The Shangani Patrol (21 page)
Read The Shangani Patrol Online
Authors: John Wilcox
His wife had taken out her notebook and her pencil was poised. ‘Exactly how many are there of us to fight now?’ she enquired.
‘Er . . . ten boys, Mzingeli, Ntini and the three of us.’
She scribbled in her book. ‘And how many rifles?’
‘Why do you need to . . . Oh well. We have five Martini-Henrys, the Snider and your hunting rifle.’ Alice wrote down the figure.
A touch of exasperation now crept into Fonthill’s voice. ‘Since you are so interested in our firepower, perhaps you would break out the ammunition and distribute the spare rifles. Jenkins, you come with me.’
‘Where’re we goin’, then? To fight ’em single-handed?’
‘Not quite. If there are many of them, we could have our hands full keeping them off, given that our firepower has been sadly reduced. But I have an idea.’ Fonthill looked around carefully. ‘It’s good that we’re in a nice open spot, before the bush begins. Come on, we’ve got to work quickly.’
He strode towards the wagon that housed the bedding and tents and extracted from under the cargo two small kegs of powder. They had been taken along as an afterthought in case the expedition needed to manufacture its own cartridges. So far they had not been opened. Fonthill rummaged again and produced a small bottle of lamp oil and then a bottle of Cape brandy. Quickly he twisted out the cork and threw away half the brandy.
‘’Ere’ bach,’ wailed Jenkins. ‘Steady on. That’s good stuff.’
‘If it is, it may save our lives.’ He unstoppered the lamp oil and, again, threw away half its contents. Then he took two of their tin cups and filled one with brandy and the other with lamp oil, before pouring the contents back into the wrong bottles so that each contained a mixture of brandy and oil. He then tore his handkerchief in half, poured a little of the mixture on to each half so that it was thoroughly soaked and laid them to one side. As a puzzled Jenkins watched, Fonthill then withdrew the cork from one of the powder kegs and poured a little powder into each bottle so that it was completely full. His last act was to screw up the wet pieces of fabric and twist them into the tops of the bottles as substitute corks.
A slow smile spread across Jenkins’s face. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘bombs, is it?’
‘Not as such. I am not sure that they would explode when I want them to, or if the explosion would be effective. But I am damned sure that they will burn for a short while, and that’s all I want. Pick up the kegs and come along.’
Down from the wagon, Fonthill pointed to the edge of the scrub, which stopped some two hundred yards from the trail and ran parallel to it on both sides of the camp.
‘The oxen have beaten out all the vegetation from the trail to there,’ he said. ‘So a fire wouldn’t cross these strips either side of our wagons. But it would take hold deeper in the bush. I want you to spread a thin trail of powder just inside the edge of the vegetation all the way round the camp in a rough circle.’
Jenkins frowned. ‘What are we doin’ with the bottles, then? You can’t ’ave wasted good grog for nothin’, surely?’
‘No.’ Fonthill looked ahead down the trail. It twisted a little over ground that undulated, so that the distant twin kopjes could not be seen. ‘Good. It looks as though they didn’t spot Mzingeli. That means they’re still waiting for us and we’ve got a few more minutes yet. But when we don’t turn up, they’ll send scouts out to look for us and then they’ll attack. But at least we can face them in the open.’
‘Yes, that’s all very well, but what are we doin’ with the bloody bottles, look you?’
‘Don’t worry about them. That’s my department - until I call you in, that is. When you cross the open space, across the trail itself, make sure that you continue the powder line so that there’s an unbroken circle of the stuff.’
Jenkins nodded. ‘Just inside the edge of the bush, then?’
‘Yes. Off you go, there’s no time to lose.’
The Welshman pulled a face and, keg under each arm, set off. ‘With respect, bach sir,’ he called back over his shoulder, ‘I do not approve of the use of alcohol in this way - even though I don’t know what you’re goin’ to be doin’ with it. It could set a bad example to the natives.’
Fonthill watched him go and then turned to observe Mzingeli directing the formation of the laager. The boys were cracking their long whips, and slowly, agonisingly slowly, the five wagons were being pulled into a small, very irregular circle within which the oxen and the horses were now being herded. It was becoming clear that there were not sufficient wagons to form a tight circle big enough to enclose the beasts, and as the oxen were freed from their traces, Simon rushed to help Mzingeli tie the long boom of each wagon to the rear of that in front to extend the perimeter of the ring. Even so, a space had to be left between some of the wagons and the booms to stretch the ring and accommodate the animals.
‘We have to fill these gaps,’ he called to Mzingeli. ‘Get some of the boys to cut thorn bushes and pile them under the booms and in the spaces. Bring bedding and whatever else they can carry.’
He turned and noted that Alice had carefully laid out the Martini-Henrys, her own hunting rifle and Mzingeli’s Snider at intervals around the ring, with piles of cartridges beside each one. Her action, however, had only underlined the paucity of their firepower. Seven rifles - two of them of doubtful efficiency - against . . . how many? He shrugged. Out in the bush, Jenkins had almost completed his circle. Well, they would soon find out how effective his plan would be.
He walked back to the wagon from which they had taken the kegs and picked up the two bottles. Carrying them carefully, he strode out into the bush and located the powder trail at an angle of ninety degrees to one side of the flattened circle formed by the wagons. There he found a thorn bush of the size he was seeking and which was just a touch away from the powder line. He smeared dust over the bottle so that it would not reflect light from the sun and would be, if not invisible, then at least difficult to distinguish. Gingerly he placed the bottle at the base of the bush and partially concealed within it. With his knife he cut away a large branch and wedged it at the top of the bush, so that it stood out clearly. Running now, he took the remaining bottle into the vegetation on the opposite side of the wagons and repeated the same operation.
Back inside the laager he met Jenkins, smelling of gunpowder. ‘Brush those trousers, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘If you get a misfire on your rifle, you’ll go up in smoke.’
‘Blimey, yes. Very good, sir.’ Jenkins shielded his eyes from the sun and looked northward. ‘Can’t see a bleedin’ thing,’ he said. ‘Nothin’ movin’ up there, as far as I can tell.’ He turned back to Fonthill, brushing his breeches with a soiled handkerchief. ‘Maybe old Jelly was mistaken, eh? You said yourself that these blokes wouldn’t come at us until we were in Mattabellyland. Perhaps that tree just fell down because these bloody ants that creep under my blanket ’ad a go at it. What d’you think, bach sir?’
Fonthill shook his head. ‘Mzingeli has a sixth sense for these things. I think they have come to get us here - if they are de Sousa’s men, that is, and I think they are. He’s crossed the river because we are in that disputed area of no-man’s-land where nobody is going to worry about a fight. If he attacked us in Matabeleland, he could well upset the king, given the nature of our cargo. No. They are out there all right.’
He looked around. The formation of the laager was almost complete. Inside the ring, it was ridiculously crowded. The cattle and horses were pressed together into an almost solid mass. How would they react when the shooting began? He had read somewhere that oxen never stampeded, and the sensitive horses had been put in the middle of these placid beasts. But fire? Smoke and flames?
An additional thought struck him. ‘Where the hell is Alice?’ he cried.
Jenkins pointed. ‘In that wagon. Writin’ somethin’, look you. Dunno what, though.’
Frowning, Fonthill pushed his way between the milling oxen and climbed into the wagon. ‘What on earth are you doing, darling?’
She looked up, her pencil between her teeth, her fair hair straggling down from under her wide-brimmed hat. ‘What the hell do you think I’m doing?’ She glowered. ‘I’m writing my story, of course.’
‘Oh, lord!’ Then he grinned, a touch soulfully. ‘I wish I shared your confidence that we shall come through this so that you can write a piece about it all.’
She knocked back her hat so that it hung down her back, held only by the thong around her throat. Then she smiled and leaned across to plant a kiss on his chin. ‘Of
course
we shall come through this, my love,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘We are led by those two Great Indestructibles, Fonthill and Jenkins, Soldiers of the Queen and Heroes of the Empire. And if we don’t, I personally shall be very annoyed, because I have the germ of a great story here. What’s more, it is exclusive and I am setting the scene for it now.’
course
we shall come through this, my love,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘We are led by those two Great Indestructibles, Fonthill and Jenkins, Soldiers of the Queen and Heroes of the Empire. And if we don’t, I personally shall be very annoyed, because I have the germ of a great story here. What’s more, it is exclusive and I am setting the scene for it now.’
He stayed silent for a moment, looking at her. Then he cupped her chin within his hands. ‘Oh, Alice,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry to put you in this danger.’
She thrust his hands away. ‘Rubbish. Simon, you really must stop treating me like a china doll. It’s true that I haven’t gone through as many scrapes as you and 352, but there have been a few now and I have every confidence in you, my love. Now, kindly leave me to finish the first part of this masterpiece. But rest assured that I shall not be scribbling when these people attack.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I have my rifle here and, look, a pile of cartridges. I shall play my part in the defence.’
He seized her hand, kissed it and jumped down from the wagon. Some of the boys were tying the last boom and others were milling about among the oxen, pushing their way through, talking softly to each beast and scratching their ears as if to reassure them. Fonthill called Mzingeli.
‘Do the boys without rifles have assegais?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Nkosi. But they frightened of Matabele.’
‘Yes, I thought so. Please tell them that if we are attacked, it will not be by the Matabele. These will be Bantu from the Mozambique border, slaves of the Portuguese who are being pushed into this by their master. They are not warriors. The boys must fight with us. Spread them out to stand with their spears by the thorn bushes between the wagons. Those that fight well will be given an ox each when we reach Bulawayo. I promise that.’
Mzingeli nodded his head slowly. ‘A good thing—’ he began. But he was interrupted by a shout from Jenkins.
‘’Ere they come at last, bach sir.’
Simon jumped on to a wagon boom and looked northwards along the trail. At this distance they appeared merely as a black blob, but as he focused his field glasses, he realised that - whatever he had told his own Kaffirs - these were indeed warriors. Each man carried a large shield, and he could see plumes nodding above them. They were too indistinct to count and he could catch no glimpse of any European amongst them, nor whether they carried rifles. But as he watched, they began to fan out on either side of the trail, trotting Zulu style, quite quickly. There were clearly enough of them to surround the ring of wagons.
He turned to shout to Mzingeli, but the tracker was already walking among the Kaffirs, quietly talking to them and dispatching little groups in turn to gather their assegais and man the gaps between the wagons where the thorn bushes, mattresses and boxes had been wedged to form very insubstantial barriers. He let the man be and turned to Jenkins, now at his side.
‘Right, old chap.’ He pointed to where a tall branch on either side of the laager marked the sites of the two bottles. ‘See those branches?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the base of each bush I have hidden my fire bottles. When I give the word, I want you to fire at the base of the bushes - it will probably take a couple of shots or more - to hit the bottles and set them afire. I am gambling that they will fall on to the powder trail, spark if off and so set the bush alight. But it is important to wait until sufficient of the blacks are between us and the trail, so that the blaze will spring up behind them and put the fear of God into them.’
Jenkins’s eyes gleamed. ‘Ah, now I see. But ’ang on. What if I can’t see the bleedin’ bottles for the black fellers in between?’
‘Then you must get into a high position on top of one of the wagons where you can see and fire downwards.’ He grinned. ‘You keep telling me that you were the best shot in the British Army. Hit the bottles and I will give you an ox for each one.’
‘Oh thank you very much. What would I do with a bleedin’ ox?’ But he was already clambering up on to the side board of one of the wagons. He called down. ‘It might just work.’
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