Soldier of the Queen (39 page)

Considering that his command had suffered a disastrous defeat and that he was assailed by intolerable pressures, his mind seemed to be working clearly. A man of colourless personality, he nevertheless impressed Colby with his method, tenacity and moral strength, and he was alarmed by the mood of the town.

‘I think we need to calm the place down,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a Zulu on this side of the Tugela. You’d better let me have a report on what’s being done, Colby, because I see no point in terrifying every woman in Natal.’

It was late when Colby rode out, accompanied by a young officer from the Pietermaritzburg garrison who was so inexperienced he wasn’t at all sure what was expected of him. Here and there a head poked through a loophole cut in the shuttered houses, but the sight of an officer in uniform was too much for most people and they began to crowd into the street. Had they heard of Gregorius Retief? Did they know who was safe from the Natal Mounted Infantry? How about the Edendale contingent? Colby answered the questions carefully, cautious not to give hope yet at the same time not to encourage despair, and was just about to mount again when he heard his name called. As he turned, he saw a figure running through the dusk towards him. To his amazement it was Augusta. She was in a state of near-panic, made worse by her efforts to control it, and the dream she had seen had grown over the last days to monstrous proportions. Normally a realist unafraid to look a fact in the face, a future without Colby had been too terrible to contemplate.

‘Jesus Christ in the Mountains!’ he said angrily as she clung to him. ‘What are
you
doing here?’

‘I was afraid.’

‘You’d have had less to be afraid of in Durban,’ he snapped. He was tired and his temper was close to the surface. Then he saw the agony in her face, the relief, the strain, and the tears in her eyes, and he put his arms round her.

‘I wanted to be near you,’ she was saying. ‘I was afraid something was going to happen.’

‘Something did,’ he said harshly. ‘By God, it did!’

As her knees gave way, she sat down abruptly on the edge of the step, her handkerchief balled in her fist and damp from the tears of relief. Then she drew a deep breath and got control of herself. ‘I kept dreaming,’ she said in a shaking voice. ‘I had you stone dead and the children orphans. I had you lying stark and white in the moonlight with a spear through you. There’ve been terrible stories of what the Zulus do and I couldn’t even think of it. What happened, Colby?’

‘Some bloody fool must have gone off his head,’ Colby said. ‘Half the force had been taken out of camp to meet the Zulus. There was no reason for a defeat and Chelmsford’s baffled because he overlooked nothing. He ignored none of the warnings that were sent him.’

Her misery was subsiding rapidly. ‘What’ll happen now?’

Colby drew a deep breath. ‘They’ll auction off the effects of the dead and Chelmsford will ask for reinforcements.’

‘Will he get them?’

‘I expect so. He knows the government’s bloody meanness and he’s going to ask only for three infantry battalions, two cavalry regiments and enough artillery and engineers to make possible what he intends. Personally, I think he’s erring on the side of understanding. I’d have made no bloody bones about it. I’d have demanded that the people at home dig into their pockets. If they want an empire, they shouldn’t expect to get it on the cheap.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s why Chelmsford’s a general and I’m only a brevet lieutenant-colonel.’

Augusta’s fingers were working in his. ‘What about us?’ she asked. ‘What happens now?’

‘I’m to return to the North Cape Horse,’ Colby said. ‘And you, madame, are going to Durban where you’ll be safe.’

She turned to face him, her face pink, her eyes dangerously bright.

‘No, Coll,’ she said, her vehemence startling him. ‘I’m staying here.’

‘You could be in danger if the Zulus come.’

‘Where I came from, people were constantly in danger from savages. Along the frontier in Arkansas and Oregon they still are. I’m staying here. I’m scared.’

She didn’t look scared. At that moment, with her eyes flashing and her small jaw set, she looked ready to take on Colby, Chelmsford, the Army Council, the authorities in Natal and the government at home.

His face slipped into a smile, and in her anxiety, she immediately snapped at him. ‘Be serious!’

His jocularity died. ‘I’m always serious when I look at you, Gussie, and see you’re worried.’ His face was grave again. ‘You’re the nicest thing that ever happened to me.’

She was startled by the confession, because it was so unlike him to let her know, but her heart swelled with pride at the knowledge.

‘You were afraid last time,’ he reminded her quietly. ‘And I rode through half the Zulu army without a scratch.’

She had a feeling that there ought to be arguments to counter what he pointed out but for the life of her she couldn’t think of any. She was only aware of a numbness and fear that refused to go away.

‘You might not again,’ she said. ‘Besides–’

His expression changed. He reached forward quickly and took her by the arms, pulling her round to face him. ‘Besides
what
?’ he demanded sharply. ‘You said “Besides–” last time. Besides
what
?’

She gazed at him, her eyes full of tears, then her face grew pink and her temper flared again. ‘Because I’m having another baby,’ she said.

The grip on her arms loosened and he straightened up. ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘
Another
?’

‘The way we go at it, it’s not all that surprising.’

‘But you were having one when I left for the Gold Coast!’

‘And I’m having one now you’re leaving for Zululand.’

‘Do you want it?’

‘Of course I want it.’

He stared at her, bewildered by the intensity of her emotions. ‘Then why are we worrying?’ he asked.

‘I’m not worrying about the damn baby,’ she stormed. ‘I’m worrying about you! Or at least about your children! Suppose you’re killed? There’ll be four of them without a father!’

By the time they started thinking of moving into Zululand once more, Augusta was already ungainly with the coming child and was finding the heat in Pietermaritzburg trying.

The shock of Isandhlwana was finally beginning to wear off and as the panic died so the grief died a little too. But Colby was rarely with her because the army had been demoralised and he spent most of his time moving about the country reorganising, reshuffling and recruiting. Before they could even consider crossing the Tugela again, they had to wait for the five infantry battalions and three cavalry regiments which were due to arrive from England.

‘We’ve got more Imperial reinforcements than the number we started with,’ he announced on one of his rare visits home. ‘They’ve decided there should be two regiments of lancers because they’re more effective in the long grass, and one of them’s to be the 19th, so with luck I ought to be back with the regiment before long.’

Perspiring, uncomfortable, and faintly worried by the thought that the arrival of the regiment meant nothing to her, Augusta listened to her husband’s thoughts unhappily. The idea that he would be leaving again before long depressed her, the dream she had had terrified her and always at the back of her mind was a heavy feeling that she would never understand what the regiment meant to those who belonged to it. Yet, when Colby’s hopes of returning to it were dashed by a note from Chelmsford informing him that, like Wood, Buller and a few others, he was too experienced to be wasted on regimental duties, she rushed to console him, trying desperately to make him feel it mattered to her when actually she had been praying that he’d remain on the staff and not sent forward to the fighting.

‘Perhaps it’s only for a time,’ she said, clinging to him on the stoep as he prepared to leave.

It seemed most unlikely. ‘You’ll be in command of the North Cape Horse,’ Chelmsford told him when he reported, ‘and will join a new column assembling at Potgeiter’s Drift. You’ll be second in command to George Morrow.’

The name dropped into the conversation with the sullenness of a signal gun, and Chelmsford’s expression changed as he saw Colby’s frown. ‘He did well in Burma,’ he pointed out. ‘He’s been sent out at the request of General Wolseley, who also asked that you should be available to assist him with your knowledge of Zulu methods.’

‘I’d prefer to be with Wood, sir,’ Colby said stiffly.

‘Doubtless you would,’ Chelmsford said dryly. ‘But “England’s Only General” has made the request and it would be difficult to ignore it.’

‘Can’t I persuade–’

‘No, sir, you can’t!’ Chelmsford snapped. ‘I already have too much on my mind. Pearson has to be rescued from Eshowe, Wood’s still far from safe, and Wolseley’s itching to get out here to snatch any kudos that’s going.’ Chelmsford sounded bitter, and concluded his instructions unsmilingly. ‘You’ll join Morrow’s column at the end of the week.’

As Colby rode north, every man of his party leading a spare horse for Wood’s hard-pressed men, he was in a sour mood. England’s Only General would have done better, he thought, to keep his nose out of Colby’s business. Wolseley’s damned Ring was in danger of taking over the army.

Wood was pleased to receive his remounts but was curiously unforthcoming about the activities of the column further north, as if he, too, had had occasion to doubt Morrow’s ability. Potgeiter’s Drift was heavy with the acrid odour of horses when Colby arrived and he didn’t like the look of it from the start. There was a shortage of outposts and Morrow seemed to think they had nothing to fear from the Zulus. He greeted Colby cheerfully, clearly with no thought in his mind that he had ever let him down.

‘I wanted Buller,’ he said. ‘But Wood insists on hanging on to him, so I asked for you.’

Colby said nothing. It was nice, he thought, to be informed he was second-best.

Morrow was friendly enough but full of sage and patronising comments which sounded strange from a man who had just arrived. He clearly didn’t like irregulars.

‘We have to pull this column together,’ he said. ‘They’re nothing but rank amateurs. Look at this wretched site they chose. The drainage’s abysmal and the ground’s fouled already. Nothing on earth seems to make these wretched Kaffirs and Boers use latrines.’

His head was full of plans and he spoke quickly, his hand running over his maps. ‘I intend to smite the Zulus,’ he went on. ‘Hip and thigh. Pearson’s still high and dry at Eshowe, but Wood wants to leave Kambula and I’m intrigued by the idea of getting some of the semi-autonomous chiefs to defect to us. I think we might do it with the right men. I have a Boer called Deyer who hopes to win them round and there’s a chief called Mbini whose people are at a place called Tshethoslane whom he hopes to see. I want you to see he gets safely back.’

‘When does he go?’

‘Oh, he’s gone,’ Morrow said cheerfully. ‘Two days ago. You’d better be off.’

Colby vanished to his command in a fuming temper. Morrow seemed to think going out to meet the Zulus required no more preparation than going out to meet a girl in Hyde Park.

The North Cape Horse and Burger, the Boer who was second-in-command, were pleased to see him back, clearly happy to have a strong figure in control, though Ackroyd’s face was graver than normal.

‘You’ll never guess ’oo ’e’s got on ’is staff!’ he said.

‘Not Aubrey Cosgro?’

‘And very much in favour, too, sir,’ Ackroyd said.

‘Where is he now?’

‘He went out with half a dozen men with messages for this Deyer feller. They’re expecting to bring Mbini in.’

‘Well, I’ve news for you, Tyas,’ Colby said with grim amusement. ‘
We’re
going out to escort them.’

Morrow was in a pompous mood as he gave Colby his orders. ‘I want to destroy these people,’ he said sternly. ‘They’re nothing but gadflies bothering us. I’ve heard Wood’s been joined by Buller now, so that ought to keep the tribes down there busy, and I’ve also heard the Transvaal Boers are gathering on the High Veldt. We have nothing to fear, therefore, and I’ll be following you with the rest of the column just in case Mbini doesn’t come in. If Deyer isn’t successful it’ll be up to us to see he puts his words more forcefully.’

Riding out from Potgeiter’s Drift, late in the afternoon, Colby felt he’d been in the saddle forever, most of the time soaked by rain.

The grass was growing fast on the bare plains and was already tall enough to conceal war parties of Zulus so that it was a nervous business moving out into the blue. The Natalians were in no doubts about what would happen if they relaxed their vigilance, however, and for safety, Colby doubled his sentries and placed a ring of outposts well outside the camp at night.

On the third day, they spotted black figures in the distance and, as they rode forward, hoping to intercept them, a whole cloud of warriors rose from the long grass. They were clearly a scouting party and, while they did no damage and bolted with the loss of one man shot, Colby was doubly alert. The following morning he saw smoke in the distance and soon afterwards a group of horsemen galloping towards them. They were coming at a pace that suggested panic, their excited horses almost out of control.

‘Cosgro!’ Colby bellowed. ‘What in the name of Jesus Christ and all His pink angels is going on?’

Aubrey Cosgro struggled with his straining horse, holding it with difficulty as it wheeled and circled.

‘Get hold of that damned animal!’ Colby roared. ‘What do you think you are, a flat-footed bloody infantryman?’

Cosgro’s face was white and strained. He pointed backwards, gasping.

‘The whole Zulu impi’s back there,’ he said.

‘To hell with the Zulu impi! Where’s Deyer?’

‘We were too late! They’d already got him. That’s what the smoke is. They’re burning his wagons.’

‘Didn’t you make any attempt to rescue him?’

‘There was no chance! It had started before we arrived. I lost three men as it was. I’d better go on and inform Morrow!’

‘Contain yourself, dammit!’ Colby’s voice rose again. ‘I want to know where the buggers are.’