The Matabele Campaign

Our rations were now at an end; all this clambering of koppies had not only pretty well tired us out, but had taken many hours to accomplish; so that evening found us still a long way from the camp near Wedza’s stronghold, and we bivouacked, as I began by saying, under the eye of Celangopi on the forest hillside, as tired as dogs.

We reckoned that a twelve–mile ride next morning would bring us to breakfast at camp. But it didn’t.

22nd October.– After making a very early start, on such tea and scraps of bread as we had been able to save, we arrived by eight o’clock, very tired and empty, at the foot of Wedza’s mountain. From this (eastern) side it looked not unlike Gibraltar in shape and size; and we really felt a bit pleased with ourselves at ever having had the presumption to go for this place, not to mention at having succeeded in taking it. As we passed round the foot of it, we rather pressed on the pace, in the hopes of breakfast, and in doing so we let three native boys, belonging to Jackson, the Native Commissioner, drop rather behind us. Some lurking rebels were quick to see this, and had a few shots at them (one boy afterwards said that a bullet passed between the top of his ear and his head!), and compelled the boys to drop their bundles, which included Jackson’s mess–kit, blankets, and, worst of all, a few rounds of ammunition. We were too far ahead to render assistance till too late.

At last we reached our camp–ground. There were the camp–fires cold and white, meat–tins, etc., in profusion, but no camp. A letter from Ridley hanging from a post informed us that in our absence a message had come from Colonel Paget, saying he wanted us to co–operate with him against Monogula near Gwelo, and that, therefore, he (Ridley), as next senior, had moved camp in that direction. We were just about played–out. But we hoped to find him at the next water, six miles on, and so we struggled on.

No; here was another note, saying he had moved a few miles farther on! We off–saddled and sat down, some only to think, others to express their thoughts in words. Then I found a little tea, and Jackson some Boer meal (coarse flour). Of the latter we made a really very good porridge, and had a few spoonsful round and a sip of tea, and on we went through good–looking rebel country, kraals on koppies, that I had always meant to reserve as our bonne bouche– and now they had already been warned by the sight of the waggons, and we were unable to go and tackle them through physical inability. Twelve more miles, many of them on foot, driving our horses over hot, shimmering plains – and at last, in the afternoon, we reached our waggons and our food.

That night, Ferguson (A.D.C.) rode into camp with a note from the General, telling me to co–operate with Paget (which we were already on our way to do), and also bringing a note from some natives he had passed on the way, which was to the effect that they were messengers from Wedza and Matzetetza, who, after the destruction of their strongholds, had now changed their tone, and were both anxious to surrender, together with their people. So all our toil had not been without effect, and the sixty–mile patrol was rewarded.

CHAPTER XVI

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!