of the march began.

  The rain held up a little before daybreak, and the sky was clear whenat six o'clock Wood's Bonny men, who had come up by a forced march theevening before, led the advance. Lieutenant Saunders with one of Rait'sguns came next. The Rifles followed in support.

  Before the Bonny men had gone half a mile they were hotly engaged, andthe combat was for two hours a repetition of that of Amoaful. Saundersadvanced again and again to the front with his gun, and with a fewrounds of grape cleared the sides of the path of the enemy. At last,however, the Bonny men would advance no farther, and Lieutenant Byre,the adjutant of Wood's regiment, was mortally wounded.

  Lieutenant Saunders sent back to say it was impossible for him to geton farther unless supported by white troops. The Rifles were then sentforward to take the Bonny men's place, and slowly, very slowly, theadvance was continued until the clearing round a village could be seenfifty yards away. Then the Rifles gave a cheer and with a sudden rushswept through to the open and carried the village without a check. Inthe meantime the whole column had been following in the rear as theRifles advanced, and were hotly engaged in repelling a series offlank attacks on the part of the enemy. These attacks were gallantlypersevered in by the Ashantis, who at times approached in such massesthat the whole bush swayed and moved as they pushed forward.

  Their loss must have been extremely large, for our men lined the roadand kept up a tremendous Snider fire upon them at a short distance. Ourcasualties were slight. The road, like almost all roads in the country,was sunk two feet in the center below the level of the surroundingground, consequently the men were lying in shelter as behind abreastwork, while they kept up their tremendous fire upon the foe.

  The village once gained, the leading troops were thrown out in a circleround it, and the order was given to pass the baggage from the rear tothe village. The operation was carried out in safety, the path beingprotected by the troops lying in a line along it. The baggage once in,the troops closed up to the village, the disappointed foe continuing aseries of desperate attacks upon their rear. These assaults were kept upeven after all had reached the cleared space of the village, the enemy'swar horn sounding and the men making the woods re-echo with their wildwar cry. The Naval Brigade at one time inflicted great slaughter uponthe enemy by remaining perfectly quiet until the Ashantis, thinking theyhad retired, advanced full of confidence, cheering, when a tremendousfire almost swept them away.

  It was six hours from the time at which the advance began before therear guard entered the village, and as but a mile and a half had beentraversed and Coomassie was still six miles away, it was evident thatif the Ashantis continued to fight with the same desperation, and if thebaggage had to be carried on step by step from village to village, theforce would not get halfway on to Coomassie by nightfall.

  The instant the baggage was all in, preparations were made for a freshadvance. Rait's guns, as usual, opened to clear the way, and the 42dthis time led the advance. The enemy's fire was very heavy and theHighlanders at first advanced but slowly, their wounded stragglingback in quick succession into the village. After twenty minutes' work,however, they had pushed back the enemy beyond the brow of the hill, andfrom this point they advanced with great rapidity, dashing forward attimes at the double, until the foe, scared by the sudden onslaught, gaveway altogether and literally fled at the top of their speed.

  War drums and horns, chiefs' stools and umbrellas, littered the nextvillage and told how sudden and complete had been the stampede. As the42d advanced troops were from time to time sent forward until a despatchcame in from Sir A. Alison saying that all the villages save the lastwere taken, that opposition had ceased, and that the enemy were incomplete rout. Up to this time the attack of the enemy upon the rearof the village had continued with unabated vigor, and shot and slugcontinually fell in the place itself. The news from the front was soonknown and was hailed with a cheer which went right round the line ofdefense, and, whether scared by its note of triumph or because theytoo had received the news, the efforts of the enemy ceased at once, andscarcely another shot was fired.

  At half past three the baggage was sent forward and the headquarterstaff and Rifle Brigade followed it. There was no further check. The42d and several companies of the Rifle Brigade entered Coomassie withoutanother shot being fired in its defense. Sir Garnet Wolseley soon afterarrived, and taking off his hat called for three cheers for the Queen,which was responded to with a heartiness and vigor which must haveastonished the Ashantis. These were still in considerable numbers in thetown, having been told by the king that peace was or would be made.They seemed in no way alarmed, but watched, as amused and interestedspectators, the proceedings of the white troops.

  The first thing to be done was to disarm those who had guns, and thisseemed to scare the others, for in a short time the town was almostentirely deserted. It was now fast getting dark, and the troopsbivouacked in the marketplace, which had so often been the scene ofhuman sacrifices on a large scale.

  Their day's work had, indeed, been a heavy one. They had been twelvehours on the road without rest or time to cook food. Water was veryscarce, no really drinkable water having been met with during the day.In addition to this they had undergone the excitement of a long andobstinate fight with an enemy concealed in the bush, after work ofalmost equal severity upon the day before, and had passed a sleeplessnight in a tropical rainstorm, yet with the exception of a few feverstricken men not a single soldier fell out from his place in the ranks.

  Nor was the first night in Coomassie destined to be a quiet one.Soon after two o'clock a fire broke out in one of the largest of thecollections of huts, which was soon in a blaze from end to end. Theengineers pulled down the huts on either side and with great difficultyprevented the flames from spreading. These fires were the result ofcarriers and others plundering, and one man, a policeman, caught withloot upon him, was forthwith hung from a tree. Several others wereflogged, and after some hours' excitement the place quieted down. SirGarnet was greatly vexed at the occurrence, as he had the evening beforesent a messenger to the king asking him to come in and make peace, andpromising to spare the town if he did so.

  Although Coomassie was well known to Frank he was still ignorant of thecharacter of the interior of the chiefs' houses, and the next day hewandered about with almost as much curiosity as the soldiers themselves.The interiors even of the palaces of the chiefs showed that the Ashantiscan have no idea of what we call comfort. The houses were filled withdust and litter, and this could not be accounted for solely by thebustle and hurry of picking out the things worth carrying away priorto the hurried evacuation of the place. From the roofs hung massesof spiders' web, thick wit
h dust, while sweeping a place out beforeoccupying it brought down an accumulation of dust which must have beenthe result of years of neglect. The principal apartments were lumberedup with drums, great umbrellas, and other paraphernalia of processions,such as horns, state chairs, wooden maces, etc. Before the door ofeach house stood a tree, at the foot of which were placed little idols,calabashes, bits of china, bones, and an extraordinary jumble of strangeodds and ends of every kind, all of which were looked upon as fetish.Over the doors and alcoves were suspended a variety of charms, old stoneaxes and arrow tips, nuts, gourds, amulets, beads, and other trumperyarticles.

  The palace was in all respects exactly as the king had left it. Theroyal bed and couch were in their places, the royal chairs occupiedtheir usual raised position. Only, curiously enough, all had been turnedround and over. The storerooms upstairs were untouched, and here wasfound an infinite variety of articles, for the most part mere rubbish,but many interesting and valuable: silver plate, gold masks, gold cups,clocks, glass, china, pillows, guns, cloth, caskets, and cabinets; anolla podrida, which resembled the contents of a sale room.

  In many of the native apartments of the palace were signs that humansacrifice had been carried on to the last minute. Several stools werefound covered with thick coatings of recently shed blood, and a horriblesmell of gore pervaded the whole palace, and, indeed, the whole town.The palace was full of fetish objects just as trumpery and meaninglessas those in the humblest cottages. The king's private sitting room was,like the rest, an open court with a tree growing in it. This tree wascovered with fetish objects, and thickly hung with spiders' webs. Ateach end was a small but deep alcove with a royal chair, so that themonarch could always sit on the shady side.

  Along each side of the little court ran a sort of verandah, beneathwhich was an immense assortment of little idols and fetishes of allkinds.

  From one of the verandahs a door opened into the king's bedroom, whichwas about ten feet by eight. It was very dark, being lighted only by asmall window about a foot square, opening into the women's apartments.At one end was the royal couch, a raised bedstead with curtains, andupon a ledge by the near side (that is to say the king had to step overthe ledge to get into bed) were a number of pistols and other weapons,among them an English general's sword, bearing the inscription, "FromQueen Victoria to the King of Ashanti." This sword was presented to thepredecessor of King Coffee. Upon the floor at the end opposite thebed was a couch upon which the king could sit and talk with his wivesthrough the little window.

  In the women's apartments all sorts of stuffs, some of European, some ofnative manufacture, were found scattered about in the wildest confusion.The terror and horror of the four or five hundred ladies, when theyfound that their husband was about to abandon his palace and thatthey would have no time to remove their treasured finery, can be wellimagined.

  In almost every apartment and yard of the palace were very slightlyraised mounds, some no larger than a plate, others two or even threefeet long. These were whitewashed and presented a strong contrast tothe general red of the ground and lower walls. These patches markedthe places of graves. The whole palace, in fact, appeared to be littlebetter than a cemetery and a slaughterhouse in one. A guard was placedover the palace, and here, as elsewhere through the town, looting wasstrictly forbidden.

  All day the general expected the arrival of the king, who had senta messenger to say he would be in early. At two o'clock a tremendousrainstorm broke over the town, lasting for three hours. In the eveningit became evident that he was again deceiving us, and orders were issuedthat the troops, in the morning, should push on another three milesto the tombs of the kings, where he was said to be staying. Lateron, however, the news came that the king had gone right away into theinterior, and as another storm was coming up it became evident that therainy season was setting in in earnest. The determination was thereforecome to, to burn the town and to start for the coast next morning.

  All night Major Home with a party of Engineers was at work mining thepalace and preparing it for explosion, while a prize committee wereengaged in selecting and packing everything which they considered worthtaking down to the coast. The news of the change of plan, however, hadnot got abroad, and the troops paraded next morning under the beliefthat they were about to march still farther up the country. When itbecame known that they were bound for the coast there was a generalbrightening of faces, and a buzz of satisfaction ran down the ranks.It was true that it was believed that a large amount of treasure wascollected at the kings' tombs, and the prize money would not have beenunwelcome, still the men felt that their powers were rapidly becomingexhausted. The hope of a fight with the foe and of the capture ofCoomassie had kept them up upon the march, but now that this had beendone the usual collapse after great exertion followed. Every hour addedto the number of fever stricken men who would have to be carried down tothe coast, and each man, as he saw his comrades fall out from the ranks,felt that his own turn might come next.

  At six o'clock in the morning the advanced guard of the baggage began tomove out of the town. The main body was off by seven. The 42d remainedas rearguard to cover the Engineers and burning party.

  Frank stayed behind to see the destruction of the town. A hundredengineer laborers were supplied with palm leaf torches, and in spite ofthe outer coats of thatch being saturated by the tremendous rains, theflames soon spread. Volumes of black smoke poured up, and soon a hugepile of smoke resting over the town told the Ashantis of the destructionof their blood stained capital. The palace was blown up, and when theEngineers and 42d marched out from the town scarce a house remaineduntouched by the flames.

  The troops had proceeded but a short distance before they had reasonto congratulate themselves on their retreat before the rains began inearnest, and to rejoice over the fact that the thunderstorms did notset in three days earlier than they did. The marsh round the town hadincreased a foot in depth, while the next stream, before a rivulet twofeet and a half deep, had now swollen its banks for a hundred and fiftyyards on either side, with over five feet and a half of water in the oldchannel.

  Across this channel the Engineers had with much difficulty thrown atree, over which the white troops passed, while the native carriers hadto wade across. It was laughable to see only the eyes of the taller menabove the water, while the shorter disappeared altogether, nothing beingseen but the boxes they carried. Fortunately the deep part was onlythree or four yards wide. Thus the carriers by taking a long breathon arriving at the edge of the original channel were able to struggleacross.

  This caused a terrible delay, and a still greater one occurred at theDah. Here the water was more than two feet above the bridge which theEngineers had made on the passage up. The river was as deep as theprevious one had been, and the carriers therefore waded as before; butthe deep part was wider, so wide, indeed, that it was impossible forthe shorter men to keep under water long enough to carry their burdensacross. The tall men therefore crossed and recrossed with the burdens,the short men swimming over.

  The passage across the bridge too was slow and tedious in the extreme.Some of the cross planks had been swept away, and each man had to feelevery step of his way over. So tedious was the work that at five inthe afternoon it became evident that it would be impossible for all thewhite troops to get across--a process at once slow and dangerous--beforenightfall. The river was still rising, and it was a matter of importancethat none should be left upon the other side at night, as the Ashantismight, for anything they could tell, be gathering in force in the rear.Consequently Sir Archibald Alison gave the order for the white troops tostrip and to wade across taking only their helmets and guns. The clotheswere made up in bundles and carried over by natives swimming, whileothers took their places below in case any of the men should be carriedoff their feet by the stream. All passed over without any accident.

  One result, however, was a laughable incident next morning, an incidentwhich, it may be safely asserted, never before occurred in the Britisharmy. It was quite d
ark before the last party were over, and the nativescollecting the clothes did not notice those of one of the men who hadundressed at the foot of a tree. Consequently he had to pass the night,a very wet one, in a blanket, and absolutely paraded with his regimentin the morning in nothing but a helmet and rifle. The incident causedimmense laughter, and a native swimming across the river found andbrought back his clothes.

  As the journeys were necessarily slow and tedious, owing to the quantityof baggage and sick being carried down, Frank now determined to pushstraight down to the coast, and, bidding goodbye to Sir Garnet and themany friends he had made during the expedition, he took his place forthe first time in the hammock, which with its bearers had accompaniedhim from Cape Coast, and started for the sea. There was some risk as faras the Prah, for straggling bodies of the enemy frequently interceptedthe convoys. Frank, however, met with no obstacle, and in ten days afterleaving the army reached Cape Coast.

  Ostik implored his master to take him with him across the sea; but Frankpointed out to him that he would not be happy long in England, wherethe customs were so different from his own, and where in winter hewould feel the cold terribly. Ostik yielded to the arguments, and havingearned enough to purchase for years the small comforts and luxuries dearto the negro heart, he agreed to start for the Gaboon immediately Frankleft for England.

  On his first arrival at Cape Coast he had to his great satisfactionfound that the Houssas who had escaped from Coomassie had succeeded inreaching the coast in safety, and that having obtained their pay fromthe agent they had sailed for their homes.

  Three days after Frank's arrival at Cape Coast the mail steamer camealong, and he took passage for England. Very strange indeed did it feelto him when he set foot in Liverpool. Nearly two years and a halfhad elapsed since he had sailed, and he had gone through adventuressufficient for a lifetime. He was but eighteen years old now, but he hadbeen so long accustomed to do man's work that he felt far older thanhe was. The next day on arriving in town he put up at the Charing CrossHotel and then sallied out to see his friends.

  He determined to go first of all to visit the porter who had been theearliest friend he had made in London, and then to drive to Ruthven's,where he was sure of a hearty welcome. He had written several times,since it had been possible for him to send letters, to his variousfriends, first of all to his sister, and the doctor, to Ruthven, to theporter, and to the old naturalist. He drove to London Bridge Station,and there learned that the porter had been for a week absent from duty,having strained his back in lifting a heavy trunk. He therefore droveto Ratcliff Highway. The shop was closed, but his knock brought thenaturalist to the door.

  "What can I do for you, sir?" he asked civilly.

  "Well, in the first place, you can shake me by the hand."

  The old man started at the voice.

  "Why, 'tis Frank!" he exclaimed, "grown and sunburnt out of allrecollection. My dear boy, I am glad indeed to see you. Come in, comein; John is inside."

  Frank received another hearty greeting, and sat for a couple of hourschatting over his adventures. He found that had he arrived a fortnightlater he would not have found either of his friends. The porter was in aweek about to be married again to a widow who kept a small shop and wasin comfortable circumstances. The naturalist had sold the business, andwas going down into the country to live with a sister there.

  After leaving them Frank drove to the residence of Sir James Ruthvenin Eaton Square. Frank sent in his name and was shown up to thedrawing room. A minute later the door opened with a crash and his oldschoolfellow rushed in.

  "My dear, dear, old boy," he said wringing Frank's hand, "I am glad tosee you; but, bless me, how you have changed! How thin you are, and howblack! I should have passed you in the street without knowing you; andyou look years older than I do. But that is no wonder after all you'vegone through. Well, when did you arrive, and where are your things? Whyhave you not brought them here?"

  Frank said that he had left them at the hotel, as he was going downearly the next morning to Deal. He stayed, however, and dined withhis friend, whose father received him with the greatest cordiality andkindness.

  On leaving the hotel next morning he directed his portmanteau to be sentin the course of the day to Sir James Ruthven's. He had bought a fewthings at Cape Coast, and had obtained a couple of suits of clothes forimmediate use at Liverpool.

  On arriving at Deal he found his sister much grown and very well andhappy. She was almost out of her mind with delight at seeing him. Hestayed two or three days with her and then returned to town and took uphis abode in Eaton Square.

  "Well, my dear boy, what are you thinking of doing?" Sir James Ruthvenasked next morning at breakfast. "You have had almost enough of travel,I should think."

  "Quite enough, sir," Frank said. "I have made up my mind that I shall bea doctor. The gold necklace which I showed you, which Ammon Quatia gaveme, weighs over twenty pounds, and as it is of the purest gold it isworth about a thousand pounds, a sum amply sufficient to keep me and paymy expenses till I have passed. Besides, Mr. Goodenough has, I believe,left me something in his will. I sent home one copy to his lawyer andhave brought the other with me. I must call on the firm this morning.I have also some thirty pounds' weight in gold which was paid me bythe king for the goods he took, but this, of course, belongs to Mr.Goodenough's estate."

  Upon calling upon the firm of lawyers, and sending in his name, he wasat once shown in to the principal.

  "I congratulate you on your safe return, sir," the gentleman said."You have called, of course, in reference to the will of the late Mr.Goodenough."

  "Yes," Frank replied. "I sent home one copy from Coomassie and havebrought another with me."

  "We received the first in due course," the gentleman said, taking thedocument Frank held out to him. "You are, of course, acquainted with itscontents."

  "No," Frank answered, "beyond the fact that Mr. Goodenough told me hehad left me a legacy."

  "Then I have pleasant news to give you," the lawyer said. "Mr.Goodenough died possessed of about sixty thousand pounds. He leftfifteen thousand each to his only surviving nephew and niece. Fifteenthousand pounds he has divided among several charitable and scientificinstitutions. Fifteen thousand pounds he has left to you."

  Frank gave a little cry of surprise.

  "The will is an eminently just and satisfactory one," the lawyer said,"for Mr. Goodenough has had but little intercourse with his relations,who live in Scotland, and they had no reason to expect to inheritany portion of his property. They are, therefore, delighted with thehandsome legacy they have received. I may mention that Mr. Goodenoughordered that in the event of your not living to return to England, fivethousand pounds of the portion which would have come to you was to bepaid to trustees for the use of your sister, the remaining ten thousandto be added to the sum to be divided among the hospitals."

  "This is indeed a surprise," Frank said; "and I shall be obliged, sir,if you will at once draw out a paper for me to sign settling the fivethousand pounds upon my sister. Whatever may happen then she will beprovided for."

  The accession of this snug and most unexpected fortune in no way alteredFrank's views as to his future profession. He worked hard and steadilyand passed with high honors. He spent another three years in hospitalwork, and then purchased a partnership in an excellent West Endpractice. He is now considered one of the most rising young physiciansof the day. His sister keeps house for him in Harley Street; but it isdoubtful whether she will long continue to do so. The last time DickRuthven was at home on leave he persuaded her that it was her boundenduty to endeavor to make civilian life bearable to him when he shouldattain captain's rank, and, in accordance with his father's wish, retirefrom the army, events which are expected to take place in a few months'time.

  Ruthven often laughs and tells Frank that he is a good soldier spoiled,and that it is a pity a man should settle down as a doctor who had madehis way in life "by sheer pluck."

  THE END