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“Down into the deep, dark kloof below the fort, where the air strikes with an icy chill, we cross the shallow spruit, then rise and turn along its farther bank, following a twisting, stony track that leads down the valley. Our horses, though they purposely are left unshod, make a prodigious clatter as they stumble adown the rough, uneven way. From force of habit rather than from fear of listening enemies, we drop our voices to a whisper, and this gives a feeling of alertness and expectancy such as would find us well prepared on an emergency. But we are many miles as yet from their extremest outposts, and, luckily for us, these natives are the soundest of sleepers, so that one might almost in safety pass with clattering horses within a quarter of a mile of them.

“There must be some merit in wrapping up your head when cold, – even at the expense of your nether limbs, – for here in Southern Africa the natives have identically the same way as the men of Northern India have of keeping up their warmth, and as they feel the cold increase, so do they ‘peel’ their legs to find the wherewithal to further muffle up their heads. The keen crispness of the air is in keeping with our spirits, as, all awake, we trek along the hazy veldt. And what a lot of foes one sees when one is looking out for them! Surely that’s a man – yes – no – an upright bush! Ah, there! I saw one move. It is but the sprig of a nearer tree deluding a too–watchful eye; the Kaffirs do not move about as a rule alone at night, while if one is seen, you may be sure there is a party close at hand, and so one needs to keep a very sharp look–out. By going thus at night, we are hoping that we may slip past the Matabele outposts stationed on the hills, and so gain the country that we want to see beyond. Were we to attempt this feat by day, or with a larger party, we should undoubtedly attract attention and have to take a longish circuit. As it is, we make our way for some ten miles along this valley, keeping off the stony path and in the grass, so as to deaden sound as far as possible. High above on either hand the hills loom dark against the stars, and on their summits our enemy’s outposts, we know, are quietly sleeping.

“Now and again we cross a transverse donga or tributary watercourse that runs into our stream, the donga sometimes rising to the dignity of a ravine with steep and broken sides. And when we have found a place, and safely crossed it, we turn and approach it from the other side, so that should we happen later on to be pursued and want to get across it in a hurry, we shall know the landmarks that should guide us to the ‘drift.’ The stars are palpitating now and striving hard to increase their gleam, which means that dawn is at hand. The hills along our left (we are travelling south) loom darker now against the paling sky. Before us, too, we see the hazy blank of the greater valley into which our present valley runs. Suddenly there’s a pause, and all our party halts. Look back! there, high up on a hill, beneath whose shadow we have passed, there sparkles what looks like a ruddy star, which glimmers, bobs, goes out, and then flares anew. It is a watch–fire, and our foes are waking up to warm themselves and to keep their watch. Yonder on another hill sparks up a second fire, and on beyond, another. They are waking up, but all too late; we’ve passed them by, and now are in their ground. Forward! We press on, and ere the day has dawned we have emerged from out the defile into the open land beyond. This is a wide and undulating plain, some five miles across to where it runs up into mountain peaks, the true Matopos. We turn aside and clamber up among some hills just as the sun is rising, until we reach the ashes of a kraal that has been lately burned. The kraal is situated in a cup among the hills, and from the koppies round our native scouts can keep a good look–out in all directions. Here we call a halt for breakfast, and after slackening girths, we go into the cattle kraal to look for corn to give our horses. (The Kaffirs always hide their grain in pits beneath the ground of the ‘cattle kraal’ or yard in which the oxen are herded at night.) Many of the grain–pits have already been opened, but still are left half–filled, and some have not been touched – and then in one – well, we cover up the mouth with a flat stone and logs of wood. The body of a girl lies doubled up within. A few days back a party of some friendlies, men and women, had revisited this kraal, their home, to get some food to take back to their temporary refuge near our fort. The Matabele saw them, and just when they were busy drawing grain, pounced in upon them, assegaing three, – all women, – and driving off the rest as fast as they could go. This was but an everyday incident of outpost life.

“And having fed our horses, each of us now got his ‘billy’ out, – a ‘billy’ (cooking–tin) is carried here by every officer and trooper in a case upon his saddle, – and, having lit a fire, we got our coffee boiled, and breakfast under way. Then two of us, taking with us our two prisoners, clamber up a koppie, from whose top we hope to get a view of the enemy’s country. There is something ludicrous in, and yet one cannot laugh at, this miserable pair. Linked wrist to wrist, they move as would a pair of sullen Siamese twins. The grass is prickly hereabouts, and both want to keep to the tiny goat–track that we are following, and so they have to sidle up like crabs, going hand in hand along it. At length we gain the top; there is a splendid panorama, and now that the sun is well up, the mountains out across the plain look but a few hundred yards away, so clear is every rock, so deep the shadows. The prisoners have no hesitation in telling us exactly where their friends are camped upon the mountains, and where they keep their women and their cattle. We sit and stare for half an hour, and then agree that, having come so far without accident, we may as well go farther, and get a nearer view of these redoubtable strongholds. We return down to our party, and as we descend, we remember that our native scouts and the prisoners have had a pretty long walk as it is. They had shown us what we had come out to see, and we now proposed to send them back.

“So, having seen them shuffling homeward, we turned our horses’ heads towards the mountains, and continued our way across the open valley. On and on, keeping everywhere a bright look–out against surprise. The veldt was rolling grassy downs, all covered, sometimes sparsely, sometimes densely, with bushes, – mostly thorns. Every open speck of sand, every track, was keenly scrutinised for ‘spoor’ (or tracks of men), and though there was not a soul to be seen about the veldt, the signs of their propinquity were here too glaring to be missed.

“Leaving our horses, with the remainder of the men, well hidden behind a rise, we two walked on on foot, each carrying a rifle with him. It was an anxious time, as very soon the bush had shut us out of sight of our support, but still we kept along, anxious to gain the summit of a rounded, rocky hill, whence we could see all round, and so foresee all danger.

“Now, on the paths before us were fresh tracks of an ox, behind whom had walked a man with naked feet, and going a little lame on one – the left toes dragged, he used a stick. They had passed along before sunrise, because across the tracks there ran the spoor of guinea–fowl heading towards their feeding–ground in yonder patch of maize. A single ox thus driven in the night assuredly meant a pack–ox smuggling in supplies to one of the rebel strongholds. More paths converged into the one we followed, bringing more and more people, women’s feet and children’s, oxen and donkeys, all fresh, and heading in the same direction.

“Then, mounting on the rocks, we followed with our eyes the direction of the path through thicker bush until it reached a solitary mountain. There we could see a thin wreath of smoke curling up from the bush, and, looking through our powerful telescope, we soon could see some other fires high up the hillside close to some mighty caves. Dogs were barking, cattle lowing, at the back of one particular shoulder of the hill; and while we stared to try and distinguish figures in the rocks, a sudden flash up near the mountain–top just caught our eye. Then, focusing the glass upon it, soon we saw the dark brown figures of some twenty natives squatting up about the skyline, and the frequent glint and sparkle showed they carried guns and assegais. Nearer and nearer we crept, gaining another koppie, whence we had a better view, and from here we marked the line that our attacking parties ought to take, and where to post our guns with best advantage. We might have stayed there longer, for it was a tempting spectacle to sit and watch. But the niggers in the hills are calling to each other, evidently suspicious, if not actually aware of our presence – and they have eyes as strong as telescopes. Now some crows fly startled from the bush a few hundred yards to our right. Some one is moving there! Up springs a plover screaming farther on – they’re on the move. We have seen all that we want to see. To stay in one place for long when scouting is risky at any time; to–day it looks even dangerous. So we quietly slip away – not by the path we came – for that is the way you run into your enemy’s ambuscades.

“Then, as we went along, a novel footprint caught our eye, and struck us much as Friday’s must have struck old Crusoe. A deep indented hollow of the fore part of a foot showed plainly in the grass to one side of the path, heading as to cross it, and in the grass beyond the other side the deep indent was seen of a heel in the earth. This was the spoor of a man, running much in the same direction as ourselves, yet wishing to avoid notice, because he jumped the path. Evidently a messenger going out the way we had come, and knowing of our presence there, and on his way to warn the outposts, through whom we had passed in the dark, to catch us on our homeward road. Our horses now had had their second feed, the men had had a kind of meal, and so we started on again. We had to visit two more hills, but found them both unoccupied. And then we turned our heads for home. Caution became more than ever necessary now. There was only left the short afternoon of daylight, our horses were no longer over fresh, and we had five–and–twenty miles to go, ten of them along a defile valley. So with an advanced file sent well ahead, and one dropped well in rear, we journeyed on, each man keeping an ever–restless, bright look–out.

“And though we talked and chatted from time to time for many a weary mile, you never saw your neighbour’s eyes look at you for a moment. While talking, one had still to keep one’s eyes afield. And what a mixture in our little band of eight! Under the similar equipment of cocked–up Boer or cowboy hat, with ragged shirt and strong cord pants, with cartridge–bandolier, and belt from which hung knife and pipe, tobacco–bag and purse, all grimy and unkempt, and sunburnt to a rich, dark brick colour, each individual was an interesting study in himself. Here is one with pince–nez– (pince–nez on a trooper!) – a Cambridge man of highest education, who thought he would take to farming in Rhodesia; but his plans are interrupted by the war, and while that lasts he takes his place, like others, in the ranks. Beside him rides a late A.B. seaman in the Royal Navy, a fine young fellow, full of pluck, who will press on where devils fear to tread, but he is disappointing as a scout, for, after having been close up to the enemy, he cannot tell how they are posted, what their strength, or any other points that the leader wants to know. This other man an architect, and yon a gold–prospector – in fact, there’s a variety enough among them to suit almost any taste.

“The sun has set and darkness has drawn on before we are well out of the defile; but we are now beyond the rebel outposts, and getting nearer home, so there’s nothing much to – bang! phit! – and a bullet flits just over our heads! It came from behind; we halt and hear the clatter of hoofs as the man who was left as rearguard comes galloping up the road. A moment later he appears in the dusk rounding the next turn. He no sooner sees us than he halts, dismounts, drops on one knee, takes aim, and fires straight at us. We shout and yell, but as he loads to fire again, we scatter, and push on along the road, and he comes clattering after us. The explanation is that nervousness, increased by darkness coming on, has sent the man a little off his head, and, ludicrous though it be, it is a little unpleasant for us. None of his comrades care to tackle him. ‘It is a pity to shoot him,’ ‘His horse is tired and cannot catch us up,’ and ‘He’ll be all right as soon as he has got over the first attack of fright’; and so we leave him to follow us, keeping a respectful distance. At length the fires twinkle ahead, and, tired and hungry, we get back to camp.

“At dawn our missing man turned up – without his horse, it had dropped dead from fatigue. He had a wondrous tale of how he had pursued a host of enemies. The sole reward he got was a ducking in the spruit.”

A small party such as that mentioned in this account of a scouting expedition is often necessary, as in this case, for ensuring the safety of the scouts in getting to and from their work through defiles and the like, where it might happen that the way would have to be forced past the enemy’s outposts. But once on their ground, the escort should be carefully concealed. Their work is over for the time being, and the essential part of the expedition, that is, the scouting by one or two trained individuals, has commenced.

The scout must then be left with a perfectly free hand, and must not be tied to any certain hour for return. He can only judge for himself later on whether it is necessary to be away for two or three hours only, or for a whole night, before he comes back to the party. And that is one of the considerations which make me prefer to start from home or camp without escort in the original instance, as it leaves one altogether unfettered by considerations as to the feeding, resting, etc., of the patrol, or of necessarily making one’s way back to the exact spot where it would be posted.

P.S.– As will be seen in the following chapters, the rebel impis and their women and cattle were all found, when the troops came to attack them later on, in the exact positions assigned to them in the sketch map issued. Such “locating” would have been impossible had we tried to effect it by reconnaissances of the usual kind, that is, by parties of men. The natives would have gathered to oppose our coming, or – what is more likely – to prevent our getting away again; instead of gently stealing our honey bit by bit, we should have brought the whole swarm of bees about us, and the probability is that they would then have deserted that hive to take a new and more inaccessible one. Instead of being able to lead the troops straight to the enemy, we should merely have been able to say, “There is the spot where we fought them; they seemed to come from yonder; but it looks as if they had now gone somewhere else.” And reconnoitring parties would again have had to follow them, with similar results, probably losing men every time, and gaining nothing.

The value of solitary scouting does not seem to be sufficiently realised among us nowadays. One hears but little of its employment since the Peninsula days, when Marbot gave the English officers unqualified praise for their clever and daring enterprise in this line.

It is not only for savage warfare that I venture to think it is so important, but equally for modern civilised tactics. A reconnaissance in force in these days of long–range weapons and machine–guns can have very little chance of success, and yet for the same reasons an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position, strength, and movements is more than ever necessary to the officer commanding a force. One well–trained, capable scout can see and report on an object just as well as fifty ordinary men of a patrol looking at the same thing. But he does so with this advantage, that he avoids attracting the attention of the enemy, and they do not alter their position or tactics on account of having been observed; and he can venture where a party would never be allowed to come, since the enemy, even if they see him, would hesitate to disturb their piquets, etc., by opening fire on a solitary individual, although they would have no such scruples were a reconnoitring party there instead.

It is difficult to find in history a battle in which the victory or defeat were not closely connected with good or deficient reconnaissance respectively. Good preliminary reconnaissance saves premature wearing out of men and horses through useless marches and counter–marches, and it simplifies the commander’s difficulties, and he knows exactly when, where, and how to dispose his force to obtain the best results.

But, as I have said above, such reconnaissance can often be carried out the most effectually by single reconnoitrers or scouts. And a peace training of such men is very important.

Without special training a man cannot have a thorough confidence in himself as a scout, and without an absolute confidence in himself, it is not of the slightest use for a man to think of going out to scout.

Development of the habits of noting details and of reasoning inductively constitute the elements of the required training. This can be carried out equally in the most civilised as in the wildest countries, – although for its complete perfecting a wild country is preferable. It is to a large extent the development of the science of woodcraft in a man – that is, the art of noticing smallest details, and of connecting their meaning, and thus gaining a knowledge of the ways and doings of your quarry; the education of your “eye–for–a–country”; and the habit of looking out on your own account. Once these have become, from continual practice, a second nature to a man, he has but to learn the more artificial details of what he is required to report, and the best method of doing so, to become a full–fledged scout.

We English have the talent of woodcraft and the spirit of adventure and independence already inborn in our blood to an extent to which no other nationality can lay claim, and therefore among our soldiers we ought to find the best material in the world for scouts. Were we to take this material and rightly train it in that art whose value has been denoted in the term “half the battle,” we ought to make up in useful men much of our deficiency in numbers.

Houdin, the conjurer, educated the prehensibility of his son’s mind by teaching him, in progressive lessons, to be able to recapitulate the contents of a shop window after a single look at it; there is the first stage of a scout’s training, viz. the habit of noticing details. The second, “inductive reasoning,” or the putting together of this and that detail so noticed, and deducing their correct meaning, is best illustrated in the Memoirs of “Sherlock Holmes.”

CHAPTER V
The Rebels Decline to Surrender

14th July to 18th July

Plumer’s Victory at Taba–si–ka–Mamba – How the M’limo Oracle is worked – Reorganisation of the Buluwayo Field Force – The Price of Beer – I am nicknamed “Impeesa” – The Proclamation of Clemency – The Local Settler’s View of it – The Rebel’s View of it – The Enemy hopeful – The General’s Plan of Campaign – Reconnaissance of the Central Matopos – Preparing for Operations in the Hills – Reconnaissance of Babyan’s Stronghold.

Meanwhile, during the first week in July, the three columns, which had been out clearing the country to the northward of Buluwayo, returned, having had a great amount of hard work with only a modicum of fighting. The rebels of that region had been effectually broken and dispersed in all direction – except at one spot, near Inyati, some fifty miles north–east from the town.

Colonel Plumer accordingly took a column out there, – nearly 800 strong, – and, after a clever and most successful night–march, surprised the enemy, at dawn, on 5th July, in a desperate–looking koppie stronghold called Taba–si–ka–Mamba. There was some tough fighting, and the newly arrived corps of “Cape Boys” (natives and half–castes from Cape Colony), much to everybody’s surprise, showed themselves particularly plucky in storming the koppies; but, as in the case of most natives, their élan is greatly a matter of what sort of leaders they have, and in this case there was every reason for them to go well. Major Robertson, their commandant, an old Royal Dragoon, is a wonderfully cool, keen, and fearless leader under fire.

In the end the place and its many caves was taken. Our loss amounted to 10 killed, 12 wounded. The enemy lost 150 killed, and we got some 600 prisoners, men, women, and children, 800 head of cattle, and a very large amount of goods which had been looted from stores and collected at this place as the property of the M’limo. It was a final smash to the enemy in the north, though M’qwati, the local priest of the M’limo, and M’tini, his induna, both escaped.

The M’limo’s cave was found, a most curious place, which I visited later on: a sort of anteroom in which suppliants had to wait while the priest went away to invoke the M’limo’s attention; then a narrow cleft by which they would walk deep into the rock, and which narrowed till it looked like a split just before the end of the cave. And through this crevice they made their requests and got their answer from the M’limo. In reality, another cave entered the hill from the opposite side and led up to this same crevice, and it was by this back entrance that the priest re–entered, and, sitting in the dark corner just behind the crevice, he was able to personate an invisible deity with full effect.

Of such caves there are three or four about the country, where the rebels just now get their orders as to their course of action.

Office work still very heavy – especially as we have broken up the original Buluwayo Volunteer Field Force as an unworkable and rather overpaid organisation (the troopers getting 10s. a day and their rations!), and are now busy organising it anew as a regularly enlisted armed police force at 5s. a day, under military law and discipline. Nicholson, 7th Hussars, is working this task, and is a first–rate man for it.

The office work, although exacting, is most interesting all the same; the only drawback is that there are not more than twenty–four hours in a day in which to get it done. I certainly do look forward, though, to the hour of luncheon; yes, it sounds greedy – but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward, not the lunch. That is scarcely pleasant either to look forward to or to look back on – consisting as it generally does of hashed leather which has probably got rinderpest, no vegetables, and liquid nourishment at prohibitive prices, —e. g. local beer at 2s. a glass. I live on bread, jam, and coffee, and that costs 5s. a meal; and prices are rising! Eggs are 32s. a dozen, and not guaranteed fresh at that!

Many of the strongholds to which I had at first learned the way with patrols, I have now visited again by myself at nights, in order to further locate the positions of their occupants. In this way I have actually got to know the country and the way through it better by night than by day, that is to say, by certain landmarks and leading stars whose respectively changed appearance or absence in daylight is apt to be misleading.

The enemy, of course, often see me, but are luckily very suspicious, and look upon me as a bait to some trap, and are therefore slow to come at me. They often shout to me; and yesterday my boy, who was with my horse, told me they were calling to each other that “Impeesa” was there —i. e. “the Wolf,” or, as he translated it, “the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”

14th July.– Last night I was riding alone across the veldt; I came suddenly upon a Matabele driving a horse and a mule towards the Matopos. He turned and fled, and I galloped after him to give him a fright, and then returned to the beasts, which I drove before me safely to camp. They were our own branded animals, which had been looted.

On getting back to Buluwayo at 9.30 p. m., after having been away for some days’ solitary scouting, varied by such patrols as that described in the last chapter, I found that reports had come in from the officer commanding Fig Tree Fort, saying that rebel impis were on the move there. Ferguson had at once been sent off by the General, with 50 men of the newly–formed police, and Laing’s column of about 150, which had lately come in from the Belingwe District. No sooner had the troops got there (on the 13th) than they found that the Matabele impis were merely pictures in the mind’s eye of the commandant, a Dutchman, who had been imbibing not wisely, but too well.

15th July.– “Well! of all the murkiest rot that ever I heard of, this is the murkiest!” These words, and others to the same effect, but, to use the speaker’s term, “murkier,” saluted my waking senses at an unseemly hour of this morning. For a moment I was inclined to reach for my gun, or, at all events, to let fly my feelings at the two loafers who stood yarning at my window–sill (we live on the ground floor in Buluwayo, because there is not a second to our house, nor, indeed, to any house in the place except “Williams’ Buildings,” and they are “buildings” being not yet built); but presently a lazy feeling of curiosity got the better of my momentary irritation, and I played the eavesdropper. It was merely a discussion of the situation between two late troopers of the Buluwayo Field Force, dealing more particularly with the “Proclamation to the Rebels,” which had been issued last night. Their review of it was remarkable, not only for the vigour, and – well – the originality of their language, but also because it covered exactly the ground over which all travelled again when they came to discuss it with me, or in my hearing, during the remainder of the day. One thing that struck them all was that this proclamation of clemency which was now to be published to the rebels was made in England and not in Rhodesia, and that “it was made by people who had no more conception of how things were in this part of the world than a boiled dumpling had of horse–racing”; at least, that was what they inferred from the tenor of its wording. I do not say that they had read and inwardly digested the exact literal meaning of the wording. I think, on the contrary, that they had only grasped a general idea of it all; the very heading of a “Proclamation of Clemency” at such a juncture having filled their thoughts with rage, and left them to read the rest with biassed minds.

Unfortunately for the proclamation, within a few hours of its publication there came from Mashonaland another of the horrid telegrams with which we are only too familiar now. After telling of three different murders of friendly natives by rebels on the previous day, it went on to say: “The wife and two daughters of Mobele, the native missionary, reached Salisbury from Marendellas this morning. They related how the missionary was killed by rebels while he was endeavouring to save the life of James White, who was lying wounded. White was also killed. Then three little children of the missionary were killed. And the women themselves were maltreated and left for dead. They did not know their way to Salisbury, so followed the telegraph line, and travelled by night only, suffering great privations.”

It is a far cry from Mashonaland to England, and distance lessens the sharpness of the sympathy, but to men on the spot – men with an especially strong, manly, and chivalrous spirit in them, as is the case in this land of pioneers – to them such cases as these appeal in a manner which cannot be realised in dear, drowsy, after–lunch Old England. A man here does not mind carrying his own life in his hand – he likes it, and takes an attack on himself as a good bit of sport; but touch a woman or a child, and he is in a blind fury in a moment – and then he is gently advised to be mild, and to offer clemency to the poor benighted heathen, who is his brother after all. M’, yes! And though woman is his first care, and can command his last drop of blood in her defence, woman is the first to assail him on his return, with venom–pointed pen, for his brutality!

Then my friends at the window went on to talk on the clause which permitted loyally–disposed natives to carry arms. “Loyal!” – as if any native could be loyal if it did not happen to suit his circumstances, and even then, why should he be allowed arms? “He was not likely to be at war with his brothers and cousins, and the absence of arms would be a good assurance of peace; whereas, after the late bitter experience, how would confidence ever be instilled into farmers to induce them to come and rebuild the blackened ruins of farmsteads whose owners had been murdered by the selfsame natives glowering yonder, assegais and gun in hand?”

My friends were deploring the fact that their would–be rulers far away are quite out of touch with the circumstances of the case. Writers in the press, they said, gaily condemn the burning down of kraals and consequent destruction of the grain stores, which are all the natives now depend upon for food. But burning down a kraal is more or less a formal act, which has a deal of meaning for the native comprehension. That the store of grain is lost thereby is quite a fallacy. The grain is buried here in pits beneath the kraal; grain will not burn in pits, it can only be destroyed by drowning.

I was glad when at last my early arguers moved on to get their morning coffee. Had I been so minded, I might have soothed their feelings by telling them the latest news we had from captured rebels; that they need not vex their souls over the wording or the terms of the proclamation so thoughtfully provided for our use by those at home, for whether put in that or any other form, there was not the slightest chance of its being seriously accepted by the rebels. Our informants came from four different ways, and agreed like one in showing that although North–Western Matabeleland has thoroughly been cleared, the lower and more trappy part, in the Matopos, as well as the North–Eastern parts, remain the home of mutiny, and there, at least, the impis will not think of giving in until the white man comes to fight them, and they promise boastfully that he shall suffer then.