The Downfall of Uwini

8th September to 14th September

Start for the Somabula Forest to find Ridley’s Column—Native Pantomimic Description of a Battle—The British Subaltern—Taba–si–ka–Mamba—Bread–Making—Difficulty in Finding the Column—A Vision Fulfilled—A Man’s Toys—Meeting with Vyvyan—Join, and assume Command of the Column—The Wounded Men—How Uwini was captured—Why he was tried—Cutting off the Enemy’s Water–Supply—The Somabula Forest—Execution of Uwini—A Soldier Missing—A Fruitless Night March—A Battle between Friends—Start for the Somabula—We raid Lozan’s District.

6th September.—I am now back at work again in the office, but only doing it indifferently well; Vyvyan is away with Ridley’s column, and meantime Nicholson is helping me in the office. He has been marvellously quick at picking up the threads of the office work, and consequently is of the greatest assistance.

7th September.—Sir Frederick has to–day given me a better tonic than any which the combined medical faculty of Buluwayo could devise. He has told me that he is anxious for me to go and take charge of the column which is now under Ridley in the Somabula Forest. He has privately consulted Dr. Strong, who has been looking after me, and he considers that I may now safely go. After hearing this, it did not take long for me to get ready. Packing my kit on one horse and riding another, I said good–bye to Buluwayo, and with my nigger Diamond riding a third horse and leading a fourth, I started this afternoon, and am now camped for the night on the Umguza River, where some of Plumer’s men are stationed.

8th September.—Took with me three of Plumer’s men as escort, viz. Troopers Abrahamson, White, and Parkin, each with two horses and three days’ rations. We started at sunrise to follow up Ridley’s column. I could picture nothing more to my taste than a ride of from eighty to one hundred miles in a wild country, with three good men, and plenty of excitement in having to keep a good look–out for the enemy, enjoying splendid weather, shirt–sleeves, and a reviving feeling of health and freedom. Everything promised to make it one of the delightful times of my life. But before we had gone ten miles, I found I wasn’t very fit; at sixteen miles we off–saddled, and a cup of tea refreshed me, but I could not eat. I began to have thoughts of sending back for a cart to bring me ignominiously home again. However, after an hour’s rest, I reflected that it was only a natural weakness after being so long on the sick–list. So we went on for nine miles, to where Mr. Fynn was camped on a farm belonging to Arthur Rhodes (better known as “the M’limo”). Fynn is here collecting together native prisoners and refugees, and giving them ground on which to sow their crops. My thanks to you, Fynn, for that arm–chair where I slept most happily, and then the excellent tea and boiled rice, followed by another spell in the arm–chair! While resting here, three rebels came in to surrender, and they told us how the white troops, meaning Ridley’s column, were several days on ahead, and that two days ago they had surrounded the rebels and had kept firing on them for the whole of one day and part of the next; one of the niggers went through a pantomime descriptive of the battle, and showed us how, during the fight, he himself lay low in a donga, and heard first the single shots of the white men replied to by the deeper bang of the native muskets, then the increasing rattle and roar of musketry, then the rapid tap, tap, tap of the Maxim, mingled with the crack of volleys and the roar of 7–pounders. He imitated all the sounds beautifully, as well as the crouching attack of the skirmishers, the falling of the wounded rebels, and the flight of the remainder. His action was perfect, but I eventually discovered it was all a lie from beginning to end. No such fight had taken place—he merely made it up, as he hoped to please us; but meantime I was miserable at the thought that the action had come off and I was too late for it. At the same time, it aroused my impatience, and we pressed on that evening eight miles farther to the Bembezi River. There we off–saddled and coiled down in the dark, taking turns to keep watch. It was a lovely night, but was rather spoilt during my watch by a beastly hyÆna coming and sniffing around, and growling and snarling at us every now and then.

9th September.—Started at daybreak, and got to Inyati (fourteen miles) by eight o’clock. Here we found Terry of the 7th Hussars with six men occupying a small fort. Their life did not seem too cheery; small fort, open flat, blazing sun, and flies innumerable. Rudyard Kipling would well describe this young sprig, fresh from Charterhouse, accepting the surrender of numbers of Lobengula’s trusted old warriors. He had under his charge in the fort stores of food and grain, for the better protection of which he had drawn largely on the roof of the mission church across the flat. After breakfasting here, we pressed on again under a blazing sun, hoping for water, but finding none. On and on over yellow, grassy, bush–grown flats for fourteen miles, till we struck a river bed in which were a few pools of water. Here I lay down utterly done up, but after a wash in a pool and some tea, I soon got all right, and in the cool of the evening we went on another four miles to the Longwe River. Like nearly all the so–called rivers here, it was but a river bed of sand, in which one had to dig for water. We found here a convoy of four waggons with supplies for Ridley’s column, but they could give us no information as to where he was camped, or how far ahead he might be; they were merely following along on his track. They had a strong escort, and were quite prepared to take care of themselves in the event of an attack. Among the troopers on escort was one Madden, an old Swaziland acquaintance. Our two days’ journey had brought us respectively thirty–three and thirty–two miles from Buluwayo,—a total of sixty–five.

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10th September.—Again we started at daybreak, and passed by Taba–si–ka–Mamba, a mass of jumbled–up koppies, six miles by three, which had formed one of the chief rebel strongholds in this part of the country, until Plumer’s force had stormed the place, and driven the enemy out, on the 6th July last. The rocks and koppies here, like those in the Matopos, are piles of granite boulders, and in many cases assume most fantastic forms. Here and there they look like castles on the top of peaks; in other places, like gigantic loaves of bread, and in one place there was a tower of five of them placed one on top of the other for a height of nearly a hundred feet. We rode on until we came to the next river, the Umsangwe, a distance of ten miles; it was blazing hot, and I now began to feel a very poor creature. It was too far to go back again, and we could only hope that the column was not very far ahead, especially as we had not too much quantity or variety of food with us. I lay up during the heat of the day with a waterproof sheet spread over a thorn–bush as a shelter from the sun. The men dug water in the sand, washed, and baked bread. To bake bread, lay your coat on the ground, inside upwards, mix the flour and water in it (it doesn’t show when you put the coat on again); for yeast or baking powder use the juice of the toddy palm or Eno’s Fruit Salt to make a light dough; scrape a circle in the ashes of the fire, flop your lump of dough down on to it, flour the dough, spread fine sand all round and all over it, then heap the embers of the fire on to it; in half an hour an excellent flat loaf of bread results. It requires scrubbing with a horse–brush before you eat it. At half–past three we saddled up and trekked on to the Shangani River, which was only four miles farther on. It is a mighty river on the map, but is nothing more in nature than the usual sand river–bed with occasional pools, the sand being about a hundred and fifty yards wide, with reed–grown banks on either side. To get water, you have to scrape out a hole of two feet deep, and fairly good water comes immediately. We had brought a nigger guide with us from Inyati, and he said that Ridley’s column would be found on the Uvunkwe River, and that this was only a short distance on from the Shangani; so we pressed on. But as night closed in, our nigger got frightened, and he told us that there were Matabele about. We replied that that was exactly the reason why we had come there. Then he said that the next water was so far off, that if we trotted the whole night, we should not get there till long after sunrise next day. We tried for a bit to get on in the dark, but rain had fallen since Ridley’s column had passed along and had destroyed the spoor; we had no water, and only two days’ food; our nigger guide was evidently unreliable: so we turned back to the Shangani, and there bivouacked for the night, taking it in turns, as usual, to keep watch.

11th September.—My anniversary of joining Her Majesty’s Service, 1876–1896—twenty years. I always think more of this anniversary than of that of my birth, and I could not picture a more enjoyable way of spending it. I am here, out in the wilds, with three troopers. They are all Afrikanders, that is, Colonial born, one an ex–policeman, another a mining engineer (went to England with me in 1889 on board the Mexican), the third an electrical engineer from Johannesburg,—all of them good men on the veldt, and good fighting men. We are nearly eighty miles from Buluwayo and thirty from the nearest troops. I have rigged up a shelter from the sun with my blanket, a rock, and a thorn–bush; thirteen thousand flies are unfortunately staying with me, and are awfully attentive.

One of us is always on the look–out by night and by day. Our stock of food, crockery, cooking utensils, and bedding does not amount to anything much, as we carry it all on our saddles.

Once, not very long ago, at an afternoon “At Home,” I was handing a cup of tea to an old dowager, who bridled up in a mantle with bugles and beads, and some one noticed that in doing so my face wore an absent look, and I was afterwards asked where my thoughts were at that time. I could only reply that “My mind was a blank, with a single vision in it, lower half yellow, upper half blue,” in other words, the yellow veldt of South Africa, topped with the blue South African sky. Possibly the scent of the tea had touched some memory chord which connected it with my black tin billy, steaming among the embers of a wood fire; but whatever it was then, my vision is to–day a reality. I am looking out on the yellow veldt and the blue sky; the veldt with its grey, hazy clumps of thorn bush is shimmering in the heat, and its vast expanse is only broken by the gleaming white sand of the river bed and the green reeds and bushes which fringe its banks. (Interruption: Stand to the tent! a “Devil,” with its roaring pillar of dust and leaves, comes tearing by.) I used to think that the novelty of the thing would wear off, that these visions of the veldt would fade away as civilised life grew upon me. But they didn’t. They came again at most inopportune moments: just when I ought to be talking “The World,” or “Truth,” or “Modern Society” (with the cover removed), and making my reputation as a “sensible, well–informed man, my dear,” with the lady in the mantle, somebody in the next room has mentioned the word saddle, or rifle, or billy, or some other attribute of camp life, and off goes my mind at a tangent to play with its toys. Old Oliver Wendell Holmes is only too true when he says that most of us are “boys all our lives”; we have our toys, and will play with them with as much zest at eighty as at eight, that in their company we can never grow old. I can’t help it if my toys take the form of all that has to do with veldt life, and if they remain my toys till I drop—

“Then here’s to our boyhood, its gold and its grey,
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May;
And when we have done with our life–lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of Thy children, the boys.”

May it not be that our toys are the various media adapted to individual tastes through which men may know their God?

As Ramakrishna Paramahansa writes: “Many are the names of God and infinite the forms that lead us to know of Him. In whatsoever name or form you desire to know Him, in that very name and form you will know Him.”

In the afternoon I rode out with one of the men some ten miles down the Shangani River, to see if we could find any spoor of the enemy crossing the sandy bed or coming to get water there, but we only found the separate tracks of three men at all fresh, though we found hundreds of old tracks. As we came in sight of our bivouac on our return, my man said, “There is a strange horse grazing with ours; someone has come to the camp;” and it was true enough—we had a visitor. Vyvyan, who was acting as staff officer to Ridley, had received my note which I had sent on by runners, saying that I was coming out to take command of the column, and that he was to return to Buluwayo to act as chief staff officer. From him I ascertained that the column was only twenty–five miles away, and had not yet had a big fight, although it had lost a few men in taking some of the innumerable koppies in which the rebels of that part had taken refuge. So towards evening we saddled up and moved on, Vyvyan going on to Buluwayo with one man as escort, and I and my little party continuing our way eastward. We went on for three hours until the moon set, and then bivouacked for the night.

12th September.—On again at daybreak, through thick bush country, in which were numerous granite boulder koppies. Everywhere we found more or less recent tracks of natives, and the wheel–marks of Ridley’s waggons once more became pretty well defined. Our horses were now beginning to get done—indeed, one of mine was doing his best to die; so, knowing that we must be near Ridley’s camp, I pressed on ahead of the party leaving them to follow more leisurely. Presently I came across two niggers hiding in the bush, but evidently unarmed and afraid to run away. From them I managed to elicit that the camp was not far off, and they soon put me on the right path to it, and I got in in time for a late breakfast. The laager was formed in an open spot, surrounded on all sides at a short distance by eight koppies which formed the strongholds of the enemy. One of these koppies had been attacked and taken two days previously, and the chief of the tribe had been there captured. But we had lost one man killed and four wounded, and there still remained seven koppies to be taken. One of my first acts in camp, after taking over command of the column, was to visit the hospital, where I found one man with his hand amputated; he bore it very well, and, being one of the best football players of the 7th Hussars, he was in good training, and therefore but little affected by it. When I said I hoped it would not spoil his football in the future, he laughed and said that as he played the Association game, he would be all the better without a hand. Another poor chap had a great double wound in his thigh (all unbandaged for my edification); and another, who was yesterday a particularly handsome young hussar, has to–day a horrible caricature of a face, with the whole of his lower jaw shot away. And with what object? Merely to get half a dozen frightened niggers out of their holes in the rocks. Then I was shown the chief who had been captured—Uwini by name. He was badly wounded in the shoulder, but, enraged at being a prisoner, he would allow nothing to be done for him; no sooner had the surgeon bandaged him than he tore the dressings off again. He was a fine, truculent–looking savage, and boasted that he had always been able to hold his own against any enemies in this stronghold of his, but now that he was captured he only wished to die. His capture had been most pluckily effected by Captain van Niekerk and two of his men. When his kraal was taken by the troops, Uwini had scrambled down into the labyrinth of caves which ran through the rocks on which the kraal was built. Trooper Halifax and another crawled in after him, and followed him from one point to another of his refuge, often firing and being fired at by him. After some hours of this game of hide–and–seek, Halifax had managed to wound the chief; they then followed him up with a lighted candle, tracking him by his blood spoor, until they finally cornered him in a cleft of the rocks from which he could not escape. He was so disabled by his wound as to be unable to fire on them, and they made him a prisoner.

It now rested with me to decide what should be our next step. We had lost five men killed and wounded in taking one koppie, and there still remained seven to be taken, which were just as strongly held as the first one; consequently we must expect to lose a number of men before we finally effected our purpose, and the probability was that we should not do this before we had first killed a large number of the rebels. The Native Commissioner of this part had been murdered by the rebels and his police had joined them, so that civil power in the district had ceased to exist. There was in camp, however, an acting Native Commissioner, Mr. V. Gielgud, who was to assume the post of Commissioner so soon as the rebels could be induced to surrender. This officer was most anxious that I should try Uwini by court–martial, for the following reasons:—Uwini was not only the leading chief of that part of the country, but was one of the four chiefs of the whole of Matabeleland who were supposed to be specially endowed by the M’limo, the god of the people; he was therefore in their eyes sacred, invulnerable, and infallible. He was well known to be the instigator of rebellion, and of several specific murders of whites in the district. His immediate punishment, then and there, would do more than anything else to restore our prestige and bring about the surrender of rebels, not only of his own tribe, but probably of the neighbouring tribes as well.

The chief, when asked by us to call upon his people to surrender, now that he was captured, absolutely declined to make any such proposition to them. He said that he had ordered them into rebellion, and had told them to fight to the last, and he was not now going to go back on his orders. He is a plucky and stubborn old villain. Time is very pressing, as we are getting constant information of rebels massing in three directions within reach of us, and to catch them we ought to be on the move at once; so I have determined to try him by court–martial, as any deserved punishment would certainly save much bloodshed on both sides, would save much valuable time that would otherwise be lost in operations against the stronghold, and should bring about the rapid pacification of the whole district and the restoration of our prestige in these parts. There is no civil power to refer the case to, and by military law Uwini is a prisoner of war, and liable to trial by a military court; we are over a hundred miles from the General’s headquarters, so that I could not refer the case with any certainty of getting an answer within reasonable time; and also, I know of several other similar cases having been tried lately by court–martial (P.S.—I had not then heard of any exception having been taken to this course), and I have therefore given the order for his immediate trial by Field General Court–Martial.

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Uwini’s kraal, like most others in this part of the country, was a large collection of thatched circular huts built on inaccessible crags of a small mountain; and above the kraal, on points of rocks, so as to be well out of the reach of thieves and marauders, were perched numerous corn–bins. These latter we could only reach by hoisting men up with ropes, but we were lucky in obtaining from them very large supplies of grain. Much of this we have used for feeding the women and children whom we had captured from this kraal, and these, spreading the news to others in other parts of the stronghold, have induced a good many of them to come and give themselves up to us.

In order to help the rebels to make up their minds about surrendering, I have ordered piquets to be posted at all places from which they draw their water supply; these are generally small wells in the neighbourhood of the koppies occupied by them, and their usual time for getting water is during the dark hours of the night, so I hope that to–night we shall considerably astonish them when they come to get their supply for to–morrow.

My force here consists of a squadron of the 7th Hussars under Captain Agnew, a company of the York and Lancaster Mounted Infantry under Captain Kekewich, a strong troop of the Afrikander Corps under Captain van Niekerk, three Maxims, a 7–pounder under Captain Boggie, field hospital under Surgeon Lieutenant–Colonel Gormley, ambulance, and waggons carrying about a month’s stores, a total of 360 men and horses.

13th September.—During the night a lot of shots were fired by our piquet on the stronghold. I visited them at dawn and found they had killed two rebels who had come out to get water. I had a long talk with the prisoners and refugees who were in camp, and learned from them that the mass of the Matabele were now spread about in the Somabula Forest. This forest extends in a semicircle for a distance of over a hundred and fifty miles from Gwelo down to the Shangani, and varies in width from fifteen to thirty miles. It is not, as a rule, inhabited, owing to the dearth of water, but the enemy had now taken to it, hoping to find a safer refuge there. Our present camp is close to the edge of the forest, and is on the bank of the Uvunkwe River. This river runs along the side of the forest until it joins the Shangani some fifty miles from here. It seems to me that, by following down the Uvunkwe River for a short distance, and then striking through the forest to the Gwelo River, we should be able to come upon a large mass of the rebels who are said to be occupying a strong position in the hills.

The court–martial assembled on Uwini this morning, and tried him on charges of armed rebellion, for ordering his people to murder whites, and for instigating rebellion in this part of the country. The court martial gave him a long hearing, in which he practically confessed to what was charged against him, and they found him guilty, and sentenced him to be shot. I was sorry for him—he was a fine old savage; but I signed his warrant, directing that he should be shot at sundown.

During the day I went over the koppie that had formed Uwini’s main stronghold. It is a wonderfully strong mass of boulders about half a mile long and six hundred feet high. The approaches to it were strengthened by breastworks of stone and timber, and the mountain itself is honeycombed with caves. The cave in which Uwini was captured runs all through the mountain with innumerable ramifications. It is so narrow that in many places we had to crawl, now and then climbing up on our hands and knees, and sometimes having to creep down rough ladders made of tree–trunks. It was only then that we realised the difficulty that the men had had in effecting his capture, and their pluck in following up an armed and desperate man in such a very nasty place.

On my arrival in camp yesterday, it had been reported to me that one man of the Mounted Infantry, while out on patrol in the forest, had become separated from his party and was missing. Additional patrols had been sent out to search for him and though they had followed up his spoor for some distance, they had been unable to find him. To–day, again, patrols had gone out accompanied by native trackers, but towards evening they returned, having again been unsuccessful in finding him; they reported that his spoor led back in the direction of the camp, and so they had hoped he would have returned before them, but he has not yet returned. Luckily, he was carrying on his saddle the day’s rations for the other three men of his section, so that if he can only keep his head, and not overwork his horse, there is every hope that he will turn up again. But that is the worst of these men when they get lost,—they seem to lose their heads, and tear off in all directions, until they exhaust themselves and their horses, when they become a prey to the enemy or go out of their mind. At night we send up rockets and fire guns in order to show the wanderer whereabouts the camp lies.

At sunset all the natives in camp, both friendlies, refugees, and prisoners, were paraded to witness the execution of Uwini. He was taken out to an open place in the centre of his stronghold, where all his people who were still holding out could see what was being done, and he was there shot by a firing party from the troops.

I have great hopes that the moral effect of this will be particularly good among the rebels, as he was the head and centre of revolution in these parts, and had come to be looked upon by them as a god. No doubt, when they have realised that he is after all but a mortal, that he has succumbed to our power, and that they have no other head to take his place, they won’t delay long to surrender.

Indeed, I sent one old lady out to the rebel stronghold to–day to advise them to give themselves up, and to assure them that they could do so with perfect safety, but the old girl returned from her mission without bringing any of them with her. As she came back into camp, carrying her pass in a cleft stick, I was amused to hear one of the men say to her as she passed, “Hullo, old girl, are you back off furlough already?”

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I had proposed to start off some of my column to the northward this evening, but in the afternoon a small boy came into camp and reported that there was a party of Matabele camped about fifteen miles away to the southward, on the Uvunkwe River, so I got Ridley to take fifty men and make a night march to attack them. The patrol started after dark, at seven o’clock, and very soon after they had left camp, we heard rapid firing in their direction. On sending out to ascertain the cause, we found that Ridley’s party, in passing near to the piquet which was guarding the enemy’s water–supply, had been mistaken by them for Matabele, and had been fired on, but luckily no one was hurt. I ran in the officer of the piquet, and after hearing his explanation of how the mistake arose, I abused him roundly, not for making the mistake, for we are all of us liable to do that at times, but because, when he opened fire, his men were not able to hit the hussars. This hurt him more than the most violent reprimand, because he prided himself on the good shooting of his men.

14th September.—Firing was kept up during the night by this piquet at frequent intervals. It was evident that the rebels were getting very thirsty; for two days and nights now they had not been allowed to get any water. During the few hours of darkness, just before dawn, numbers of them slipped away, and the remainder came and gave themselves up, many of them bringing in their arms. Thus, within a very few hours of his execution, the death of Uwini began to have its effect.

Through the break–up of Uwini’s stronghold, large stores of grain fell into our hands, and as we have over a thousand prisoners and refugees now in camp, we have plenty of assistance in gathering it into a central store.

Early in the morning Ridley and his patrol returned from their night march. They had found the enemy’s scherms deserted, the spoor showing that the Kafirs had cleared into the forest; they had had their long ride for nothing, and the only excitement they had encountered was that of being fired upon by our own piquet just after starting.

Again the search party, which had been sent out to look for the missing man, returned unsuccessful; no further signs of him had been found, and I fear that he must have fallen into the hands of the enemy.

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