‘Here they come!’ said Welsh purposefully.
Hervey quit his thoughts and pushed his telescope back in its holster; and then almost at once he took it out again, for as the Zulu swarmed down the slope he observed that they left behind a knot of men on the ridge, which he supposed at once to be Matiwane (he now wore a great feathered headdress) and his staff. He recalled how at one point during the battle at Waterloo a horse gunner had told the Duke of Wellington that he had Bonaparte within range, and asked leave to open fire. The duke had refused him, saying that it was not the business of one commander-in-chief to fire upon another. Hervey had never quite believed it – even less understood it. Yet now he had a curious sense of why the duke might have been moved to say so, for he felt as if he would be shooting a magnificent perching bird if he fired on Matiwane. Ignoble deed! And yet he approved – cheered – the sniping of mere legionary warriors. It was not to be fathomed.
‘Captain Welsh, see yonder, in the middle of the ridge – the plumes. Might one of your men try his hand?’
Captain Welsh arranged it at once. ‘Serjeant-major! Corporal Cloete!’
They doubled to the company commander. He gave them the order.
The two sharpshooters doubled forward ten yards, and lay prone. Each took careful aim and fired.
The two rounds struck home, though the feathered target remained upright. It was extreme range, and the two riflemen calmly corrected their point of aim for the second barrel.
But before they could fire, other warriors surrounded the chief: a shield of flesh.
The serjeant-major fired; a warrior-shield fell dead.
Corporal Cloete fired an instant later but another Zulu had already taken his place.
The serjeant-major was reloading furiously. ‘We can do it, Cloete, even if it takes a dozen apiece!’
But before they could, more Zulu swarmed on to the crest to shield Matiwane.
‘As you were!’ called Hervey. This was a diversion they could ill afford.
Horse-holders now galloped forward to where the other sharpshooters lay. The picked riflemen sprang up and into the saddle, and spurred back to the line in a display that Hervey was sure would have delighted the duke himself.
‘Smart work, Captain Welsh; smart work.’
‘Thank you, Colonel. I will pass on your approbation at the first opportunity,’ said the Rifles captain, as if he were being dismissed at the end of a field day.
The Zulu came on steadily in the same loping gait. Hervey felt his stomach tightening again. The range was now two hundred yards: it was time for the Rifles to do their real work.
He did not have to say anything. Captain Welsh had primed his men welclass="underline" ‘In your own time, three rounds: Fire!‘
The first round was a near-perfect volley. Every man had taken and held his aim, waiting the order, so that as soon as it came twelve-dozen trigger-fingers squeezed as one. The powder-smoke hung low in the still air, but not as thick as it would have been with a company of muskets (the rifles were in open order). The fire-effect was visible at once. Hervey was astonished. Every round seemed to have found its mark.
But the Zulu line did not falter. The second volley came not five seconds later, more ragged this time, but just as accurate, so that a quarter of the Zulu host now lay dead or writhing at the bottom of the slope. It would be half a minute before the third, final, round, while the riflemen reloaded. Hervey cursed that they could not have another two volleys as quick: the French for sure would have reeled in the face of such fire; the Burmans and the Jhauts would have taken to their heels.
The volley made him start. It had come in seconds only, along the entire line … He looked at Welsh, amazed.
‘The horse-holders’ rifles. Better used than in a saddle bucket.’
He wished he had thought of it himself.
‘Now for the final round!’ said the captain keenly.
But the Zulu would not face it. On the crest of the ridge Matiwane’s spear was raised.
How the order was communicated to that blood-hotted host Hervey had no idea, but they turned as one. They had not run twenty yards, however, when the third volley caught them, a ripple of fire as the new-loaded rifles found a fleeing target.
‘Now, Fearnley, now!’ cried Hervey, as if his lieutenant might hear.
Lieutenant Fearnley was of the same mind, however. The troop surged forward, quick to the canter and then gallop.
‘Stand fast, Rifles!’ shouted Hervey as he pressed his mare forward.
The troop galloped into the left flank of the struggling Zulu, taking them by utter surprise. Hervey saw the sabres lowered – the point for infantry (the edge for cavalry) – and then the opportunity cuts as the dragoons drove through the ragged line. As he closed with the melee he picked out a crouching Zulu, shield up and iklwa menacing. He took him with a neat Cut Two from behind, severing the shield arm, before turning and taking another with the same cut, using his reach to slice the spear arm at the wrist without coming in range of the point. He galloped on towards the crest while the troop continued to sweep it left to right, Fairbrother, Sam Kirwan, Wainwright and Dilke hard on his heels. There was but one sure way to discover what lay on the other side of the hill.
The sight from the crest set the rats racing in his stomach faster than ever. Not a hundred yards off and coming fast up the slope was a line at least as long as the one they had just faced. And beyond was another, and beyond that another, and then another: five lines in all – perhaps four thousand warriors; perhaps even more.
‘Christ!’ he spat, and turned hard. ‘Sound “rally”, Corporal Dilke!’
Dilke pulled up to blow. He could do it at the gallop right enough – at a field day. But the price of blowing ill here was too great. And it was not an easy calclass="underline" semi-quavers and octave leaps. He would blow till he saw the troop rallying.
He did not see the Zulu playing dead twenty yards away. He did not see him coming flat like the leopard when it runs in for its prey. Nor the fast, furious sprint to the kill. Nor the iklwa, as it stabbed at his side, under his rib cage, deep into his vitals: eight whole inches when four would have been fatal.
He let out no cry, but the ‘rally’ ceased abruptly on the long, final C.
XXV
THE COLOUR OF DANGER
Next morning
‘Very well, Mr Fearnley: exactly as before!’
Lieutenant Fearnley squinted into the low, eastern sun and touched his shako in acknowledgement.
They had been in the saddle all night. The Zulu had swept over the ridge i’mpondo zankhomo: in the ‘beast’s horns’ formation. Hervey had never seen such an envelopment before. And if he had obliged them and held his ground longer, the tips of the horns would have met and his force would have been trapped in a killing-circle. By some instinct he had sensed the danger in time, recalled the troop, remounted the Rifles and withdrawn in good order to the next piece of high ground. There he had recovered his balance, so to speak. He concluded that Matiwane had used his first cohort (ivyo, as later he would know it) to probe the strength of his unexpected adversary. He had used brave men’s breasts to discover the awful power of the rifle, and it looked as if he were prepared to use many more to overcome it. Hervey knew it would not be possible to stand again in the way he had, for Matiwane could be no fool. He was certainly not without resolve. Even with the speed of the horse in his favour, Hervey could not be sure he could afford a close action when the Zulu were so practised in enveloping.