by John Wilcox
‘Certainly. Evans – he’s the commander of the Lake Fleet in Kisumu, at the railhead at the lake.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘He certainly believes he can take – what is it, about 1,500 men across the lake?’
‘About that, yes.’ Tighe yelled a command and the door was flung open by a beaming black orderly. ‘Tea, yer grinning monkey,’ the General cried. ‘For two.’ He turned back to Fonthill. ‘Milk or lemon?’
‘Lemon in this climate, thanks.’
‘Quite right. With lemon, then, yer rascal. So move your arse and be quick about it.’ But he grinned as he shouted and the grin was returned. ‘Now where were we? Ah yes. About 1,500 men. Can we get across without detection, presumably under darkness, attack the town, put the radio station out of action and knock the place about a bit with that number, d’yer think, Fonthill? I doubt if I can spare more.’
‘Yes, I believe so.’ Simon thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know how many men the Germans have to defend the town. Certainly, I saw absolutely no sign of any military, apart from one or two black askaris guarding the radio station. Evans believes that the standing garrison is only about 300, but he also feels that there are about five times that number within marching distance of the town.’
Tighe frowned. ‘Hmmm. That means that we have to get in swiftly and strike quickly before the reinforcements get up. Show me the lie of the land.’
Fonthill produced the rough map he had drawn on the train journey. ‘It seems to me, General,’ he said, ‘that the secret lies in getting swiftly inland and sweeping round the outskirts of the town and taking these ridges that surround the place and look down on it. Once there, you have the town at your mercy. There are hills here and here by the beach,’ he pointed, ‘where the Germans, if they are sensible, will rush to oppose you shortly after landing. So you will have to take them quickly.’
‘What about going along the shoreline this way and attacking from the north?’
‘It’s very marshy there, sometimes waist-deep. But, if you have the men, it would be worth sending a battalion that way to create a diversion, at least. And there is a plantation here, which could provide defensive positions for the Germans. If I may make a suggestion …?’
The blue eyes smiled. ‘Suggest away, old chap. I am listening to every word. I understand that you advised General Wolseley on how to attack the bPedi nation on the Mozambique border. If your advice was good enough for Wolseley, then, for sure, it’s good enough for me.’
Fonthill returned the smile, half-embarrassed. ‘That’s kind of you, General. Obviously, you have to get in quickly and one of the problems is that the beach, while suitable for landing in most ways, is a bit small to take such a large contingent of men. So you will need to buy time, so to speak, to get ’em all ashore.’
‘Quite so. So …?’
‘You will need a diversion, to create confusion among the defenders and distract from the main landing place. The river here,’ he pointed, ‘curls round and there is a ferry there. If Evans could send a couple of ships, say just south of the town here, it could lure the Germans into thinking that you intended a landing there and so persuade them to divert troops to defend the ferry crossing. And, also, if the naval guns could direct fire on the custom house, to the north of where the main landing will be, just about here,’ he pointed again, ‘it would add to the merry dance you would be leading the Huns.’
‘Good idea. Let me discuss this with my staff, but it seems a pretty good plan to me.’
There was a brief pause while the tea was brought in. Simon raised his cup and then asked: ‘May I ask, what troops do you have for all this? You will need some good men to get in, strike quickly and get out again.’
‘Indeed. The 25th Royal Fusiliers – what d’yer call ’em?’
‘The Frontiersmen.’
‘Those are the boys. They’ve only just landed but their CO is bursting to get into action and says they need absolutely no acclimitisation, so I shall send ’em straight in. Strange bunch. Lots of elderly fellers amongst them but they look a hardy lot … ah, weren’t you involved with them?’
Fonthill smiled wanly. ‘Not really. I was offered the command but I felt that Driscoll, whom I knew vaguely in South Africa, didn’t deserve to lose his regiment in my favour, so I refused it. I am much happier doing what I am now.’
‘Very well. Now finish yer tea and get back to that remarkable wife of yours. You will come in with us, presumably?’
Simon drained his cup. ‘Good Lord, yes. If you will have me, that is.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind – and, of course, bring in old 657, or whatever he is called, and your black tracker.’
‘352. Yes, thank you. When do you move?’
‘It will take a few days to get the troops together. Ah, there’s one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
Tighe frowned. ‘The bloody War Office won’t let me take command of the operation. They say that as C-in-C I must stay here and play at soldiers on my desk top. So, I have given command to General Stewart. Know him?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘First-class chap. You will meet him soon.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give my regards to your wife and thank you for your good work on this – oh, and by the way, for what you did when that train was attacked.’ Tighe tightened his grip and shook Simon’s hand warmly. ‘God knows why the army let you go, Fonthill. You would have been on the general staff, covered in gold braid, if you had stayed on after the Second Afghan War. And I would have been calling you sir by now.’
Back in the hotel, Alice, Jenkins and Mzingeli joined Fonthill in a corner of the bar where they could not be overheard, to take whiskies and soda – a lemonade in the case of Mzingeli. After hearing Simon’s story, Alice leant forward eagerly.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘When do we start?’
Jenkins looked at the ceiling wearily as Simon slowly replaced his glass. ‘We?’ he said. ‘“We”? There is no we about this, my love. You are not going on this expedition, Alice, and that is the beginning and end of it. This is an army operation that will involve a great deal of danger and there cannot possibly be a place for a woman in it.’
Jenkins stood up. ‘I ’ave a feelin’ that I’ve heard this argument before,’ he said. ‘If you will excuse us, I will take old Jelly and buy him a glass of milk to sober ’im up, see. Come on, boyo.’
They had hardly left before Alice exploded. ‘Army? Army? I am in the bloody army as much as you are, Simon. At least, I am formally accredited to it, which is more than you can say. Of course I am coming. This is my job, dammit. I must report on something that sounds as though it might produce the first bit of good news since this bloody war started.’
Simon sighed. ‘Ah well, Alice, you might find that you have a problem with Stewart. I can well imagine that he won’t want a woman in his invasion force.’
‘Well that is just jolly hard luck for General Stewart. Kitchener intervened to get me ashore at Tanga and, if necessary, I will get King Bloody George to step in, or even the Kaiser, for that matter.’ She leant forward and gripped his hand. ‘Simon, my love, I must do my job, just as you must, too. You must understand that.’
Simon lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Very well, darling. We’ve been through this so many times before. I certainly will do nothing to stop you coming with us, of course.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘At least I might get a better cup of tea, if you do come. I think 352 is losing his touch. His tea these days tastes like stewed prunes.’
They both smiled and, leaning forward, exchanged a chaste kiss.
The next morning Alice rose well before Simon and crept quietly out into the already sultry morning and summoned a rickshaw. ‘To the Army GHQ,’ she said firmly. What was the point, she argued to herself as the black boy jogged along between the shafts before her, in having established a good relationship with the commander-in-chief of the British army in British East Africa if she didn’t fully
exploit that relationship?
Alice returned at mid morning to find that Simon and his two companions had left the hotel, but those who knew her would have recognised the very self-satisfied smile on her face as she sat in the bar and ordered herself coffee, cold milk and a small chaser of single malt whisky.
It took Tighe about three weeks to assemble his force. He knew that the success of the mission was vital, after the Tanga debacle, and he plundered some of the best troops from throughout his command. They congregated on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria: the newly-arrived 25th Royal Fusiliers; a detachment from the Loyal North Lancs; the 3rd battalion of the King’s African Rifles, with two guns of the 28th Mountain Battery; a full machine gun section from the East African Regiment; and the four machine guns of the Volunteer Maxim Company – roughly one and a half thousand men, as originally planned.
The day before the main force set out, Stewart ordered two ships to cross the lake and make a feint away from Bukoba towards the Kagera River. Simon was glad to see that his advice was being taken by the general, whom he had only met briefly before disembarkation.
On the voyage across the lake in the leading ship, Fonthill sought out Lieutenant Colonel Driscoll, the CO of the 25th Fusiliers, ‘the Frontiersmen’, as much out of curiosity to see what kind of men he had narrowly ‘escaped’ from commanding, as from desire to meet Driscoll himself.
He found the colonel, sprawled with his men on the deck of the steamer, ready to be the first ashore. Driscoll was a large, good-looking man with a bristling moustache and a very loud voice. In fact, as Fonthill introduced himself, the colonel struggled to his feet and boomed, ‘Delighted, Fonthill, absolutely delighted,’ so loudly that Simon worried that the German defences would hear and be alerted.
Fonthill squatted down beside him and immediately the two began reminiscing about the Boer War. Driscoll and he had shared similar experiences during that conflict, with each acting as scouts and, in the end, commanding a column. But they had never met.
Simon steered the conversation towards the 400 men who constituted Driscoll’s command. ‘I gather you’ve got a rather strange bunch under you,’ he said.
Driscoll frowned for a moment and Fonthill feared that he had given offence. ‘Well,’ responded the colonel, ‘I suppose you could call them strange.’ He grinned. ‘To start with, as you can see,’ he gestured towards his men, ‘our average age must be well above that of any other battalion in the British army. But they are all fit as fiddles. We include Outram and Selous, the big-game hunters. Splendid shots, of course. And I believe that Selous, who is 63, must be the oldest serving man in the whole damned army. We’ve got cowboys from Canada and the States, prizefighters, acrobats – including one feller who can climb stairs on his head, or something like that. There’s a couple of MPs, some music hall comedians, and even some university professors. Dammit, Fonthill, they know the Empire, they know how to rough it and they’re as keen as mustard to have a go at the Kaiser and his Prussians. I am proud to command ’em, I can tell you.’
Fonthill nodded and returned the grins that were being directed at him from the faces looking toward him and the colonel. For a moment, he regretted giving up the chance of leading these men into action. It would have been an unusual challenge. Then Driscoll was speaking again.
‘I hear that you have already been on the other side of this pond and sorted out the plan of attack,’ he said, one eyebrow raised.
‘Well,’ Simon shifted awkwardly, ‘I gave Tighe a few suggestions, that’s all. He’s got a good record, as I’m sure you know, and you don’t give a fighting major general his plan of attack. Are you going in first?’
‘More or less.’ The colonel’s teeth shone in the moonlight. ‘We’re going onto the beach first, I gather, which is quite an honour, but my orders are not to go inland but to advance to the town more or less along the shoreline. Then we are to capture the first ridge we meet – you must know it – consolidate there and cover the main force as they land. Do you have specific orders yourself? Do you have to stay alongside Stewart?’
‘Er … no. He probably didn’t want me hanging about him. He will have his own ideas of how to attack the town.’
‘Well, that’s splendid. Why don’t you come along with us? Show us the way, so to speak.’
Fonthill bit his lip. He looked along the serried row of faces of the Frontiersmen turned towards them both. There was a lot of silver hair to be seen under their caps and quite a few gnarled moustaches. It would be good to see how they reacted to being in the van of the attack. But advancing along the shoreline? That would mean struggling through that blasted marsh again and then, in all probability, attacking through the plantation, with its many trees offering cover for the defenders. But, of course, he could not refuse the invitation.
‘Delighted,’ he said.
Before dawn but under a full moon the ships carrying the troops put their human cargoes ashore at the little inlet where Simon, Jenkins and Mzingeli had landed several weeks before, now identified as Kiaya Bay. The disembarkation, however, was not carried out without some initial vicissitudes. The Germans had posted a lookout station on nearby Busira Island – had they been alerted? – and the flotilla was seen approaching in the full moonlight. The alarm was given but two of the ships executed a feint towards the customs house identified originally by Jenkins and Mzingeli and drew the fire of a German field gun sited there. The landings themselves were carried out far enough away from the town to prevent defenders being rushed to the little bay to prevent the invaders going ashore. It was, in effect, a complete reversal of the Tanga disaster.
Alice and the small group of correspondents allowed to accompany the mission watched the first landings from the deck of a steamer waiting its turn to disembark its troops. She quickly focussed her field glasses onto the little figures – she knew they were the Fusiliers – who were the first ashore and drew in her breath as she made out the unmistakable outlines of Simon, Jenkins and Mzingeli in the first wave, splashing through the water, holding their rifles aloft.
‘Ah, your man is there, then.’ She turned quickly and found the unwelcome figure of Herman de Villiers standing at her side, also focussing his glasses on the shore.
‘What? Oh. I don’t know where he is, as a matter of fact.’ Alice felt an instinctive desire to tell the Boer nothing – and certainly no fragment of information that would implicate Simon in any way.
‘Ach.’ De Villiers lowered his glasses and tugged at his black beard. ‘I understood that he was going ashore with the first battalion to land, the Fusiliers.’
‘Really?’ Alice summoned up a smile. ‘Ah, you are so well informed Mr de Villiers. Better than I, in fact.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, Mrs Fonthill. I don’t think so. But we will see.’ He adjusted his spectacles, nodded to her and shuffled away, picking his way along the crowded deck.
Frowning, Alice picked up her binoculars again and tried to pick out Simon and his two companions among the khaki figures tumbling ashore and making their way up the beach. He had gone. Where, she wondered, where? Was he being expected to lead the troops in the van? She lowered the glasses. Thank God the first wave of troops had gone ashore without meeting any opposition. How long would that last …?
Simon, Jenkins and Mzingeli had, in fact, landed right in the van of the raiding force, even before General Stewart had gone ashore. Driscoll was the first to tread ashore and he looked enquiringly over his shoulder. Fonthill pointed ahead into the thin line of trees and then indicated a left turn. The colonel nodded and broke into a leaden-footed trot, disappearing into the trees.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ shouted Simon. ‘Why didn’t he wait?’ He turned to the others. ‘We’d better catch him up before he leads everybody into an ambush.’
‘I’m not too sure about the catchin’ up bit,’ puffed Jenkins. ‘Me right boot is full of water and I’m sloshing about. And I’m not the fastest mover at the best of times these days, look you. Send old
Jelly to slow the bugger down.’
Fonthill nodded to Mzingeli, and the black man strode effortlessly ahead in the wake of the colonel. ‘Tell him,’ Simon called after him, ‘that there’s a ridge immediately ahead on the left, which could be the Germans’ first defensive position. He must be careful.’
The tracker raised a hand in acknowledgement and was gone.
They found him a couple of minutes later, crouched by the side of Driscoll and his senior officers, examining the black outline of the ridge that stretched above them.
Simon nodded towards it. ‘Any sign of occupation?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know. But my instincts are to march straight in and take it now.’
‘It’s your show, Driscoll. But may I suggest we send in Mzingeli here to go up it first and find out? He moves like a panther and can scout it and be back within ten minutes. Not too long to wait, I would suggest, eh?’
The tracker’s teeth flashed in the early dawn. ‘I go if you want.’
Driscoll nodded. ‘Good idea. All of my chaps aren’t here from the beach yet, anyway. But make it quick, boy. Make it quick.’
Fonthill noticed a slight frown cross the usually impassive face of Mzingeli at being called ‘boy’, but then he nodded and disappeared into the gathering light.
The Fusiliers had hardly gathered behind their colonel before the tracker was back.
He avoided Driscoll and reported to Fonthill. ‘Nobody up there, Nkosi,’ he said. ‘But troops could be coming from direction of town, I think. I did not stay to find out.’
‘Good. Quite right.’ Driscoll turned his head and spoke to his second in command. ‘Advance to the front in open order. No one to fire unless I give the order. On the top, if there is no opposition, take up defensive positions facing the south all along the ridge. Spread the word to the officers.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Orders were barked and the Frontiersmen quickly and quietly began to spread out on either side of their colonel, moving away under cover of a morning mist that was beginning to rise. Fonthill was impressed at the discipline of the troops. Not the adventurous, individualistic rabble that he had half-expected. They could have been Guardsmen the way they dispersed in an orderly fashion, following their officers.