by G. A. Henty
The English now turned off towards the coast, marching part of the way through open country, part through a bush so dense that it was impossible to make a flank attack upon them here. In such cases as this, when the Ashantis know that an enemy is going to approach through a dense and impassable forest, they cut paths through it parallel to that by which he must advance and at a few yards’ distance. Then, lying in ambush there, they suddenly open fire upon him as he comes along. As no idea of the coming of the English had been entertained they passed through the dense thickets in single file unmolested. These native paths are very difficult and unpleasant walking. The natives always walk in single file, and the action of their feet, aided by that of the rain, often wears the paths into a deep V-shaped rut, two feet in depth. Burning two or three villages by the way the column reached the coast at a spot five miles from Elmina, having marched nine miles.
As the Ashantis were known to be in force at the villages of Akimfoo and Ampene, four miles farther, a party was taken on to this point. Akimfoo was occupied without resistance, but the Ashantis fought hard in Ampene, but were driven out of the town into the bush, from which the British force was too small to drive them, and therefore returned to Elmina, having marched twenty-two miles, a prodigious journey in such a climate for heavily armed Europeans. The effect produced among the Ashantis by the day’s fighting was immense. All their theories that the white men could not fight in the bush were roughly upset, and they found that his superiority was as great there as it had been in the open. His heavy bullets, even at the distance of some hundred yards, crashed through the brush wood with deadly effect, while the slugs of the Ashantis would not penetrate at a distance much exceeding fifty yards.
Ammon Quatia was profoundly depressed in spirits that evening.
“The white men who come to fight us,” he said, “are not like those who come to trade. Who ever heard of their making long marches? Why, if they go the shortest distances they are carried in hammocks. These men march as well as my warriors. They have guns which shoot ten times as far as ours, and never stop firing. They carry cannon with them, and have things which fly through the air and scream, and set villages on fire and kill men. I have never heard of such things before. What do you call them?”
“They are called rockets,” Frank said.
“What are they made of?”
“They are made of coarse powder mixed with other things, and rammed into an iron case.”
“Could we not make some too?” the Ashanti general asked.
“No,” Frank replied. “At least, not without a knowledge of the things you should mix with the powder, and of that I am ignorant. Besides, the rockets require great skill in firing, otherwise they will sometimes come back and kill the men who fire them.”
“Why did you not tell me that the white men could fight in the bush?”
“I told you that there would be a change when the new general came, and that they would not any longer remain in their forts, but would come out and attack you.”
A few days after this fight the Ashantis broke up their camp at Mampon, twelve miles from Elmina, and moved eastward to join the body who were encamped in the forest near Dunquah.
“I am going,” Ammon Quatia said to Frank, “to eat up Dunquah and Abra Crampa. We shall do better this time. We know what the English guns can do and shall not be surprised.”
With ten thousand men Ammon Quatia halted at the little village of Asianchi, where there was a large clearing, which was speedily covered with the little leafy bowers which the Ashantis run up at each halting place.
Two days later Sir Garnet Wolseley with a strong force marched out from Cape Coast to Abra Crampa, halting on the way for a night at Assaiboo, ten miles from the town. On the same day the general sent orders to Colonel Festing of the Marine Artillery, who commanded at Dunquah, to make a reconnaissance into the forest from that place. In accordance with this order Colonel Festing marched out with a gun and rocket apparatus under Captain Rait, the Annamaboe contingent of a hundred and twenty men under their king, directed by Captain Godwin, four hundred other Fantis under Captain Broomhead, and a hundred men of the 2d West India regiment. After a three mile march in perfect silence they came upon an Ashanti cutting wood, and compelled him to act as guide. The path divided into three, and the Annamaboes, who led the advance, when within a few yards of the camp, gave a sudden cheer and rushed in.
The Ashantis, panic stricken at the sudden attack, fled instantly from the camp into the bush. Sudden as was the scare Frank’s guards did not forget their duty, but seizing him dragged him off with them in their flight, by the side of Ammon Quatia. The latter ordered the war drums to begin to beat, and Frank was surprised at the quickness with which the Ashantis recovered from their panic. In five minutes a tremendous fire was opened from the whole circle of bush upon the camp. This stood on rising ground, and the British force returned the fire with great rapidity and effect. The Annamaboe men stood their ground gallantly, and the West Indians fought with great coolness, keeping up a constant and heavy fire with their Sniders. The Houssas, who had been trained as artillerymen, worked their gun and rocket tube with great energy, yelling and whooping as each round of grape or canister was fired into the bush, or each rocket whizzed out.
Notwithstanding the heavy loss which they were suffering, the Ashantis stood their ground most bravely. Their wild yells and the beating of their drums never ceased, and only rose the louder as each volley of grape was poured into them. They did not, however, advance beyond the shelter of their bush, and, as the British were not strong enough to attack them there, the duel of artillery and musketry was continued without cessation for an hour and a half, and then Colonel Festing fell back unmolested to Dunquah.
The Ashantis were delighted at the result of the fighting, heavy as their loss had been. They had held their ground, and the British had not ventured to attack them in the bush.
“You see,” Ammon Quatia said exultingly to Frank, “what I told you was true. The white men cannot fight us in the bush. At Essarman the wood was thin and gave but a poor cover. Here, you see, they dared not follow us.”
On the British side five officers and the King of Annamaboe were wounded, and fifty-two of the men. None were killed, the distance from the bush to the ground held by the English being too far for the Ashanti slugs to inflict mortal wounds.
Ammon Quatia now began to meditate falling back upon the Prah—the sick and wounded were already sent back—but he determined before retiring to attack Abra Crampa, whose king had sided with us, and where an English garrison had been posted.
On the 2d of November, however, Colonel Festing again marched out from Dunquah with a hundred men of the 2d West India regiment, nine hundred native allies, and some Houssas with rockets, under Lieutenant Wilmot, towards the Ashanti camp. This time Ammon Quatia was not taken by surprise. His scouts informed him of the approach of the column, and moving out to meet them, he attacked them in the bush before they reached the camp. Crouching among the trees the Ashantis opened a tremendous fire. All the native allies, with the exception of a hundred, bolted at once, but the remainder, with the Houssas and West Indians, behaved with great steadiness and gallantry, and for two hours kept up a heavy Snider fire upon their invisible foes.
Early in the fight Lieutenant Wilmot, while directing the rocket tube, received a severe wound in the shoulder. He, however, continued at his work till, just as the fight was ended, he was shot through the heart with a bullet. Four officers were wounded as were thirteen men of the 2d West India regiment. One of the natives was killed, fifty severely wounded, and a great many slightly. After two hours’ fighting Colonel Festing found the Ashantis were working round to cut off his retreat, and therefore fell back again on Dunquah. The conduct of the native levies here and in two or three smaller reconnaisances was so bad that it was found that no further dependence could be placed upon them, and, with the exception of the two partly disciplined regiments under Colonel Wood and Major Russ
ell, they were in future treated as merely fit to act as carriers for the provisions.
Although the second reconnaissance from Dunquah had, like the first, been unsuccessful, its effect upon the Ashantis was very great. They had themselves suffered great loss, while they could not see that any of their enemies had been killed, for Lieutenant Wilmot’s body had been carried off. The rockets especially appalled them, one rocket having killed six, four of whom were chiefs who were talking together. It was true that the English had not succeeded in forcing their way through the bush, but if every time they came out they were to kill large numbers without suffering any loss themselves, they must clearly in the long run be victorious.
What the Ashantis did not see, and what Frank carefully abstained from hinting to Ammon Quatia, was that if, instead of stopping and firing at a distance beyond that which at their slugs were effective, they were to charge down upon the English and fire their pieces when they reached within a few yards of them, they would overpower them at once by their enormous superiority of numbers. At ten paces distant a volley of slugs is as effective as a Snider bullet, and the whole of the native troops would have bolted the instant such a charge was made. In the open such tactics might not be possible, as the Sniders could be discharged twenty times before the English line was reached, but in the woods, where the two lines were not more than forty or fifty yards apart, the Sniders could be fired but once or at the utmost twice, while the assailants rushed across the short intervening space.
Had the Ashantis adopted these tactics they could have crushed with ease the little bands with which the English attacked them. But it is characteristic of all savages that they can never be got to rush down upon a foe who is prepared and well armed. A half dozen white men have been known to keep a whole tribe of Red Indians at a distance on the prairie. This, however, can be accounted for by the fact that the power of the chiefs is limited, and that each Indian values his own life highly and does not care to throw it away on a desperate enterprise. Among the Ashantis, however, where the power of the chiefs is very great and where human life is held of little account, it is singular that such tactics should not have been adopted.
The Ashantis were now becoming thoroughly dispirited. Their sufferings had been immense. Fever and hunger had made great ravages among them, and, although now the wet season was over a large quantity of food could be obtained in the forest, the losses which the white men’s bullets, rockets, and guns had inflicted upon them had broken their courage. The longing for home became greater than ever, and had it not been that they knew that troops stationed at the Prah would prevent any fugitives from crossing, they would have deserted in large numbers. Already one of the divisions had fallen back.
Ammon Quatia spent hours sitting at the door of his hut smoking and talking to the other chiefs. Frank was often called into council, as Ammon Quatia had conceived a high opinion of his judgment, which had proved invariably correct so far.
“We are going,” he said one day, “to take Abra Crampa and to kill its king, and then to fall back across the Prah.”
“I think you had better fall back at once,” Frank answered. “When you took me with you to the edge of the clearing yesterday I saw that preparations had been made for the defense, and that there were white troops there. You will never carry the village. The English have thrown up breastworks of earth, and they will lie behind these and shoot down your men as they come out of the forest.”
“I must have one victory to report to the king if I can,” Ammon Quatia said. “Then he can make peace if he chooses. The white men will not wish to go on fighting. The Fantis are eager for peace and to return to their villages. What do you think?”
“If it be true that white troops are coming out from England, as the Fanti prisoners say,” Frank answered, “you will see that the English will not make peace till they have crossed the Prah and marched to Coomassie. Your king is always making trouble. You will see that this time the English will not be content with your retiring, but will in turn invade Ashanti.”
Ammon Quatia and the chiefs laughed incredulously.
“They will not dare to cross the Prah,” Ammon Quatia said. “If they enter Ashanti they will be eaten up.”
“They are not so easy to eat up,” Frank answered. “You have seen how a hundred or two can fight against your whole army. What will it be when they are in thousands? Your king has not been wise. It would be better for him to send down at once and to make peace at any price.”
CHAPTER XX
THE WHITE TROOPS
Two days later Frank was awoke by a sudden yell. He leaped from his bed of boughs, seized his revolver, and rushing to the door, saw that a party of some twenty men were attacking Ammon Quatia’s hut. The two guards stationed there had already been cut down. Frank shouted to his four guards and Ostik to follow him. The guards had been standing irresolute, not knowing what side to take, but the example of the young Englishman decided them. They fired their muskets into the knot of natives, and then charged sword in hand. Ostik drew the sword which he always carried and followed close to his master’s heels. Frank did not fire until within two yards of the Ashantis. Then his revolver spoke out and six shots were discharged, each with deadly effect. Then, catching up a musket which had fallen from the hands of one of the men he had shot, he clubbed it and fell upon the surprised and already hesitating conspirators.
These, fortunately for Frank, had not loaded their muskets. They had intended to kill Ammon Quatia and then to disperse instantly before aid could arrive, believing that with his death the order for retreat across the Prah would at once be given. Several of them had been killed by the slugs from the muskets of Frank’s guard, and his pistol had completed their confusion. The reports of the guns called up other troops, and these came rushing in on all sides. Scarcely did Frank and his followers fall upon the conspirators than they took to their heels and fled into the wood.
Ammon Quatia himself, sword in hand, had just sprung to the door of the hut prepared to sell his life dearly, when Frank’s guard fired. The affair was so momentary that he had hardly time to realize what had happened before his assailants were in full flight.
“You have saved my life,” he said to Frank. “Had it not been for you I must have been killed. You shall not find me ungrateful. When I have taken Abra Crampa I will manage that you shall return to your friends. I dare not let you go openly, for the king would not forgive me, and I shall have enough to do already to pacify him when he hears how great have been our losses. But rest content. I will manage it somehow.”
An hour afterwards Ammon Quatia gave orders that the army should move to the attack of Abra Crampa. The place was held by a body of marines and sailors, a hundred West Indians, and the native troops of the king. Major Russell was in command. The village stood on rising ground, and was surrounded for a distance of a hundred and fifty yards by a clearing. Part of this consisted of patches of cultivated ground, the rest had been hastily cleared by the defenders. At the upper end stood a church, and this was converted into a stronghold. The windows were high up in the walls, and a platform had been erected inside for the sailors to fire from the windows, which were partially blocked with sandbags. The houses on the outside of the village had all been loopholed, and had been connected by breastworks of earth. Other defenses had been thrown up further back in case the outworks should be carried. The mission house in the main street and the huts which surrounded it formed, with the church, the last strongholds. For two or three days the bush round the town had swarmed with Ashantis, whose tomtoms could be heard by the garrison night and day.
Frank accompanied Ammon Quatia, and was therefore in the front, and had an opportunity of seeing how the Ashantis commence an attack. The war drums gave the signal, and when they ceased, ten thousand voices raised the war song in measured cadence. The effect was very fine, rising as it did from all parts of the forest. By this time the Ashantis had lined the whole circle of wood round the clearing. Then three regular volle
ys were fired, making, from the heavy charges used, a tremendous roar.
Scarcely had these ceased when the King of Abra, a splendid looking negro standing nearly six feet four in height, stepped out from behind the breastwork and shouted a taunting challenge to the Ashantis to come on. They replied with a loud yell, and with the opening of a continuous fire round the edge of the wood. On wall and roof of the village the slugs pattered thickly; but the defenders were all in shelter, and in reply, from breastwork and loophole, from the windows and roof of the church, the answering Snider bullets flew out straight and deadly. Several times Ammon Quatia tried to get his men to make a rush. The war drums beat, the great horns sounded, and the men shouted, but each time the English bullets flew so thick and deadly into the wood wherever the sound rose loudest that the Ashantis’ heart failed them, and they could not be got to make the rush across the hundred yards of cleared ground.
At five o’clock the fire slackened, but shortly after dark the attack recommenced. The moon was up and full. Frank feared that the Ashantis would try and crawl a part of the distance across the clearing and then make a sudden rush; but they appeared to have no idea of a silent attack. Several times, indeed, they gathered and rushed forward in large bodies, but each time their shouting and drums gave warning to the besieged, and so tremendous a fire was opened upon them when they emerged from the shadow of the trees into the moonlight, that each time they fell back leaving the ground strewn with dead. Till midnight the attack was continued, then the Ashantis fell back to their camp.
At Accroful, a village on the main road some four miles distant, the attack had been heard, and a messenger sent off to Cape Coast to inform Sir Garnet Wolseley.
In the morning fifty men of the 2d West India regiment marched from Accroful into Abra Crampa without molestation. Later on some Abra scouts approached the Ashanti camp and shouted tauntingly to know when the Ashantis were coming into Abra Crampa.