The Shangani Patrol (55 page)
Read The Shangani Patrol Online
Authors: John Wilcox
The Portuguese, his eyes staring wildly, staggered towards Fonthill. Instinctively, Simon reached up and pulled the man’s tunic so that the two fell back together, de Sousa crashing on to him and expelling the air from his body.
Fonthill heard Jenkins’s despairing cry: ‘The bayonet, bach. The bayonet, in ’is back.’ As the Portuguese put a hand to the ground to push himself away, Simon reached behind his back and his fingers locked on to the blade, now loose from de Sousa’s exertions and threatening to fall away. The heavy man’s other hand had now reached Fonthill’s throat and was beginning to tighten, so that stars floated before Simon’s eyes. ‘Damn you, English,’ croaked the Portuguese. Fonthill made one last effort and slid his left hand around his assailant’s back in a desperate embrace, pulling him closer and finding the blade. His two hands now joined together and jerked the bayonet down savagely. He felt the point go cleanly through de Sousa’s body and lightly prick his own chest before blackness closed in on him.
He came round to hear Jenkins shouting and feel Mzingeli’s hand slapping his face. The tracker had crawled to his side and had somehow pushed the dead de Sousa away.
‘Ah, Nkosi,’ he gasped. ‘Good. You hurt but not dead. Get up. We must move horse off 352 bach and get across river. Matabele coming. I think I hear them.’
‘Oh hell, Jelly.’ Jenkins’s voice was hoarse. ‘See to the captain. I’ll be all right. Get across while you can.’
‘No.’ Simon was struggling on to one knee. ‘If you can move, Mzingeli, help me up and get me a spear to lean on, can you? Good. Now hand me that sword. Right. Let’s insert these under the belly of the horse. That’s it. While we try and lift it a little, 352, can you try and struggle out from underneath?’
‘Blimey, if you two cripples can do that, I can get out. Right. Try now.’
The two men may have been injured, but the hard life they had led on the veldt had toughened their bodies and given them reserves of strength. Slowly, as they heaved, the dead weight of the horse began to rise. The shaft of the spear snapped, sending the beast crashing down again, but not before Jenkins had extricated both his legs.
‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Now, where’s that peashooter? I can ’ear the Mattabellies comin’. Bach sir, can the two of you get on that ’orse and into the river, while I ’old the devils off?’
‘Only if you get on that other—’
His words were cut short as three panting Matabele broke out of the bush. They stood immobile for a second, partly to regain their breath and partly to take in the scene before them. Then they ran forward, stabbing spears held low. Their hesitation gave Jenkins just enough time to pick up his revolver, kneel and fire, bring back the hammer and fire again. The two leading warriors staggered and fell and the third paused, hurled his assegai, then turned and ran back to seek the cover of the bush. Jenkins’s third bullet took him squarely in the back.
‘Bugger, no more bullets,’ cried the Welshman. ‘An’ no more ’orses.’ De Sousa’s horse had bolted at the gunfire. Jenkins leapt forward and picked up the Portuguese’s revolver. Then he turned and saw a staggering Fonthill pushing Mzingeli up on to the saddle of his horse. ‘Get up behind him, bach,’ he called. ‘I’ll cover you.’
‘No.’ Simon’s voice was a croak. ‘You’re pathetic, 352, being afraid of a bit of water. You get up behind him; you’re the only one that has the strength to hold him on. I will hang on to the horse’s tail and get across that way. Go on. Get on. That’s an order. Look, they’re coming through now. Get on, damn you, or it will be too late.’
Jenkins gave a despairing look at the swirling water, then he turned, emptied de Sousa’s revolver at the Matabele who were appearing now through the trees and vaulted on to the rump of Mzingeli’s horse, clutching the swaying tracker to him to prevent him falling. Then he urged the mount into the water as a hopping Fonthill clutched at the beast’s tail.
As the current swept them away, a despairing cry of ‘Oh bloody ’ell’ merged with the shouts of the Matabele as they rushed to the water’s edge, abortively throwing their spears after the disappearing trio.
Chapter 20
Two weeks later, Fonthill sat on the edge of a camp chair in their tent in a Bulawayo that was no longer smoking but still smelled of charred timber, while Alice replaced the dressing on his calf. The crossing of the turbulent Shangani had been perilous and had taken all of half an hour, but had been completed successfully in the end. The yellow water, however, had bequeathed an infection to the open wound in his leg that had delayed their departure from the king’s old capital and which was only now responding to treatment.
‘Will you please keep still,’ commanded Alice.
‘I am as still as I can be when you’re pulling that damned bandage so tight.’
‘It has to be tight to keep the dressing on.’ She pulled a face. ‘Is it still painful?’
‘Only when I laugh.’
‘Don’t laugh, then.’
‘I can’t help it. The sight of you on your knees before me is very, very funny. It should happen more often.’
‘Oh do be—’
A ridiculously loud cough outside the flap of the tent announced the arrival of Jenkins. ‘Come in,’ shouted Fonthill. ‘Don’t knock.’
The Welshman put his head through the opening. ‘I did knock, see, but you don’t ’ear nothin’ on canvas, now do you? Good morning, Miss Alice.’
‘Good morning, 352. You would be better at this than me. Do you want to take over?’
‘No thank you, miss. I ’ad enough of treatin’ the captain up in the north, look you. He ain’t a good patient, is ’e?’
‘No he is not. What can we do for you?’
Jenkins’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ve brought some news. Just come in, it ’as. The old king ’as died - up in the bush there somewhere, miles from anywhere, near that river up north, the Lumpini . . . Lapono . . .’
Fontill sat upright. ‘The Limpopo.’
‘That’s what I said. It seems that no-one knows ’ow he died. Could ’ave been poison, or sickness. ’E wasn’t a well man at the end, they say. Oh, an’ Mr Rhodes is back in town, I ’ear.’
‘Who told you all this, 352?’
‘One of the blokes in Dr Jameson’s office. One of the Mattabellies ’as come in from north of that river where we ’ad our little swim, like, and says that the king bolted, o’ course, when the fightin’ started.’ His voice dropped as he continued. ‘This man was at the fightin’ and ’as told ’ow everyone in Captain Wilson’s party died. Very tragic it was.’
Fonthill frowned. ‘Do you know the details?’
‘Nothin’ more than that, bach sir.’
Alice and Simon exchanged glances. When Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli had staggered ashore, almost half a mile downriver from where they had first plunged into the water, they had lain exhausted for a while. They could hear gunfire coming from across the river and, full of anxiety for the fate of Wilson and his men, had pushed on, with Simon and Mzingeli on the horse and Jenkins leading it. Eventually, towards dusk, they had come upon Forbes and his command, entrenched behind a laager. There, they learned that Forbes had approached the river early that morning but had been attacked by a force of Matabele. Having lost several men and seven horses, he had decided that the river was too high to cross and had taken his men back.
‘I can’t risk losing my whole command by having another go,’ he told Fonthill. ‘Anyway, from what you’ve told me, we would never get across, and it’s too late now in any case.’
Simon had been forced to see the painful logic of Forbes’s argument, and eventually the three had accompanied Forbes and his men on their disconsolate march back to Bulawayo. The Shangani Patrol had ended in failure.
‘Jenkins,’ said Alice, finishing the dressing with a neat bow, ‘would you like to make us all coffee while we digest this news.’ She looked up at Simon. ‘So, now the war is really over . . . or is it?’
Fonthill sighed. ‘Oh yes, it must be. Presumably what was left of the impis is still out there, somewhere in the bush. But without Lobengula as a figurehead they will be leaderless, and despite their victory over Wilson and his men, they will have lost so many warriors that I don’t see them going to war again. They will just break up and go back to their individual kraals.’
‘Will there be any reprisals by Rhodes for the Shangani disaster?’
‘I doubt it, but I want to go and see Jameson and Rhodes, now that he is back in Bulawayo.’
‘So do I. I will come with you. I have a story to write.’
The rest of the press corps in Bulawayo had returned to the Cape after the flight of the king and the virtual fizzling out of the war. Alice had stayed, of course, because both Simon and Mzingeli were unable to travel. The tracker, in fact, had recovered faster than Fonthill and had now jettisoned the awkward shoulder bandage and sling and was moving freely. The fact that Lobengula’s death had been confirmed and that details had emerged of the end of Wilson and his men meant that she could now wrap up her coverage of ‘this sordid war’ and write her final report.
Sordid or not, the war had given Alice the chance of reestablishing herself as an intrepid and, as it ensued, lucky war correspondent. Her closeness to Fonthill, of course, had given her a succession of exclusive stories, the latest of which had been his account of the Shangani Patrol. Now she would be in a position to scoop her rivals once again with the details of the last battle of Wilson and his men.
They sent a message across to Jameson, asking if he and Rhodes would see them. Normally, Alice suspected, Rhodes would have declined to be interviewed by her, but he could hardly resist meeting and thanking Simon, the hero of the patrol’s last days. And he could surely not refuse to see one without the other. She was not above using every trick at her disposal to complete her story.
Acceptance came by return, and as Simon limped across to Jameson’s office, established in a rebuilt hut on the site of the king’s inner kraal, he could not forbear to warn Alice not to be antagonistic to Rhodes. ‘Press him by all means, darling,’ he said, ‘but you must not thrust your own views on him.’
‘Thank you, Simon, but I shall thrust on him anything I wish.’
They found the two men in sombre mood. They both rose to welcome them, however, and shook hands warmly. ‘You did splendid work at the Shangani, Fonthill,’ said Rhodes, ‘and I am only sorry that Forbes couldn’t follow up.’
‘So am I. I have to say to you both that, frankly, I feel the effort should at least have been made.’
‘Well,’ Jameson broke in quickly, ‘I understand that the river was terribly high. There’s a difference between the three of you crossing and taking across more than a hundred men against a hostile far bank. But,’ he shrugged, ‘I’m afraid it’s all too late to argue now.’
Alice opened her notebook. ‘I understand, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘that you have news of how Wilson and his men finally died.’
‘Yes, we do indeed, madam.’ Rhodes was sitting bolt upright and he looked Alice challengingly in the eye. ‘And it is a story that makes us all proud to be English. I hope that you will be able to report it fully.’
‘I hope so too,’ Alice replied coolly. ‘May I have the details, please and the source of your information?’
‘Certainly. Certainly. One of the Matabele who was a member of the king’s party - not an
inDuna
, you understand, but a minor chieftain from what we have been able to ascertain here in Bulawayo - came in this morning with his family. He wants to return to live here. He fought at the final Shangani battle and then went off with the king, who was trying to make for the Limpopo. He tells us that Lobengula is certainly dead, for he saw his corpse, but he does not know the cause. However, he gave us a graphic account of Wilson’s end.’
inDuna
, you understand, but a minor chieftain from what we have been able to ascertain here in Bulawayo - came in this morning with his family. He wants to return to live here. He fought at the final Shangani battle and then went off with the king, who was trying to make for the Limpopo. He tells us that Lobengula is certainly dead, for he saw his corpse, but he does not know the cause. However, he gave us a graphic account of Wilson’s end.’
He coughed. ‘Magnificent, if I may say so. He says that the troopers fought on throughout the day, their numbers gradually being reduced by the firing of the Matabele—’
‘Ah yes,’ interrupted Alice. ‘And do you know, Mr Rhodes, from where the Matabele obtained their rifles and ammunition?’
Simon winced, but Rhodes did not flinch.
‘I expect, dear lady, that they were part of the consignment that your husband took to Bulawayo, to cement the treaty I had agreed with the king. I regret very much that they were used against British troops, which was, of course, breaking the terms of the treaty, but one must take risks sometimes in these regions if one wishes to progress.’
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