Clearing the Mashona Frontier

25th October to 15th November

Filthiness is next to Healthiness—Through the Selukwe District—We join Colonel Paget’s Column for the Attack on Monogula’s—On visiting the Stronghold we find it deserted—We clear and destroy the Place—Gwelo—The Difficulties of a Commandant—The End of the War in Matabeleland—We are ordered to Taba Insimba—Enkledoorn Laager—Night March—We attack Taba Insimba (Magneze Poort)—Doctoring wounded Enemies—A Patent Syringe—I return to the General—Smoking on Sentry.

For the next four days we have continued our march,—practically across country, as there were a few cart–tracks, some leading right and some wrong, but I had got the right landmarks from one of Jackson’s boys before he left us (which he did at the end of our patrol). We now left his—the Belingwe—district and got into the Gwelo country.

25th October.—Although it’s Sunday, which we generally make a day for divine service and for rest, we have had to put in a lot of marching in order to get to Paget in fair time. One cannot reckon on doing so many miles a day in this country; you can only say it will be so many hours. For instance, it took us five hours to do two miles two different days in this march, i.e. in making drifts over bad rivers like the Singweza and the Lundi.

We are a wonderfully dirty and ragged–looking crew now—especially me, because I left Buluwayo six weeks ago to join this column only with such things as I could carry on a led pony (including bedding and food). My breeches and shirts are in tatters, my socks have nearly disappeared in shreds. Umtini, my Matabele boy, has made sandals for me to wear over—or at least outside—my soleless shoes.

And everywhere the veldt has been burnt by grass–fires—every breeze carries about the fine black dust, and five minutes after washing, your hands and arms and face are as grimy and black as ever—as if you were in London again.

Bathing “the altogether” too often is apt to result in fever. Too much washing of hands is apt to help veldt sores to originate—so we don’t trouble to keep clean.

Veldt sores bother nearly every one of us. Every scratch you get (and you get a good number from thorns, etc.) at once becomes a small sore, gradually grows, and lasts sometimes for weeks. It is partly the effect of hot sun and dry air too rapidly drying up the wound, and also probably the blood is not in too good a state from living on unchanging diet of tinned half salt beef and tinned vegetables. We have very little variety, except when we loot some sheep or kill a buck. No vegetables, and we are out of sugar, tea, cocoa, and rice.

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Matches are at a premium, pipes are manufactured out of mealie corn–cobs and small reeds. Tobacco is very scarce—tea leaves were in use till the tea came to an end.

26th October.—We struck the Gwelo–Victoria road, and it seems quite strange to be once more in civilised (!) country, and not to have to find our own way over every river, and not to be on the look–out for lions at night, etc. Even the spoor of natives fails to excite us much, as most of them about here appear to be giving in. But we hope we may not be too late to help Paget have a final slap at Monogula—one of these koppie–holding gentry who has not yet experienced a bombardment by artillery.

It is delightful marching among the hills of this Selukwe district; they are well wooded, and run up here and there into mountains. A lot of the trees are still in their autumn tints, while the others are just budding out (for it is spring here), the young grass is greenifying the low–lying land, and even the black burnt veldt is now brightened up with a great variety of wild flowers—these are what I call bluebells, cowslips, dandelions, snowdrops, sweet peas, sweet williams, convolvulus, and poppies, and many more. Not that they are these flowers actually, but as they have some faint resemblance, I like to be reminded by them of the English flowers.

And the woods are cheery with the chirp and whistle of the birds, and though there are no songsters among them, there is a fellow whose note is like a robin, another like a chaffinch, and, best of all, one who distantly resembles a thrush. And overhead the trilling pipe of a big brown hawk brings back at once the glaring heat of India.

And then the peeps, between the trees of wooded peaks beyond show one such colours as can’t be found in paint–boxes. Where would you get that pearly lilac of the lit–up face of the rock or the pure deep blue of the shadows?

All about among the hills are gold reefs pegged out with notice–boards, and near them the wattle and daub houses of miners—all deserted and looted, but not burnt.

27th October.—The roads are awful for our wretched mules, so hilly, stony, and dusty, but we have struggled on, and at last, on the 27th, we have joined Colonel Paget’s column. This column consists just now of merely a squadron of 7th Hussars, the West Riding Mounted Infantry being away on patrol.

Such a breakfast they gave us on arrival, with milk (tinned), fish, jam, etc. etc. Beautiful camp under the trees. English mails and newspapers, the first for a month. News of Nansen’s return, and of my brother George bringing Nansen home in his yacht Otaria, just what I had hoped Admiral Markham was going to do, taking me with him; we talked of it two years ago.

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In the course of the day two messengers from N’dema (one of the two great rebels of this district) came in to say that he had heard of Wedza’s being knocked out of his stronghold, and so had come to surrender, and soon after N’dema himself, and five of his chiefs arrived. They were soon sent off to Gwelo under escort.

In the afternoon I went with Paget, Carew, and others, to have a look at Monogula’s stronghold from a distance. It did not look a very desperate place.

28th October.—I started off with Carew, 7th Hussars, and a party of ten men, and my orderly Parkyn, to call on Monogula. We went by moonlight, so that he should not be alarmed at our numbers. On arriving near the stronghold soon after daylight, the escort hid in the bush, and, leaving our rifles with them, Parkyn and I rode out into the open in front of the kraal, and, waving a towel as a flag of truce, we told the rebels we were men of peace come to talk with them—that the men of war were not far behind us, and would be there before another sun rose, unless they (the rebels) came to talk over the situation. The great White Queen was getting a little vexed with Monogula; all the other chiefs of note had surrendered or been licked except him: if he did not now take this chance of surrendering, he would be knocked out and his lands given to another, etc. etc. Most eloquent we were! but all in vain. Our shouts only roused up birds from their feeds of spilt grain in the kraal. There was no reply, nor was there any fresh spoor on the many paths. We went closer and closer up on the rocks,—nobody fired at us—they were not there! We had a good look round, and then returned to report to Colonel Paget, who had meanwhile moved up the laager to within three miles of the place.

When blazing midday was over, the men and the 7–pounder were moved out to the stronghold. The gun fired half a dozen shells into the place, and the 7th Hussars then advanced along the ridge into the kraal, while I came up from below with the Mounted Infantry. Suddenly there was an outburst of firing in the kraal above us as we scaled the height—I knew it was the 7th Hussars firing into it as a precautionary measure before entering, but the Mounted Infantry supposed that the enemy had been found, and it was a treat to see them dash forward, each man taking his own line, and eager to be first up the rocky face of the koppie, and they were very disgusted to find nobody to fight when they got to the top.

A few weeks ago there had been a different tale to tell. A patrol of 7th Hussars under Captain Carew had then got up to the wall that defended the main kraal. One man was shot dead close to the wall, when his companion, without a second’s pause, mounted the wall, and pistolled the firer of the shot.

The body of the white man was taken by his comrades to their camp, eight miles away, and buried there with honours. But when our column passed that way two days ago, the cross was there, but the grave yawned wide and empty. The enemy had been there since, and, as they often do, had taken out the corpse to make up fetish “medicines” for themselves.

The caves under this koppie were typical of the usual thing met with now. You creep in through a narrow little hole, down crevices between rocks—every here and there a crevice leading to the open air gives you light, and a chance of shooting anybody passing by or looking in from outside. Then you come to a roomy cave, from which other tunnels lead out downwards to more caves—the tunnel being occasionally a perpendicular shaft of 20 or 30 feet, which is negotiated by means of a tree–trunk roughly made into a ladder. The caves and their passages worm about inside the koppie, with frequent peeps and bolt–holes to open air, and so are grand refuges for a few desperate rebels. In Monogula’s we placed thirty–four cases of dynamite, and at one grand burst blew up the whole koppie, so that where there had been hill there remained but a crater.

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The natives, when they return, will scarcely recognise the site of their once famous stronghold, and they will acknowledge that the white man’s God is stronger than their own M’limo.

Previous to demolishing the caves, we had of course removed, for our own use, the stores of grain which had been stowed away for the rebel garrison. In searching for this grain, the men had lighted on a place in which the bodies had been thrust of those rebels who had fallen when our last patrol had visited the kraal, and, to our satisfaction, we now found that nine were killed, and among them two Cape Boys, one of whom, Hendricks by name, was noted as a rifle–shot. He had two bullets through his head; so the shooting of the hussars must have been pretty straight for the few minutes they were at it! Indeed, the shooting of the Imperial troops in this campaign has been particularly good, and has won the admiration of the Dutchmen fighting with us.

29th October.—My patrol being now over, the mounted infantry started to–day for their march down country to take ship for India, and I was right sorry to part from so good a lot of soldiers. I only wished that they could have had reward for all their keenness and hard work—in the shape of a really good fight with the Matabele.

I, myself, now took my way to Gwelo, to be examined by a Court of Inquiry as to why I had sanctioned the execution of Uwini. My only defence is, that it was the only right thing under the circumstances.

In connection with what I had done in the case of Uwini, I was rather struck by reading to–day, anent the siege of Delhi, the following remark by John Nicholson to an officer who had said to him, “It is hard, sir, when one has fagged horses and men to death, to be told that one has exceeded orders.” “If you served under me,” were Nicholson’s words, “that would be impossible; my instructions are, always to do everything that can be done.”

Gwelo is on a bare, open flat, with a sea–like horizon of veldt. Half a dozen small houses dotted about at two hundred yards apart. A crowded collection of corrugated iron rooms within a rampart of logs and earth forms the fort—kept very clean and neat, which is a change from Buluwayo. But, otherwise, there is not much to commend Gwelo to the artist, traveller, or temperance man.

Major Thorold in command has done wonders in bringing order into the place, and his officers (local forces) ably support him, and—have a very well–done mess.

But the command of Gwelo is no sinecure. There are “lawyers” in the camp. The following are among their ebullitions:—Copy of cablegram to Secretary of State, which would have gone, but that the would–be sender was fourpence short of the £24 required for its transmission. “Man named Thorold questioned my sobriety this morning, and called doctor to decide. Doctor drunk himself, could not decide. I said, willing to put in resignation, as a man is not a machine.... Who is this Thorold?”

Another man telegraphed to headquarters, to ask “When will Gwelo force be disbanded? Without competent officers it is only a farce. Have applied to be discharged; application simply ignored!”

The General had telegraphed to me to await him here, as he would shortly be en route for Salisbury, calling at Gwelo on the way.

All war is now over in Matabeleland—and Wedza’s may be said to have been the final blow. Plumer’s corps near the Matopos, and Robertson’s Cape Boys have been disbanded, and the 7th Hussars are ordered into rainy–season quarters at Buluwayo.

But in Mashonaland the rebels still hold out, and now and then a wire arrives to tell of further fights.

And one I heard of on arriving here was of saddest interest about Major Evans of Alderson’s Mounted Infantry, who came out from England with me. I knew him well on board, and two days before we sailed he had married.... In his first action he fell, shot through the heart.

Of the officers of this Mounted Infantry who came out with me, several others have been hit in action, viz. Captain Sir Horace MacMahon, Lieutenants French and Eustace.

3rd November.—Gwelo is said to have a great future before it, but hasn’t much of a present—a little of it goes a long way. Combined with this, a lion had killed two donkeys on the road five miles S.E., and seven lions had been seen five miles N.W., this morning, so I determined to spend my next few days of waiting for the General in an outing for shooting lions. At 2 p. m. I was to start, horses, etc., all ready packed with food and blankets.

At 1 p. m. arrived a telegram from the General, saying that some rebels were reported in the Insimba Hills, near Enkeldoorn, seventy miles N.E. from Gwelo on the Salisbury road, and directing that either Paget or I should take a column of two hundred there without delay. Nothing would have suited us better. Being all ready to start, Paget sent me off to divert the 7th Hussars, who were expected this afternoon from the Selukwe, on to the Salisbury road, while he (Paget) followed on that road direct with extra supplies. So that night found one again in camp on the war–path.

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The next few days were spent marching through green bush country and open grass vleis, uninhabited except by game.

Being now a sort of “serrefile” or hanger–on to the column, as Paget had come in command, I had lots of time to amuse myself, riding at a distance from the column with my gun ready. We saw wildebeeste, hartebeeste, ostriches, sable and roan antelopes, etc. Carew and I got two beauties of the latter on the 5th, and these supplied the whole camp with fresh meat. I got also a very fine tiger–cat (almost like a small leopard).

The longest march seems short when one is hunting game. Your whole attention is fixed at the same time on “distant views,” and on the spoor beneath your nose. Your gun is ready, and every sense is on the alert to see the game. Lion or leopard, boar or buck, nigger or nothing, you never know what is going to turn up. And what an appetite one has at the end of a twelve–mile march, when the folding mess–table is set up, and the Indian cook of the 7th has produced his excellent repast!

My only trouble is that I have lost two of my three horses; they broke loose from camp in the night, and strayed, poor starving brutes, in search of grass, and could not be found. And my remaining horse is very thin and weak. However, I got a pair of veldt schoen (Dutch shoes) at Gwelo, and so can do much of the march on foot now.

Another blow to me is the loss of Diamond, my Zulu boy, who wants to go home. I offered to take him to Beira, and to pay his passage home from there—but no, he must go back vi Buluwayo. Why? Because he has a lot of money there,—his savings,—which he has hidden, and no one else can find them.

I didn’t know till to–day how to fry liver and bacon—the liver, after being cut in thin strips, should be dipped into a plate of mixed salt, pepper, and dry mustard, before going into the frying–pan. A small matter, but it makes a difference.

We journey on by Iron–Mine Hill, Orton’s Drift to Enkeldoorn, seventy miles from Gwelo, and forty from Charter.

Meantime, my clothes are in tatters. I remember a lady at a fancy dress ball at Simla figuring as a “beggar maid.” She was dressed in a black frock with bits of flesh–coloured silk stitched on to it here and there to look like holes! Many people said it was rather chic (some using the soft ch, others the hard). I am in the same state, only there is no need to stitch on flesh–coloured silk, and I don’t know that I look very chic; but it’s curious to find oneself getting sunburnt in an entirely new place: when bathing, I found that my right knee and thigh have their beautiful alabaster–like surface marred by eight irregular blotches of ruddy sunburn!

Rain has been threatening occasionally. Two or three days have been most oppressively hot, and clouds have gathered at nightfall, with mutterings of thunder, and distant lightning. We have put our waterproof sheets ready on going to bed, and sometimes have spread the waggon–sails over the waggons, and have gone to sleep dreaming of the fate in store for us campaigning in wet weather, with the roads impassable for mud, and the drifts unfordable for days together. But we have waked at dawn to find a bright, clear sky overhead, and the promise of another sunny, breezy day. But the rains are evidently not far off.

9th November.—Reached Enkeldoorn, just three huts forming a coach change–station, on open, rolling downs. The laager made by the Dutch farmers of the surrounding district is three miles distant.

At Enkeldoorn I have been lucky enough to find a covered waggon standing abandoned (one wheel smashed), and have taken possession of it as my house, since the weather is very boisterous and promises rain to–night.

P.S.—The promise was fulfilled—it rained hard, and I was happy. I liked the tilt of my waggon so well, that when we marched next day I took it with me; a frame of poles made it into a very comfortable tent in camp.

10th November.—We moved to near the Dutch laager, and interviewed the Native Commissioner and others. The laager a most impregnable jam of waggons, strengthened with palisades, sandbags, etc., and surrounded by an entanglement of reims and barbed wire. It was full of women and children and Boers (two hundred of them), from all the farms within a circle of twenty miles round. These farmers brought over two thousand oxen (one man told me seven thousand) to the laager when the rebellion broke out, and now there were but seventy left—such is Rinderpest.

The people in the laager lived on fresh meat very largely, the men going out daily to shoot game. A pile of skulls and horns of sable and roan antelope, wildebeeste, etc., showed how successful they had been.

The boys of the laager seemed to be fitted out with hats of such a size that they would have to be grown into, and would then do for them in their grown–up years. The young idea was also learning to shoot by using crossbows, and it was interesting to see what good positions they got into for firing in the quickest manner, using aim and trigger just as with a gun. A crossbow should be an excellent instrument for teaching the elements of rifle–shooting.

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The Boer pig–sty is a simple one. A round hole in the ground, eight feet across, four feet deep; the pig, once in, can’t get out. A dry ox–hide, laid over one side of the hole, serves as a shelter from sun or rain.

Leaving our waggons (except two with rations, etc.) at Enkeldoorn that evening, we marched a few miles in the direction of Taba Insimba, and bivouacked at nightfall. Taba Insimba (Mountain of Iron) is a long wall–like range, with a slice cut through it at one point, looking much like the canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. In this cutting or pass, or, as the Dutch call it, “poort,” the rebels are said to be living in caves in the cliffs, strongly barricaded with stone walls—about eight hundred of them—very defiant. Soon after our reaching Enkeldoorn they had signalled our arrival with smoke–fires. The place is twenty–five miles from Enkeldoorn, but our horses and mules are not up to dashing to the place, so we have come as light as possible, carrying two days’ rations on our saddles, and leaving the waggons to follow.

Twenty Boers from the Enkeldoorn laager are with us, and also about a hundred friendly natives with Taylor, the N.C.

11th November.—Marched all morning, rested all the day, and marched on again after dark, across the wide, perfectly–open flats, till, by 10 p. m., we were within a mile of the place, and then we off–saddled and bivouacked—no talking nor smoking allowed. At 2.30 we were roused up, and formed into our places for the attack. I like the weird, subdued impatience of all the preliminaries for a night surprise.

Colonel Paget was to take the mounted infantry and small portable Maxim on to the top of one cliff overlooking the gorge, so as to fire into the caves in the opposite cliff; another party were to be below at the foot of the gorge, to attack these caves under cover of the fire from above. I was ordered to go with Carew’s squadron of 7th Hussars, taking our horses (the remainder of the troop were dismounted), over the ridge, and round to the back of the gorge, to cut off the enemy’s line of retreat.

We reached the ridge just when it was getting sufficiently light,—as the Dutchman would say, “to see the horns of an ox,”—clambered up the steep, stony hill through the bush, then down the other side, where there lay before us, in the early light, a panorama of bush and tree–tops.

Our guide was one Bester, a Boer, whose farm was here. At the outbreak of the rebellion his father had been wounded, his mother killed, and he and his brother only escaped after killing a number of the rebels, and being nearly killed themselves. We passed through the ashes of their home on our way. His uncle I remembered well as field cornet on the Transvaal border, in our operations against Dinizulu, in Zululand, in 1888.

The Magneze Poort, in which the rebels were (for we soon knew that they were there, by the barking of dogs, the talking of men, and calling of women, etc.), was a huge cleft, with rocky sides, and a bubbling torrent roaring through. On arriving in rear of the place, we found ourselves in a valley between numerous bush–covered hills. The line of retreat open to the defenders of the stronghold in the gorge was across an open glade of long white grass, along the foot of the steep mountain–side.

It was broad daylight by the time we had got to our position, and we had not long been waiting there before we heard excited shouting from the natives on the top of the opposite cliffs, answered by those in the gorge below; then pop—bom—pop—pop, as the firing began; rifles cracking, and blunderbores roaring back their muffled reply from caves; soon the “isiqwakwa” (Maxim) joined in with its sharp “rat–tat–tat–tat–tat,” from the top of the ridge. Ere long, a party of the enemy were seen hastily making their way across the open grass in front of us; a moment later, and a troop of the hussars had burst from their hidden station in the bush, and were galloping, swords drawn and gleaming, straight for the astonished rebels. But the charge was not to be; the rocky stream, with boggy banks, was the slip that lay between the cup and the lip, and baulked the sabreurs of their wish; but they did not wait to lament. In a trice they were off their horses, carbine in hand, and soon were popping merrily at the foes they could not get at hand–to–hand. While thus engaged, Carew sent round another troop to cut off any rebels who might succeed in running the gauntlet of fire.

Finding themselves stopped, some ran back among the rocks, and contented themselves with wasting ammunition in long shots at us, while others lay among the tall white grass—to wait until the clouds rolled by. But these latter were soon moved by the clouds, in the shape of Lieutenant Holford and a few dismounted men, moving on them through the grass, and thus compelling their retreat at point–blank range, or their surrender. This party counted fifteen dead bodies, and found a few women and children, whom they brought back. Among these were, unfortunately, four wounded—three children and one woman, hit by stray bullets as they were lying hid in the grass.

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Three times in this campaign have I taken out to the field with me a few bandages and dressings in my holster, and on each occasion I have found full use for them. I don’t know whether it is coincidence or not—but here was another occasion. Our one doctor was with the main body on the other side of the mountain, so I got to work on the poor little devils. Curiously enough, the women and two of the children were hit in the same place, i.e. through the lower part of the thigh, clear of bone and of artery; simple wounds, and easily patched up; while the fourth, a small boy with a very bad temper, had half his calf torn away by a splinter of rock or a ricochet bullet. None of them seemed to feel much pain except him, and he kept kicking and grovelling his poor little leg in the dust when the girl who had charge of him tried to do anything to it. So it was in a bad mess by the time I got an opportunity to get to work on it. It did one good to see one or two of the hussars, fresh from nigger–fighting, giving their help in binding up the youngsters, and tenderly dabbing the wounded limbs with bits of their own shirts wetted. I invented a perfect form of field–syringe for this occasion, which I think I’ll patent when I get home. You make and use it thus—at least I did: Take an ordinary native girl, tell her to go and get some lukewarm water, and don’t give her anything to get it in. She will go to the stream, kneel, and fill her mouth, and so bring the water; by the time she is back, the water is lukewarm. You then tell her to squirt it as you direct into the wound, while you prize around with a feather (I had lost what I otherwise invariably carry with me—a soft paint–brush). It works very well.

Well, we went on with the squadron among the hills, at the back of the position, and burned a kraal. Vaughan, one of Carew’s subalterns, has developed a talent as great, or greater, than that of any colonial, for finding native corn or cattle, be they hidden never so wisely. He brought in from the bush a bunch of lively, healthy cattle.

Then, firing having ceased everywhere, and smoke of burning kraals being seen curling up in columns from the stronghold, we ceased from war, and sat us down in a shady glade by the running stream, and soon had breakfast under way.

Later on we got back to our laager, and found that the main body had completely surprised the rebels before they could take to the caves (they had been sleeping outside in huts), and, altogether, twenty–six were killed; the rest had fled in different directions. Our people, well hidden in the rocks and bush, had not had a single casualty.

So ended my most happy roaming on patrol.

The General was expected at Enkeldoorn next morning; so, in the afternoon, I started off, riding one horse and leading another, to do the twenty–five miles between us. At nightfall a heavy thunderstorm rolled up, but I was lucky in being near a deserted farmhouse, where I took shelter, with my horses, in the verandah. A wheelbarrow made me a comfortable lounge in which to eat my frugal but rather indigestible meal of cold pig, dough, and tea. I did not live inside the house, as lurking Matabele fugitives might have watched me in, and could have nicely caught me; but in the open verandah I should be quite a match for them. I was glad next day I had acted so, for Lord Grey’s party, camping near the house, found in the rafters of the room a fine, great, green mamba snake.

Well, when the rain was over, I rode on in the night; the spoor I had been following was now washed out, but I steered by moon and time until I thought I was near Enkeldoorn, and, not seeing the camp, then prepared to bivouac till daylight, when a sudden small flash, as of a man striking a match, sparkled on a hill close by; and on I went, and found myself at the laager, against the bayonet of a Boer sentry, whose pipe–light had been my guide.

Delighted to hear about the fight, he gave me back the news that the General had already arrived. Not long after, I had wedged myself in between Vyvyan and Ferguson in their tent, and was sleeping like a log.

At home it may seem strange to talk of a sentry’s pipe, but, in this country, smoking is not a very grave offence. A Colonial volunteer officer, hearing of our army orders on the subject, thought to smarten up his men a bit; so, finding one of his night sentries smoking, he ordered him to consider himself a prisoner. The following was then overheard by some one sleeping near:—

Sentry. “What, not smoke on sentry? Then where the——am I to smoke?”

Captain Brown. “Of course it’s not allowed; and I shall make you a prisoner.”

Sentry (taking his pipe from his mouth, and tapping Brown—who, in time of peace, was his butcher—on the arm with the stem of it). “Now, look here, Brown, don’t go and make a——fool of yourself. If you do, I’ll go elsewhere for my meat!”

And Brown didn’t.