The Story of Baden-Powell / 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps'

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