"Take up the White Man's burden
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard."
"No news from the front yet!" That was always the answer to our daily
inquiries, and there was nothing to do but feed our anxious, hungry
hearts with the old supposition that no news is good news. After the
forces had once left Sigala there was no way of getting into telegraphic
communication with them and the last direct news we had from our men was
when they made a junction with the Salisbury and Victoria Columns,
becoming merged in them and thereafter proceeding on the march for
Buluwayo.
Afterwards there was a long silence. A silence full of foreboding and
fear for us, realising that our men were at last in the wild, unbroken,
little known country of the Matabele, where a savage and bloodthirsty
enemy lay in wait for them--an enemy that mustered twenty thousand
fighting men strongly armed with rifles and assegai, while our troops
all told mustered only six hundred and seventy (not including colonial
boys and friendly natives).
There was reason enough in the little township for pale faces and
haggard eyes, and they were plainly in evidence, but hardly ever without
the accompaniment of the old gay _nil desperandum_ smile which seems to
be a peculiar attribute of British people when they find themselves in
tight corners and unsmiling circumstances.
About the end of October two men with despatches brought in the first
news. There had been a big fight with the Matabele on the 25th October
near the Shangani River, when our people had been engaged by a number of
the most important of Lobengula's _impis_, including the Insukameni
regiment, the third best of the King's crack companies. This battle was
afterwards officially described as the Battle of Shangani, and the
Matabele losses were about five hundred whilst our forces had lost one
man, with six wounded. Two horses had been killed--a very serious
matter, for the columns were already short of mounts.
After the Battle of the Shangani our troops had resumed their march to
Buluwayo, going slowly, as they were subject to constant small attacks
burning kraals as they went, and collecting cattle left behind by the
fleeing Matabele.
After this we had no more news until the second week in November, when
suddenly one morning the wires were humming with the tidings that Dr
Jameson had occupied Buluwayo. The Union Jack strung to a great mimosa
tree floated out over the ruined and burning kraal of a dethroned
tyrant!
The news came to us from Palapye, the capital of Khama's country, away
down south. It had been brought there by Burnham, that brave and
intrepid American, whose name will live for ever in the annals of early
Rhodesia and in the history of all scouts. He and his mate Ingram (also
an American) had ridden with a Zulu boy who knew the road, one hundred
and twenty miles to Tati, hoping to find there a telegraph office from
which they could telegraph the news to Mr Rhodes. But at Tati they
found no wire--it had not yet reached that place. There was only a
heliograph station that because of the cloudy weather was of no use to
them. Burnham then, though wearied out by the terrible ride they had
already accomplished, decided to push on to Palapye, another ninety
miles, and there, on the morning of November 9th, he gave to the world
the news that civilisation had advanced another great stride, in the
subjugating of a savage and cruel nation; while to the map had been
added one more of those little pink stains that stand for Empire and
Progress.
Oh! how we stood around the telegraph office that day, and many days
after, and drank in details of the victory! In thrilling scraps it all
came in.
We heard of the Battle of the Imbembesi, which had taken place on the
first of November when the very flower of the Matabele army had come
forth in all their glory of native war-dress and waving ostrich plumes,
shaking the earth beneath their dancing feet, holding their
red-and-white ox-skin shields before them and making _jia_ at the white
men with their gleaming assegais. They had fought there and died in
hundreds at the very gates of the royal kraal; and the old King,
desperate at last at the tidings of defeat brought in by his scouts, had
fled, taking with him his wives and children and such of his warriors as
remained faithful to him in his adversity. But before he went he gave
orders for the burning and utter destruction of the kraal of Buluwayo,
that scene of savage splendours and innumerable cruelties now for ever
past.
A just fate had overtaken Lobengula, but even while we realised it there
seemed to us at that time something terribly pathetic in the thought of
the old monarch, swollen and tortured with gout and the madness of
defeat, full of fierce spleen against those whose friendship he had
himself estranged by treachery and false dealing, fleeing now before the
winds of adversity and despair. It seemed that some prophetic thought
must have lain in the mind of his mother when she named him
Lobengula--"_Driven by the wind_."
When our men at last arrived at the royal kraal, pitched high on the
brow of a great plateau commanding a view of the whole country, they
found that like Jericho of old its walls were down to the feet of the
invader, but for a time they could see nothing clearly for the smoke
that arose in black-and-grey spirals and suffused the landscape,
blotting out the sunlight, while a disgusting and indescribable odour of
burning refuse stung their throats and terribly assailed their nostrils.
Besides firing the mean dwellings of his tribe, Lobengula had caused
huts full of splendid ivory and furs and karosses to be given to the
flames, and grain enough to feed a nation had been ruthlessly destroyed.
While in the centre of a huge open space surrounded by rings a hundred
feet wide of smouldering huts, were the ruins of what had lately been
the King's palace.
This great space had been the place of the King's privacy and at the
same time his Throne-room and the arena of justice and state. There had
been times when its white dust lay shimmering in an almost terrible
peace, while the King sat before his door in the morning sunlight
watching his magnificent peacocks as they strutted and scratched,
preening their jewelled feathers and crying their sinister unmusical
cries. In those hours many eyes secretly watched the tyrant through
holes bored in the walls of their huts, but none except the peacocks
dared break the silence when the Lion of Matabeleland sat considering
his savage politics and arranging the affairs of his nation.
There were other times when the court-yard witnessed scenes of barbaric
glory and ferocity unparalleled since the time of Bloody Tchaka of
Zululand. It was there that the King would come forth in state to
receive the royal salute--"_Bayete_!"--from the brazen throats of his
_impis_ drawn up in countless splendid lines--lines of rippling muscular
bodies, black as polished ebony and as bare, save for the _moocha_ of
leopard skin and the bands and bangles of brass. There when the spirit
moved them to slay and they wished for permission to go forth and plunge
their assegais into the bosoms of the hapless Mashonas, his warriors
danced before Lobengula, making the ground tremble and thunder beneath
their leaping feet. There the great _indabas_ had taken place and the
bloody "smelling out" ceremonies of the witch-doctors. Many a time had
the wide level space been stained with hot gushing life-blood, and
strewn with dead men, while the old King, great in stature as in
cruelty, sat upon his three-legged stool of state, laughing in his thick
throat, his small keen eyes like knife-points in his grossly featured
face.
Now all lay in ruins. Everything was broken and devastated and wrecked
by the tremendous explosion of eighty thousand rounds of ammunition
which had been fired at the last moment as the King's commands.
On top of the heaps of _debris_, forlorn and overturned, was found the
silver elephant which had been given to Lobengula by the Tati Company to
whom he had granted concessions. He had greatly prized this silver
model, seeing in it a flattering reference to his own might and
greatness. Now it lay amidst the ruins of his glory, a symbol of power
broken and despotism thrown down.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our men had done splendidly. There had been deaths and casualties, but
they were deaths bravely met--facing fearful odds--and the casualties
were few, considering the enormous difference in numbers between the
conflicting forces.
Later in the month we got more news from men who had arrived in
Salisbury with despatches, having left Buluwayo some little time after
its occupation by our forces. They said that Dr Jameson was "sitting"
there, waiting for an answer from the King whom he had sent after and
told to come in. There had been some delay and difficulty in getting
boys to go with this message, as unless they were Matabele they stood a
very good chance of being killed before they could reach the presence of
the King. However, eventually three colonial boys had volunteered to
go, and the Doctor had given them a letter written in English, Dutch,
and Zulu, telling the King that the nation was beaten and that to avoid
further bloodshed he must come in. His personal safety was guaranteed,
and he was further told that after the return of the messengers two days
would be given him in which to return. The Doctor had also despatched
some native spies--Zambesi boys--to find out all they could concerning
the whereabouts and doings of the King. These returned a couple of days
later and reported that the Matabele were massed in large numbers about
thirty or forty miles to the north of Buluwayo. They were extended in
camps across the country with the idea of protecting the King, who lay
at a place called Intaba-gi-konga, a small hill surrounded by thick bush
about fifty miles away from Buluwayo. The spies had been in the camps
and talked to the enemy (pretending to be in search of some of their own
people who had left their kraals) and they reported the Matabele very
cowed and depressed by their recent reverses. The men of the Imbezu
regiment who had bragged to the King that they would walk through the
_laagers_ of the white men, killing the elder men and bringing back the
rest for slaves, had lost at the Imbembezi fight about five hundred out
of seven hundred men, and were so much demoralised by their beating that
the Zambesi boys had actually gone in amongst them and spoken to them
like equals, whereas in days not long past it meant death to an inferior
native who addressed himself to an Imbezu.
This news lifted a burden from our hearts, and we realised at last that
our vigil with anxiety was at an end. The war was over! Our men would
soon be home, all but those who meant to stay and occupy Matabeleland,
of whom it was said there would be many, especially amongst the mining
men. Rumours had already arrived that the country round Buluwayo showed
signs of gold-bearing reef.
It was certain at any rate that Lobengula must come in and surrender
himself before long. He might linger for a while and try to make
favourable terms, of course; or he might be persuaded by some of his
younger warriors who had not had enough fighting, to hold out a little
longer. But it was now known that the King was a very sick man, and for
that reason alone it seemed most unlikely he would wish to continue a
struggle that would keep him out for some months longer in a wild and
uncultivated part of the country without proper shelter for himself and
his queens and children. It is supposed by many people that natives can
live anywhere and in any state of wildness as long as they are in their
own country; but this is a mistake. The Matabele, for instance, had
left their kraals and their growing crops behind them to go into the
bush where there was nothing for them to eat except the cattle they had
brought with them, and the small amount of grain they had been able to
carry away. In the meantime the wet season was advancing rapidly, and
there would be no shelter for them from the heavy flooding rains that
fall in November, December, and early January. It surprised me to hear
that natives cannot stand exposure to the furious elements any more than
white people can. They sicken and die just as we should do.
Furthermore, they cannot live on a perpetual meat diet; they need meal,
and grain, and green mealies, and rice; and if they cannot get these
things they cannot live.
It was known too that small-pox was rife amongst the Matabele. This was
one of the reasons that our native allies from Bechuanaland--the
Bamangwatoos--had deserted us early in the campaign, and returned to
their kraals. A thousand of them under their Chief Khama had started
for Mashonaland to fight under Colonel Gould-Adams, who was bringing up
a flying column of Bechuanaland Border Police to reinforce our men; but
when they heard of small-pox, and further realised that the campaign was
likely to last some months, they calmly gave notice to quit, and
returning to their own country set about reaping their crops. Their
attitude was the attitude of Dr Abingdon. They had not lost any
Matabele, neither any small-pox; why should they seek for these things?
Fortunately, there proved to be no need for the services of such
valorous allies. The Southern Column was quite able to account for
itself without native assistance, and had already arrived within fifty
miles of Buluwayo, having met and ignominiously dispersed about eight
thousand Matebele under the command of Gambo, the son-in-law of the
King.
The country south of Buluwayo was now quite clear of the enemy and the
whole road to Tati and Tuli was reported to be crowded with
transport-waggons bringing up loads of things to Mashonaland, and also
hurrying with stores and provisions to the capital of the newly opened
country.
Odds and ends of private letters began to reach us from the front: some
were brought in by native carriers--Maholi and Mashona boys who, now
that the danger was all past were glad to return to the service of the
white men (full of soft words of explanation and apology for having left
so abruptly)--and some by despatch riders with official news. Mrs
Grant got a long letter from her husband and Mr Stair a few lines from
Gerry Deshon, and several other people received belated documents, which
were thumbed and passed under many more eyes than they were originally
intended for, within a few hours of their arrival. Mrs Marriott had a
letter from her husband which changed the face of life for her and
turned her into a laughing, weeping child. No one asked to see _her_
letter.
Every one was able to glean some scrap of information to apply like a
healing ointment to an aching wound, and every one seemed to have
something to weep or smile over, except me. Neither letter nor message
came for me! It is true that I gathered from others that Anthony
Kinsella was well and had done splendid work, and incidentally I heard
that he had despatched private letters to Fort George by carrier. But
that carrier never came. If there was a letter for me, then like many
another it never reached its destination. Often in the months that came
after, sodden native pouches containing white pulp which had once been
letters were found lying on the veldt--in one or two instances with a
skull near by to tell a little tragic, eloquent tale.
Every one wrote that they would be back very shortly--as soon as
Lobengula came in and gave himself up. He had sent a specious letter to
Dr Jameson to say that he was coming, and the Doctor was still waiting
for the promise to be fulfilled. But the days went by and the King of
the Matabele did not materialise. As a matter of fact, he was hastening
to put as great a distance as possible between himself and Buluwayo. He
was for the North. It seemed to him that the high fertile country
beyond the Zambesi would be a good place to get out of the white man's
range and found a new dynasty, and thither he was hurrying with such
speed as his fat and enormous body would permit. He was far too
unwieldy to walk even if he had not been nicked with gout; so his
warriors carried him, and at other times dragged him along in a
Bath-chair. When that broke down at last, and his oxen died from lack
of food and rest, he commanded his men to span themselves to the waggon
and pull him along, and they did so; whilst close upon the spoor of the
waggons came trooping crowds of women and children and boys driving
cattle; all making for the new land of despotism that was to be founded
beyond the waters of the Zambesi.
In the meantime a feeling of insecurity and impatience began once more
to prevail in the rest of the country. It was realised that no progress
of any consequence could be made, no real advancement furthered until
the question of the Matabele powers was settled for ever. Lobengula, if
he would not surrender, must be laid by the heels, and there were men
"sitting" in Buluwayo who were eager enough and able enough to do the
laying.
It was no use letting him settle and grow powerful on the other side of
the Zambesi, ready to swoop down and give more trouble some day. There
could be no security until every belligerent native had laid down his
arms and returned to peaceable occupation.
It was a great relief to the whole country when the news came that a
column had started out after the King. Then indeed we knew that the
beginning of the end had come, and that we might thereafter possess our
souls in peace and security.
_Laager_ was broken in Fort George, and we slept in real beds once more.
The coaches from "up" and "down" country began to pass through again,
and we got regular mails and were no longer cut off from the civilised
world. I was soon reminded of this fact by letters from Salisbury
urging me to take coach and rejoin my sister-in-law there. My brother
Dick was one of those who were remaining in Buluwayo to see things
finally "fixed up." However, it did not seem to me to be urgently
indicated that I should join Judy just then. Instead, I left my hotel
and at the invitation of Mrs Marriott took up my residence with her in
her little series of huts.
It was round about Christmas time and a sprightly air began to prevail
in the township. One day some waggons arrived with machinery for a
neighbouring mine and when they had off-loaded at the Mining Company's
stores in the town some one said:
"Why should not we borrow one of these nice waggons and go for a picnic
somewhere away from this old town in which we have lived too long and
wearily?"
And some one else said:
"Good idea! Why not, indeed?"
And before any one knew how or where it was done it had been definitely
decided that we should have a Christmas picnic in a lovely spot called
Green Streams ten miles away.
Personally I was not very keen on this plan, and I knew that a great
many others felt the same way about it. There seemed to be a certain
heartlessness in celebrating Christmas so pleasantly while our men were
still away at the front, even though we were assured that all was well
with them--that they were not fighting, but merely making a triumphal
march on the retreating enemy, in order to bring back the legal trophies
of war. However, so many people seemed eager for the picnic, and really
physically to need a change of air and scene from Fort George, and the
children were so wistful about it, that it seemed selfish to protest
against the plan. And I am sure that it was mainly for the children's
sake that many of us resisted the desire to remain at home, instead of
picnicking on the veldt.
Once the thing was settled, though, every one threw themselves with a
zest into preparations. Cooking went on at a great rate, and the whole
town smelt of belated plum-puddings, and hams bubbling in three-legged
pots. And outside every house were to be seen half-a-dozen Mashona hens
with their necks wrung. I may mention that there is about three
mouthfuls of flesh on each of these birds.
Every one was frightfully busy filling empty packing-cases with crockery
and pots and pans, and late into the night people were still carrying
things to be piled into the waggon. It was like the preparations of the
Israelites for their departure to the promised land.
The next day, at six o'clock of a blue-and-gold morning, we set out.
Some of the women-folk, and the smaller children, rode in the waggon,
but most of us cheerfully padded the hoof, glad of the opportunity to
stretch our limbs over the short, burnt grass, regardless of such
trifles as stick-grass and ticks.
The children begged to wear their scarlet uniforms, and they danced
along yelling and prancing, like a band of red Indians let loose.
We reached Green Streams at about nine o'clock and found it a lovely
open glade with clumps of trees scattered everywhere, and huge cliffy
rocks standing alone, and a slender little fringed river curling like a
silver caterpillar through the middle of the scene. Soon the lovely
smell of wood fires was on the air, and every climbable rock had a
scarlet spot decorating its summit.
"I think it was an excellent idea of yours, Miss Saurin, to let the
children wear their uniforms," said Mrs Burney. "We can't possibly
lose sight of them now, can we?"
"It was their own idea," I said. "They adore that get-up of theirs."
"Yes, and they adore you, too. I'd like to know who doesn't," she said
so unexpectedly that I was quite overwhelmed. Of course I was
frightfully pleased at such a remark coming from her so warmly and
spontaneously, and I really could not help believing that they did like
me a little better than in the beginning of _laager_; but of course it
was absurd to talk of any one adoring me. It was only necessary to
watch the faces of the Salisbury women when I was in their vicinity to
see how cordially I was detested by them at least. As soon as we
arrived they had ensconced themselves under the shadiest bunch of trees
(not too far from the commissariat department) and were ordering Monty
Skeffington-Smythe and another man about like dogs, to look for cushions
and rugs and make them comfortable in the shade. They still clung
together, but not from love, I think. I never saw three women more
_ennuie_ with each other. They were absolutely drooping with boredom,
and I believe the only active feeling any of them possessed was dislike
of me. It was really a wonder that they had found the energy to come to
the picnic, but the Fort George women laughingly and perhaps a little
maliciously suggested that their probable reason for coming was that
they thought it the easiest and simplest way of securing an excellent
Christmas dinner without any personal exertion. Adriana had for
sometime past been professing herself to be precariously ill. The
mysterious malady she was suffering from did not affect her appetite or
prevent her from looking extremely robust; and rumour unkindly put it
that she was in reality jibbing at last at having to do simply
everything for three well-grown, able-bodied women who were perfectly
capable of looking after themselves. However, she had recovered her
health and strength for that day at least, and was at the moment
assisting Monty Skeffington-Smythe and the Doctor to carry coffee and
_roaster-cookies_ to the languid party under the trees.
"What are you going to do, Miss Saurin?" Mrs Rookwood asked me in her
wistful way. Now that _laager_ was over she had grown very tragic about
the eyes again, and her mirthless laugh with its defiant note began to
be frequently heard. She always stayed as near me as possible, perhaps
because I made it my business to repay in kind everything in the shape
of a snub that came her way.
The Fort George women it is true were always kind to her, and forgot her
sins in the remembrance of all her kindness and humble helpfulness to
them and the children. The intimacy of _laager_ life had broken down
barriers that would otherwise never have been overcome. Moreover, the
objectionable Mr Geach had been so extremely obliging as to break his
neck somewhere in the Cape Colony, so that as soon as George came back
from the front all would be well with the Rookwoods. But the
Salisburyites showed by the expression of their noses that they
considered the air more than ever polluted when "the Geach person" was
anywhere near.
"I'm going to fix up Mrs Marriott under that tree with books and
cushions, and then I suppose we'd better help get the dinner ready."
"Well, let me help, won't you?" she begged.
"Of course."
Mrs Marriott had really become most alarmingly fragile of late. She
had grown amazingly young and pretty, it is true, but her clear skin
looked almost too transparent, and there were big dark shadows under her
eyes that threw them up and made them look perfectly lovely--but shadows
_are_ shadows, and the fact remains that however becoming, they are not
at all necessary to health. Secretly I was anxious about her; but no
one else seemed to have noticed any change except the wonderful one in
her spirits and looks. To-day, it might have been the consciousness
that she was looking extremely pretty in a white dress Mrs Rookwood had
made for her, but she was actually humming a little tune, and she
remonstrated laughingly when I insisted that she should rest out of the
heat and not think of coming to help get the dinner.
"You're just trying to make a molly-coddle of me," she said, "and
yourself so indispensable that I shan't be able to do without you ever
again. I know your little arts."
However, she was finally beguiled to do as I told her, and when she was
comfortably fixed up Mrs Rookwood and I waited on her with breakfast--a
cup of delicious coffee, and a hot buttered rusk.
Afterwards enormous preparations for dinner began to go forward. The
hour of three thirty in the afternoon having been fixed upon, such boys
as were available were _inspanned_ to the task of collecting fuel and
making big fires at a certain distance from the camp on account of the
smoke. Others were set to work to scoop out ant-heaps and turn them
into red-hot ovens for the reception of pastry and roast meats. These
impromptu Dutch ovens turn out wonderfully light bread and are splendid
for pastry.
Plenty of cold delicacies had been provided for the picnic, but the Port
George women had vowed that after so long a fast from nice meals every
one should have a real hot Christmas dinner. So the ovens were prepared
for rounds of beef, many chickens, mince pies, custards, and cakes. We
found that they had arranged and allotted all the tasks among
themselves, but they had included Mrs Rookwood amongst them, at which
she could not conceal her pride and gratitude. But me they told to go
away and play and incidentally to mind Mrs Marriott and keep an eye on
the children. So we romped with the children first, then roamed about
exploring the rocky kopjes, digging out fern roots for home planting,
gathering flowers and looking at the Bushmen drawings of which there
were several under the overhanging ledges of the biggest rock. Queer
looking things they were--the men drawn like skeletons with all their
ribs and bones showing, driving long, lean cattle that had the bodies of
cows and the heads of horses, or shooting wild buck with bows and
arrows. They say these drawings which are often seen in Mashonaland
have been there for centuries, preserved and kept fresh because they are
sheltered under the eaves of the rocks from sun and rain.