‘Mr Beauchamp, you were up with the larks, I perceive.’
‘Colonel,’ replied Cornet Beauchamp, saluting and trying not to appear too eager. Yesterday was his first time in action, and his mission to Colonel Somerset his first as a galloper.
Hervey, sitting at ease astride his mare, a canteen of Johnson’s best tea in his sword hand, touched his shako peak by return.
‘Colonel Somerset’s compliments, sir, and would you see the Zulu to the Ox River one league to our rear. He will give battle there.’
Hervey sat up. ‘One league? Only one league? Are you sure? Then they marched prodigiously quick!’
‘Colonel. I came on them just before midnight not five miles from the river. I would have made them earlier but my mare went lame.’
Hervey wondered why Beauchamp had not at once taken his coverman’s horse; but that could wait.
‘After I had given Colonel Somerset your report he said they would continue the march and asked me to lead – he said he was uncertain of his guides – and we reached the river at about four o’clock. The moon was gone by then but we carried out a reconnaissance of the fords, and the colonel decided that he would stand on the defensive there on the west bank. I considered that it was proper to remain with the colonel during the reconnaissance since I would then be able to inform you precisely of the situation. I set out as soon as it was expedient. Colonel.’
Hervey nodded. ‘I don’t doubt it. You did right. How many Xhosa, by the way?’
‘Colonel Somerset said seven thousand.’
Hervey sighed – to himself, but with considerable relief. ‘Very well, Mr Beauchamp; you may rejoin your troop. Smart work.’
Johnson gave the cornet tea as he reined away.
Hervey turned to Fairbrother, who was observing the flight of distant vultures. ‘You heard that? Somerset at the river but a league back!’
Fairbrother kept his telescope to his eye. ‘I did indeed. Very gratifying. Colonel Somerset has vigour; I’ll grant you that.’
‘You might sound more convinced – or convincing.’
With no Zulu in sight, Hervey now dismounted and signalled for the troop to stand down.
‘What do you look at so intently?’
‘Yon birds. I’ve observed in the past that they can be useful.’
Hervey was well enough acquainted with vultures. In India there were so many, and carrion so plentiful, it was their absence only that was remarked. ‘How so?’
‘They’re scavengers, but I’ve long observed that it is the living which first attracts them, not the dead – which they might not always see, though they must have a hawk-eye like their cousins. It is the natural order of things on the veld: the living continually become the dead.’
Hervey was unfastening the bit to give his mare a peck of corn. ‘Fairbrother, neither of us has had any sleep, so I beg you to be brief.’
Fairbrother lowered his telescope. ‘I thought at first the Zulu might have killed a bull – the sort of thing I believe they do to fortify themselves – but observe the distribution of the birds. They’re not circling with apparent intent to come down on a particular spot; they’re patrolling a wide area. Which I presume is that occupied by the Zulu bivouac.’
‘Why aren’t they all at yesterday’s feast?’ asked Hervey as he took out his own telescope again.
‘You have your answer: it was yesterday’s feast.’
‘So quick?’
Fairbrother nodded.
Hervey peered at them for a good while. Their line of patrol was a full mile to the troop’s front, and the same in length: much as he imagined the impi to occupy in bivouac – or else in the advance. ‘If it is so – their watching the Zulu, I mean – then they’re worth a couple of dozen scouts. I wonder shall they tell us when they advance?’
‘I shall endeavour to read the signs,’ said Fairbrother airily.
Hervey nodded, and smiled. He put back the telescope in its holster and took a handful of corn from the feedbag on the saddle. His mare ate it greedily.
‘May I make a suggestion?’ asked Fairbrother.
‘By all means.’
‘You’ll send out scouts?’
‘They’re making ready this moment. It is the usual drill.’
‘I should like to ride to that little hill yonder.’ He pointed out what appeared to be the merest anthill on the green veld. ‘I’ve a notion I might see things better.’
‘I have no objection,’ said Hervey, but warily. ‘Take with you Corporal Byrne.’
‘If I may, I’d rather go unaccompanied.’
Hervey was reluctant to accede; it took only his horse to lame itself and Fairbrother would be at the mercy of the spear. But then, he had crawled about the bush at night and dealt singly with three Xhosa … ‘Very well.’
With the scouts forward, Hervey was able to stand down both troop and company to make a proper feed for the horses and breakfast for themselves. For over forty hours neither dragoon nor rifleman had eaten but what they carried in their haversacks: corn cakes, and dried meat which without slaking was like chewing bridle leather. Hervey sat on the ground holding his mare’s reins, letting her pull at the rough veld grass. It would have no goodness in it (except, he supposed, for the game – the antelope and such) but a little bulk inside would do her no harm.
He looked up at the vultures. Had they picked clean Gilbert’s bones yet? He hated the death of a horse without ceremony, without proper disposal, leaving it to the pecking and tearing of crows and ravening dogs, and then to the ants and maggots and worms … He grieved separately for Corporal Dilke.
‘All well, sir?’ came a voice of the Tyne.
‘Passing well, Sarn’t-major,’ he replied, without looking up.
‘A close shave wi’ Gilbert, I understand.’ ‘
Ay. How’s the troop?’
It was not rightly ‘procedure’ for the troop serjeant-major to speak above the head of the troop leader (and Hervey had placed his lieutenant squarely in command); but with Armstrong ‘right procedure’ was an aid, like spurs or a whip, not an end in itself. Hervey would ever welcome his counsel, or even, as now, simply his company.
‘They’re in good fettle. Them greenheads did all right yesterday. Not one unseated. And not a horse lame this morning.’
Hervey had had the parade states already, but Armstrong’s assurance was welcome nonetheless. As it had been for a dozen years and more. Indeed, he had almost begun to think of Armstrong and the army – certainly the regiment – as one and the same. ‘We made a deal of vulture meat yesterday.’
‘We did an’ all, sir. But I doubt they’ll be caught like that again. Not the way they kept coming on when the rifles began dropping ‘em. An’ if they can learn to form square with them spears… ‘
Hervey agreed. They had fought men under discipline yesterday, strict discipline; well-trained men, and brave too.
Suddenly Armstrong braced. ‘Cap’n Fairbrother’s coming in at a fair lick, sir!’
Hervey got to his feet. Fairbrother was a furlong off, his horse flattening. ‘Stand to, Sarn’t-major. Trumpeter!’
Armstrong was gone in an instant, barking words of command like a jack-corporal at his first picket. Trumpeter Roddis came running, bugle in hand, ready. He halted at attention and saluted. ‘Sir?’
‘Stand to your horses.’
‘Sir!’
It was a simple call: triplets and a minim repeated, all on C. As well, since Roddis was still unpractised.
Fairbrother galloped straight at them, reining back only in the last few yards. ‘Call in your scouts, Hervey: there’re Zulu on both flanks!’
Hervey didn’t hesitate. ‘Skirmishers in, Roddis!’
It took a second or so for the trumpeter to recollect the call, and then he began blowing for all he was worth.
‘Zulu on both flanks?’
‘Ay,’ said Fairbrother, slipping from the saddle and catching his breath. ‘Crawling so flat you’d have to run into th
em to see. That’s why the scouts didn’t.’
‘How—’
‘That hillock yonder’s bigger than you think. I thought as much from the length of the shadow at first light. And then the vultures started taking a look this way, as if they’d seen something. That’s when I saw them, running like monkeys on all fours, so flat as to be hid by the grass.’
Hervey rattled through his options. They were few. He could throw out a flank – two flanks – but that would avail him nothing if the Zulu were behind him … ‘How many do you suppose there are?’
Fairbrother shook his head. ‘No way of knowing. But it would make sense for Matiwane to send a column round each flank: a couple of hundred or more to each, I mean.’
Hervey was astounded. ‘You mean there might be five hundred Zulu, unseen?’
‘I do.’
That settled it. His force was too weak to deal with an encirclement in such strength. And the rest of the impi would no doubt be readying to hurl itself in a frontal attack. ‘Hammer on anvil,’ he said ruefully.
Lieutenant Fearnley and Captain Welsh were soon come up. Hervey was emphatic: ‘We retire at the trot, Rifles leading!’
Colonel Somerset was waiting at the ford of the Ox River as they approached. Hervey had led with the Rifles since he judged it too risky to dismount for rearguard action, the sabre handier therefore than the firearm. Once they had put a mile of veld behind them, the furthest distance he calculated a Zulu could have advanced unseen, he threw out skirmishers in a wide arc behind, sent Cornet Beauchamp back to the river to inform Somerset, and continued the retirement at the walk. From time to time a dragoon took a shot with his carbine and sent back word of a Zulu – or else some wild animal – in the long grass, but besides the advancing vultures there was no definite sign that Matiwane was following in strength.
Half a mile from the river Hervey ordered Lieutenant Fearnley to post a picket line and to mark his routes of withdrawal to the ford, and told the Rifles to prepare to cross to the far bank. Then he galloped for the ford to speak in person with the commander of the Kaffraria Field Force.
‘Mounted detachment returned to your disposal, Colonel,’ he reported, saluting with due ceremony.
Somerset touched the peak of his forage cap. ‘Where are the Zulu?’
Hervey did not like the peremptory tone. ‘By my best estimate, the main force is half a league off, but their scouts may be a good deal nearer. The troop is in picket line yonder’ (he indicated the distant trees beyond the scrub of the flood plain) ‘with orders to send patrols forward if there is no sign of the Zulu within the hour.’
Somerset was indignant. ‘But my orders were for you to see in the Zulu. You appear to have let them bustle you in.’
Hervey was even more indignant. ‘Don’t be an ass! We’ll see them in all right. But I won’t lose men when there’s no need. These Zulu are damned clever; they know how to use ground. We need to take careful measure of them.’
‘I seem to recall some great captain of your arm saying that a cavalryman, properly mounted, ought never to be taken captive.’
Hervey was determined not to anger further; Somerset had marched all night, as he had. ‘Colonel, you will do me the honour of allowing me to know my business, and judging me on the results. So far, I have delayed the advance of the Zulu sufficiently for you to be able to take a stand here, where at least the chances of being outflanked are so much the less. There’s not another river in ten miles.’
Somerset made no reply. There was truth in what Hervey said, and very evidently his intention was to be of support.
‘Shall you give me orders?’ asked Hervey quietly. ‘How is the force disposed? Where are the Xhosa?’
Somerset nodded, as if resolving on amity. Then he told him the plan of defence. The Xhosa were clearing the cover on each bank – not nearly as thick here, mercifully, as on the Fish – the artillery were posted on the rising ground fifty yards back from the river, able to command both the ford and its approaches, and the 55th Regiment would take post covering the ford itself. The burghers were to range up-stream and down, and the Rifles, dismounted, would skirmish on the eastern bank before crossing and reinforcing the Fifty-fifth.
Hervey could not disapprove; it was a sound plan. Except, perhaps, in one detail. ‘I should say, with respect, that the Rifles – and the troop – are very tired. They have had no sleep to speak of in three days. They’ll need more time to get back than supposed. Although the cover is good for their purpose this side, the field of fire, as you perceive, is not great.’
Somerset looked irritated again.
Hervey knew the look well enough. He had seen it many a time in his twenty years’ service: the look of the officer who is apprised of some piece of information which interferes with his otherwise perfectly laid plans, and whose instinct is to dismiss the intelligence by dismissing its bearer.
‘Do you say your dragoons and these half-baked riflemen have no more stomach for the fight?’
Hervey, so tired that his patience was near the end, but by long years persuaded that such men as Somerset could only be dealt with through flattery, spoke calmly. ‘They do indeed have stomach, Colonel. They will fight for you to the last. It is only that … their stomachs may be a little empty, so to speak.’
The emollience worked. ‘I see. Yes, of course they will be tired. I will take careful note of it. Perhaps, now, you will ride with me as we post the Rifles, and I will point out the lie of things.’
‘By all means,’ replied Hervey. And then, imagining he would not likely have a better – or perhaps any – chance to say it, added: ‘I must commend to you, Colonel, in the strongest possible terms, the valuable service of Captain Fairbrother these past two days. Without his address I do believe we should have suffered many casualties; and, I venture to admit, perhaps even a reverse.’
Somerset was not entirely dismissive of the notion, though his ‘surprise’ was unconcealed.
The first reports came within an hour: the black host advanced as before, a dozen columns, single file. Hervey at once alerted Somerset, who was siting each field-piece in detail. Somerset declared he would see for himself. Hervey did not discourage him.
In minutes they were with Fearnley at the picket line, and with just enough elevation to see what they faced. The sight shook Somerset, as it first had Hervey – the order, the discipline of it, not at all the horde of savages he had imagined.
‘We must suppose they know we are here,’ said Hervey. ‘They’ll likely make a probing attack at once, or else try again to encircle us, though the river will confound them in that. May I recall the outposts?’
Somerset was less confident than an hour ago. ‘Yes … by all means … do.’
Trumpeter Roddis repeated the call until Hervey saw the outposts acknowledging, and then bid him cease.
The Rifles were trained to the bugle too, but Captain Welsh had decided instead on signals by whistle in order to avoid confusion. Hearing the recall of the picket line he gave three long blasts – the order to stand to arms.
‘It will now depend on each rifleman’s initiative,’ said Hervey, and to Somerset’s evident discomfort.
The outposts came in at the trot, tall in the saddle though the horses looked weary. Each dragoon saluted as he passed the two colonels, eyes on Hervey but Somerset acknowledging with a finger to the peak of his cap. They had done their work, they had done it well, and they knew it. Once across the river they could dismount and take a little ease before it was their turn again. For it would be their turn again; it always was. When the men with the rifle and the musket had done their work it would be theirs to turn defeat into rout – to make vulture meat of the fleeing enemy so that they might not turn again. It was a grim business sabring those who no longer wanted to fight, but it had to be done lest the next day these fleeing men became resolute once more. To think otherwise was nothing but sentiment – dangerous sentiment.
Rifle fire began on both far flanks almost at the
same time. Hervey marvelled at the evident ability of the Zulu to coordinate the movement of the two horns of the crescent formation. And then the firing spread along the entire front as the main columns began approaching, still hidden by the prodigious grass.
But not, apparently, hidden to the gunners. A shell buzzed high over him and to the left, bursting twenty feet above the ground three hundred yards in front. Hervey smiled to himself. Never had he known an artilleryman to miss his opportunity. How he was able to place his fire so accurately, and have the shrapnel shell explode at the precise height, was quite beyond him. He was only grateful for it; vastly grateful. It was, in truth, how war should be made.
‘Colonel Hervey?’
He turned to see his lieutenant, and detached himself from Somerset’s party to confer with him. ‘All eager, Mr Fearnley?’
‘Indeed, Colonel. Minnie has wind aplenty left.’
Hervey glanced approvingly at Fearnley’s second charger. Minnie – Minerva – had won one of the regimental races at Hounslow that year. She looked in as hale condition now as then. ‘The intention for you now is clear?’
‘Exactly clear. I think I shall be well pleased to see that ford.’
A cry like hounds breaking covert turned every head. The staunchest heart faltered for a moment as Zulu rose up from the ground like corpses on the Day of Judgement, swarming, stabbing, grunting like rutting pig.
Hervey saw two of Somerset’s staff tumble from the saddle, and then Somerset’s own horse fall to its knees, and Somerset himself half under it, his escorts desperately lashing out with sword and pistol.
Hervey spurred for him at once, sabre drawn, Fairbrother and the others close on his heels. He cut left and right, taking a passing spear in the thigh though not feeling a thing.
Fairbrother sprang from the saddle beside Somerset like a tumbler at a fair, drawing his revolver and firing three shots in quick and lethal succession at the nearest Zulu.
Wainwright and Roddis circled, keeping a dozen others at bay while Hervey and Fairbrother pulled Somerset from beneath his charger and heaved him astride Hervey’s mare.
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