Fire Across the Veldt (27 page)

‘Quite. What exactly is your plan, then, and what do you want my chaps to do?’

‘I’ve got four groups about thirty-five miles south of Lichtenburg and I intend to start them on a great sweep through about a hundred and forty miles miles. First south-west, then south and finally
south-east
to the Vaal and Klerksdorp itself. That should give the Boers at the meeting a sharp reminder that we are very much still in the field. I want you to be in the van and find Kemp and lure him into us.’

‘Have you any idea where he is?’

‘Round about here.’ He jabbed a long, beautifully manicured
forefinger onto the map on his table. ‘Near a tiny place called Boschbult, some sixty miles west of Klerksorp. He had a go at one of our reconnaissance columns there the other day. We think he’s still thereabouts. Get down there, Fonthill, and stand on his coat tails.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Alice, suffering from a miserable cold, was left behind in Lichtenburg and, on the night of the 9th April 1902, Fonthill and his column were ranging along the banks of the River Brakspruit within about twelve miles of its junction with the Great Harts River. Simon knew that this was de la Rey’s – and therefore Kemp’s – territory. He and his men were riding, spread out in a screen, ahead of where the van of Hamilton’s main force, under General Kekewich, were marching behind him, when one of Mzingeli’s men galloped in.

‘Many Boers ahead, baas,’ he reported.

‘How many?’ demanded Fonthill. ‘Is it a full commando?’

‘Many, many, baas.’

Simon turned and summoned one of his subalterns. ‘Ride back and find General Kekewich. He should be directly in our rear. Tell him we have found the main commando. Tell him I shall try and lure it in towards the farm ahead – what the hell is it called? – ah yes, Rooiwal. It’s half a mile to the north. He should be prepared to meet the Boers there. Gallop now.’

Fonthill thought quickly. He did not wish to imperil his whole column which, although enlarged, would be no match for a full Boer commando in open ground. Yet he wanted to lure Kemp to attack. He called up Major Forbes and explained the situation.

‘Let me have a troop of about forty men. Then take the column up ahead to the farm we scouted yesterday, Rooiwal, where General
Kekewich should be concentrated. Sergeant Major Jenkins and I with the troop will try and draw the Boers into attack onto Kekewich’s columns. Explain this to the general and merge our column with his force. Understood?’

Forbes’s lined face seamed into a frown. ‘Understood. But it sounds bloody dangerous to me, sir. Be careful. Let me ride with you and send Cartwright back.’

‘No.’ Fonthill grinned. ‘I’m much fatter than you and will make better bait. Off you go.’ The two shook hands and Forbes wheeled his horse round. Simon shouted: ‘Jenkins, here please.’ And then, ‘Mzingeli. Go back with the column. Where’s your tracker?’

The two men, white and black, joined him and then the three rode forward to meet the forty troopers singled out by Forbes. Then they sat their horses as the column turned and cantered away, watching until it had disappeared into the distance.

‘Right,’ said Fonthill. ‘Gentlemen, we trot forward. I believe that there is a large Boer force about half a mile or so ahead of us. Our tracker will show us where. When we see them, we will dismount and fire on them and then, when they attack, as I hope they will, we will remount and lure them onto the main British force to our rear. Now, good luck. In column of fours, to the front, trot.’

Jenkins pulled alongside Fonthill and the two rode in silence for a few minutes at the head of the little column and behind the tracker who cantered on some twenty paces ahead, continually rising in his stirrups nervously to look around him.

The Welshman leant across and extended his hand. ‘I have a feelin’, bach sir,’ he said, ‘that we won’t be doin’ much more of this sort of barmy stuff in the future, if at all. So p’raps, look you, we
should just shake ’ands, like, an’ remember all the times we’ve done it before.’

Simon took the hand of his old comrade and, for a brief moment, the two rode together, hands clenched, in silence. Then Fonthill nodded. ‘Thank you for those times, 352. Stay close now.’

‘Where else would I be, now?’

They had ridden for perhaps fifteen minutes when the scout suddenly halted and raised his hand. Fonthill and Jenkins cantered to his side. They found themselves looking down from a gentle rise on a quite amazing sight. Before them, some three hundred yards away, a vast gathering of horsemen, perhaps some seventeen hundred, were riding towards them in close order, a phalanx of bandoliered Boers, slouch-hatted, their ragged clothing clearly visible, stretching away far on either side of the little troop. Two men rode ahead of the commando, one wearing a bright-blue shirt. On seeing the soldiers before them, the two turned in their saddles, gestured up the hill with their rifles to their followers and kicked their mounts into a gallop.

Fonthill’s first thought was the fervent hope that Kekewich had had time to deploy behind him. His second was that there was no time to dismount and fire.

‘Do not, repeat
DO
NOT
dismount!’ He shouted. ‘Fire one volley from the saddle at the enemy ahead. Wait for the order. Steady the horses. Now. Select your target. Aim.
FIRE
! To the rear, gallop!’

The forty men, their rifles still in their hands, turned and spurred their horses into the gallop. They had a good start on the Boers, of course, and the advantage of being on top of the slope. Fonthill also fervently hoped, as he rode, Jenkins at his side, that the British ponies would be in better condition than those of the Boers, who had been
starved of good grazing until recently by the rains. Then he was aware that bullets were whistling around him.

In the months of guerrilla warfare, the Boers, who had gained all their early victories in the war either from firing with amazing accuracy from fixed positions at the lines of British troops advancing towards them, or from slipping from rock to rock and taking their enemies by surprise, had now developed a twentieth-century version of the cavalry charge. They had used their superior horsemanship to attack, firing from the saddle while at full tilt – and often retaining their remarkable accuracy while doing so. Fonthill had noted this and now he sent up a fervent prayer that he and the rest of the troop would not have to play the hare to the Boer hounds for very much longer. Already, three of his men had been pitched from their saddles as bullets took their horses.

He looked ahead through wind-streamed eyes. Where the hell was Kekewich? They could not maintain this pace for much longer. Yet they couldn’t slacken off for to do so would be either to risk a bullet in the back or be forced to surrender. They must continue to lead the Boers on, to commit them and not give them time to retreat once they saw Kekewich’s three thousand men and his cannon ahead of them – if they
were
ahead, that was.

Then, at last, directly ahead, Fonthill caught a glimpse of sunlight reflected off a steel barrel, then another, until he could see figures deployed in a wide line in mealie fields. Kekewich
was
in place – but far enough ahead to be out of rifle range and to give the Boers time to halt, turn round and flee from a force that clearly outnumbered them.

Damn! Simon waved his hand to his little force indicating that they should slow down and he looked behind him. But Kemp and
his men – the blue-shirted one, it later ensued, was the Boer General Potgieter – were not reining in. They galloped on.

Fonthill realised that his little force was screening the Boers from the British line, preventing Kekewich from firing, so he indicated that they should wheel to the right, even if it meant that the Boers would follow, for they, too, must surely have seen by now that they were galloping, in gallant Light Brigade style, directly towards well-placed artillery and infantry emplacements. He cast a desperate glance over his shoulder. The Boers were neither following nor pulling up. Ignoring Fonthill’s manoeuvre,
they were galloping on, straight towards the British positions
!

Suddenly, free of the obstacle posed by Simon’s troop, Kekewich’s guns opened up. The Boers were riding, compactly, almost knee to knee, across a completely open and now level plain in broad daylight and providing a perfect target. The shells crumped among the densely packed horsemen and opened up a succession of gaps in the host. Still the Boers came on in a quite uncharacteristically reckless fashion, as though seeking to add a glorious footnote to what had been a gruelling,
hit-and
-run two years. Now they were within rifle range and more gaps opened up in their line until, at last, at four hundred and then three hundred yards, they faltered and the main body turned and rode back. The distinctly blue-shirted Potgieter thundered on, however, with several companions, until they all fell only seventy paces from the British line.

Fonthill and his men, now pulled up well to the right of the charging Boers, watched the carnage open-mouthed.

‘Bloody ’ell, bach sir,’ panted Jenkins. ‘What a stupid thing to do, eh? They was all committin’ suicide, like. Not a bit like the canny devils we’ve been used to, look you.’

Fonthill blew out his cheeks and nodded. ‘Amazing. Brave but idiotically stupid. De Wet, de la Rey or Botha would never have done that. Kemp must have been mad to try a charge like that. I can’t help thinking that this could have been the last formal battle of this sad and miserable war.’ He took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘Hamilton must get on horseback now, get in pursuit and finish the job.’

But there was little sign of this happening as Simon led his little troop in to join the main body. It was not until forty minutes later that Hamilton’s cavalry came forward and set off in pursuit.

‘I say,’ said the ebullient Captain Cartwright to Simon as they sat watching the cavalry push through the maize and gallop off. ‘See who’s there, in the van. Philip Hammond, ain’t it?’

Fonthill had noticed the Hussar sitting tall in the saddle and had shot an anxious glance at Jenkins, but the Welshman appeared not to have seen his old adversary. ‘Hmm,’ he answered. ‘Well let’s hope he catches old Kemp.’

In fact, the survivors of the Boer charge escaped and melted away into the vast countryside, as though they had never existed, but news reached Hamilton’s command that the Boer leadership had agreed to open formal peace terms and had left Klerksdorp to move, under Kitchener’s protection, to his headquarters at Pretoria to begin the talks. The next day, Fonthill, still listlessly combing the veldt as part of Hamilton’s force, received a telegram from K himself. He was surprised but delighted by its contents:

He showed the message to Hamilton, who extended his hand. ‘Off you go, my dear feller,’ he said. ‘It looks as though K feels that the end is in sight at last. Thank you for all you’ve done. Leave Forbes in charge of your lot and take your fightin’ Welshman with you. He deserves some leave, anyway. My regards to your wife.’

On the night before his departure, Simon, with Jenkins, was taking a farewell drink and saying goodbye to his officers with a mixture of relief that it seemed as though the war was winding down to a close at last and regret that Fonthill’s Horse, his first and last command in the field, must surely soon be disbanded, when Captain Cartwright pushed through the throng, his round face bursting with news.

‘I say, Colonel – sorry, Brigadier – have you heard the news about Hammond?’

‘No. What?’

‘A most remarkable thing, don’t you know. The poor devil was seen this morning, just after dawn, making his way back to the Fifth Hussar’s lines, absolutely stark naked.’

‘Good Lord! What had happened?’

‘Well, he said he had been lured out of the mess last night into the bush by some sort of strange message. Then, he said that he had been hit over the head by some unknown assailant and came to this morning with a very sore napper and all his clothes gone.’

Fonthill shot a quick look at Jenkins, whose face was set in the same expression of surprise and puzzlement as the others. ‘Gracious me. How strange.’

But Cartwright had not finished. ‘Ah, but there’s more. The feller’s face, it seems, was covered in that stuff that women use – you know, lip rouge. He didn’t know, of course, because he couldn’t see himself. There’s been a lot of talk and he has become the laughing stock of the cavalry. It just shows, doesn’t it? You just don’t know people, do yer?’

Simon nodded slowly. He emptied his glass and looked across at Jenkins. ‘You certainly don’t. Now, Sarn’t Major, drink up. I think an early night is indicated. All things being considered, I think we ought to leave for Pretoria very early in the morning, for we must pick up Alice at Lichtenburg on the way.’

‘Of course, sir. Quite right, sir.’ Jenkins lifted his glass to Simon, although he avoided his eye, then he drained it in one gulp.

Simon had decided that it was time that Mzingeli returned to his farm in Rhodesia and so the tall tracker joined him and Jenkins as they set off, well before dawn the next morning, on their long ride to Lichtenburg. The three rode companionably together, with Mzingeli, as usual, remaining silent and Fonthill and Jenkins chatting only in monosyllables, but all three enjoying the brightness of the morning and the crisp air of the veldt. Fonthill decided that nothing would be served by pressing his old comrade on the Hammond business. Sleeping dogs, he felt, should be left to lie.

They found an Alice cured of her cold but fretting at being left in the small town with only a brief telegram to say that her husband was on his way. She had heard vague rumours of a British victory at Rooiwal but nothing more and Simon’s message had at least assured her that he was safe.

She read Kitchener’s cable with delight. ‘Good Lord,’ she said. ‘I wonder why he wants you on his staff at this late stage. Maybe he’s offering you some sort of reward for your soldiering over the last two years. He wants you to be in at the kill, so to speak. And how kind of the old devil to call me in specifically to report on these talks, after all the trouble I gave him about the camps. He’s got a heart after all. But what’s this about “old friends”?’

Simon smiled. ‘I’ve no idea. But I’ll be damned glad to get out of the saddle for a while. I think, my love, that I’ve probably had just about enough of conventional soldiering now, thank you very much. It’s uncomfortable, dangerous and generally bad for the health. I never thought I would yearn for a bit of peace and quiet in Norfolk but, do you know, I think I do now.’

Alice looked at him, with just a trace of concern in her eyes. ‘Yes, but do you think the Boers will give in at last?’

‘I honestly do think so, because I think that even the few diehards must concede that fighting on will just leave the country barren and exhausted. It depends, I suppose, upon how hard we press them. We must be ameliorative. After all, we virtually invaded their country, thanks, I believe, to that cold schemer, Milner. Let’s hope that Kitchener can keep him under control in these negotiations.’

They handed in their horses to the military in the town and headed for the railway station, diverting only to the pharmacist so that Alice could replace her lip rouge that, she explained, she had somehow lost. On arrival in Pretoria, Alice found Jenkins and Mzingeli a shared room in her hotel but then Jenkins quickly made his apologies and slipped away, muttering that he had a little business to do.

Fonthill found the little town buzzing with excitement at the
presence of the Boer leaders. Even Smuts had been summoned from the wilds of the empty plains of the north-west Cape Colony. As Kitchener made his way to the meeting room in his HQ, Simon bumped into him in the corridor and the great man shook his hand.

‘Can’t stop,’ he apologised, ‘but I did want to thank you for all you’ve done out on the veldt. I thought it only right, considering that I personally dragged you into this, to have you here at the end.’

‘Will it be the end, then?’

‘Oh, I am determined to make it so. I’m dashed if I’m going to let these chaps get away from the table without an agreement. Botha wants one, I know. I think Smuts can be persuaded. De le Wet is stoically still against it and de la Rey is uncommitted either way.’

Fonthill laid a hand quickly on the commander-in-chief’s arm. ‘I don’t want to hold you up, sir. But what do you want me to do here? And who are the “old friends” you referred to?’

‘Ah yes. De Wet and Botha. You’ve met both and you’ve had brushes with both. I think there is mutual respect between you. I will arrange for you to join the social meetings we’re forced to have here. Just put a bit of gentle pressure on both as soldier to soldier. Explain there’s no future now in fighting on but to keep negotiating, and explain that I will try and ease the way for them. Sorry, must go. Don’t hang around the office. Consider yourself on leave.’

Fonthill thanked him and the big man stalked away. Simon, however, was not exactly pleased at the strangely amorphous task allocated to him. He complained to Alice: ‘I’m no diplomat. If Milner and Kitchener can’t do the job, how the hell can I, just over a glass of champagne?’

She pulled his ear gently. ‘My husband can do anything he wants
to,’ she said. ‘Just ask de Wet how the hell he kept getting away. That should please him.’

In fact, he found the glowering, surly Boer general happy to talk to him, when they met at an informal gathering before the chief negotiators were photographed for the records. ‘Ah, Fonthill,’ he said. ‘A general now, eh – even if only a minor one. I should never have let you steal your horses back that day when first we met. I confess you gave me a fright or two after that. And you got away from me in the Cape.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry about that. But I hated your coffee, so I left. But tell me, General, how did you keep slipping away from us all, when we were on your tail? You seemed to know what we were going to do before we did it.’

The dark eyes glowed. ‘Ach. Intelligence, my boy. I had the populace on my side, don’t forget – and I still do.’

‘But you can’t keep fighting now. There will only be ashes left. Keep talking to Kitchener. He desperately wants to end the killing. But you won’t get complete independence. Find a middle way.’

They were interrupted by Botha, who pushed his way forward to shake Fonthill’s hand. ‘I heard that,’ he said. ‘It’s good to meet you again. Brigadier now, I see. Well you earned it. The middle way is going to be damned difficult …’ At this point, de Wet turned away to speak to another, long-bearded Boer. Botha drew closer to Simon. ‘I want to find just that way,’ he said, ‘otherwise people like Christiaan here,’ he indicated de Wet, ‘are quite capable of going on until the very last bullet. But he can be turned. Get Kitchener to compromise and we will meet him. Good to see you, Fonthill. I hope we meet again – in peace.’ He turned away to rejoin his colleagues.

Fonthill found these exchanges strangely comforting. He felt that if the bloodshed continued there would be nothing for the victors, whoever they were, to inherit: just a burnt-out country, studded with graves and left with a sullen resentful people.

He shared his view with Alice, when they met at the hotel. She nodded emphatically. ‘I have had my ear to the ground,’ she said, ‘and there will eventually be a meeting of minds, I am sure of that. Oh, a message from 352. He would like to see you. He is in the bar next door. Now, don’t get him drunk.’

A strangely quiet and uncomfortable Jenkins was waiting for him in a corner of the half-empty barroom, a surprisingly small glass of beer before him. ‘Let me get you another,’ said Simon.

‘Er … No thank you, bach sir. Not just now, see. I’ve … er … got something to tell you and I’d rather get if off my chest as soon as possible.’

‘Good Lord! Sounds ominous. Very well. Fire away.’

‘I won’t be comin’ back with you to Norfolk, look you, when this thing is over. Sorry about that, bach sir. But I’ll be stayin’ out ’ere, see.’

Simon sat back, frowning. Whatever he was expecting to hear, it was not this. ‘Gracious me, 352. You’re ending the partnership after all these years? Whatever are Alice and I going to do without you? Was it something we’ve done, or said?’

‘Golly me, no. Not at all.’ He looked down at the floor, then up again at his old comrade. ‘Truth is …’ and a great smile curved back his moustache ‘… Nandi and me are goin’ to get married, see. An’ we’re goin’ back to ’er farm to rebuild it and bring up ’er girls and, if we’re lucky, ’ave a few of our own before I’m too old, look you. So
will you be best man, like, an’ Nandi ’as asked me to ask you if you think that Miss Alice would be maid of honour?’

Simon sent back his chair with a crash and stood. ‘This is magnificent news, old chap. The answer to both your questions is yes, of course. My God! Wait till I tell Alice.’ He reached across and took Jenkins’s hand. ‘I will keep my promise to pay for the farm and—’

Jenkins shook his head. ‘The word is, that if these peace talks end properly, like, the British government are goin’ to compensate the Boers who lost their farms in the burnin’, so we should be all right.’

‘Very well. I’ve got a better idea. I’ll get Mzingeli to send you down a breeding bull and half a dozen cows from the farm in Rhodesia to set you up with a herd.’

‘Now that would be useful, I must say. Thank you very much, bach sir. Oh, just one last thing.’

‘What’s that?’

Jenkins smiled shyly. ‘If, at any time, you do decide to go … er … adventurin’ again, like, give me a call, will you?’

‘Adventuring again? Well, I wouldn’t go anywhere like that without you, old chap, rest assured. Now, let’s go next door and join Alice and we’ll take a bottle of champagne with us.’

‘Very kind, sir, I’m sure. But, as you know, I don’t drink …’