Last Stand At Majuba Hill (Simon Fonthill Series)

by John Wilcox

  ‘While the captain was doin’ his judgement stuff and his troops was all a-listenin’ to his words, ah just stole off and had a look in mah saddle pack. Ah thought ah’d seen the handle of one of mah Colts peepin’ out, and sure enough, that’s where they’d put ’em fer safe keepin’, good as their word. Fine fellers fer keepin’ their word, these Boers. Mind you,’ he flashed his smile, ‘could’ve hanged you as easy as splittin’ peas, ah’m thinkin’.’

  ‘That’s true. Now. What sort of guard is being kept?’

  The Texan scratched his head. ‘Waal, to tell you the truth, not much of one, as far as ah can see. These heah Boers are good shots right ’nuff, but they ain’t proper soldiers, that’s fer sure. Apart from this feller heah, they don’t seem to have posted proper sentries. Custer wouldn’t have allowed that.’

  ‘Good. Jenkins, please tie the legs and feet of our friend here. We don’t want him hopping around. Now, let me take a look.’

  Simon eased his way through the waggon opening and slipped to the ground. Cautiously he crept underneath the waggon and surveyed the camp. The big fire had burned low but there was enough light from the embers to see the rolled forms of the Boer party, stretched out around the fire like spokes in a wheel. The shadows between the trees surrounding the camp could have concealed a guard, but although he stared into the woods and focused hard for at least a minute, he could see no signs of movement. As Al had said, the Boers might be damned fine fighters but they lacked the elementary discipline of trained soldiers. They probably felt that they were far enough from the border to do without such conventional precautions. Nevertheless, saddling the horses without waking anyone would be a problem.

  He put his head back within the waggon. ‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘Come on. The horses are nearby, thank goodness, so you two must saddle up without making a sound. Then we will lead them back to the north, away from the camp, and wheel round behind this copse before we mount. There doesn’t appear to be a guard, but these Boers sleep with one ear open, so we mustn’t make a sound.’

  As the others worked on the horses, patting them and whispering reassuringly, Simon struggled to free the bolt linking the cannon to the waggon, finally wrenching it free and throwing it into the woods. The barrel tilted up and he scooped up handfuls of dust and stones of all sizes and tipped them down the muzzle. Jenkins, tightening cinches, nodded approvingly. Then, treading gingerly, the three led the horses away from the camp through the trees until they met the trail. There they turned south, and after three minutes or so mounted and put their horses first into a trot and then to the gallop.

  ‘Waal, bless ma soul,’ chortled Al as he sat erect on his magnificent Custer, his Stetson hanging down his back on a neck cord, ‘that was just too damned easy.’

  They had been riding for about an hour, at walking pace now to spare their horses, when the sun began to send cartwheels of golden rays into the darkness from the tips of the Drakensbergs ahead and to their left. Unseen, but from all sides, dozens of birds broke into song to welcome the new day. Overhead, a steppe buzzard wheeled low. The flat veldt had already been left behind and they could just perceive the terrain now undulating before them, breaking out here and there into distinctive flat-topped outcrops of rock, like miniature forms of the Table Mountain that Simon had climbed in Cape Town.

  ‘Reminds me of Utah,’ said Hardy. ‘Just like the buttes there.’

  Simon shot him a quick look and wondered for a moment. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘You really have been everywhere, haven’t you?’

  But it was Jenkins who threw up his hand. ‘Shush,’ he ordered. He slipped off his horse and fell to the ground, pressing his ear to the stunted brown grass. ‘Horsemen,’ he cried. ‘Not far away. Probably behind us.’

  ‘Waal.’ Hardy nodded in approval. ‘Just like an Injun tracker. Ah’m impressed.’

  Jenkins grinned. ‘Saw a black feller do this in Zululand,’ he said. ‘Only trouble is . . .’ he put a forefinger into his ear, ’you end up with an earwig in your ear’ole, see.’

  Simon stood in the stirrups and looked behind them, but it was still too dark to see their pursuers. ‘I reckon the border is about thirty-five miles or so,’ he said. ‘Too far to out-gallop them, I’d say, but we don’t have too much artillery to fight them off.’ Having forsaken their Martini-Henrys, they had taken the Boer guard’s Westley Richards rifle and his bandolier, but then it would be down to Hardy’s Winchester - a short-range weapon - and his two handguns, which, of course, carried over an even shorter distance. ‘Let’s see if we can shake ’em off.’ Simon pointed to the south-west. ‘Get off this trail and make for the rocky ground leading up to that kopje. On the hard stuff they might find it difficult to track us.’

  They hauled their horses’ heads round and set off, as fast as the broken ground could take them, towards a stubby rock of a hill that loomed off to their right. As the ground sloped upwards to give birth to the kopje, it revealed outcrops of ironstone that broke up into gullies, wide enough to take their horses. It was not the best defensive position in the world, but it was shelter of sorts. They dismounted, hitched the horses in the deepest gully to a grizzled stump of karoo shrub and crouched around a cleft in a rock, watching the trail to the north in the growing light.

  They did not have long to wait. The Boers were riding hard - Simon presumed that they must have been covering the ground in spells of galloping and cantering - and there were seven of them, following a leader who was leaning low over his mount’s neck, studying the track as he galloped. They sped past the point where the three had branched off on to the stony ground and Simon heaved a sigh of relief. Then, however, he bit his lip as the leader of the horsemen threw up his hand to halt the party. The sun had now cleared the peak to the east and it flooded the plain with light. By its rays they could see that the Boers had clearly lost their trail and were debating which direction to follow to pick it up again.

  ‘They must be damn fine trackers,’ said Simon.

  As they watched, the leader stood in his stirrups and pointed first to the kopje where they were hiding and then to a more distant hill to the east. Immediately the party split into two groups and began trotting, their eyes scanning the ground, in diametrically opposed directions, the first group of four heading towards the kopje.

  ‘Well, look you,’ said Jenkins, his eyes narrowed. ‘Seems we’re goin’ to ’ave to fight after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Simon, ‘but these chaps have eyes like hawks. Keep down under cover. At least we’ve made them split their forces. Three against four is better odds.’

  ‘Yes, bach sir, until the other lot comes up, that is.’

  The tall Texan said nothing but he eased the long Colts in their holsters.

  ‘You take the Westley Richards, 352,’ said Simon. ‘Al, do you want the Winchester?’

  ‘Nope. Reckon ah’m better with mah pearl-handled babies, iffen it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Fine. I will take your rifle. Now, this is what we do. We are going to have to fight, so we must fight to kill. We have the advantage of surprise.’ He swallowed because he felt far less confident than he sounded. ‘They can’t be sure that we are here and they will know that if we are not, they will have to make up lost time to catch us up down the trail. So they will have half a mind on that problem.’

  He took a quick look through the crevice. The four horsemen were about three hundred yards away now, approaching the kopje, their rifles held across their saddles.

  Simon turned back. ‘As soon as we shoot, of course, the others will come back to attack us. So we must kill these four before they have time to find cover. This means . . .’ he wiped a bead of perspiration from his brow, ‘this means that we don’t shoot until the last minute, at such short range that we can’t miss. Now, 352, you take the man on the right of the four, I will take the next man along and Al, you take the third. Whoever can reload quickest takes the last one. Don’t shoot until I tell you. Understood?’

 
The two nodded. Simon decided that the hunting party would be too close for him to take another look, so he mouthed, ‘I’ll count to ten and then we fire. Starting now: one, two . . .’

  But he got no further. For some reason - perhaps a snake in the gully or because he scented the approach of other horses - one of their mounts chose just that moment to whinny. Immediately, Simon shouted, ‘Fire!’ and sprang around the side of the rock, the Winchester stock at his shoulder.

  The resulting action was not at all what he had planned or expected. As though in slow motion, he saw his target raise his head in surprise and struggle with his horse, which had reared at Simon’s sudden appearance. Simon’s shot missed both horse and rider and whistled out over the veldt. He heard a click as Jenkins’s rifle misfired and then the Welshman’s cry of fury. The four horsemen wheeled their mounts around to bring their rifles into play.

  At that point, the Texan stepped from behind the rocks into full view of the Boers. Simon saw with horror that his Colts were still in their holsters and that although his hands were hovering over their pearl handles, Hardy seemed to be making no effort to draw them, almost offering himself as a target. Instinctively, Simon shouted, ‘Al!’ For a microsecond his cry diverted the Boers and suddenly the American’s hands became a blur of action. A Colt appeared in his right hand and with his left he began fanning the cocking hammer - Simon learned later that the guns were single action - as four shots sounded, almost as one. Slowly, all four Boers, their rifles in mid-air. bent over and slid to the ground, blood oozing from wounds in their chests. Hardy watched them for a moment, then replaced the pistol in its holster.

  ‘Good God,’ breathed Simon, his tongue running over his lips.

  ‘Bloody ’ell,’ said Jenkins.

  ‘Reckon them others will be over here afore you can say shortnin’ bread,’ murmured Hardy. ‘Better pick up their rifles, ah guess, eh, Simon?’ The tall Texan displayed no obvious emotion, but Simon noted that his hands were shaking and his face perspiring.

  ‘Are they all dead?’ asked Simon, moving towards the first man.

  ‘Ah guess so.’ Hardy’s face was taut and his jaw clenched. He stood staring at the dead men.

  Jenkins whistled. ‘Blimey, Ally. I’ve never seen anythin’ like that. You ought to be in a fairground, see.’

  Simon gazed across the plain. The other three Boers were galloping towards them and would be upon the kopje within about ten minutes. There was no time to run - and this time there would be no surprise.

  ‘Yes, let’s gather the rifles and their bandoliers,’ he said, feeling distinctly superfluous. ‘Let’s hope they don’t all misfire this time. And let’s bring their horses into the gully. Quickly now.’

  This done, Simon and Jenkins quickly examined the Westley Richards rifles, the latter with a faint air of disgust. They were the same calibre as the British Martinis, but they required the fitting of percussion caps as well as the use of paper-wrapped cartridges. ‘No wonder the bloody thing wouldn’t fire,’ muttered an aggrieved Jenkins.

  ‘Should’ve told you,’ Hardy said quietly. ‘Mah Winchester fires to the right. You need to compensate it a touch.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Simon. But his eyes and his mind were now on the three figures approaching them across the veldt. They would now be able to see their four comrades lying in front of the kopje. How would they attack? From what Simon had heard, the Boers preferred to use their hunting skills to take advantage of the terrain and fire from cover. So there would be no storming of the position and making easy targets this time. These three could afford to pin down their prey and wait until the main party arrived - with the cannon? Frightening thought. Simon concentrated.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It’s three against three and they could hold us here. I don’t want to be still around when the rest of them arrive with that cannon. We must outmanoeuvre them somehow.’

  The Texan’s blue eyes looked doubtful. ‘Don’t see much hope of that on this plain,’ he said.

  ‘What do you ’ave in mind, bach sir?’ asked Jenkins.

  Simon made his decision quickly. ‘Right. Jenkins, can you quickly climb . . . no, sorry, you don’t like heights. I had forgotten. Al, do you think that you could take your Winchester up to the top of this kopje? That should give you a chance of shooting down on these people even when they’ve taken cover.’

  The tall thin man nodded. ‘Reckon so. Better be goin’ now so as ah’m ready to receive ’em.’ He slipped away down the gully and they could hear him scrambling up the rock on the Boers’ blind side.

  ‘What do you want me to do, then?’ asked Jenkins, a note of anxiety creeping into his voice. ‘Better I stay with you, bach, eh?’

  ‘No.’ Simon squinted at the approaching Boers. ‘We haven’t got much time. I don’t know how big this kopje is round the base, but I’m gambling it’s not too far. Can you get across to the flank of the damned thing and get into a position where you can enfilade these chaps? I’ll set up three rifles along here and shoot from all three in turn, so that the Boers will think we’re staying put to shoot it out. All right? Good. Get going.’

  ‘But you’ll never ’it a bleedin’ thing.’

  ‘Off you go, or it will be too late. Now. Go.’

  Jenkins sucked in his moustache, scowled but took off, rifle in hand, scrambling among the rocks, and was soon out of sight. Simon picked up three of the Westleys, saw that they were properly loaded and laid them along the gully , a handful of caps and paper-wrapped cartridges at the side of each. Then he settled down to wait.

  The Boers came up at the canter. Just out of range, they dismounted, and while one led their ponies away out of sight, the other two crouched and, spreading out, began crawling to gain vantage points to fire on Simon’s position from different angles. The third then appeared and as quickly disappeared as he sought cover. Simon had to admit that the Boers’ fieldcraft was impeccable. He had no idea where they had crawled to until, far to his left, a rifle cracked and a bullet hit the rock behind his head. He carefully noted the position and then waited. It wasn’t long before two more reports came from different directions. Again he noted them, then crawled to the rifle on his left and, fervently wishing he was a better shot, delivered a retort to the first marksman. He scrambled along the line and fired shots from the other two Westleys, taking a heavy kick in the shoulder each time but noticing that the power of the South African rifles was heavy, for a great shower of rock sprang from his third bullet, hitting surprisingly near to his intended target. Good, although accuracy was not the most desired feature at the moment - he wanted firepower, to delay the Boer assault until Jenkins and Hardy could come into play.

  The trouble was that they did not come into play. For at least ten minutes Simon scrambled amongst the rocks firing at puffs of smoke that seemed to change their positions all the time and, indeed, to get nearer. Without an elbow or an ankle to be seen, the Boers were somehow wriggling across this open ground towards him and becoming more accurate in their fire. As he sighted along the barrel of one of the Westleys, a bullet crashed into the rock about three inches from his face, sending a sliver of ironstone into his cheek and tearing it open, so that blood poured into his mouth and down his chin. Spitting, he withdrew the rifle and, moving to the other side of the rock which sheltered him, took a hurried shot at a fragmented view of a shoulder which appeared to be frighteningly close to him - perhaps only one hundred yards away. Where the hell were Al and Jenkins? If they did not open fire soon, the three Boers would be upon him and then he would stand no chance at all.

  Despite his anxiety and the speed with which he was forced to crawl between the three positions, Simon became aware that the Boer marksman to his left had fallen silent. There had been no puff of smoke from his position for at least three minutes. Simon did not flatter himself that his own shooting had found its target, and certainly there had been no other fire to threaten him. The answer was clear: the man was stalking him across the broken ground to the lef
t, either to rush him from the flank or crawl behind and deliver a fatal shot into his back. A shaft of fear ran through Simon. Now he knew how a gazelle must feel, sensing that a lion was out there somewhere in the long grass but not knowing which way to run. Why were Jenkins and Al not shooting?

  Simon dispatched two hurried valedictory bullets from the two Westleys to his right, then, withdrawing the third rifle, he ducked down into the gully behind him that now sheltered not only their own horses but also those of the dead Boers. Seven horses, then, were milling about in the narrow space, wide-eyed at the shooting and pulling at the reins that tethered them to the karoo bush. They offered the only cover, for the gully was open at both ends, so, murmuring words of comfort to the horses, Simon slipped between his own mount and the giant chestnut, which seemed the quietest of the animals. Kneeling there, he swung his head continually to look at both ends of the gully. From which direction would the final assault come? He licked dry lips and gripped his rifle. He would have time for only one shot . . .

  Then, blessedly, he heard two loud reports, one from directly above him and the other from round the kopje to his right. Had Al and Jenkins been able to join the battle at last? He had hardly had time to sense relief when a shower of stones to his left made him spin round to see a large bearded Boer - undoubtedly the man who had first crept up on them in the donga yesterday - slip down the slope into the end of the gully. He had seen the horses, of course, but not Simon bent down in their midst, for he was now creeping along the bed of the gully, putting one foot before the other with great care as, with rifle at the ready, he approached the little opening halfway along the gully wall through which Simon had entered. Simon was close enough to see every strand of his long greasy hair hanging down from his broken-brimmed hat and hear his breathing - close enough, indeed, to kill him, for he was clearly still unobserved.

  Slowly Simon raised his rifle and, peering from below the belly of the chestnut, sighted it on the big man’s chest. The range was short enough so that even he could not miss, but as his finger tightened on the trigger, he found that, somehow, he could not pull it. It was not a matter of reason, rather of sensitivity. He was too close. It would have been assassination rather than killing, murder rather than self-protection. He stayed kneeling, impotently sighting along the barrel, quite unable to fire at the Boer.