Soldier of the Queen

by Max Hennessy

  As the wounded man was helped away, the soldiers formed an uncertain line. They kept glancing back at the bush, eyeing it uneasily.

  ‘Do you call that a line?’ Colby snapped. ‘Mr Edwards, tell your sergeants to make them look like soldiers! And then I’ll have you and your officers here. I want to talk to you.’

  As the soldiers were bawled into better order, he glared furiously at the group of officers.

  ‘God damn it,’ he snarled. ‘You’re fighting uneducated, badly armed savages. What are you hesitating about? The only way to do the job is to show some sort of drive. You will go in again and this time I will lead. I shall expect you to remain close behind me.’

  As the officers glanced uneasily at each other and went back to their men, Colby moved to his horsemen and informed them what was happening.

  ‘Half an hour from now,’ he announced, ‘you can expect Gendili and his men to appear at the other side.’

  Turning his horse, he took up a position in front of the line of soldiers. ‘Let it be known,’ he said, ‘that I shall punish any man who drops back unless he has a very good excuse.’

  There was no question of hesitation this time. As they pushed through the scrub, there were shouts, and black faces popped up to stare at them, then the Gcamenas turned and began to run. ‘Now!’ Colby yelled, and the line swept forward, caught by their own enthusiasm.

  Only in front of Colby was there any attempt at resistance. A tall twisted black man with a leopard skin round his waist and the headring of a Zulu stood up and levelled an ancient musket. As the battered weapon exploded, Colby’s hat flew off and he felt the sting of a wound in his neck, then he hit the man over the head with Micah Love’s great gun. As he collapsed, Colby instructed two of the men following him to disarm him and drag him clear.

  ‘Alive,’ he pointed out. ‘It looks like Gendili.’

  As the Gcamenas bolted like woodcock down the wind, from the far side of the bush, the seven-pounders loosed off a few shells. They did no harm but kicked up a lot of dust and smoke and scattered a last attempt to stand and fire, then the North Cape Horse swept down. The casualties on both sides were remarkably light: one Cape Horse poked across the ribs with an assegai, one of the Imperials shot in the face and Colby bleeding from a deep wound on the neck caused by a bent nail fired from Gendili’s rusty muzzle-loader.

  ‘That’s the second time I’ve been wounded by a bloody bent nail,’ he said bitterly.

  With Gendili’s little revolt ended, Colby found himself in a rented house in East London, enjoying the warm dry weather and the free and easy life of the colony. Ackroyd had arrived post-haste by sea to look after him until Augusta and Annie Ackroyd could muster the trunks and join them. The only drawback was the number of women who were taking an interest in the wounded.

  The owner of the house next door was the widow of a sugar planter called le Roux who had clearly taken a fancy to Colby and kept appearing with fruit and sweetmeats and made a point in the evening of opening her windows and singing to the piano. She looked remarkably like Georgina Cosgro, her face too plump, her mouth too soft and cherry-like, and she took to reading to him as he stretched out painfully in a cane chair. It was Ackroyd who sorted her out, appearing with a bottle and spoon and announcing to Colby that it was time for his medicine.

  ‘What bloody medicine?’ Colby snapped. ‘I’m not taking medicine.’

  ‘This is the one for your ’ysteria, sir.’

  ‘What hysteria?’

  Ackroyd smiled. ‘Your family ’ave always suffered from it, sir,’ he said. ‘You know they ’ave. The number of times I’ve ’ad to tie the general down when ’e was foamin’ at the mouth! You know it runs in the family. It was the disease ’e picked up in India, wasn’t it? You know what them Indian women are like–’

  As Mrs le Roux vanished, Colby stared up indignantly.

  ‘That was you at your brilliant best, Tyas,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Well, you told me to keep the women off you,’ Ackroyd said calmly. ‘And you often told me when we was boys that if you wanted to clear a railway carriage all you ’ad to do was cough and spit an’ pretend to ’ave consumption.’ Ackroyd sniffed. ‘Besides, Mrs G will be ’ere soon, and you’d ’ave looked fine entertainin’ that one when she walked in the door, wouldn’t you?’

  By the time Augusta appeared, she had gained a great deal of experience and was beginning to see what being an army wife was really like. The children were already used to travelling by steam-train, ox-wagon, horse-drawn cart, carriage or even on horseback, and she had become an expert at packing clothes, goods and treasures.

  By this time the whole army was back in East London and Thesiger was reporting the end of the war to Whitehall, but trusting there would be no objection if he retained his staff because there would probably be more work for them before long.

  ‘Against Cetzewayo,’ Colby explained as Augusta bent over him to dress the wound on his neck. ‘Thesiger’s just preparing for every eventuality.’

  Augusta frowned. Will you have to go?’

  ‘If it comes to trouble.’

  ‘And do they shoot rusty nails, too? Because this one has turned bad. I expect you used a filthy handkerchief to dab at it. You ought to apply for sick leave in England.’

  Turning to disagree, Colby got a dab of antiseptic in his eye, and as he jerked his head away, rubbing at the tears with a grubby handkerchief, Augusta stared at it scornfully.

  ‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘You’ll probably get mange now and go blind. What’s wrong with applying for leave? The war’s over.’

  ‘Evelyn Wood’s been in the saddle all day for weeks,’ Colby said. ‘With a temperature, swellings in his groins and armpits, and his skin peeling off. He hasn’t applied for leave.’

  She studied him angrily. ‘Why do they have to go and fight another war when they’ve only just finished this one?’

  ‘Scarcity of land.’

  ‘In Africa, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Grazing land. Well-water and grassy flatlands. They’re essential to both black and white. The Boers are after Zululand, but the Zulus have had their herds ravaged by lung sickness and the tsetse fly, so they’re after the borderlands of the Transvaal.’

  ‘Can’t they live in peace?’

  He shrugged. ‘It was hoped so when we annexed the Transvaal, but the Zulus are an independent nation with a standing army of forty thousand, run by a king who’s only a savage and willing to have a go at anybody. All the same, the political people have backed them over the disputed territory for fifteen years and the boundary commission says it belongs to them, so that should quieten things down.’

  ‘I think there will be a war.’

  Colby lifted his head warily. Augusta had her own ways of coming to conclusions. He could never fathom how she arrived at them but she usually came up with the right answers, even if for the wrong reasons. ‘Why?’

  ‘I saw Aubrey Cosgro’s wife, Hetty, in Cape Town. She had a house near Wynberg.’

  ‘Why’s she here?’

  ‘Because Aubrey’s here, too! That surprises you, doesn’t it?’

  It did. ‘Go on. I’m sure there’s more.’

  ‘He’s come to join Thesiger’s army.’

  ‘Aubrey Cosgro?’ Colby gave a neigh of laughter, and she frowned.

  ‘It signifies something, all the same,’ she said. ‘She told me his father’s money and her father’s title had got him Wolseley’s ear and he was hoping for a staff appointment. She also let it drop that George Morrow was out here, too.’

  She looked at him, remembering the vituperation she’d had to endure after the Ashanti War. He didn’t disappoint her.

  ‘What’s that bloody idiot expecting?’ he growled. There were still twinges where the Ashanti’s bent nail had entered his back.

  ‘He’s to form a column. Hetty Cosgro said that when Thesiger went up to Natal, he found its defences in a terrible state.’

  He frowned.
‘They are,’ he admitted. ‘If it does come to a go, the only defence is an invasion of Zululand and he’s applied for more troops and regular cavalry.’

  She studied him carefully, her face troubled, her mind full of unexpected fears. ‘I still think you ought to apply for leave in England,’ she said. ‘I have a feeling. And I think you men all believe that with your smart uniforms and your guns and training, this war’s going to be easy. I have a feeling it isn’t.’

  He studied her curiously. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s because, coming from the States, I see the wood without seeing the trees. We fought Indians, and I remember what they did to Custer. It seems to me it’s going to be pretty hard to pin down people as mobile as the Zulus.’

  He stared at her with amusement. ‘Where did you do your staff training?’ he grinned. ‘That’s what Thesiger thinks, too. The only way to do it is by having several columns all starting from different places.’

  ‘To stop the Zulus slipping into Natal?’

  Colby’s smile died. ‘No. To insure they’ll attack one of them.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘They’ll be smashed by superior fire power.’

  ‘Suppose they aren’t? Suppose everybody’s rifle jams? Micah once said that at Antietam they fired so long they ended up with guns that wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Gussie, it won’t take that much firing to destroy savages.’

  ‘I expect that’s what Custer said, too’ Augusta gazed at him anxiously, close to tears. ‘I’ve met a few of those people you rely on. They’re not all as good as you.’

  He frowned. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘They’re not. Morrow’s an ass for a start. Pulleine’s inclined to be too careful. Durnford’s too hot-headed. Hamilton-Browne’s a boor. Some of the volunteer units don’t much like discipline either and the Boers are insisting that if it comes to war we’ll need to concentrate on distant scouting to locate the Zulu impis at all.’

  ‘I expect that’ll be you. They’ll push you out miles ahead of the army so you can get yourself killed.’ She stamped on his foot deliberately to show her anger.

  Colby quietly took the cotton wool and the antiseptic from her and put them down, then he put his arms round her. ‘Shoving your off hind down on my toe don’t prove anything,’ he chided gently. ‘The war hasn’t even started yet and the frock coats are bound to come down on the side of the Zulus over the boundary, because they don’t like the Boers any more than they do the Kaffirs.’

  Despite everybody’s insistence that the Zulus didn’t want trouble and had no intention of harming Natal, clearly nobody was taking any chances and the army was put on a war footing just in case.

  As it began to move north, Augusta watched the local newspaper with worried eyes. Considering that everyone felt there was going to be no war, it seemed to her that they were all taking a lot of pains to be ready for one.

  ‘If there is a war,’ she asked. ‘Can I go to Durban?’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  Colby looked at her in surprise and she felt an unkind desire to brain him. In his absorption in the movements of the army, he was showing no interest in her worries; and she was furious, because she knew he could be a help if he tried. It seemed to raise a barrier between them so that the things she wished to say had to be left unsaid and she had to content herself with snapping at him.

  ‘Is it so odd that I should wish to be close to my husband?’ she said sharply. ‘Durban’s only a hundred and fifty miles from the army. East London’s five hundred. I’m thinking of my family. I like ’em all together – you included.’

  He gave her a quick unexpected grin. ‘Make sure you’re not letting those maternal instincts of yours come between you and common sense,’ he said. ‘Stop worrying.’

  She stared at him indignantly, aware in the nervous mood that held her of a strong desire to kick him. ‘I feel like worrying,’ she said. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘What of?’

  She shook her head in a distressed way, as if trying to jolt her thoughts into some sort of order from the disorder they were in. In her unhappiness, the one fear that always lay at the back of her mind came to the surface.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I feel I shall never be part of the regiment. Perhaps it’s because I’m American and don’t see it the same way everybody else does.’

  He tried to understand her but, brought up in the regiment as he had been, he found it impossible. As he kissed her, her arms went round him.

  ‘Please! Let me go to Durban!’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I see no reason why not. Headquarters’ll be at Pietermaritzburg or somewhere like that, so Durban won’t be far away and I might get down to see you.’

  The threat of war didn’t die down and it began to seem even that a few of the government officials like Theophilus Shepstone and Bartle Frere were actually eager to have a fight to bump up their own reputations. Towards the end of the year Colby received orders to take the North Cape Horse to the northern corner of Natal.

  As he vanished, Augusta flung herself into the business of packing and within three days her family plus the Ackroyds were on a ship heading for Durban. It wasn’t hard to find a house to rent, because the town was growing fast and, while there was an influx of officers’ wives and families, there was also an exodus of people who preferred not to be around if the Zulus invaded.

  They found a house on the road to Verulam and were waiting there when Colby arrived at Port Natal. The children greeted him with delight and Augusta flung herself into his arms.

  ‘What’s all this for?’ he demanded.

  ‘Well, there is going to be a war, isn’t there?’

  He had to admit that it looked like it. ‘But there’s nothing to worry about,’ he went on. ‘They’re a savage nation and we’ve defeated savages time and time again: India. Burma. China. The Maoris. The Abyssinians. The Ashantis. The Afghans. Why not this time?’

  She lifted her face to him and he saw the unease in it. She seemed in a state of near-panic. She felt cold and stiff and twice her age because she knew he was fibbing shamelessly to bolster up her morale. For a moment she felt like weeping but she was too afraid for tears. ‘I had a dream before I left Cape Town,’ she said. ‘I had it again last night. I dreamed you were shot. Then I saw a man holding up his arm and there was a spear sticking in his side. It came out near his throat. Colby, could you be shot?’

  ‘What with?’ Colby laughed. ‘They’ve only got cheap trade flintlocks. Birmingham gas-pipes we call them.’

  ‘You were shot by a gas-pipe gun on the Gold Coast. You were shot by a gas-pipe gun at Kammansinga. And this time you’re not facing a few scattered tribesmen. You’re facing a whole nation. Besides–’

  ‘Besides what?’

  She turned her face from him. Suddenly she was sagging with weariness, shadowy hollows under her eyes. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Are you still afraid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ She drew a deep breath and managed a half-hearted grin at him. ‘It was nothing. It was silly, I guess. It doesn’t matter.’ She turned her face away again, her expression obscured. ‘Where would the fighting be, Colby?’

  ‘We’d have to burn the royal kraal and capture Cetzewayo. No other kind of defeat would be recognised by the Zulus. But we’ll have over sixteen thousand men in four or five separate columns. They reckon the Zulu army’s no more than twenty thousand.’

  ‘If you have four or five separate columns, it means there’d be no more than about three thousand men to each, doesn’t it?’ In her worry her eyes seemed enormous. ‘What happens if the whole Zulu army drops on them one at a time?’

  It was quite a point. He couldn’t find an answer and was careful to dodge the question. ‘Perhaps there won’t be a war, after all,’ he said.

  Four

  Despite the Boundary Commission’s view
, however, as Colby had suspected, the political authorities were intent on fighting. When the boundary award was read out, the Zulus were satisfied because their claims were largely upheld and they were actually preparing to depart to their kraals when they were summoned back and told that their army must be disbanded and their military system broken up. It was clear at once that the ultimatum was the death knell of Zulu independence and that they would resist it.

  Colby vanished into the blue a week later, after a hasty visit to Durban to say goodbye to his family. After growing used to Augusta’s courage, he was worried to find her still in a tearful mood and he could only assume she was tired or that the enervating heat of subtropical Durban was too much for her.

  It was a strange army he rode with. There was not a single troop of Imperial cavalry – chiefly, he suspected, because the army in England, designed for Continental warfare, was ill adapted for native wars – and there seemed a proliferation of volunteers raised by the colonials and consisting for the most part of small outfits with grandiose names, little training and precarious discipline which might well collapse in an emergency. The native troops mostly still carried only assegais and wore nothing but their tribal dress, and they could barely form a straight line, had horses that were gun-shy and NCOs who for the most part were on horseback for the first time. Ulundi, where Cetzewayo ruled, was only seventy-five miles away across the Tugela River which bordered the colony, and a well-mounted man could ride there in a day at a pinch, but with the British government as usual willing to accept an inefficiently conducted campaign but never an expensive one, they were stuck with ox-drawn transport with which they would take all of a month and perhaps longer.

  As the units moved to their assigned positions, orders came for Colby to take the North Cape Horse to Balte Spruit in the north-west corner of the colony and on the edge of the disputed tribal land, where Evelyn Wood had established a camp from which he could lead into Zululand. As he rode out of Pietermaritzburg, the 24th Foot were also marching out for Helpmakaar, their colours flying, their band playing ‘I’m Leaving Thee In Sorrow, Annie’, which he’d last heard at the Burtle House in Virginia as he’d ridden off to Yellow Tavern with Micah Love’s regiment. Volunteer cavalry and Boer burgher units were jogging along in front of him, dressed for the most part in anything that took their fancy. Astern were native cavalry and native infantry, their uniforms varying from an old jacket and trousers to a leopard skin and a couple of ostrich feathers. Batteries of little seven-pounders and the heavier guns of the 5th Artillery Brigade bounced and rattled behind their teams.