by James Mace
“Many thanks, Corporal Shepard,” Sergeant Walker said as their tent and all its stakes and ropes were tossed into the back of the wagon. “Let Sergeant Ring know we’ll be certain to return the favour next time your section spends the night on picquet duty before a march.”
James nodded to the sergeant and gave Harry a friendly slap on the shoulder before returning to his own section. Lewis Walker and Harry Davies quickly checked each other’s weapons and kit before conducting one final inspection of their soldiers. Harry gave a tug on Private Grosvenor’s pack to check the repairs.
Hill slapped himself on the bottom and said he hoped he didn’t end up baring his backside to whoever marched behind him that day. He’d also taken a moment to hammer a trio of nails into the sole of Jonathan Allen’s boot.
Section leaders then reported to Colour Sergeant Fricker that all soldiers and equipment were accounted for. Afterwards came the long wait as they anticipated the orders from Colonel Wood to begin the day’s march; their destination as yet unknown.
Despite the chaos of assembling nearly 2,300 troops and all of their baggage wagons, coupled with the protests of draught animals whose brays could be heard echoing through the early morning mist, the No. 4 Column was assembled and ready to march by 6.00. Most of the redcoats had assembled on either side of their company wagons, while skirmishers and designated marksmen were deployed about a hundred yards to each flank. Mounted troops from the Frontier Light Horse provided the vanguard. Indigenous warriors from Wood’s Irregulars were deployed even further along the flanks, as well as establishing the rear guard.
Colonel Wood sat astride his horse, joined by his orderly, a twenty-year-old second lieutenant named Henry Lysons. Formerly of the 1st Staffordshire Militia, Lysons attested into the 90th Light Infantry eight months prior. Wood had taken a liking to the young officer, whom he felt had great potential, and made him one of his aides-de-camp (ADC).
“The column is ready to move out, sir,” Captain Campbell said, as he rode up and saluted sharply.
“Splendid, Captain Campbell, splendid!” Wood returned the salute with much enthusiasm. “Send my compliments to Colonel Buller. Inform him that I will take my personal escorts and twenty of his men and scout ahead of the column.”
“Very good, sir.”
Wood then turned to Lysons. “Mister Lysons, you shall accompany me this morning.”
“Sir,” the young second lieutenant said with a nod. Having expected to spend his first few years with the Regiment as a subaltern with one of the line companies, Henry Lysons felt a little out of sorts having been tasked as orderly to his colonel, but he had learned his duties very quickly. Wood assured him he would be reassigned to an infantry company at the conclusion of the war with the Zulus. ‘Shouldn’t take long to sort the buggers out,’ the colonel had often told him.
Colonel Wood’s escorts and personal guards came from the Imperial Mounted Infantry (IMI). They were regular army soldiers who stood out from the settler volunteers that made up the majority of the column’s mounted troops in appearance, uniform, discipline, and bearing, not to mention understanding of basic military tactics. As they came from numerous regiments, their uniforms varied slightly in collar insignia as well as the colour of the cuffs and facings. Evelyn Wood had seen to it that the soldiers tasked as his escorts came from his own 90th Light Infantry.
“Mister Lysons,” Wood said to his orderly as he checked his watch, “kindly inform Colonel Gilbert that I will be riding ahead, and he has command of the column until I return.”
The young officer saluted and rode away to find the commanding officer of 1/13th Regiment. A few minutes later, Lysons returned and Colonel Wood ordered his detachment to ride out.
The month of January was the heart of the South African summer, and one of the wettest months of the year. The ground was often rendered a near-impassable quagmire, with rivers swollen beyond their banks. On days when it wasn’t raining, the sun roasted the British soldiers in their stifling wool tunics.
The colonel and his small entourage rode at a modest trot. The sounds of braying oxen and the shouted orders from officers and NCOs echoed behind them. The band of the 90th Regiment was assembling at the head of the column, striking up with boisterous music to inspire the mass of soldiers as they began what they expected to be a long day on the march.
It was not long before the column commander and his escorts reached the Ncome River marking the border between the Transvaal and the Zulu Kingdom. Flooded from the recent rains, it had crested its banks, and the small band of soldiers found their horses sloshing through water well before they reached the river.
“Don’t think we’ll be crossing this today,” a young private named Edmund Fowler said quietly. Eighteen years of age, he was among the youngest soldiers in the 90th Regiment, as well as the Imperial Mounted Infantry. Albeit, all of Colonel Wood’s personal escorts were very young; the oldest being just twenty-four.
“It does look a bit damp, doesn’t it?” Wood said, startling the soldier as he rode up behind him.
“C…Colonel, sir!” Fowler stammered. He snapped off a salute.
Wood stifled the urge to laugh out loud at the sight of the nervous soldier, who’d almost never been spoken to by anyone over the rank of sergeant in the few months since he joined the Regiment. Instead, he simply ignored the lad and gazed around at the expanse of river before him then called to his orderly.
“Mister Lysons, ride back to the column and inform Colonel Gilbert that we will be making camp on this side of the river.” He pointed to a hill which sloped away from the Ncome. “It should be dry enough up there.”
While it was just a few miles from Balte’s Spruit to where Colonel Wood had intended to cross the Ncome River, ground conditions were wretched. Wagons were sinking into the mud every few feet. The large 18-foot wagons, mostly procured by the Army at extortionist rates from local setters, weighed 3,000 pounds even when empty. Each company was authorised two; one to carry tents and camp equipment, the other ammunition. With more than 20,000 rounds of Martini-Henry cartridges in heavy wooden boxes, the weight of the ammunition wagons nearly doubled.
Soon there were more soldiers helping to heave the wagons through the muck than were marching in column. Corporal Harry Davies and half his section laid their rifles in the back of C Company’s ammunition wagon. Two men were pulling on the thick wooden spokes of the rear wheels. Two more were frantically trying to dig the mud away from the sunken wheels with their spades. The rest, including Davies, pushed on the back end of the wagon. Towards the front wheels, a dozen soldiers from Sergeant Ring and Corporal Shepard’s section were working similarly to keep the wagon from getting stuck again. The sixteen hapless oxen constantly brayed in protest as they kicked up clods of mud. Fifty yards behind them, the other two sections in C Company had soldiers labouring to keep their tent and equipment wagon from becoming stuck.
“Just think, corp,” Private George Hill spoke up, his hands white as he pulled on one of the rear spokes and his face red with exertion, “you could be sitting on your bum right about now, counting coins for proper gentlemen…” Before he could finish, his feet slid out from under him, and he fell onto his backside with a loud squish.
The entire following day was spent labouring across the river. Complicating matters for No. 4 Column was the absence of sappers. Ostensibly, each column was expected to have a field company from the Royal Engineers assigned to it. As it was, there were only two in all of Natal, both of which had just arrived at the port of Durban. One was assigned to Charles Pearson’s No. 1 Column, the other to Richard Glyn’s No. 3 Column.
“Even if Horse Guards had been kind enough to send us sufficient sappers, the war would probably be over before they reached us,” Captain Campbell said with a mirthless chuckle.
The column staff watched a band of Wood’s Irregulars attempting to dig away a steep riverbank so the heavily-laden ox wagons could attempt the fording. With no sappers and very little in the way o
f pioneer tools, there was little for them to utilise except spades and the occasional pickaxe borrowed from the infantry companies.
Their commanding officer, Major William Knox-Leet, strode over to Wood and the staff, a pipe clenched between his teeth as he high-stepped through the flood waters. “I think they understand now, sir.” He removed his pipe for the moment. “There were a few complaints, as many say they are warriors, not diggers, but we got them sorted.”
Although the fording point was only about waist deep, the riverbed consisted mostly of soft clay, which stuck to wagon wheels and soldiers’ boots as they trudged their way across. A troop of FLH horsemen had already crossed and were scouting the area for any signs of the enemy. Aside from the occasional herdsman or scouts in the distance, all was quiet. Nearly a week prior to the ultimatum’s expiration, by crossing the Ncome River, British forces had already invaded the Zulu Kingdom.
Chapter IV: A Complicated Situation
Bemba’s Kop near the Ncome River
6 January 1879
Piet Uys, seated in the centre, with his sons during the Anglo-Zulu War
Given the lack of roads and utterly wretched conditions the No. 4 Column faced when trying to manoeuvre its vast stores across the land, Evelyn Wood was glad to have seized the initiative, intent on pressing into Zululand before the ultimatum expired. However, for the British forces forming the northern axis of Chelmsford’s great pincer, their situation involved far more than just inclement weather and hostile Zulus.
Firstly, there was the matter of the Transvaal Colony bordering the north-western regions of the Zulu Kingdom. The first whites to settle in the region were Dutch and German Boers who sought to escape from the dominions of the British Crown in the south. Their independence, however, proved short-lived. Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the colony on behalf of Her Majesty’s government, not through military conquest but simply by proclamation. The various farms and settlements had existed without any sort of real government, so their sense of an independent republic was impractical at best. While Shepstone’s proclamation enraged the Boers, their hopes for continued independence were largely for naught, as the German Empire had also had its eye on the Transvaal.
There was also the matter of the disputed territories; the Boers were further infuriated to learn the Boundary Commission had ruled in favour of the Zulus. This took almost everyone by surprise, most of all Sir Henry Bartle-Frere. He felt the commission ruling in favour of the white settlers to be a foregone conclusion. But, perhaps, the man who most felt the effects of this unexpected turn was Colonel Henry Evelyn Wood.
During the months leading up to the ruling and subsequent ultimatum, Wood had devoted much time and effort into gaining the support of the Dutch and Germanic farming communities. This proved no easy task. The Boers detested the British with the same level of enmity as they harboured towards the Zulus. This was made plain during numerous meetings the colonel held with some of the more prominent settler leaders. They made no attempt to disguise their disgust towards the Crown and its acquisition of the Transvaal. However, as hostile feelings continued to mount between the white farmers and the Zulu Kingdom, Colonel Wood was able to convince the Boers that the armies of Cetshwayo posed the more immediate threat to their livelihood, not to mention their very lives. This was underscored by the continuous raids by the freebooter Swazi prince, Mbilini. Fearing their settlements could be destroyed one-by-one, should the British redcoats simply abandon them to their fate, the Boers promised to muster a force of up to 2,000 mounted burghers if war came between the Crown and the Zulus.
This tentative alliance was reduced to tatters upon the revelation of the Boundary Commission. The Boers made it clear to Colonel Wood that they were content to watch as their hated enemies slaughtered each other, while they fortified their townships and looked to their own welfare. It therefore came as quite a surprise when, on the morning of 6 January, sentries reported a small band of mounted whites approaching the camp from the northwest. There were fifteen in all.
“It’s not one of our mounted patrols,” Lieutenant Colonel Buller asserted. He scanned the small contingent with his field glasses, then looked to his commanding officer. “Do you recognise them, sir?”
Evelyn stood motionless for a few moments, his field glasses pressed close to his eyes. He lowered them and a gave a nod. “That’s Piet Uys. I am surprised to see him seeking us out.”
Petrus ‘Piet’ Uys was the son of a prominent Voortrekker who’d led much of the mass emigration from the British Cape to the South African interior during the mid-1830s. His father was killed during one of many outbreaks of violence between the Boers and the Zulus. The rest of the Uys clan eventually settled near what was now the town of Utrecht, where Piet owned several large farmsteads. At fifty-one years old, a hard life on the frontiers had aged him considerably. His hair and thick beard were completely white, his face and hands weathered by decades in the South African sun.
On this day, Piet wore a tan pith helmet as opposed to the slouch hats donned by his companions. All wore thick riding jackets and trousers with an ammunition bandolier slung over the left shoulder. Each carried a breach-loading carbine in a scabbard attached to the saddle. Riding closest and on either side of the elder Boer were four young men. All appeared to all be in their mid to late twenties. Upon reaching the western entrance to the camp, Piet and the four men dismounted, while the rest remained astride their horses outside of the fort. The elder Boer removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick, sweat-soaked hair.
Colonel Wood strode over to greet him. “Mister Uys, your presence is unexpected yet welcome.”
He then extended his hand. Piet appeared to accept with a touch of reluctance.
“Colonel, I would speak with you in private,” he replied in thickly-accented English, his voice impassive.
“Of course, right this way.”
“Don’t think I am here out of any sense of loyalty to Britain or your daft queen,” Piet scoffed, once they were out of earshot. “You damned English take the Transvaal from us, after we spent years trying to escape from your rule. And now, you’ve given many of the disputed lands to the filthy Zulus!”
“I know you did not come here just to insult the Crown and our Queen,” Wood remarked coolly. “And unless Cetshwayo complies with the high commissioner’s ultimatum in five days, the land grant will be irrelevant.”
Piet waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t give a bucket of shit about land grants given to half-naked kaffirs. My farm of Wydgelegen is less than ten miles north of Balte’s Spruit and scarcely inside Boer territory…or should I say English territory.” This was followed by a deep scowl that showed even through his thick, white beard. His expression then softened, and he shrugged nonchalantly. “It matters not. Don’t think that I like you or have any love for your damned Empire…but I will fight for you. My sons will fight for you. Our Burgher Force may be small in number, but they are fierce in spirit. Plus, they know the land and how to fight the Zulus.”
“To be honest, Mister Uys, I could give a damn about your motivations,” Wood replied, wincing slightly at his usage of mild profanity. “Serve us well and the Crown will see you justly rewarded.”
“We will accept no pay from your queen,” Piet retorted. “We fight for our homes. Just make certain you English leave us alone once this is over.”
“If that is what you want your reward to be,” the colonel remarked with a short nod.
Satisfied, the old Boer returned to his men, speaking to them quickly in the ragged frontier speak which seemed to be a mix of both German and Dutch. Despite the offer to encamp with the Frontier Light Horse, the Burghers elected to make their own camp a short distance from the British laager.
While his meeting with Piet Uys was anything but pleasant, Colonel Wood was glad for whatever aid he could muster from the local settlers or disaffected indigenous tribes.
“I’m amazed Mister Uys joined us,” Buller remarked, once the two w
ere alone. “Boers tend to be ungrateful bastards who would rather sit back and watch us and the Zulus murder each other.”
“At least they are offering their services without compensation,” Wood added. “That should please the prime minister and his endless needs to ‘benefit the taxpayer’.”
Due to the necessity for speed and adaptability, Buller would, by his own admission, come to rely heavily upon Piet Uys and the Boer Burghers. While not professional soldiers, they knew the terrain as well as many indigenous Zulus. They were also far better scouts than the Frontier Light Horse. Master hunters, they foraged for their own meat, accepting just a small ration of grain from the column’s commissariat. When in camp they kept to themselves, mostly avoiding direct interaction with the imperial soldiers. This was in part due to the natural mistrust they held for the British, but also because few could speak English. And they followed Piet Uys without question. What surprised Wood and Buller was that Piet provided wise counsel, yet followed whatever orders the two colonels gave him. He and his burghers had no tents and were content to sleep beneath the wagons or out in the open with their mounts close by.
“I don’t think we’ll ever make Englishmen of them,” Buller remarked, as he watched the burghers return from a day’s patrol one evening.
“Whether they love us or hate us, I do think they will provide great service to the Crown,” Wood replied.
It was another rainy night as Corporal Harry Davies and his section bedded down, thankful to be spared from picquet or sentry duty. There were several different card games in progress within the restrictive confines of their bell tent. Two clusters of four men were playing the popular game of whist, while George Hill and William Grosvenor engaged in a round of Écarté, a game made popular by the French. Sergeant Walker sat in one corner on a camp stool. His son, Richard, read to him from a months-old copy of The Natal Mercury. Though the battalion’s bandsmen had their own tent, the younger Walker took the opportunity to visit his father on those occasions when neither were tasked with other duties. The wind whipped sharply outside, a fresh downpour pummelling their tent; the noise caused the soldiers to nearly shout as they bantered incessantly.