To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 (24 page)

Frowning, the captain clutched his gin and tonic. ‘Well, I suppose in the interests of solving the murder I could tell you. The rumour amongst the ranks is that Sergeant Temple was killed by a Boer in the uniform of one of the colonial troops.’

‘Why would they think that?’ Patrick asked, although the practice of Boer commandos using captured British army uniforms in such a way was not uncommon. ‘What reason would a Boer have for risking his life and going after Sergeant Temple in a town garrisoned by so many of his enemy?’

‘It appears that Sergeant Temple, in company with some Afrikaner, was responsible for the death of a Boer girl out on the
veldt
. Mind you, she apparently killed two good soldiers of mine and they supposedly had no choice but to kill her in their own defence. But we have since learned that she was the sister of a Boer field kornet, a particularly dangerous man who rides with De la Rey. The rumour amongst my men is that he had Sergeant Temple killed.’

‘You were saying that you were relieved to have Sergeant Temple out of your command,’ Patrick repeated. ‘Why was that?’

The English captain’s unease returned. ‘I’m afraid his story about the incident with the Boer girl left a lot of questions unanswered when we had the bodies of the two soldiers disinterred for a proper burial
in Pretoria. We found that one of the soldiers had been shot through the head as if executed. We know from the gun that killed them that the girl could not have done it. I was about to question Sergeant Temple on the discrepancy, which he had not mentioned in his report, when the sergeant himself was killed.’

‘What about the Afrikaner who was with Sergeant Temple? Has he been questioned?’

‘A bit difficult,’ Garling replied. ‘It seems that his own kind executed him not long after the incident according to the intelligence chaps. They seemed to know a fair bit about the matter. Even knew the name of the girl. Seems she slipped through their fingers at Bloemfontein carrying something rather important for Pretoria. They are not quite sure what it was but considering her connections, my guess is that it was information on our dispositions. Apparently she was something of an enigma, a Dutch born Jew educated in England and working for the Boers.’

The description of the dead girl sent a cold fear through Patrick. Very few of the Queenslanders did not know where Saul Rosenblum went on his time away from the lines in Bloemfontein. They had in fact helped cover for him on occasions so that he could rendezvous with the pretty dark-eyed girl. Needless to say, Patrick had heard the rumours of Saul’s affair. He did not want to ask the next question.

‘Was the dead girl’s name Karen Isaacs?’ he asked softly.

The English captain cast him a quizzical look. ‘Did you know her, sir?’

‘No. Just knew of her,’ Patrick answered with a sick feeling churning his stomach.

Saul Rosenblum had killed the English yeomanry sergeant! His motive was simple. Revenge for the death of the woman he loved. Would he do no less if something had happened to Catherine?

‘Are you all right, sir?’ the captain asked as he stared at the stricken expression on the colonial major’s face. ‘Not a touch of that damned enteric fever by any chance?’

Patrick shook his head. ‘No. Thank you for the information, Captain Garling.’ He rose from his chair. ‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have an early start in the morning.’

They nodded and watched the major leave the mess after bidding good evening to the president of the mess committee as protocol dictated.

‘Funny chap, that Major Duffy,’ Garling commented to the other yeomanry captain. ‘A colonial.’

As Patrick walked back to his tent his thoughts were in turmoil. He had a duty as an officer to report all he had learned, albeit inadvertently, to the investigating police. Saul Rosenblum had a strong motive for killing the English sergeant. It was all circumstantial but solid enough to have him arrested. Military justice was harsh and should he be found guilty he would surely be executed. By the time Patrick had reached his tent he had made his decision. It was a matter of honour, though the decision did not rest well with him. But fate, and a tenacious Boer
commander, General Botha, intervened in any decision Major Patrick Duffy might have to make. He was summoned to attend an important operations briefing first thing in the morning. The matter of Saul Rosenblum would not be a priority this day.

TWENTY-THREE

L
ord Roberts’ concern at the growing concentration of Botha’s army east of Pretoria had prompted him to counter the threat. He feared the Natal Boers being pushed ahead of Buller’s columns would unite to pose a formidable threat to Pretoria itself but his tactic of engaging the centre of the Boer army whilst outflanking it had been anticipated by the wily Botha. Roberts, however, was not to know this at the time he sent his depleted army forth from Pretoria to engage his enemy.

Major Duffy was assigned to the New South Wales Mounted Infantry and the secondment did not rest easy with him even though he personally knew many of the officers and soldiers of the unit. He had grown used to riding with his Queens-landers and the change in the order of battle left him with an ill foreboding, superstitious as such feelings
were. It was as if he had lost his talisman. But the assignment to Colonel De Lisle’s mounted column was heartening in one aspect; he respected the astute commander’s ability to react quickly to all opportunities that presented themselves on the battlefield.

They had rode out of Pretoria to a range of hills shaped like a horseshoe called the Tiger Poort Range. Here they bivouacked in the shadow of Diamond Hill, watching the British infantry make a determined assault on the heavily defended plateau. But the British infantry came under intense fire from the Transvaalers and by nightfall they had captured little ground for heavy losses. In his usual brilliant style, Colonel De Lisle spotted a key position to the battle in a
kopje
at the south-eastern end of the plateau. It was time to commit his colonial mounted infantry to the battle for Diamond Hill.

Patrick sat in the grass resting his horse and chatting with his men. He had known many of them as an officer back in Sydney and they were glad to see him. His feeling of unease began to dissipate. It was mid-afternoon when the order came down to the New South Welshmen that it was their turn to attack with the West Australians in support.

The senior NCOs strode amongst the waiting troopers with directions to check the girths on their saddles. One of them, a sergeant who had worked for a Macintosh company in Sydney, saw Patrick tightening his saddle strap and stopped. ‘You coming with us, sir?’ he asked curiously.

‘Sergeant Higgins, isn’t it?’ Patrick quizzed.

‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant answered, pleased to be
recognised. ‘It is. I used to work for you at the shipping office in Bligh Street, sir.’

‘I remember,’ Patrick smiled. ‘You did a bloody good job then and now I expect you will do even better.’

The sergeant could not help but beam at the praise. ‘It will be good to have you with us, sir,’ he replied and thrust out his hand as a civilian would, forgetting for the moment they were a long way from the shipping offices of Macintosh & Company.

Patrick took the hand. ‘Good luck, Sergeant Higgins.’

‘And you too, sir,’ he replied.

‘By the way, Sergeant,’ Patrick said with a grin as he swung himself easily into the saddle. ‘Remind me to give you a raise when we get back to Sydney.’

The sergeant returned the grin and waved as Patrick trotted over to join a young officer assembling his squadron of men. He was casually briefing them on their objective, as if explaining a nice place to picnic: a farm set amongst a stand of gum trees at the end of a broad, rolling, grass covered plain dotted with ant nests. There they were to dismount to advance on foot.

The order was given to mount and three hundred and fifty infantrymen on horseback were deployed on command to a spacing of fifty yards. Patrick experienced the usual tension of all soldiers before an action but felt a strange calm descend once the order was given to advance.

The horsemen trotted into their lines then quickly broke into a gallop, making for the farm
near the Boer-occupied hill. Behind the galloping horsemen the pompom guns opened fire at the entrenched Boers to give the horsemen support in their attack.

Patrick leant forward along the neck of his mount as the long lines of colonial horsemen charged forward, the exhilaration of the traditional cavalry charge upon him as any fears were absorbed in the wild ride.

The initial thunder of hooves was drowned by the rapid crash of the pompoms from behind, firing over their heads. To his front, Patrick could see the objective and wondered at first whether there were any enemy occupying the position. But the dust that began to sprout in front of the charging line of colonial horsemen soon confirmed that they had come under withering rifle and artillery fire which rained down on them from the heights of the plateau. Luck intervened when the long range Boer artillery suddenly shifted their aim to a herd of cattle away on the plain, mistaking them for horses, and under the barrage, the terrified animals ran about wildly as the shrapnel tore them apart.

Then they were on their first objective, the farmhouse and its surrounding outbuildings. The order to dismount brought the New South Welshmen tumbling out of their saddles with their carbines.

Patrick carried a Lee Metford as well as his service revolver, snatching a bandolier of rounds from around the neck of his horse before he joined the colonial troopers. De Lisle had wisely sent the pompom guns forward to take up a position behind
a low-set stone fence. From there they could continue to provide covering fire to the troops who would now advance on foot in extended order, a spacing of thirty yards between each man.

Gazing across to the final objective, Patrick felt a cold fear for what was ahead: a steep, bare escarpment covered only by thin, straw-like grass. Beyond the escarpment he could see other stony terraces, rising like giant steps to the top where the Boers were well entrenched behind their stone built sangers.

The dismounted infantry advanced in their frontal attack, scrambling up the rocky slopes which would give some protection until they came to the final terrace where the Boer met them with unrelenting fire.

As he struggled alongside the younger troopers, Patrick felt as though his lungs were on fire. Occasionally he stopped to snap off a shot at the little stone fort sangers from where the Boers poured their fire upon the advancing infantry.

The gunfire had reached a crescendo with the explosions of the deadly pompom shells adding to the hell around him. Men screamed curses or died with strangled cries of despair as bullets ricocheted and the ground was churned with splintering stone and metal from spent rounds. Amidst the death and dying on the slopes just below the crest of the plateau, the order was given to fix bayonets and make the final charge to sweep the Boer position clear.

The almost impersonal charge across the plain had now brought the enemy close enough to make the war very personal. Patrick was not carrying a
bayonet but rose to join the tough colonial troopers. He would use his rifle like a club to dislodge the entrenched enemy. It was like Tel-el-Kebir and McNeill’s Zareba all over again when men met in close-quarter fighting in a killing frenzy. Wooden rifle butts against steel knives, men’s fists and feet against those of his enemy. There would be personal and vicious deaths where a man would see into the eyes of his foe as a long bayonet was driven into his chest, throat or stomach.

A wild yell went up from the troopers who surged forward with their deadly bayonets extended like primitive spears on the ends of their rifles. The sight of the long lines of enemy infantrymen sprinting the last yards towards them caused the Boer riflemen to break, fleeing their entrenched positions in the last light of the day, but not leaving their wounded behind.

Patrick found himself swept up in the adrenalin-powered charge and was roaring the slogans he had learned many years earlier as a young officer commanding the tough Scots soldiers. He did not hear the incoming whistling shell that exploded into the earth behind him. For Major Patrick Duffy the war was over and he would not share the victory of the New South Welshmen as they swept the hill clear of enemy resistance.

Patrick was not aware how badly he had been wounded. He was mercifully unconscious as the four troopers carried him in a blanket down the hill and back to the farmhouse where the wagons of the
medical corps waited to transport the wounded of both sides back to Pretoria. When Patrick finally regained his senses, he wished he was still in that blissful place of darkness where the terrible pain could not reach him. With each jarring bump of the mule-drawn medical wagon, his shrapnel torn body arched in agony, but his moans of pain were lost in the many cries of badly wounded soldiers who lay beside him. He could not see the extent of his injuries but sensed he had taken the full brunt of the explosion. In the dark night the wagon slammed into a pothole and slewed sideways. The soldier lying beside him tumbled onto Patrick who cried out in agony.

‘You’ll be all right, sir.’ A gentle voice came to him out of the dark as a hand touched his face. ‘I’ll get him off yer. Looks like the poor blighter is dead anyway.’ True to his word the dead man was hauled away but the agonising pain remained with Patrick from the numerous shrapnel wounds. ‘Not too far to go before we have you in a hospital at Pretoria,’ the gentle voice continued reassuringly. ‘Got good people there.’

Patrick gritted his teeth, embarrassed by his protests of pain. He was an officer and as such expected to bear his torment in silence. But despite such thoughts he still reached out his hand to seek the hand of the disembodied voice and was rewarded with a firm grip. ‘Where have I been hit?’ Patrick asked, his voice weak from loss of blood. ‘I’m thirsty,’ he added. ‘So bloody thirsty.’

‘Can’t give yer any water, sir,’ the medic said sadly.
‘Yer got some shrapnel in the belly as well as in the chest, arm and legs. Water’s no good fer a gut wound.’