Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (44 page)

‘Sir!’ Wainwright saluted and spun round, setting off towards the kraal in a brisk march that would have matched a Xhosa’s lope.

‘Now,’ said Hervey when there was no one within earshot, and sitting down in one of the camp chairs that Johnson had brought. ‘What’s the business with Dundas?’

Fairbrother settled heavily, and blew out his breath. ‘He got up to the hills in the Tambooka country the day before yesterday, about thirty miles north and east of here. He had a report of a force of Zulu advancing towards the Bashee. The Tambooka were to make a stand east of the river.’ He took another draw on the flask. ‘So he crossed the river a few hours before dusk and met Voosani, the Tambooka chief, who told him the Zulu had already taken several thousand head of cattle. Dundas said he would assist him recovering them. Why he believed that recovering the cattle was a more effective means of conveying the message to Shaka I have no notion.’ He took yet another long draw.

‘And?’

Fairbrother shook his head. ‘It might have passed with no great harm, for it seems Dundas’s original intention was to block the ford through which the Zulu intended driving off the cattle. But as they approached, apparently with just a few drovers, he decided he’d attack. The drovers were seen off easily, but then he ran into the Zulu rear guard, and it was a desperate business for a while, until powder began to tell. He reckons to have killed fifty of them, but then came word that several
thousand
were moving on the ford, and so Dundas got the Tambooka to recover what cattle they could, but even these had to be abandoned as the Zulu began pressing them. So Dundas decided to escort Voosani to his kraal to try to rally more warriors, which is where I found him, and he at once sent me back to alert Somerset.’

Hervey began unfolding his map. ‘How long do you think it will take us to get up to the Bashee? What is the country?’

‘The infantry won’t manage in less than a day. But why exhaust ourselves? Why not wait for the Zulu to come to us? They’ll burn the kraals and take the cattle and the corn, but it might have to be the price if we’re to be certain of stopping them. The Tambooka will flee this way. We could rally them and have another five thousand or so.’

‘Do the Zulu have muskets?’

‘The scouts didn’t speak of them.’

Hervey was trying to calculate time, distance and relative strengths. ‘Do you not think we might overawe them with a show of force – the troop and Rifles, I mean – while the infantry and the rest march up?’

‘Divide one’s force?’

Hervey raised his eyebrows. ‘In ordinary, of course, it’s folly; but in an exigency … I wish I had some better idea of how the Zulu fight.’

He and Fairbrother had talked a good deal of Shaka’s system, such as they knew it. However, the accounts came either from (as Somerset called them) rascals, freebooting Englishmen, or else from the defeated tribes, and were hardly reliable therefore, given as they usually were in wide-eyed terror or with nefarious intent. It was evident that the Zulu did not simply overwhelm their opponents by sheer numbers – a great host of savages bearing down on their peace-able neighbours like the wolf on the fold. There were, it seemed, well-formed regiments –
impi
– who moved quickly and under strict discipline. Their weapon was the short spear, the
iklwa,
which was not thrown but thrust, like the jabbing sword of the Roman legions. And there was no doubt that a Zulu warrior was possessed of singular courage. But as to what this amounted to in the field neither Hervey nor Fairbrother could tell. Of one thing, however, Hervey was sure:
dash,
the bold offensive action which in India could turn the tables so spectacularly when the situation looked desperate, might not serve here. For if, as the stories went, the warriors were more afraid of Shaka’s vengeance than of death at the hands of the enemy, they would not be so easily scattered as the bandits who passed for soldiers in India.

‘We have lost the element of surprise, of course,’ said Hervey, rising as he saw Somerset approaching. ‘They know there are white faces with the Xhosa now, and guns. The only thing left to dismay them is numbers or some clever manoeuvre.’

Fairbrother said nothing. What he knew of his friend’s capacity for audaciousness was considerable. From all he had read, and even more from those he had spoken to, he judged this measured response to be uncharacteristic – as well as intriguing.

Somerset was a shade unsteady and his speech not entirely even. Hervey felt only sympathy, and nodded to Johnson, who knew what was required.

Fairbrother made his report.

Somerset, sitting low in a camp chair, sipping repeatedly at his strong black coffee, began to look uncertain. His fighting, such as it was, had been on interior lines, east of the Fish River, with a number of strongpoints around which to rally. Here in open country, a thorn-fenced kraal the only feature, and his force not yet even united, he saw the possibilities of defeat only too clearly. His distaste for Fairbrother was now all but gone. ‘I am grateful for your timely intelligence, Captain Fairbrother. Admirable. And Dundas?’

‘As I said, Colonel, I believe he may be able yet to bring over Voosani and his men.’

Somerset nodded slowly. ‘That is what Gaika said – that Voosani will fight if we support them.’ He looked at Hervey. ‘Colonel, what is your opinion?’

Hervey was surprised to be asked; Somerset had scarcely spoken half a dozen civil words to him since Cape Town. He sensed he was not being asked the best course of fighting the Zulu, however; rather whether they should fight at all. ‘Well, Colonel, General Bourke’s orders are clear enough, and we know what is the lieutenant-governor’s intention behind them. We have not been able to deliver an ultimatum to Shaka, but if we don’t make a stand against these Zulu here then an ultimatum would have no effect. I see no occasion to withdraw.’

Somerset looked disconcerted. ‘You do not consider it my overwhelming duty to preserve my force? We should be hard pressed to find another.’

Hervey saw no profit in debating the principle. ‘I don’t think we need consider it in those terms, Colonel. May I propose that I take the mounted detachments forward to make contact with the Zulu? It might still be possible to parley with them, especially since they have not yet seen troops under discipline. But if not, at least I should be able to ascertain something of their numbers and condition, and perhaps intention. Meanwhile, if Voosani’s men can be rallied, and Gaika can muster all the Xhosa …’ He tried to make his suggestion as unemphatic as possible: he had to leave the commander of the field force with an opening to take up the proposal as his own.

Somerset turned to the commanding officer of the 55th (Westmoreland) Foot, who had come in from the pickets on seeing the galloper. ‘Colonel Mill, what do you consider is the capability of your battalion?’

Lieutenant-Colonel John Mill was a veteran of much fighting – the West Indies, the Peninsula, Waterloo – and his face bore the battle honours. Whatever he thought of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Somerset, a man considerably younger than he and with a complexion as fresh as the schoolboy’s, he kept an impassive countenance. ‘In square my battalion could not be broken, and in line it could not be resisted, Colonel.’

That seemed to do the trick. With such resolution at hand, how could he, Somerset, do other than offer battle here, between the Kei and the Bashee? ‘Very well, gentlemen. Colonel Hervey, you may take the mounted detachments as you propose and make contact with the Zulu. As soon as the artillery comes up, and Gaika’s men are mustered, I shall march towards the Bashee – unless you report that the Zulu are in too great strength. I shall keep the burghers with me. They’re not so steady, yet they will afford me some protection if – I mean
when
– we advance.’

No one spoke. Each man saluted and took his leave, knowing without need of elaboration what their business was to be about.

Somerset, alone, in his camp chair, lapsed into a gloomy, distant stare. His orderly brought him a bottle, which he took with resignation rather than relish. This was not how he had imagined it would be.

They broke camp at midnight. Four or five hours in the saddle, by Hervey’s reckoning, and they would be in the more undulating country west of the Bashee. This would give a horseman the advantage, for with videttes on half a dozen high points they would soon be able to estimate the size of the Zulu force, and there would be less chance of being encircled. His one concern was colliding with the Tambooka if they were falling back towards Gaika’s kraal; but they met no one. Hervey imagined that scarcely an owl could have been witness to their night march – a cold affair too, wanting capes, whereas by day it was shirtsleeves, and too hot at that.

How he wished he could have more confidence in Somerset, both his capacity for decision and for resolution! Yet he supposed, at bottom, that if the blood of the Beauforts coursed through Somerset’s veins there could not be too much amiss. Proud he was, yes; and that verged on the perilously disdainful. But Hervey was certain that Somerset had the capacity to fight sword in hand (and he had a suspicion that when it came to fighting these Zulu it would be the will to take the blade to the enemy that counted). He quickened at the thought. He felt his hand twitch for the sabre hilt. Who
were
these Zulu that they should discompose one of the King’s officers? He would not dismiss them as savages, as others might, but he would not invest them with supernatural prowess. Did that mean he might defeat five thousand of them with his three hundred dragoons and riflemen? Hammer and anvil, beaters and guns, whatever was the proper analogy, his force was the superior in fire and in manoeuvre. His rifles could bring down a warrior at a furlong, and he had yet to see men afoot and who did not form square resist the charge of cavalry. How did this Shaka suppose he could defeat even so much as a troop and a company of the King’s men?

XXIV

FIRST BLOOD

Next morning

Just before dawn it began to rain. Not heavy, but a steady downpour which was soon soaking tunics and overalls. The night had been starry, with a good moon, and then a half-hour before first light, cloud had rolled in from the south-east, out of the Indian Ocean, relict of the south-west monsoon. Hervey’s spirits sank with the rain as he realized the fault in his appreciation. Rain had the potential to render the musket and the rifle no more than a pike. He cursed. He cursed doubly, for it need not be so. A man did not have to empty powder down a wet barrel, or into a wet firing pan for the wet flint to fail to spark. There were cartridges that could be placed into the barrel whole, and rifles which permitted loading at the breech, so that powder did not have to come into contact with damp air, let alone wet metal; and there were percussion caps – clever little things filled with fulminate of mercury – which could be inserted into the firing pan, so that when struck by the hammer that had formerly held the flint, the cap would give off the necessary spark to ignite the cartridge. Neither was this new science: a percussion cap had saved his life at Waterloo, provenance of Daniel Coates. The Ordnance, however, had no time for the novelty. And so here, now, in the chill drizzle of the veld, the only firearm he could rely on was his own percussion carbine, and Fairbrother’s revolver: two hundred rifles stood hostage to the rain and the new-acquired skill of their handlers. His own troop’s carbines he might rely on a little more, for his dragoons were certainly more practised than the riflemen; yet he knew it was possible that a hundred carbines might misfire in the face of a Zulu attack. And what message of capability might that send to Shaka?

As the sun came up, not as fast as in India, but quickly nevertheless, the rain eased and then stopped altogether. Hervey’s disquiet eased with it. They could begin to dry the firelocks – which dragoon and rifleman alike had wrapped with oilskin – and mop the barrels. It would be good to prove each weapon, he thought, though it was a practice he normally abhorred (for why give away anything to the enemy?). He was sure the Zulu would be within earshot, however: he would lose any element of surprise.

He almost lost it before he knew. The scouts stopped suddenly. They had ridden ahead as dawn broke, five hundred yards to the next rise along the line of advance. Moments later one of them began cantering fast in a circle, anti-clockwise.

Hervey lowered his telescope and turned to Lieutenant Fearnley and Captain Welsh riding alongside him. His voice compelled urgency. ‘Into line, two ranks, dragoons front – as we drilled. Then wait my orders.’

They saluted, and reined about hard.

Hervey nodded to Fairbrother and took off in a hand-gallop towards the scouts, trying to keep low the dust which even the rain had not quite suppressed.

‘Forgive me, Hervey,’ called Fairbrother above the drumming of hooves, ‘but has something decidedly cavalry happened?’

‘Infantry – Zulu – in large numbers.’

‘That much you can tell by a scout galloping in a circle?’