ON THE BANKS OF THE ITYOTYOSI.
It was bitterly cold in camp that night--one of the _noctes
ambrosianæ_ in Zululand, as Hammersley said laughingly; and on the
morning of the 1st June, when the thin ice stood in the buckets
inside the tents, the latter were struck, and the Second Division
began its march from the Blood River towards the Itelezi Hill.
'My darling little Finella--may God love you and bless you!' was the
morning prayer of Hammersley as he sprung on his horse, and the
squadron of Mounted Infantry went cantering forward; prior to which,
Florian, after fraternally sharing a ration biscuit with
Tattoo--while the animal whinnied and rubbed his velvet nose against
his cheek, as if thanking him therefor--kissed him quite as tenderly
as Finella ever did Fern; for a genuine trooper has a true affection
for his horse.
As the squadron rode on in advance of the column, Hammersley beckoned
Florian to his side, and, as they trotted on together, he asked him
many a kindly question about Dulcie Carlyon, of his past life and
future hopes and wishes, betraying a genuine interest which touched
Florian keenly.
In due time the Itelezi Hill, a long mass, the brown sides of which
were scored by rocky ravines and woody kloofs, the lurking-places of
many Zulus, who acted as spies along the border, was reached; and
now, on the bank of the Ityotyosi River, at a short distance from the
Natal frontier, a halt was made, and another temporary camp formed on
ground selected by the Prince Imperial of France, who had previously
examined it.
In advance of the whole force on the same morning, the Prince had
ridden on with instructions to examine the nature of the ground
through which the march would lie; and with an emotion of deep
interest, for which he could not account, Florian saw him ride off at
full speed, accompanied by Lieutenant Carey, of the 98th Regiment,
the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General, with six of Captain
Bettington's European Horse; and pushing on over the open and
pastoral country, the Prince and his party soon disappeared in the
vicinity of the Itelezi Hill, which he reached about ten a.m.
On the same day Sir Evelyn Wood--with orders to keep one day's march
in front of the Second Division--was reconnoitring in advance of his
flying column, when the halt was made by the Ityotyosi River, where
despatches from the rear overtook the staff, and a few minutes after,
the General sent his orderly for Florian, whom he found carefully
grooming and rubbing down Tattoo.
Though ignorant of having committed any _faux pas_, Florian's first
idea was that he had fallen into a scrape, and with some trepidation
of spirit and manner found himself before the General, who, wearing a
braided patrol-jacket and a white helmet girt by a puggaree, was
examining the country through a field-glass.
'Sergeant,' said he, holding forth his hand, 'I have to congratulate
you.'
'On what, sir?' asked Florian.
'Your appointment to a second-lieutenancy in your regiment, as the
reward of your disinterested bravery at Ginghilovo, and general
conduct on all occasions. It is duly notified in the _Gazette_, and
here is the letter of the Adjutant-General.'
Florian's breath was quite taken away by this intelligence. For a
few moments he could scarcely realise the truth of what the general,
with great kindness and interest of manner, had said to him. He felt
like one in a dream, from which he might awaken to disappointment;
and the white tents of the camp, the Ityotyosi that flowed beside
them, the woods and distant hills, seemed to be careering round him,
and it was only when after a little time he felt the firm grasp of
Hammersley's hand, and heard the warm and hearty congratulations from
him and other officers, that he felt himself now indeed to be one of
them.
The first to accord him a 'a salute as Second Lieutenant' (a rank
since then abolished) was Tom Tyrrell.
'Let me shake your hand for the last time, sir, as your comrade,'
said he.
'Not for the last time, I hope, Tom,' replied Florian, whose thoughts
were flashing home to Dulcie, and all she would feel and think and
say.
An officer--he was already an officer! As his father--or he whom he
had so long deemed his father--was before him. His foot was firmly
planted on the ladder now, and with the thought of Dulcie's joy his
own redoubled.
'Come to the mess tent,' said Hammersley. 'We must wet the
commission and drink the health of the Queen after tiffin.'
For the first time on that auspicious afternoon Florian found himself
among his equals, and the kindness with which they welcomed him to
their circle made his affectionate and appreciative heart swell.
Hammersley was President of the Mess Committee, and was a wonderful
strategist in the matter of 'providing grub,' as he said.
A few rough boards that went with the baggage formed the table, and
at 'tiffin' that day the _menu_ comprised vegetable soup, a sirloin
of beef, an _entrée_ or two, for a wonder, with plenty of
brandy-pawnee and 'square-face;' and what the repast lacked in
delicacy and splendour was amply made up by the general jollity and
good humour that pervaded the board, though, for all they knew,
another hour might find them face to face with the enemy.
Would either Hammersley or Florian be spared to write to the girl he
loved?
In the case of Florian it seemed somewhat impossible, especially now,
when he had--all unknown to himself--two secret and unscrupulous
enemies on his trail, and intent on his destruction.
Meanwhile a terrible tragedy, that was to form a part of the world's
history, was being acted not very far off from where that jocund
circle sat round the board presided over by Hammersley.
Sir Evelyn Wood, we have said, was reconnoitring in advance of his
column, which was then on the march from Munhla Hill towards the
Ityotyosi River. Scattered in extended order among the growing
undulations and watercourses, the Horse of Redvers Buller were
scouting.
Rain had fallen during the night, but the sky of the afternoon was
clear, bright, and without a cloud, from the far horizon to the
zenith.
Following, but at a distance, the line taken by the Prince Imperial
and his six reconnoitring troopers, General Wood, after issuing from
a dense coppice of thorn trees, interspersed with graceful date palms
and enormous feathery bamboo canes, came suddenly on a deep and
smooth tributary of the Ityotyosi, and after contriving to ford it at
a place where its banks were fringed by beautiful acacias and
drooping palms with fan-shaped leaves, to his astonishment some
mounted men appeared in his front, and all apparently fugitives.
With twelve of his troopers the fearless Buller, who had seen them
also, now came galloping up and rode on with Sir Evelyn, and in
rounding the base of a tall cliff they came suddenly upon Lieutenant
Carey, of the 98th Foot, and four troopers of Bettington's Corps, all
riding at a furious pace, their horses flecked with white foam, and
with sides bloody by the goring spurs.
They reined up pale and breathlessly, and in another minute or two
their terrible secret was told.
'Where is the Prince Imperial?' cried Sir Evelyn, as he rushed his
horse over some fallen trees in his haste to meet the fugitives.
But Carey, who seemed as dead beat as his horse, was at first
apparently incapable of replying.
'Speak, sir!' cried the General impetuously. 'What has happened?'
Still Carey seemed incapable of speech.
'Sir,' said one of the troopers, 'the Prince, I fear, is killed.'
The speaker was Private Le Toque, a Frenchman.
'Is that the case? Tell me instantly, sir!' resumed the General,
with growing excitement.
'I fear it is so,' faltered Carey, in a low voice.
'Then _what are you doing here, sir?_'
A veil must be drawn over the rest of the interview, which was of a
most painful character, wrote Major Ashe in his narrative of the
occurrence.
A soldier--Tom Tyrrell, encouraged by the knowledge that his late
comrade Florian was there--came rushing into the mess-tent, where
Florian, with those who were now his brother-officers, was seated in
happiness and jollity, bearing the terrible tidings, which spread
through the camp like wildfire, and all who had horses mounted and
rode forth to discover if they were true, and all spoke sternly and
reprehensively of the luckless Lieutenant Carey, who eventually was
tried by a court-martial, and died two years after in India, some
said of a broken heart.
As Florian was one of the searchers for the slain Prince, the story
of this latter's tragic death does not lie apart from ours.
It would seem, briefly, then, that the charger ridden by the Prince,
when he left Lord Chelmsford's camp, and which in the end chiefly led
to his death, was a clumsy and awkward animal, given to rearing and
shying. After crossing the Ityotyosi, then swollen by the recent
rains, the Prince and his party rode on through a district covered
with grass-like rush, kreupelboom, and dwarf acacias.
The Prince, who from the time of his landing had always sought out
any Frenchmen who might be among the local levies, and frequently
gave them sovereigns, was riding with Le Toque by his side; and the
latter, in the gaiety of his heart, and exhilarated by the beauty of
the morning, sang more than one French song as they rode onward, such
as--
'_Eh gai, gai, gai, mon officier!_'
And as they began to ascend a still nameless hill with a flat top,
the Prince sang loudly 'Les deux Grenadiers,' an old Bonapartist
ditty--Le Toque joining in the chorus of Beranger's chanson:--
'Vieux grenadiers suivons un vieux soldat,
Suivon un vieux soldat!
Suivon un vieux soldat!
Suivon un vieux soldat!'
On the summit of the koppie the party slackened their girths, while
the Prince made a sketch of the landscape. 'We may here digress to
say,' adds the _Cape Argus_, 'that the Prince's talent with pen and
pencil, combined with his remarkable proficiency in military
surveying (which so distinguished the first Napoleon), made his
contributions to our knowledge of the country to be traversed of
great value.'
Amid the heat and splendour of an African noon they now rode on to a
deserted kraal, consisting of five beehive-shaped huts, near a dry
donga, or old watercourse, where they unsaddled and knee-haltered
their horses to graze, while the Prince and his companions chatted
and smoked, all unaware that some forty armed Zulus were actually
stalking them like deer, crawling stealthily and softly on their
hands and knees through the long Tambookie grass and mealies, drawing
their rifles and assegais after them.
About four o'clock Corporal Grub, of Bettington's Horse, got a
glimpse of a Zulu, and warned the Prince of the circumstance.
'Saddle up at once!' said the latter; 'prepare to mount!'
The brief orders had scarcely left his lips when a volley from forty
rifles crashed through the long Tambookie grass and waving reeds,
which bent as if before a breeze, and then the ferocious lurkers
rushed with flashing and glistening teeth, bloodshot, rolling eyes,
and loud yells, upon the solitary party of eight men.
Terrified by the sudden tumult, all the horses swerved wildly round;
a trooper named Rogers was shot dead with his left foot in the
stirrup, and those who actually got into their saddles found it
impossible to control their horses, so terrific were the yells,
mingled with ragged shots, and they bore their riders across the open
karoo and towards the deep and dangerous donga.
Prince Napoleon's horse, a difficult one to mount at all times, and
sixteen hands high, resisted every attempt at remounting in its then
state of terror; thus one by one the party rode or were borne away,
while the unhappy Prince endeavoured to vault into his saddle.
'_Mon Prince, dépêchez-vous, si'l vous plait!_' cried his countryman
trooper, Le Toque, as he rushed past, lying across but not in his
saddle, and then the heir of France found himself alone--alone and
face to face with more than forty merciless and pitiless savages!
Who can tell what may have flashed through the brave lad's mind in
that moment of fierce excitement and supreme mental agony--what
thoughts of France and Imperial glory--the glorious past, the dim
future, and, more than all, no doubt, of the lonely mother, who was
so soon to weep for him at Chiselhurst--to weep the tears that no
condolence could quench!
When last seen by Le Toque, as the latter gave a backward and
despairing glance, he was grasping a stirrup-leather in vain attempts
to mount the maddened animal, which trod upon him, and broke away
when the strap parted; and then, for a moment, the young Napoleon
covered his face with his hands--deserted, abandoned to an awful
death, which no Christian eye was then to see.
All the obloquy of this tragedy was now heaped upon Lieutenant Carey,
a native of the south of England. It was dark night when he got to
head-quarters, and at that time nothing could be done to ascertain
the fate of the deserted one.
Scarcely a man slept in our camp by the Ityotyosi River, and after
'lights out' had been sounded by the bugles, the soldiers could talk
of nothing else but the poor Prince Imperial.
'The news of his death,' wrote an officer who was in the camp, 'fell
like a thunderbolt on all! At first it was regarded as one of those
reports that so often went round. Bit by bit, however, it assumed a
form. Even then people were incredulous, only half believing the
dreadful tale. The two questions first asked were--What will they
say at home? and, secondly, the poor Empress? All was wildest
excitement, and brave men absolutely broke down under the blow. To
them it looked a black and bitter disgrace. The chivalrous young
Prince, repaying the hospitality shown him by England with his
sword--entrusted to us by his widowed mother--to have been killed in
a mere paltry reconnaissance! to have fallen without all his escort
having been killed first! to lie there dead and alone! Many there
were who would have given up life to have been lying with him, so
that our British honour might have been kept sacred.'