The Matabele Campaign

The value of solitary scouting does not seem to be sufficiently realised among us nowadays. One hears but little of its employment since the Peninsula days, when Marbot gave the English officers unqualified praise for their clever and daring enterprise in this line.

It is not only for savage warfare that I venture to think it is so important, but equally for modern civilised tactics. A reconnaissance in force in these days of long–range weapons and machine–guns can have very little chance of success, and yet for the same reasons an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position, strength, and movements is more than ever necessary to the officer commanding a force. One well–trained, capable scout can see and report on an object just as well as fifty ordinary men of a patrol looking at the same thing. But he does so with this advantage, that he avoids attracting the attention of the enemy, and they do not alter their position or tactics on account of having been observed; and he can venture where a party would never be allowed to come, since the enemy, even if they see him, would hesitate to disturb their piquets, etc., by opening fire on a solitary individual, although they would have no such scruples were a reconnoitring party there instead.

It is difficult to find in history a battle in which the victory or defeat were not closely connected with good or deficient reconnaissance respectively. Good preliminary reconnaissance saves premature wearing out of men and horses through useless marches and counter–marches, and it simplifies the commander’s difficulties, and he knows exactly when, where, and how to dispose his force to obtain the best results.

But, as I have said above, such reconnaissance can often be carried out the most effectually by single reconnoitrers or scouts. And a peace training of such men is very important.

Without special training a man cannot have a thorough confidence in himself as a scout, and without an absolute confidence in himself, it is not of the slightest use for a man to think of going out to scout.

Development of the habits of noting details and of reasoning inductively constitute the elements of the required training. This can be carried out equally in the most civilised as in the wildest countries, – although for its complete perfecting a wild country is preferable. It is to a large extent the development of the science of woodcraft in a man – that is, the art of noticing smallest details, and of connecting their meaning, and thus gaining a knowledge of the ways and doings of your quarry; the education of your “eye–for–a–country”; and the habit of looking out on your own account. Once these have become, from continual practice, a second nature to a man, he has but to learn the more artificial details of what he is required to report, and the best method of doing so, to become a full–fledged scout.

We English have the talent of woodcraft and the spirit of adventure and independence already inborn in our blood to an extent to which no other nationality can lay claim, and therefore among our soldiers we ought to find the best material in the world for scouts. Were we to take this material and rightly train it in that art whose value has been denoted in the term “half the battle,” we ought to make up in useful men much of our deficiency in numbers.

Houdin, the conjurer, educated the prehensibility of his son’s mind by teaching him, in progressive lessons, to be able to recapitulate the contents of a shop window after a single look at it; there is the first stage of a scout’s training, viz. the habit of noticing details. The second, “inductive reasoning,” or the putting together of this and that detail so noticed, and deducing their correct meaning, is best illustrated in the Memoirs of “Sherlock Holmes.”

CHAPTER V

The Rebels Decline to Surrender

14th July to 18th July

Plumer’s Victory at Taba–si–ka–Mamba – How the M’limo Oracle is worked – Reorganisation of the Buluwayo Field Force – The Price of Beer – I am nicknamed “Impeesa” – The Proclamation of Clemency – The Local Settler’s View of it – The Rebel’s View of it – The Enemy hopeful – The General’s Plan of Campaign – Reconnaissance of the Central Matopos – Preparing for Operations in the Hills – Reconnaissance of Babyan’s Stronghold.

Meanwhile, during the first week in July, the three columns, which had been out clearing the country to the northward of Buluwayo, returned, having had a great amount of hard work with only a modicum of fighting. The rebels of that region had been effectually broken and dispersed in all direction – except at one spot, near Inyati, some fifty miles north–east from the town.

Colonel Plumer accordingly took a column out there, – nearly 800 strong, – and, after a clever and most successful night–march, surprised the enemy, at dawn, on 5th July, in a desperate–looking koppie stronghold called Taba–si–ka–Mamba. There was some tough fighting, and the newly arrived corps of “Cape Boys” (natives and half–castes from Cape Colony), much to everybody’s surprise, showed themselves particularly plucky in storming the koppies; but, as in the case of most natives, their élan is greatly a matter of what sort of leaders they have, and in this case there was every reason for them to go well. Major Robertson, their commandant, an old Royal Dragoon, is a wonderfully cool, keen, and fearless leader under fire.

In the end the place and its many caves was taken. Our loss amounted to 10 killed, 12 wounded. The enemy lost 150 killed, and we got some 600 prisoners, men, women, and children, 800 head of cattle, and a very large amount of goods which had been looted from stores and collected at this place as the property of the M’limo. It was a final smash to the enemy in the north, though M’qwati, the local priest of the M’limo, and M’tini, his induna, both escaped.

The M’limo’s cave was found, a most curious place, which I visited later on: a sort of anteroom in which suppliants had to wait while the priest went away to invoke the M’limo’s attention; then a narrow cleft by which they would walk deep into the rock, and which narrowed till it looked like a split just before the end of the cave. And through this crevice they made their requests and got their answer from the M’limo. In reality, another cave entered the hill from the opposite side and led up to this same crevice, and it was by this back entrance that the priest re–entered, and, sitting in the dark corner just behind the crevice, he was able to personate an invisible deity with full effect.

Of such caves there are three or four about the country, where the rebels just now get their orders as to their course of action.

Office work still very heavy – especially as we have broken up the original Buluwayo Volunteer Field Force as an unworkable and rather overpaid organisation (the troopers getting 10s. a day and their rations!), and are now busy organising it anew as a regularly enlisted armed police force at 5s. a day, under military law and discipline. Nicholson, 7th Hussars, is working this task, and is a first–rate man for it.

The office work, although exacting, is most interesting all the same; the only drawback is that there are not more than twenty–four hours in a day in which to get it done. I certainly do look forward, though, to the hour of luncheon; yes, it sounds greedy – but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward, not the lunch. That is scarcely pleasant either to look forward to or to look back on – consisting as it generally does of hashed leather which has probably got rinderpest, no vegetables, and liquid nourishment at prohibitive prices, —e. g. local beer at 2s. a glass. I live on bread, jam, and coffee, and that costs 5s. a meal; and prices are rising! Eggs are 32s. a dozen, and not guaranteed fresh at that!

Many of the strongholds to which I had at first learned the way with patrols, I have now visited again by myself at nights, in order to further locate the positions of their occupants. In this way I have actually got to know the country and the way through it better by night than by day, that is to say, by certain landmarks and leading stars whose respectively changed appearance or absence in daylight is apt to be misleading.

The enemy, of course, often see me, but are luckily very suspicious, and look upon me as a bait to some trap, and are therefore slow to come at me. They often shout to me; and yesterday my boy, who was with my horse, told me they were calling to each other that “Impeesa” was there —i. e. “the Wolf,” or, as he translated it, “the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”

14th July.– Last night I was riding alone across the veldt; I came suddenly upon a Matabele driving a horse and a mule towards the Matopos. He turned and fled, and I galloped after him to give him a fright, and then returned to the beasts, which I drove before me safely to camp. They were our own branded animals, which had been looted.

On getting back to Buluwayo at 9.30 p. m., after having been away for some days’ solitary scouting, varied by such patrols as that described in the last chapter, I found that reports had come in from the officer commanding Fig Tree Fort, saying that rebel impis were on the move there. Ferguson had at once been sent off by the General, with 50 men of the newly–formed police, and Laing’s column of about 150, which had lately come in from the Belingwe District. No sooner had the troops got there (on the 13th) than they found that the Matabele impis were merely pictures in the mind’s eye of the commandant, a Dutchman, who had been imbibing not wisely, but too well.

15th July.– “Well! of all the murkiest rot that ever I heard of, this is the murkiest!” These words, and others to the same effect, but, to use the speaker’s term, “murkier,” saluted my waking senses at an unseemly hour of this morning. For a moment I was inclined to reach for my gun, or, at all events, to let fly my feelings at the two loafers who stood yarning at my window–sill (we live on the ground floor in Buluwayo, because there is not a second to our house, nor, indeed, to any house in the place except “Williams’ Buildings,” and they are “buildings” being not yet built); but presently a lazy feeling of curiosity got the better of my momentary irritation, and I played the eavesdropper. It was merely a discussion of the situation between two late troopers of the Buluwayo Field Force, dealing more particularly with the “Proclamation to the Rebels,” which had been issued last night. Their review of it was remarkable, not only for the vigour, and – well – the originality of their language, but also because it covered exactly the ground over which all travelled again when they came to discuss it with me, or in my hearing, during the remainder of the day. One thing that struck them all was that this proclamation of clemency which was now to be published to the rebels was made in England and not in Rhodesia, and that “it was made by people who had no more conception of how things were in this part of the world than a boiled dumpling had of horse–racing”; at least, that was what they inferred from the tenor of its wording. I do not say that they had read and inwardly digested the exact literal meaning of the wording. I think, on the contrary, that they had only grasped a general idea of it all; the very heading of a “Proclamation of Clemency” at such a juncture having filled their thoughts with rage, and left them to read the rest with biassed minds.

Unfortunately for the proclamation, within a few hours of its publication there came from Mashonaland another of the horrid telegrams with which we are only too familiar now. After telling of three different murders of friendly natives by rebels on the previous day, it went on to say: “The wife and two daughters of Mobele, the native missionary, reached Salisbury from Marendellas this morning. They related how the missionary was killed by rebels while he was endeavouring to save the life of James White, who was lying wounded. White was also killed. Then three little children of the missionary were killed. And the women themselves were maltreated and left for dead. They did not know their way to Salisbury, so followed the telegraph line, and travelled by night only, suffering great privations.”

It is a far cry from Mashonaland to England, and distance lessens the sharpness of the sympathy, but to men on the spot – men with an especially strong, manly, and chivalrous spirit in them, as is the case in this land of pioneers – to them such cases as these appeal in a manner which cannot be realised in dear, drowsy, after–lunch Old England. A man here does not mind carrying his own life in his hand – he likes it, and takes an attack on himself as a good bit of sport; but touch a woman or a child, and he is in a blind fury in a moment – and then he is gently advised to be mild, and to offer clemency to the poor benighted heathen, who is his brother after all. M’, yes! And though woman is his first care, and can command his last drop of blood in her defence, woman is the first to assail him on his return, with venom–pointed pen, for his brutality!

Then my friends at the window went on to talk on the clause which permitted loyally–disposed natives to carry arms. “Loyal!” – as if any native could be loyal if it did not happen to suit his circumstances, and even then, why should he be allowed arms? “He was not likely to be at war with his brothers and cousins, and the absence of arms would be a good assurance of peace; whereas, after the late bitter experience, how would confidence ever be instilled into farmers to induce them to come and rebuild the blackened ruins of farmsteads whose owners had been murdered by the selfsame natives glowering yonder, assegais and gun in hand?”

My friends were deploring the fact that their would–be rulers far away are quite out of touch with the circumstances of the case. Writers in the press, they said, gaily condemn the burning down of kraals and consequent destruction of the grain stores, which are all the natives now depend upon for food. But burning down a kraal is more or less a formal act, which has a deal of meaning for the native comprehension. That the store of grain is lost thereby is quite a fallacy. The grain is buried here in pits beneath the kraal; grain will not burn in pits, it can only be destroyed by drowning.

I was glad when at last my early arguers moved on to get their morning coffee. Had I been so minded, I might have soothed their feelings by telling them the latest news we had from captured rebels; that they need not vex their souls over the wording or the terms of the proclamation so thoughtfully provided for our use by those at home, for whether put in that or any other form, there was not the slightest chance of its being seriously accepted by the rebels. Our informants came from four different ways, and agreed like one in showing that although North–Western Matabeleland has thoroughly been cleared, the lower and more trappy part, in the Matopos, as well as the North–Eastern parts, remain the home of mutiny, and there, at least, the impis will not think of giving in until the white man comes to fight them, and they promise boastfully that he shall suffer then.

The proclamation offering terms to the rebels by which they may surrender has gone forth to them by the best messengers that could be got, that is, by men who have been captured in the field, or who have come in offering to give themselves up, and also by native policemen, who, having been disarmed on suspicion of rebellious tendencies, have been since retained in open arrest. But so far the result has not been fully satisfactory, although it has done some good, and undoubtedly the thin end of the wedge towards peace has been inserted, but it will yet need some driving to get it home and finally to split the log of rebellion.

Many of the rebels would probably give in if the leaders would but let them. They are tired of war, and sick of being hustled about. But then these leaders have a strong power over them, and they are fighting with the halter round their necks, for they know their crimes are far too great to be condoned, and thus they try to carry on until the bitter end.

In the north, where they have suffered most hard blows, the impis are much broken up, and there it is that some of the people are surrendering of their own accord; they are coming in, in driblets and small bodies it is true, but still this is a beginning. There are, so far, no chiefs among them. Then, on the other hand, there exists a large proportion who still have the idea that they yet may beat the whites, and drive them from the land, and they are encouraged in maintaining this idea by spies’ reports, which tell them how the white men are daily going down–country to the Cape. Now that the road has been rendered safe and open by the operations in the Matopos, hired waggons, in addition to the bi–weekly coaches, are taking passengers in scores. The high cost of living at famine prices, and all business at a standstill, are the reasons for this exodus.

Then the M’limo, fearful for his own old skin, continues to issue most encouraging news and orders. He has revived with much success the story that disease is sweeping off the whites in Buluwayo, and promises that any warrior “doctored” by his charm is proof against the British bullets, which on his hide will turn to water. They only have to wait till all the whites are dead or fled, and then they will enjoy the good things of the town, and live in palaces of corrugated iron. All this they believe implicitly.

The rebels in the south have every reliance, and with reason, on the impregnability of their rock–strongholds; and their confidence is strengthened by their store of grain and cattle, which were being brought, long before the outbreak, into the hills by the M’limo’s orders. Of arms and ammunition they have plenty, although the puzzle is to say from whence they come. But there they are – Martinis, Lee–Metfords, Winchesters, besides the blunderbusses and elephant guns, which at the close quarters of this fighting make very deadly practice.

And then our so–called friendlies are known to be supplying them with information of our moves, as well as with such luxuries as Kaffir beer and cartridges.

It is only, even now, internal jealousies among the rebel chiefs that save the whites from being blotted out. The attempt to make Nyamanda king, if ever seriously intended, fell through abortively; each of the great chiefs desires that honour for himself, and thus the different impis do not amalgamate to crush us; but they let our puny force go round and punch them all in turn, in such a way as breaks them daily smaller.

The proclamation has gone forth to these men too; but answer comes there none, except at times when scouting parties meet, and then the rebels shout to us, from their look–out rocks, such words as these: “And so you want to end the war, do you? Yes, it will be ended soon, for none of you will live to keep it on.” And then they add a stream of highly–coloured threats of personal damage they will do to our nice white corpses. The tired, desponding tone of impending submission which one would hope to hear is altogether absent from their talk.

Then, even those who have surrendered have done it in a mere half–hearted way; that is to say, scarce one among them has produced his gun. Of course, the terms of their surrender include the giving up of their arms; but that is an extent to which they do not wish to yield. They cannot tell when they may want to break out again, and where would they be then without their guns? That is the way they reason with themselves. It suits them, for the time, to come and “konza” to make peace, to save their skins and sow their crops; but, all the same, they stow away their guns and ammunition in their holes among the rocks, and hand up, as their “arms,” their oldest assegais and shields. Thus, even when the present military force has broken up the impis in the field, and cleared their strongholds out, there will remain a tale of work for local police to do in carrying out disarmament. And it is then, and only then, that peace can settle firmly on the land.

The doses being given now may seem too bitter to our tender–hearted countrymen at home; but, “though bitter now, they’re better then.” It seems the only way to get these men to understand there is a greater power than their M’limo; and once the lesson has been unmistakably brought home to them, there is some hope that a time of peace en permanence may dawn for them. It is the end for which we all are striving here. And the present system of Sir Frederick Carrington is the most promising that could be devised to suit the circumstances. With his tiny force, he goes from point to point where impis are collected; in every case he strikes them hard, and promptly builds a fort there on the spot, and leaves a party in possession. The people round are told they may surrender. The forts are then to act as police posts in the future, to ensure the peace of every outside district, by standing as a sword of Damocles to all offenders, and a handy tower of refuge for friendlies who are oppressed.

We shall soon be in a position to judge the value of the rebels’ threats, for all is now prepared for our campaign in the Matopos; Laing’s column (200 strong) being encamped near the western end, Plumer’s (of 800) at “Usher’s No. 1,” near the central part. This latter camp I visited late at night on the 15th.

16th July.– Early this morning I picked up Pyke and Taylor (the Native Commissioner), and we rode on to inspect the country between the centre and west of the enemy’s position. At Jozan’s Kraal (friendly), about four miles north of the enemy, we stopped to talk, get news, and lunch. Lunch was got for us by our host, Jozan, as follows: – A live sheep was brought, and laid before us on some leafy twigs; its throat was then gently cut, the liver taken out, and fried in an iron bowl. Off this we made our meal, without any bread or other concomitant, excepting salt, which was held by a human salt–cellar for us. We took our salt by dipping each his hunk of meat into the nigger’s grimy palm.

We had a good look at the enemy’s position, and then we got thirty of Jozan’s men, armed with assegais and shields, to go with us across the neutral valley and examine the great kraal that lay opposite, in which watch–fires had been burning the night before. As we got near to it, we spread out our little army into a crescent shape, with two horns advanced, and we attacked the village in style; but the only enemy there were two men and one ox, and these cleared out in a great hurry before we got in. We burned the kraal, and then reconnoitred into the koppies beyond, where we found another kraal, also deserted, which we burned. Among other odds and ends of loot in this kraal, we found a high–jump standard, evidently stolen from the Athletic Sports Ground near Buluwayo.

But my release from town and office life now came. As I knew the Matopos country and the enemy’s whereabouts, I was sent to act as guide to Colonel Plumer, who was to have the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos, Vyvyan taking the office work off my hands.

17th July.– The General now took up his quarters in camp, to direct affairs against the Matopos. And the following day I took Pyke, Richardson (interpreter), and four native scouts into the Matopos, to get a view of Babyan’s stronghold: Babyan’s being the central and important impi of all, and in close communication with the westernmost impi at Inugu.

We approached the position through open, park–like country interspersed with piles of granite boulders a hundred feet in height; from these koppies we could hear the look–out men calling a warning cry to each other, and now and again we could see them, perched up on high, watching our movements. I was sorry then that we had brought natives with us, as, if the enemy were to come and have a try at us now, it would be easy enough for us three, had we been alone, to gallop away; but, having the boys on foot with us, we should now have to stick to them and help them away. So they hampered us somewhat. But still we didn’t do badly.

The valley in which the enemy lay was surrounded by rugged koppies; one of these was a great, dome–shaped mass of granite; we went for it, as being easy to climb, and less trappy and liable to ambush. Upon its crest stood the ruins of a farm belonging to Usher, and a path led up a little gully to the huts. Instead of taking this path, we were sufficiently wily to go round the hill for a bit; then, leaving our horses hidden in a clump of bushes, with two sharp–eyed boys in charge, we quickly scrambled on to the top of the koppie. Two or three of the enemy, who had been using this as a look–out place, bolted away before us. We had a very useful view from here of the lie of the ground, and of the position of the enemy, as shown by the smoke of his camp–fires. One felt tempted to stay there, and drink in every detail and map it down; but suddenly I saw the head and shoulders of a crouching figure dash across the opening between two rocks at the foot of our position, followed by another, and another – not fifty yards from us. They were racing to cut us off in the glen! They had seen us on the top, and guessed that our horses would naturally have been left on the pathway. But they were sold – as were also another party, whom we could see hastening out into the bush to cut us off on our homeward path. We gave them a few shots, and then scuttled down the far side of the rock, got our horses, sent our boys trotting along ahead of us, and we quietly got away through the bush by a totally different route to that by which we came.

CHAPTER VI

Campaign in the Matopos[2 - A more detailed account of the operations in the Matopos – together with a complete and interesting description of the organisation and work of the Matabeleland Relief Force – will be found in Lieut.–Colonel Plumer’s book, An Irregular Corps in Matabeleland.]

19th July to 24th July

A Night March – Attack on Babyan’s Stronghold – The Cape Boys in Action – No Stretchers for the Wounded – Amateur Doctoring – The Enemy’s Attempt to cut us off is spoiled – Result of the Action – I am sent to find Laing – Laing’s Action at Inugu – His Laager attacked – Fort Usher – Enemy on the Move – Sleeping in Camp.