The Shangani Patrol

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Authors: John Wilcox

BOOK: The Shangani Patrol
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The Shangani Patrol
 
 
 
 
JOHN WILCOX
 
 
 
headline
 
 
 
Copyright © 2010 John Wilcox
 
 
The right of John Wilcox to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
 
 
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
 
 
First published as an ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010
 
 
All characters in this publication - apart from the obvious historical figures - are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
 
 
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
 
eISBN : 978 0 7553 7981 1
 
 
This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations
 
 
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
 
Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
John Wilcox was born in Birmingham and was an award-winning journalist for some years before being lured into industry. In the mid-nineties he sold his company in order to devote himself to his first love, writing. His previous Simon Fonthill novels, THE HORNS OF THE BUFFALO, THE ROAD TO KANDAHAR, THE DIAMOND FRONTIER, LAST STAND AT MAJUBA HILL, THE GUNS OF EL KEBIR and SIEGE OF KHARTOUM, were highly acclaimed. He has also published two works of non-fiction, PLAYING ON THE GREEN and MASTERS OF BATTLE. For more information on John Wilcox and his novels, visit
www.johnwilcoxauthor.co.uk
or
www.simonfonthill.co.uk
.
 
Praise for John Wilcox’s Simon Fonthill novels:
 
‘Full of action and brave deeds. If you are a fan of Simon Scarrow or Wilbur Smith, then this is for you’
Historical Novels Review
 
 
‘A hero to match Sharpe or Hornblower . . . Wilcox shows a genius for bringing to light the heat of battle’
 
Northern Echo
 
 
‘Wilcox’s research gives this super-charged novel a wonderful cloak of authenticity with a large measure of imperial guts and glory’
 
Oxford Times
 
 
‘Wilcox writes with an intimate knowledge of the African continent, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Victorian era when the British Empire was at its peak, and all the dash of a great adventurer’
 
Nottingham Evening Post
 
 
‘As good as it gets for fans of soldiering in Queen Victoria’s day’
Bolton Evening News
 
 
‘A page-turner of a book, action-packed and seamlessly blending fact and fiction. Strap yourselves in for some roller-coaster excitement . . .’
 
The Bookbag
 
In memory of my friend Liam Hunter
 
Acknowledgements
 
I owe a debt to my editor at Headline, Sherise Hobbs, for her infinite attention to detail and, in particular, her intuitive sense of pace, of knowing where passages need more action and less of my regrettable tendency to let my characters talk too much. I must also thank my copyeditor, Jane Selley, for her care in tidying up my prose. I wouldn’t be a writer without my agent, Jane Conway-Gordon, and I appreciate her constant support. As I do that of my wife, Betty, my devoted research assistant, proofreader and first critic of all my work.
 
These four have been a constant in most of my writings so far, but in the case of this particular book, my biggest vote of thanks must go to Dave Sutcliffe, an ex-Rhodesian now living in Newcastle, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. For various reasons, I was unable to get into Zimbabwe to carry out basic research, and Dave, ex-surveyor, naturalist, guide and historian in his own right, did not hesitate to fill the gap by supplying detailed maps and local knowledge. Any mistakes that may have crept into the narrative concerning historical events and flora and fauna, however, are mine, not his.
 
As always, the London Library proved invaluable in supplying books about the period. However, I could find few definitive accounts of Rhodes’s invasion of Matabeleland and Mashonaland either in the UK or during an all too brief visit to South Africa. Nevertheless, contemporary copies of
The Times
, kept in a pristine state at the London Library, proved useful, as did the following books:
 
 
A Flag for the Matabele
by Peter Gibbs, Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1955
 
 
To the Victoria Falls via Matabeleland
, the diary of Major Henry Stabb, 1875, edited by Edward C. Tabler, C. Struik (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town, 1967
 
 
Rhodes
by J. G. Lockhart and the Hon. C. M. Woodhouse, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1963
 
 
Cecil Rhodes
by John Flint, Hutchinson, London, 1976
 
 
And that great old stand-by,
The Colonial Wars Source Book
by Philip J. Haythornthwaite, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1995
 
 
Alas, many of these books will be out of print, but the London Library and the British Library should be able to help.
 
Chapter 1
 
Just inside the southern border of Matabeleland, late 1889
 
 
They stood in silence in a rough half-circle on the beaten earth in the centre of the kraal, all eyes on the tall, thin figure of the black man with a long stick on the edge of the circle. It was not yet quite light and the stars were still pricking the indigo blue of the darkness above them. Simon Fonthill, ex-soldier, army scout and leader of the group, shivered - and not just because it was bitterly cold in these few minutes before dawn.
 
‘Lion,’ said Mzingeli, their guide. ‘We go to kill him but he very dangerous animal. He also very shy . . .’
 
‘Ah well,’ murmured 352 Jenkins, ‘then p’raps it would be rude to bother ’im, eh?’ Jenkins, Fonthill’s long-standing comrade, was the inevitable jester of the group. But this time no one smiled.
 
‘. . . and he run from us in daylight. But at night he can see in dark and we cannot. So he attack us then without fear. That is why we go now, in light, just as sun comes up.’ The tall man looked at them in turn. ‘We hear him and his ladies roaring in bush last night and we know he make kill. So we follow his spoor now until we find where he lie down to sleep his meal away, and then you, Nkosi,’ he nodded to Fonthill, ‘or you, Nkosi,’ he inclined his head towards Jenkins, a touch less deferentially, ‘will kill him.’
 
No one spoke. Mzingeli was their servant, but he spoke with an air of quiet authority that shrugged off questions of rank, class or race, and it would have seemed an act of lesemajesty to have interupted him at this point. His name meant the Hunter, and he looked the part. Some six feet tall, he was slim and probably older than his athletic frame suggested, for the tightly curled hair that lay close to his scalp was now quite grey and his eyes seemed to reflect the sadness of great years. His nose was long, with flared nostrils, and his lips were thin. He wore the dress of the Afrikaner - dirty corduroy trousers and a loose flannel shirt - but his feet were bare, showing white patches between his toes as though from the touch of a paintbrush, and totemic beads hung around his neck. An old Snider rifle was slung across his shoulder, but now he was drawing in the dust with the end of his stick.
 
‘This is animal,’ he said, and suddenly the silhouette of a male lion appeared at their feet. He stabbed at a point just above the left front leg of the animal. ‘Here you shoot. Here is heart and lungs.’ His stick moved again quickly, and the impressive outline of a charging lion, head on, materialised. ‘Lion can jump twenty feet,’ he went on, ‘so you do not want to see him like this. Only way to kill him like this is here.’ He jabbed the stick between the eyes of the animal. ‘No good down here,’ he gestured at the chest beneath and behind the mane, ‘because chest has about nine inches deep of muscle, and although your bullet may kill charging Zulu,’ a smile appeared, showing perfect white teeth, ‘it no go through lion chest.’
 
Fonthill shot a quick glance at Alice, his wife. She was listening with rapt attention, a tiny pink sliver of tongue showing between her lips. But he noticed that despite the cold, small beads of perspiration had appeared on her forehead. Like him, she was apprehensive but exhilarated. Why the hell had she insisted on coming? She would have been safe enough staying here in the kraal. Then he gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. He knew well enough now that Alice Fonthill could never be dissuaded from a course of action on which her mind was set. But Mzingeli was continuing.
 
‘We hunt lion and two lionesses. We find the kill then we track spoor. We do not make noise. Walk in straight line. I lead, then come Nkosi Fonthill, then,’ he nodded at Alice, ‘Nkosana, then Nkosi Jenkins, then my boys.’ The two black bearers stood leaning on their spears, not understanding a word. ‘When we find lions, I do not point with hand or move quickly. I point gently with head and eyes. Watch me. Then, Nkosi, you walk very quiet ahead and kill animal.’
 
Simon nodded. ‘Yes . . . hum . . . yes. Yes, of course.’
 
‘Very quietly,’ added Jenkins.
 
‘Mzingeli,’ Alice interjected.
 
‘Nkosana?’
 
‘You said that there is one male lion and two lionesses who have been attacking the cattle compound.’
 
‘Yes, Nkosana.’
 
‘Are there no cubs? Do they not form a pride?’
 
Mzingeli nodded at the relevance of the question. ‘It is usual, yes. But this is just one man and two ladies. Male must have fought with previous lion and killed him, or perhaps other lion was old and died. New one now comes in and kills all cubs and starts again with these lionesses, so no family yet.’
 

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