Fire Across the Veldt (25 page)

‘Very good, sir. Thank you – and good luck!’

Fonthill strode away, leaving the others to scamper after him, for there was a renewed spring in his step now. After all the recent months of chasing de Wet and burning farms, here seemed an opportunity at last of bringing a Boer general to battle. Oh, he would be vastly outnumbered by the sound of it, but if he could fight from a defended position, then that would even out the odds and there would be British garrisons already
in situ
at these forts to swell his numbers. He looked up at the sky. Should he move out now? No. The men would fight better after a decent night’s sleep.

He turned his head. ‘Come on, you three. Keep up. We might have a battle to fight.’

Just before dawn the column saddled up and moved out, Fonthill leaving orders for his trackers to meet at Itala. That night Simon had invited Alice to eat with him, his officers and Jenkins in a large army hut near the railway line. He explained Alice’s presence among them
by inferring that she had gained HQ’s permission to join a column out in the field. Then he had outlined the risk he was taking in striking out to the east, but no one demurred. In fact, they all nodded in agreement at his analysis, Alice, of course, saying nothing but busily making notes. They moved now in all-pervading greyness, the drizzle soaking them to the skin. But they rode on. Fonthill was determined to reach the forts before Botha struck.

The distance to the nearest of the camps, Fort Itala, was some forty miles and the journey fringed the border into Zululand. It confirmed to Fonthill that he was right to think that Botha would select this route as his entry into Natal. Kitchener was relying to a large extent on the Zulus to defend their own border and Simon sensed that the tough, pragmatic Boer would choose these spear-wielding warriors – traditional enemies of the Afrikaners – rather than the British, with their modern weapons, as opponents if it came to a fight. He would bank on brushing aside the small army outposts at the two forts. The questions remained: could he get there before the Boer and was the Buffalo in spate?

They were forced to camp the night in the open under groundsheets that provided little shelter from the unrelenting rain that now thundered down like vertical stair rods. Head bowed, Fonthill trudged through the sodden ground to find where Alice lay shivering, her head just visible under her waterproof. He handed her a small flask.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘whisky. It might warm you up. Sorry, darling. When we both said “for better or worse” I think this was what God had in mind for the worse bit.’

She reached out a grateful hand. ‘I think you have deliberately engineered this to teach me a lesson. But thank you, Simon.’ She
unscrewed the cap and took a swig. ‘Just what was needed. The good thing about this weather, I suppose, is that it should hold up Botha, do you think?’

Simon nodded, sending raindrops showering from the tip of his nose. ‘Yes. But more importantly, it will deny him grazing fodder for his horses. He’s been riding for days from the north in this sort of weather. His mounts will be knackered and won’t be able to feed in this mud. It will all deny him the chance to roam freely into Natal, even if he crosses the Buffalo or the Tugela further south. At least, I hope so. Can’t stop, my love. Got to make my rounds. Sleep as well as you can and keep taking the medicine.’

He knelt down clumsily and kissed her before moving on.

The column was raised early and it pressed on through the day, Fonthill driving the pace so that they reached the first of the British encampments shortly after midday. The name of Fort Itala flattered it. Established only a month before, it was merely a collection of tents surrounded by shallow trenches, all huddled on a ridge at the foot of a small mountain. But Fonthill was relieved to find three hundred mounted infantry, under the command of a Dublin Fusilier, Major A.J. Chapman, well established and in good heart.

Chapman was delighted to have reinforcements and the two men shook hands. ‘My Zulu scouts tell me that Botha is not far away,’ he said, ‘although it is not certain that he is intending to attack us. I have posted eighty men onto the top of the mountain which might just surprise him, if he tries to do so.’

‘Hmm.’ Fonthill frowned. ‘We might have to entice him. How far away is the other fort and what sort of state is it in?’

‘Prospect? Matter of fact, it’s a far better defensive position than
this one. It is a proper redoubt with rock walls impervious to rifle fire and barbed wire surrounding it. Fewer men than here but it should be all right.’

‘Good. We can concentrate here, then. I will get my men to help you complete those trenches, but I would hate Botha to think that we would be a hard nut to crack so that he doesn’t come on. Don’t throw the earth high at the front. Flatten it out as though we haven’t dug at all. That might lure him in and, between us, we can give him a bloody nose. Start now. We might not have much time. Thank God the rain has stopped.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Later, as Fonthill’s men were erecting their low bivouac tents, Mzingeli and three of his scouts rode in. They confirmed that the Boers were some ten miles away.

‘They riding to the south-west, Nkosi,’ reported Mzingeli. ‘Don’t know if they come this far. But it is a big commando. About thousand men. Some wagons but no big guns.’

Simon nodded. ‘Good.’ He smiled and put a hand on the tall man’s shoulder. ‘I hate to ask you this, Mzingeli,’ he said, ‘but I would like you and your men to go out again. Fan out and spread the word among whatever farms you can find that this fort is badly defended – just a few shallow trenches, that’s all. Grab some hot food here before you go and come back when you have put out the rumour.’

‘Ah. Understand. You want him to come to you?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I spread the word.’

Fonthill then sent out two riders. The first to Fort Prospect to the east, informing the commanding officer there of the danger
of an impending attack, and the other to the west, back to Glencoe, reporting the presence of Botha nearby and asking for reinforcements. Then he set his troopers to join Chapman’s men in deepening the trenches and directed that a special, half-
scooped-out
, low rock-walled command post be dug out and erected behind the line, from which he could command the defence. Here, he could establish a small reserve and also ensure that Alice was safe. He looked high up to where Chapman’s eighty men were on the mountain top. Should he bring them in to add to the main defences? He decided against it. If Botha tried to establish men up there or on the slopes to fire down on the camp, they would provide a deterrent. Then he waited.

The night passed peacefully, as did the next day, so enabling the trenches to be completed. The remainder of the black trackers came in and Mzingeli himself returned with his three men. They had all met Kaffirs to whom they had given the message that the white men at the forts were not expecting attack and were not ready for it. Fonthill and his men settled down to wait.

The attack came during the early hours of darkness, surprisingly, for the Boers usually liked to launch an assault just before dawn. A little before midnight the mountain peak became lit up by gun flashes and the crackle of musketry echoed down to the ridge below. The defenders ran to their positions in the trenches and Fonthill and Chapman stood in their redoubt, abortively focusing their field glasses in the darkness on the top of the peak.

‘Damn,’ murmured Chapman. ‘I hope they’ve not been overrun. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left them up there on their own.’

‘No,’ said Fonthill. ‘They’ve done their job. We just might have
been caught with our pyjama bottoms down here, being attacked at this time of night. Let’s hope they can hold out.’

But they could not. After about two hours of what was obviously fierce fighting, the firing on the mountain flickered and then died away completely. ‘They’ll come at us now,’ said Simon, half to himself and half to Alice, who now stood at his side, Chapman having joined his men in the line. He squinted forward in the darkness. ‘Damn. What we need is bright moonlight.’

As if on cue, the darkly purple clouds parted and a bright moon peeped through. It was just in time to illuminate a mass of Boers spilling out from the base of the mountain and running fast towards the line of trenches.

‘Blimey,’ muttered Jenkins. ‘There’s ’undreds of ’em.’

‘Hold your fire,’ shouted Fonthill, turning his head and repeating the order so that his voice echoed along the line. ‘Wait until they pass the markers and wait for the command.’ Parties of men had spent the day putting down white-painted markers around the camp, at three hundred and two hundred yards, so that their rifle sights could be adjusted accordingly. Now, as the dark figures swarmed past the furthest posts, an officer in the trench nearest the redoubt shouted ‘At three hundred yards,
FIRE
!’ The command echoed along the line and the trenches exploded in flame and smoke.

Simon heard Alice draw in her breath sharply as the leading line of attackers crumpled and fell. But the others – and there were plenty of them – came on running, jumping over the bodies of their fallen comrades, some kneeling to take aim and fire, but most of them propelling themselves forward as fast as they could run, their rifles swinging to and fro with the rhythm of their movement.

‘Rapid fire!’ screamed the order from the trenches. ‘Fire at will!’

Again the volleys rang out, this time supplemented by more ragged fire as the defenders pumped their bolt mechanisms to thrust cartridges into the chambers of their rapidly heating rifles. All along the line, white smoke hung like a wraith above the defenders.

Fonthill ran his tongue along his dry lips and tasted again the sharp, sour, tang of cordite. He wasn’t sure if he felt fear or just excitement. ‘Now they’ll fall back and start sniping,’ he said.

But they did not. The Boers continued to run on into the fire, passing the two-hundred-yard posts so that their ragged clothing could now clearly be seen, some of them wearing British khaki tunics but with buttons now sadly tarnished. As the range shortened, more of them fell, throwing their rifles forward with the impetus of their charge as they collapsed.

‘Good God!’ murmured Simon. ‘I’ve never seen Boers charge like this.’

‘Aye, bach,’ Jenkins echoed in awe. ‘They’re comin’ on like stupid bloody Englishmen.’

‘What brave men,’ whispered Alice. ‘What magnificent, silly, brave men. Don’t they know they’ll never win this stupid war?’

Simon shook his head. ‘I’m beginning to believe they just might. I’ve never seen ’em fight like this. If they keep coming on like this, they could run through us. There are so many of ’em.’ He turned to the men grouped around him in the redoubt. ‘Fix bayonets,’ he shouted. Then he turned back to Jenkins. ‘Number the reserve, quickly,’ he ordered. ‘When I give the order, take the first fifty to the right, spread out thinly and support the line. I’ll take the others to the left. Number now.’ He looked down at his wife. ‘If we have to go, Alice, you stay in here and stay low.’

She nodded, dumbly, her eyes wide, but Simon noted that she had filled three pages of scribbled notes.

In fact, there was no immediate need for the reserve, for it was impossible for the attackers to continue their rush forward in the face of such fierce firing and the Boers first paused, then crumbled, turned and retreated, spreading out quickly across the rough ground and seeking cover from where they could begin to return fire.

Jenkins, perspiration trickling down his face, nodded. ‘I reckon, you gettin’ the word out, bach sir, that we was poorly defended, ’as done the trick, see. They didn’t make out the trenches in the poor light and they thought as ’ow they could just run straight through us. Now, I bet they just bugger off back to their ’orses, as usual.’

Fonthill was standing, his field glasses to his eyes, and he didn’t respond for a moment. Then he said: ‘Somehow I don’t think so. They have massed a second line back there at the base of the mountain. They will come on again when they’ve regrouped. I’m just going down to the line to check on our casualties. I won’t be a minute. I’ll be back before they charge again.’

‘No, Simon.’ Alice called. But he vaulted the low stone wall and was gone.

‘’E’ll be all right, missus,’ reassured Jenkins. ‘’E knows what ’e’s doin’, look you. ’E’s a proper soldier now, see.’ And his great grin lit up the redoubt.

Alice nodded back to him, her eyes sparkling with tears. Then she bent her head again and resumed scribbling.

Simon’s head could be seen as he made his way along the trench, talking and clapping hands on shoulders. For a while he disappeared round the bend of the line and then he was back, half crouching now
and skipping over the kneeling men, before he climbed up the reverse side of the trench and ran back to the redoubt with bullets plucking at the earth beneath his feet. He vaulted over the low wall.

‘Just in time, bach sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘’Ere they come again.’

The charge this time was presaged by a stuttering volley from the Boers sheltering behind rocks and declivities in the surface of the ground. But this was Boer gunfire, unerringly accurate, and men began toppling backwards from the wall of the trench, blood trickling from black holes in their foreheads, their helmets clattering away as they fell onto their backs. Then the rush began.

Simon turned to the men of the reserve. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Supplement the fire. Fire over the heads of the men in the trenches. Set your sights at three hundred yards and then open up with rapid fire.’

Soon the redoubt, too, was overhung with clouds of white smoke as the reserve lent their support to the men in the trenches. And still the Boers came on, their white eyes bulging in their dirty, bearded faces, firing as they ran and as they neared the lines. This time they reached within one hundred yards of the trench before fading away, seemingly reluctantly, to retrace their steps, leaving dishevelled bodies all around them on the bloodstained ground.

Fonthill waved away the smoke and looked up at the indigo sky, now studded with stars. ‘I hope to God the moon stays out,’ he murmured. ‘If they keep coming on and we can’t see ’em until the last minute then we could be in trouble.’