CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IVScouting26th June to 14th JulySingle Scouts preferable to Patrols—How to conceal yourself—Skirt–Dancing a Useful Aid to evading an Enemy—The Enemy’s Ruses for catching us—The Minutiæ of Scouting—The Matopo Hills—Positions of the Enemy—A Typical Patrol—The Value of Solitary Scouting—Its Importance in Modern War—The Elementary Principles of Scouting.14th July.—A bit of a break in the diary, not because there was nothing doing, but just the opposite.For one thing, we have been pretty busy in sending off three small columns to the assistance of Mashonaland. And also, personally, I have been fully occupied in another way: that is, in repeating my experiences of the 26th June, and frequently by day, and very often by night, I have been back in the Matopos, locating the enemy’s positions. I go sometimes with one or two whites, sometimes with two or three black companions;but what I prefer is to go with my one nigger–boy, who can ride and spoor and can take charge of the horses while I am climbing about the rocks to get a view.It may seem anomalous, but it is in the very smallness of the party that the elements of success and safety lie. A small party is less likely to attract attention; there are fewer to extricate or to afford a target, if we happen to get into a tight place; and I think that one is more on the alert when one is not trusting to others to keep the look–out.Then we have a nice kind of enemy to deal with. Except on special occasions, they don’t like going about in the dark, and cannot understand anybody else doing it; and they sleep like logs, and keep little or no look–out at night. Thus one is able to pass close through their outposts in the dark, to reconnoitre their main positions in the early dawn (when they light up fires to thaw away their night’s stiffness), and then to come away by some other route than that by which you entered.ill-91Solitary ScoutingScouting alone gave better results than reconnaisance in parties. Accompanied by a reliable “boy,” who could keep a good look–out and take care of the horses, one was able to do a lot of effective scouting. We generally moved by night, and worked in the early dawn.So long as you are clothed, as we are in non–conspicuous colours, you can escape detection even from their sharp eyes; but you must not move about—directly you move, they see you, and take steps to catch you. Half the battle in keeping yourself hidden, while yet seeing everything yourself, is to study the colour of your background; thus, if clothed in things that match the rocks in colour, you can boldly sit out in front of a rock, with little risk of detection, so long as you remain motionless; if you are hiding in the shadow alongside of a rock or bush, take care that your form thus darkened is not silhouetted against a light background behind you. To show even your hand on a skyline would, of course, be fatal to your concealment.[P.S.—Do not wear any bright colours about you. I noticed that after I had been on the sick list and resumed my scouting expeditions, the enemy caught sight of me much more quickly than they used to, though I took just as much care, and remained just as motionless; and I then came to the conclusion that this was due to the fact that I had, in accordance with the doctor’s advice, taken to wearing a flannel cummerbund wound round my waist—and the only flannel at that time procurable was of a brilliant red; and this was what caught their eye.]Of course, anything liable to glitter or shine is fatal to concealment; rifle, pistol, field–glasses, wrist–watch, buckles, and buttons should be dulled,abolished, or held in such a way as not to catch the rays of the sun by day or of the moon by night.For efficient scouting in rocky ground, in the dry season, indiarubber–soled shoes are essential; with these you can move in absolute silence, and over rocks which, from their smoothness or inclination, would be impassable with boots.It is almost impossible to obliterate your spoor, as, even if you brush over your footprints, the practised eye of the native tracker will read your doings by other signs; still, it is a point not to be lost sight of for a minute when getting into position for scouting, and a little walking backwards, doubling on one’s tracks over rocky ground, lighting a fire where you are not going to cook your food, or one of an hundred similar subterfuges may often relieve you from the attentions of a too–inquisitive enemy.When they have found you watching them, they will not, as a rule, come boldly at you, fearing that you are merely a lure to draw them on into some ambuscade or trap,—for that is one of their own pet games to play,—but they will work round to get on to the track you have made in getting to your positions. Having found this, and satisfied themselves that you are practically alone, their general rule is to lie in ambush near the track, ready to catch you on your return. Naturally one never returns by the same path. (P.S.—Once I had to do it, later on, at Wedzas, when there was no other way, and nearly paid the penalty.)ill95The Value of Skirt–DancingWhen pursued by Matabele among the boulders of the Matopo country it was of the greatest advantage to be equipped with rubber–soled shoes, and to have that command of your feet which is acquired in the practice of skirt–dancing.Sometimes they try to shoot or to catch one; but so long as one keeps moving about, they do not seem to trust much to their marksmanship; and I have heard them shouting to each other, “Don’t shoot at the beast, catch him by the hands, catch him by the hands!” Then they would come clambering over the rocks, but clambering awkwardly—for, lithe, and active though they be, the Matabele are not good mountaineers, especially in that part of it which Montenegrins say is the most difficult (possibly because they themselves shine pre–eminently at it), namely, in getting rapidly downhill. Consequently, if one is wearing indiarubber–soled shoes (not hobnailed boots, for with them you merely skate about the slippery boulders), it is not a difficult matter to outpace them, provided you have the natural gift or requisite training for “placing” your feet. I am a fair blunderer in most things, but I was taken in hand in the days of my youth by a devotee of the art of skirt–dancing, and never, till I was forced by dark–browntwo–legged circumstances to skip from rock to rock in the Matopos, did I fully realise the value of what I then learned, namely, the command of the feet.The enemy are also full of tricks and ruses for catching us by luring us into ambuscades. Thus they will show scouts, cattle, women, and, at night, fires, in the hope of our coming close to capture or investigate, and so putting ourselves in their hands. But even if we were so simple as to be tempted, we should probably see something of their spoor which would put us on our guard. And in this respect the stupidity of the native is almost incredible; he gathers his information almost entirely by spooring, and yet it is only occasionally that he seems to remember that his own feet are all the time writing their message to his enemies. Now and again he thinks of it, and leaps across a path or sandy patch; but I suppose that, knowing the hopelessness of trying effectually to conceal his trail, he has acquired the habit of disregarding its importance.There is naturally a strong attraction in reconnoitring, for, apart from the fun of besting the enemy, the art of scouting is in itself as interesting as any detective work.It is almost impossible to describe all the littlesigns that go to make up information for one when scouting. It is like reading the page of a book. You can tell your companion—say a man who cannot read—that such and such a thing is the case.“How do you know?” he asks.“Because it is written here on this page.”“Oh! How do you make that out?”Then you proceed to spell it out to him, letters that make words, words that make sentences sentences that make sense. In the same way, in scouting, the tiniest indications, such as a few grains of displaced sand here, some bent blades of grass there, a leaf foreign to this bit of country, a buck startled from a distant thicket, the impress of a raindrop on a spoor, a single flash on the mountain–side, a far–off yelp of a dog,—all are letters in the page of information you are reading, and whose sequence and aggregate meaning, if you are a practised reader, you grasp at once without considering them as separate letters and spelling them out—except where the print happens to be particularly faint. And that is what goes to make scouting the interesting, the absorbing game that it is.A small instance will show my meaning as to what information can be read from trifling signs.The other day, when out with my native scout, we came on a few downtrodden blades of common grass; this led us on to footprints in a sandy patch of ground. They were those of women or boys (judging from the size) on a long journey (they wore sandals), going towards the Matopos. Suddenly my boy gave a “How!” of surprise, and ten yards off the track he picked up a leaf—it was the leaf of a tree that did not grow about here, but some ten or fifteen miles away; it was damp, and smelt of Kaffir beer. From these signs it was evident that women had been carrying beer from the place where the trees grew towards the Matopos (they stuff up the mouth of the beer–pots with leaves), and they had passed this way at four in the morning (a strong breeze had been blowing about that hour, and the leaf had evidently been blown ten yards away). This would bring them to the Matopos about five o’clock. The men would not delay to drink up the fresh beer, and would by this time be very comfortable, not to say half–stupid, and the reverse of on thequi vive; so that we were able to go and reconnoitre more nearly with impunity—all on the strength of information given by bruised grass and a leaf.There should have been no reason for mygoing out to get information in this way had we had reliable native spies or fully trained white scouts. But we find that these friendly natives are especially useless, as they have neither the pluck nor the energy for the work, and at best are given to exaggerating and lying; and our white scouts, though keen and plucky as lions, have never been trained in the necessary intricacies of mapping and reporting. Thus, it has now fallen to my lot to be employed on these most interesting little expeditions.Under present conditions we, staff and special service officers, have to turn our hand to every kind of job as occasion demands, and one man has to do the ordinary work of half a dozen different offices. It is as though, the personnel of a railway having been suddenly reduced by influenza or other plague just when the bank holiday traffic was on, a few trained staff were got from another company temporarily to work it. We find a number of porters, station–masters, cleaners, firemen, etc. available, but we have to put in a lot of odd work ourselves to make the thing run; at one minute doing the traffic management, at the next driving an engine, here superintending clearing–house business, then acting as pointsmen, and so on.It makes it all the more interesting, and in this way I have dropped in for the scouting work.The net result of our scouting to date is that we have got to know the nature of the country and the exact positions of the six different rebel impis in it, and of their three refuges of women and cattle. Maps have been lithographed accordingly, and issued to all officers for their guidance. These maps have sketches of the principal mountains to guide the officers in finding the positions of the enemy.The Matopo district is a tract of intricate broken country, containing a jumble of granite–boulder mountains and bush–grown gorges, extending for some sixty miles by twenty. It lies to the south of Buluwayo, its nearest point being about twenty miles from that town. Along its northern edge, in a distance of about twenty–five miles, the six separate impis of the enemy have taken up their positions, with their women and cattle bestowed in neighbouring gorges.On the principle “Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo,” we have taken innumerable little peeps at them, and have now “marked down” these impis and their belongings in their separate strongholds, a result that we could never have gained had we gone in strong parties.ill103aThe Strongholds in the MatoposOur outposts were at Hope Fountain, Kami, Mabukutwane, and Fig Tree. From these we reconnoitred, passing through the enemy’s scouts on the north bank of the Umzingwane, and marking the positions of the impis in the hills by their fires, tracks, etc.A,Inugu; Imbēsa’s impi of young warriors; women; cattle.E,Sikombo’s women and cattle.F,Inyanda’s impi.B,Chilili; women and cattle.G,Sikombo’s impi.C,Babyan and Priest of M’limo.H,Mnyakavula’s impi.D,Babyan’s impi.K,Umlugulu’s impi.ill103bInugu Mountain, ACommencing at the western end, near the Mangwe road is the stronghold of the Inugu Mountain (see A in map), a very difficult place to tackle, with its cliffs, caves, and narrow gorges. The impi occupies the mountain, while the women and cattle are in the neighbouring Famona valley.Five miles N.E. of this is the Chilili valley (B), in which are women and cattle of Babyan’s impi. This impi is located deep in the hills near Isibula’s Kraal on the Kantol Mountain (D); while Babyan himself, and probably the priest of the M’limo, are in a neighbouring valley at (C).ill104bChilili Valley, BEighteen miles to the eastward, eight miles south of Dawson’s Store on the Umzingwane River, we come to a bold peak (F), that is occupied by Inyanda’s people, with a valley behind it (E), in which are Sikombo’s women and cattle.ill104bInyanda’s, Sikombo’s, and Umlugulu’s PositionsLooking south.A couple of miles farther west, Sikombo’s impi is camped behind a dome–shaped mountain (G) close to the Tuli road.On the west side of this road Umlugulu’s impiwas stationed when we first began our reconnaissance, but he moved nearer to Sikombo at (H), with Mnyakavula close by on (K). Each impi numbered roughly between one and two thousand men. Their outposts were among the hills along the northern bank of the Umzingwana River. We used to pass between these by night, arriving near the strongholds at daybreak.The following account, taken from theDaily Chronicle, gives an idea of what one meets with when out on reconnaissance with a patrol:—“Is it the cooing of doves that wakes me from dreamland to the stern reality of a scrubby blanket and the cold night air of the upland veldt? A plaintive, continuous moan, moan, reminds me that I am at one of our outpost forts beyond Buluwayo, where my bedroom is under the lee of the sail (waggon tilt) which forms the wall of the hospital. And through the flimsy screen there wells the moan of a man who is dying. At last the weary wailing slowly sobs itself away, and the suffering of another mortal is ended. He is at peace. It is only another poor trooper gone. Three years ago he was costing his father so much a year at Eton; he was in the eleven, too—and all for this.“I roll myself tighter in my dew–chilled rug, andturn to dream afresh of what a curious world I’m in. My rest is short, and time arrives for turning out, as now the moon is rising. A curious scene it is, as here in shadow, there in light, close–packed within the narrow circuit of the fort, the men are lying, muffled, deeply sleeping at their posts. It’s etiquette to move and talk as softly as we are able, and even harsh–voiced sentries drop their challenge to a whisper when there is no doubt of one’s identity. We give our horses a few handfuls of mealies, while we dip our pannikins into the great black ‘billy,’ where there’s always cocoa on the simmer for the guard. And presently we saddle up, the six of us, and lead our horses out; and close behind us follow, in a huddled, shivering file, the four native scouts, guarding among them two Matabele prisoners, handcuffed wrist to wrist, who are to be our guides.“Down into the deep, dark kloof below the fort, where the air strikes with an icy chill, we cross the shallow spruit, then rise and turn along its farther bank, following a twisting, stony track that leads down the valley. Our horses, though they purposely are left unshod, make a prodigious clatter as they stumble adown the rough, uneven way. From force of habit rather than from fear of listening enemies, we drop our voices to awhisper, and this gives a feeling of alertness and expectancy such as would find us well prepared on an emergency. But we are many miles as yet from their extremest outposts, and, luckily for us, these natives are the soundest of sleepers, so that one might almost in safety pass with clattering horses within a quarter of a mile of them.“There must be some merit in wrapping up your head when cold,—even at the expense of your nether limbs,—for here in Southern Africa the natives have identically the same way as the men of Northern India have of keeping up their warmth, and as they feel the cold increase, so do they ‘peel’ their legs to find the wherewithal to further muffle up their heads. The keen crispness of the air is in keeping with our spirits, as, all awake, we trek along the hazy veldt. And what a lot of foes one sees when one is looking out for them! Surely that’s a man—yes—no—an upright bush! Ah, there! I saw one move. It is but the sprig of a nearer tree deluding a too–watchful eye; the Kaffirs do not move about as a rule alone at night, while if one is seen, you may be sure there is a party close at hand, and so one needs to keep a very sharp look–out. By going thus at night, we are hoping that we may slip past the Matabele outposts stationed on thehills, and so gain the country that we want to see beyond. Were we to attempt this feat by day, or with a larger party, we should undoubtedly attract attention and have to take a longish circuit. As it is, we make our way for some ten miles along this valley, keeping off the stony path and in the grass, so as to deaden sound as far as possible. High above on either hand the hills loom dark against the stars, and on their summits our enemy’s outposts, we know, are quietly sleeping.“Now and again we cross a transverse donga or tributary watercourse that runs into our stream, the donga sometimes rising to the dignity of a ravine with steep and broken sides. And when we have found a place, and safely crossed it, we turn and approach it from the other side, so that should we happen later on to be pursued and want to get across it in a hurry, we shall know the landmarks that should guide us to the ‘drift.’ The stars are palpitating now and striving hard to increase their gleam, which means that dawn is at hand. The hills along our left (we are travelling south) loom darker now against the paling sky. Before us, too, we see the hazy blank of the greater valley into which our present valley runs. Suddenly there’s a pause, and all our party halts. Look back! there, high up ona hill, beneath whose shadow we have passed, there sparkles what looks like a ruddy star, which glimmers, bobs, goes out, and then flares anew. It is a watch–fire, and our foes are waking up to warm themselves and to keep their watch. Yonder on another hill sparks up a second fire, and on beyond, another. They are waking up, but all too late; we’ve passed them by, and now are in their ground. Forward! We press on, and ere the day has dawned we have emerged from out the defile into the open land beyond. This is a wide and undulating plain, some five miles across to where it runs up into mountain peaks, the true Matopos. We turn aside and clamber up among some hills just as the sun is rising, until we reach the ashes of a kraal that has been lately burned. The kraal is situated in a cup among the hills, and from the koppies round our native scouts can keep a good look–out in all directions. Here we call a halt for breakfast, and after slackening girths, we go into the cattle kraal to look for corn to give our horses. (The Kaffirs always hide their grain in pits beneath the ground of the ‘cattle kraal’ or yard in which the oxen are herded at night.) Many of the grain–pits have already been opened, but still are left half–filled, and some have notbeen touched—and then in one—well, we cover up the mouth with a flat stone and logs of wood. The body of a girl lies doubled up within. A few days back a party of some friendlies, men and women, had revisited this kraal, their home, to get some food to take back to their temporary refuge near our fort. The Matabele saw them, and just when they were busy drawing grain, pounced in upon them, assegaing three,—all women,—and driving off the rest as fast as they could go. This was but an everyday incident of outpost life.“And having fed our horses, each of us now got his ‘billy’ out,—a ‘billy’ (cooking–tin) is carried here by every officer and trooper in a case upon his saddle,—and, having lit a fire, we got our coffee boiled, and breakfast under way. Then two of us, taking with us our two prisoners, clamber up a koppie, from whose top we hope to get a view of the enemy’s country. There is something ludicrous in, and yet one cannot laugh at, this miserable pair. Linked wrist to wrist, they move as would a pair of sullen Siamese twins. The grass is prickly hereabouts, and both want to keep to the tiny goat–track that we are following, and so they have to sidle up like crabs, going hand in hand along it. Atlength we gain the top; there is a splendid panorama, and now that the sun is well up, the mountains out across the plain look but a few hundred yards away, so clear is every rock, so deep the shadows. The prisoners have no hesitation in telling us exactly where their friends are camped upon the mountains, and where they keep their women and their cattle. We sit and stare for half an hour, and then agree that, having come so far without accident, we may as well go farther, and get a nearer view of these redoubtable strongholds. We return down to our party, and as we descend, we remember that our native scouts and the prisoners have had a pretty long walk as it is. They had shown us what we had come out to see, and we now proposed to send them back.“So, having seen them shuffling homeward, we turned our horses’ heads towards the mountains, and continued our way across the open valley. On and on, keeping everywhere a bright look–out against surprise. The veldt was rolling grassy downs, all covered, sometimes sparsely, sometimes densely, with bushes,—mostly thorns. Every open speck of sand, every track, was keenly scrutinised for ‘spoor’ (or tracks of men), and though there was not a soul to beseen about the veldt, the signs of their propinquity were here too glaring to be missed.“Leaving our horses, with the remainder of the men, well hidden behind a rise, we two walked on on foot, each carrying a rifle with him. It was an anxious time, as very soon the bush had shut us out of sight of our support, but still we kept along, anxious to gain the summit of a rounded, rocky hill, whence we could see all round, and so foresee all danger.“Now, on the paths before us were fresh tracks of an ox, behind whom had walked a man with naked feet, and going a little lame on one—the left toes dragged, he used a stick. They had passed along before sunrise, because across the tracks there ran the spoor of guinea–fowl heading towards their feeding–ground in yonder patch of maize. A single ox thus driven in the night assuredly meant a pack–ox smuggling in supplies to one of the rebel strongholds. More paths converged into the one we followed, bringing more and more people, women’s feet and children’s, oxen and donkeys, all fresh, and heading in the same direction.“Then, mounting on the rocks, we followed with our eyes the direction of the path through thicker bush until it reached a solitary mountain. Therewe could see a thin wreath of smoke curling up from the bush, and, looking through our powerful telescope, we soon could see some other fires high up the hillside close to some mighty caves. Dogs were barking, cattle lowing, at the back of one particular shoulder of the hill; and while we stared to try and distinguish figures in the rocks, a sudden flash up near the mountain–top just caught our eye. Then, focusing the glass upon it, soon we saw the dark brown figures of some twenty natives squatting up about the skyline, and the frequent glint and sparkle showed they carried guns and assegais. Nearer and nearer we crept, gaining another koppie, whence we had a better view, and from here we marked the line that our attacking parties ought to take, and where to post our guns with best advantage. We might have stayed there longer, for it was a tempting spectacle to sit and watch. But the niggers in the hills are calling to each other, evidently suspicious, if not actually aware of our presence—and they have eyes as strong as telescopes. Now some crows fly startled from the bush a few hundred yards to our right. Some one is moving there! Up springs a plover screaming farther on—they’re on the move. We have seen all that we want to see.To stay in one place for long when scouting is risky at any time; to–day it looks even dangerous. So we quietly slip away—not by the path we came—for that is the way you run into your enemy’s ambuscades.“Then, as we went along, a novel footprint caught our eye, and struck us much as Friday’s must have struck old Crusoe. A deep indented hollow of the fore part of a foot showed plainly in the grass to one side of the path, heading as to cross it, and in the grass beyond the other side the deep indent was seen of a heel in the earth. This was the spoor of a man, running much in the same direction as ourselves, yet wishing to avoid notice, because he jumped the path. Evidently a messenger going out the way we had come, and knowing of our presence there, and on his way to warn the outposts, through whom we had passed in the dark, to catch us on our homeward road. Our horses now had had their second feed, the men had had a kind of meal, and so we started on again. We had to visit two more hills, but found them both unoccupied. And then we turned our heads for home. Caution became more than ever necessary now. There was only left the short afternoon of daylight, our horses were no longer overfresh, and we had five–and–twenty miles to go, ten of them along a defile valley. So with an advanced file sent well ahead, and one dropped well in rear, we journeyed on, each man keeping an ever–restless, bright look–out.“And though we talked and chatted from time to time for many a weary mile, you never saw your neighbour’s eyes look at you for a moment. While talking, one had still to keep one’s eyes afield. And what a mixture in our little band of eight! Under the similar equipment of cocked–up Boer or cowboy hat, with ragged shirt and strong cord pants, with cartridge–bandolier, and belt from which hung knife and pipe, tobacco–bag and purse, all grimy and unkempt, and sunburnt to a rich, dark brick colour, each individual was an interesting study in himself. Here is one withpince–nez—(pince–nezon a trooper!)—a Cambridge man of highest education, who thought he would take to farming in Rhodesia; but his plans are interrupted by the war, and while that lasts he takes his place, like others, in the ranks. Beside him rides a late A.B. seaman in the Royal Navy, a fine young fellow, full of pluck, who will press on where devils fear to tread, but he is disappointing as a scout, for, after having been close up to the enemy, he cannot tell how they are posted, what theirstrength, or any other points that the leader wants to know. This other man an architect, and yon a gold–prospector—in fact, there’s a variety enough among them to suit almost any taste.“The sun has set and darkness has drawn on before we are well out of the defile; but we are now beyond the rebel outposts, and getting nearer home, so there’s nothing much to—bang! phit!—and a bullet flits just over our heads! It came from behind; we halt and hear the clatter of hoofs as the man who was left as rearguard comes galloping up the road. A moment later he appears in the dusk rounding the next turn. He no sooner sees us than he halts, dismounts, drops on one knee, takes aim, and fires straight at us. We shout and yell, but as he loads to fire again, we scatter, and push on along the road, and he comes clattering after us. The explanation is that nervousness, increased by darkness coming on, has sent the man a little off his head, and, ludicrous though it be, it is a little unpleasant for us. None of his comrades care to tackle him. ‘It is a pity to shoot him,’ ‘His horse is tired and cannot catch us up,’ and ‘He’ll be all right as soon as he has got over the first attack of fright’; and so we leave him to follow us, keeping a respectful distance. At length the fires twinkleahead, and, tired and hungry, we get back to camp.“At dawn our missing man turned up—without his horse, it had dropped dead from fatigue. He had a wondrous tale of how he had pursued a host of enemies. The sole reward he got was a ducking in the spruit.”A small party such as that mentioned in this account of a scouting expedition is often necessary, as in this case, for ensuring the safety of the scouts in getting to and from their work through defiles and the like, where it might happen that the way would have to be forced past the enemy’s outposts. But once on their ground, the escort should be carefully concealed. Their work is over for the time being, and the essential part of the expedition, that is, the scouting by one or two trained individuals, has commenced.The scout must then be left with a perfectly free hand, and must not be tied to any certain hour for return. He can only judge for himself later on whether it is necessary to be away for two or three hours only, or for a whole night, before he comes back to the party. And that is one of the considerations which make me prefer to start from home or camp without escort in the original instance, as it leaves one altogether unfetteredby considerations as to the feeding, resting, etc., of the patrol, or of necessarily making one’s way back to the exact spot where it would be posted.P.S.—As will be seen in the following chapters, the rebel impis and their women and cattle were all found, when the troops came to attack them later on, in the exact positions assigned to them in the sketch map issued. Such “locating” would have been impossible had we tried to effect it by reconnaissances of the usual kind, that is, by parties of men. The natives would have gathered to oppose our coming, or—what is more likely—to prevent our getting away again; instead of gently stealing our honey bit by bit, we should have brought the whole swarm of bees about us, and the probability is that they would then have deserted that hive to take a new and more inaccessible one. Instead of being able to lead the troops straight to the enemy, we should merely have been able to say, “There is the spot where we fought them; they seemed to come from yonder; but it looks as if they had now gone somewhere else.” And reconnoitring parties would again have had to follow them, with similar results, probably losing men every time, and gaining nothing.The value of solitary scouting does not seemto be sufficiently realised among us nowadays. One hears but little of its employment since the Peninsula days, when Marbot gave the English officers unqualified praise for their clever and daring enterprise in this line.It is not only for savage warfare that I venture to think it is so important, but equally for modern civilised tactics. A reconnaissance in force in these days of long–range weapons and machine–guns can have very little chance of success, and yet for the same reasons an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position, strength, and movements is more than ever necessary to the officer commanding a force. One well–trained, capable scout can see and report on an object just as well as fifty ordinary men of a patrol looking at the same thing. But he does so with this advantage, that he avoids attracting the attention of the enemy, and they do not alter their position or tactics on account of having been observed; and he can venture where a party would never be allowed to come, since the enemy, even if they see him, would hesitate to disturb their piquets, etc., by opening fire on a solitary individual, although they would have no such scruples were a reconnoitring party there instead.It is difficult to find in history a battle inwhich the victory or defeat were not closely connected with good or deficient reconnaissance respectively. Good preliminary reconnaissance saves premature wearing out of men and horses through useless marches and counter–marches, and it simplifies the commander’s difficulties, and he knows exactly when, where, and how to dispose his force to obtain the best results.But, as I have said above, such reconnaissance can often be carried out the most effectually by single reconnoitrers or scouts. And a peace training of such men is very important.Without special training a man cannot have a thorough confidence in himself as a scout, and without an absolute confidence in himself, it is not of the slightest use for a man to think of going out to scout.Development of the habits of noting details and of reasoning inductively constitute the elements of the required training. This can be carried out equally in the most civilised as in the wildest countries,—although for its complete perfecting a wild country is preferable. It is to a large extent the development of the science of woodcraft in a man—that is, the art of noticing smallest details, and of connecting their meaning, and thus gaining a knowledge of the ways and doings of yourquarry; the education of your “eye–for–a–country”; and the habit of looking out on your own account. Once these have become, from continual practice, a second nature to a man, he has but to learn the more artificial details of what he is required to report, and the best method of doing so, to become a full–fledged scout.We English have the talent of woodcraft and the spirit of adventure and independence already inborn in our blood to an extent to which no other nationality can lay claim, and therefore among our soldiers we ought to find the best material in the world for scouts. Were we to take this material and rightly train it in that art whose value has been denoted in the term “half the battle,” we ought to make up in useful men much of our deficiency in numbers.Houdin, the conjurer, educated the prehensibility of his son’s mind by teaching him, in progressive lessons, to be able to recapitulate the contents of a shop window after a single look at it; there is the first stage of a scout’s training, viz. the habit of noticing details. The second, “inductive reasoning,” or the putting together of this and that detail so noticed, and deducing their correct meaning, is best illustrated in the Memoirs of “Sherlock Holmes.”CHAPTER VThe Rebels Decline to Surrender14th July to 18th JulyPlumer’s Victory at Taba–si–ka–Mamba—How the M’limo Oracle is worked—Reorganisation of the Buluwayo Field Force—The Price of Beer—I am nicknamed “Impeesa”—The Proclamation of Clemency—The Local Settler’s View of it—The Rebel’s View of it—The Enemy hopeful—The General’s Plan of Campaign—Reconnaissance of the Central Matopos—Preparing for Operations in the Hills—Reconnaissance of Babyan’s Stronghold.Meanwhile, during the first week in July, the three columns, which had been out clearing the country to the northward of Buluwayo, returned, having had a great amount of hard work with only a modicum of fighting. The rebels of that region had been effectually broken and dispersed in all direction—except at one spot, near Inyati, some fifty miles north–east from the town.ill123Caught in the Act by a Cape BoyThe Cape Boys (natives of Cape Colony), when well led, were found to be most useful for attacking the cave strongholds of the enemy. They thought it the height of fun to discover a back way into a cave, and catch its defenders from an unexpected quarter.Colonel Plumer accordingly took a column out there,—nearly 800 strong,—and, after a clever and most successful night–march, surprised the enemy, at dawn, on 5th July, in a desperate–looking koppie stronghold called Taba–si–ka–Mamba. There was some tough fighting, and the newly arrived corps of “Cape Boys” (natives and half–castes from Cape Colony), much to everybody’s surprise, showed themselves particularly plucky in storming the koppies; but, as in the case of most natives, theirélanis greatly a matter of what sort of leaders they have, and in this case there was every reason for them to go well. Major Robertson, their commandant, an old Royal Dragoon, is a wonderfully cool, keen, and fearless leader under fire.In the end the place and its many caves was taken. Our loss amounted to 10 killed, 12 wounded. The enemy lost 150 killed, and we got some 600 prisoners, men, women, and children, 800 head of cattle, and a very large amount of goods which had been looted from stores and collected at this place as the property of the M’limo. It was a final smash to the enemy in the north, though M’qwati, the local priest of the M’limo, and M’tini, his induna, both escaped.The M’limo’s cave was found, a most curious place, which I visited later on: a sort of anteroom in which suppliants had to wait while the priest went away to invoke the M’limo’s attention;then a narrow cleft by which they would walk deep into the rock, and which narrowed till it looked like a split just before the end of the cave. And through this crevice they made their requests and got their answer from the M’limo. In reality, another cave entered the hill from the opposite side and led up to this same crevice, and it was by this back entrance that the priest re–entered, and, sitting in the dark corner just behind the crevice, he was able to personate an invisible deity with full effect.Of such caves there are three or four about the country, where the rebels just now get their orders as to their course of action.Office work still very heavy—especially as we have broken up the original Buluwayo Volunteer Field Force as an unworkable and rather overpaid organisation (the troopers getting 10s. a dayandtheir rations!), and are now busy organising it anew as a regularly enlisted armed police force at 5s. a day, under military law and discipline. Nicholson, 7th Hussars, is working this task, and is a first–rate man for it.The office work, although exacting, is most interesting all the same; the only drawback is that there are not more than twenty–four hours in a day in which to get it done. I certainlydo look forward, though, to the hour of luncheon; yes, it sounds greedy—but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward,notthe lunch. That is scarcely pleasant either to look forward to or to look back on—consisting as it generally does of hashed leather which has probably got rinderpest, no vegetables, and liquid nourishment at prohibitive prices,—e.g.local beer at 2s. a glass. I live on bread, jam, and coffee, andthatcosts 5s. a meal; and prices are rising! Eggs are 32s. a dozen, and not guaranteed fresh at that!Many of the strongholds to which I had at first learned the way with patrols, I have now visited again by myself at nights, in order to further locate the positions of their occupants. In this way I have actually got to know the country and the way through it better by night than by day, that is to say, by certain landmarks and leading stars whose respectively changed appearance or absence in daylight is apt to be misleading.The enemy, of course, often see me, but are luckily very suspicious, and look upon me as a bait to some trap, and are therefore slow to come at me. They often shout to me; and yesterday my boy, who was with my horse, told methey were calling to each other that “Impeesa” was there—i.e.“the Wolf,” or, as he translated it, “the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”ill128“Impeesa”—“the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”Marking the Matabele camp–fires in the Matopos.14th July.—Last night I was riding alone across the veldt; I came suddenly upon a Matabele driving a horse and a mule towards the Matopos. He turned and fled, and I galloped after him to give him a fright, and then returned to the beasts, which I drove before me safely to camp. They were our own branded animals, which had been looted.On getting back to Buluwayo at 9.30p. m., after having been away for some days’ solitary scouting, varied by such patrols as that described in the last chapter, I found that reports had come in from the officer commanding Fig Tree Fort, saying that rebel impis were on the move there. Ferguson had at once been sent off by the General, with 50 men of the newly–formed police, and Laing’s column of about 150, which had lately come in from the Belingwe District. No sooner had the troops got there (on the 13th) than they found that the Matabele impis were merely pictures in the mind’s eye of the commandant, a Dutchman, who had been imbibing not wisely, but too well.15th July.—“Well! of all the murkiest rot that ever I heard of, this is the murkiest!” These words, and others to the same effect, but, to use the speaker’s term, “murkier,” saluted my waking senses at an unseemly hour of this morning. For a moment I was inclined to reach for my gun, or, at all events, to let fly my feelings at the two loafers who stood yarning at my window–sill (we live on the ground floor in Buluwayo, because there is not a second to our house, nor, indeed, to any house in the place except “Williams’ Buildings,” and they are “buildings” being not yet built); but presently a lazy feeling of curiositygot the better of my momentary irritation, and I played the eavesdropper. It was merely a discussion of the situation between two late troopers of the Buluwayo Field Force, dealing more particularly with the “Proclamation to the Rebels,” which had been issued last night. Their review of it was remarkable, not only for the vigour, and—well—the originality of their language, but also because it covered exactly the ground over which all travelled again when they came to discuss it with me, or in my hearing, during the remainder of the day. One thing that struck them all was that this proclamation of clemency which was now to be published to the rebels was made in England and not in Rhodesia, and that “it was made by people who had no more conception of how things were in this part of the world than a boiled dumpling had of horse–racing”; at least, that was what they inferred from the tenor of its wording. I do not say that they had read and inwardly digested the exact literal meaning of the wording. I think, on the contrary, that they had only grasped a general idea of it all; the very heading of a “Proclamation of Clemency” at such a juncture having filled their thoughts with rage, and left them to read the rest with biassed minds.Unfortunately for the proclamation, within a few hours of its publication there came from Mashonaland another of the horrid telegrams with which we are only too familiar now. After telling of three different murders of friendly natives by rebels on the previous day, it went on to say: “The wife and two daughters of Mobele, the native missionary, reached Salisbury from Marendellas this morning. They related how the missionary was killed by rebels while he was endeavouring to save the life of James White, who was lying wounded. White was also killed. Then three little children of the missionary were killed. And the women themselves were maltreated and left for dead. They did not know their way to Salisbury, so followed the telegraph line, and travelled by night only, suffering great privations.”It is a far cry from Mashonaland to England, and distance lessens the sharpness of the sympathy, but to men on the spot—men with an especially strong, manly, and chivalrous spirit in them, as is the case in this land of pioneers—to them such cases as these appeal in a manner which cannot be realised in dear, drowsy, after–lunch Old England. A man here does not mind carrying his own life in his hand—he likes it, and takes an attack on himself as a good bit of sport; but toucha woman or a child, and he is in a blind fury in a moment—and then he is gently advised to be mild, and to offer clemency to the poor benighted heathen, who is his brother after all. M’, yes! And though woman is his first care, and can command his last drop of blood in her defence, woman is the first to assail him on his return, with venom–pointed pen, for his brutality!Then my friends at the window went on to talk on the clause which permitted loyally–disposed natives to carry arms. “Loyal!”—as if any native could be loyal if it did not happen to suit his circumstances, and even then, why should he be allowed arms? “He was not likely to be at war with his brothers and cousins, and the absence of arms would be a good assurance of peace; whereas, after the late bitter experience, how would confidence ever be instilled into farmers to induce them to come and rebuild the blackened ruins of farmsteads whose owners had been murdered by the selfsame natives glowering yonder, assegais and gun in hand?”My friends were deploring the fact that their would–be rulers far away are quite out of touch with the circumstances of the case. Writers in the press, they said, gaily condemn the burning down of kraals and consequent destruction of thegrain stores, which are all the natives now depend upon for food. But burning down a kraal is more or less a formal act, which has a deal of meaning for the native comprehension. That the store of grain is lost thereby is quite a fallacy. The grain is buried here in pits beneath the kraal; grain will not burn in pits, it can only be destroyed by drowning.I was glad when at last my early arguers moved on to get their morning coffee. Had I been so minded, I might have soothed their feelings by telling them the latest news we had from captured rebels; that they need not vex their souls over the wording or the terms of the proclamation so thoughtfully provided for our use by those at home, for whether put in that or any other form, there was not the slightest chance of its being seriously accepted by the rebels. Our informants came from four different ways, and agreed like one in showing that although North–Western Matabeleland has thoroughly been cleared, the lower and more trappy part, in the Matopos, as well as the North–Eastern parts, remain the home of mutiny, and there, at least, the impis will not think of giving in until the white man comes to fight them, and they promise boastfully that he shall suffer then.The proclamation offering terms to the rebels by which they may surrender has gone forth to them by the best messengers that could be got, that is, by men who have been captured in the field, or who have come in offering to give themselves up, and also by native policemen, who, having been disarmed on suspicion of rebellious tendencies, have been since retained in open arrest. But so far the result has not been fully satisfactory, although it has done some good, and undoubtedly the thin end of the wedge towards peace has been inserted, but it will yet need some driving to get it home and finally to split the log of rebellion.Many of the rebels would probably give in if the leaders would but let them. They are tired of war, and sick of being hustled about. But then these leaders have a strong power over them, and they are fighting with the halter round their necks, for they know their crimes are far too great to be condoned, and thus they try to carry on until the bitter end.In the north, where they have suffered most hard blows, the impis are much broken up, and there it is that some of the people are surrendering of their own accord; they are coming in, in driblets and small bodies it is true, but still this is a beginning. There are, so far, no chiefs amongthem. Then, on the other hand, there exists a large proportion who still have the idea that they yet may beat the whites, and drive them from the land, and they are encouraged in maintaining this idea by spies’ reports, which tell them how the white men are daily going down–country to the Cape. Now that the road has been rendered safe and open by the operations in the Matopos, hired waggons, in addition to the bi–weekly coaches, are taking passengers in scores. The high cost of living at famine prices, and all business at a standstill, are the reasons for this exodus.Then the M’limo, fearful for his own old skin, continues to issue most encouraging news and orders. He has revived with much success the story that disease is sweeping off the whites in Buluwayo, and promises that any warrior “doctored” by his charm is proof against the British bullets, which on his hide will turn to water. They only have to wait till all the whites are dead or fled, and then they will enjoy the good things of the town, and live in palaces of corrugated iron. All this they believe implicitly.The rebels in the south have every reliance, and with reason, on the impregnability of their rock–strongholds; and their confidence is strengthened by their store of grain and cattle,which were being brought, long before the outbreak, into the hills by the M’limo’s orders. Of arms and ammunition they have plenty, although the puzzle is to say from whence they come. But there they are—Martinis, Lee–Metfords, Winchesters, besides the blunderbusses and elephant guns, which at the close quarters of this fighting make very deadly practice.And then our so–called friendlies are known to be supplying them with information of our moves, as well as with such luxuries as Kaffir beer and cartridges.It is only, even now, internal jealousies among the rebel chiefs that save the whites from being blotted out. The attempt to make Nyamanda king, if ever seriously intended, fell through abortively; each of the great chiefs desires that honour for himself, and thus the different impis do not amalgamate to crush us; but they let our puny force go round and punch them all in turn, in such a way as breaks them daily smaller.The proclamation has gone forth to these men too; but answer comes there none, except at times when scouting parties meet, and then the rebels shout to us, from their look–out rocks, such words as these: “And so you want to endthe war, do you? Yes, it will be ended soon, for none of you will live to keep it on.” And then they add a stream of highly–coloured threats of personal damage they will do to our nice white corpses. The tired, desponding tone of impending submission which one would hope to hear is altogether absent from their talk.Then, even those who have surrendered have done it in a mere half–hearted way; that is to say, scarce one among them has produced his gun. Of course, the terms of their surrender include the giving up of their arms; but that is an extent to which they do not wish to yield. They cannot tell when they may want to break out again, and where would they be then without their guns? That is the way they reason with themselves. It suits them, for the time, to come and “konza” to make peace, to save their skins and sow their crops; but, all the same, they stow away their guns and ammunition in their holes among the rocks, and hand up, as their “arms,” their oldest assegais and shields. Thus, even when the present military force has broken up the impis in the field, and cleared their strongholds out, there will remain a tale of work for local police to do in carrying out disarmament. And it is then, and only then, that peace can settle firmly on the land.The doses being given now may seem too bitter to our tender–hearted countrymen at home; but, “though bitter now, they’re better then.” It seems the only way to get these men to understand there is a greater power than their M’limo; and once the lesson has been unmistakably brought home to them, there is some hope that a time of peaceen permanencemay dawn for them. It is the end for which we all are striving here. And the present system of Sir Frederick Carrington is the most promising that could be devised to suit the circumstances. With his tiny force, he goes from point to point where impis are collected; in every case he strikes them hard, and promptly builds a fort there on the spot, and leaves a party in possession. The people round are told they may surrender. The forts are then to act as police posts in the future, to ensure the peace of every outside district, by standing as a sword of Damocles to all offenders, and a handy tower of refuge for friendlies who are oppressed.We shall soon be in a position to judge the value of the rebels’ threats, for all is now prepared for our campaign in the Matopos; Laing’s column (200 strong) being encamped near the western end, Plumer’s (of 800) at “Usher’s No. 1,” near the central part. This latter camp I visited late at night on the 15th.ill-139Preparing LunchWhile out on patrol one day we were invited to lunch by a friendly chief. Lunch was prepared at our feet, the whole process from start to finish being gone through—from the cutting of the sheep’s throat (as above) to his final dishing–up.16th July.—Early this morning I picked up Pyke and Taylor (the Native Commissioner), and we rode on to inspect the country between the centre and west of the enemy’s position. At Jozan’s Kraal (friendly), about four miles north of the enemy, we stopped to talk, get news, and lunch. Lunch was got for us by our host, Jozan, as follows:—A live sheep was brought, and laid before us on some leafy twigs; its throat was then gently cut, the liver taken out, and fried in an iron bowl. Off this we made our meal, without any bread or other concomitant, excepting salt, which was held by a human salt–cellar for us. We took our salt by dipping each his hunk of meat into the nigger’s grimy palm.We had a good look at the enemy’s position, and then we got thirty of Jozan’s men, armed with assegais and shields, to go with us across the neutral valley and examine the great kraal that lay opposite, in which watch–fires had been burning the night before. As we got near to it, we spread out our little army into a crescent shape, with two horns advanced, and we attacked the village in style; but the only enemy there were two men and one ox, and these cleared out in a greathurry before we got in. We burned the kraal, and then reconnoitred into the koppies beyond, where we found another kraal, also deserted, which we burned. Among other odds and ends of loot in this kraal, we found a high–jump standard, evidently stolen from the Athletic Sports Ground near Buluwayo.But my release from town and office life now came. As I knew the Matopos country and the enemy’s whereabouts, I was sent to act as guide to Colonel Plumer, who was to have the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos, Vyvyan taking the office work off my hands.ill142A Human Salt–CellarDuring lunch one of the natives produced some salt for us, and sat holding it for us throughout the meal, so that we could dip our bits of meat into it.17th July.—The General now took up his quarters in camp, to direct affairs against the Matopos. And the following day I took Pyke,Richardson (interpreter), and four native scouts into the Matopos, to get a view of Babyan’s stronghold: Babyan’s being the central and important impi of all, and in close communication with the westernmost impi at Inugu.We approached the position through open, park–like country interspersed with piles of granite boulders a hundred feet in height; from these koppies we could hear the look–out men calling a warning cry to each other, and now and again we could see them, perched up on high, watching our movements. I was sorry then that we had brought natives with us, as, if the enemy were to come and have a try at us now, it would be easy enough for us three, had we been alone, to gallop away; but, having the boys on foot with us, we should now have to stick to them and help them away. So they hampered us somewhat. But still we didn’t do badly.The valley in which the enemy lay was surrounded by rugged koppies; one of these was a great, dome–shaped mass of granite; we went for it, as being easy to climb, and less trappy and liable to ambush. Upon its crest stood the ruins of a farm belonging to Usher, and a path led up a little gully to the huts. Instead of taking this path, we were sufficiently wily to go round the hillfor a bit; then, leaving our horses hidden in a clump of bushes, with two sharp–eyed boys in charge, we quickly scrambled on to the top of the koppie. Two or three of the enemy, who had been using this as a look–out place, bolted away before us. We had a very useful view from here of the lie of the ground, and of the position of the enemy, as shown by the smoke of his camp–fires. One felt tempted to stay there, and drink in every detail and map it down; but suddenly I saw the head and shoulders of a crouching figure dash across the opening between two rocks at the foot of our position, followed by another, and another—not fifty yards from us. They were racing to cut us off in the glen! They had seen us on the top, and guessed that our horses would naturally have been left on the pathway. But they were sold—as were also another party, whom we could see hastening out into the bush to cut us off on our homeward path. We gave them a few shots, and then scuttled down the far side of the rock, got our horses, sent our boys trotting along ahead of us, and we quietly got away through the bush by a totally different route to that by which we came.

CHAPTER IVScouting26th June to 14th JulySingle Scouts preferable to Patrols—How to conceal yourself—Skirt–Dancing a Useful Aid to evading an Enemy—The Enemy’s Ruses for catching us—The Minutiæ of Scouting—The Matopo Hills—Positions of the Enemy—A Typical Patrol—The Value of Solitary Scouting—Its Importance in Modern War—The Elementary Principles of Scouting.14th July.—A bit of a break in the diary, not because there was nothing doing, but just the opposite.For one thing, we have been pretty busy in sending off three small columns to the assistance of Mashonaland. And also, personally, I have been fully occupied in another way: that is, in repeating my experiences of the 26th June, and frequently by day, and very often by night, I have been back in the Matopos, locating the enemy’s positions. I go sometimes with one or two whites, sometimes with two or three black companions;but what I prefer is to go with my one nigger–boy, who can ride and spoor and can take charge of the horses while I am climbing about the rocks to get a view.It may seem anomalous, but it is in the very smallness of the party that the elements of success and safety lie. A small party is less likely to attract attention; there are fewer to extricate or to afford a target, if we happen to get into a tight place; and I think that one is more on the alert when one is not trusting to others to keep the look–out.Then we have a nice kind of enemy to deal with. Except on special occasions, they don’t like going about in the dark, and cannot understand anybody else doing it; and they sleep like logs, and keep little or no look–out at night. Thus one is able to pass close through their outposts in the dark, to reconnoitre their main positions in the early dawn (when they light up fires to thaw away their night’s stiffness), and then to come away by some other route than that by which you entered.ill-91Solitary ScoutingScouting alone gave better results than reconnaisance in parties. Accompanied by a reliable “boy,” who could keep a good look–out and take care of the horses, one was able to do a lot of effective scouting. We generally moved by night, and worked in the early dawn.So long as you are clothed, as we are in non–conspicuous colours, you can escape detection even from their sharp eyes; but you must not move about—directly you move, they see you, and take steps to catch you. Half the battle in keeping yourself hidden, while yet seeing everything yourself, is to study the colour of your background; thus, if clothed in things that match the rocks in colour, you can boldly sit out in front of a rock, with little risk of detection, so long as you remain motionless; if you are hiding in the shadow alongside of a rock or bush, take care that your form thus darkened is not silhouetted against a light background behind you. To show even your hand on a skyline would, of course, be fatal to your concealment.[P.S.—Do not wear any bright colours about you. I noticed that after I had been on the sick list and resumed my scouting expeditions, the enemy caught sight of me much more quickly than they used to, though I took just as much care, and remained just as motionless; and I then came to the conclusion that this was due to the fact that I had, in accordance with the doctor’s advice, taken to wearing a flannel cummerbund wound round my waist—and the only flannel at that time procurable was of a brilliant red; and this was what caught their eye.]Of course, anything liable to glitter or shine is fatal to concealment; rifle, pistol, field–glasses, wrist–watch, buckles, and buttons should be dulled,abolished, or held in such a way as not to catch the rays of the sun by day or of the moon by night.For efficient scouting in rocky ground, in the dry season, indiarubber–soled shoes are essential; with these you can move in absolute silence, and over rocks which, from their smoothness or inclination, would be impassable with boots.It is almost impossible to obliterate your spoor, as, even if you brush over your footprints, the practised eye of the native tracker will read your doings by other signs; still, it is a point not to be lost sight of for a minute when getting into position for scouting, and a little walking backwards, doubling on one’s tracks over rocky ground, lighting a fire where you are not going to cook your food, or one of an hundred similar subterfuges may often relieve you from the attentions of a too–inquisitive enemy.When they have found you watching them, they will not, as a rule, come boldly at you, fearing that you are merely a lure to draw them on into some ambuscade or trap,—for that is one of their own pet games to play,—but they will work round to get on to the track you have made in getting to your positions. Having found this, and satisfied themselves that you are practically alone, their general rule is to lie in ambush near the track, ready to catch you on your return. Naturally one never returns by the same path. (P.S.—Once I had to do it, later on, at Wedzas, when there was no other way, and nearly paid the penalty.)ill95The Value of Skirt–DancingWhen pursued by Matabele among the boulders of the Matopo country it was of the greatest advantage to be equipped with rubber–soled shoes, and to have that command of your feet which is acquired in the practice of skirt–dancing.Sometimes they try to shoot or to catch one; but so long as one keeps moving about, they do not seem to trust much to their marksmanship; and I have heard them shouting to each other, “Don’t shoot at the beast, catch him by the hands, catch him by the hands!” Then they would come clambering over the rocks, but clambering awkwardly—for, lithe, and active though they be, the Matabele are not good mountaineers, especially in that part of it which Montenegrins say is the most difficult (possibly because they themselves shine pre–eminently at it), namely, in getting rapidly downhill. Consequently, if one is wearing indiarubber–soled shoes (not hobnailed boots, for with them you merely skate about the slippery boulders), it is not a difficult matter to outpace them, provided you have the natural gift or requisite training for “placing” your feet. I am a fair blunderer in most things, but I was taken in hand in the days of my youth by a devotee of the art of skirt–dancing, and never, till I was forced by dark–browntwo–legged circumstances to skip from rock to rock in the Matopos, did I fully realise the value of what I then learned, namely, the command of the feet.The enemy are also full of tricks and ruses for catching us by luring us into ambuscades. Thus they will show scouts, cattle, women, and, at night, fires, in the hope of our coming close to capture or investigate, and so putting ourselves in their hands. But even if we were so simple as to be tempted, we should probably see something of their spoor which would put us on our guard. And in this respect the stupidity of the native is almost incredible; he gathers his information almost entirely by spooring, and yet it is only occasionally that he seems to remember that his own feet are all the time writing their message to his enemies. Now and again he thinks of it, and leaps across a path or sandy patch; but I suppose that, knowing the hopelessness of trying effectually to conceal his trail, he has acquired the habit of disregarding its importance.There is naturally a strong attraction in reconnoitring, for, apart from the fun of besting the enemy, the art of scouting is in itself as interesting as any detective work.It is almost impossible to describe all the littlesigns that go to make up information for one when scouting. It is like reading the page of a book. You can tell your companion—say a man who cannot read—that such and such a thing is the case.“How do you know?” he asks.“Because it is written here on this page.”“Oh! How do you make that out?”Then you proceed to spell it out to him, letters that make words, words that make sentences sentences that make sense. In the same way, in scouting, the tiniest indications, such as a few grains of displaced sand here, some bent blades of grass there, a leaf foreign to this bit of country, a buck startled from a distant thicket, the impress of a raindrop on a spoor, a single flash on the mountain–side, a far–off yelp of a dog,—all are letters in the page of information you are reading, and whose sequence and aggregate meaning, if you are a practised reader, you grasp at once without considering them as separate letters and spelling them out—except where the print happens to be particularly faint. And that is what goes to make scouting the interesting, the absorbing game that it is.A small instance will show my meaning as to what information can be read from trifling signs.The other day, when out with my native scout, we came on a few downtrodden blades of common grass; this led us on to footprints in a sandy patch of ground. They were those of women or boys (judging from the size) on a long journey (they wore sandals), going towards the Matopos. Suddenly my boy gave a “How!” of surprise, and ten yards off the track he picked up a leaf—it was the leaf of a tree that did not grow about here, but some ten or fifteen miles away; it was damp, and smelt of Kaffir beer. From these signs it was evident that women had been carrying beer from the place where the trees grew towards the Matopos (they stuff up the mouth of the beer–pots with leaves), and they had passed this way at four in the morning (a strong breeze had been blowing about that hour, and the leaf had evidently been blown ten yards away). This would bring them to the Matopos about five o’clock. The men would not delay to drink up the fresh beer, and would by this time be very comfortable, not to say half–stupid, and the reverse of on thequi vive; so that we were able to go and reconnoitre more nearly with impunity—all on the strength of information given by bruised grass and a leaf.There should have been no reason for mygoing out to get information in this way had we had reliable native spies or fully trained white scouts. But we find that these friendly natives are especially useless, as they have neither the pluck nor the energy for the work, and at best are given to exaggerating and lying; and our white scouts, though keen and plucky as lions, have never been trained in the necessary intricacies of mapping and reporting. Thus, it has now fallen to my lot to be employed on these most interesting little expeditions.Under present conditions we, staff and special service officers, have to turn our hand to every kind of job as occasion demands, and one man has to do the ordinary work of half a dozen different offices. It is as though, the personnel of a railway having been suddenly reduced by influenza or other plague just when the bank holiday traffic was on, a few trained staff were got from another company temporarily to work it. We find a number of porters, station–masters, cleaners, firemen, etc. available, but we have to put in a lot of odd work ourselves to make the thing run; at one minute doing the traffic management, at the next driving an engine, here superintending clearing–house business, then acting as pointsmen, and so on.It makes it all the more interesting, and in this way I have dropped in for the scouting work.The net result of our scouting to date is that we have got to know the nature of the country and the exact positions of the six different rebel impis in it, and of their three refuges of women and cattle. Maps have been lithographed accordingly, and issued to all officers for their guidance. These maps have sketches of the principal mountains to guide the officers in finding the positions of the enemy.The Matopo district is a tract of intricate broken country, containing a jumble of granite–boulder mountains and bush–grown gorges, extending for some sixty miles by twenty. It lies to the south of Buluwayo, its nearest point being about twenty miles from that town. Along its northern edge, in a distance of about twenty–five miles, the six separate impis of the enemy have taken up their positions, with their women and cattle bestowed in neighbouring gorges.On the principle “Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo,” we have taken innumerable little peeps at them, and have now “marked down” these impis and their belongings in their separate strongholds, a result that we could never have gained had we gone in strong parties.ill103aThe Strongholds in the MatoposOur outposts were at Hope Fountain, Kami, Mabukutwane, and Fig Tree. From these we reconnoitred, passing through the enemy’s scouts on the north bank of the Umzingwane, and marking the positions of the impis in the hills by their fires, tracks, etc.A,Inugu; Imbēsa’s impi of young warriors; women; cattle.E,Sikombo’s women and cattle.F,Inyanda’s impi.B,Chilili; women and cattle.G,Sikombo’s impi.C,Babyan and Priest of M’limo.H,Mnyakavula’s impi.D,Babyan’s impi.K,Umlugulu’s impi.ill103bInugu Mountain, ACommencing at the western end, near the Mangwe road is the stronghold of the Inugu Mountain (see A in map), a very difficult place to tackle, with its cliffs, caves, and narrow gorges. The impi occupies the mountain, while the women and cattle are in the neighbouring Famona valley.Five miles N.E. of this is the Chilili valley (B), in which are women and cattle of Babyan’s impi. This impi is located deep in the hills near Isibula’s Kraal on the Kantol Mountain (D); while Babyan himself, and probably the priest of the M’limo, are in a neighbouring valley at (C).ill104bChilili Valley, BEighteen miles to the eastward, eight miles south of Dawson’s Store on the Umzingwane River, we come to a bold peak (F), that is occupied by Inyanda’s people, with a valley behind it (E), in which are Sikombo’s women and cattle.ill104bInyanda’s, Sikombo’s, and Umlugulu’s PositionsLooking south.A couple of miles farther west, Sikombo’s impi is camped behind a dome–shaped mountain (G) close to the Tuli road.On the west side of this road Umlugulu’s impiwas stationed when we first began our reconnaissance, but he moved nearer to Sikombo at (H), with Mnyakavula close by on (K). Each impi numbered roughly between one and two thousand men. Their outposts were among the hills along the northern bank of the Umzingwana River. We used to pass between these by night, arriving near the strongholds at daybreak.The following account, taken from theDaily Chronicle, gives an idea of what one meets with when out on reconnaissance with a patrol:—“Is it the cooing of doves that wakes me from dreamland to the stern reality of a scrubby blanket and the cold night air of the upland veldt? A plaintive, continuous moan, moan, reminds me that I am at one of our outpost forts beyond Buluwayo, where my bedroom is under the lee of the sail (waggon tilt) which forms the wall of the hospital. And through the flimsy screen there wells the moan of a man who is dying. At last the weary wailing slowly sobs itself away, and the suffering of another mortal is ended. He is at peace. It is only another poor trooper gone. Three years ago he was costing his father so much a year at Eton; he was in the eleven, too—and all for this.“I roll myself tighter in my dew–chilled rug, andturn to dream afresh of what a curious world I’m in. My rest is short, and time arrives for turning out, as now the moon is rising. A curious scene it is, as here in shadow, there in light, close–packed within the narrow circuit of the fort, the men are lying, muffled, deeply sleeping at their posts. It’s etiquette to move and talk as softly as we are able, and even harsh–voiced sentries drop their challenge to a whisper when there is no doubt of one’s identity. We give our horses a few handfuls of mealies, while we dip our pannikins into the great black ‘billy,’ where there’s always cocoa on the simmer for the guard. And presently we saddle up, the six of us, and lead our horses out; and close behind us follow, in a huddled, shivering file, the four native scouts, guarding among them two Matabele prisoners, handcuffed wrist to wrist, who are to be our guides.“Down into the deep, dark kloof below the fort, where the air strikes with an icy chill, we cross the shallow spruit, then rise and turn along its farther bank, following a twisting, stony track that leads down the valley. Our horses, though they purposely are left unshod, make a prodigious clatter as they stumble adown the rough, uneven way. From force of habit rather than from fear of listening enemies, we drop our voices to awhisper, and this gives a feeling of alertness and expectancy such as would find us well prepared on an emergency. But we are many miles as yet from their extremest outposts, and, luckily for us, these natives are the soundest of sleepers, so that one might almost in safety pass with clattering horses within a quarter of a mile of them.“There must be some merit in wrapping up your head when cold,—even at the expense of your nether limbs,—for here in Southern Africa the natives have identically the same way as the men of Northern India have of keeping up their warmth, and as they feel the cold increase, so do they ‘peel’ their legs to find the wherewithal to further muffle up their heads. The keen crispness of the air is in keeping with our spirits, as, all awake, we trek along the hazy veldt. And what a lot of foes one sees when one is looking out for them! Surely that’s a man—yes—no—an upright bush! Ah, there! I saw one move. It is but the sprig of a nearer tree deluding a too–watchful eye; the Kaffirs do not move about as a rule alone at night, while if one is seen, you may be sure there is a party close at hand, and so one needs to keep a very sharp look–out. By going thus at night, we are hoping that we may slip past the Matabele outposts stationed on thehills, and so gain the country that we want to see beyond. Were we to attempt this feat by day, or with a larger party, we should undoubtedly attract attention and have to take a longish circuit. As it is, we make our way for some ten miles along this valley, keeping off the stony path and in the grass, so as to deaden sound as far as possible. High above on either hand the hills loom dark against the stars, and on their summits our enemy’s outposts, we know, are quietly sleeping.“Now and again we cross a transverse donga or tributary watercourse that runs into our stream, the donga sometimes rising to the dignity of a ravine with steep and broken sides. And when we have found a place, and safely crossed it, we turn and approach it from the other side, so that should we happen later on to be pursued and want to get across it in a hurry, we shall know the landmarks that should guide us to the ‘drift.’ The stars are palpitating now and striving hard to increase their gleam, which means that dawn is at hand. The hills along our left (we are travelling south) loom darker now against the paling sky. Before us, too, we see the hazy blank of the greater valley into which our present valley runs. Suddenly there’s a pause, and all our party halts. Look back! there, high up ona hill, beneath whose shadow we have passed, there sparkles what looks like a ruddy star, which glimmers, bobs, goes out, and then flares anew. It is a watch–fire, and our foes are waking up to warm themselves and to keep their watch. Yonder on another hill sparks up a second fire, and on beyond, another. They are waking up, but all too late; we’ve passed them by, and now are in their ground. Forward! We press on, and ere the day has dawned we have emerged from out the defile into the open land beyond. This is a wide and undulating plain, some five miles across to where it runs up into mountain peaks, the true Matopos. We turn aside and clamber up among some hills just as the sun is rising, until we reach the ashes of a kraal that has been lately burned. The kraal is situated in a cup among the hills, and from the koppies round our native scouts can keep a good look–out in all directions. Here we call a halt for breakfast, and after slackening girths, we go into the cattle kraal to look for corn to give our horses. (The Kaffirs always hide their grain in pits beneath the ground of the ‘cattle kraal’ or yard in which the oxen are herded at night.) Many of the grain–pits have already been opened, but still are left half–filled, and some have notbeen touched—and then in one—well, we cover up the mouth with a flat stone and logs of wood. The body of a girl lies doubled up within. A few days back a party of some friendlies, men and women, had revisited this kraal, their home, to get some food to take back to their temporary refuge near our fort. The Matabele saw them, and just when they were busy drawing grain, pounced in upon them, assegaing three,—all women,—and driving off the rest as fast as they could go. This was but an everyday incident of outpost life.“And having fed our horses, each of us now got his ‘billy’ out,—a ‘billy’ (cooking–tin) is carried here by every officer and trooper in a case upon his saddle,—and, having lit a fire, we got our coffee boiled, and breakfast under way. Then two of us, taking with us our two prisoners, clamber up a koppie, from whose top we hope to get a view of the enemy’s country. There is something ludicrous in, and yet one cannot laugh at, this miserable pair. Linked wrist to wrist, they move as would a pair of sullen Siamese twins. The grass is prickly hereabouts, and both want to keep to the tiny goat–track that we are following, and so they have to sidle up like crabs, going hand in hand along it. Atlength we gain the top; there is a splendid panorama, and now that the sun is well up, the mountains out across the plain look but a few hundred yards away, so clear is every rock, so deep the shadows. The prisoners have no hesitation in telling us exactly where their friends are camped upon the mountains, and where they keep their women and their cattle. We sit and stare for half an hour, and then agree that, having come so far without accident, we may as well go farther, and get a nearer view of these redoubtable strongholds. We return down to our party, and as we descend, we remember that our native scouts and the prisoners have had a pretty long walk as it is. They had shown us what we had come out to see, and we now proposed to send them back.“So, having seen them shuffling homeward, we turned our horses’ heads towards the mountains, and continued our way across the open valley. On and on, keeping everywhere a bright look–out against surprise. The veldt was rolling grassy downs, all covered, sometimes sparsely, sometimes densely, with bushes,—mostly thorns. Every open speck of sand, every track, was keenly scrutinised for ‘spoor’ (or tracks of men), and though there was not a soul to beseen about the veldt, the signs of their propinquity were here too glaring to be missed.“Leaving our horses, with the remainder of the men, well hidden behind a rise, we two walked on on foot, each carrying a rifle with him. It was an anxious time, as very soon the bush had shut us out of sight of our support, but still we kept along, anxious to gain the summit of a rounded, rocky hill, whence we could see all round, and so foresee all danger.“Now, on the paths before us were fresh tracks of an ox, behind whom had walked a man with naked feet, and going a little lame on one—the left toes dragged, he used a stick. They had passed along before sunrise, because across the tracks there ran the spoor of guinea–fowl heading towards their feeding–ground in yonder patch of maize. A single ox thus driven in the night assuredly meant a pack–ox smuggling in supplies to one of the rebel strongholds. More paths converged into the one we followed, bringing more and more people, women’s feet and children’s, oxen and donkeys, all fresh, and heading in the same direction.“Then, mounting on the rocks, we followed with our eyes the direction of the path through thicker bush until it reached a solitary mountain. Therewe could see a thin wreath of smoke curling up from the bush, and, looking through our powerful telescope, we soon could see some other fires high up the hillside close to some mighty caves. Dogs were barking, cattle lowing, at the back of one particular shoulder of the hill; and while we stared to try and distinguish figures in the rocks, a sudden flash up near the mountain–top just caught our eye. Then, focusing the glass upon it, soon we saw the dark brown figures of some twenty natives squatting up about the skyline, and the frequent glint and sparkle showed they carried guns and assegais. Nearer and nearer we crept, gaining another koppie, whence we had a better view, and from here we marked the line that our attacking parties ought to take, and where to post our guns with best advantage. We might have stayed there longer, for it was a tempting spectacle to sit and watch. But the niggers in the hills are calling to each other, evidently suspicious, if not actually aware of our presence—and they have eyes as strong as telescopes. Now some crows fly startled from the bush a few hundred yards to our right. Some one is moving there! Up springs a plover screaming farther on—they’re on the move. We have seen all that we want to see.To stay in one place for long when scouting is risky at any time; to–day it looks even dangerous. So we quietly slip away—not by the path we came—for that is the way you run into your enemy’s ambuscades.“Then, as we went along, a novel footprint caught our eye, and struck us much as Friday’s must have struck old Crusoe. A deep indented hollow of the fore part of a foot showed plainly in the grass to one side of the path, heading as to cross it, and in the grass beyond the other side the deep indent was seen of a heel in the earth. This was the spoor of a man, running much in the same direction as ourselves, yet wishing to avoid notice, because he jumped the path. Evidently a messenger going out the way we had come, and knowing of our presence there, and on his way to warn the outposts, through whom we had passed in the dark, to catch us on our homeward road. Our horses now had had their second feed, the men had had a kind of meal, and so we started on again. We had to visit two more hills, but found them both unoccupied. And then we turned our heads for home. Caution became more than ever necessary now. There was only left the short afternoon of daylight, our horses were no longer overfresh, and we had five–and–twenty miles to go, ten of them along a defile valley. So with an advanced file sent well ahead, and one dropped well in rear, we journeyed on, each man keeping an ever–restless, bright look–out.“And though we talked and chatted from time to time for many a weary mile, you never saw your neighbour’s eyes look at you for a moment. While talking, one had still to keep one’s eyes afield. And what a mixture in our little band of eight! Under the similar equipment of cocked–up Boer or cowboy hat, with ragged shirt and strong cord pants, with cartridge–bandolier, and belt from which hung knife and pipe, tobacco–bag and purse, all grimy and unkempt, and sunburnt to a rich, dark brick colour, each individual was an interesting study in himself. Here is one withpince–nez—(pince–nezon a trooper!)—a Cambridge man of highest education, who thought he would take to farming in Rhodesia; but his plans are interrupted by the war, and while that lasts he takes his place, like others, in the ranks. Beside him rides a late A.B. seaman in the Royal Navy, a fine young fellow, full of pluck, who will press on where devils fear to tread, but he is disappointing as a scout, for, after having been close up to the enemy, he cannot tell how they are posted, what theirstrength, or any other points that the leader wants to know. This other man an architect, and yon a gold–prospector—in fact, there’s a variety enough among them to suit almost any taste.“The sun has set and darkness has drawn on before we are well out of the defile; but we are now beyond the rebel outposts, and getting nearer home, so there’s nothing much to—bang! phit!—and a bullet flits just over our heads! It came from behind; we halt and hear the clatter of hoofs as the man who was left as rearguard comes galloping up the road. A moment later he appears in the dusk rounding the next turn. He no sooner sees us than he halts, dismounts, drops on one knee, takes aim, and fires straight at us. We shout and yell, but as he loads to fire again, we scatter, and push on along the road, and he comes clattering after us. The explanation is that nervousness, increased by darkness coming on, has sent the man a little off his head, and, ludicrous though it be, it is a little unpleasant for us. None of his comrades care to tackle him. ‘It is a pity to shoot him,’ ‘His horse is tired and cannot catch us up,’ and ‘He’ll be all right as soon as he has got over the first attack of fright’; and so we leave him to follow us, keeping a respectful distance. At length the fires twinkleahead, and, tired and hungry, we get back to camp.“At dawn our missing man turned up—without his horse, it had dropped dead from fatigue. He had a wondrous tale of how he had pursued a host of enemies. The sole reward he got was a ducking in the spruit.”A small party such as that mentioned in this account of a scouting expedition is often necessary, as in this case, for ensuring the safety of the scouts in getting to and from their work through defiles and the like, where it might happen that the way would have to be forced past the enemy’s outposts. But once on their ground, the escort should be carefully concealed. Their work is over for the time being, and the essential part of the expedition, that is, the scouting by one or two trained individuals, has commenced.The scout must then be left with a perfectly free hand, and must not be tied to any certain hour for return. He can only judge for himself later on whether it is necessary to be away for two or three hours only, or for a whole night, before he comes back to the party. And that is one of the considerations which make me prefer to start from home or camp without escort in the original instance, as it leaves one altogether unfetteredby considerations as to the feeding, resting, etc., of the patrol, or of necessarily making one’s way back to the exact spot where it would be posted.P.S.—As will be seen in the following chapters, the rebel impis and their women and cattle were all found, when the troops came to attack them later on, in the exact positions assigned to them in the sketch map issued. Such “locating” would have been impossible had we tried to effect it by reconnaissances of the usual kind, that is, by parties of men. The natives would have gathered to oppose our coming, or—what is more likely—to prevent our getting away again; instead of gently stealing our honey bit by bit, we should have brought the whole swarm of bees about us, and the probability is that they would then have deserted that hive to take a new and more inaccessible one. Instead of being able to lead the troops straight to the enemy, we should merely have been able to say, “There is the spot where we fought them; they seemed to come from yonder; but it looks as if they had now gone somewhere else.” And reconnoitring parties would again have had to follow them, with similar results, probably losing men every time, and gaining nothing.The value of solitary scouting does not seemto be sufficiently realised among us nowadays. One hears but little of its employment since the Peninsula days, when Marbot gave the English officers unqualified praise for their clever and daring enterprise in this line.It is not only for savage warfare that I venture to think it is so important, but equally for modern civilised tactics. A reconnaissance in force in these days of long–range weapons and machine–guns can have very little chance of success, and yet for the same reasons an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position, strength, and movements is more than ever necessary to the officer commanding a force. One well–trained, capable scout can see and report on an object just as well as fifty ordinary men of a patrol looking at the same thing. But he does so with this advantage, that he avoids attracting the attention of the enemy, and they do not alter their position or tactics on account of having been observed; and he can venture where a party would never be allowed to come, since the enemy, even if they see him, would hesitate to disturb their piquets, etc., by opening fire on a solitary individual, although they would have no such scruples were a reconnoitring party there instead.It is difficult to find in history a battle inwhich the victory or defeat were not closely connected with good or deficient reconnaissance respectively. Good preliminary reconnaissance saves premature wearing out of men and horses through useless marches and counter–marches, and it simplifies the commander’s difficulties, and he knows exactly when, where, and how to dispose his force to obtain the best results.But, as I have said above, such reconnaissance can often be carried out the most effectually by single reconnoitrers or scouts. And a peace training of such men is very important.Without special training a man cannot have a thorough confidence in himself as a scout, and without an absolute confidence in himself, it is not of the slightest use for a man to think of going out to scout.Development of the habits of noting details and of reasoning inductively constitute the elements of the required training. This can be carried out equally in the most civilised as in the wildest countries,—although for its complete perfecting a wild country is preferable. It is to a large extent the development of the science of woodcraft in a man—that is, the art of noticing smallest details, and of connecting their meaning, and thus gaining a knowledge of the ways and doings of yourquarry; the education of your “eye–for–a–country”; and the habit of looking out on your own account. Once these have become, from continual practice, a second nature to a man, he has but to learn the more artificial details of what he is required to report, and the best method of doing so, to become a full–fledged scout.We English have the talent of woodcraft and the spirit of adventure and independence already inborn in our blood to an extent to which no other nationality can lay claim, and therefore among our soldiers we ought to find the best material in the world for scouts. Were we to take this material and rightly train it in that art whose value has been denoted in the term “half the battle,” we ought to make up in useful men much of our deficiency in numbers.Houdin, the conjurer, educated the prehensibility of his son’s mind by teaching him, in progressive lessons, to be able to recapitulate the contents of a shop window after a single look at it; there is the first stage of a scout’s training, viz. the habit of noticing details. The second, “inductive reasoning,” or the putting together of this and that detail so noticed, and deducing their correct meaning, is best illustrated in the Memoirs of “Sherlock Holmes.”

Scouting

26th June to 14th July

Single Scouts preferable to Patrols—How to conceal yourself—Skirt–Dancing a Useful Aid to evading an Enemy—The Enemy’s Ruses for catching us—The Minutiæ of Scouting—The Matopo Hills—Positions of the Enemy—A Typical Patrol—The Value of Solitary Scouting—Its Importance in Modern War—The Elementary Principles of Scouting.

14th July.—A bit of a break in the diary, not because there was nothing doing, but just the opposite.

For one thing, we have been pretty busy in sending off three small columns to the assistance of Mashonaland. And also, personally, I have been fully occupied in another way: that is, in repeating my experiences of the 26th June, and frequently by day, and very often by night, I have been back in the Matopos, locating the enemy’s positions. I go sometimes with one or two whites, sometimes with two or three black companions;but what I prefer is to go with my one nigger–boy, who can ride and spoor and can take charge of the horses while I am climbing about the rocks to get a view.

It may seem anomalous, but it is in the very smallness of the party that the elements of success and safety lie. A small party is less likely to attract attention; there are fewer to extricate or to afford a target, if we happen to get into a tight place; and I think that one is more on the alert when one is not trusting to others to keep the look–out.

Then we have a nice kind of enemy to deal with. Except on special occasions, they don’t like going about in the dark, and cannot understand anybody else doing it; and they sleep like logs, and keep little or no look–out at night. Thus one is able to pass close through their outposts in the dark, to reconnoitre their main positions in the early dawn (when they light up fires to thaw away their night’s stiffness), and then to come away by some other route than that by which you entered.

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Solitary ScoutingScouting alone gave better results than reconnaisance in parties. Accompanied by a reliable “boy,” who could keep a good look–out and take care of the horses, one was able to do a lot of effective scouting. We generally moved by night, and worked in the early dawn.

Solitary ScoutingScouting alone gave better results than reconnaisance in parties. Accompanied by a reliable “boy,” who could keep a good look–out and take care of the horses, one was able to do a lot of effective scouting. We generally moved by night, and worked in the early dawn.

Solitary Scouting

Scouting alone gave better results than reconnaisance in parties. Accompanied by a reliable “boy,” who could keep a good look–out and take care of the horses, one was able to do a lot of effective scouting. We generally moved by night, and worked in the early dawn.

So long as you are clothed, as we are in non–conspicuous colours, you can escape detection even from their sharp eyes; but you must not move about—directly you move, they see you, and take steps to catch you. Half the battle in keeping yourself hidden, while yet seeing everything yourself, is to study the colour of your background; thus, if clothed in things that match the rocks in colour, you can boldly sit out in front of a rock, with little risk of detection, so long as you remain motionless; if you are hiding in the shadow alongside of a rock or bush, take care that your form thus darkened is not silhouetted against a light background behind you. To show even your hand on a skyline would, of course, be fatal to your concealment.

[P.S.—Do not wear any bright colours about you. I noticed that after I had been on the sick list and resumed my scouting expeditions, the enemy caught sight of me much more quickly than they used to, though I took just as much care, and remained just as motionless; and I then came to the conclusion that this was due to the fact that I had, in accordance with the doctor’s advice, taken to wearing a flannel cummerbund wound round my waist—and the only flannel at that time procurable was of a brilliant red; and this was what caught their eye.]

Of course, anything liable to glitter or shine is fatal to concealment; rifle, pistol, field–glasses, wrist–watch, buckles, and buttons should be dulled,abolished, or held in such a way as not to catch the rays of the sun by day or of the moon by night.

For efficient scouting in rocky ground, in the dry season, indiarubber–soled shoes are essential; with these you can move in absolute silence, and over rocks which, from their smoothness or inclination, would be impassable with boots.

It is almost impossible to obliterate your spoor, as, even if you brush over your footprints, the practised eye of the native tracker will read your doings by other signs; still, it is a point not to be lost sight of for a minute when getting into position for scouting, and a little walking backwards, doubling on one’s tracks over rocky ground, lighting a fire where you are not going to cook your food, or one of an hundred similar subterfuges may often relieve you from the attentions of a too–inquisitive enemy.

When they have found you watching them, they will not, as a rule, come boldly at you, fearing that you are merely a lure to draw them on into some ambuscade or trap,—for that is one of their own pet games to play,—but they will work round to get on to the track you have made in getting to your positions. Having found this, and satisfied themselves that you are practically alone, their general rule is to lie in ambush near the track, ready to catch you on your return. Naturally one never returns by the same path. (P.S.—Once I had to do it, later on, at Wedzas, when there was no other way, and nearly paid the penalty.)

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The Value of Skirt–DancingWhen pursued by Matabele among the boulders of the Matopo country it was of the greatest advantage to be equipped with rubber–soled shoes, and to have that command of your feet which is acquired in the practice of skirt–dancing.

The Value of Skirt–DancingWhen pursued by Matabele among the boulders of the Matopo country it was of the greatest advantage to be equipped with rubber–soled shoes, and to have that command of your feet which is acquired in the practice of skirt–dancing.

The Value of Skirt–Dancing

When pursued by Matabele among the boulders of the Matopo country it was of the greatest advantage to be equipped with rubber–soled shoes, and to have that command of your feet which is acquired in the practice of skirt–dancing.

Sometimes they try to shoot or to catch one; but so long as one keeps moving about, they do not seem to trust much to their marksmanship; and I have heard them shouting to each other, “Don’t shoot at the beast, catch him by the hands, catch him by the hands!” Then they would come clambering over the rocks, but clambering awkwardly—for, lithe, and active though they be, the Matabele are not good mountaineers, especially in that part of it which Montenegrins say is the most difficult (possibly because they themselves shine pre–eminently at it), namely, in getting rapidly downhill. Consequently, if one is wearing indiarubber–soled shoes (not hobnailed boots, for with them you merely skate about the slippery boulders), it is not a difficult matter to outpace them, provided you have the natural gift or requisite training for “placing” your feet. I am a fair blunderer in most things, but I was taken in hand in the days of my youth by a devotee of the art of skirt–dancing, and never, till I was forced by dark–browntwo–legged circumstances to skip from rock to rock in the Matopos, did I fully realise the value of what I then learned, namely, the command of the feet.

The enemy are also full of tricks and ruses for catching us by luring us into ambuscades. Thus they will show scouts, cattle, women, and, at night, fires, in the hope of our coming close to capture or investigate, and so putting ourselves in their hands. But even if we were so simple as to be tempted, we should probably see something of their spoor which would put us on our guard. And in this respect the stupidity of the native is almost incredible; he gathers his information almost entirely by spooring, and yet it is only occasionally that he seems to remember that his own feet are all the time writing their message to his enemies. Now and again he thinks of it, and leaps across a path or sandy patch; but I suppose that, knowing the hopelessness of trying effectually to conceal his trail, he has acquired the habit of disregarding its importance.

There is naturally a strong attraction in reconnoitring, for, apart from the fun of besting the enemy, the art of scouting is in itself as interesting as any detective work.

It is almost impossible to describe all the littlesigns that go to make up information for one when scouting. It is like reading the page of a book. You can tell your companion—say a man who cannot read—that such and such a thing is the case.

“How do you know?” he asks.

“Because it is written here on this page.”

“Oh! How do you make that out?”

Then you proceed to spell it out to him, letters that make words, words that make sentences sentences that make sense. In the same way, in scouting, the tiniest indications, such as a few grains of displaced sand here, some bent blades of grass there, a leaf foreign to this bit of country, a buck startled from a distant thicket, the impress of a raindrop on a spoor, a single flash on the mountain–side, a far–off yelp of a dog,—all are letters in the page of information you are reading, and whose sequence and aggregate meaning, if you are a practised reader, you grasp at once without considering them as separate letters and spelling them out—except where the print happens to be particularly faint. And that is what goes to make scouting the interesting, the absorbing game that it is.

A small instance will show my meaning as to what information can be read from trifling signs.

The other day, when out with my native scout, we came on a few downtrodden blades of common grass; this led us on to footprints in a sandy patch of ground. They were those of women or boys (judging from the size) on a long journey (they wore sandals), going towards the Matopos. Suddenly my boy gave a “How!” of surprise, and ten yards off the track he picked up a leaf—it was the leaf of a tree that did not grow about here, but some ten or fifteen miles away; it was damp, and smelt of Kaffir beer. From these signs it was evident that women had been carrying beer from the place where the trees grew towards the Matopos (they stuff up the mouth of the beer–pots with leaves), and they had passed this way at four in the morning (a strong breeze had been blowing about that hour, and the leaf had evidently been blown ten yards away). This would bring them to the Matopos about five o’clock. The men would not delay to drink up the fresh beer, and would by this time be very comfortable, not to say half–stupid, and the reverse of on thequi vive; so that we were able to go and reconnoitre more nearly with impunity—all on the strength of information given by bruised grass and a leaf.

There should have been no reason for mygoing out to get information in this way had we had reliable native spies or fully trained white scouts. But we find that these friendly natives are especially useless, as they have neither the pluck nor the energy for the work, and at best are given to exaggerating and lying; and our white scouts, though keen and plucky as lions, have never been trained in the necessary intricacies of mapping and reporting. Thus, it has now fallen to my lot to be employed on these most interesting little expeditions.

Under present conditions we, staff and special service officers, have to turn our hand to every kind of job as occasion demands, and one man has to do the ordinary work of half a dozen different offices. It is as though, the personnel of a railway having been suddenly reduced by influenza or other plague just when the bank holiday traffic was on, a few trained staff were got from another company temporarily to work it. We find a number of porters, station–masters, cleaners, firemen, etc. available, but we have to put in a lot of odd work ourselves to make the thing run; at one minute doing the traffic management, at the next driving an engine, here superintending clearing–house business, then acting as pointsmen, and so on.

It makes it all the more interesting, and in this way I have dropped in for the scouting work.

The net result of our scouting to date is that we have got to know the nature of the country and the exact positions of the six different rebel impis in it, and of their three refuges of women and cattle. Maps have been lithographed accordingly, and issued to all officers for their guidance. These maps have sketches of the principal mountains to guide the officers in finding the positions of the enemy.

The Matopo district is a tract of intricate broken country, containing a jumble of granite–boulder mountains and bush–grown gorges, extending for some sixty miles by twenty. It lies to the south of Buluwayo, its nearest point being about twenty miles from that town. Along its northern edge, in a distance of about twenty–five miles, the six separate impis of the enemy have taken up their positions, with their women and cattle bestowed in neighbouring gorges.

On the principle “Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo,” we have taken innumerable little peeps at them, and have now “marked down” these impis and their belongings in their separate strongholds, a result that we could never have gained had we gone in strong parties.

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The Strongholds in the MatoposOur outposts were at Hope Fountain, Kami, Mabukutwane, and Fig Tree. From these we reconnoitred, passing through the enemy’s scouts on the north bank of the Umzingwane, and marking the positions of the impis in the hills by their fires, tracks, etc.A,Inugu; Imbēsa’s impi of young warriors; women; cattle.E,Sikombo’s women and cattle.F,Inyanda’s impi.B,Chilili; women and cattle.G,Sikombo’s impi.C,Babyan and Priest of M’limo.H,Mnyakavula’s impi.D,Babyan’s impi.K,Umlugulu’s impi.

The Strongholds in the MatoposOur outposts were at Hope Fountain, Kami, Mabukutwane, and Fig Tree. From these we reconnoitred, passing through the enemy’s scouts on the north bank of the Umzingwane, and marking the positions of the impis in the hills by their fires, tracks, etc.A,Inugu; Imbēsa’s impi of young warriors; women; cattle.E,Sikombo’s women and cattle.F,Inyanda’s impi.B,Chilili; women and cattle.G,Sikombo’s impi.C,Babyan and Priest of M’limo.H,Mnyakavula’s impi.D,Babyan’s impi.K,Umlugulu’s impi.

The Strongholds in the Matopos

Our outposts were at Hope Fountain, Kami, Mabukutwane, and Fig Tree. From these we reconnoitred, passing through the enemy’s scouts on the north bank of the Umzingwane, and marking the positions of the impis in the hills by their fires, tracks, etc.

ill103b

Inugu Mountain, A

Inugu Mountain, A

Inugu Mountain, A

Commencing at the western end, near the Mangwe road is the stronghold of the Inugu Mountain (see A in map), a very difficult place to tackle, with its cliffs, caves, and narrow gorges. The impi occupies the mountain, while the women and cattle are in the neighbouring Famona valley.

Five miles N.E. of this is the Chilili valley (B), in which are women and cattle of Babyan’s impi. This impi is located deep in the hills near Isibula’s Kraal on the Kantol Mountain (D); while Babyan himself, and probably the priest of the M’limo, are in a neighbouring valley at (C).

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Chilili Valley, B

Chilili Valley, B

Chilili Valley, B

Eighteen miles to the eastward, eight miles south of Dawson’s Store on the Umzingwane River, we come to a bold peak (F), that is occupied by Inyanda’s people, with a valley behind it (E), in which are Sikombo’s women and cattle.

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Inyanda’s, Sikombo’s, and Umlugulu’s PositionsLooking south.

Inyanda’s, Sikombo’s, and Umlugulu’s PositionsLooking south.

Inyanda’s, Sikombo’s, and Umlugulu’s Positions

Looking south.

A couple of miles farther west, Sikombo’s impi is camped behind a dome–shaped mountain (G) close to the Tuli road.

On the west side of this road Umlugulu’s impiwas stationed when we first began our reconnaissance, but he moved nearer to Sikombo at (H), with Mnyakavula close by on (K). Each impi numbered roughly between one and two thousand men. Their outposts were among the hills along the northern bank of the Umzingwana River. We used to pass between these by night, arriving near the strongholds at daybreak.

The following account, taken from theDaily Chronicle, gives an idea of what one meets with when out on reconnaissance with a patrol:—

“Is it the cooing of doves that wakes me from dreamland to the stern reality of a scrubby blanket and the cold night air of the upland veldt? A plaintive, continuous moan, moan, reminds me that I am at one of our outpost forts beyond Buluwayo, where my bedroom is under the lee of the sail (waggon tilt) which forms the wall of the hospital. And through the flimsy screen there wells the moan of a man who is dying. At last the weary wailing slowly sobs itself away, and the suffering of another mortal is ended. He is at peace. It is only another poor trooper gone. Three years ago he was costing his father so much a year at Eton; he was in the eleven, too—and all for this.

“I roll myself tighter in my dew–chilled rug, andturn to dream afresh of what a curious world I’m in. My rest is short, and time arrives for turning out, as now the moon is rising. A curious scene it is, as here in shadow, there in light, close–packed within the narrow circuit of the fort, the men are lying, muffled, deeply sleeping at their posts. It’s etiquette to move and talk as softly as we are able, and even harsh–voiced sentries drop their challenge to a whisper when there is no doubt of one’s identity. We give our horses a few handfuls of mealies, while we dip our pannikins into the great black ‘billy,’ where there’s always cocoa on the simmer for the guard. And presently we saddle up, the six of us, and lead our horses out; and close behind us follow, in a huddled, shivering file, the four native scouts, guarding among them two Matabele prisoners, handcuffed wrist to wrist, who are to be our guides.

“Down into the deep, dark kloof below the fort, where the air strikes with an icy chill, we cross the shallow spruit, then rise and turn along its farther bank, following a twisting, stony track that leads down the valley. Our horses, though they purposely are left unshod, make a prodigious clatter as they stumble adown the rough, uneven way. From force of habit rather than from fear of listening enemies, we drop our voices to awhisper, and this gives a feeling of alertness and expectancy such as would find us well prepared on an emergency. But we are many miles as yet from their extremest outposts, and, luckily for us, these natives are the soundest of sleepers, so that one might almost in safety pass with clattering horses within a quarter of a mile of them.

“There must be some merit in wrapping up your head when cold,—even at the expense of your nether limbs,—for here in Southern Africa the natives have identically the same way as the men of Northern India have of keeping up their warmth, and as they feel the cold increase, so do they ‘peel’ their legs to find the wherewithal to further muffle up their heads. The keen crispness of the air is in keeping with our spirits, as, all awake, we trek along the hazy veldt. And what a lot of foes one sees when one is looking out for them! Surely that’s a man—yes—no—an upright bush! Ah, there! I saw one move. It is but the sprig of a nearer tree deluding a too–watchful eye; the Kaffirs do not move about as a rule alone at night, while if one is seen, you may be sure there is a party close at hand, and so one needs to keep a very sharp look–out. By going thus at night, we are hoping that we may slip past the Matabele outposts stationed on thehills, and so gain the country that we want to see beyond. Were we to attempt this feat by day, or with a larger party, we should undoubtedly attract attention and have to take a longish circuit. As it is, we make our way for some ten miles along this valley, keeping off the stony path and in the grass, so as to deaden sound as far as possible. High above on either hand the hills loom dark against the stars, and on their summits our enemy’s outposts, we know, are quietly sleeping.

“Now and again we cross a transverse donga or tributary watercourse that runs into our stream, the donga sometimes rising to the dignity of a ravine with steep and broken sides. And when we have found a place, and safely crossed it, we turn and approach it from the other side, so that should we happen later on to be pursued and want to get across it in a hurry, we shall know the landmarks that should guide us to the ‘drift.’ The stars are palpitating now and striving hard to increase their gleam, which means that dawn is at hand. The hills along our left (we are travelling south) loom darker now against the paling sky. Before us, too, we see the hazy blank of the greater valley into which our present valley runs. Suddenly there’s a pause, and all our party halts. Look back! there, high up ona hill, beneath whose shadow we have passed, there sparkles what looks like a ruddy star, which glimmers, bobs, goes out, and then flares anew. It is a watch–fire, and our foes are waking up to warm themselves and to keep their watch. Yonder on another hill sparks up a second fire, and on beyond, another. They are waking up, but all too late; we’ve passed them by, and now are in their ground. Forward! We press on, and ere the day has dawned we have emerged from out the defile into the open land beyond. This is a wide and undulating plain, some five miles across to where it runs up into mountain peaks, the true Matopos. We turn aside and clamber up among some hills just as the sun is rising, until we reach the ashes of a kraal that has been lately burned. The kraal is situated in a cup among the hills, and from the koppies round our native scouts can keep a good look–out in all directions. Here we call a halt for breakfast, and after slackening girths, we go into the cattle kraal to look for corn to give our horses. (The Kaffirs always hide their grain in pits beneath the ground of the ‘cattle kraal’ or yard in which the oxen are herded at night.) Many of the grain–pits have already been opened, but still are left half–filled, and some have notbeen touched—and then in one—well, we cover up the mouth with a flat stone and logs of wood. The body of a girl lies doubled up within. A few days back a party of some friendlies, men and women, had revisited this kraal, their home, to get some food to take back to their temporary refuge near our fort. The Matabele saw them, and just when they were busy drawing grain, pounced in upon them, assegaing three,—all women,—and driving off the rest as fast as they could go. This was but an everyday incident of outpost life.

“And having fed our horses, each of us now got his ‘billy’ out,—a ‘billy’ (cooking–tin) is carried here by every officer and trooper in a case upon his saddle,—and, having lit a fire, we got our coffee boiled, and breakfast under way. Then two of us, taking with us our two prisoners, clamber up a koppie, from whose top we hope to get a view of the enemy’s country. There is something ludicrous in, and yet one cannot laugh at, this miserable pair. Linked wrist to wrist, they move as would a pair of sullen Siamese twins. The grass is prickly hereabouts, and both want to keep to the tiny goat–track that we are following, and so they have to sidle up like crabs, going hand in hand along it. Atlength we gain the top; there is a splendid panorama, and now that the sun is well up, the mountains out across the plain look but a few hundred yards away, so clear is every rock, so deep the shadows. The prisoners have no hesitation in telling us exactly where their friends are camped upon the mountains, and where they keep their women and their cattle. We sit and stare for half an hour, and then agree that, having come so far without accident, we may as well go farther, and get a nearer view of these redoubtable strongholds. We return down to our party, and as we descend, we remember that our native scouts and the prisoners have had a pretty long walk as it is. They had shown us what we had come out to see, and we now proposed to send them back.

“So, having seen them shuffling homeward, we turned our horses’ heads towards the mountains, and continued our way across the open valley. On and on, keeping everywhere a bright look–out against surprise. The veldt was rolling grassy downs, all covered, sometimes sparsely, sometimes densely, with bushes,—mostly thorns. Every open speck of sand, every track, was keenly scrutinised for ‘spoor’ (or tracks of men), and though there was not a soul to beseen about the veldt, the signs of their propinquity were here too glaring to be missed.

“Leaving our horses, with the remainder of the men, well hidden behind a rise, we two walked on on foot, each carrying a rifle with him. It was an anxious time, as very soon the bush had shut us out of sight of our support, but still we kept along, anxious to gain the summit of a rounded, rocky hill, whence we could see all round, and so foresee all danger.

“Now, on the paths before us were fresh tracks of an ox, behind whom had walked a man with naked feet, and going a little lame on one—the left toes dragged, he used a stick. They had passed along before sunrise, because across the tracks there ran the spoor of guinea–fowl heading towards their feeding–ground in yonder patch of maize. A single ox thus driven in the night assuredly meant a pack–ox smuggling in supplies to one of the rebel strongholds. More paths converged into the one we followed, bringing more and more people, women’s feet and children’s, oxen and donkeys, all fresh, and heading in the same direction.

“Then, mounting on the rocks, we followed with our eyes the direction of the path through thicker bush until it reached a solitary mountain. Therewe could see a thin wreath of smoke curling up from the bush, and, looking through our powerful telescope, we soon could see some other fires high up the hillside close to some mighty caves. Dogs were barking, cattle lowing, at the back of one particular shoulder of the hill; and while we stared to try and distinguish figures in the rocks, a sudden flash up near the mountain–top just caught our eye. Then, focusing the glass upon it, soon we saw the dark brown figures of some twenty natives squatting up about the skyline, and the frequent glint and sparkle showed they carried guns and assegais. Nearer and nearer we crept, gaining another koppie, whence we had a better view, and from here we marked the line that our attacking parties ought to take, and where to post our guns with best advantage. We might have stayed there longer, for it was a tempting spectacle to sit and watch. But the niggers in the hills are calling to each other, evidently suspicious, if not actually aware of our presence—and they have eyes as strong as telescopes. Now some crows fly startled from the bush a few hundred yards to our right. Some one is moving there! Up springs a plover screaming farther on—they’re on the move. We have seen all that we want to see.To stay in one place for long when scouting is risky at any time; to–day it looks even dangerous. So we quietly slip away—not by the path we came—for that is the way you run into your enemy’s ambuscades.

“Then, as we went along, a novel footprint caught our eye, and struck us much as Friday’s must have struck old Crusoe. A deep indented hollow of the fore part of a foot showed plainly in the grass to one side of the path, heading as to cross it, and in the grass beyond the other side the deep indent was seen of a heel in the earth. This was the spoor of a man, running much in the same direction as ourselves, yet wishing to avoid notice, because he jumped the path. Evidently a messenger going out the way we had come, and knowing of our presence there, and on his way to warn the outposts, through whom we had passed in the dark, to catch us on our homeward road. Our horses now had had their second feed, the men had had a kind of meal, and so we started on again. We had to visit two more hills, but found them both unoccupied. And then we turned our heads for home. Caution became more than ever necessary now. There was only left the short afternoon of daylight, our horses were no longer overfresh, and we had five–and–twenty miles to go, ten of them along a defile valley. So with an advanced file sent well ahead, and one dropped well in rear, we journeyed on, each man keeping an ever–restless, bright look–out.

“And though we talked and chatted from time to time for many a weary mile, you never saw your neighbour’s eyes look at you for a moment. While talking, one had still to keep one’s eyes afield. And what a mixture in our little band of eight! Under the similar equipment of cocked–up Boer or cowboy hat, with ragged shirt and strong cord pants, with cartridge–bandolier, and belt from which hung knife and pipe, tobacco–bag and purse, all grimy and unkempt, and sunburnt to a rich, dark brick colour, each individual was an interesting study in himself. Here is one withpince–nez—(pince–nezon a trooper!)—a Cambridge man of highest education, who thought he would take to farming in Rhodesia; but his plans are interrupted by the war, and while that lasts he takes his place, like others, in the ranks. Beside him rides a late A.B. seaman in the Royal Navy, a fine young fellow, full of pluck, who will press on where devils fear to tread, but he is disappointing as a scout, for, after having been close up to the enemy, he cannot tell how they are posted, what theirstrength, or any other points that the leader wants to know. This other man an architect, and yon a gold–prospector—in fact, there’s a variety enough among them to suit almost any taste.

“The sun has set and darkness has drawn on before we are well out of the defile; but we are now beyond the rebel outposts, and getting nearer home, so there’s nothing much to—bang! phit!—and a bullet flits just over our heads! It came from behind; we halt and hear the clatter of hoofs as the man who was left as rearguard comes galloping up the road. A moment later he appears in the dusk rounding the next turn. He no sooner sees us than he halts, dismounts, drops on one knee, takes aim, and fires straight at us. We shout and yell, but as he loads to fire again, we scatter, and push on along the road, and he comes clattering after us. The explanation is that nervousness, increased by darkness coming on, has sent the man a little off his head, and, ludicrous though it be, it is a little unpleasant for us. None of his comrades care to tackle him. ‘It is a pity to shoot him,’ ‘His horse is tired and cannot catch us up,’ and ‘He’ll be all right as soon as he has got over the first attack of fright’; and so we leave him to follow us, keeping a respectful distance. At length the fires twinkleahead, and, tired and hungry, we get back to camp.

“At dawn our missing man turned up—without his horse, it had dropped dead from fatigue. He had a wondrous tale of how he had pursued a host of enemies. The sole reward he got was a ducking in the spruit.”

A small party such as that mentioned in this account of a scouting expedition is often necessary, as in this case, for ensuring the safety of the scouts in getting to and from their work through defiles and the like, where it might happen that the way would have to be forced past the enemy’s outposts. But once on their ground, the escort should be carefully concealed. Their work is over for the time being, and the essential part of the expedition, that is, the scouting by one or two trained individuals, has commenced.

The scout must then be left with a perfectly free hand, and must not be tied to any certain hour for return. He can only judge for himself later on whether it is necessary to be away for two or three hours only, or for a whole night, before he comes back to the party. And that is one of the considerations which make me prefer to start from home or camp without escort in the original instance, as it leaves one altogether unfetteredby considerations as to the feeding, resting, etc., of the patrol, or of necessarily making one’s way back to the exact spot where it would be posted.

P.S.—As will be seen in the following chapters, the rebel impis and their women and cattle were all found, when the troops came to attack them later on, in the exact positions assigned to them in the sketch map issued. Such “locating” would have been impossible had we tried to effect it by reconnaissances of the usual kind, that is, by parties of men. The natives would have gathered to oppose our coming, or—what is more likely—to prevent our getting away again; instead of gently stealing our honey bit by bit, we should have brought the whole swarm of bees about us, and the probability is that they would then have deserted that hive to take a new and more inaccessible one. Instead of being able to lead the troops straight to the enemy, we should merely have been able to say, “There is the spot where we fought them; they seemed to come from yonder; but it looks as if they had now gone somewhere else.” And reconnoitring parties would again have had to follow them, with similar results, probably losing men every time, and gaining nothing.

The value of solitary scouting does not seemto be sufficiently realised among us nowadays. One hears but little of its employment since the Peninsula days, when Marbot gave the English officers unqualified praise for their clever and daring enterprise in this line.

It is not only for savage warfare that I venture to think it is so important, but equally for modern civilised tactics. A reconnaissance in force in these days of long–range weapons and machine–guns can have very little chance of success, and yet for the same reasons an accurate knowledge of the enemy’s position, strength, and movements is more than ever necessary to the officer commanding a force. One well–trained, capable scout can see and report on an object just as well as fifty ordinary men of a patrol looking at the same thing. But he does so with this advantage, that he avoids attracting the attention of the enemy, and they do not alter their position or tactics on account of having been observed; and he can venture where a party would never be allowed to come, since the enemy, even if they see him, would hesitate to disturb their piquets, etc., by opening fire on a solitary individual, although they would have no such scruples were a reconnoitring party there instead.

It is difficult to find in history a battle inwhich the victory or defeat were not closely connected with good or deficient reconnaissance respectively. Good preliminary reconnaissance saves premature wearing out of men and horses through useless marches and counter–marches, and it simplifies the commander’s difficulties, and he knows exactly when, where, and how to dispose his force to obtain the best results.

But, as I have said above, such reconnaissance can often be carried out the most effectually by single reconnoitrers or scouts. And a peace training of such men is very important.

Without special training a man cannot have a thorough confidence in himself as a scout, and without an absolute confidence in himself, it is not of the slightest use for a man to think of going out to scout.

Development of the habits of noting details and of reasoning inductively constitute the elements of the required training. This can be carried out equally in the most civilised as in the wildest countries,—although for its complete perfecting a wild country is preferable. It is to a large extent the development of the science of woodcraft in a man—that is, the art of noticing smallest details, and of connecting their meaning, and thus gaining a knowledge of the ways and doings of yourquarry; the education of your “eye–for–a–country”; and the habit of looking out on your own account. Once these have become, from continual practice, a second nature to a man, he has but to learn the more artificial details of what he is required to report, and the best method of doing so, to become a full–fledged scout.

We English have the talent of woodcraft and the spirit of adventure and independence already inborn in our blood to an extent to which no other nationality can lay claim, and therefore among our soldiers we ought to find the best material in the world for scouts. Were we to take this material and rightly train it in that art whose value has been denoted in the term “half the battle,” we ought to make up in useful men much of our deficiency in numbers.

Houdin, the conjurer, educated the prehensibility of his son’s mind by teaching him, in progressive lessons, to be able to recapitulate the contents of a shop window after a single look at it; there is the first stage of a scout’s training, viz. the habit of noticing details. The second, “inductive reasoning,” or the putting together of this and that detail so noticed, and deducing their correct meaning, is best illustrated in the Memoirs of “Sherlock Holmes.”

CHAPTER VThe Rebels Decline to Surrender14th July to 18th JulyPlumer’s Victory at Taba–si–ka–Mamba—How the M’limo Oracle is worked—Reorganisation of the Buluwayo Field Force—The Price of Beer—I am nicknamed “Impeesa”—The Proclamation of Clemency—The Local Settler’s View of it—The Rebel’s View of it—The Enemy hopeful—The General’s Plan of Campaign—Reconnaissance of the Central Matopos—Preparing for Operations in the Hills—Reconnaissance of Babyan’s Stronghold.Meanwhile, during the first week in July, the three columns, which had been out clearing the country to the northward of Buluwayo, returned, having had a great amount of hard work with only a modicum of fighting. The rebels of that region had been effectually broken and dispersed in all direction—except at one spot, near Inyati, some fifty miles north–east from the town.ill123Caught in the Act by a Cape BoyThe Cape Boys (natives of Cape Colony), when well led, were found to be most useful for attacking the cave strongholds of the enemy. They thought it the height of fun to discover a back way into a cave, and catch its defenders from an unexpected quarter.Colonel Plumer accordingly took a column out there,—nearly 800 strong,—and, after a clever and most successful night–march, surprised the enemy, at dawn, on 5th July, in a desperate–looking koppie stronghold called Taba–si–ka–Mamba. There was some tough fighting, and the newly arrived corps of “Cape Boys” (natives and half–castes from Cape Colony), much to everybody’s surprise, showed themselves particularly plucky in storming the koppies; but, as in the case of most natives, theirélanis greatly a matter of what sort of leaders they have, and in this case there was every reason for them to go well. Major Robertson, their commandant, an old Royal Dragoon, is a wonderfully cool, keen, and fearless leader under fire.In the end the place and its many caves was taken. Our loss amounted to 10 killed, 12 wounded. The enemy lost 150 killed, and we got some 600 prisoners, men, women, and children, 800 head of cattle, and a very large amount of goods which had been looted from stores and collected at this place as the property of the M’limo. It was a final smash to the enemy in the north, though M’qwati, the local priest of the M’limo, and M’tini, his induna, both escaped.The M’limo’s cave was found, a most curious place, which I visited later on: a sort of anteroom in which suppliants had to wait while the priest went away to invoke the M’limo’s attention;then a narrow cleft by which they would walk deep into the rock, and which narrowed till it looked like a split just before the end of the cave. And through this crevice they made their requests and got their answer from the M’limo. In reality, another cave entered the hill from the opposite side and led up to this same crevice, and it was by this back entrance that the priest re–entered, and, sitting in the dark corner just behind the crevice, he was able to personate an invisible deity with full effect.Of such caves there are three or four about the country, where the rebels just now get their orders as to their course of action.Office work still very heavy—especially as we have broken up the original Buluwayo Volunteer Field Force as an unworkable and rather overpaid organisation (the troopers getting 10s. a dayandtheir rations!), and are now busy organising it anew as a regularly enlisted armed police force at 5s. a day, under military law and discipline. Nicholson, 7th Hussars, is working this task, and is a first–rate man for it.The office work, although exacting, is most interesting all the same; the only drawback is that there are not more than twenty–four hours in a day in which to get it done. I certainlydo look forward, though, to the hour of luncheon; yes, it sounds greedy—but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward,notthe lunch. That is scarcely pleasant either to look forward to or to look back on—consisting as it generally does of hashed leather which has probably got rinderpest, no vegetables, and liquid nourishment at prohibitive prices,—e.g.local beer at 2s. a glass. I live on bread, jam, and coffee, andthatcosts 5s. a meal; and prices are rising! Eggs are 32s. a dozen, and not guaranteed fresh at that!Many of the strongholds to which I had at first learned the way with patrols, I have now visited again by myself at nights, in order to further locate the positions of their occupants. In this way I have actually got to know the country and the way through it better by night than by day, that is to say, by certain landmarks and leading stars whose respectively changed appearance or absence in daylight is apt to be misleading.The enemy, of course, often see me, but are luckily very suspicious, and look upon me as a bait to some trap, and are therefore slow to come at me. They often shout to me; and yesterday my boy, who was with my horse, told methey were calling to each other that “Impeesa” was there—i.e.“the Wolf,” or, as he translated it, “the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”ill128“Impeesa”—“the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”Marking the Matabele camp–fires in the Matopos.14th July.—Last night I was riding alone across the veldt; I came suddenly upon a Matabele driving a horse and a mule towards the Matopos. He turned and fled, and I galloped after him to give him a fright, and then returned to the beasts, which I drove before me safely to camp. They were our own branded animals, which had been looted.On getting back to Buluwayo at 9.30p. m., after having been away for some days’ solitary scouting, varied by such patrols as that described in the last chapter, I found that reports had come in from the officer commanding Fig Tree Fort, saying that rebel impis were on the move there. Ferguson had at once been sent off by the General, with 50 men of the newly–formed police, and Laing’s column of about 150, which had lately come in from the Belingwe District. No sooner had the troops got there (on the 13th) than they found that the Matabele impis were merely pictures in the mind’s eye of the commandant, a Dutchman, who had been imbibing not wisely, but too well.15th July.—“Well! of all the murkiest rot that ever I heard of, this is the murkiest!” These words, and others to the same effect, but, to use the speaker’s term, “murkier,” saluted my waking senses at an unseemly hour of this morning. For a moment I was inclined to reach for my gun, or, at all events, to let fly my feelings at the two loafers who stood yarning at my window–sill (we live on the ground floor in Buluwayo, because there is not a second to our house, nor, indeed, to any house in the place except “Williams’ Buildings,” and they are “buildings” being not yet built); but presently a lazy feeling of curiositygot the better of my momentary irritation, and I played the eavesdropper. It was merely a discussion of the situation between two late troopers of the Buluwayo Field Force, dealing more particularly with the “Proclamation to the Rebels,” which had been issued last night. Their review of it was remarkable, not only for the vigour, and—well—the originality of their language, but also because it covered exactly the ground over which all travelled again when they came to discuss it with me, or in my hearing, during the remainder of the day. One thing that struck them all was that this proclamation of clemency which was now to be published to the rebels was made in England and not in Rhodesia, and that “it was made by people who had no more conception of how things were in this part of the world than a boiled dumpling had of horse–racing”; at least, that was what they inferred from the tenor of its wording. I do not say that they had read and inwardly digested the exact literal meaning of the wording. I think, on the contrary, that they had only grasped a general idea of it all; the very heading of a “Proclamation of Clemency” at such a juncture having filled their thoughts with rage, and left them to read the rest with biassed minds.Unfortunately for the proclamation, within a few hours of its publication there came from Mashonaland another of the horrid telegrams with which we are only too familiar now. After telling of three different murders of friendly natives by rebels on the previous day, it went on to say: “The wife and two daughters of Mobele, the native missionary, reached Salisbury from Marendellas this morning. They related how the missionary was killed by rebels while he was endeavouring to save the life of James White, who was lying wounded. White was also killed. Then three little children of the missionary were killed. And the women themselves were maltreated and left for dead. They did not know their way to Salisbury, so followed the telegraph line, and travelled by night only, suffering great privations.”It is a far cry from Mashonaland to England, and distance lessens the sharpness of the sympathy, but to men on the spot—men with an especially strong, manly, and chivalrous spirit in them, as is the case in this land of pioneers—to them such cases as these appeal in a manner which cannot be realised in dear, drowsy, after–lunch Old England. A man here does not mind carrying his own life in his hand—he likes it, and takes an attack on himself as a good bit of sport; but toucha woman or a child, and he is in a blind fury in a moment—and then he is gently advised to be mild, and to offer clemency to the poor benighted heathen, who is his brother after all. M’, yes! And though woman is his first care, and can command his last drop of blood in her defence, woman is the first to assail him on his return, with venom–pointed pen, for his brutality!Then my friends at the window went on to talk on the clause which permitted loyally–disposed natives to carry arms. “Loyal!”—as if any native could be loyal if it did not happen to suit his circumstances, and even then, why should he be allowed arms? “He was not likely to be at war with his brothers and cousins, and the absence of arms would be a good assurance of peace; whereas, after the late bitter experience, how would confidence ever be instilled into farmers to induce them to come and rebuild the blackened ruins of farmsteads whose owners had been murdered by the selfsame natives glowering yonder, assegais and gun in hand?”My friends were deploring the fact that their would–be rulers far away are quite out of touch with the circumstances of the case. Writers in the press, they said, gaily condemn the burning down of kraals and consequent destruction of thegrain stores, which are all the natives now depend upon for food. But burning down a kraal is more or less a formal act, which has a deal of meaning for the native comprehension. That the store of grain is lost thereby is quite a fallacy. The grain is buried here in pits beneath the kraal; grain will not burn in pits, it can only be destroyed by drowning.I was glad when at last my early arguers moved on to get their morning coffee. Had I been so minded, I might have soothed their feelings by telling them the latest news we had from captured rebels; that they need not vex their souls over the wording or the terms of the proclamation so thoughtfully provided for our use by those at home, for whether put in that or any other form, there was not the slightest chance of its being seriously accepted by the rebels. Our informants came from four different ways, and agreed like one in showing that although North–Western Matabeleland has thoroughly been cleared, the lower and more trappy part, in the Matopos, as well as the North–Eastern parts, remain the home of mutiny, and there, at least, the impis will not think of giving in until the white man comes to fight them, and they promise boastfully that he shall suffer then.The proclamation offering terms to the rebels by which they may surrender has gone forth to them by the best messengers that could be got, that is, by men who have been captured in the field, or who have come in offering to give themselves up, and also by native policemen, who, having been disarmed on suspicion of rebellious tendencies, have been since retained in open arrest. But so far the result has not been fully satisfactory, although it has done some good, and undoubtedly the thin end of the wedge towards peace has been inserted, but it will yet need some driving to get it home and finally to split the log of rebellion.Many of the rebels would probably give in if the leaders would but let them. They are tired of war, and sick of being hustled about. But then these leaders have a strong power over them, and they are fighting with the halter round their necks, for they know their crimes are far too great to be condoned, and thus they try to carry on until the bitter end.In the north, where they have suffered most hard blows, the impis are much broken up, and there it is that some of the people are surrendering of their own accord; they are coming in, in driblets and small bodies it is true, but still this is a beginning. There are, so far, no chiefs amongthem. Then, on the other hand, there exists a large proportion who still have the idea that they yet may beat the whites, and drive them from the land, and they are encouraged in maintaining this idea by spies’ reports, which tell them how the white men are daily going down–country to the Cape. Now that the road has been rendered safe and open by the operations in the Matopos, hired waggons, in addition to the bi–weekly coaches, are taking passengers in scores. The high cost of living at famine prices, and all business at a standstill, are the reasons for this exodus.Then the M’limo, fearful for his own old skin, continues to issue most encouraging news and orders. He has revived with much success the story that disease is sweeping off the whites in Buluwayo, and promises that any warrior “doctored” by his charm is proof against the British bullets, which on his hide will turn to water. They only have to wait till all the whites are dead or fled, and then they will enjoy the good things of the town, and live in palaces of corrugated iron. All this they believe implicitly.The rebels in the south have every reliance, and with reason, on the impregnability of their rock–strongholds; and their confidence is strengthened by their store of grain and cattle,which were being brought, long before the outbreak, into the hills by the M’limo’s orders. Of arms and ammunition they have plenty, although the puzzle is to say from whence they come. But there they are—Martinis, Lee–Metfords, Winchesters, besides the blunderbusses and elephant guns, which at the close quarters of this fighting make very deadly practice.And then our so–called friendlies are known to be supplying them with information of our moves, as well as with such luxuries as Kaffir beer and cartridges.It is only, even now, internal jealousies among the rebel chiefs that save the whites from being blotted out. The attempt to make Nyamanda king, if ever seriously intended, fell through abortively; each of the great chiefs desires that honour for himself, and thus the different impis do not amalgamate to crush us; but they let our puny force go round and punch them all in turn, in such a way as breaks them daily smaller.The proclamation has gone forth to these men too; but answer comes there none, except at times when scouting parties meet, and then the rebels shout to us, from their look–out rocks, such words as these: “And so you want to endthe war, do you? Yes, it will be ended soon, for none of you will live to keep it on.” And then they add a stream of highly–coloured threats of personal damage they will do to our nice white corpses. The tired, desponding tone of impending submission which one would hope to hear is altogether absent from their talk.Then, even those who have surrendered have done it in a mere half–hearted way; that is to say, scarce one among them has produced his gun. Of course, the terms of their surrender include the giving up of their arms; but that is an extent to which they do not wish to yield. They cannot tell when they may want to break out again, and where would they be then without their guns? That is the way they reason with themselves. It suits them, for the time, to come and “konza” to make peace, to save their skins and sow their crops; but, all the same, they stow away their guns and ammunition in their holes among the rocks, and hand up, as their “arms,” their oldest assegais and shields. Thus, even when the present military force has broken up the impis in the field, and cleared their strongholds out, there will remain a tale of work for local police to do in carrying out disarmament. And it is then, and only then, that peace can settle firmly on the land.The doses being given now may seem too bitter to our tender–hearted countrymen at home; but, “though bitter now, they’re better then.” It seems the only way to get these men to understand there is a greater power than their M’limo; and once the lesson has been unmistakably brought home to them, there is some hope that a time of peaceen permanencemay dawn for them. It is the end for which we all are striving here. And the present system of Sir Frederick Carrington is the most promising that could be devised to suit the circumstances. With his tiny force, he goes from point to point where impis are collected; in every case he strikes them hard, and promptly builds a fort there on the spot, and leaves a party in possession. The people round are told they may surrender. The forts are then to act as police posts in the future, to ensure the peace of every outside district, by standing as a sword of Damocles to all offenders, and a handy tower of refuge for friendlies who are oppressed.We shall soon be in a position to judge the value of the rebels’ threats, for all is now prepared for our campaign in the Matopos; Laing’s column (200 strong) being encamped near the western end, Plumer’s (of 800) at “Usher’s No. 1,” near the central part. This latter camp I visited late at night on the 15th.ill-139Preparing LunchWhile out on patrol one day we were invited to lunch by a friendly chief. Lunch was prepared at our feet, the whole process from start to finish being gone through—from the cutting of the sheep’s throat (as above) to his final dishing–up.16th July.—Early this morning I picked up Pyke and Taylor (the Native Commissioner), and we rode on to inspect the country between the centre and west of the enemy’s position. At Jozan’s Kraal (friendly), about four miles north of the enemy, we stopped to talk, get news, and lunch. Lunch was got for us by our host, Jozan, as follows:—A live sheep was brought, and laid before us on some leafy twigs; its throat was then gently cut, the liver taken out, and fried in an iron bowl. Off this we made our meal, without any bread or other concomitant, excepting salt, which was held by a human salt–cellar for us. We took our salt by dipping each his hunk of meat into the nigger’s grimy palm.We had a good look at the enemy’s position, and then we got thirty of Jozan’s men, armed with assegais and shields, to go with us across the neutral valley and examine the great kraal that lay opposite, in which watch–fires had been burning the night before. As we got near to it, we spread out our little army into a crescent shape, with two horns advanced, and we attacked the village in style; but the only enemy there were two men and one ox, and these cleared out in a greathurry before we got in. We burned the kraal, and then reconnoitred into the koppies beyond, where we found another kraal, also deserted, which we burned. Among other odds and ends of loot in this kraal, we found a high–jump standard, evidently stolen from the Athletic Sports Ground near Buluwayo.But my release from town and office life now came. As I knew the Matopos country and the enemy’s whereabouts, I was sent to act as guide to Colonel Plumer, who was to have the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos, Vyvyan taking the office work off my hands.ill142A Human Salt–CellarDuring lunch one of the natives produced some salt for us, and sat holding it for us throughout the meal, so that we could dip our bits of meat into it.17th July.—The General now took up his quarters in camp, to direct affairs against the Matopos. And the following day I took Pyke,Richardson (interpreter), and four native scouts into the Matopos, to get a view of Babyan’s stronghold: Babyan’s being the central and important impi of all, and in close communication with the westernmost impi at Inugu.We approached the position through open, park–like country interspersed with piles of granite boulders a hundred feet in height; from these koppies we could hear the look–out men calling a warning cry to each other, and now and again we could see them, perched up on high, watching our movements. I was sorry then that we had brought natives with us, as, if the enemy were to come and have a try at us now, it would be easy enough for us three, had we been alone, to gallop away; but, having the boys on foot with us, we should now have to stick to them and help them away. So they hampered us somewhat. But still we didn’t do badly.The valley in which the enemy lay was surrounded by rugged koppies; one of these was a great, dome–shaped mass of granite; we went for it, as being easy to climb, and less trappy and liable to ambush. Upon its crest stood the ruins of a farm belonging to Usher, and a path led up a little gully to the huts. Instead of taking this path, we were sufficiently wily to go round the hillfor a bit; then, leaving our horses hidden in a clump of bushes, with two sharp–eyed boys in charge, we quickly scrambled on to the top of the koppie. Two or three of the enemy, who had been using this as a look–out place, bolted away before us. We had a very useful view from here of the lie of the ground, and of the position of the enemy, as shown by the smoke of his camp–fires. One felt tempted to stay there, and drink in every detail and map it down; but suddenly I saw the head and shoulders of a crouching figure dash across the opening between two rocks at the foot of our position, followed by another, and another—not fifty yards from us. They were racing to cut us off in the glen! They had seen us on the top, and guessed that our horses would naturally have been left on the pathway. But they were sold—as were also another party, whom we could see hastening out into the bush to cut us off on our homeward path. We gave them a few shots, and then scuttled down the far side of the rock, got our horses, sent our boys trotting along ahead of us, and we quietly got away through the bush by a totally different route to that by which we came.

The Rebels Decline to Surrender

14th July to 18th July

Plumer’s Victory at Taba–si–ka–Mamba—How the M’limo Oracle is worked—Reorganisation of the Buluwayo Field Force—The Price of Beer—I am nicknamed “Impeesa”—The Proclamation of Clemency—The Local Settler’s View of it—The Rebel’s View of it—The Enemy hopeful—The General’s Plan of Campaign—Reconnaissance of the Central Matopos—Preparing for Operations in the Hills—Reconnaissance of Babyan’s Stronghold.

Meanwhile, during the first week in July, the three columns, which had been out clearing the country to the northward of Buluwayo, returned, having had a great amount of hard work with only a modicum of fighting. The rebels of that region had been effectually broken and dispersed in all direction—except at one spot, near Inyati, some fifty miles north–east from the town.

ill123

Caught in the Act by a Cape BoyThe Cape Boys (natives of Cape Colony), when well led, were found to be most useful for attacking the cave strongholds of the enemy. They thought it the height of fun to discover a back way into a cave, and catch its defenders from an unexpected quarter.

Caught in the Act by a Cape BoyThe Cape Boys (natives of Cape Colony), when well led, were found to be most useful for attacking the cave strongholds of the enemy. They thought it the height of fun to discover a back way into a cave, and catch its defenders from an unexpected quarter.

Caught in the Act by a Cape Boy

The Cape Boys (natives of Cape Colony), when well led, were found to be most useful for attacking the cave strongholds of the enemy. They thought it the height of fun to discover a back way into a cave, and catch its defenders from an unexpected quarter.

Colonel Plumer accordingly took a column out there,—nearly 800 strong,—and, after a clever and most successful night–march, surprised the enemy, at dawn, on 5th July, in a desperate–looking koppie stronghold called Taba–si–ka–Mamba. There was some tough fighting, and the newly arrived corps of “Cape Boys” (natives and half–castes from Cape Colony), much to everybody’s surprise, showed themselves particularly plucky in storming the koppies; but, as in the case of most natives, theirélanis greatly a matter of what sort of leaders they have, and in this case there was every reason for them to go well. Major Robertson, their commandant, an old Royal Dragoon, is a wonderfully cool, keen, and fearless leader under fire.

In the end the place and its many caves was taken. Our loss amounted to 10 killed, 12 wounded. The enemy lost 150 killed, and we got some 600 prisoners, men, women, and children, 800 head of cattle, and a very large amount of goods which had been looted from stores and collected at this place as the property of the M’limo. It was a final smash to the enemy in the north, though M’qwati, the local priest of the M’limo, and M’tini, his induna, both escaped.

The M’limo’s cave was found, a most curious place, which I visited later on: a sort of anteroom in which suppliants had to wait while the priest went away to invoke the M’limo’s attention;then a narrow cleft by which they would walk deep into the rock, and which narrowed till it looked like a split just before the end of the cave. And through this crevice they made their requests and got their answer from the M’limo. In reality, another cave entered the hill from the opposite side and led up to this same crevice, and it was by this back entrance that the priest re–entered, and, sitting in the dark corner just behind the crevice, he was able to personate an invisible deity with full effect.

Of such caves there are three or four about the country, where the rebels just now get their orders as to their course of action.

Office work still very heavy—especially as we have broken up the original Buluwayo Volunteer Field Force as an unworkable and rather overpaid organisation (the troopers getting 10s. a dayandtheir rations!), and are now busy organising it anew as a regularly enlisted armed police force at 5s. a day, under military law and discipline. Nicholson, 7th Hussars, is working this task, and is a first–rate man for it.

The office work, although exacting, is most interesting all the same; the only drawback is that there are not more than twenty–four hours in a day in which to get it done. I certainlydo look forward, though, to the hour of luncheon; yes, it sounds greedy—but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward,notthe lunch. That is scarcely pleasant either to look forward to or to look back on—consisting as it generally does of hashed leather which has probably got rinderpest, no vegetables, and liquid nourishment at prohibitive prices,—e.g.local beer at 2s. a glass. I live on bread, jam, and coffee, andthatcosts 5s. a meal; and prices are rising! Eggs are 32s. a dozen, and not guaranteed fresh at that!

Many of the strongholds to which I had at first learned the way with patrols, I have now visited again by myself at nights, in order to further locate the positions of their occupants. In this way I have actually got to know the country and the way through it better by night than by day, that is to say, by certain landmarks and leading stars whose respectively changed appearance or absence in daylight is apt to be misleading.

The enemy, of course, often see me, but are luckily very suspicious, and look upon me as a bait to some trap, and are therefore slow to come at me. They often shout to me; and yesterday my boy, who was with my horse, told methey were calling to each other that “Impeesa” was there—i.e.“the Wolf,” or, as he translated it, “the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”

ill128

“Impeesa”—“the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”Marking the Matabele camp–fires in the Matopos.

“Impeesa”—“the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”Marking the Matabele camp–fires in the Matopos.

“Impeesa”—“the beast that does not sleep, but sneaks about at night.”

Marking the Matabele camp–fires in the Matopos.

14th July.—Last night I was riding alone across the veldt; I came suddenly upon a Matabele driving a horse and a mule towards the Matopos. He turned and fled, and I galloped after him to give him a fright, and then returned to the beasts, which I drove before me safely to camp. They were our own branded animals, which had been looted.

On getting back to Buluwayo at 9.30p. m., after having been away for some days’ solitary scouting, varied by such patrols as that described in the last chapter, I found that reports had come in from the officer commanding Fig Tree Fort, saying that rebel impis were on the move there. Ferguson had at once been sent off by the General, with 50 men of the newly–formed police, and Laing’s column of about 150, which had lately come in from the Belingwe District. No sooner had the troops got there (on the 13th) than they found that the Matabele impis were merely pictures in the mind’s eye of the commandant, a Dutchman, who had been imbibing not wisely, but too well.

15th July.—“Well! of all the murkiest rot that ever I heard of, this is the murkiest!” These words, and others to the same effect, but, to use the speaker’s term, “murkier,” saluted my waking senses at an unseemly hour of this morning. For a moment I was inclined to reach for my gun, or, at all events, to let fly my feelings at the two loafers who stood yarning at my window–sill (we live on the ground floor in Buluwayo, because there is not a second to our house, nor, indeed, to any house in the place except “Williams’ Buildings,” and they are “buildings” being not yet built); but presently a lazy feeling of curiositygot the better of my momentary irritation, and I played the eavesdropper. It was merely a discussion of the situation between two late troopers of the Buluwayo Field Force, dealing more particularly with the “Proclamation to the Rebels,” which had been issued last night. Their review of it was remarkable, not only for the vigour, and—well—the originality of their language, but also because it covered exactly the ground over which all travelled again when they came to discuss it with me, or in my hearing, during the remainder of the day. One thing that struck them all was that this proclamation of clemency which was now to be published to the rebels was made in England and not in Rhodesia, and that “it was made by people who had no more conception of how things were in this part of the world than a boiled dumpling had of horse–racing”; at least, that was what they inferred from the tenor of its wording. I do not say that they had read and inwardly digested the exact literal meaning of the wording. I think, on the contrary, that they had only grasped a general idea of it all; the very heading of a “Proclamation of Clemency” at such a juncture having filled their thoughts with rage, and left them to read the rest with biassed minds.

Unfortunately for the proclamation, within a few hours of its publication there came from Mashonaland another of the horrid telegrams with which we are only too familiar now. After telling of three different murders of friendly natives by rebels on the previous day, it went on to say: “The wife and two daughters of Mobele, the native missionary, reached Salisbury from Marendellas this morning. They related how the missionary was killed by rebels while he was endeavouring to save the life of James White, who was lying wounded. White was also killed. Then three little children of the missionary were killed. And the women themselves were maltreated and left for dead. They did not know their way to Salisbury, so followed the telegraph line, and travelled by night only, suffering great privations.”

It is a far cry from Mashonaland to England, and distance lessens the sharpness of the sympathy, but to men on the spot—men with an especially strong, manly, and chivalrous spirit in them, as is the case in this land of pioneers—to them such cases as these appeal in a manner which cannot be realised in dear, drowsy, after–lunch Old England. A man here does not mind carrying his own life in his hand—he likes it, and takes an attack on himself as a good bit of sport; but toucha woman or a child, and he is in a blind fury in a moment—and then he is gently advised to be mild, and to offer clemency to the poor benighted heathen, who is his brother after all. M’, yes! And though woman is his first care, and can command his last drop of blood in her defence, woman is the first to assail him on his return, with venom–pointed pen, for his brutality!

Then my friends at the window went on to talk on the clause which permitted loyally–disposed natives to carry arms. “Loyal!”—as if any native could be loyal if it did not happen to suit his circumstances, and even then, why should he be allowed arms? “He was not likely to be at war with his brothers and cousins, and the absence of arms would be a good assurance of peace; whereas, after the late bitter experience, how would confidence ever be instilled into farmers to induce them to come and rebuild the blackened ruins of farmsteads whose owners had been murdered by the selfsame natives glowering yonder, assegais and gun in hand?”

My friends were deploring the fact that their would–be rulers far away are quite out of touch with the circumstances of the case. Writers in the press, they said, gaily condemn the burning down of kraals and consequent destruction of thegrain stores, which are all the natives now depend upon for food. But burning down a kraal is more or less a formal act, which has a deal of meaning for the native comprehension. That the store of grain is lost thereby is quite a fallacy. The grain is buried here in pits beneath the kraal; grain will not burn in pits, it can only be destroyed by drowning.

I was glad when at last my early arguers moved on to get their morning coffee. Had I been so minded, I might have soothed their feelings by telling them the latest news we had from captured rebels; that they need not vex their souls over the wording or the terms of the proclamation so thoughtfully provided for our use by those at home, for whether put in that or any other form, there was not the slightest chance of its being seriously accepted by the rebels. Our informants came from four different ways, and agreed like one in showing that although North–Western Matabeleland has thoroughly been cleared, the lower and more trappy part, in the Matopos, as well as the North–Eastern parts, remain the home of mutiny, and there, at least, the impis will not think of giving in until the white man comes to fight them, and they promise boastfully that he shall suffer then.

The proclamation offering terms to the rebels by which they may surrender has gone forth to them by the best messengers that could be got, that is, by men who have been captured in the field, or who have come in offering to give themselves up, and also by native policemen, who, having been disarmed on suspicion of rebellious tendencies, have been since retained in open arrest. But so far the result has not been fully satisfactory, although it has done some good, and undoubtedly the thin end of the wedge towards peace has been inserted, but it will yet need some driving to get it home and finally to split the log of rebellion.

Many of the rebels would probably give in if the leaders would but let them. They are tired of war, and sick of being hustled about. But then these leaders have a strong power over them, and they are fighting with the halter round their necks, for they know their crimes are far too great to be condoned, and thus they try to carry on until the bitter end.

In the north, where they have suffered most hard blows, the impis are much broken up, and there it is that some of the people are surrendering of their own accord; they are coming in, in driblets and small bodies it is true, but still this is a beginning. There are, so far, no chiefs amongthem. Then, on the other hand, there exists a large proportion who still have the idea that they yet may beat the whites, and drive them from the land, and they are encouraged in maintaining this idea by spies’ reports, which tell them how the white men are daily going down–country to the Cape. Now that the road has been rendered safe and open by the operations in the Matopos, hired waggons, in addition to the bi–weekly coaches, are taking passengers in scores. The high cost of living at famine prices, and all business at a standstill, are the reasons for this exodus.

Then the M’limo, fearful for his own old skin, continues to issue most encouraging news and orders. He has revived with much success the story that disease is sweeping off the whites in Buluwayo, and promises that any warrior “doctored” by his charm is proof against the British bullets, which on his hide will turn to water. They only have to wait till all the whites are dead or fled, and then they will enjoy the good things of the town, and live in palaces of corrugated iron. All this they believe implicitly.

The rebels in the south have every reliance, and with reason, on the impregnability of their rock–strongholds; and their confidence is strengthened by their store of grain and cattle,which were being brought, long before the outbreak, into the hills by the M’limo’s orders. Of arms and ammunition they have plenty, although the puzzle is to say from whence they come. But there they are—Martinis, Lee–Metfords, Winchesters, besides the blunderbusses and elephant guns, which at the close quarters of this fighting make very deadly practice.

And then our so–called friendlies are known to be supplying them with information of our moves, as well as with such luxuries as Kaffir beer and cartridges.

It is only, even now, internal jealousies among the rebel chiefs that save the whites from being blotted out. The attempt to make Nyamanda king, if ever seriously intended, fell through abortively; each of the great chiefs desires that honour for himself, and thus the different impis do not amalgamate to crush us; but they let our puny force go round and punch them all in turn, in such a way as breaks them daily smaller.

The proclamation has gone forth to these men too; but answer comes there none, except at times when scouting parties meet, and then the rebels shout to us, from their look–out rocks, such words as these: “And so you want to endthe war, do you? Yes, it will be ended soon, for none of you will live to keep it on.” And then they add a stream of highly–coloured threats of personal damage they will do to our nice white corpses. The tired, desponding tone of impending submission which one would hope to hear is altogether absent from their talk.

Then, even those who have surrendered have done it in a mere half–hearted way; that is to say, scarce one among them has produced his gun. Of course, the terms of their surrender include the giving up of their arms; but that is an extent to which they do not wish to yield. They cannot tell when they may want to break out again, and where would they be then without their guns? That is the way they reason with themselves. It suits them, for the time, to come and “konza” to make peace, to save their skins and sow their crops; but, all the same, they stow away their guns and ammunition in their holes among the rocks, and hand up, as their “arms,” their oldest assegais and shields. Thus, even when the present military force has broken up the impis in the field, and cleared their strongholds out, there will remain a tale of work for local police to do in carrying out disarmament. And it is then, and only then, that peace can settle firmly on the land.

The doses being given now may seem too bitter to our tender–hearted countrymen at home; but, “though bitter now, they’re better then.” It seems the only way to get these men to understand there is a greater power than their M’limo; and once the lesson has been unmistakably brought home to them, there is some hope that a time of peaceen permanencemay dawn for them. It is the end for which we all are striving here. And the present system of Sir Frederick Carrington is the most promising that could be devised to suit the circumstances. With his tiny force, he goes from point to point where impis are collected; in every case he strikes them hard, and promptly builds a fort there on the spot, and leaves a party in possession. The people round are told they may surrender. The forts are then to act as police posts in the future, to ensure the peace of every outside district, by standing as a sword of Damocles to all offenders, and a handy tower of refuge for friendlies who are oppressed.

We shall soon be in a position to judge the value of the rebels’ threats, for all is now prepared for our campaign in the Matopos; Laing’s column (200 strong) being encamped near the western end, Plumer’s (of 800) at “Usher’s No. 1,” near the central part. This latter camp I visited late at night on the 15th.

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Preparing LunchWhile out on patrol one day we were invited to lunch by a friendly chief. Lunch was prepared at our feet, the whole process from start to finish being gone through—from the cutting of the sheep’s throat (as above) to his final dishing–up.

Preparing LunchWhile out on patrol one day we were invited to lunch by a friendly chief. Lunch was prepared at our feet, the whole process from start to finish being gone through—from the cutting of the sheep’s throat (as above) to his final dishing–up.

Preparing Lunch

While out on patrol one day we were invited to lunch by a friendly chief. Lunch was prepared at our feet, the whole process from start to finish being gone through—from the cutting of the sheep’s throat (as above) to his final dishing–up.

16th July.—Early this morning I picked up Pyke and Taylor (the Native Commissioner), and we rode on to inspect the country between the centre and west of the enemy’s position. At Jozan’s Kraal (friendly), about four miles north of the enemy, we stopped to talk, get news, and lunch. Lunch was got for us by our host, Jozan, as follows:—A live sheep was brought, and laid before us on some leafy twigs; its throat was then gently cut, the liver taken out, and fried in an iron bowl. Off this we made our meal, without any bread or other concomitant, excepting salt, which was held by a human salt–cellar for us. We took our salt by dipping each his hunk of meat into the nigger’s grimy palm.

We had a good look at the enemy’s position, and then we got thirty of Jozan’s men, armed with assegais and shields, to go with us across the neutral valley and examine the great kraal that lay opposite, in which watch–fires had been burning the night before. As we got near to it, we spread out our little army into a crescent shape, with two horns advanced, and we attacked the village in style; but the only enemy there were two men and one ox, and these cleared out in a greathurry before we got in. We burned the kraal, and then reconnoitred into the koppies beyond, where we found another kraal, also deserted, which we burned. Among other odds and ends of loot in this kraal, we found a high–jump standard, evidently stolen from the Athletic Sports Ground near Buluwayo.

But my release from town and office life now came. As I knew the Matopos country and the enemy’s whereabouts, I was sent to act as guide to Colonel Plumer, who was to have the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos, Vyvyan taking the office work off my hands.

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A Human Salt–CellarDuring lunch one of the natives produced some salt for us, and sat holding it for us throughout the meal, so that we could dip our bits of meat into it.

A Human Salt–CellarDuring lunch one of the natives produced some salt for us, and sat holding it for us throughout the meal, so that we could dip our bits of meat into it.

A Human Salt–Cellar

During lunch one of the natives produced some salt for us, and sat holding it for us throughout the meal, so that we could dip our bits of meat into it.

17th July.—The General now took up his quarters in camp, to direct affairs against the Matopos. And the following day I took Pyke,Richardson (interpreter), and four native scouts into the Matopos, to get a view of Babyan’s stronghold: Babyan’s being the central and important impi of all, and in close communication with the westernmost impi at Inugu.

We approached the position through open, park–like country interspersed with piles of granite boulders a hundred feet in height; from these koppies we could hear the look–out men calling a warning cry to each other, and now and again we could see them, perched up on high, watching our movements. I was sorry then that we had brought natives with us, as, if the enemy were to come and have a try at us now, it would be easy enough for us three, had we been alone, to gallop away; but, having the boys on foot with us, we should now have to stick to them and help them away. So they hampered us somewhat. But still we didn’t do badly.

The valley in which the enemy lay was surrounded by rugged koppies; one of these was a great, dome–shaped mass of granite; we went for it, as being easy to climb, and less trappy and liable to ambush. Upon its crest stood the ruins of a farm belonging to Usher, and a path led up a little gully to the huts. Instead of taking this path, we were sufficiently wily to go round the hillfor a bit; then, leaving our horses hidden in a clump of bushes, with two sharp–eyed boys in charge, we quickly scrambled on to the top of the koppie. Two or three of the enemy, who had been using this as a look–out place, bolted away before us. We had a very useful view from here of the lie of the ground, and of the position of the enemy, as shown by the smoke of his camp–fires. One felt tempted to stay there, and drink in every detail and map it down; but suddenly I saw the head and shoulders of a crouching figure dash across the opening between two rocks at the foot of our position, followed by another, and another—not fifty yards from us. They were racing to cut us off in the glen! They had seen us on the top, and guessed that our horses would naturally have been left on the pathway. But they were sold—as were also another party, whom we could see hastening out into the bush to cut us off on our homeward path. We gave them a few shots, and then scuttled down the far side of the rock, got our horses, sent our boys trotting along ahead of us, and we quietly got away through the bush by a totally different route to that by which we came.

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