Warrior

Hervey continued to shake his head. 'I can scarce believe it.'

'That a man doesn't get his deserts? You served both the duke and Lord Hill admirably in their time.'

'So say you, but—'

'And, I may say, I bring for your celebration a basket of Monsieur Moet's best champagne. From the duke's own cellar, indeed!'

Hervey stared at his old friend, even more incredulous.

'Well, not, that is, at his express request. But he did leave behind a good many dozen when he left the Horse Guards.'

'Loot!' declared Fairbrother, vastly amused. 'But I fancy it was only that which the duke himself looted from Bonaparte's cellar when he took prize of Paris?'

'Just so, and therefore it is booty not loot,' declared Lord John Howard, very decidedly.

Fairbrother groaned. 'Staff officers! Jesuits in gold braid!' He raised his glass. 'But,my most excellent friend, Colonel Hervey, whether it be loot or booty, I propose a toast to you: 'To the warrior the spoils!''

HISTORICAL AFTERNOTE

Sources for the history of the Shakan period are mainly oral. This does not mean they are inherently unreliable, but it does mean, of course, that it is not possible to re-examine them. The white traders at Port Natal (Durban) wrote journals and letters, but since there were no white witnesses to Shaka's assassination and the immediate aftermath, there is no contemporary written account. The oral history is strong and consistent, however. It appears that Mbopa's scratch army of Izi-Yendane ('mop heads'), cattle guards, veterans, and the newly formed 'Bees' regiment of youths, was cobbled together remarkably quickly. Somehow Mbopa persuaded them that they were marching to avenge Shaka, who had been murdered at the hands of an 'evil relative in the north' – Ngwadi. Ngwadi was indeed the only chief whose clan warriors had not been impressed for the campaign against Soshangane.

Pampata certainly made her epic journey, a hundred miles at least, and alone except for the first half when a youth accompanied her (at some stage he fell out, too weary to go on), for there were separate reports of her progress by village elders whom she encountered. On each occasion Shaka's toy spear proved her laissez-passer. Ngwadi had no time to muster all his warriors, however. It appears that initially he mounted a strong defence of his kraal, beating off the first assault of Izi-Yendane, but Mbopa brought the 'Bees' forward, and, fired with vengeance and youthful courage, these hurled themselves at the stockade. Seeing he was outnumbered, Ngwadi withdrew with all his womenfolk and children to the calf byre in the middle of the cattle enclosure.

Ngwadi's last stand is recounted as one of the heroic episodes of Zulu history. He personally is said to have killed eight of his attackers before succumbing to the iklwa with all his household. At this point, Pampata may have taken her own life – with Shaka's toy spear, as one tradition has it. Whether she took her own life or not, the story goes that as she died, her last cry was, indeed, 'U-Shaka!'

Dingane assumed the throne, promptly murdering his half-brother Mhlangana, as well as Mbopa and anyone else whose loyalties were in question. There was a brief period of peace in Zululand (and favourable contacts with the settlement at Port Natal) but Dingane soon became as paranoid and brutal as Shaka, though without his brother's other qualities. Relations with the settlers at Port Natal deteriorated, not least because of the increasing numbers of Zulu refugees that sought sanctuary there. Three times, the settlers had to evacuate the port whilst Dingane's warriors sacked the place.

In 1837, the 'swallows' of whom Shaka had warned finally appeared in Natal – the Voortrekkers, Cape Dutch farmers and merchants at odds with the Colonial administration. The first party, led by Pieter Uys, tried to negotiate with Dingane to occupy the empty land south of the Thukela (Tugela) River. But they could not cross the flooded river, so a shouted conversation ensued between the trekkers and some warriors on the far bank. As a result, the trekkers came away believing they were free to settle the land. In fact, Dingane had already given the land to a missionary from Port Natal. A few months later, another party under Pieter Retief did see Dingane who requested that, as a sign of good will, some cattle be recovered from a local chief who had stolen them. Retief recovered the cattle, together with some guns and horses which he had no intention of giving Dingane.

In February 1838, Retief and a hundred trekkers paid Dingane a visit to return the cattle and ratify the treaty giving the trekkers the land south of the Tugela. Dingane surprised the party and dragged them off to his hill of execution, kwaMatiwane, where they were put to death. He then sent 10,000 warriors to destroy the Voortrekkers in the Drakensberg foothills. On the night of 16 February 1838, 500 trekkers were killed. Dingane had underestimated the number of wagons that had crossed the Drakensberg mountains, however, and several camps were untouched. Ten months later, the trekkers wreaked revenge at Blood River, where 460 men defeated a force of 10,000 Zulus at almost no cost. The trekkers tried then to seize Dingane but he fled, burning his kraal.

Some months later, Mpande, Dingane's half-brother (so fat and slothful that Dingane – as others – believed him harmless, and who had thereby escaped the fate of the other half-brothers), defected to the trekkers. His general, Nongalaza, defeated Dingane at the battle of Magongo Hills, forcing him to flee to Swaziland where he was killed by his own warriors. Mpande was installed as king of the Zulus, and reigned with surprising success for more than thirty years.

Long before Mpande's death, however, a power struggle developed between two of his sons – Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi – which was settled in 1856 when Cetshwayo defeated Mbuyazi at the bloody battle of Ndondakusuka, in which 23,000 warriors perished. After Mpande's death in 1872, Cetshwayo revived and reconstructed the Zulu army. By this time, however, the encroachment of both the Boers and British in the south meant a series of border disputes which came to a head in 1878 when the discovery of diamonds in South Africa (though further west) forced the British to take a new look at the independent African nations. An ultimatum, which many historians on both sides believe could never have been fulfilled, and was really an excuse for war, was handed to the Zulus in December 1878. A month later, three columns of British troops under Lord Chelmsford marched into Zululand. So began the first Anglo-Zulu War, whose battles of Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift and Ulundi have passed into legend.

But that is a generation, and more, from Hervey and his comrades at Shaka's kraal. So where will the new commanding officer of His Majesty's 6th Light Dragoons find himself in the next instalment of these cavalry tales? We must wait and see. Indeed, we must wait a little longer than usual: twice as long, in fact, for the eleventh book in the series will be published – Deo volente – in two years' time, not one. Then, I trust, loyal and patient readers will be rewarded with a story of that singular, glorious, never-to-berepeated thing: taking command of a regiment of the British Army.