Company Of Spears

In accordance with a directive received from Sir Eyre Somervile K.H., C.B., Lieutenant-Governor of the Cape Colony, you are to proceed at once to the frontier of the Kaffir tribes and the territory of the Zulu and, in concert with the Xhosa and others, take what measures you deem expedient for the ejection of the Zulu from the country west of the Bashee River. Your object shall be the utmost demonstration to the Zulu Chief Shaka that His Majesty will not permit of the intrusion into the country west of the Bashee River, for whatever purposes. The Lieutenant-Governor does not consider that it shall be expedient to cross to the East of the Umtata River, but he does not absolutely forbid it if in your judgement it is necessary for the accomplishment of the object. The Lieutenant-Governor does not consider that causing for Shaka to be killed, or his taking prisoner, shall be expedient.

The following shall comprise the Kaffraria Field Force (Lt. Col. The Honbl. H. Somerset).

H.M. 55th Regmt, Lt. Col. Mill

Det. H.M. 6th Lt. Dgns, A/Lt. Col. Hervey

CoyMtd. Rifles, Capt. Welsh

Two commandos (Durand and van Wyk),

Albany district

(all mtd. troops to be under orders Col. Hervey)

Det. R. Artillery, Capt. Baker

Trp. Civil Hottentots, Lt. Sinclair

(sgnd.) R. Bourke,

Maj-Genl,

Commander of the Forces of H.M. Cape

Colony,

The Castle, Cape-town,

7th December 1827

Hervey contemplated his command. It was drawn up for final inspection before they would cross the frontier into the Xhosa territory, two wings of a bird, as it were, each very differently feathered but in its own way looking entirely serviceable. On his left – the right of the parade, as befitted their seniority – stood eighty-eight horses and men of E Troop, His Majesty’s 6th Light Dragoons, the blue of their tunics already faded slightly by the Cape sun, the shako covers bleached perfectly white. The troop stood a hand or so lower than at the final parade before embarkation in England: the remounts were hardy enough, but short in the leg. Hervey had no great concern about this: in action against cavalry the difference of a hand might tell, for height gave a man the advantage in a contest of sabres; against infantry it mattered less, especially men for whom a horse of any height brought terror. On his right were ranked the Mounted Rifles, two hundred of them, true dragoons – men for whom the horse was the means of swift movement between one fighting position, dismounted, and another. They wore green rather than blue, as the riflemen of the English Line, their shakos were almost identical to the Sixth’s, and they wore loose, strapped trousers not unlike the Sixth’s overalls. Unlike the Sixth, however, what they called swords were in fact bayonets, although some of the riflemen had in addition curved or straight sabres attached to the saddle. Their horses were compact too. For the Cape Corps of Mounted Riflemen, however, a horse that stood 14.3 hands was something of an advantage: easy to mount, and to dismount from, easier to hold, easier to conceal.

One troop of light dragoons, one company of mounted rifles: the combined strength was that of a squadron, not much more. And yet Hervey had ideas for his command (which included the burghers, although he had his doubts about their reliability in a pitched battle) that made them more of a brigade. The Rifles had drilled with growing confidence in the past month, so that he was certain of their usefulness en masse rather than as mere mobile skirmishers or patrouilleurs. And their captain was a good fellow – Welsh, another Shorncliffe man, late of the Forty-third, who had come to the Cape five years ago when his young wife had died in childbirth.

‘Hammer and anvil,’ he said as he watched them – the blue and the green. Their serjeant-majors were satisfying themselves that all was well, each in his own way. Hervey marked the difference: the Rifles’ man scurried and harried like a terrier; Armstrong stalked along the front rank like an old hound, snarling occasionally, and once or twice barking.

‘Hammer and anvil?’ asked Fairbrother, sitting astride a little chestnut entire that looked as if it could leap the Fish River in one bound.

Hervey wore Rifle green (as did Fairbrother): he had handed command of the troop to his lieutenant. And with the Rifles company under the able orders of its own captain he was able to sit at a remove and take in the scene. The last of the stores were being broken out at the wharves and loaded on to the sprung waggons – a dozen of them, real fliers compared with the groaning old carts they had had in India. He was looking forward keenly to the fight, and hammer and anvil was how he saw the blue and the green: ‘You fix the shoe in place upon the anvil, then strike with the hammer. You fix the Zulu in place upon the Rifles and then strike with the troop.’

Fairbrother nodded.

‘Or perhaps the analogy is better made with beaters and guns.’