PUTTING OUT FIRE
A Brevet-Colonelcy was conferred upon Baden-Powell for his work on the
Gold Coast,--he was then eight-and-thirty,--and in the same year he
was back at regimental work in Ireland. Hardworking as ever, and keen
on making his men practical soldiers, B.-P. was settling down to what
is called the dull part of soldiering when the gods, in the shape of
the heads of the War Office, again interfered with the even tenor of
his way. A telegram from Sir Frederick Carrington arrived at Belfast
towards the end of April telling our hero that there was to be
fighting in Matabeleland, and that there would be room for him on the
staff. B.-P. was attending that day the funeral of a man in his
squadron who had been killed by a fall from his horse, and after the
service he rushed back to barracks, changed his kit, arranged about
selling his horses, dogs, and furniture, and just when the English
world sits down to its most excellent meal of the day, that oasis of
the afternoon desert, he was in a train rushing as fast as an Irish
train can rush towards the steamer that sailed for England.
At twelve o'clock next day B.-P. was saying good-bye to Sir Frederick
Carrington, who sailed before him, and that done he spent a few
miserable days in constant dread that he would be bowled over by a
hansom, or catch scarlet fever, and thus be prevented from sharing in
the hardships and glory of a campaign. But nothing contrary happened
to him, and after affectionate farewells to his family he embarked for
Cape Town on board the _Tantallon Castle_ on 2nd May. One of his first
labours was to begin an illustrated diary for his mother's
delectation, a diary that was afterwards published by Messrs. Methuen
in book form under the title of "The Matabele Campaign--1896." The
keeping of this diary had its good uses for B.-P.; in what manner he
explains in the preface, addressed to his mother,--"Firstly, because
the pleasures of new impressions are doubled if they are shared with
some appreciative friend (and you are always more than appreciative).
Secondly, because it has served as a kind of short talk with you every
day." That is the way in which British soldiers go forth to war.
The voyage was uneventful. Drill in pyjamas every morning prevented
B.-P. from putting on flesh, and that drill, especially "Knees Up!"
seems to have been of a pretty severe kind, for it draws from
Baden-Powell the exclamation, "I'd like to kill him who invented
it--but it does us all a power of good." That is the saying of the old
soldier. In the barrack-room it is considered the right thing to
grumble, or "grouse" as it is called, while one is working hardest.
Thus the man with a jack-boot on his left arm and a polishing brush in
his right hand--going like lightning,--the sweat running down his red
face, is the man who swears he ain't goin' to bother about his
blooming boots any more, dashed if he is; and after the brushing
proceeds to "bone" them violently. The first part of B.-P.'s
exclamation reminds me of a friend who says that ever since he arrived
at years of discretion he has been searching for the man who invented
work on purpose to murder him. He is, of course, the hardest of hard
workers.
There were pleasures as well as drill on board: athletic sports,
tableaux, concerts, and a grand fancy dress ball. At this ball a lady
with a Roman nose appeared as Britannia, but as the peak of the helmet
threatened to bore a hole through the bridge of her nose she was
obliged to wear her war-hat (as the Hussar calls his busby) the wrong
way round. It was probably B.-P. himself who said to the good lady of
her helmet, "That is not the rule, Britannia."
On the 19th May B.-P. looked from his port and saw "the long, flat top
of grand old Table Mountain" looming darkly against the glittering
stars, its base twinkling with electric lights that glinted on the
water. That day was of course a busy one for B.-P. as Chief of the
Staff, and the first news received by the Man of Mafeking (how odd it
seems now!) was that Sir Frederick Carrington had gone up to Mafeking,
and that he was to follow. In three days Baden-Powell was in Mafeking,
the guest of Mr. Julius Weil, who gave an anxious England as much
important news of the gallant little Mafeking garrison during the Boer
war as the universal Reuter himself. Odd, too, it seems that while in
Mafeking in 1896 B.-P. should write in his diary that "Plumer's force,
specially raised here in the South, had got within touch of Buluwayo."
Names how much more familiar in 1900!
Buluwayo was the town selected by the Matabele for their first blow,
and accordingly with Sir Frederick Carrington and two other officers
B.-P. set out from Mafeking on the 23rd May in a ramshackle coach,
drawn by ten mules, on a drive of ten days and nights to Buluwayo. On
this journey the officers encountered the celebrated King Khama, and
it interested B.-P. to find that Khama knew him as the brother of Sir
George Baden-Powell, and that he inquired after Sir George's little
girl, just as a lady in the Park asks if one's baby has got over the
measles. This (if we leave out a dinner at a wayside "hotel," where
the waiter smoked as he served our officers) was the one picturesque
incident of that jolting, clattering drive of nearly 560 miles, and,
therefore, while our hero is groaning in the coach or travelling
afield after partridges and guinea-fowl for dinner, we will take leave
to look hastily for the reason of his presence in South Africa.
Matabeleland, let us say at the beginning, is included in Rhodesia, a
country 750,000 miles in extent, or, so that the size may jump to the
eye, let us say as big as France, Italy, and Spain lumped together.
This vast country was under the administration of the British
Government, but the Matabele, who had been but partially beaten in the
taking of their country in 1893, were only waiting their opportunity
to throw off the white man's yoke. The opportunity came when the
deplorable Jameson raid emptied the country of troops, and left our
brave hard-working colonists at the mercy of these savages. But there
were other causes contributory to the rebellion. Rinderpest was
slaying the cattle of the Matabele by thousands, and the white man's
order that, to prevent the scourge from spreading, healthy beasts as
well as diseased should be killed was, not unnaturally, quite
unintelligible to the Matabele. The rumour spread that the hated white
man was killing the cattle in order that the tribes should perish of
starvation. The fact, too, that raiding weaker tribes for food was
punished by the British further aggravated this "offence." The priests
encouraged the spirit of rebellion, and the oracle-deity, the M'limo,
promised through the priests that if the Matabele would make war upon
the white man his bullets in their flight should be changed to water,
and his cannon shells become eggs. Horrible murders followed upon this
encouragement, too horrible, indeed, to repeat; but a general idea of
the blood-lust which now possessed the Matabele may be gathered from
the fact of over a hundred and fifty English people (scattered, of
course, in outlying districts) being killed within a week of the
M'limo's call to battle. Only a swift blow, then, could prevent the
loss of civilisation to South Africa for many years; only a terrible
lesson could teach the Matabele that the white man was his lord and
master.
Buluwayo, prior to the time of Sir Frederick Carrington's arrival,
contained about seven hundred women and children and some eight
hundred men. The women and children were accommodated in a laager of
waggons built up with sacks full of earth, and further protected from
assault by a twenty or thirty yards' entanglement of barbed wire with
a sprinkling of broken bottles on the ground. The eight hundred men
were organised in troops, and were armed and horsed in an incredibly
short space of time.
Outside the town, on the north, south, and east, lay more than seven
thousand Matabele, two thousand of whom were armed with Martini-Henry
rifles, while the others possessed Lee-Metfords, elephant guns, Tower
muskets, and blunderbusses, besides their own native assegais,
knobkerries, and battle-axes. This formidable force was further
strengthened by the desertion of a hundred Native Police, who took
with them to the enemy their Winchester repeaters. Thus it will be
seen that all the odds were in favour of the Matabele, but it is only
when the odds are overwhelming against him that the Englishman feels
he must buck up, and Buluwayo was fortunate enough to possess men of
the true breed. Among these let us make special mention of the Hon.
Maurice Gifford, who lost an arm in a gallant dash upon the
besiegers[1]--a man "for whom rough miners and impetuous cowboys work
like well-broken hounds"; Mr. F.C. Selous, hunter and explorer;
Colonel Napier, and Captain MacFarlane. These men gave the enemy no
rest, and by repeated attacks at last rid the town of any immediate
danger of being rushed by the blacks.
Baden-Powell's work when he arrived was almost entirely confined to
the office; and working at a desk from early morning to late at night,
with no prospect of an early closing movement, began to tell upon his
spirits. He became convinced that "our force is far too small
adequately to cope with so numerous and fairly well-armed an enemy,
with well-nigh impregnable strongholds to fall back on.... Our force,
bold as it is, is far too small, and yet we cannot increase it by a
man, for the simple reason that if we did we could not find the
wherewithal to feed it." If this sort of thing had gone on much longer
B.-P. might have learned to look glum for an entire five minutes; but
one night at ten o'clock, when he and Sir Frederick Carrington were
putting up the shutters of office, into the town rode Burnham, the
famous American scout, with news of a large impi of the enemy about
three miles outside Buluwayo. This necessitated action, and B.-P. was
himself again. With a police-trooper as a guide he rode out to find
for himself how matters stood, and, after a hard and refreshing ride,
in the early dawn he was able to see the enemy. There they were on the
opposite bank of the Umgusa river, their fires crackling merrily, and
they themselves apparently as happy as bean-feasters in Epping Forest.
Not long after he had caught sight of these fires and the Matabele
going backwards and forwards from the water, Baden-Powell was at the
head of two hundred and fifty men riding towards the Umgusa. Under the
impression, conveyed to them by their sorry old humbug of an oracle,
that the waters of the Umgusa would open its jaws and swallow up the
wicked white man, the Matebele allowed Baden-Powell to get his force
across the stream without firing a shot; but when they found that not
only did the waters fail to overwhelm their enemies, but that these
same enemies were riding hard towards them, the Matabele took to their
heels in order to find cover in some thicker bush. Then the air began
to scream and whistle. Bullets flew by the ears of the charging
English with a _phit, phit!_ and, when they ricocheted off the ground,
with a _wh-e-e-e-w!_ Up and down bobbed the black heads in the long
rank grass, and _bang, bang, bang_ went the guns. Some of
Baden-Powell's force wanted to dismount and return the fire, but
B.-P., without a sword among his men, sang out, "Make a cavalry fight
of it. Forward! Gallop!" Then, as the horses raced snorting forward,
and the English gave a shout of battle, the Matabele, 1200 against
250, poured an irregular volley into their enemies. The next minute
the horses were in among them, flashing by with the lather on their
necks, while their riders' revolvers barked angrily in every quarter
of the field. The Matabele ran. As hard as they could lick, they
bolted like rabbits to their holes, but faster behind them came the
avenging English with the velvet glove flung aside and the iron hand
visible to their terror-stricken eyes. In the general rout, the mere
act of punishment, there were many instances of coolness and bravery.
One man got detached from the rest, and suddenly found himself
confronted by eight of the enemy. In an instant his horse was shot
under him, but almost in the same instant he was standing in front of
the eight with his rifle to his shoulder. Before they could close on
him with their knobkerries and assegais, or before they could shoot
him down, he had used his magazine fire with such deadly effect that
four of his enemy were dead and the other four were sprinting for dear
life. Baden-Powell had two pretty adventures in this engagement.
Having emptied his Colt's repeater, he threw it carefully under a
peculiar tree, so that he might find it when business was done; then
he went to work with his revolver. As he rode forward he came upon an
open stretch of ground, and the first object that struck his attention
was a well-knit Kaffir on one knee covering his body with a
Martini-Henry. The distance was about eighty yards, and Baden-Powell,
telling the story, says that he felt so indignant at the fellow's
rudeness that he rode at him as hard as he could gallop, calling him
every name under the sun. But the Kaffir was not to be moved even by
the best-bred abuse, and he remained kneeling with the rifle pointed
at B.-P., until that horseman, with locked jaws and gleaming eyes
(those who know him will understand), was only ten yards off. Then he
fired, and B.-P. says he felt quite relieved "when I realised he had
clean missed me." That nigger was shot immediately afterwards by one
of Baden-Powell's men, who was riding to his help from behind.
The other close shave will make the nervous turn cold to think of it.
B.-P. had ridden to the help of two men kept at bay by a nigger under
a tree, and when the nigger had been killed, he was standing for a
moment under the tree, when something moving above him made him look
up. It was a gun-barrel taking aim at him. The man behind the gun,
standing on a branch, was so jammed against the trunk of the tree as
to look part of it, and while B.-P. was making a note of this fact for
his next lecture on scouting, _bang_ went the gun, and the ground in
front of his toes was as if a small earthquake had struck it. That
nigger's knobkerrie and photograph are now in the Baden-Powell
museum--a museum which began with butterflies and birds' eggs, and now
includes mementos of nearly every tribe and animal on the face of the
earth.
After the fight Baden-Powell got back to Buluwayo in time for late
lunch, and--"made up for lost time in the office." From now it was a
case of office for many weary weeks, and Baden-Powell could only at
rare intervals steal away for exercise, which he took in the form of
hard scouting, sometimes by himself, sometimes with Burnham--"a most
delightful companion." His rides with the famous American gave him
great pleasure, and each man, both born scouts, learned something from
the other. While he was enjoying these expeditions as relaxation from
the cramping work of office, he was at the same time picking up
valuable information concerning the enemy. During this grind at the
office B.-P. used to long for the lunch hour; "it sounds greedy," he
says, "but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward,
_not_ the lunch." On one occasion his work as Chief of the Staff was
so severe that he was unable to leave the office for four days. He was
feeling "over-boiled," and got rid of this stuffiness of mind in his
own characteristic way. After dinner on the fourth day he saddled up
and rode off to the Matopos, spent the night there, and was back in
the office by 10.30 on the following day, "all the better for a night
out."
All this time the office work increased, and the anxiety of the
General and his staff was doubled by reports of rebellion in
Mashonaland. The fire of lawlessness was spreading its evil flames in
all directions, till reports of murder and outrage covered an area of
one hundred thousand square miles, and about 2000 whites found arrayed
against them an army of some 20,000 maddened savages.
Fortunately for B.-P. he had in Sir Frederick Carrington a chief who
never wastes a man. Excellent as Baden-Powell was in the office (and
Tim Linkinwater would not have feared, I believe, to hand the precious
Cherryble ledgers over to his keeping) he could render much more
valuable service in the field. In the middle of July the reward came
for all his independent scouting; he was chosen by Sir Frederick
Carrington, as a man who knew the Matopos country and the whereabouts
of the enemy, to act as guide to Colonel Plumer--the officer chosen
for the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos. With joy
B.-P. flung down the pen and took up the sword.
His first move was towards Babyan's stronghold, Babyan being one of
the great Matabele chiefs--a chief great in the glorious days of
Lobengula--and who now occupied the central and important impi in the
Matopos. This work was well done, the enemy's exact whereabouts were
ascertained, and the scouting ended in a glorious gallop back to camp
after emptying a few guns into a party of savages attempting to cut
off Baden-Powell's party. After this came battle.
In the moonlight of the 19th July the little force, nearly a thousand
strong, moved out into the Matopos, Baden-Powell going on alone as
guide. He went alone because he feared to have his attention
distracted by a companion, thereby losing his bearings. There was
something of a weird and delightful feeling, he says, in mouching
along alone, with a dark, silent square of men and horses looming
behind one. So they marched forward, the one incident, and that a sad
one, being the killing with an assegai of a dog who had followed the
force, and had endangered the success of its movement by barking at a
startled buck. The only noise in the column marching behind the lithe,
wiry guide was the occasional muffled cough of a man and the sharp
snort of an excited horse. When the force was within a mile of
Babyan's impi a halt was called, and the men lay down to sleep in the
freezing cold night. It was not a long sleep, for an hour before dawn
they were in the saddle again, and moving through the darkness as
silently as before towards the enemy's stronghold. When the pass was
reached which led into the valley held by Babyan the column was
prepared for attack, the advance force being under the command of
Baden-Powell.
The guide almost jumped with joy, he says, when he spotted the enemy's
fires. The fight was to begin. The guns were got up, and in a few
minutes they were volleying and thundering, flinging their whirring
shells into the masses of Matabele, whose assegai blades glistened in
the morning sun. While this opening cannonade was proceeding
Baden-Powell found useful work to do. With a few native scouts he
started off on his own account and soon found a large body of the
enemy elsewhere enjoying a bombastic war-dance, which plainly
portended the staggering of humanity and the driving of the British
into the sea. Thinking that Colonel Plumer ought not to miss this
performance, Baden-Powell sent back word of it, and calling together
the Native Levy proceeded to attack the dancers. Their sound of
revelry died away, or changed to something more dismal, when
Baden-Powell and his men came clambering up the rocky height, leaping
over boulders, dodging behind crags, and pouring lead into their
astonished midst. With very little delay the Matabele went to earth,
tumbling pell-mell into their caves and holes, from whence the rattle
of their musketry soon rolled, and where they fancied themselves as
safe as a rabbit in its burrow from the attack of an eagle. To add to
Baden-Powell's difficulty his Native Levy began to show the white
feather, getting behind rocks and wasting their ammunition on the
desert crags. Had the Matabele come out of their caves, given one
war-whoop, and made a show of descending upon the besiegers, those
precious friendlies would assuredly have turned tail and bolted. But
the Matabele in the security of their caves made no such sign, and
Baden-Powell called up the Cape Boys and the Maxims in the nick of
time. In a few minutes the guns were in position on what looked like
inaccessible crags, and the Cape Boys shouting and cheering were
floundering through bogs, leaping over boulders, and firing with firm
hand wherever firing was of use. The fight was now begun in earnest,
and B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was
surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly every cave
on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger,
waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks
towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and
sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles into the
darkness, charged in, to reissue in a few minutes, jabbering to each
other, and then rushing off to "do ditto" wherever these man-holes
existed. Now they were creeping stealthily round rocks "like stage
assassins," now leaping forward through the long yellow grass like men
in a paper-chase,--always fighting well and pluckily, lifting up their
wounded and carrying them to places of safety, and then again joining
in the battle, charging without fear upon their maddened enemy,
parrying the thrust of sudden assegai with the bayonet that kills
almost in the instant that it guards. And while this work was going
on, a sudden corner revealed another string of rebels running down a
path. "For a moment," writes B.-P., "the thought crosses one's mind,
shall we stop to fire or go for them? but before the thought has time
to fashion itself, we find ourselves going for them." Again there was
the cheering rush, the rattle of rifles, and hard fighting till the
enemy was scattered. So the battle went on, and it did not cease until
the stronghold was completely cleared. Then the "flag-waggers"
signalled back to the main body for stretchers.[2] During this pause
Baden-Powell wrote an account of the fighting (illustrated), to be
sent home to his mother.
In this manner Babyan was beaten, and the victors went back to camp
satisfied with their day's work. On the following morning it was
discovered that a column sent by the General to attack the enemy on
the Inugu Mountain had not returned, and Baden-Powell with a patrol of
a hundred men was ordered to go in search. When the sun was up the
little body moved off towards the mountains, and after passing through
much difficult country, parts of which were actually in the occupation
of the enemy, they struck the spoor of the missing column, and to
Baden-Powell's great joy found that the marks were quite fresh and
leading outwards from the mountains--showing that the missing men
were safe. Very soon after that the patrol was further cheered by
seeing the gleam of the column's camp-fires, and after an exchange of
events Baden-Powell hurried back to camp to acquaint the General with
the good news.
The next morning, forgetting that he had had another night out,
Baden-Powell started off for solitary exercise in the mountains, his
purpose being to "investigate some signs I had noted two days before
of an impi camped in a new place," and to select a position for the
building of a fort to command the Matopos. Returning to camp he drew
his design and plan for the fort, and in the evening was back in the
mountains again with a number of Cape Boys, ready to begin the
business of building.
One of Baden-Powell's little relaxations when fighting slackened was
the "rounding off" of cattle, a sport almost as exciting as chasing a
solitary boar, especially when the cattle are being driven into the
mountains for "home consumption" by bloodthirsty and hungry Matabele.
On one of these occasions Baden-Powell was wounded. Having rounded off
some cattle he was riding towards a party of niggers when he felt a
sharp blow on his thigh as though Thor had given him a playful tap
with his big hammer. He was bowled over, and thinking that he must
have charged into the stump of a tree turned round to have a look at
it; but there was no tree. Then he realised that he had only been
struck with a lead-covered stone fired from a big-bore gun, and so
hopped off like a man who has been kicked on the shins in a football
match, to continue the game. No blood was drawn by this bullet, but
our hero's thigh was black and blue for many days afterwards.
This was the kind of life Baden-Powell lived at this time as Chief of
the Staff. An officer who knows him very well tells me that it is
impossible to wear him out; "Baden-Powell," he says, "is tireless." He
is keen to be given the most risky and the most solitary work; he can
go for days without food and never complains of broken nights. He has
an enthusiasm for hard work, and when that work demands cunning of the
brain as well as quickness of the hand, as in scouting, B.-P. is as
much lost in the labour as a wolf in search of food for its young.
Never throughout the Matabele campaign was Sir Frederick Carrington
better served than when the young Englishman slunk away into the
darkness, and wandered alone and unprotected into the rocky mountains
held by the murderous Matabele. And never were those savages more
disquieted than when news was brought to them in the morning that the
Wolf had been in the mountains during the night.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] After the arm was amputated at the shoulder Mr. Gifford used to
feel the pain as if it were in his hand.
[2] Let it not be thought that B.-P. had neglected to bring
stretchers. They were brought, but the friendlies who carried them,
like the hen that laid the rotten egg, were nervous, and had dropped
them in the river, they themselves taking up positions of safety till
the fighting was over.