Company Of Spears

How he wished he could have more confidence in Somerset, both his capacity for decision and for resolution! Yet he supposed, at bottom, that if the blood of the Beauforts coursed through Somerset’s veins there could not be too much amiss. Proud he was, yes; and that verged on the perilously disdainful. But Hervey was certain that Somerset had the capacity to fight sword in hand (and he had a suspicion that when it came to fighting these Zulu it would be the will to take the blade to the enemy that counted). He quickened at the thought. He felt his hand twitch for the sabre hilt. Who were these Zulu that they should discompose one of the King’s officers? He would not dismiss them as savages, as others might, but he would not invest them with supernatural prowess. Did that mean he might defeat five thousand of them with his three hundred dragoons and riflemen? Hammer and anvil, beaters and guns, whatever was the proper analogy, his force was the superior in fire and in manoeuvre. His rifles could bring down a warrior at a furlong, and he had yet to see men afoot and who did not form square resist the charge of cavalry. How did this Shaka suppose he could defeat even so much as a troop and a company of the King’s men?

XXIV

FIRST BLOOD

Next morning

Just before dawn it began to rain. Not heavy, but a steady downpour which was soon soaking tunics and overalls. The night had been starry, with a good moon, and then a half-hour before first light, cloud had rolled in from the south-east, out of the Indian Ocean, relict of the south-west monsoon. Hervey’s spirits sank with the rain as he realized the fault in his appreciation. Rain had the potential to render the musket and the rifle no more than a pike. He cursed. He cursed doubly, for it need not be so. A man did not have to empty powder down a wet barrel, or into a wet firing pan for the wet flint to fail to spark. There were cartridges that could be placed into the barrel whole, and rifles which permitted loading at the breech, so that powder did not have to come into contact with damp air, let alone wet metal; and there were percussion caps – clever little things filled with fulminate of mercury – which could be inserted into the firing pan, so that when struck by the hammer that had formerly held the flint, the cap would give off the necessary spark to ignite the cartridge. Neither was this new science: a percussion cap had saved his life at Waterloo, provenance of Daniel Coates. The Ordnance, however, had no time for the novelty. And so here, now, in the chill drizzle of the veld, the only firearm he could rely on was his own percussion carbine, and Fairbrother’s revolver: two hundred rifles stood hostage to the rain and the new-acquired skill of their handlers. His own troop’s carbines he might rely on a little more, for his dragoons were certainly more practised than the riflemen; yet he knew it was possible that a hundred carbines might misfire in the face of a Zulu attack. And what message of capability might that send to Shaka?

As the sun came up, not as fast as in India, but quickly nevertheless, the rain eased and then stopped altogether. Hervey’s disquiet eased with it. They could begin to dry the firelocks – which dragoon and rifleman alike had wrapped with oilskin – and mop the barrels. It would be good to prove each weapon, he thought, though it was a practice he normally abhorred (for why give away anything to the enemy?). He was sure the Zulu would be within earshot, however: he would lose any element of surprise.

He almost lost it before he knew. The scouts stopped suddenly. They had ridden ahead as dawn broke, five hundred yards to the next rise along the line of advance. Moments later one of them began cantering fast in a circle, anti-clockwise.

Hervey lowered his telescope and turned to Lieutenant Fearnley and Captain Welsh riding alongside him. His voice compelled urgency. ‘Into line, two ranks, dragoons front – as we drilled. Then wait my orders.’

They saluted, and reined about hard.

Hervey nodded to Fairbrother and took off in a hand-gallop towards the scouts, trying to keep low the dust which even the rain had not quite suppressed.

‘Forgive me, Hervey,’ called Fairbrother above the drumming of hooves, ‘but has something decidedly cavalry happened?’

‘Infantry – Zulu – in large numbers.’

‘That much you can tell by a scout galloping in a circle?’

‘Yes. If he’d circled clockwise it would have meant cavalry. The pace he circles gives an indication of numbers.’

It was three hundred yards to the rise where the scouts stood: a minute and a half’s work for charging warriors – enough time to reload carbines and at least one barrel of the rifles. Hervey calculated these things as a matter of course; any cavalryman would – must. The range was too great for a bullet, though, let alone a carbine ball. If they were to check the Zulu as they came over the rise he would have to advance the line at least a hundred yards to rifle range.