The lessons learned in dealing with the native allies in the attack upon
the daring savages who had set the British forces at defiance were too
sharp to be neglected. There was, of course, something very attractive
and cheering about being backed up by some hundreds, or even thousands,
of well-armed, fierce-looking, stalwart natives. They were wonderfully
skilful in performing upon the tom-tom, or in producing thunder from the
war drum--sounds which could be kept up, suggesting dire threats, all
through the night, and were often accompanied by yells and shouts such
as would send dismay into any enemy's breast--while, when they were
partially drilled and supplied with musket or rifle and cartridge-box,
they were looked upon as being invincible, and even believed it
themselves. But the proof of the pudding is said to be in the eating,
and the flavour of the compote of native allies proved only to be vile.
Indeed, in the opinion of our officers many of the blacks seemed to be
only of use for the labour of road-making, preparing stations, and
accumulating stores up the country, business, all this, which would have
been much better carried on by the women, who had already proved
themselves invaluable for carrying loads.
Encounter after encounter had taken place with the Ashantis, in which
the native allies had done a great amount of shouting when they stood
their ground; but they had more often done this shouting while in full
retreat, for they seemed to consider it a duty to alarm everyone in the
rear. Hence it was decided to do away with our native army, which had
proved itself to be worse than useless; and the police were ordered to
arrest all the men belonging to the Cape Coast contingent as they came
sneaking in through the bush when the fights were at an end.
Their arms were taken away from them, and orders were given for them to
be marched up under a guard to where the road had been commenced towards
the interior for a more strenuous attack to be made on the enemy. This
was considered to be a move in the right direction, but all wished that
the entire force of the allies had come in to be disarmed, for as long
as they remained under arms they were a trouble and an anxiety. They
had to be fed; they expended ammunition largely; they had to be driven
towards the foe, and when they reached his neighbourhood they proved
themselves to be more likely to shoot their friends than their enemies.
In fact, where the British regiments were strengthened--such was the
term--by these native allies, the latter proved to be an immense anxiety
and cause of weakness to any troops they accompanied. Even now their
measure is not quite taken. They proved to be useless as scouts; they
would not go in front; and they were dangerous in the rear. They were
unreliable even as watch-dogs, for they would run from their own shadow,
and they would blaze away at nothing for half an hour if they heard a
night bird flutter in the bush.
But with all these disadvantages and objections to their presence, the
leaders of the expedition could not but feel the difficulty of taking
such a step as to disarm them _en masse_. There was the risk of
incurring the wrath of the whole population of Cape Coast, as these men,
if they could do injury in no other way, might refuse altogether to work
or carry loads. There was also the fact that the British had no force
which could compel a thousand men to go out and labour on the road.
They might have been taken up, of course, under an escort, but no
contingent which the little British army could spare could prevent these
allies from taking to the bush the first day they went out, and so
finding their way down again.
Finding that the men would not come forward to carry loads after the
disarmament, it occurred to one of our officers to appeal to the women,
as they had proved to be so much better than the men; and this proved to
have excellent results, two of the wives of the chiefs going round and
haranguing their sisters in very able speeches. They called upon the
women to come forward and help the white men by carrying loads up the
country. The white men, they said, had come there to protect them from
the Ashantis, and the people of Cape Coast ought to help in every way
they could. The men, they said, had not done well. They had refused to
fight; they had disgraced themselves. Let the women come forward, then,
and do their best, and let every one of them go and offer to take a load
up the country.
These speeches produced a good deal of talk and excitement among the
women, who came to a general agreement that they ought to do as they
were asked. Whether they would come forward in any numbers remained to
be seen, for, as related by the American humourist, each woman was ready
and willing that all her female relations should come forward as
carriers, but each was disposed to view her own as an exceptional case.
However, after much talk, the assistance of the women did prove
valuable, and later, when the Control was much troubled about getting
the loads up into the interior for the use of the troops, a brilliant
idea occurred to one of the officers of the department. This was, that
the services of the children of the place could be utilised, and that by
paying half the usual price for the carriage of half the usual load,
they might get the troublesome little barrels of provisions taken up the
country. The idea was carried out with immense success, for no sooner
was it known that boys and girls could get half wages for carrying up
light loads, than there was a perfect rush of the juvenile population to
the store where the barrels were served out.
Three hundred were sent off the first morning, nearly four hundred the
second, and a large number of applicants were told that they must come
next day. The glee of the youngsters on being employed was worth
watching. They were all accustomed to carry weights, such as great jars
of water and baskets of yams, far heavier than those which they had now
to take up country, and the fun of the expedition and the satisfaction
of earning money proved delightful, while as four hundred boys and girls
carried up ten thousand pounds of rice, this addition to the army of
carriers was no small help.
The march to Coomassie proved to be a time for carrying out invention.
Wants had to be made up for, and in accordance with the proverb that
necessity is the mother of invention, our officers appealed pretty
largely to that mother.
For instance, during a long halt before making a serious advance, one of
the most amusing sights in the town was provided by Captain Rait, of the
Royal Artillery. He had a certain number of guns to get to the front,
and he very soon discovered that, for purposes of hauling a field-piece
through a dense tropical forest, the native black was worse than
useless. This discovery, too, was made at a time when there were no
Jacks available from the men-of-war to harness themselves on to the
limber and run the light pieces up to the front in sailors' cheery
fashion.
But Captain Rait made his plans, knowing as he did that in camp there
were a number of young bullocks which had been sent down from Sierra
Leone to the contractor who supplied the meat. "Why," said the gallant
officer, "should not these young bullocks be broken in to draw my guns?"
Why, indeed? But here was where the amusing side--amusing to the forces
who looked on--came in, for as soon as the attempt was made to yoke or
harness the oxen, they began to object.
The heavy dull oxen have never been known to display much understanding,
but had they known that the acquirement of the hateful accomplishment in
which they were being instructed was saving them from immediate
slaughter, they might perchance have become more tractable. The French
have a proverb that it is necessary to suffer so as to become beautiful.
The oxen were not required to become beautiful, only useful, and, says
one of our writers, the useful and the beautiful are one. At any rate,
they were called upon to suffer but slightly.
The animals were small, but the weight behind them was not very great--
an old-fashioned howitzer weighing, with its cannon and limber, about
two hundredweight. The artillery officer acted as driver, and the Hausa
gunners ran alongside, leaving the oxen alone when they progressed
slowly and steadily, and, when not so disposed, giving them a thrust
here and a push there so as to keep the sluggish brutes straight, while
others urged the guns along whenever the beasts did not submit readily
to the yoke.
So every afternoon for some days the artillery captain drove these
peculiar war chariots about the place to the no slight risk of his neck,
for the roads were ill-made and intersected by drains, some of which
were two feet deep. But the gallant officer faced all this, to the
delight of the lookers-on, and he was quite happy and contented, for no
accident beyond the occasional breaking of a pole took place. Finally,
as a reward for his perseverance Captain Rait had the satisfaction of
taking his guns up to the front drawn by these sturdy bullocks, which,
though not entirely broken in, were yet sufficiently so to draw their
loads in very fair order.
At this time bullocks were being driven regularly up to the front, so as
to give the white troops a meal of fresh meat twice a week, and the
sailors and marines, who were accustomed to the salt junk served on
board, got on very well with an occasional change. "But," says Henty,
"for white men not so used to salt meat, it would be difficult to
imagine a more objectionable food for a tropical climate," and, he
continues, once more well launched upon the Commissariat Department,
"the preserved meat, which was issued much more frequently than the
salt, was no doubt healthier, but men grew very sick of it. Australian
meat at the best of times is not an appetising food, but once or twice a
week one can eat it without any great effort. Four or five times a
week, however, in a climate where the appetite requires a little
humouring, it is really a trial; so that the discovery that bullocks
could at any rate live for some time up the country, and that they were
able to pick up a subsistence for themselves in the old clearings, was
an immense benefit for us all."
Cattle were brought from Sierra Leone, from the Canaries, from Madeira,
and even from Lisbon, and in this way an abundant supply was obtained
for the use of the white troops. "Had they," says Henty, "been obliged
to subsist solely upon salt and Australian meat during the march up and
back again, I believe that the mortality would have been vastly greater
than it really was."
After one of the encounters with the Ashantis, rumour began to reach the
British from prisoners and escaped slaves that the enemy had lost a
great number of men, and that immediately the action was over they had
begun to retreat. But upon the day after the fight the partly-conquered
black army was met by reinforcements seven thousand strong, bringing
orders from the king that they were not to retreat, but to attack the
English and drive them back. This the retreating army refused to do,
declaring that they had done all that was possible and that they could
do no more. The new-comers, struck by their wretched appearance, and by
their tales of misery and distress, which they now heard for the first
time, refused to advance alone, and the whole force fell back together.
Several slaves now made their escape, and brought the news that the
Ashanti army was crossing the river in canoes and on rafts. But such
intelligence could not be relied upon, and Sir Garnet Wolseley, after
much enquiry, finding it impossible to obtain trustworthy information,
called for volunteers to go on ahead and discover whether the Ashantis
had really got across. His troops had plenty of pluck, and two men
belonging to one of the West India regiments at once undertook the task,
which meant an advance alone some twenty-five miles to the river Prah.
They found how severe had been the enemy's defeat, for all along the
whole route of the retreat men were lying dead, while on reaching the
banks of the stream it was to find that the survivors of the beaten army
and the reinforcements had all crossed.
Elated by their success, the two scouts stopped on the river bank to
write their names on a piece of paper and fasten it on a tree to prove
that they had been there. This done, in the coolest manner possible
they fired their rifles across the stream in the direction of the enemy,
as if in contempt for their prowess, and then in the most matter-of-fact
way shouldered their pieces and marched back towards their general's
camp to bear their news.
"This feat," Henty writes, "appears to me one of the most courageous, if
not the most courageous, which was performed during the whole campaign.
Nothing could have been more trying to the nerves than that long march
through the lonely forest, with the knowledge that at any moment some
body of Ashantis who had lingered behind the rest might spring upon
them, and that, if not killed at once, they were doomed to a lingering
death by torture at Coomassie."