Chapter Fifteen.
Tom receives an unexpected invitation—With the Cape Rifles—Mountain warfare—Formidable odds—The effects of shell.
Shortly before daylight on the 17th April, the trumpets of the 7th Dragoon Guards and of the Cape Mounted Rifles, and the shrill bugles of the infantry corps, sounding the “reveillé,” roused Tom Flinders from his slumbers; and hardly had he finished a very hasty toilet, and made a hastier breakfast (consisting of a piece of biltong, a handful of “moss-biscuit,” and a draught of icy-cold water from a neighbouring spruit), when the clear notes of the “assembly,” quickly followed by those of “boot and saddle,” rang through the still morning air.
“Now, old chap,” cried Frank Jamieson, who was already in the saddle, “look alive! Sergeant Keown is calling the roll; and—why, here comes the governor looking very down on his luck! What’s the matter, father?” he added as Captain Jamieson cantered up.
“Matter enough,” growled the old gentleman—“matter enough! We’re to remain in camp instead of marching with the column of attack. Where’s that boy Tom Flinders?”
“Here am I, sir,” replied our hero from under the saddle-flap; for he was tugging away at the girths. “Bother these buckles! they’re as stiff as—”
“Never mind the buckles, but listen to me,” his chief struck in. “Your friend B— of the Mounted Rifles has got leave for you to be attached to his troop for to-day. Will you go with him?”
“Will a duck swi—I beg pardon, sir; I mean I’ll go like a shot,” cried Tom.
“To get shot!—eh, Tom?” laughed Frank Jamieson.
“But I say, sir,” continued Tom after a moment’s thought, “perhaps Frank would like to—”
“Frank’s all right, my boy,” interrupted Captain Jamieson; “he is to ride ‘galloper’ to Major Sutton. And now the sooner you’re off the better. The Rifles are parading.”
And Tom, thrusting the remains of his morning meal into his haversack, shook hands with the captain and Frank, jumped into the saddle, and galloped off to the Rifle lines, where he found Lieutenant B— awaiting him.
At a “council of war,” held at the Burns Hill mission station on the previous evening, Colonel Somerset and his brother-commanders had decided to form the division into three columns of attack; and it was in this order that the troops took the field on the morning of the 17th April.
The right column, which was composed entirely of infantry corps, commanded by Major Glencairn Campbell, 91st Foot, entered the Amatola Mountains at the gorge of the Amatola Basin, with Mount McDonald on the right and the Seven Kloof Mountain on the left.
The centre column, consisting of two squadrons of the Cape Mounted Riflemen and Sutton’s Kat River Burgher Horse, crossed the Keiskamma River and ascended one of the ridges of the Seven Kloof Mountain to its summit.
The left column, under Colonels Somerset and Richardson, consisting of the 7th Dragoon Guards (the “Old Black Horse,” as they loved to be styled) and the remaining troops of the Mounted Rifles, with a half-battery of artillery, advanced towards the Seven Kloof Mountain, and, passing along its base, marched in the direction of Chumie Hoek.
The troop of the “C.M.R.,” to which Tom Flinders was attached, was with the centre column, which was led by Major Armstrong, with Major Sutton as his second in command.
When at length, after a toilsome climb up a steep mountain path winding amongst patches of bush and rocky boulders, Major Armstrong’s horsemen reached the summit of the Seven Kloof Mountain, they beheld a strong body of Caffres drawn up in the shape of a crescent, with a dense forest in their rear and their front protected by a tangled mass of brushwood and swamp, apparently impracticable for cavalry.
At the same time the incessant rattle of musketry in the Amatola Basin below told them that Campbell’s infantry were hotly engaged with the enemy.
“They seem to be having a pretty warm time of it down there,” observed Tom to his friend B—.
“You’re right, Flinders,” the other replied. “And I can tell you those fellows yonder will give us a warm time of it up here. Hark to the yelling savages! ’Pon my word, they’re no—”
“No worse than ‘Santerre’s sans culottes,’” Tom broke in with a sly laugh, as he called to mind his friend’s previous remarks anent the “noble savage.”
“I never meant to say that they were,” retorted B—; “so none of your chaff, my boy! But they are very fiends for all that, and Heaven help the poor fellows who fall into their hands! For my part, I’d rather be shot fifty times over than be taken alive by Sandilli’s warriors.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom carelessly replied. “‘While there’s life there’s hope,’ as old Brownjohn used to say.”
“Old Brownjohn, whoever he may be, wouldn’t have much hope left in him if he once fell into a Caffre’s clutches,” was B—’s dry remark. “In a warfare like this our motto should be that of Napoleon’s old guard—‘We die, but we do not surrender!’ Here comes Major Armstrong. I wonder if he intends to attack the enemy’s position?”
All this while the Caffres had been jeering at their foes, uttering loud cries of defiance and derision, brandishing their weapons and shields, and daring them to give battle. This insolent behaviour was very galling to the Mounted Rifles and their Kat River comrades, and they were naturally impatient to accept the challenge and teach the sable warriors a sharp lesson. But Major Armstrong, after consulting with his second in command, decided that the enemy’s position was too strong for him to attack; and so he gave the word for the column to move on towards Chumie Hoek, in order that he might effect a junction with Colonel Somerset.
Though both officers and men were greatly disappointed at their leader’s decision, they could not but own that he was acting wisely. It was one of those cases when “discretion becomes the better part of valour,” and inclination has to give way to duty.
Directly the column was put in motion, the Caffres, advancing with discordant yells (wherewith they thought to strike terror into the hearts of their foes), made an attack on its rear, and some smart skirmishing took place; but they never came to very close quarters, and after a while retired, leaving the column to proceed on its way unmolested.
Armstrong now led his troops down a steepish descent on to a low ridge which divided the Amatola Basin from the Chumie Hoek, at the foot of the Hog’s Back Mountain. Just as he reached the ridge Campbell’s infantry made their appearance, toiling up the precipitous slope of a lofty hill out of the valley of the Amatola, fighting desperately as they went, and evidently hard pressed by superior numbers. They had been attacked immediately after entering the gorge of the basin, and had been in action ever since; their losses had been considerable, and many of the wounded had fallen into the enemy’s hands, there being no means of carrying them off the field.
Now between Major Armstrong’s column and the infantry there was a steep rocky ledge, so that it was quite out of the question his despatching mounted troops to their assistance. Major Campbell, however, when he caught sight of the riflemen, ordered his well-nigh exhausted soldiers to make for the ledge, where the ground became comparatively open; whereupon Armstrong, seeing his opportunity, placed a couple of troops in such a position as would enable them to charge the enemy should he venture upon the open ground.
This some of the Caffres presently did, and then the squadron of Mounted Rifles went at them with a will, and, driving them back, sent them flying right and left into the valley below; at the same time Lieutenant B—’s troop dismounted, and, advancing to the brink of the ledge, held it until the last of Campbell’s infantry had passed over in safety. This was not accomplished without loss, for two riflemen were shot dead, and Tom Flinders got a musket ball right through his “dopper” hat.
Shortly afterwards Colonel Somerset came up from the direction of the Chumie Hoek to his lieutenant’s support, bringing with him two field-guns. These guns were at once unlimbered, and the Caffres were treated to a dose of shell which very soon sent them to the right-about, driving them out of bush and from behind rocks, and dispersing them in all directions, until there was not one to be seen save upon the distant hills.
“That’s always the way!” angrily exclaimed a rifle officer as the enemy rapidly dispersed. “Directly we get a really fair chance at these beggars, they disappear like magic. And yet I’d wager a month’s pay and allowances that, if a small party of our fellows ventured only just out of range of the guns, they would be surrounded and cut to pieces before we could proceed to their assistance.”
Colonel Somerset now ordered the columns to re-form; and the wounded having been placed, some on the gun-limbers and others in front of their mounted comrades, the troops moved down the slope of the hill to the Chumie Hoek.
The afternoon was now pretty far advanced, so Colonel Somerset gave up all idea of returning to the camp at Burns Hill, and decided to move on to an open plain beneath the high point of the Seven Kloof Mountain, close to the sources of a stream known as the “Geel Hout” River, and there bivouac until morning. But before continuing his march to this spot the colonel wrote a hasty despatch to the camp commandant at Burns Hill, directing that officer to advance at break of day to Chumie Hoek with all his forces, guns, ammunition waggons, and camp equipage; and this despatch he intrusted to one of his staff to carry back to the mission station.
A mounted party was at once detailed to escort the staff-officer on his dangerous mission, and, acting on Lieutenant B—’s advice, Frank Jamieson and Tom Flinders obtained leave to accompany the officer, so that they might rejoin their own corps in time to be with it during the morrow’s march. The escort, consisting of a subaltern and twenty-five picked troopers of the Mounted Rifles and four of Sutton’s Kat River Burghers, paraded about four o’clock; and, arms and accoutrements having been carefully inspected, the word was given to “mount” and “away!”