Dust Clouds of War Read online

  DUST CLOUDS OF WAR

  JOHN WILCOX

  For Betty – for the last time

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  The border between Northern Rhodesia and German East Africa, September 1914

  The three men stood motionless on top of the hill, looking down onto the sleepy little border town of Abercorn beneath them. To the north, the rays of the rising sun caught the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika some forty kilometres away, causing little silver reflections to bounce back and speed the retreating darkness on its way.

  It was to there that the middle of the three now pointed. ‘When they come, they will come from there,’ he said.

  He spoke in the soft, ululating tones of the black African but he and his companions were dressed alike, in the casual, loose garments of white men farming on these high, fertile plains: cotton shirts, open at the throat, well-worn riding breeches, high boots and wide-brimmed slouch hats. But they each leant on a British Army rifle and were markedly different in stature.

  The black man was slim and by far the tallest. As he took off his hat to wipe his forehead – for they were only eight degrees south of the equator and although it was only a little after dawn, the sun was already hot – he revealed a tightly curled head of snow-white hair. His face was completely black but his features were not negroic. His nose was long, with flared nostrils and his lips were thin. There was an air of nobility about him and he pointed again.

  ‘Yes, definitely from that way.’

  ‘Are you sure they will come, Mzingeli?’ The man on his right spoke as he adjusted his field glasses to focus better into the mid distance towards the lake.

  ‘Oh yes, Nkosi. They already on their way. They come from Bismarkburg on the great lake.’

  ‘Blimey!’ The man on the left who completed the trio sniffed. ‘The bleedin’ war ’as only just started, look you.’

  His voice carried the unmistakable cadence of the Welsh valleys and his sentences ended in an upwards inflexion, as though he was in a perpetual state of indignation. Which was roughly true of 352 Jenkins, holder of the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Bar and late of the 24th Regiment of Foot, the Queen’s Royal Corps of Guides and the bosom companion of the other two. ‘It doesn’t seem right to come chargin’ in straight away, now, does it? There should be a bit of a chat, an’ all that, first see.’

  ‘No time for that.’ Simon Fonthill spoke almost absent-mindedly as he slowly turned the focussing wheel on the field glasses. ‘The Germans have already attacked and taken the port of Taveta, a dozen miles inside British East Africa. They’re bound to attack this border. It’s comparatively small and lightly defended.’

  He put down the glasses and turned to Mzingeli. ‘But you say they are already on their way?’

  ‘Oh yes. My boys tell me this. News here travel fast in the bush. They are coming down this way,’ he pointed again, ‘along German shore of big lake. Should be here soon.’

  ‘How many of them? Do you know?’

  ‘They say about three hundred and fifty.’

  Jenkins gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Not exactly what I’d call an invadin’ army, look you. Nothin’ really.’

  Mzingeli allowed himself a rare smile. ‘Ah, but these are the Germans’ black askaris. Very fierce men. They say some are cannibals. Germans have trained them well. They good soldiers. Mostly come from north-west of German Africa land.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Fonthill raised his binoculars again and trained them now on the little town that straggled along the plain below them. ‘Do you have any idea if we have any troops down there, in Abercorn?’

  ‘Don’t think any. Maybe a few farmers, that’s all.’

  Jenkins sniffed. ‘Well that’s a bit different. Three hundred and fifty sounds a bloody great army now.’ He turned to Fonthill. ‘What are we goin’ to do, bach sir? Go down, the three of us, an’ throw pebbles at the Boche?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Then he threw back his head in consternation. ‘Aaargh! I’ve just remembered. Northern Rhodesia is administered by the British South African Company, as opposed to the Colonial Office. As such it is not allowed to maintain a standing defence force. There might be a few policemen down there, but that’s all. Come on. Let’s get back to the horses and go down and see. Obviously, if Mzingeli’s boys are right, we haven’t much time.’

  They turned and, lengthening their stride, made towards where they had left their horses tethered to a thorn bush, mounted and urged their mounts along the well-worn path down the hill towards the little town.

  Jenkins, at about 5ft 4ins tall, but as broad and muscular in stature as a prize fighter, fitted into his saddle with the greatest ease, for it was clear that he had ridden since childhood. There were startlingly white shoots of hair now amongst the jet-black thatch that stood up straight from his skull, like a broom bottom. A still-black moustache stretched away under his nostrils, as though some small rodent had crawled there and died. At 63, he was the oldest of the trio and his face was now so lined that, after years of campaigning under the hottest of suns, it looked like cracked leather. But the eyes, black as buttons, shone with good humour and danced now with the thought of the fight ahead.

  Simon Fonthill glanced at him with affection. Aged 59, Fonthill eased himself in the saddle awkwardly, for, unlike Jenkins, he was not an instinctive rider and arthritis was just beginning to attack his joints. At 5ft 9ins his height placed him exactly between that of his two companions. A thick sweep of grey hair was pushed back above each ear but he sat erectly enough and, although his shoulders were broad, his body was slim. It was clear that age and a touch of infirmity had only slightly reduced an athleticism honed, like Jenkins, by years of campaigning in the far corners of the British Empire, broken occasionally by work on his farms in Northern Rhodesia and Norfolk, England.

  His eyes were a soft brown and he would have been remarkably handsome if it were not for the nose, broken by a Pathan musket high in the Hindu Kush many years before, which had left it slightly hooked, giving Fonthill a predatory air that belied the gentleness of his expression, which in turn was unusual in a member of the British upper class foraging and hunting on the far borders of Empire.

  Jenkins he had first met when the Welshman had acted as his batman in that regiment. He was always known to his intimates as 352, the last three digits of his regimental number to distinguish him from the other Jenkinses in the 24th of Foot, that most Welsh of Regiments. Since then they had served together throughout the series of ‘Queen Victoria’s Little Wars’ that had studded the closing quarter of the nineteenth century, Jenkins earning his two DCMs and Fonthill a Companionship of the Bath and membership of the Distinguished Service Order – the second time for his services on Colonel Younghusband’s invasion of Tibet, ten years before.

  Their service, however, had rarely been conventional. The two had formally left the British army after the second Afghan war, preferring instead to work as scouts, often behind enemy lines or riding far ahead of advancing troops. The exception had been during the Anglo–Boer War, fourteen years before, when Kitchener had persuaded
Fonthill to take command of a British cavalry unit. Their comradeship – forged with each saving the other’s life in constant combat – was unusual in Victorian and Edwardian times in that it crossed the class divide. Although rank and education separated them, respect and even a platonic love had long since united them.

  Mzingeli had originally been employed as a tracker and guide when, with Jenkins and Alice, his wife, Fonthill had entered Matabeleland on a hunting trip in 1889. They had all become embroiled with Cecil Rhodes, however, when the latter had sent in his men to take the land by force and create Rhodesia. At the end of that conflict, Simon had bought land in the north of the new territory and installed Mzingeli as farm manager, where he had stayed ever since, only leaving to join the other two in the war against the Boers.

  After the marriage of his two step-daughters in South Africa, Jenkins had joined Simon and Alice on the Rhodesian farm for a brief holiday when they all realised that the invasion of Belgium by the Kaiser, and the subsequent outbreak of the war in Europe, had suddenly thrust them into the front line here on the Northern Rhodesia–German East Africa border. Alice, semi-retired as a veteran war correspondent with the London Morning Post, had immediately offered her services to her editor in London and had left for Mombasa to join up with British forces rumoured to be planning an invasion of the German colony.

  Simon himself had cabled his old commander, Lord Kitchener, now installed in Whitehall as Minister for War, to offer to travel back to Europe to fight, but K’s response had been typically to the point. It read: ‘AGE AGAINST YOU STOP KEEP POWDER DRY AND REMAIN AFRICA STOP COULD BE USEFUL IF WE FIGHT IN GEA STOP WON’T FORGET YOU STOP K’

  As they approached now the wooden houses that marked the outskirts of Abercorn, Fonthill frowned. He might be involved in fighting the Germans before most of the British army had even crossed the English Channel! His farm was some forty miles away from the border and they had ridden through the night to reach Abercorn, a town he had never visited, in the hope of discovering the state of the defences of the border. It looked very much now as though there were none.

  They passed a white man ambling along what appeared to be the main street and Fonthill hailed him.

  ‘Is there a police station here?’

  ‘Aye. Just up ahead on the right. Although you might find nobody there. It’s a bit early.’

  Simon nodded and resisted the temptation to warn him against the impending attack. Better not spread panic at this point. And whatever policemen were in Abercorn, perhaps they were already preparing defences, although, looking around him, he could not see at this point how the town could be defended, sprawling, as it did, in a series of little side streets ending in the open bush.

  If the streets seemed semi-deserted, however, the police station was buzzing with excitement, with bare-footed black policemen, neatly dressed in the dark-blue jerseys and khaki shorts uniform of the Northern Rhodesian police force, running in and out of the door leading onto the building’s stoep or verandah.

  ‘Who is in charge here?’ called Fonthill.

  One of the men stopped and pointed inside. ‘Lieutenant McCarthy, baas.’

  The three men tied their horses to a hitching rail and walked inside. The police station seemed gloomy after the brightness of the early morning outside, but Simon could make out a tall black sergeant and a white man in officer’s uniform bent over a map pinned to a desk.

  ‘Mr McCarthy?’ he called.

  The officer looked up. He was clearly young, probably in his early twenties, with fair hair and a rather flushed face, and he looked harassed.

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  ‘My name is Simon Fonthill and I farm about forty miles due south of here. These are my associates, Jenkins and Mzingeli.’

  Jenkins gave the lieutenant the benefit of one of his great, wrap-around smiles and Mzingeli nodded briefly. The young man’s eyebrows rose at the black man being introduced as ‘an associate’, then he frowned.

  ‘Good morning to you all. Can you tell me your business quickly? We are rather busy here.’

  ‘You certainly are, bach,’ said Jenkins affably. ‘Place is buzzin’ like a bee ’ive and the sun’s ’ardly up, like.’

  Simon intervened. ‘You have obviously heard the news that the Germans are on their way to attack Abercorn?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know exactly the way they will come or how many there are of them. My sergeant and I were just trying to see which way they would attack.’

  Gesturing towards Mzingeli, Fonthill said, ‘My farm manager here knows more or less everything that is happening for miles around this border. His black boys tell him that there is a force of German Askari coming along the German side of Lake Tanganyika heading directly this way. There are about three hundred and fifty of them. We believe them to be travelling due south, which means they will attack this town as the main border crossing.’

  The young man’s frown deepened. ‘Did you say three hundred and fifty?’

  ‘Yes. How many men do you have here and what training have they had?’

  At first McCarthy’s features took on an air of truculence. Then that disappeared as his face brightened.

  ‘Did you say Fonthill?’

  ‘Yes, Simon Fonthill.’

  ‘Ah, forgive me, sir. Of course I know you now. You got through the Mahdi’s lines to reach Gordon, I remember. And gave the Boers a bloody nose down south, fifteen years or so ago.’

  Fonthill gave a half-smile. ‘All a long time ago, Mr McCarthy. But now to the present. How many men do you have?’

  ‘Ah, about forty in all, sir. And I have sent riders to bring them all in from the nearby villages along the border.’

  ‘Forty!’ Jenkins voice carried a note of derision. ‘Blimey, sonny, we are goin’ to ’ave our work cut out, look you. Old Jelly ’ere,’ he gestured towards the silent figure of Mzingeli, ‘says that the lot that are comin’ down from the lake are a pretty savage bunch.’

  McCarthy drew himself to his full height. ‘Yes, well. I suspected that we would be outnumbered, but my chaps have had military training and are good shots. We can defend this place.’

  ‘I am sure you can.’ Fonthill drew up a chair and leant forward to look at the map. ‘Have you made any plans for defence yet?’

  ‘No, sir. To start with, we didn’t know which way the Hun would be coming. But I have sent three scouts out to the north, as that seemed the obvious way. How we are going to defend the town, though …’ His voice tailed away.

  ‘Scouts are a good first move. Now, let’s look at the map.’ He suddenly looked up at the young man. ‘I hope you don’t mind me making the odd suggestion, if I can?’

  ‘Good lord no, sir. I have only been out here for some eighteen months and have had nothing like your experience. Most of our time here is spent cracking down on thieving farmhands and the like. Please do take charge.’

  ‘Very well. Now, Mzingeli, you know the area. Come and look at this map. Is there anywhere we could intercept the Germans and ambush them before they reach the town?’

  ‘Don’t need to look at the map, Nkosi. I know the ground. Road to north is straight and ground is flat. Not much cover. Only bushes and short trees.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s right.’ McCarthy rubbed his jaw ruefully. ‘I was just looking to see what options we had.’

  ‘Have you sent for help?’

  ‘Yes. Sent a man galloping just before dawn south to Kasama. I understand that there is a small force there.’

  ‘Good. What weapons do you have?’

  ‘Well, we have a rather aged Maxim machine gun and the men are armed with .303 Martini–Enfield with triangular bayonets. They are good with the bare steel, as you’d expect.’

  Jenkins sniffed. ‘The Metfords are only single shots, though, aren’t they?’

  ‘Afraid so. I see you’ve got the magazine Lee Enfields. Wish we’d got them.’

  Fonthill nodded. ‘We brought them back with us after the Tibet show. S
houldn’t have kept them but I had a feeling they might come in handy up here so I brought them with us. Mind you, they are a bit ancient, too, but at least they are not single shot.’ He stood. ‘Now, we haven’t much time. Have you alerted the local people and called all available men up?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Just haven’t had time.’

  ‘Right. Send someone – any magistrates here?’

  ‘Yes, a good man. I have already sent a boy to alert him.’

  ‘Then I suggest you send him knocking on doors, telling women and children to stay inside and keep their heads down, and the men to come here quickly bringing whatever arms they have. Your sergeant should stay here to tell him that. Now, perhaps you can show us the lie of the land.’

  The lieutenant barked a series of orders to his sergeant, then he joined the others as they stood outside looking up the long, straight, dusty road that led to the north. They began to walk along it. Fonthill focussed his field glasses but could see no sign of life … except, yes, there were three tiny figures in the distance, seemingly approaching the town. The German advance patrol or McCarthy’s men coming back? They would soon know.

  He handed the glasses to the lieutenant. ‘Yes,’ McCarthy held them steadily to his eyes. ‘They’re my boys coming back. It looks as though they’re trotting. They can cover miles like that.’ He handed the glasses back. ‘I couldn’t see any sign of anyone behind them.’

  ‘Good.’ Fonthill pointed to a large, red-bricked, windowless building at the end of the town. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Our prison. Quite new. Our pride and joy.’ He gestured. ‘Those horizontal glass slits in the walls along the top are the nearest we get to windows.’

  ‘Do they face all round?’

  ‘Yes, except back towards the town.’

  ‘Can you get men up there to fire through them?’

  ‘Yes, we can put ladders and tables into the cells.’

  ‘Right. We will make it our fortress. Put in ten men to man it, but – and this is important – I don’t want them to poke rifles through those windows until they are told. Understand?’