The Matabele Campaign

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.

Then another signal came from Thurnall towards evening, to say that numbers of the enemy were making their way out to the rear of the position by a path that was out of his range; so, leaving word with Prince Teck to bring on some of the 7th to that point, I got a fresh horse, and, accompanied by Jackson, the Native Commissioner, once more made my way round to the back of the mountain. In passing by the little party that I had left there in the morning, we took three of them on with us, and, riding along the well–worn tracks of the natives, we got into a labyrinth of small valleys at the back of Wedza’s mountain. Then, leaving our horses concealed, we clambered up on to the ridge, looking into the heart of the stronghold from the rear. Kaffirs were all about near us, but not in any large number, – single men here and there on the look–out, women and children gathering up their goods, evidently preparatory to making a move; but we could see no large parties of them going away as yet, nothing that we could attack if we brought a force round there; however, we saw the position of their main paths toward the mountains to the north and eastward, and just about sunset we came down again, and made our way back.

Owing to the broken nature of the country at this point, we were forced to carry out what I always consider a most dangerous practice, and that is, to return by the same path which you used in coming, and the danger of it was practically demonstrated on this occasion. Riding quietly along in the dusk, we had just got out of the bad part, thinking all danger was over, when there was suddenly a flash and a crash of musketry from a ridge of rocks close to us, dust spurted up all round, and a swish of bullets whizzed past our heads. My hat was violently struck from my head as if with a stick, and in an instant we were galloping across the thirty yards of open which separated us from a similar parallel ridge; dismounting here, we were very soon busy replying to the firing of the enemy, whose forms we could now and again see silhouetted against the evening sky. We had had a marvellous escape; Jackson himself had been grazed on the shoulder, his horse had a bullet–hole in its temple, the bullet had lodged in its head, and beyond possibly a slight headache, the gallant little horse appeared to be none the worse. Our position here was not too good a one: the enemy were evidently a fairly strong party, and would merely have to work among the rocks, a little to the right, to cut us off from rejoining our main body. Moreover, they had practically possession, or, at least, command of fire over my hat, which I badly wanted. But it looked as though we ought at once to be making good our retreat, if we meant to go away at all. We were just mounting to carry this out, when out of the gathering darkness behind, there trotted up a strong party of hussars, under Prince Teck, who, hearing the firing, had at once hurried to the spot; his coming was most opportune, and reversed the aspect of affairs. After a few minutes of sharp firing, the rocks in front of us were cleared and occupied by our men, and my hat came back to me.

Teck then posted piquets for the night, extending all round the left flank and rear of the enemy’s position. These piquets built fires at intervals, which were kept alight throughout the night by patrols moving from one to the other. Thurnall had similar instructions to light fires on heights round the northern end of the stronghold; while the men in camp did the same on the plain in front of the central portion of the position. This was done with a view to making the enemy believe that our force was a very large one, encamped on every side of them, and they evidently quite took this view of the case, for during the night they made frequent sallies against one fire after another, never venturing to attack it, but, as a rule, pouring in a sudden volley from a short distance, and then retiring, probably boasting that they had killed untold numbers of the white devils sleeping round their fires. As a matter of fact, the white devils were specially ordered not to sleep or to remain in the neighbourhood of the fires for that very reason. But our men had a hard night of it, for they had orders not to let the enemy rest, and they carried out their orders well; patrols were constantly on the move opening fire now and then from unexpected points. Sometimes they could see the lights of the enemy moving about among their kraals, and these they fired on as a matter of course, but often they fired without any actual object to aim at, merely with a view to keeping up the enemy’s state of alarm. It was moonlight up till four in the morning, so that any moves on the party of the enemy in force could easily be seen by our scouts, but none took place; but so soon as the moon set, bands of them were reported getting away by the paths leading towards the mountains.

16th October.– As soon as there was light enough, we began to hammer away with the 7–pounder, the Maxims, and Nordenfeldt, taking each koppie and its kraal in turn. Through the glass I could see the natives move from the kraals into the caves, and when we shelled these, we could see them stealing away through the rocks and bush, evidently anxious to make their escape. Then I sent up the party of volunteers who had joined us from Belingwe to assist Thurnall. He then advanced along the ridge, attacking the koppies in turn after they had been shelled, and very soon the flames shot up, and a cloud of smoke rolled out, showing far and near that the first of the villages was taken. This was Wedza’s own particular kraal, and in it were found large numbers of Matabele arms, which showed that Wedza’s people, although of the Makalaka race, were assisted by a number of Matabele warriors. In this kraal was also found a large store of stolen dynamite, and Thurnall was not slow to make use of it; for presently, with a splendid boom, the koppie on which the kraal stood was blown to smithereens.

While the mounted infantry were thus taking the kraals in succession, the hussars were recalled from their outlying positions around the stronghold; and, though pretty well fagged out with the almost incessant work of the last twenty–four hours, they eagerly volunteered to clamber up the mountain and take part with the mounted infantry in completing the destruction of the stronghold; and Major Ridley, with his usual energy, led them up there. All through the heat of the day they were at work, over most awful ground and clambering on to inaccessible peaks, to effect the complete destruction of the enemy’s villages and the clearing of their grain stores. It was not till after dark that they were all safely down again, with their work well accomplished, and the blazing evidences of it gleaming out their message to all the rebels for miles round.

21st October.– Excuse bad writing; but the light is waning; it is sunset, the yellow–red sky is cut by the black skyline of the next ridge and its wooded crest in strong silhouette. Looking from my lair, through the frame of great black tree–stems, our bivouac fires in the gully just below look like ragged bits of the orange–coloured sky dropped into the dark abyss of the bush, and their blue misty wreaths of smoke rise slowly on the breathless air like a circle of ghostly sentries. The men are busy at their evening meal, the murmur of their voices and the crunching of the horses, with their muzzles deep in looted corn, are only sounds that go to emphasise the stillness of the forest. Overhead, in the darkening sky, “Celangobi” (C stands for a Matabele click, with a sound of Kts), the matron evening star, beams calmly on our rest; but, over her shoulder, little, laughing stars are already twinkling at the humour of the thing, for they can see her peaceful gleam glinting sharply from the rifles and sword–scabbards on the ground below; the peace of the scene is but the peace of the hour – to–morrow there will be war again. – What nonsense it is to write all this! but when one is tired, it is as when one is ill: one likes to review such trifles in a dreamy way. I am tired, – we all are tired, – nature herself seems tired to–night. And we’ve some reason for it. On the evening of the 19th, we (a party of forty mounted men, hussars and mounted infantry) moved out from camp without encumbrances, but taking two days’ rations in our wallets, to follow up Wedza’s people in their flight through his country, and to harry them into submission.

An evening march, off–saddle in the woods, and on again at 3 a. m. No pipes nor talking as we pass along the foot of the rocky ridge on which the rebels have their kraals. Then clamber up on foot, lugging our horses after us, along the steep and rocky cattle track. No cattle now are here – the spoor is old. We break up into small patrols, to each of which is assigned a bit of mountain and its kraals.

With my patrol we have a weary trudge – for only twenty per cent. of the men have boots still fit for walking – (and I am one of the remaining eighty per cent.; my feet are partly through the soles and on the ground; I go, like Agag, “treading delicately”). We see no kraal; but the fresh spoor of men, women, and children lies before to guide us. It turns and leads into the boulders on the mountain–side. There, just round the corner of a rock, one spies the eaves of a thatched hut, and, close beside a cave, a few dead branches show there is a cattle kraal. We press through thorny bush, and clamber up the slippery granite path, some men working up the right and others up the left. Behind some rocks we come upon a few huts, all empty but for some calabashes of water and some fetish rags. Then a nasty slit between the rocks has to be approached with care, or others stepped across in haste – these are the caves in which Mashonas love to lie when danger visits their kraal. The caves are labyrinths of little passages between the rocks below the ground; and a few men with guns, well posted, can hope with ease to stop a host of enemies.

The path leads up a kind of stair of rocks to a gap between two heavy boulders, and in the gap is fixed a strong stockade of roughly–trimmed saplings. To either hand, interstices between the rocks have been blocked up with stones, and made into loopholes. These defences are without defenders – and we are soon among the better huts of the kraal proper, and among the corn–stores.

Each man carries an empty nose–bag, and as soon as these are filled, and some errant chickens killed with sticks, and curios taken from the huts, we burn the kraal, commencing on the windward side. There is a roar, as the pillar of flame shoots up its twenty feet into the sky, the pots and calabashes crack up from heat with the report of pistols, and in a few minutes the village is a heap of smoking ruins – a warning far and near to watching rebels.

After burning two such kraals, we make our way back to the horses, the whole patrol reassembles and continues its march, having destroyed five kraals among us. Through woods and stony hills into the Sabi Valley. Off–saddle by a convenient water–hole, for breakfast and midday rest. On again in the afternoon, to a bold, upstanding, solitary peak, a regular acropolis, on the top of which are clustered the huts of Monti’s stronghold. Keeping under cover of the woods, we divide into two parties, and rapidly surround it. Dismount; and half an hour’s arduous climb brings us past caves and barricades up to the summit. Nobody there! Splendid view, fine kraal, good huts; fill our nosebags and baskets, clear out, light up, and gingerly, among the sharp stones, down we go again, to the music of the crackling huts behind us. Then through the forest – up over stony mountains – alternately walking and riding – to ease our worn–out nags. Over the Fisu range; then down into an ideal cattle–robbers valley, full of kloofs and glades, with a grassy, marshy bottom. Cliffs tower up on either hand, and from their tops we can hear the rebel look–outs shouting their warning of our approach, confound them! They soon know miles ahead that we are there – and the path is far too bad for night marching!

At sundown we off–saddle and bivouac for the night where the gorge opens out a little. High above us towers the rocky Mount Ingona, on the top of which we see the kraal of chief Masunda. At dusk voices can be heard in all the rocks around us. It looks as though we were in for an attack – but the niggers vanish like smoke when a patrol goes out to investigate. Lights are seen flitting about Masunda’s kraal, so we shout to them not to disturb themselves, that if they like to come and talk, we will not fight them. No reply.

Consequently, after coffee at 3 a. m. this morning, we started on foot to clamber up the mountain. The path was steep and the boulders slippery, but we are getting fit at mountain–climbing – still it took us nearly an hour to reach the top. An ordinary kraal, with stone and stockade defences, all abandoned. And such a glorious view of the wooded mountains of this Belingwe district, with the many blue ribbons of streams between, so different from the usual South African scenery.

We helped ourselves to all the corn that we could carry, as well as to some little bits of loot, such as a Kaffir piano and some tambourines – the piano being a small flat board on which is fixed a row of iron tongues, and these when struck give each a different note of soft, metallic sound. We also found some small hard–wood tablets, which are the “cards” by which witch–doctors tell one’s fortune.

Then we set the village in a blaze, and made our way down from the breezy height to our tiny laager by the stream below. Got our horses, saddled–up, and after clambering and lugging them over a rocky ridge, we got into the lower valley of the Sabi – a wooded plain, in the centre of which there stood a fine acropolis with another kraal on top. Surrounded it. As usual, no one there, but lots of fresh spoor – people evidently gone to earth in the caves below. So we sat down to bathe, breakfast, and sleep (for which the heat, flies, and ants were too much), while the horses grazed. We had already done a pretty good day’s work, but at 2 p. m. we paraded for the koppies, in three parties to take the different villages, and in half an hour three fine bonfires were raging, and with more corn in our nosebags and a few chickens at our “saddle–bows,” we rode away to the part of the valley that belongs to our old friend Wedza. Here he had his Counting–house–i. e. his residential and farming kraals. The former was a fine, well–built kraal, very neat and clean, but so well concealed among the rocks that it took our patrol some time to find it. In this kraal, as in many others we had visited, there was a forge for making nominally hoes, but really assegais. The sharpening–stones lying about proved the latter.

The furnace, which is of clay, is in every instance built on this model, which is a very ancient one. Doesn’t Bent say Phœnician?

The same march we passed by one of the many ancient (Phœnician) ruins. A small circular fort on a smooth rock; walls, and except where pulled down intentionally, in wonderfully good preservation. Dressed stones without mortar, and the well–known form of ornamentation; a course of herringbone, tile–like stones, and a dice–board course.

A theory about these forts is, that since they extend in a chain round the gold districts, in which are remains of ancient workings, they were probably built with the object of simplifying the labour question, and keeping the workers in and the agitators out. Couldn’t something of the sort be devised for the benefit of England?

Our rations were now at an end; all this clambering of koppies had not only pretty well tired us out, but had taken many hours to accomplish; so that evening found us still a long way from the camp near Wedza’s stronghold, and we bivouacked, as I began by saying, under the eye of Celangopi on the forest hillside, as tired as dogs.

We reckoned that a twelve–mile ride next morning would bring us to breakfast at camp. But it didn’t.

22nd October.– After making a very early start, on such tea and scraps of bread as we had been able to save, we arrived by eight o’clock, very tired and empty, at the foot of Wedza’s mountain. From this (eastern) side it looked not unlike Gibraltar in shape and size; and we really felt a bit pleased with ourselves at ever having had the presumption to go for this place, not to mention at having succeeded in taking it. As we passed round the foot of it, we rather pressed on the pace, in the hopes of breakfast, and in doing so we let three native boys, belonging to Jackson, the Native Commissioner, drop rather behind us. Some lurking rebels were quick to see this, and had a few shots at them (one boy afterwards said that a bullet passed between the top of his ear and his head!), and compelled the boys to drop their bundles, which included Jackson’s mess–kit, blankets, and, worst of all, a few rounds of ammunition. We were too far ahead to render assistance till too late.