Soldier of the Queen (34 page)

‘I’m not very bright,’ he said.

She was unperturbed. ‘By application and hard work, you should pass through Staff College without difficulty. All I ask is that it shouldn’t ruin our family life. You’ll remember I planned seven children.’

He looked at her anxiously. ‘Wouldn’t two or three do?’

‘Seven,’ she said firmly. ‘Then I shall be sure you’ll never leave me.’

He grinned. ‘Providing seven,’ he said, ‘I’d never have time to.’

Staff College proved easier than Colby had expected and he could only assume that some of the men who’d been set in command of him in the past were not as bright as he’d imagined. He passed out in the top half of the list and decided to celebrate by taking his wife on a visit to the States.

They were met in Washington by Augusta’s relations, among them Micah Love. His face was grave and, even as he greeted them, he produced a newspaper and laid it on the table.

‘The Indians got Custer,’ he said.

MASSACRE OF OUR TROOPS, the headline announced. FIVE COMPANIES KILLED. GENERAL CUSTER AND 17 COMMISSIONED OFFICERS BUTCHERED IN A BATTLE ON THE LITTLE BIG HORN.

‘Seems he split his command once too often,’ Love said dryly.

A job in London on Wolseley’s staff followed the return to England, then, with George Laughton retired, a return to the regiment as second in command. The 19th were at Aldershot by this time and little had changed, except, thank God, Claude Cosgro had retired and got himself involved in his father’s business in Leeds. Some of the glitter had gone with the reforms, Colby noticed, but there was a slicker, more businesslike look to the regiment and a great deal more professionalism. Even Cosgro’s old squadron was showing some improvement without Cosgro.

By this time, Colby’s son had been joined by two sisters, Helen, dark but minute, with the same elfin face as her mother, and Jane, fair and like her brother. Brosy’s Grace had produced a daughter, too, which wasn’t quite what Brosy had wanted but made a change after two sons. Aubrey Cosgro, now a captain in D Squadron, saluted Colby as he arrived and gave him a grimace which was meant to be a smile, and, with Augusta and the family at Braxby, he soon found himself well in harness, burnished and polished and deeply involved with the running of the regiment.

On the whole, the men enlisting these days were better and brighter than they had been and there were far less who joined for drink. Most of them were new to the game, however, because, under the new act, most regiments had been quick to get rid of their old soldiers, but they were learning fast and the rowels of their spurs jingled well, a sure sign they were proud to be cavalrymen.

Christmas was being spent at Braxby. A squad of recruits from the depot were waiting to go south as Colby picked up the local train at York. They were awkward and uncertain and being chivvied by a sergeant like a lot of sheep, but they had a lean, tough look about them, too. It was surprising how the army could take half-developed boys from the slums and make them into men in a matter of months.

He settled himself in the corner of a first-class carriage and opened his newspaper. It was beginning, he decided, to look as though trouble was brewing in South Africa. Zulu-Boer disputes over the possession of lands on the Transvaal border were erupting into murders and it was becoming clear that before long something would have to be done about the growing power of the Zulu king, Cetzewayo.

The house appeared to be empty when he arrived. It had been built by his father after Waterloo, a place of no great beauty but one which he held in esteem for the warmth and happiness he associated with it. The drive to the front door crunched under the wheels of the cab he’d hired and as he stepped down, he noticed that the cedar tree in the middle of the lawn looked as though it needed attention. But, with the aid of a farm manager and Tyas Ackroyd, who could speak from the experience of generations, Augusta was making a good job of running the house, the Home Farm and a family, to say nothing of the multitude of charities which claimed her attention.

As he stood, staring round him, taking in the old stone and the wide windows that let in the sun when it appeared, and the draughts when it didn’t, he heard footsteps and turned to see Augusta appear round the corner in riding habit, leading a pony on which his son was seated, his legs kicking at its fat flanks. Immediately, she dropped the reins and the pony came to a stop, refusing to budge despite the flailing feet on its sides, as she flung herself into Colby’s arms.

‘When did you arrive?’

Colby indicated his bag. ‘This minute. A visit to the depot. It gives me until New Year at home.’

Christmas proved a great success. Harriet and her family turned up on Christmas Eve and there was a shoot on Boxing Day, while the whole tribe of them went out with the Braxby Hounds the day after. The weather was bitterly cold after a wet week when the rain had come down like long spikes of glass and, with the pack moving across the fields in a rippling stream, the horses skidded and slid, crashing through the hedges, for a run of six miles. The Braxby hounds were never good-lookers but they knew their job and were lean and fast; as they flowed down the hills in hot pursuit, the horses after them at a flat gallop, the bare trees smelled of fungus and damp earth among the smell of horse-sweat and leather, and the cold air was like ice crystals to the cheeks.

It was exciting, invigorating and edged with danger, and Augusta, mounted on a big high-stepping grey like a tomtit on a side of beef, her cheeks pink, her hair coming down, so enjoyed herself she invited everyone – while they were still purple-faced and panting on steaming horses with pumping sides – for a house party over the New Year.

She couldn’t believe Colby’s warning that it would be a disaster, but Uncle George Goff, she discovered, was known for his coarseness and, like Uncle Hedley, drank like a fish. Uncle Edward talked of nothing but how he nearly went to war in 1845 but didn’t quite, and Uncle Thomas, who had been in the 4th Light Bobs, spent all his time explaining how he just missed Balaclava because he happened to have retired. She also discovered she had invited two cousins who were considered to be beyond the pale because one of them had dared to join an infantry regiment and one had even ‘gone foreign’ and moved to Norfolk.

As dinner finished and Augusta shooed the females out, Colby passed the port and offered cigars.

‘See this new man in South Africa, Shepstone, is getting everybody’s back up,’ Uncle Edward observed, poking at the end of his cigar as if he expected to find gold inside it. ‘Annexing the Transvaal didn’t help anybody.’

‘This Zulu chap–’ Cousin Hedley filled his glass and passed the bottle ‘–Cet – whatever he’s called – he only rules from month to month. No firm policy. It’ll lead to fighting.’

‘Doesn’t like Shepstone, I heard,’ Uncle George said. ‘Wants to blood his warriors. Washing the spears,
The Times
called it.’

‘Good old Thunderer,’ one of the cousins murmured.

‘Tribal custom,’ George said. ‘Have to kill somebody or they don’t go to heaven – or something. Or is that the Moslems? What’s the latest from the Cape?’

‘Dunno. Usual fog in the press. Can’t make head nor tail of it. Tension’s building up over the whole of Southern Africa. We shall have to go in there and sort things out before long, you see.’

Colby studied them with amused eyes. None of them had ever moved far from home and their attitudes were narrow and parochial. But they were right. The advancing Boers were pushing back the black Africans and there was a clear resentment that they were intruding on tribal domains. There had been yet another Kaffir War, the Secretary of State for the Colonies had resigned, and the commander-in-chief in South Africa had been sacked. The whole business was in the melting pot.

‘They should send Wolseley,’ George said. ‘Our only general.’

Colby shook his head. ‘Wolseley won’t get himself mixed up in this,’ he pointed out. ‘After Ashanti, he’ll want to stay in London in case anything worthwhile crops up.’

When everyone had gone to bed, Augusta kicked off her shoes and stretched in front of the fire with Colby’s arm round her.

‘You were right,’ she admitted. ‘It
was
a disaster.’

The following day brought a telegram, ordering Colby to report to Whitehall. Reading it slowly, he looked up to find Augusta watching him from the stairs and began to whistle ‘The Yorkshire Jockey’ in a busy dedicated way that didn’t delude her for a moment.

‘A summons from the master?’ she asked.

‘Something of the sort,’ Colby said. ‘Shouldn’t take long. I’ll get the train from York and be back the day after tomorrow.’

She watched him go, desolate and bewildered. When Colby was near her she felt secure, but away from his side she was more lost than she ever let him see.

The weather in London seemed, if anything, to be worse than the weather in Yorkshire. Showers of rain and sleet beat across Whitehall as Colby was shown into an ante-room and told to wait. He had no idea what was wanted of him, but he had an uneasy suspicion that it was another staff job when he was just enjoying being back in the family atmosphere of the regiment. Eventually a porter conducted him along a corridor to a room which carried a map of South Africa on its walls. There were several other officers present and it soon became obvious that they had been summoned as the leading subordinates for a new expedition of some sort.

‘Who’s running the show?’ Colby asked.

‘Thesiger. Son of Lord Chelmsford. Rifle Brigade and Guards. Light on action and heavy with staff duties.’

‘What’s it all about?’

‘South Africa, I suppose. He’s the new C-in-C.’

Evelyn Wood arrived shortly afterwards, followed by Redvers Buller, and it was Colby’s impression that Thesiger had been landed with a lot of men he hadn’t asked for – good men on the whole but devotees of Wolseley who had probably been wished on him. Thesiger himself was a tall lanky man with handsome intelligent features hidden by the thick bush of a spade beard. His personality seemed reserved and, after Wolseley’s fire, he seemed colourless. His speech was clear and to the point, however.

‘I’m not over-excited at the prospect of a sputtering native war at the Cape being thrust into my lap,’ he admitted. ‘That sort of thing’s never likely to arouse enthusiasm in the breast of a British general because too many have broken their teeth on the problem.’

When Colby returned, Augusta greeted the news with unfeigned dismay.

‘South Africa?’ she said. ‘But that’s thousands of miles away. What happens to me?’

Colby looked at her. He was aware of the thoughts racing through her brain and was wary.

‘Same as happens to most soldiers’ wives, I suppose,’ he said.

She was silent and he watched her, worried, conscious of a crisis in their marriage.

‘It’s only four years since you came back from the Gold Coast,’ she pointed out. ‘I want to be by your side.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t refuse,’ he pointed out. ‘Officers who turn down jobs don’t get asked again.’

‘I’m not asking you to turn it down.’

‘Then what the devil
are
you asking?’

Her face changed and she grinned at him. ‘They tell me the climate at the Cape is perfect,’ she said. ‘I’m asking you to take me with you.’

There was only one way for Augusta to accompany Colby – on a trooper heading for India via the Cape.

She was still a little dazed by what she’d done as Brosy’s Grace came to see her off.

‘You pregnant again?’ Grace asked, studying her expression.

‘No. Why?’

Grace laughed. ‘Always seems to occur at the first mention of goin’ overseas,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re not. Pleased to be off?’

‘I think so.’ Suddenly Augusta wasn’t sure.

The conditions on the trooper proved to be appalling, though for the women of the other ranks they were an inferno. The washing facilities were dreadful, the sanitation worse, and into the remarkably little privacy Augusta possessed permeated the stench of ammonia from the horses. She had a bunk so narrow it seemed like a coffin and under the mattress were all the clothes she would need on the voyage. All the rest went into the trunk, and whenever they dressed for dinner, Colby in his mess kit, she in frills and furbelows, they had to do it separately because there wasn’t room for both of them.

During the second week one of the other rank children died and, as the coffin was hammered together outside her door, she had to descend into the inferno of the men’s quarters to comfort the weeping mother. As they passed the Equator, the smell of horses and what Colby called the ‘bouquet d’hommes’ grew stronger, but at least there were high blue skies, flying fish and stars as big as florins, and the delight of watching small naked black boys diving for pennies when they put into port. Arriving in Cape Town with the whole family in a reasonable state of health, Augusta considered herself lucky.

Colby departed at once to join Thesiger’s command at East London. Thesiger made his views on tactics clear at once at his staff conference. ‘European troops aren’t much good against mosquito-hordes of Bantus,’ he said. ‘They disappear too easily into the landscape and clear-cut victories will be out of the question.’

There were a few sidelong glances. Evelyn Wood’s pale pop eyes were expressionless.

‘I shall therefore use roving columns,’ Thesiger went on. ‘A single column would never drive the Kaffirs into a corner. They’d just retire before us and sweep round to attack our flanks and rear.’ He looked at Wood, Buller, Colby and the others who had been members of the Wolseley Ring, and made a mild dig at the reformers. ‘I’m also aware that, thanks to the recent changes, the men I’m getting are chiefly new recruits. Apart from the 24th, they appear to have been scraped together and most of them have less than four months’ service, have never fired a musketry course and have not even finished recruits’ drill.’

The army moved north immediately. The Korie Bush, where Colby found himself, was rough hilly country on the slopes leading to the high plateau of Africa and, covered with extensive patches of shrub, was difficult to operate in. The Gcamena tribesmen were armed only with assegais and a variety of ancient firearms which were as much a danger to themselves as to the men searching them out. But in the thick scrub visibility was limited to a few feet, and the business of driving them out to attack them with artillery as they ran for the next patch of scrub was infuriating work, largely profitless and not very dangerous, but never the job for unseasoned soldiers.