by John Wilcox
They galloped back, wheeling around to the far side of the vehicle, where Alice’s horse was already tied, and, throwing their reins to Ntini, scrambled aboard. Alice and Mzingeli had now lowered the white canvas canopy and were kneeling, their rifles levelled across the wooden side pieces of the wagon.
‘Don’t waste ammunition,’ cried Fonthill. ‘They will circle around us until we are surrounded and then run in. That’s when we will need every bullet. We shall have to reload very quickly. I don’t think they have realised yet that we have two Martini-Henrys. Old Gouela must have gambled that we only had light hunting rifles. But keep your heads down - he has a rifle himself and is taking shots from the kopje, although I think he’s too far away to be effective.’
The natives now formed a loose ring around the wagon and stood for a moment, raising their spears and chanting.
‘They not Matabele, not Zulus,’ grunted Mzingeli.
‘I don’t care who they are, bach,’ answered Jenkins grimly. ‘I’ve just counted twenty-five of ’em left, an’ if we let ’em close enough to come aboard, I’d say we’re done for.’
‘They’re out of range of anything but the Martinis,’ said Simon. ‘See if you can pick off a couple before they charge, 352, and I’ll do the same. When they come in, you fire over to the right, Alice. Jenkins, you go over the oxen to the front - it’s the most difficult shot. Mzingeli, you take the rear and I will fire to the left.’ He nodded to the tracker. ‘Tell the boys to stand ready to fight with their spears if anybody gets through.’
The last was a superfluous remark, because Ntini and Sando were crouching by the wagon side boards, their spears at the ready. Their faces, however, showed the fear they felt. But that seemed to disappear when Mzingeli spoke quickly to them.
Fonthill raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘I tell them that these just Hottentots from the east, not Matabele,’ grunted the tracker. ‘Make them feel better. They afraid of Matabele.’
Further discussion was halted by the crack of Jenkins’s rifle. Immediately, one of the natives crumpled. ‘Good,’ said the Welshman, reloading. ‘Just in range.’ He shuffled on to the driver’s seat and sighted again. ‘’Ere. ’Ave another one, lads.’ A second man in the ring staggered and fell, clutching his shoulder.
Fonthill now fired, and a spurt of dust sprang from just ahead of his target. ‘Elevate, elevate, for goodness’ sake,’ cried Jenkins.
‘Sorry, Sergeant,’ murmured Simon. He adjusted his sights and fired again, this time hitting his man. This seemed to be the signal for the attack, for the rest raised their spears, stamped their feet and then began running for the wagon.
‘Hold fire until I give the order,’ cried Fonthill, then, in a lower voice to his wife, ‘You all right, my love?’
Alice was nestling her cheek against the butt of her Westley Richards. She replied without looking up, ‘I’m all right. Good luck, Simon.’
‘Fire!’
The four guns spoke as one, and three of the attackers fell. Jenkins, closely followed by Fonthill, was the first to reload, and their second bullets also found their marks. Simon realised that Alice, firing from the right, was either out-ranged or her accuracy was wanting, so he added his firing to hers, but he could not leave his flank completely unprotected and it was difficult to switch position and fire accurately. Nevertheless, it was the Martini-Henrys, of course, that had the greatest firepower, and the warriors seemed to sense this, for they veered away from the guns of Jenkins and Fonthill and ran towards the weaker sides, those manned by Alice and Mzingeli.
It became clear to Fonthill that these ‘Hottentots from the east’, whoever they were, seemed to possess the courage and warlike skills of both the Zulus and the Matabele, and he took up his position at his wife’s side, firing as fast as he could inject the single cartridges and jerk down the cocking lever behind the trigger guard. The bravest and fastest of the attackers had now reached within range of the wagon to launch their throwing spears, and one buried itself into the breast of the already injured Sando, who sank to the floorboards, feebly clutching at the assegai. Ntini plucked it out and threw it back, all in one movement.
‘Nkosi!’ The cry came from Mzingeli, whose slow-loading Snider was now being used as a club as he tried to fight off two natives who were stabbing at his feet and trying to climb into the rear of the wagon. Fonthill shot one and then stabbed the muzzle of his rifle into the face of the other, pushing him to the ground, where the thrown spear of Ntini penetrated his breast.
‘Behind you, bach.’ Simon whirled and saw a tribesman climb over the side of the wagon behind Alice, who was now kneeling to tend to the prostrate figure of Sando. He swung the stock of his rifle towards the man’s chin, but this one was made of sterner stuff. He bowed his head to take the butt of the gun on his tightly curled hair, shook his head as though to get rid of a fly and then gave a short-arm stab in reply. The blade grazed Fonthill’s thigh and its point stuck for a moment in the side of the wagon, giving a slight advantage to Simon, who brought the barrel of the gun strongly down on his adversary’s neck. The crack could be heard above the firing and the screams of the attackers, and the man slumped to the floor of the wagon.
‘They’re goin’! They’ve ’ad enough.’ Jenkins’s cry came from the driver’s seat, where he was standing, waving his rifle.
Fonthill wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked around. It was true. The remnants of the attacking force - now reduced to a dozen men - were running back towards the kopje, one of them limping. Behind them, in a ring surrounding the wagon and stretching back towards the kopje, lay the inert figures of those who had fallen.
‘Alice, are you all right?’ whispered Simon as he knelt by her side, putting his arm across her shoulder.
‘Yes thank you,’ she replied. ‘But I am afraid Sando is not. I think he has gone. Oh Simon . . .’ and she turned and buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking in sudden reaction. He swayed with her, gently patting her back and kissing her hair. Then the soldier in him reasserted itself. ‘Any more casualties?’ he called.
‘No, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘All present and accounted for. I can’t understand why they didn’t spear the oxen or the horses. Why d’you think that was?’
‘They too valuable.’ Mzingeli was now squatting on the floor of the wagon, wiping his brow with the tail of his shirt. ‘Take them back to Mozambique and sell them. Make money.’ He looked sadly at Sando and shook his head. ‘He good boy. Bad thing, this.’
Simon felt suddenly shamefaced. Still holding Alice, he said, ‘I am so sorry, Mzingeli. This was not your fight. I don’t know . . . I am so sorry.’
The tracker looked up. ‘Ah, it was our fight. If we don’t kill them, they kill us. But why this man attack us?’
‘It’s a long story. Here.’ Tenderly Simon put Alice away from him. ‘Are you all right now, my love?’
She nodded.
‘Good. Jenkins?’
‘Sir.’
‘You stay here just in case there is another attack, although I don’t think for a moment there will be. They have clearly had enough.’
‘Where are you goin’ then?’
‘Yes, Simon.’ Alice’s eyes were wide. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Mzingeli, break out our two horses and come with me. I may need your tracking skills. I am not going to let that Portuguese bastard get away with this. If I catch him, I will bring him back here and we will hang him. A bullet’s too good for him.’
‘I’ll come with you, bach sir.’
‘No. Do as you are told. Stay here.’
Fonthill dipped into the ammunition box, filled his pockets with cartridges once more, scrambled over the side of the wagon and mounted his horse. Waiting only for Mzingeli to join him, he set off at a gallop for the kopje. The remaining tribesmen had long since disappeared, but he paid no heed, setting his horse towards the side of the rock opposite to that from which the attack had been launched, in the hope that he could cut off the Portuguese
if he was retreating.
They found nothing except a few empty cartridge cases at the base of the rock on the other side of the kopje.
Fonthill grunted. ‘The man’s a coward as well as a murderous swine. He set his men to attack but wouldn’t join them. Now, which way have they gone?’
The tracker pointed to the north. Together they galloped to a rise and then stood in their stirrups peering ahead. The retreating group could clearly be seen, the warriors on foot gathered around a solitary horseman, who was setting a fast pace.
Mzingeli shook his head. ‘I think, Nkosi, we do not follow. Still too many for us two. Kill him another day.’
Fonthill shot a sharp glance at the tracker. Then he relaxed. ‘I suppose you are right. I think they have had a lesson and will not attack again. Anyway,’ he shook his head, ‘we should not leave the wagon. Even if he gets reinforcements from Bulawayo, I doubt if he can overtake us before we reach the border. And he would not dare to follow us into the Transvaal.’
He looked to where the trail wound around the kopje. ‘Mzingeli,’ he said, ‘we all owe you a debt. If you had not seen them on the kopje we would have been unprepared and they would have swung round here and overwhelmed us before we could bring our guns to bear. It was quite a clever ambush, actually. Thank you.’
He held out his hand and the tracker shook it, a little self-consciously.
‘Why this man hate you?’ he asked.
‘He thinks I am in the pay of Rhodes, in the Cape, and that I will stop him from signing a treaty with Lobengula to overturn the agreement the king has already made with Rhodes. Well. . .’ he shifted in the saddle and looked again for the retreating figures, now almost out of sight, ‘that’s exactly what I now intend to do. After his two attacks on us, I intend to stop that man being involved in the development of Matabeleland. Come on. Let’s go back.’
Back at the wagon - to Alice’s great relief - Fonthill allowed his wife to fix a dressing on his grazed thigh,and he then joined the others in digging one shallow grave, into which they tipped the bodies of the attackers. Mzingeli gathered up all their assegais and looked at them carefully.
‘They dress like Matabele,’ he said, ‘but they come from Mozambique border. Look.’ He pointed at the spear heads. ‘These from Portuguese land. They want us to think them Matabele. Strange.’ Then he shrugged his shoulders. ‘But they just as dead.’
Tenderly Sando’s body was wrapped in a blanket and placed in the back of the wagon. ‘Where does he come from, Mzingeli?’ asked Alice.
‘My father’s village. My village. I know his mother, father. Sad.’
It was indeed a sad little group that set off to the south, Ntini cracking his long whip over his oxen and the three other men ranging out on horseback to the rear, right and left to ensure against another surprise attack. They camped that night without incident, and continued for another two and a half days along a track that had become a miserable mixture of rough stones and deep spruits with precipitous banks until eventually they entered Mzingeli’s village. At first they were greeted with happy cries, for the carcasses of the lions had been found, of course, and their killings confirmed by the Matabele who had arrived from Bulawayo to collect the horses, wagon and oxen. Then, however, as Sando’s body was lowered to the ground, a wailing began, soft at first and then growing in grief and intensity.
The party spent only two nights in the village, for Fonthill felt uncomfortable there: guilty, of course, for being responsible for Sando’s death, however indirectly, and frustrated that he could not explain it to anyone’s satisfaction, least of all his own. He was glad then when they said a muted goodbye to the inDuna and made for the river crossing into the Transvaal. Once across, the open veldt helped to restore a touch of tranquillity to them all, and they made good progress under the snowy-white balls of cloud that chased each other across the sky.
‘What now, then?’ asked Alice, as she rode companionably with her husband, Jenkins following alongside Mzingeli and Ntini at the rear.
Fonthill eased his buttocks in the saddle. ‘Back to Cape Town, I think. I should pay my respects to Lamb.’ Major General George Lamb, CB, the recently appointed army commander-in-chief at the Cape, had been the man who, as a colonel and chief of staff in Cape Town, had sent Simon on his first mission, to the camp of the Zulu king, ten years ago. He had then become his mentor in the second Afghan War on the North-West Frontier. Lamb had been away, up country in Natal, when Simon had called on their arrival in the colony.
Alice nodded. ‘Of course. But then what do we do?’
‘I must see Rhodes.’
‘Do you have to? He’s a strange character, as you know. He can ensnare people.’
‘Oh come along, Alice. I’m no bloody rabbit.’
‘I know that, darling. But, well . . .’
‘I gave my word to Lobengula. Besides which,’ he frowned and screwed up his eyes to focus on a distant kopje, ‘I have a debt to settle. I want to do everything I can to make sure that the Portuguese and that blasted man de Sousa do not talk the king into giving them his country.’ He turned in the saddle and looked directly at his wife. ‘You know, Alice, once Matabeleland is settled, I wouldn’t mind at all buying a tract of land there, up in the north, perhaps, where they say the country is magnificent for farming.’
Alice remained silent, so Fonthill hurried on.
‘We would keep Norfolk, of course, but that almost farms itself these days. It would be good to come out here in our winter, get some sun, sport and so on. We could well afford it, you know . . .’ His voice trailed away as Alice’s frown deepened, and then it became more plaintive. ‘It would, well, make life more interesting, don’t you think?’
She gave him a quick, rather forced smile. ‘If that’s what you want, then of course.’ Slowly the smile faded. ‘But I can see a lot more trouble developing before Lobengula gives away his land to us, the Portuguese or anyone else for that matter. He’s no fool, you know.’
‘That’s true. But Rhodes does have an agreement with him, so that must be a head start. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Lamb says about it all. He’s no fool either.’
The five of them rode on in silence, some thinking of the sadness left behind in the village; others steeling themselves for the challenge that lay ahead.
Chapter 5
A little over three weeks later, Simon found himself waiting in a small anteroom outside the impressive office of Major General Lamb in Cape Town. He and Alice had dropped off Mzingeli and Ntini at their huts in the Boer farm in the southern Transvaal where they had first employed them. The parting had been unemotional, as befitted the bearing of the dignified tracker, but Mzingeli had gripped Fonthill’s hand and said in farewell, ‘You call, whenever. I come.’
The door into the inner office was suddenly thrown open and Lamb exploded through it. Fonthill grinned and stood. Nothing had changed. Energy seemed to fizz and spark from the general’s every movement, and now he bounced rather than walked towards Simon, his hand outstretched.
‘Damned glad to see you, Fonthill. Knew you would call. Sorry to have missed you last time. How are you? Tell me, how are you?’
‘Fit as a fiddler’s fox, thank you, General. And you?’
‘Couldn’t be better. Come through. Sorry to have kept you waiting.’ Then, over his shoulder, ‘How’s old 473?’
‘Three five two, sir.’
‘Dammit. Never could remember his number. Sit down. Sit down. Cigar?’
Fonthill regarded Lamb with interest. The general was diminutive - hardly more than five feet two inches - and his complexion, a ruddy nut brown, gave testimony to his years spent in India. They had last met outside the gates of Kandahar, after General Roberts’s comprehensive victory over the Afghan army. Simon and Jenkins had played a not insignificant part in that victory but Fonthill’s refusal to rejoin the army at Roberts’s request had soured his relationship with the general. Lamb, then a brigadier, had tried to be ameliorative, but
Simon had left the Frontier under a cloud. His relationship with Lamb, however, had remained one of mutual admiration.
The general walked from behind his desk to light Simon’s cigar. ‘Delighted to see you awarded a CB after the Sudan. Joined the club, eh?’ Fonthill nodded behind the cloud of blue smoke. ‘My God, for a young chap you’ve moved around since we last met - Sekukuniland, that terrible Majuba business, then Egypt and the Sudan.’ The general’s bright blue eyes twinkled. ‘For a feller who didn’t want to rejoin the army, you’ve done a fair bit of soldiering, I’d say.’
Fonthill shifted uneasily. ‘On my own terms, though, sir. But I should congratulate you on your promotion and appointment here.’
Lamb puffed at his cigar and shrugged. ‘Not bad for an old India hand, I suppose. Lucky to get it under Wolseley, I have to confess.’
Simon grinned. The rivalry between the two best generals in Queen Victoria’s army, Roberts and Wolseley, was well known. Lamb had always been a Roberts man, which meant that with Wolseley at the Horse Guards in London as adjutant general, he should have been doomed to spend the rest of his career in India, where Roberts was commander-in-chief. Somehow he had slipped through the net.