The Sound of Thunder (34 page)

The card that won the hand belonged to Zietsmann, and it was ironic that he had it simply because of his inactivity over the last eighteen months.

When Lord Roberts had marched into Pretoria two years before, his entry had been offered only token resistance, for the Government of the South

African Republic had withdrawn along the eastern railway line to Komatipoort. With them went the entire contents of the Pretoria Treasury, which totalled two million Pounds in gold Kruger sovereigns.

Later, when old president Kruger left for Europe, a part of this treasure went with him, but the balance had been shared out among the remainder of the commando leaders as their war chests to continue the fight.

Months before most of Leroux’s share had been expended on the purchase of supplies from the native tribes, on ammunition from the Portuguese gun runners and on payment to his men.

During a desperate night action with one of the raiding British columns he had lost the balance along with his Hotchkiss gun, twenty of his best men and a hundred irreplaceably precious horses.

Zietsmann, however, had come to the meeting with a pack mule carrying thirty thousand sovereigns. The successful invasion of the Cape would depend largely upon this gold. On the evening of the fourth day he was duly elected Commander by a majority of two hundred, and within twelve hours he had demonstrated how well, equipped he was for the task.

“So we start in the morning, then,” one of the burghers beside Leroux grunted.

“About time,” another commented. They were breakfasting on biltong, , sticks of hard dried meat, , for Leroux had succeeded in convincing Zietsmann, that open cooking fires, were dangerous.

“No sign of Van der Bergh’s men?” asked Leroux.

“Not yet, Oom Paul.”

“They are finished, or else they would have been here days ago,

“Yes, they are finished,” agreed Leroux. “They must have run into one of the columns.” Twenty good men, he sighed softly, and Hennie was with them. He was very fond of the boy, all of them were. He had become the mascot of the commando.

“At least they are out of it now, the lucky thunders.” The man had spoken without thinking, and Leroux turned on him.

“You can go too hands, up for the British, there is no one to stop you. ” The softness of his voice did not cover the ferocity in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Oom Paul.

“Well, don’t say it then,” he growled, and would have continued, but a shout from the sentry on the kopje above them brought them all to their feet.

“One of the scouts coming!

“Which way?” Leroux bellowed upwards.

“Along the river. He’s riding to burst!”

And the sudden stilling of voices and movement was the only outward sign of the dread that settled upon all of them. In these days a galloping rider carried only evil tidings.

They watched him splash through the shallows and slide from the saddle to swim beside his horse across the deep channel.

Then pony and rider, both streaming water, came lunging up the near bank and into the camp.

“Khaki,” shouted the man. “Khaki coming!”

Leroux ran to catch the pony’s head and demanded” “How many’? ” “A big column.

“A thousand?”

“More than that. Many more, six, seven thousand.”

“Magtig! ” swore Leroux. “Cavalry?”

“Infantry and guns.”

“How close?”

“They will be here before midday.”

Leroux left him and ran down the slope to Zietsmann’s wagon

“You heard, Menheer?”

“Ja, I heard.” Zietsmann nodded slowly.

“We must mount up,” Leroux urged.

“Perhaps they will not find us. Perhaps they will pass us by.”

Zietsmann spoke hesitantly, and Leroux stared at him.

“Are you mad?” he whispered, and Zietsmann shook his head, a confused old man.

“We must mount up and break away towards the south.

Leroux grabbed the lapels of Zietsmann’s frock coat and shook them in his agitation.

“No, not the south, it is finished. We must go back,” the old man muttered, then suddenly his confusion cleared. “We must pray. The Lord will deliver us from the Philistine.

“Menheer, I demand . Leroux started, but another urgent warning shouted from the kopJe interrupted him.

“Riders! from the south! Cavalry!”

Running to one of the horses Leroux vaulted on to its bare back, with a handful of its mane he turned it towards the kopJe and flogged it with his heels, driving it up the steep rocky side, scrambling and sliding in the loose rock until he reached the top and jumped down beside the sentry.

“There! The burgher pointed.

Like a column of safari ants, tiny and insignificant in the immensity of brown grass and open sky, still four or five miles distant, the squadrons were strung out in extended order across the southern hills.

“Not that way. We cannot go that way. We must go back.”

He swung round to the north. “We must go that way. ” Then he saw the dust in the north also and he felt his stomach slide quickly downwards. The dust drifted low, so thin it might have been only heat haze or the passing of a dust devil, but he knew it was not.

“They are there also,” he whispered. Acheson had thrown his column in from four directions. There was no escape.

“Van der Bergh!” whispered Leroux bitterly. “He has gone hands, up to the English and betrayed us. , ” A moment longer he stared at the dust, then quickly he adjusted to the problem of defence.

“The river is our one line,” he muttered. “With the flanks anchored on this kopJe and that one there.” He let his eyes run back up the little valley of the Padda River, carefully memorizing the slope and lay of the land, storing in his mind each of its salient features.

already siting the captured Maxims, picking the shelter of the hills and river bank for the horses, deciding where the reserves should be held.

“Five hundred men can hold the north kopje, but we will need a thousand on the river.” He vaulted up on to the pony and called down to the sentry,

“Stay here. I will send men up to you. They must build scharnzes along the ridge, there, and there.”

Then he drove the pony down the slope, sliding on its haunches until it reached the level ground.

“Where is Zietsmann? ” he demanded.

“In his wagon.

He galloped across to it and jerked open the canvas at the entrance.

“Menheer, ” he began and then stopped. Zietsmann sat on the wagon bed with his wife beside him. A Bible was open on his lap.

“Menheer, there is little time. The enemy closes from all sides.

They will be upon us in two hours.

Zietsmann looked up at him, and from the soapy glaze of his eyes Leroux knew he had not heard.

“Thou shalt not fear the arrow that flieth by day, nor the terror that walketh by night,” he murmured.

“I am taking command, Menheer,” Leroux grunted. Zietsmann turned back to the book and his wife placed an arm round his shoulders.

We can hold them for this day, and perhaps tomorrow, Leroux decided from where he lay on the highest kopJe. They cannot charge their cavalry against these hills, so they must come for us with the bayonet.

It is the guns first that we must fear, and then the bayonet.

“Martinus Van der Bergh,” he said aloud. “When next we meet I will kill you for this. ” And he watched the batteries unlimbering out of rifle, shot across the river, forming their precise geometrical patterns on the brown grass plain.

“Nou skeet hulle, ” muttered a burgher beside him.

“Ja, ” agreed Leroux. “Now they will shoot,” and the smoke gushed from the muzzle of one of the guns out on the plain. The shell burst thunderously on the lower slopes and for an instant the lyddite smoke danced like a yellow ghost swirling and turning upon itself, before the wind drifted it up to them. They coughed in the bitter, tasting fumes.

The next shell burst on the crest, throwing smoke and earth and rock high into the air, and immediately the rest of the batteries opened together.

They lay behind their hastily constructed earthworks while the shellfire battered the ridge. The shrapnel buzzed and hummed and struck sparks from the rocks, the solid jarring concussions made the earth jump beneath their bellies and dulled their ears so they could hardly hear the screaming of the wounded, and slowly a great cloud of dust and fumes climbed into the sky above them. A cloud so tall that

Sean Courtney could see it from where he waited fifteen miles north of the Vaal.

“It looks as though Acheson has caught them,” murmured Saul.

“Yes, he’s caught them,” Sean agreed, and then softly,

“The poor bastards. ” “The least they could have done was to let us be in at the kill,” growled Sergeant, Major Eccles. The distant rumble of the guns had awakened his blood lust and his great moustache wriggled with frustration. “Don’t seem right to me, seeing as how we been following the old Boer for going on a year and a half, the least they could have done was to let us be there at the end. ” “We are the cover guns, Eccles. General Acheson is trying to drive them south on to his cavalry, but if any of the birds break back through his line of beaters then they’re ours,” Sean explained.

“Well, it just don’t seem right to me,” Eccles repeated, then suddenly remembering his manners, he added,

“Begging your pardon, sir.

Exultantly General Acheson traversed his binoculars across the group of hills. Vaguely through the dust and smoke he could pick out their crests.

“A fair cop, sir! ” Peterson grinned.

“A fair cop indeed,” Acheson agreed. They had to shout above the thunder of the guns and beneath them their horses fidgeted and trembled. A dispatch, rider galloped up, saluted and handed Peterson a message.

“What is it?” Acheson asked without lowering his glasses.

“Both Nichols and Simpson are in position for the assault.

They seem anxious to engage, sir. ” Then Peterson looked up at the holocaust of dust and flame upon the hills. “They’ll be lucky if they find anyone left to fight up there.”

“They will,” Acheson assured him. He was not misled by the deceptive fury of the barrage. They had survived worse at Spion Kop.

“Are you going to let them go, sir? ” Peterson insisted gently.

For another minute Acheson watched the hills, then he lowered his glasses and pulled his watch from his breast pocket. Four o’clock, three hours more of daylight.

“Yes!” he said. “Send them in.”

And Peterson scribbled the order and handed it to Acheson for his signature.

“Hier Kom Hulle. ” Lennox heard the shout in the ceaseless.

roar of the shells, heard it taken up and passed along the line.

“Here they come.”

“Pasop! They are coming He stood up and his stomach heaved at the movement. Poisoned by the lyddite fumes, he fought his nausea and when he had controlled it he looked out along the river. For a second the veil of dust opened so he could see the tiny lines of khald moving in towards the hills. Yes, they were coming.

He ran down his own line towards the river, shouting as he went.

“Wait until they are certain! Don’t shoot until they reach the markers! ” From this corner of the kopje he could look out over every quarter of the field.

“Ja, I thought so! ” he muttered. “They come from two sides to split us. ” Advancing on the frontage of the river were those same lines of tiny figures. The lines bulged and straightened and bulged again, but always they crept slowly nearer. Already the leading rank was moving up on his thousand, yard markers, in another five minutes they would be in range.

“They stand out well,” Leroux muttered as he ran his eyes along the row of markers. While most of his men were building the earthworks along the kopjes and the river, others had paced out the ranges in front of these de fences Every two hundred and fifty yards they had erected those small cairns of stones, and over each they had smeared whitish grey mud from the river.

It was a trick the British never seemed to understand, and as they advanced the Boer rifles had their range almost to the yard.

“The river is safe, ” he decided. “They cannot break through there,” and he allowed himself time to grin. “They never learn.

Every time they come against the worst side. ” Then he switched his attention to the assault on his left flank. This one was dangerous, this was where he must command in person, and he ran back to his original position while around him and overhead the storm of shrapnel and lyddite roared on unabated.

He dropped on his belly between two of his burghers, wriggled forward unbuckling the bandolier from around his chest and draped it over the boulder beside him.

“Good luck, Oom Paul,” a burgher called.

“And to you, Hendrik, ” he answered as he set the rear sight of his Mauser at a thousand yards, then laid the rifle on the rock in front of him.

“Close now,” the burgher beside him muttered.

“Very close. Good luck and shoot straight!”

Suddenly the storm lifted and there was silence. A vast aching silence, more shocking than the buzzing, howling roar of the guns. The dust and the smoke drifted away from the crests and after its gloom the sunshine burned down brightly on the hills and the golden brown plain, it sparkled with dazzling brilliance on the sweeping waters of the Vaal, and it lit each tiny khaki figure with stark intensity, so their shadows lay dark on the earth beneath them. They reached the line of markers.

Leroux picked up his rifle. There was one man he had been watching, a man who wLeroux had seen who walked a little ahead of his line. Twice watching, him pause as if to shout an order to those who followed him.

“You first, my friend,” and he took the officer in his sights, holding him carefully in the notch with the bead obscuring his trunk.

Gently he took up the slack in the trigger and the recoil slammed back into his shoulder. With the vicious characteristic crack of the Mauser stinging his eardrums, Leroux watched the man go down into the grass

“Ja! ” he said and reloaded.

Not in simultaneous volley, not with the continuous wild crackle which they had used at Colenso, but in a careful, steady stutter which showed that each shot was aimed, the Boer rifles started the hunt.