At length, runners arrived with a letter from Paget to say that, after all, he would be unable to join us, as had been arranged, for the attack on Wedza.
15th October.—After Paget’s message I determined to do as best I could without him; therefore, at a very early hour this morning, we started to tackle Wedza’s. It seemed a large order for so small a force—we were only a hundred and twenty all told; Wedza’s mountain, as I have already said, was nearly three miles by two in extent, and had eight large kraals on it. His people, therefore, must have numbered something like sixteen hundred, of whom six or seven hundred would be fighting men, but worth double that number by reason of their almost impregnable position. I naturally felt somewhat anxious about it. I had prepared a plan of attack for Paget’s information, on the supposition that our two combined forces would be available for the purpose, but now that my small party was to do it alone, that plan would not work. To make a direct attack would merely involve certain heavy loss to gain nothing. The only thing we could do was to try and bluff the enemy out of the place.
Wedza’s mountain is a kind of promontory standing out from a range of smaller mountains, so I ordered the mounted infantry (York and Lancaster Regiment), under Lieutenant Thurnall, to leave their horses in the open valley at the foot of the mountain, and to gain the neck which joined the mountain to the range of mountains northward. From this position the mounted infantry would command a large part of the stronghold with their fire, and would cut off the enemy’s line of retreat to the mountains. This party were ordered to take up with them their greatcoats, water, and two days’ rations, for they would have to stay there the whole day and night, and possibly part of the following day; there were only about twenty–five of them, but they were ordered to act as if they were two hundred and fifty, and right well they played their part. My idea was, that, so soon as this party should have established themselves in their position on the neck, I would bombard the central part of the position systematically with artillery and machine gun fire, and, at the same time, threaten the left (southern) flank, and the rear of the position with parties of 7th Hussars.
I intended to keep up this demonstration during the day and to–night, hoping that such action, combined with the moral effect already afforded by the object–lesson at Matzetetza’s yesterday, would so work on the feelings of the defenders, that they would take my previous advice and surrender; or if they did not do that, that, at least, they would be so demoralised that an assault could be carried out with some chance of success on the morrow. For these natives will stand your coming at their position so long as you do so from the expected direction, but if you come at them some other way, or look as if you were likely to cut off their line of retreat, they are very liable to become frightened, and therefore, in dealing with them, it sometimes becomes necessary to disregard the teachings of books on tactics, and, instead of concentrating your force, to spread it about in a way that would invite disaster were you acting against civilised troops. In order to gain our positions to carry out this plan, I took the mounted infantry by one route, and sent the Hussars and guns by another more southerly path—under Major Ridley—to take up their places as ordered.
It was yet early in the morning when, with the mounted infantry, I arrived at the foot of the northern end of Wedza’s mountain; here the men left their horses under charge of seven of their number, and started off to gain their position on a dome–shaped mountain overlooking the stronghold. It took them nearly an hour to get up to within reasonable distance of this spot, and before they reached it, their presence was discovered by the enemy, and fire was opened on them as they neared the top. A small but determined party of the enemy, foreseeing their object, established themselves among the rocks of this mountain, and stubbornly opposed their advance; but the mounted infantry, working steadily forward in admirable order, very soon drove these men from their position, and presently signalled down that they were occupying the post assigned to them.
But meantime the sound of the firing had roused the whole of the mountain; from hilltop to hilltop the rebels were shouting to each other, and through my telescope I could see from where I was, with the led horses, that the enemy were rapidly collecting from all the kraals fully armed, and were all making towards the position of our little party of mounted infantry. It looked to me that if this movement was allowed to develop, it might prove not only dangerous, but fatal to our handful of men up there. I therefore sent a message to the spot where the guns should be, requesting them to open fire without delay, and thus create a diversion, and retain the defenders of that portion of the stronghold at their proper post. But the guns were not there! It afterwards transpired that Ridley’s party had been detained to an unexpected extent by waggons bringing away grain from Matzetetza’s.
Something had to be done, and that quickly, so, leaving the led horses to take care of themselves,—no enemy would venture down to attack them, even if they could see no guards with them, as they would be sure to look upon them as a lure,—I took the seven horse–holders, mounted, at the best pace we could command, to the southern end of the mountain, and, crossing with some difficulty the Chingweze River, we worked our way through the bush round to the left rear of the stronghold. Here there was a large village part of the way up the side of the mountain, and, spreading ourselves out in the bush, we opened fire at it as hard as we could go, using magazine–fire, and continually moving about from bush to bush, in order to give the appearance of a large force of men. In this particular village the natives were considerably startled, and ran out in large numbers into the caves among the rocks close by. But we cared not so much for them as for the defenders on the upper part of the mountain; and immediately after our first volley, we could hear the startled cries of alarm from their look–out men on the uppermost peaks, and very soon they began to collect in large numbers on the skyline overlooking our position. On the great look–out rock, in particular, a mass of them were collected, so, directing the attention of my little band to them, we sighted for 1200 yards, and gave them a volley; the look–out man on the topmost pinnacle of rock fell among the crowd, which lost no time in seeking better shelter! Leaving my small army still in their position, with orders to make a show every now and then with heavy firing, I made my way back to the front of the position, and found that the ruse had been perfectly successful; the mass of the enemy, who had been collecting to attack Thurnall, had been surprised by this new attack in their rear, and were now still evenly distributed in the different defensive posts of the mountain. By and by the Hussars and Artillery began to arrive, and it was perhaps better in the end that they did come late upon the scene, because it gave a fresh and increased feeling of alarm to the natives, who, as soon as they appeared in sight, began once more to shout further warnings to other parts of the stronghold. I thought now that possibly the enemy might think it advisable to come and surrender. The heat of the day was well on, and so soon as the troops had arrived in position, we called a rest; and the doctor, Surgeon–Captain Ferguson, called a rest for me, as apparently the flying about this morning round the stronghold had made me look a bit tired, so I lay in the ambulance in comfort, and sucked down some of his excellent bovril, while the hussars, after feeding and resting their horses, proceeded to take up the positions allotted to them. But no message came down from the enemy, and so, after a time, I thought it desirable to recommence stirring them up, and, getting the 7–pounder in position, we opened fire with shells on the more important points in turn. Before many rounds had been fired, the enemy got on the move within the stronghold, and in doing so, kept giving chances to Thurnall’s men up on their mountain, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. By and by came a signal from Thurnall, saying that his men were suffering from the want of water, and we endeavoured to send some up to him, but the party going up were attacked and driven back by the fire of the enemy, and in the end Thurnall’s men did not get their water until they had sent down a party after dark to assist the others coming up.