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.’
‘Each might be apt,’ replied Fairbrother, his eyes still on the parade. ‘Depending on who was to deal the fatal blow, rifles or cavalry.’
Hervey turned to him, with the suggestion of a smile. ‘You should never have wasted a moment on half pay. That green suits you.’
‘Black buttons, black face?’
‘Do not begin on that again!’
‘It is a little difficult not to when Colonel Somerset appears to consider me but a native scout!’
‘Tush!’
Fairbrother returned his eyes to the parade. ‘ “Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he that every man in arms should wish to be?”‘
‘“It is the generous Spirit”. That is what the poet said, is it not? Be generous then!’
‘I am at your service.’
He was. Captain Edward Fairbrother – the rank now properly constituted – was appointed aidant to the Officer Commanding Mounted Detachments, Kaffraria Field Force. It was a fine title, he had observed; and, more sardonically, one that would look fine on a gravestone.
One of Colonel Somerset’s gallopers came bowling along the line in a growing cloud of dust.
‘Why do you suppose he thinks that necessary?’ said Hervey, shaking his head. ‘We have sat a good hour.’
Fairbrother shrugged. ‘Somerset will be impatient for the off. That, or he confounds celerity and celebrity.’
Hervey laughed, then returned the galloper’s salute. ‘Colonel Hervey, sir: the column’s to advance at ten o’clock.’
Hervey took out his watch. It was fifteen minutes before the hour. ‘Very well.’
He turned to the two gallopers from the Sixth and the Rifles, who had closed with him on seeing Somerset’s man approaching. He nodded to them; he need say nothing.
They relayed the order at the trot, the drill for muster parades. Hervey was pleased as he watched the lines form column of route with but a very few words of command. He glanced left and right. In the distance were the burghers. He need give them no orders. Their instructions were to guard the flanks during the march; they would conform by their own initiative. Hervey may have had his doubts, but in this sort of ranging the burghers were practised enough.
At ten o’clock Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable Henry Somerset gave his bugler the order to sound the advance, and the Kaffraria Field Force began its march to the frontier. The fifes and drums of the 55th (Westmoreland) Regiment of Foot struck up ‘The Lass o’ Gowrie’, and the battalion stepped off at attention as one, arms sloped, heads high. Hervey watched them with admiration: these were the men – the infantry of the Line – who had prised the French out of Spain and stood astride Bonaparte’s arrogant march on Brussels. They could volley like no others, and they could charge with the bayonet. They could prise the French out of Spain again and out of Belgium if it came to it. But were these close-drilled ranks what was needed here? He did not know. Colonel Somerset was sure of it: breasts of red to affright the savage, and cavalry to terrify him! And perhaps it would be so, for who knew how these Zulu fought? Hervey simply inclined his head: in a month or so they would have their answer.