by John Wilcox
‘Now, it wouldn’t be right for me to give you a copy of what I have said to Colley, because of course it is confidential. But you should know the gist of it, in case,’ he gestured to the envelope, ‘something should happen to the document en route.
‘I have told the general that my colleagues - at least the majority of them that matter - on the Volksraad and I have no intention at this point of entering the war on the side of the Transvaal against the British.’
‘That’s good news, sir.’
‘Yes, but wait a moment. We would only do so if we came under so much pressure from our people in the Free State that we had no choice but to bend to their will. Personally, I doubt if that will happen, because, as I have often said,’ and he smiled, ‘we Boers are an easy-going people and we are happy to continue our peaceful ways if we are left alone. However, we could be roused if the war is conducted in such a way - excessive cruelty or reprisals against the civilian population, for instance - that it seems only right that we should go to the aid of our brothers in the north. I am sure you understand.’
‘Yes, Mr President. I understand.’
‘Very well.’ Brand rose and extended his hand. ‘Now make all haste with my letter.’ They shook hands and then the president put a restraining hand on Simon’s arm. ‘One more thing. In view of what I have said, you may just feel that it would be wise or expedient to convey the contents of my letter to Colonel Bentley here in Bloemfontein so that he can telegraph them ahead of you to Colley. Please do not do so. I would not like my opinions to leak out here, and putting them on the open telegraph would be one sure way of doing that - even if you people have some sort of code you can use. Do you understand?’
‘Of course, sir. You have my word.’
‘Then be on your way, and God’s speed.’
As Simon reached the door, Brand called out: ‘I do hope that you have found your brief stay in our town diverting, Fonthill.’
Simon smiled. ‘In every way, sir. In every way.’
Outside the assembly building, Simon stood for a moment in indecision. Then, thrusting the envelope inside his jacket, he made his way to the best hotel in town, where he knew that the baron and the countess were staying. At the reception desk he asked to see Anna, and was asked to wait while his message was taken to her room. He had no idea what he would say to her, but he knew that he had to see her again, to test his feelings and to gain some sort of understanding of her relationship with von Bethman. It was an uneasy wait, for he had no desire to encounter the baron, but not a long one. Within three minutes a terse message was delivered to say that the countess was not receiving callers.
Simon shrugged and made his way back to his own hotel, where he found Jenkins and a spruced-up Al loading the packhorse. He went to his room and tore up the letters he had written the previous evening. As he did so, something evocative but elusive about the place made him sit back, nostrils twitching, and look around him closely. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed and the door had been locked. What, then, was it? On an impulse he went to the shabby chest of drawers where his change of socks, his underpants and his meagre supply of three shirts were kept. There was something wrong . . . yes, they had been rearranged. Subtly but unmistakably, because, for all his servanting skills, Jenkins could not fold a shirt correctly and Simon had refolded them with the sleeves on the outside. Now, in conventional style, the sleeves had been tucked inside the fold of the shirt, as a wife or maidservant might do. Someone had been rifling through his drawers! Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed. Whoever had visited him had been looking for something he might have hidden there. Something easy to hide among shirts. Something small and flat . . . of course! Brand’s letter! Involuntarily, he touched the fat envelope inside his jacket for reassurance. Then he sat back in the chair and looked around and tried to concentrate. What had alerted him? Something elusive which did not fit easily into this Spartan room. Then he recognised it: it was perfume, the perfume that he would remember for the rest of his life. Anna had been in his room.
He rushed down the stairs to the young Afrikaner behind the reception desk.
‘Has anyone been in my room this morning?’
‘Only the maid, sir.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘No. You did have a visitor about an hour ago, but she did not go upstairs - well, at least as far as I know. And your key has always been here. The lady left this for you. I did not see you return or I would have given it to you then.’
Simon nodded slowly, took the slim envelope handed to him and returned to his room. Sitting, he held the envelope to his nostrils for a moment and confirmed that heady and erotic perfume. Then he tore it open and read:
My dear, dear Simon,
I cannot tell you the relief with which I have just heard that you have survived the duel and, indeed, inflicted a wound on Wilhelm von Bethman - although I take no satisfaction in this last thing. I am experiencing only shame and guilt that my irresponsible actions led you into this awful situation in the first place and so endangered your life. If you had died, part of me would have died also.
I am glad and grateful to have earned your affection (please forgive me if I do not express myself well, but my English lessons in Kent did not prepare me to write this sort of letter). I can only say that we must not see each other again, for reasons which are complicated and which perhaps one day I might have the opportunity of explaining to you.
Please do not try and find me, but STAY SAFE and please, please remember me with affection.
Yours most sincerely,
Anna
Simon threw down the letter, walked round the room, then picked it up, sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly read it again. Reasons which are complicated . . . What did that mean? Was she secretly married to von Bethman, or more to the point, was she in the employ of the German Government and - he must face it - a spy, working for Bismarck? Perhaps the two together? That would explain her coming to his room to look for Brand’s letter. Or, and his heart lifted for a moment, was she seeking some kind of keepsake to remember him by? Eventually Simon folded the letter, held it to his nostrils again, closed his eyes and sighed. No use pursuing it - he had a job to do. He carefully put the folded sheet away in the breast pocket of his shirt, stood and took a deep breath.
Down below, the other two were waiting. Without a word, Simon mounted his horse, pulled its head around and headed the little party away east out of Bloemfontein, towards Natal and the war that awaited them.
Chapter 8
At first Simon set a blistering pace, his mind far away and consumed by memories of ivory-skinned décolletage, soft brown eyes and a perfume which even now was fading from the letter at his breast. It was the gentle-voiced Hardy who protested. The American rarely cared for his personal comfort but he was ever vigilant about the health of his horse.
‘Hey, Simon,’ he called from the rear. ‘Ah’m thinkin’ that old Custer ain’t likin’ this hoss race you’ve entered him for. Cain’t we slow up a mite?’
‘Oh, sorry, Al. Certainly. I’m afraid I was far away.’
‘In bloody Germany,’ murmured Jenkins in a stage whisper.
Simon glared at him but said nothing. In truth, once the pace had been slowed it was not unpleasant riding across the undulating veldt, with a wind softening the rays of the early summer sun, although the nearer they came to the Natal border, the more frequent became the sudden and torrential rain showers that flooded the dongas and turned the trail into red mud.
They found that Hardy had acquired some knowledge of the local flora and fauna. A strange bird flew low over the grass, its gossamer-like tail floating behind it. ‘That’s a long-tailed widder bird,’ drawled the American. ‘Loses its tail in the winter.’ He also pointed out, high above them, the white-backed Cape vulture. ‘They can see for miles,’ he said, ‘an’ once they see one of their kind circling far away, they know it’s feedin’ time and they all hop over fast as a prairie dawg after a rattler.’<
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A new ritual had entered into the journey. If they were camping out on the plain, away from a Boer farm, Al would practise drawing his revolver from its holster and shooting at some target, a rock or a stunted piece of bush. It was clear that the amazing speed and accuracy he had displayed in killing the Boer horsemen was no fluke. Invariably he hit his selected target, sometimes drawing with his back to it and shooting on the turn.
‘ ’Ere,’ said Jenkins one morning as they were saddling up after witnessing another display of virtuoso marksmanship, ‘you must ’ave been in old Buffalo Bill’s circus, eh, Ally?’
‘Nope,’ said Hardy.
‘Well then, ’ow many men ’ave you killed with those bloody things?’
The American shrugged. ‘Cain’t remember.’
‘Blimey. All right then. Don’t tell us your life story. See if I care, bach.’
In fact, the journey had cemented the Welshman and the American’s friendship, with Hardy’s monosyllabic personality happily complementing Jenkins’s garrulous-ness. Every evening before turning in they played cards together. Yet after his initial openness, the Texan had certainly retreated into his shell and there were no more references to General Custer, the Little Bighorn or, indeed, life on the great plains of America. Simon had long ago come to the conclusion that Hardy had run into some sort of trouble and been forced to flee the North American continent. Gambling, perhaps? But he resolved not to pry. It was comforting enough having the genial, quietly spoken gunman with them without demanding his curriculum vitae.
A little over two weeks after leaving Bloemfontein, the trio walked their horses into Newcastle. They had been away more than a month and it was clear that General Colley had begun his advance and that they had just missed his departure. The tracks around Fort Amiel, above the town, were deep in mud and rutted from the wheels of hundreds of waggons and the passage of a small army.
Simon called at the general’s old headquarters and met Lieutenant Elwes, one of Colley’s young ADCs, who was, he said, clearing up after the departure of the column. They recognised each other from Simon’s visits to the general.
‘What sort of column is it?’ asked Simon.
‘Bit of a ragbag really,’ said the young man in tones redolent of Eton College. ‘But the general felt he’d just got to get on with it and relieve those garrisons in the Transvaal. The press at home and all that.’
‘What’s he got?’
‘Just under fifteen hundred men in all.’
Simon sighed. ‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘The Boers could have twice that many marksmen up on the Nek by now. What is the strength?’
Elwes pulled a well-thumbed sheet of paper towards him. ‘The column is called the Natal Field Force,’ he said. ‘The guts of it are five companies of the 58th Regiment and five companies of the 3/60th Rifles. But no real cavalry, just mounted infantry - a squadron of a hundred and thirty men, sixty-one from the Natal Mounted Police and a naval brigade of a hundred and twenty-seven men from a ship at the Cape.’
‘Artillery?’
‘Not too bad. There are four nine-pounder guns, two seven-pounders, two Gatling guns with the naval lads and three twenty-four-pounder rocket tubes.’
Simon registered a sad smile at the mention of the rockets. He remembered watching a battery of the things doing nothing whatever to deter the Zulus as they poured across the plain towards the encampment at Isandlwana. ‘When did the column leave?’ he asked.
‘Only yesterday. If I were you I would bed down for the night here and leave tomorrow. You will catch them easily.’ Elwes pushed his hand through tousled hair. ‘The bloody column is not exactly speeding along. It’s taken us a month to get here from the coast. Rain and mud most of the time. We had to manhandle the waggons and the guns most of the way. The general intends to make his forward camp at Mount Prospect, a sort of flat hill about twenty-two miles north of here, then he’s going to invade the Transvaal through the gap in the hills at Laing’s Nek.’
‘Where the Boers will be waiting for him.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. What’s this?’ Simon pointed to a single sheet of paper.
‘It’s a copy of Sir George’s general order to the troops.’
‘May I?’
‘Of course.’
Simon read it quickly. It was of the ‘England expects’ kind of exhortation, but towards the end it included words typical of Colley’s gentle broad-mindedness but also of his strength of purpose. Referring to the Boers, he had written, ‘They are in the main a brave and high-spirited people, actuated by feelings entitled to our respect. However, I am determined that the stain cast on our arms must be quickly effaced and the rebellion put down . . .’
Simon turned back to the subaltern. ‘How are things in the Transvaal?’
The young man made a face. ‘Bloody awful. Our troops there are still holed up in the garrison towns and, by the look of it, terrified to come out. All formal government is suspended. You know, Fonthill, that’s why the old man has to go. He knows he hasn’t got much of a column. The regulars are tired after the Zulu and Sekukuni campaigns and their uniforms are threadbare. But he can’t stand by and wait until he gets reinforcements because he will be criticised back home and he is worried that the Free Staters might come in.’
‘What about reinforcements?’
‘Should be landing at the Cape about now. I’m not privy to the strength but I gather that they are from India and Afghanistan.’ The young man gave a rueful smile. ‘Shame he couldn’t wait for them. But he couldn’t, you see.’
‘Yes. I know. Thanks for the background. I should be able to catch up with the column tomorrow.’
‘Yes, I’m following soon. Get up there as soon as you can. Sir George hasn’t got any scouts who he feels he can really rely on.’
Simon, Jenkins and Hardy were up, saddled and mounted before dawn the next day. Once again Simon had given the American the chance of slipping away - it was not, after all, his war. But Hardy shook his head. ‘No, sonny,’ he said. ‘This chile has quite enjoyed ridin’ with you fellers and ah still ain’t forgiven them Boers fer shuttin’ me up in a waggon. P’raps the general could do with another scout.’
Simon grinned at the prospect of this buckskinned figure, with his wide Stetson and pearl-handled Colts, riding scout for the gentle-voiced Colley, a conservative general if ever there was one. But if Hardy could scout as well as he could shoot - and it seemed that Custer had trusted him - then all would be well. And he enlivened the scene anyway.
The weather was foul, with driving rain suddenly springing up from behind the mountains to the north and equally quickly dying away again, leaving inches of water and red mud everywhere. It was not difficult to follow the column, for the road north was now heavily rutted and the grass completely beaten down for yards either side of the track. The three men could see where the sodden clay had been scoured out as carts and guns had had to be manhandled into the drifts and up out of them again. It was heavy going, and the rain was compounded by the sweltering heat and humidity, but Simon pressed on for he was anxious to relieve Colley of the threat - or at least the immediate threat - of the Free State Boers joining in with the men of the Transvaal.
It was dusk and, inevitably, raining again when the three finally caught up with the column just as it was outspanning at the place the general had decided to make his headquarters for the final invasion of the Transvaal. Mount Prospect was more a hill than a mountain, but it was high enough and flat enough to allow the column to camp there securely and to have some sort of view through the trees of the surrounding countryside and the road north. With the purple clouds hanging low over the tent tops, that view provided a grim prospect. The way for the advance could be seen to climb steadily towards the distant ridge of Laing’s Nek, which lay in the centre of a rough crescent of stony black hills, the ends of the semicircle pointing to the south and Newcastle. To the left, looming over the road, was the strange, flat-topped cone of Mount M
ajuba, meaning ‘dove’ in Zulu and named allegedly by the great Zulu chief Shaka after the doves he found there.
Colley was busy laagering his wagons - he was the kind of general who attended to detail - but Simon sought him out and delivered his letter from President Brand.
‘Good man, Fonthill,’ said Colley, shaking the rain from his beard. ‘Here, let’s get out of this d-d-damned rain.’
Together they climbed into a waggon, where Colley’s ADC lit a lantern and the general slit open the envelope and read its contents, squinting through his spectacles.
He put down the two sheets of paper and took off his glasses. ‘You know the contents?’
‘Roughly, sir, yes. President Brand told me.’
‘Well, this is a b-b-blessed relief. It means that my left flank is more or less secure anyway, and as I have no intention of murdering civilians or anything of that kind, it should stay that way. Now, my boy, did you have t-t-time enough at Bloemfontein to pick up the attitude of the Boers there, or any other background?’
Simon wrinkled his nose. ‘Not quite, sir. I only had four days. But I must say that the president seemed a straight sort of chap. I should think you could rely on his word. There is one other thing, though . . .’
‘Yes.’ Colley spoke eagerly and leaned forward. Simon realised how vulnerable the general must feel, eight thousand miles from his superiors, cut off from his main troops in the north and with little intelligence to inform his actions.
‘You were right when you said that there could be Germans talking to Brand in his capital.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. There seems quite a strong sort of permanent delegation at Bloemfontein anyway, in the Prussian Embassy. But while I was there there was also a Baron von Bethman. I believe that he represents Krupps, the big German armament manufacturers at Essen, and that he had arrived in the Free State only a little time before me from Heidelberg in the Transvaal.’