merely to sites to pitch camp. Napier wasn’t expecting an Ab attack, and got too far forward (in my opinion), and the baggage column had easier going on the King’s Road and likewise arrived too quickly in an exposed position. Phayre got the blame, justly or not I can’t say. If Theodore had allowed Gabrie to attack at once, the baggage column was done for, and that might have spelled disaster; I say might because Napier was a complete hand when it came to improvising, as he was about to show.
Well, Theodore hesitated to cast the dice, with Gabrie pleading to be let loose. Not long, perhaps, but I reckon long enough, before he cried, “Go, then!” Gabrie was off like a shot, waving his scarf to advance the army, and Theodore yelled to the gunners to fire. The German workmen had been measuring the charges, but the Ab gunners manned the pieces, and the first salvo almost caught Napier himself, a chain-shot landing a few yards behind him. And by then he’d had another nasty start, as the whole crest from Fala to Selassie suddenly came to life with seven thousand Ab infantry rolling down to Arogee like a black-and-white tide, bellowing their war-songs and bidding fair to sweep away the Sappers screening Napier’s knoll, who had only muzzle-loading Brown Bess to stem the flood. And to the right the baggage column, caught in the open and barely guarded, must be engulfed by the savage legions bearing down on it.
I thanked God in that moment that I was watching that charge from behindhand not from in front of it, for it must have been a sight to freeze the blood, those great robed figures racing down in a chanting mass almost a mile from wing to wing, sickle-swords and spears flourished, black shields to the fore, braids and robes flying, and out in front old Gabrie, sabre aloft, his brilliant red silk cloak billowing behind him, the five hundred scarlet-clad cavalry chieftains at his back. From above it looked like the discharge from an overturned ant-hill spilling across the plain towards an enemy caught unprepared by the sheer speed of the attack.
That was when Bob Napier earned his peerage. He had a couple of minutes’ grace, and in that time he had the King’s Own, who’d been hurrying towards the sound of the guns, skirmishing past him to join the Sapper screen, and in behind the khaki figures I saw the dark puggarees of the Baluch. As they deployed, waiting for the onslaught, Napier opened up with the Naval Brigade rocket batteries which he’d called up to a point just behind his knoll. In a moment the white trails of smoke were criss-crossing the plain, the rockets smashing into the Ab ranks, cutting furrows through them; they wavered and checked, appalled at this terrible new weapon they’d never seen before, but then they came on again full tilt through the pouring rain, the King’s Own stood fast, and on the word three hundred Sniders let fly in a devastating volley that blew the red-coated horsemen’s charge to pieces and staggered the infantry mass behind them.
Why they didn’t run then and there, I can’t fathom. The rockets must have been terror enough, but now they were meeting rapid-fire breech-loaders for the first time, yet still they came on until the Sniders and the Enfields of the Baluch stopped them in their tracks, and they gave back, firing their double-barrelled muskets as they went and being shot down as they tried to find cover among the rocks and scrub oaks. The King’s Own advanced steadily, a mounted officer who I guess was Cameron keeping them in hand; still the Abs retreated and died… but they never ran, and I guess my time there must have made me an old Abyssinian hand, for I find myself writing
While this was happening, Theodore was pounding away with his Fala battery, which I realised was unlikely to damage anyone (the chain-shot that almost did for Napier must have been a great fluke), but on the right the baggage of the second brigade was in mortal peril. The right wing of the Ab charge was thundering down on it, the spearmen singing like Welshmen, careless of the shells bursting above them from the guns of the Mountain Train formed up on the King’s Road ahead of the baggage. Our guns were flanked by the Punjabi Pioneers, burly Sikhs in brown puggarees and white breeches, and as the Abs came surging up the slope to their posi tion, letting fly their spears, they were met by two shattering volleys—and then the Sikhs were charging them with the bayonet against Ab spears and swords, smashing into their ranks like a steel fist, outnumbered but forcing the robed tribesmen back, and standing by Theodore on Fala I had to clamp my jaws tight to stop myself yelling, for I remembered their fathers and uncles at Sobraon, you see, and within I was crying:
There were more Abs trying to outflank the baggage convoy, but the Sikhs and Native Infantry shot them down among the rocks, and the few King’s Own who acted as baggage guards stood off those who got within striking distance. But this part of the action was too far for me to see, and events on Fala were claiming my attention.
Theodore’s half-dozen cannon had been belching away to no good purpose, partly because his Ab gunners were incompetent, partly because the German loaders, I suspect, were making sure that the charges were all wrong. Why chain-shot was being used, I couldn’t figure, because it’s a naval missile, but that’s Theodore’s army for you: lions for bravery but bloody eccentric. But even if his gunners had been Royal Artillery they’d have had the deuce of a job, for firing dropping shot from a height is a dam’ fine art.
So is building, loading, and firing mortars. Theodore’s pet toy, Sevastopol, may have been the biggest piece of ordnance in the history of warfare for all I know, but the German artisans who cast it, never having made a gun before, botched it either accidental or a-purpose, for at its first discharge it blew up with an explosion you could have heard in Poona. I suspect it was deliberate mis chief [47] from the fact that there wasn’t a squarehead in sight when it was fired, and only the Ab gunners felt the full force of the blast which killed three or four and wounded as many more; it nearly did for Theodore himself, but fortunately for him there was an unwitting guardian angel on hand to save him.
I see it plain even today: the gunners climbing on the mortar housing, the rabble of attendants and staff watching from a respectful distance, the gunners at the other pieces holding their fire, the rain squalls sweeping across the muddy plateau, Theodore on his mule with his umbrella at the high port… and I had just turned to take a towel from a servant to wipe the water streaming down my face, when a tremendous rushing thunder seemed to burst out of the ground itself, the very earth shook, and bodies, debris, and gallons of mud were flying everywhere. I wasn’t five yards away, but by one of those freaks for which there’s no accounting the blast passed me by; I didn’t even stagger, and was thus in a position to move nimbly as seventy tons of solid iron, jarred loose from its housing by that colossal explosion, toppled ponderously in my direction.
Which was capital luck for his Abyssinian majesty, thrown by his startled mule and landing slap in my path as I dived for safety. Ask any man who’s been hit foursquare by a fleeing Flashy, four teen stone of terrified bone and muscle, and he’ll agree that it’s a moving experience; Theodore went flying, brolly and all, and I landed on top of him while the enormous mortar, belching smoke, rocked to a standstill on the very spot where he’d been trying to keep his balance.
His words as we scrambled, mud-soaked, to our feet, were most interesting. “You saved me!” he yelled, and then added: “Why?” Some questions are impossible to answer: “I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to,” would have been true but inappropriate, but I suppose I made some sort of noise for he stared at me, looking pretty wild, and then turned to the ruin of his mortar, gave a strange wail and clasped his head in his hands, and sank to his knees in the puddles. Unlike mine, his emotions were not shuddering terror at our escape, nor was he overwhelmed by gratitude. I suppose the fact was that Sevastopol had cost him a deal of labour, dragging it half across Ethiopia, and here he was literally hoist with his own petard. And serve the selfish bastard right.
His grief for his useless lump of iron was quickly cut short as a Congreve rushed past overhead, and another absolutely struck one of the cannon, spraying fire and shrapnel everywhere and mor tally wounding the Ab gun- captain. The Naval gunners had found our range, and several more rockets hissed above us, weaving crazily, for they were no more reliable than they’d been years before when I’d fired them at the Ruski powder ships under Fort Raim. One came a sight too close for comfort, though, scudding between the guns and killing a horse. For the first time I saw Theodore scared, and he wasn’t a man who frightened easy. He clasped his shield before him and shouted: “What weapons are these? Who can stand against such terrible things?” But it didn’t occur to him to leave the summit, although presently he bade the gunners cease fire. “They do not fear my shot!” cries he, and began to weep, pacing about the summit and finally taking station on the forward edge to stare stricken at the final retreat of his army.
For it was as good as over now, a bare hour and a half after he’d started the fight with his first gun. The plain was thick with dead and dying Abs, the defeated remnant scrambling back over the rocky slopes of Fala and
