Fire Across the Veldt by John Wilcox

Author:John Wilcox [John Wilcox]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749013486
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2013-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

The sound of the charges exploding on the wagons and the resultant boom as the ammunition within went up told Fonthill that the column should be moving. He instructed Jenkins to remain where he was and found the corporal who had been guarding him. ‘The RSM remains temporarily under arrest,’ he told him, ‘so he remains under your care. But no handcuffs. March at the rear of the column.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Walking back, Simon encountered Captain Cartwright and drew him to one side. ‘Cecil,’ he said, ‘the RSM seems to have got himself into a bit of trouble while I have been away.’

Cartwright looked embarrassed. ‘Yes, Colonel. I know.’

‘He will come up before me, of course, but before he does so I would be most grateful if you could make some very discreet enquiries for me.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I understand that the RSM bedded down with or near the chaps of your squadron last night. Please get one of your NCOs – someone you can trust – to find out if any of your men saw Sarn’t Major Jenkins with a bottle of whisky before he turned in. Secondly, ask if anyone saw anybody else with a bottle near Jenkins’s bedroll last night. This could be important, Cecil, so I would be glad of your help – and your discretion.’

‘You can rely on me, sir.’

Fonthill regained the head of the column and ordered the trackers out ahead to pick up the commando’s trail, instructing Mzingeli to take great care to ensure that no false tracks should be followed. De Wet’s cannon would surely slow him down and there was a chance that they could catch up with him before his rearguard could re-form and protect his back.

Rough graves had been dug in the marshy ground and the casualty list was handed to him. It made grisly reading. Twelve men had been killed and eight wounded, one of them seriously. The enemy dead numbered thirteen and no wounded had been captured. Presumably they had been taken off with the retreating rearguard

Fonthill lifted his good arm and gestured ahead. Slowly, the column began picking its way through the slime and mud.

The pursuit continued for the rest of that day without any contact being made with the commando. It remained, it seemed, out of sight, out of range and frustratingly just out of grasp – somewhere ahead, moving fast. And Fonthill marvelled at the speed maintained by the Boers. True, they had no wagons now to restrain them, but they were still trundling the Krupps cannon and many of their men, he remembered, were without horses. They also had to keep their British prisoners moving with them, for to leave them behind would be to betray too much to the pursuers.

On the second day, they found real evidence of the plight of the commando. Their two cannon – the Krupps and a Maxim-Nordenfeldt – lay discarded by the side of the trail, hostages thrown to the pursuers, like supplies desperately tossed into the snow from a Russian sledge to distract the wolves close behind it.

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