Cruelty of Fate

by James Mace

  The following morning, Captain Moriarty and Lieutenant Johnson departed, leading most of their detachment of redcoats along the muddy rutted track towards where they hoped the rest of the convoy would be found. Lieutenant Lindop and Sergeant Booth remained behind. Anthony had tasked his soldiers into shifts; five would take what spades and pickaxes there were and work on building an earthen ramp along the south bank. Four men established a pair of lookout posts a hundred yards to the east and west of the drift.

  Approximately three miles north, Moriarty and Johnson spotted the remaining eleven wagons formed into a defensive laager. They were manned mostly by black African wagon drivers and voorloopers. Some of these carried carbines, though most of the young voorloopers were unarmed. At the approach of imperial soldiers, a lone white man stood atop one of the wagon benches and waved to them, holding his hat over his head.

  “By God,” the man said, as the captain rode up to him. “I thought you lot were abandoning us, as well as your stores, to the Zulus!”

  “Yes, a slight mix-up with the escorts,” Moriarty said.

  The conductor, Josiah Sussens, let out a sigh and slapped his slouch hat atop his head once more. “A complete cock-up that has already cost us forty-six cattle and about a score of your ammunition boxes,” he said with irritation. “When no help was sent from Luneburg, I decided to bring the wagons in myself. Unfortunately, we have been unable to continue any further, but at least I’ve managed to get the convoy into a proper defensive laager. Not that we could do much, should the Zulus come in force. Twice now we’ve been left to the mercy of the kaffirs by you lot! We are fortunate that they didn’t just swoop in and gut us!”

  “Yes, well, we are here now,” Moriarty said. He thought to berate the conductor for his outburst, though in truth he could hardly fault the man. And as Mister Sussens was a civilian, Moriarty’s rank meant little to him.

  With no break in the weather in sight, the hapless soldiers from the 80th Regiment began the hateful and filthy task of dragging the convoy down the trail to Myer’s Drift.

  At the royal kraal of Ulundi, it was time for the king’s regiments to assemble once more. It was a surreal feeling for Mehlokazulu as he and his companies of warriors began the purification rituals for war once again. The diviners, known as the izinyanga, led each regiment through the same ceremonies they had conducted just three months prior. That the amabutho was mustered for war twice in such a short period of time was unheard of, at least not since the time of Shaka.

  The days of fasting were followed by the bare-handed slaying of bulls. The meat was cooked over great spits and sanctified with all manner of medicines and protective charms by the izinyanga. Even greater emphasis was placed on the splattering of medicines on the barrels of firearms. There were upwards of 800 modern breach-loaders added to the plethora of muskets already possessed by warriors of the amabutho. These rifles were particularly terrifying. Their savage kick was far greater than anything the Zulus had fired before. The suffering they had inflicted from such a great range gave them confidence that they could now exact retribution against the redcoats with their own rifles.

  As warriors and izinduna of the amabutho purified themselves for the renewal of hostilities, King Cetshwayo summoned the amakhosi who would lead his regiments into battle. Among these was Ntshingwayo, the very man who had led his regiments to victory over the British invaders at Isandlwana. The elderly general’s personal bonds with the Zulu royal house ran deep, as his father had been a childhood friend of Cetshwayo’s grandfather, King Senzangakhona. Ntshingwayo first joined the amabutho as part of the uDlambedlu Regiment during the reign of King Dingane, more than fifty years ago. He was among a select few from his regiment to have reached old age and should have been living a quiet, contented life, watching his grandchildren play. Instead, within a span of three months, he was called upon twice to lead the armies of the Zulu Kingdom into battle.

  There was also the growing rivalry between Ntshingwayo and the king’s chief minister, Mnyamana. Mnyamana was offered direct command of the impi prior to the Isandlwana campaign but had declined in favour of Ntshingwayo. He had since come to regret this decision, having publicly stated that he would not have lost control over the regiments. For this reason, King Cetshwayo had summoned Ntshingwayo to speak with him alone, before he addressed the amakhosi and other senior generals.

  Cetshwayo sat upon his throne in his personal hut, where he often held court and met with the kingdom’s administrators. Ntshingwayo, a large man who stood nearly as tall and robust as his sovereign, approached the throne, keeping low with his hands near his face in a form of salute, his eyes averted.

  “Rise, old friend,” the king said, gesturing with his right hand. “The greatest general of the amaZulu should not prostrate himself so humbly.” In his left he held a short staff topped with a thin, upturned blade. Called an inhlendla, it was a status of the king’s power, similar to a European monarch’s sceptre.

  Though he appreciated the gesture, Ntshingwayo remained hunkered low, even as he raised his head and lowered his hands. He sat cross-legged before the throne, forearms resting on his knees. He noticed that he and the king were completely alone; even the usual servants and bodyguards had been dismissed. There was a short pause, as the inkosi waited for his king to speak.

  “It is with much regret and sadness that I call upon you again,” Cetshwayo said. “A man of your age and years of service to the kingdom should be living a quiet life with his family.”

  “My life belongs to the House of Zulu,” the old general said, diplomatically. “Only death can break that bond of service.”

  The king nodded and slowly took a breath through his nose. Though March was the onset of the South African autumn, it was still rather hot, and Cetshwayo’s body glistened with beads of sweat. Their formal greetings and courtesies concluded, he addressed the reason for the private meeting with his senior inkosi.

  “We won a great victory at Isandlwana, yet the price in blood was calamitous,” the king said plainly. He waited for a moment, judging the general’s countenance.

  Ntshingwayo remained impassive. “As you said, Ndabazitha,” the inkosi slowly replied. “A spear was thrust into the belly of our nation…”

  “There are not enough tears to mourn the dead,” Cetshwayo finished. “And my chief minister has stressed that it was a lapse in discipline which led to many companies rushing head-long into battle; a lapse of discipline which led many to a bitter death.”

  What Cetshwayo made no mention of was that several of the izinduna from regiments who led the attack on the British camp had spoken to him in private, placing blame for their losses squarely on Ntshingwayo. They blamed him for the army launching its attack during the day of the New Moon; a time of ill omens for the Zulu. The truth, the king would later learn, was that a British patrol had come across the entire impi camped in a large bowl nine miles northeast of Isandlwana. The white officers and their mounted African Basutos opened fire on the Zulus before fleeing back to warn their camp. The king’s regiments were left with no choice but to attack. The imperial redcoats exacted a fearful toll before they were finally overwhelmed and slaughtered. Two of Ntshingwayo’s own sons were badly wounded during the final assault to capture the camp.

  “Our overtures of peace have been rebuffed by the white inkosi, Chelmsford,” the king continued. “And I fear there will be even more tears shed before this shameful conflict with my white sister, Victoria, is concluded.”

  “The rifles the red-jacketed soldiers wielded are fearsome weapons,” Ntshingwayo added. “They are far more accurate than any of the old muskets John Dunn ever sold to us. Once our warriors figured out how the mechanisms worked, we realised that for every shot our most proficient marksmen could fire, the English could unleash four or five.”

  “And have our warriors made the best practice with these new weapons?”

  “Some, Ndabazitha. Their kick is fearsome; much harsher than our muskets, which likely explains
why the bullets travel so far. And the bullets are encased in metal, the forging of which eludes us. While we have a fair amount of ammunition that we took from their camp, our only means of acquiring more will be what we capture from enemy corpses.”

  Cetshwayo nodded in understanding. The king had allowed the capturing warriors to keep the Martini-Henry rifles as prizes. The stores of ammunition, which the redcoats had been good enough to keep in heavy wooden boxes, were sufficient to allot roughly 200 cartridges per rifle. Ntshingwayo ordered these kept under guard at one of the royal ikhanda barracks, lest overzealous warriors squander the precious ammunition either in hunting or sport. It was also impractical for marksmen to carry so many cartridges. Their weight alone proved a great encumbrance. There were also not enough of these weapons to compel Cetshwayo to change his overall tactics. Instead, each warrior with a modern rifle carried twenty-five to thirty cartridges in his personal bag.

  “Mnyamana will be in overall command of the impi,” the king said, cutting straight to the point. “He is my chief minister, and serving as commanding general of the army is his right. This does not mean I have simply cast you aside, old friend. I have a crucially important, if hazardous, mission for you.”

  “I have lived a good life, Ndabazitha,” the inkosi stressed. “What remains of it, I gladly give in service to you and the people of amaZulu.”

  “Mnyamana will wish to observe any fighting from high ground, where he can see all of our regiments,” Cetshwayo explained. “But I need you to be with the ‘Chest’. Your presence alone will inspire our warriors, and you can more directly influence the outcome of battle. I need you to act as the voice of your king once the killing starts.”

  The rest of the izikhulu and amakhosi were soon summoned to join the king and Ntshingwayo. These men were required to keep low to the ground, their eyes averted and hands up on reverence, until after Cetshwayo ordered them to be seated.

  “War has returned to the land of the Zulu,” the king began. “Our hearts are heavy, yet our resolve must be stronger, as we face the white soldiers again.”

  “The redcoats came and we destroyed them, Ndabazitha,” one inkosi said with confidence. “And we shall butcher them again.”

  This was met with murmurs of concurrence from the assembled senior warriors, though Ntshingwayo remained impassive. The old general could not fault these men for their bravado. After all, they had destroyed a host of red-jacketed soldiers, and they needed all the confidence they could muster in order to suppress the memories of bloodshed their warriors had suffered.

  “Wars are only won when an army learns from both its victories and defeats,” the king continued. “Our triumph at Isandlwana came at a price that I hope our warriors never have to pay again. We have also been subjected to a pair of defeats; one at kwaJimu, the other at Wombane Hill near the Inyezane River.”

  The king had clearly not forgotten the disobedience of the Undi Corps, nor the lack of aggression displayed by the southern impi. But rather than berating the amakhosi, he instead wished to use these unfortunate events as a lesson to ensure proper discipline. “Even when greatly outnumbered, the red soldiers can make the humblest of defence works into an impenetrable fortress. As we saw at Isandlwana, they are most vulnerable when exposed out in the open. Behind their laagers and earthen ramparts, our superior numbers mean nothing. Therefore, do not engage them when they are entrenched. They must be drawn out and crushed in the open.”

  “Ndabazitha, against which force of white soldiers are you sending the impi?” an inkosi named Mzilikazi asked. The commanding general of the uNokhenke Regiment, his warriors had made up a substantial portion of the ‘Chest’ during the Battle of Isandlwana.

  “The men trapped at Eshowe are paralyzed for the time being,” the king said. “Spies have informed me that a large column of British soldiers is massing near the mouth of the Thukela River. So long as they remain on enemy soil, we cannot move against them. The Thukela has flooded considerably, creating an unbreachable barrier. For the moment, this force is of no threat to us. It is to the north that I will send you.”

  There were a few murmurs and nods of understanding.

  “The red soldiers savage our lands,” an inkosi observed.

  “The betrayal of Prince Hamu also means the region must be forcibly brought to submission,” Mnyamana stated rather boldly. The defection of the king’s elder brother was a great source of embarrassment, yet the chief minister felt it needed to be addressed.

  “Traitors will be punished. Those who’ve remained loyal will fall under our protection,” Cetshwayo stated. “Despite having their cattle stolen by the thousands and their crops burned, the abaQulusi have remained loyal. Their fealty must be rewarded. Their regiments will join the impi and be allotted a suitable share of any spoils taken.”

  “My king, are you suggesting we invade British territory?” an inkosi asked.

  “I suggest nothing,” the king said, his voice tense. “I demand that you reclaim the disputed lands that the English and Dutch have stolen from the amaZulu. Destroy their towns, take their cattle and crops, that our faithful people might eat. This will also draw the red soldiers out from behind their laager. Once they are exposed, you will crush them in the open!”

  It would take another two days for the remaining wagons to travel the short distance from Derby to Myer’s Drift. The rains continued to pummel them, softening the ground and leaving the river flooded beyond its banks. The heavily-laden wagons continuously sunk in the muck and needed to be constantly dug out. At times they were only able to travel a few yards every hour.

  “The Zulus don’t care for this weather any more than we do,” Mister Sussens mentioned to Captain Moriarty, when the last of the wagons were less than a mile from the drift. “I suspect that may be all that’s been keeping them from attacking.”

  The officer said nothing, but huddled beneath his greatcoat while rain streamed off his Foreign Service helmet. Twice he had tried lighting his pipe, though it was impossible to keep lit for any length of time. He took a moment to survey the churned-up ground of mud and trampled grass on the north side of the Ntombe. He’d ordered his men to place their tents along the gentle slope of high ground which overlooked the drift. The day was growing late, and he was in no mood to oversee the laagering of the wagons into a square.

  “We’ll form the convoy into a large ‘V’,” he ordered. “The legs of which will but up against the riverbank. Cattle can be kept there, and our men will erect their tents along the high ground nearest the point.”

  Josiah raised an eyebrow, though he was too tired to argue. And given the overflowed state of the river, using it as a barrier against any Zulu incursion made for a stronger obstacle than a line of wagons. It was with great weariness that the detachment of soldiers from the 80th Regiment, along with the African drivers and voorloopers, established their camp near the banks of the Ntombe River.

  Chapter XXV: Traitors to Their King

  The British Fort at Khambula

  10 March 1879

  Letters from Home, from The Graphic

  Given the constant harrying and ever-present threat of hostilities throughout the Khambula region, it was with great surprise that a rider from Luneburg brought not only official despatches from his lordship and the news that Prince Hamu had reached British territory safely, but also the personal post. For Lieutenant Arthur Bigge of 11/7 Battery, there was a letter in an envelope with an elaborate wax seal.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” he said with a grin.

  He was joined by his friend, 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Bright of the 90th Regiment. “Who’s that from, then?” Bright asked, noting the seal emblazed with the large letter ‘N’. “What does the ‘N’ stand for, ‘Napoleon’?”

  He was laughing at the absurdity, though the artillery officer simply raised an eyebrow.

  “As a matter of interest, it does,” he replied. “More specifically, Louis Napoleon, the Prince Imperial.”

  “I’ve hear
d about him. Son of Emperor Napoleon III and great-nephew of old ‘Boney’ himself. I understand he was at Woolwich the same time I was at Sandhurst.”

  “Yes, well, his mother, Empress Eugenie, is a personal friend of Her Majesty,” Bigge explained. “After his father was defeated by King Wilhelm and the Prussians, they fled to England. The Queen arranged for Louis to be educated at King’s College London and then secured his position at Woolwich. He did quite well, graduating seventh out of thirty-four in his class. Of course, as a foreign prince and potential head-of-state, he is ineligible to be awarded the Queen’s Commission. That has not stopped him from making every attempt to ‘soldier’.”

  “Fascinating how our enemies and friends can come from the same family over the course of just a couple generations,” Bright observed. He then asked, “How did you come to know the exiled heir to the French Imperial throne?”

  “He came out to observe an exercise our battery was undertaking at Aldershot, four years ago. The brigade commander allowed him to not just observe, but also participate in section drills. I have to say, he performed splendidly. And though he wasn’t allowed to ‘officially’ be commissioned, he is still a Woolwich graduate. The commander-in-chief even authorised him to wear the officer’s patrol jacket and uniform of the Royal Artillery. We became friends and have kept in touch ever since.”

  Bigge raised an eyebrow as he read through the letter from his noble friend.

  My Dear Arthur,

  Ever since hearing about the splendid adventures the army has undertaken in Southern Africa, I confess to feelings of envy, as I have been compelled to remain as a guest of our most royal host, Queen Victoria.

  My mother, the Empress, at first spoke rather harshly against my wish to seek employment with Lord Chelmsford in his fight against the Zulus. I think she has begun to see reason, as I have told her that it is not right for me to seek to reclaim the throne of our once-mighty French Empire, if I am not first willing to test my mettle in warfare.