CHAPTER XI.
THE PURSUIT OF CETEWAYO.
Mail after mail came to head-quarters, brought by post-carts and orderlies, from the rear, but they brought no letters from Dulcie Carlyon. So, whether she had, as she threatened she would do, fled from Craigengowan, or remained there, found friends elsewhere with happiness or grief, Florian could not know, and the doubt was a source of torment to him.
Horseback has been considered a famous place for reflection, but one could scarcely find it so when serving as a Mounted Infantry-man, scouting on the outlook for lurking Zulus, with every energy of ear and eye watching donga, boulder, bush, and tuft of reedy grass.
Sir Garnet Wolseley's orders to the army reached the camp of Lord Chelmsford at Entonjaneni on the 8th July, and the latter prepared at once to resign his command and return home.
Two days afterwards, that retrograde movement which so puzzled and elated the Zulus began, and after four days' marching the Second Division and the Flying Column reached Fort Marshall, on the Upoko River, whence a long train of sick and wounded were sent to the village of Ladysmith, in Kannaland, escorted by two companies of the Scots Fusiliers and Major Bengough's Natives, attired in all their fighting bravery—cowtails, copper anklets and armlets, necklaces of monkeys' teeth, and plumes of feathers.
'Great changes are on the tapis,' said Villiers, as he lay on the grass in Florian's tent, smoking, and sharing with him some hard biscuits with 'square-face' and water. 'The 17th Lancers start for India; Newdigate's column is to be broken up, and chiefly to garrison that chain of forts which Chelmsford has so skilfully constructed along the whole Zulu frontier from the Blood River to the Indian Ocean; but Cetewayo is yet to be captured. Sir Evelyn Wood and the heroic Buller are going home, and so is your humble servant.'
'You—why?' asked Florian.
'Sir Garnet has brought out his entire staff, and I have not the good luck to be one of the Wolseley ring,' replied Villiers, with a haughty smile, as he twirled up his moustache and applied himself for consolation to the 'square-face.'
When, on an evening in July, Sir Garnet, with his new staff, amid a storm of wind and rain, rode into the camp of the First Division under General Crealock, the appearance of his party, with their smoothly shaven chins, brilliant new uniforms, and spotless white helmets, formed a strong contrast to the war and weather worn soldiers of Crealock, in their patched and stained attire, with their unkempt beards; for the use of the razor had long been eschewed in South Africa, where, however, the officers and men of each column trimmed their hirsute appendages after the fashion adopted by their leaders; thus, as General Newdigate affected the style of Henry VIII., so did his troops; Sir Evelyn Wood trimmed his beard in a peak, pointed like Philip II. of Spain, and so, we are told, did all the Flying Column.
Sir Garnet Wolseley now arranged his future plans for the final conquest of Zululand, and stationed troops to hold certain lines and rivers, while the rest were formed in two great columns, under Colonels Clarke of the 57th and Baker Russell of the 13th Hussars, two officers of experience, the former having served in Central India and the Maori War, and the latter in the war of the Mutiny, when he covered himself with honours at Kurnaul and elsewhere.
With Clarke's column were five companies of Mounted Infantry, led by Major Barrow, and one of them was led by Florian, who had now earned a high reputation as an active scouting officer.
Clarke's orders were to march northwards and occupy Ulundi, or all that was left of it.
Without the capture of the now luckless Cetewayo, the permanent settlement of the country was deemed impossible; thus a kind of circle was formed round the district in which he was known to be lurking, to preclude his escape.
The traitor Uhamu, with his followers, occupied a district near the Black Umvolosi; the savage Swazis in thousands under Captain M'Leod held the bank of the Pongola River, armed with heavy lances and knobkeries; Russell advanced on a third quarter, and Clarke on a fourth; thus the sure capture of the fugitive King was deemed only a matter of time.
At a steep rocky hill overhanging the Idongo River the column of the latter, which included three battalions of infantry, was reinforced by five companies of the 80th (or Staffordshire Volunteers), the Natal Pioneers, and two Gatling guns, to which were added two nine-pounders on reaching once more the Entonjaneni Mountain.
It was now reported that Cetewayo had found shelter in a little kraal in the recesses of the Ngome forest, a dense primeval wilderness of giant wood and deep jungle. But the meshes of the net were closing fast around him.
Leaving the main body of his column at a redoubt named Fort George, at the head of only three hundred and forty mounted infantry Colonel Russell, at daybreak on the 13th of August, rode westward beyond the Black Umvolosi, into a district occupied by many Zulus, in the hope of picking up the royal fugitive.
The scouting advanced guard he entrusted to Florian, whose men rode forward in loose and open formation, with loaded rifles unslung.
The country through which they proceeded was very wild, steep, woody, and rugged, and on seeing how slender his force appeared to be, the Zulus began to gather in numbers, preparatory to disputing his further advance.
'My intention,' said Baker Russell, 'is to reach Umkondo, where Cetewayo is said to be lurking; you will therefore show a bold front and clear the way at all hazards.'
This left Florian no alternative but to fight his opponents, whatever their strength perhaps, and the region into which they were now penetrating had the new and most unusual danger of being infested by lions, as the 1st King's Dragoon Guards found to their cost.
Manning a narrow gorge fringed with thornwood trees and date palms, with brandished rifle and assegai and their grey shields uplifted in defiance, a strong party of the enemy appeared, led by a tall and powerful-looking chief, whose large armlets and anklets of burnished copper shone in the evening sunshine, and it was but too evident that, under his auspices, mischief was at hand.
That they remarked Florian was an officer was soon apparent, when two shots were fired from each flank of the gorge; but these whistled harmlessly past, and starred with white a boulder in his rear.
'Pick off that fellow who is making himself so prominent,' said Florian, with some irritation, as his two escapes were narrow ones.
One of the 24th fired and missed the leader.
'What distance did you sight your rifle at?' asked Florian.
'Four hundred yards, sir,' replied the soldier.
'Absurd! He is certainly six hundred yards off. Do you try, Tyrrell.'
Then Tom, who was a deadly shot, reined up, held his rifle straight between his horse's ears, sighted at six hundred yards, and pressing the butt firmly against his right shoulder and restraining his breath, took aim steadily at the chief, who stood prominently on a fragment of rock, his figure defined clearly against the blue sky like that of a dark bronze statue.
He fired; the bullet pierced the Zulu's forehead, as was afterwards discovered; he fell backward and vanished from sight.
'By Jove, he's knocked over, sir,' said Tom, with a quiet laugh, as he dropped another cartridge into his breech-block, and closed it with a snap.
'Bravo, Tom—a good shot!' said the men of the 24th, while, with a yell of rage that reverberated in the gorge, the Zulus fled, and Florian's scouting party rode on at a canter, and ultimately reached a deserted German mission station at a place called Rhinstorf.
As they rode through the gorge, with the indifference that is born of war and its details, Tom Tyrrell looked with perfect composure on the man he had shot, and remarked to Florian, with a smile:
'These Zulus are certainly one of the connecting links that old Darwin writes about, but links with the devil himself, I think.'
At the station of Rhinstorf Colonel Russell now ascertained that fully thirty-five miles of wild and rugged country would have to be traversed ere he could reach Umkondo, where Cetewayo was reported to be in concealment. To add to the difficulties of proceeding further, night had fallen, the native guide, having lost heart, had deserted, and many of the horses had fallen lame by the roughness of the route from Fort George; thus Baker Russell came to the conclusion that to proceed further then would be rash, if not impossible.
Cetewayo still resisted all the terms offered him, acting under the influence of Dabulamanzi, who urged him to distrust the British, in the hope that if the fugitive died of despair in the forest of Ngome, he himself might succeed to the throne of the Zulus.
While on this patrol duty our Mounted Infantry came upon the remains of some of our fellows who had fallen after the attack on the Inhlobane Mountain in March and lain unburied for nearly six months, exposed to the weather and the Kaffir vultures.