Company Of Spears

had to leave the commander of the field force with an opening to take up the proposal as his own.

Somerset turned to the commanding officer of the 55th (Westmoreland) Foot, who had come in from the pickets on seeing the galloper. ‘Colonel Mill, what do you consider is the capability of your battalion?’

Lieutenant-Colonel John Mill was a veteran of much fighting – the West Indies, the Peninsula, Waterloo – and his face bore the battle honours. Whatever he thought of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Somerset, a man considerably younger than he and with a complexion as fresh as the schoolboy’s, he kept an impassive countenance. ‘In square my battalion could not be broken, and in line it could not be resisted, Colonel.’

That seemed to do the trick. With such resolution at hand, how could he, Somerset, do other than offer battle here, between the Kei and the Bashee? ‘Very well, gentlemen. Colonel Hervey, you may take the mounted detachments as you propose and make contact with the Zulu. As soon as the artillery comes up, and Gaika’s men are mustered, I shall march towards the Bashee – unless you report that the Zulu are in too great strength. I shall keep the burghers with me. They’re not so steady, yet they will afford me some protection if – I mean when – we advance.’

No one spoke. Each man saluted and took his leave, knowing without need of elaboration what their business was to be about.

Somerset, alone, in his camp chair, lapsed into a gloomy, distant stare. His orderly brought him a bottle, which he took with resignation rather than relish. This was not how he had imagined it would be.

They broke camp at midnight. Four or five hours in the saddle, by Hervey’s reckoning, and they would be in the more undulating country west of the Bashee. This would give a horseman the advantage, for with videttes on half a dozen high points they would soon be able to estimate the size of the Zulu force, and there would be less chance of being encircled. His one concern was colliding with the Tambooka if they were falling back towards Gaika’s kraal; but they met no one. Hervey imagined that scarcely an owl could have been witness to their night march – a cold affair too, wanting capes, whereas by day it was shirtsleeves, and too hot at that.

How he wished he could have more confidence in Somerset, both his capacity for decision and for resolution! Yet he supposed, at bottom, that if the blood of the Beauforts coursed through Somerset’s veins there could not be too much amiss. Proud he was, yes; and that verged on the perilously disdainful. But Hervey was certain that Somerset had the capacity to fight sword in hand (and he had a suspicion that when it came to fighting these Zulu it would be the will to take the blade to the enemy that counted). He quickened at the thought. He felt his hand twitch for the sabre hilt. Who were these Zulu that they should discompose one of the King’s officers? He would not dismiss them as savages, as others might, but he would not invest them with supernatural prowess. Did that mean he might defeat five thousand of them with his three hundred dragoons and riflemen? Hammer and anvil, beaters and guns, whatever was the proper analogy, his force was the superior in fire and in manoeuvre. His rifles could bring down a warrior at a furlong, and he had yet to see men afoot and who did not form square resist the charge of cavalry. How did this Shaka suppose he could defeat even so much as a troop and a company of the King’s men?

XXIV

FIRST BLOOD

Next morning

Just before dawn it began to rain. Not heavy, but a steady downpour which was soon soaking tunics and overalls. The night had been starry, with a good moon, and then a half-hour before first light, cloud had rolled in from the south-east, out of the Indian Ocean, relict of the south-west monsoon. Hervey’s spirits sank with the rain as he realized the fault in his appreciation. Rain had the potential to render the musket and the rifle no more than a pike. He cursed. He cursed doubly, for it need not be so. A man did not have to empty powder down a wet barrel, or into a wet firing pan for the wet flint to fail to spark. There were cartridges that could be placed into the barrel whole, and rifles which permitted loading at the breech, so that powder did not have to come into contact with damp air, let alone wet metal; and there were percussion caps – clever little things filled with fulminate of mercury – which could be inserted into the firing pan, so that when struck by the hammer that had formerly held the flint, the cap would give off the necessary spark to ignite the cartridge. Neither was this new science: a percussion cap had saved his life at Waterloo, provenance of Daniel Coates. The Ordnance, however, had no time for the novelty. And so here, now, in the chill drizzle of the veld, the only firearm he could rely on was his own percussion carbine, and Fairbrother’s revolver: two hundred rifles stood hostage to the rain and the new-acquired skill of their handlers. His own troop’s carbines he might rely on a little more, for his dragoons were certainly more practised than the riflemen; yet he knew it was possible that a hundred carbines might misfire in the face of a Zulu attack. And what message of capability might that send to Shaka?

As the sun came up, not as fast as in India, but quickly nevertheless, the rain eased and then stopped altogether. Hervey’s disquiet eased with it. They could begin to dry the firelocks – which dragoon and rifleman alike had wrapped with oilskin – and mop the barrels. It would be good to prove each weapon, he thought, though it was a practice he normally abhorred (for why give away anything to the enemy?). He was sure the Zulu would be within earshot, however: he would lose any element of surprise.

He almost lost it before he knew. The scouts stopped suddenly. They had ridden ahead as dawn broke, five hundred yards to the next rise along the line of advance. Moments later one of them began cantering fast in a circle, anti-clockwise.

Hervey lowered his telescope and turned to Lieutenant Fearnley and Captain Welsh riding alongside him. His voice compelled urgency. ‘Into line, two ranks, dragoons front – as we drilled. Then wait my orders.’

They saluted, and reined about hard.

Hervey nodded to Fairbrother and took off in a hand-gallop towards the scouts, trying to keep low the dust which even the rain had not quite suppressed.

‘Forgive me, Hervey,’ called Fairbrother above the drumming of hooves, ‘but has something decidedly cavalry happened?’

‘Infantry – Zulu – in large numbers.’

‘That much you can tell by a scout galloping in a circle?’

‘Yes. If he’d circled clockwise it would have meant cavalry. The pace he circles gives an indication of numbers.’

It was three hundred yards to the rise where the scouts stood: a minute and a half’s work for charging warriors – enough time to reload carbines and at least one barrel of the rifles. Hervey calculated these things as a matter of course; any cavalryman would – must. The range was too great for a bullet, though, let alone a carbine ball. If they were to check the Zulu as they came over the rise he would have to advance the line at least a hundred yards to rifle range.

But the scouts were now motionless. Evidently the Zulu were at a safe distance still.

Hervey slowed to a trot as he came up behind the ridge, Fairbrother at his side, coverman and trumpeter a few lengths behind. He snatched his telescope from the saddle holster, reining to a halt beside Corporal Wick. And he stifled a gasp. On the parching plain beyond was a sight that set rats racing in his gut and stirred the darkest corners of his mind. It was as if twelve monstrous black snakes were making straight for the ridge, any one of them with venom enough to kill an entire troop, or else to coil and crush the life out of them. There were warriors in single file for as far as the eye could see – and see through the telescope – spears and shields in hand, loping across the dry, green veld at the pace of trotting cavalry. He had not seen killing-columns come on like this since Waterloo.

He was shaken as much by his own shock as the sight itself. He breathed deeply so as not to falter or gabble when he spoke; he prayed the cold sweat was invisible. ‘How many, Corporal Wick?’