Rough Diamond, page 32
Captain Jameson waved that away as merely being an excuse, and a weak one at that. He leaned forward, his thin body almost quivering, his dark eyes gleaming with equal malice.
“And what about the raid on the Pretoria armory? I was told that a handful of men could take the armory in Pretoria anytime they wanted; it was under repair and one entire wall was down, for God’s sake! And it was being guarded by a minimum contingent, because the others were off duty because of the Christmas holidays. There were supposed to be fifteen thousand modern rifles there, and all the ammunition for them you could dream of, piled up to the roof of the place. It could be taken anytime they wanted, the Reform Committee told me. What happened to that great plan?”
Major Thompson reddened a bit. The plan to capture the armory in Pretoria and arm the Johannesburg residents with its contents of guns and ammunition had largely been his.
“Well,” he said slowly, his embarrassment evident, “again it was just one of those things. We sent our boys up there, but only about a week ago, because we had no idea you were planning on moving when you did. And not all the troops there had been relieved as yet for the holidays. However, somebody”—he coughed slightly and then recovered himself—“had forgotten that the Boers celebrate Nagmaal at the end of December—Communion Week—and the Church Square was loaded with outspanned ox wagons. Half the farmers in the north Transvaal must have been there with their vrous, and as you know, they all carry their rifles with them when they travel, in case they run into any game, or any trouble of any kind. We would have been wiped out in minutes if we had started anything. So—” He shrugged again.
Carl Luckner broke into the conversation.
“So there seems to be enough blame to go around, if that’s the purpose of this exercise,” he said harshly. “Let’s get on with it, I say! So the men do without grub for a day or so—so what? I doubt there’s one among them who hasn’t gone more than a day hungry either on the march at some time, or in some brig or other. We’re less than thirty miles from Krugersdorp and Mrs. Varley’s Hotel and her good meals, that’s where we are! A bit of her food in their bellies—a meal the good lady will be glad to prepare and serve, I warrant—and the boys will be riding into Jo’burg like the Palace Guard, with their backs stiff and their tails in the air! We’re talking too much; we ought to be moving. If it’s somebody needed to tell the troopers they won’t be having their supper tonight, I’ll be pleased to be the one to do it, and I promise to handle any complaints personally as well!”
He paused a moment, as if suddenly realizing he wasn’t in command, and then went on in a quieter tone of voice.
“My suggestion, Captain Jameson, would be to have us on our way. We’ve nothing to gain by wasting time here.” He looked at Major Thompson with no attempt to hide his contempt. “It may take some people two days to ride here from Jo’burg, but we can be at Mrs. Varley’s Hotel by dawn, and in Jo’burg by nightfall, full bellies and all.”
“And what about sleep?” Lieutenant White asked a trifle sarcastically. He disliked Luckner intensely, especially after the incident of the hot coffee and the Kaffir’s death; besides, second in command should have fallen to him and not to some ex-sailor.
“All that sleep will do for the men is make them wake up hungrier,” Luckner said a bit contemptuously. “A good night’s quick march will take their minds from their bellies. And if we can stay awake, they can stay awake!”
There were several moments of silence; then Lieutenant Willoughby spoke up. He sounded worried. “What about the Boers we’ve had riding on both our flanks ever since the border?”
Luckner looked at him evenly. “What about them? Have they attacked? They haven’t even sniped at us, other than one or two overanxious youngsters, and they haven’t come within a mile of hitting anything, the poor blind bastards! They’re simply curious as to what we’re up to, and by the time they find out, it’ll be too late for them, the silly sods.” He turned back to Jameson. “What about it, Captain? Sit here and look at each other all night, or be in Jo’burg tomorrow night with one of Mrs. Varley’s stews beneath our belts, and the citizens cheering their bloody heads off?”
Jameson sighed. He was going over all the alternatives in his mind. What Luckner said made sense. The longer they delayed, the further the men would suffer hunger, and they wouldn’t be getting any closer to their objective. And Jameson was quite convinced that the mere entry of his forces into Johannesburg would stimulate the Reform Committee, make them get off their silly arses and get cracking on their revolution. The people would make them, if nothing else did, once he and his forces entered the city.
The Boers on his flanks bothered him not at all. To begin with they were few, and the few he had seen through his field glasses appeared to be, as Luckner had said, youngsters. As Willoughby had said, they had ridden their horses on either side of his column since they had crossed the border, but as Luckner had pointed out, there had been no attack, and the sniping had been sporadic and so erratic as to almost make the Boers’ claim to marksmanship laughable. It seemed fairly obvious that the Boer forces were too weak to do anything but observe their movements and wonder what they were about. As Luckner had also said, the Boers were merely curious. And should their curiosity get out of hand, the fact was he had over four hundred men at his command, all trained and armed, and besides, he had eight Maxims and three machine guns, weapons the Boers had probably never seen or heard of in their lives, and whose devastating firepower the Boers could not even imagine. Besides, as Major Thompson had said himself, most of them were probably celebrating Nagmaal in one church square or another throughout the region, and it was only their kids who were riding his flanks.
Still, damn Wolff, anyway! Had the caches of food and the fresh horses been available at the places they were supposed to be available, none of these problems would have arisen, minor though they were. Jameson looked up, making up his mind.
“We go on. Now,” he said quietly.
“Good-o!” Luckner said, pleased. “I’ll have one of the men skin up a pole and tap into the wires. We’ll telegraph Mrs. Varley to expect five hundred hungry troopers for food at dawn!” He came to his feet, prepared to have the telegraph sent and to get the men on their feet and then on their horses, and equally prepared to handle any arguments about the orders he gave the men. Willoughby and White came to their feet more slowly, brushing the dirt from the seat of their uniform jodhpurs.
Captain Jameson looked at Major Thompson. “And what about you?”
“I’ll ride with you,” the major said bravely, “if you can furnish me with a fresh mount.”
“You’ll have to ask Dr. Wolff,” Jameson said expressionlessly. “If I could furnish anyone with a fresh mount, it would be me.” And he stood up.
They came upon the swampy ground just outside of Krugersdorp, just as the morning sun was breaking over the low ridge that separated them from the town. In silhouette they could see Boers strung out along the crest of the ridge, most probably those who had trailed them and who had somehow gotten ahead of them in the night through superior knowledge of the area. Their horses were no longer in sight, but the men themselves could be easily seen, standing almost at rest, their rifles in their hands, watching the column approach. Jameson raised his hand to bring his column to a halt. His advance scouts had already reported the Boers apparently finally seemed ready for a stand to prevent them from advancing any farther. Jameson smiled faintly at this presumption on the part of the enemy, and spoke over his shoulder.
“The Maxims and the machine guns,” he called out. “I want them to shell that ridge clear. The Boers have been asking for a battle ever since we crossed the border. Well, let’s give it to them!”
The eight two-man-operated Maxims and the three single-man-operated machine guns were quickly unloaded and set up; the troops assigned to them fell to their knees, their eyes blurred with sleeplessness, and aimed their weapons in the general direction of the ridge crest. Upon orders they commenced their barrage, the rapid stuttering of the guns making the horses shy, the gunners weaving the muzzles of the guns back and forth across the ridge. Bodies there seemed to be flung to the ground; a few minutes of the rapid fire and the defenders had all been scattered, some lying in deathlike attitudes, others tossed like mealsacks back behind the ridge. Jameson attempted to keep track of the effectiveness of the barrage through his field glasses, but the enemy had had the sun at his back, and the reflection of the low rays in Jameson’s glasses made any true assessment of the situation impossible. The captain waved for the deadly barrage to cease and called for his scouts. They rode up sleepily, saluted, and awaited their orders, biting back yawns, while their weary horses trembled under them.
“Let’s get up there and see how many of them are left,” Jameson said curtly.
“Sor!” said the lead scout, an Irishman and a sergeant, saluting, and wheeled his horse, followed by the others.
The scouts splashed through the swampy ground before the ridge and then rode their tired mounts slowly toward the top, taking precautions not to present a broad profile to be fired at, keeping their heads low behind the ears of their mounts. But to their surprise there was no attempt to attack them, and the reason for this soon became clear. Ahead of them, on the crest of the ridge, there appeared to be no sign of life. In the distance they could see a few men fleeing on horseback, but ahead of them the carnage seemed complete. There seemed to be several hundred of the bodies sprawled there, their rifles flung at arm’s length, their twisted corpses in all the grotesque forms and shapes of unexpected death. The sergeant motioned his men to remain where they were while he rode forward a bit, his mount stepping daintily among several of the most advanced bodies; then he turned and led his men somberly down the ridge, walking the horses slowly through the swampy ground.
“The few what escaped, sor,” the sergeant reported, “are runnin’ fer they lives. But the rest,” he said, still amazed at the accuracy of the barrage, which could only be accounted for by the stupidity of the Boers standing there to be cut down like bloody idiots, “all look deader’n hell, if you’ll pardon me, sor.”
“I’ll pardon you anything for a report like that, Sergeant,” Jameson said with satisfaction. “That may teach them to argue with Maxims and machine guns. Poor bloody buggers didn’t know what hit them.” He turned and waved his arms in signals, indicating he wanted the troopers to spread into two parallel lines, prepared to ride over the ridge in a charge. Luckner, at his side, frowned at the unexpected maneuver. Jameson noted the frown. “Those running away will be spread out,” he said, giving Luckner the benefit of his greater military experience and knowledge. “I don’t want any of them to escape. Also, there may be some up there who are merely wounded and they would be scattered. We haven’t lost a man yet, and I don’t expect to lose one in a minor skirmish such as this. Besides,” he added, smiling, “the men could use the experience of the maneuver and the charge.”
He turned in his saddle to watch his men wheel their horses into position and then turn them to form the double line, proud of the easy manner in which both men and animals obeyed his orders. He could see that the men nearest him were drooping in their saddles, and that more than one horse stumbled slightly as it came into formation. Still, the charge would build up the adrenalin in the men, and a good meal for both men and horses was just a few miles away, just beyond the ridge, and they’d be there in half an hour at the most. He looked at his men, stretched out in the long double line, waiting, and felt a touch of pride, a recognition of his contribution to history. He raised his arm, his saber high.
The bugle blew.
The arm came down, the saber flashing in the sun.
“Charge!”
One of the Boers who had been faking death on top of the ridge rolled over, keeping his head down, and pulled his rifle to him slowly, making sure the grass did not ripple. “Damn hoer’s horse near stepped on me, the one come up close,” he said in an undertone, complaining in Afrikaans to a companion, and brought his rifle into position, waiting for the orders to fire. “Could have hurt me!”
“Not if he stepped on your head,” the other replied with a grin, and also snaked his rifle to him, making sure no motion on his part could be seen from below. “Can you imagine! Not a drop of blood among the lot of us and the blind bastard goes off as if we were all dead. And the others just stand there looking lost.” He glanced around. “Did anyone get hit?”
“I doubt,” said the first, and watched the twin lines below splash across the swampy ground and start up the ridge, their horses toiling in almost total weariness, fighting for each step. The troopers could be seen in detail now as they came closer to the top of the ridge; they were urging their horses on with a combination of kind words and cruel rowels, but with little enthusiasm. Five hundred yards, four hundred yards, three hundred, two hundred. The Boers on top of the crest wondered at the delay; each of them could take down a fleeing wildbok at four hundred yards. One hundred and fifty yards, one hundred yards—
“Skiet!”
The shots rang out from the top of the ridge in almost perfect unison. “Some bloody charge, at a bloody walkin’ pace—” Trooper Parkinson had been saying sardonically to Trooper Watson, when a rifle ball took him through the forehead, flinging him from his horse, dead before he struck the ground. The charge faltered under the sudden, unexpected, withering fire. The troopers attempted to return the fire but there seemed to be nothing at which to aim, and the toll of the fire could be seen in the falling bodies and the terror of their inexperienced mounts. Horses and men twisted as the charge broke, the troopers wheeling their horses and trying to escape down the ridge and across the swampy ground to the safety of the other side, but there were Boers on both edges of the swamp, hidden in the tall reeds, having waited there for hours, patiently uncomplaining of the whining mosquitoes or the possibility of water moccasins, no move or sound on their part revealing their presence. Now their deadly fire into the mass of fleeing men and frightened horses turned the retreat into a complete rout. The horses, now come alive from their fatigue by the continuous sound of gunfire from all sides and further terrified by the high, piercing neighing, the shrieking of dying horses about them, bolted in terror back across the swamp with or without riders. Jameson, trying desperately with yells and arm-waving to bring some sort of order out of the chaos, now wished he had had the horses trained to gunfire during his long wait at Pitsani, rather than accepting whatever mounts could be obtained in the barren wastes of Bechuanaland and leaving it at that. The bugler, trying his best to bugle the calls that Jameson at his side kept telling him to bugle, changing his mind every few seconds, merely added to the confusion and the noise.
It was a complete disaster, and Jameson, staring about him, his mind in shocked confusion, knew it, especially when he saw a hand on his bridle and felt himself being led at a fast gallop back across the swamp to be released out of sight of the melee on the slopes and in the swamp. Luckner had pulled him from the calamity and now rode beside him in silence as they led the remains of their forces back along the trail. A mile or so from the scene of the fiasco they pulled up at a large expanse of open land that gave ample view in all directions so they could not be followed and attacked without warning, although there was no evidence of the Boers attempting to take advantage of the rout they had inflicted upon Jameson and his forces. Luckner set guards, put the surgeons and their helpers to work on the wounded who had escaped, put Lieutenant Willoughby to the task of determining their casualties, and then squatted down beside the silent and shaken Captain Jameson, and the equally silent but angry Lieutenant White. Major Thompson had not survived the battle. The troopers in the meantime had nearly fallen from their exhausted mounts and were lying on the ground, panting, their eyes closed in total collapse.
Luckner put away both the intriguing and intruding thought of Mrs. Varley’s Hotel and the meal they had missed, and tried to concentrate on the problems facing them. He looked at Jameson. “Well, Captain?”
Jameson merely stared back at him, still in shock from the unexpected rout of his men.
Lieutenant White broke into the silence, his voice bitter. “Our mistake was in not giving the men and the animals proper rest at our last camp,” he said, looking at Luckner accusingly. “Men can go without food for days, even without water, but they can’t fight without sleep—”
“Our mistake,” Luckner said, staring at White with no expression at all on his face, although he could feel the old fury rising in him and knew in his bones that one day he’d have to teach the lieutenant a lesson with his boots, “was in trusting the report of those lying scouts. Nothing more. They should be court-martialed and shot. Someone paid them to lead us into that ambush, and I guarantee I’ll find out who did!”
“You’re insane! They were trying to do their job without rest. They were at a point of exhaustion where they couldn’t properly report. They were blind for sleep,” White said angrily, “and with the sun in their eyes—”
“I agree with Luckner,” Jameson suddenly said, forcing himself to come out of the fog that seemed to have taken control of his brain, compelling himself to once more assume command. “Fatigue is no excuse for reporting lies. But what will happen to the scouts is a matter to be determined in the future after investigation. We don’t even know if they came out of the battle alive. At the moment our problem is in getting to Johannesburg, because it’s obvious we’re not going to get to Krugersdorp.” The mere act of speaking, of making decisions once again, seemed to help bring him from his hazy state, to bring back partial control of himself. “We’ll stay here until dusk, resting the men and the animals, and then bypass Krugersdorp in the darkness. We’re only about twenty miles from Jo’burg and we’ll just have to make it under forced conditions.” He looked at each man in turn. “Do either of you know the way around Krugersdorp and back on the road to Jo’burg?”
