The Shangani Patrol Read online

  The Shangani Patrol

  JOHN WILCOX

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2010 John Wilcox

  The right of John Wilcox to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  All characters in this publication - apart from the obvious historical figures - are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7981 1

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Author’s Note

  John Wilcox was born in Birmingham and was an award-winning journalist for some years before being lured into industry. In the mid-nineties he sold his company in order to devote himself to his first love, writing. His previous Simon Fonthill novels, THE HORNS OF THE BUFFALO, THE ROAD TO KANDAHAR, THE DIAMOND FRONTIER, LAST STAND AT MAJUBA HILL, THE GUNS OF EL KEBIR and SIEGE OF KHARTOUM, were highly acclaimed. He has also published two works of non-fiction, PLAYING ON THE GREEN and MASTERS OF BATTLE. For more information on John Wilcox and his novels, visit www.johnwilcoxauthor.co.uk or www.simonfonthill.co.uk.

  Praise for John Wilcox’s Simon Fonthill novels:

  ‘Full of action and brave deeds. If you are a fan of Simon Scarrow or Wilbur Smith, then this is for you’ Historical Novels Review

  ‘A hero to match Sharpe or Hornblower . . . Wilcox shows a genius for bringing to light the heat of battle’

  Northern Echo

  ‘Wilcox’s research gives this super-charged novel a wonderful cloak of authenticity with a large measure of imperial guts and glory’

  Oxford Times

  ‘Wilcox writes with an intimate knowledge of the African continent, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Victorian era when the British Empire was at its peak, and all the dash of a great adventurer’

  Nottingham Evening Post

  ‘As good as it gets for fans of soldiering in Queen Victoria’s day’ Bolton Evening News

  ‘A page-turner of a book, action-packed and seamlessly blending fact and fiction. Strap yourselves in for some roller-coaster excitement . . .’

  The Bookbag

  In memory of my friend Liam Hunter

  Acknowledgements

  I owe a debt to my editor at Headline, Sherise Hobbs, for her infinite attention to detail and, in particular, her intuitive sense of pace, of knowing where passages need more action and less of my regrettable tendency to let my characters talk too much. I must also thank my copyeditor, Jane Selley, for her care in tidying up my prose. I wouldn’t be a writer without my agent, Jane Conway-Gordon, and I appreciate her constant support. As I do that of my wife, Betty, my devoted research assistant, proofreader and first critic of all my work.

  These four have been a constant in most of my writings so far, but in the case of this particular book, my biggest vote of thanks must go to Dave Sutcliffe, an ex-Rhodesian now living in Newcastle, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. For various reasons, I was unable to get into Zimbabwe to carry out basic research, and Dave, ex-surveyor, naturalist, guide and historian in his own right, did not hesitate to fill the gap by supplying detailed maps and local knowledge. Any mistakes that may have crept into the narrative concerning historical events and flora and fauna, however, are mine, not his.

  As always, the London Library proved invaluable in supplying books about the period. However, I could find few definitive accounts of Rhodes’s invasion of Matabeleland and Mashonaland either in the UK or during an all too brief visit to South Africa. Nevertheless, contemporary copies of The Times, kept in a pristine state at the London Library, proved useful, as did the following books:

  A Flag for the Matabele by Peter Gibbs, Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1955

  To the Victoria Falls via Matabeleland, the diary of Major Henry Stabb, 1875, edited by Edward C. Tabler, C. Struik (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town, 1967

  Rhodes by J. G. Lockhart and the Hon. C. M. Woodhouse, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1963

  Cecil Rhodes by John Flint, Hutchinson, London, 1976

  And that great old stand-by, The Colonial Wars Source Book by Philip J. Haythornthwaite, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1995

  Alas, many of these books will be out of print, but the London Library and the British Library should be able to help.

  Chapter 1

  Just inside the southern border of Matabeleland, late 1889

  They stood in silence in a rough half-circle on the beaten earth in the centre of the kraal, all eyes on the tall, thin figure of the black man with a long stick on the edge of the circle. It was not yet quite light and the stars were still pricking the indigo blue of the darkness above them. Simon Fonthill, ex-soldier, army scout and leader of the group, shivered - and not just because it was bitterly cold in these few minutes before dawn.

  ‘Lion,’ said Mzingeli, their guide. ‘We go to kill him but he very dangerous animal. He also very shy . . .’

  ‘Ah well,’ murmured 352 Jenkins, ‘then p’raps it would be rude to bother ’im, eh?’ Jenkins, Fonthill’s long-standing comrade, was the inevitable jester of the group. But this time no one smiled.

  ‘. . . and he run from us in daylight. But at night he can see in dark and we cannot. So he attack us then without fear. That is why we go now, in light, just as sun comes up.’ The tall man looked at them in turn. ‘We hear him and his ladies roaring in bush last night and we know he make kill. So we follow his spoor now until we find where he lie down to sleep his meal away, and then you, Nkosi,’ he nodded to Fonthill, ‘or you, Nkosi,’ he inclined his head towards Jenkins, a touch less deferentially, ‘will kill him.’

  No one spoke. Mzingeli was their servant, but he spoke with an air of quiet authority that shrugged off questions of rank, class or race, and it would have seemed an act of lesemajesty to have interupted him at this point. His name meant the Hunter, and he looked the part. Some six feet tall, he was slim and probably older than his athletic frame suggested, for the tightly curled hair that lay close to his scalp was now quite grey and his eyes seemed to reflect the sadness of great years. His nose was long, with flared nostrils, and his lips were thin. He wore the dress of the Afrikaner - dirty corduroy trousers and a loose flannel shirt - but his feet were bare, showing white patches between his toes as though from the touch of a paintbrush, and totemic beads hung around his neck. An old Snider rifle was slung acr
oss his shoulder, but now he was drawing in the dust with the end of his stick.

  ‘This is animal,’ he said, and suddenly the silhouette of a male lion appeared at their feet. He stabbed at a point just above the left front leg of the animal. ‘Here you shoot. Here is heart and lungs.’ His stick moved again quickly, and the impressive outline of a charging lion, head on, materialised. ‘Lion can jump twenty feet,’ he went on, ‘so you do not want to see him like this. Only way to kill him like this is here.’ He jabbed the stick between the eyes of the animal. ‘No good down here,’ he gestured at the chest beneath and behind the mane, ‘because chest has about nine inches deep of muscle, and although your bullet may kill charging Zulu,’ a smile appeared, showing perfect white teeth, ‘it no go through lion chest.’

  Fonthill shot a quick glance at Alice, his wife. She was listening with rapt attention, a tiny pink sliver of tongue showing between her lips. But he noticed that despite the cold, small beads of perspiration had appeared on her forehead. Like him, she was apprehensive but exhilarated. Why the hell had she insisted on coming? She would have been safe enough staying here in the kraal. Then he gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. He knew well enough now that Alice Fonthill could never be dissuaded from a course of action on which her mind was set. But Mzingeli was continuing.

  ‘We hunt lion and two lionesses. We find the kill then we track spoor. We do not make noise. Walk in straight line. I lead, then come Nkosi Fonthill, then,’ he nodded at Alice, ‘Nkosana, then Nkosi Jenkins, then my boys.’ The two black bearers stood leaning on their spears, not understanding a word. ‘When we find lions, I do not point with hand or move quickly. I point gently with head and eyes. Watch me. Then, Nkosi, you walk very quiet ahead and kill animal.’

  Simon nodded. ‘Yes . . . hum . . . yes. Yes, of course.’

  ‘Very quietly,’ added Jenkins.

  ‘Mzingeli,’ Alice interjected.

  ‘Nkosana?’

  ‘You said that there is one male lion and two lionesses who have been attacking the cattle compound.’

  ‘Yes, Nkosana.’

  ‘Are there no cubs? Do they not form a pride?’

  Mzingeli nodded at the relevance of the question. ‘It is usual, yes. But this is just one man and two ladies. Male must have fought with previous lion and killed him, or perhaps other lion was old and died. New one now comes in and kills all cubs and starts again with these lionesses, so no family yet.’

  Alice wrinkled her nose. ‘How disgusting. Does this mean . . .’ and her voice faltered for a second, ‘that we must kill all three?’

  The black man shook his head. ‘No, unless they all attack us. We kill only lion. His ladies then go away and find another mate. I don’t think they come back here.’ Mzingeli looked around enquiringly, as though waiting for further questions. Then his eyes widened and he added slowly, ‘This dangerous. Everybody go very, very careful.’

  As though on cue, the tips of the mopane trees fringing the compound became suddenly alight as they caught the first rays of the rising sun. The little party turned to leave and began making for the opening at the edge of the thorn hedge that encircled the village. There, as if from nowhere, the village inDuna, or headman, materialised, spoke briefly to Mzingeli and then smiled and nodded to Fonthill.

  ‘He thank you for what we do,’ said the tracker.

  Simon returned the smile and gave an acknowledging nod. But he felt not at all confident about their mission, and despite Mzingeli’s competence, nor did he feel assured that they could bring it to a successful conclusion. When they had recruited Mzingeli in the Transvaal - on the warm recommendation of an old army acquaintance in the Cape - they had had no intention of hunting lion or other big game, or even of crossing the lazy Limpopo into the wilderness that was Matabeleland. They had merely wished to travel in a leisurely manner through the rolling grasslands of the veldt, shooting a few guineafowl and buck, camping under the stars and breathing the fresh, clear air of the country. A holiday, but also a way of forgetting the sadness they had left behind them at home in Norfolk. A brief change of direction for the three of them: Simon, Alice and, of course, Jenkins, Fonthill’s former batman, now lifelong friend, and survivor, with Simon, of a dozen or more dangerous encounters on campaign with the British Army. This was to have been a few weeks of indulgence, far from danger, and with a first-rate tracker to guide them through the country and help them find game when they needed it.

  It had been Mzingeli who had suggested that, as they were so near to the Matabele border with the Transvaal, they should cross the river and spend a couple of nights at his home village, thus allowing him to see again his elderly father, who was the inDuna there. There would be no need to seek permission from the all-powerful Matabele king, Lobengula, to enter his country. They would slip in and move out again without detection. The tracker had explained that he himself was a member of the Malakala tribe, a minority clan who lived on either side of the Limpopo. A non-militant, reclusive people, they had been completely subjugated by the Matabele, who used them as a source of plunder and slaves. His fellow tribesmen, he said, would see that the party were completely hidden from the king’s men during their short stay.

  Fonthill gave a wry smile as he trod carefully behind the tall figure of Mzingeli. He was still unsure whether the tracker had known, as he neared his old home with his employers, that his village’s slender stock of cattle - those few still left to them by the Matabele - was being ravaged by the lions, or whether it was a mere coincidence that they should arrive when the white man’s legendary firepower and hunting skills were so sorely needed. Either way, Simon had felt quite unable to resist the request that they should rid the village of this terrible scourge. He smiled again. He felt a little like the young hero of a medieval tale, called upon to slaughter the terrible dragon that was terrorising the hamlet and taking away the young maidens. Except that he knew nothing about dragon-slaying and even less about lion-killing. Thank God for Mzingeli - except that, of course, they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if it hadn’t been for the crafty old tracker. He shrugged. Ah, well. He and Jenkins had been in more dangerous situations than this and survived. If only Alice hadn’t insisted on coming too!

  He turned and tried to smile reassuringly at his wife. They were walking in single file, as Mzingeli had instructed, except that for some reason, the two bearers, Ntini and Sando, carrying their spears and light shoulder packs, had overtaken Jenkins, leaving the latter at the back. Fonthill caught the Welshman’s eye.

  ‘I’d be grateful,’ said Jenkins, in a hoarse whisper that seemed to boom back at them from the trees, ‘if I could be relieved of this postin’ at the back, see, before we come up with these bleedin’ lions . . . oh, beggin’ your pardon, Miss Alice.’

  Alice sighed, stopped and turned. ‘Three five two, if you’re going to apologise every time you swear, it is going to make for a very long day. Let me remind you that I am a brigadier’s daughter, I have served as a war correspondent on almost as many campaigns as you and Simon, and I have heard language that might make even your hair curl. So do feel free to swear as much as you bloody well like.’

  Jenkins bit into his huge black moustache. ‘Yes, miss. Sorry, miss. It’s just that I’d rather be up front to face the bugg . . . beggars when they come than at the back ’ere, with me arse sort of exposed, look you.’

  Mzingeli held up his hand. ‘No talk now.’ He spoke curtly in his own language to the two bearers, who sheepishly moved behind Jenkins. Then they all moved on.

  Within what seemed like only moments, they had been swallowed up by the bush. Mzingeli had called this terrain mopane woodland, named after the mopane itself, a deciduous tree with butterfly-shaped leaves that cattle loved to chew, and he had told them that it stretched in a broad belt for miles along the low veldt north of the Limpopo. Yet it bore little resemblance to any woodland that Fonthill remembered from England. The mopane jostled for space with the much larger baobab tree and the smaller tho
rn trees and bushes. Visibility was only about one hundred yards, and the terrain could not have been more different from the rolling grassland that they had left behind them in the Transvaal.

  The night had brought them little sleep, for the bush had been alive with noise: the squeal of hyenas, the barking of baboons, the grunting of dozens of other, unknown animals, and above all, the roar of lions - that primeval sound that made them pull their blankets under their chins and ensure that their rifles were within reach. Lions feared no one; even elephants were likely to form a defensive circle when the king of beasts was on the hunt. Now, however, as they walked, the woodland had turned into a sleepy, seemingly quiet environment. But it was not a tranquil place. They trod carefully yet they continually disturbed guineafowl, which suddenly flew up ahead of them, squawking, flapping and sending their hearts into their mouths. Simon became aware of a distinctive smell of . . . what? Ah yes - cinnamon. He realised that it emanated from the miniature kopjes of dried clay constructed by ants that now began to appear among the trees. The rainy season had long since passed, and underneath their boots the soil was dry and powdery. Strange new country. Good country for lions. He licked his dry lips and gripped his rifle tightly.