PURSUIT OF LOBENGULA (6)
When the reinforcements had left to join Allan Wilson's patrol, Major Forbes reorganized his laager and waited for the expected Matabele attack. It did not come. When daylight came he prepared to move down to the river bank and cross the Shangani to the help of Wilson, but as they were nearing the bank they came under fire from bush some three hundred yards to their left. They were pinned down for more than an hour, when the enemy fire slackened. They retired slowly until they reached the shelter of a strip of bush six hundred yards back, where they were able to dig in while the medical officer attended to five men of the Bechuanaland Border Police who had been wounded. At intervals during the fighting they had heard the sounds of battle on the other side of the river, but realized that the rising Shangani made it impossible for them to go to the rescue.They remained in their new position all day, and when darkness fell two troopers were sent with a verbal message from Forbes to Dr. Jameson telling him that the Column was retreating to the main drift on the Shangani river and asking for more food and ammunition. Shortly after dark a storm burst over them and they spent a miserable night. During the height of the storm their slaughter oxen, on which they depended for their main food supply, were terrified by the thunder and stampeded into the bush.
Next morning the Column began its retreat and the Matabele did not impede its going. But their main enemy now was the threat of real hunger. Their rations were almost exhausted and the loss of their slaughter oxen meant that they had no reserve. Many of the men, also, were suffering from malaria. Their clothes were in rags and their boots, constantly wet, were falling to pieces. Their horses, also, were weakened by lack of adequate grazing and were almost useless for work. The men had to manhandle the maxims across difficult stretches.
Groups of Matabele were dogging their progress. On December 10 they were struggling through broken country of rugged hills, thick bush and long grass when they entered a deep dry gully. It gave good cover for the horses and Forbes decided to let them rest and graze. After a few minutes they came under a heavy fire. Warriors had crept up through the grass until they got close to the horses, and several animals were stabbed to death before the Column could take action. It was difficult to see the enemy in the long grass and all the troopers could do was to take pot shots at the smoke puffs rising above the grass. After about an hour of desultory firing the Matabele withdrew. The Column lost eight horses but only one man - a Bechuanaland Border Police sergeant who was shot dead while sitting near his maxim.
Two miles further on they reached a small valley lying across their path. The men manhandling the guns were halfway down a steep bank when a party of Matabele among rocks on their right flank opened fire. They dragged the guns back to the top again while the rest of the Column returned the fire, but a heavy thunderstorm put an end to the fight. Night was coming on and Forbes decided to laager where they were.
Their plight was desperate. The Matabele could harass them at will in this difficult country, made infinitely worse by the rains. Men and horses were steadily becoming more exhausted from the strain of a forced march on empty stomachs. Their hunger became so compelling that they were forced to slaughter some of the horses, which they ate with a seasoning of wild root with a garlic flavour.
It was Johannes Raaff, drawing on his considerable experience of native warfare, who found a way out of their predicament. Twenty of the most useless horses were left behind, and a tree trunk was propped under a bush to resemble a maxim. The gun carriages were abandoned and the dogs with them were quietly knocked on the head. With each of the maxims balanced across the saddle of a horse and a man holding it on either side, they started at about ten o'clock that night to move quietly down the slope and along the valley. The men were so worn out that whenever there was a halt they promptly fell asleep and when dragged to their feet again went on mechanically. When dawn came they were clear of the bush and hills and could see the Shangani river in the distance.
Raaff's ruse was effective. The Matabele wasted a good deal of ammunition and several hours before they found that their victims had escaped. They overtook them the following day and there was a sharp engagement in which two policemen were wounded. This was the final encounter. The Column avoided possible ambushes and after two more days and nights of forced marching, in the last stages of exhaustion and despair, they were found by two scouts of the relief force which had set out to look for them. With the relief were Rhodes and Dr. Jameson. Their ordeal was over. Three days later they reached Bulawayo, and here Johannes Raaff paid the price of fatigue and exposure. He imprudently ate a heavy meal,was taken ill and died on January 26, 1894.
With active campaigning at an end the Matabele drifted back to their villages. One of them reported that before Forbes's Column reached the Shangani, Lobengula had decided, in a last effort to halt the pursuit, that if they would not stop for anything else, they might stop for money. He had accordingly sent two messengers, Petchan and Sehuloholu, with a box of sovereigns and orders to intercept the Column. They were to say that the king admitted he had been conquered, and that the white men were to take the money and turn back. The two messengers met the Column the day before it reached the Shangani, hid in the bush until it went by and then followed and gave the money to two men in the rear guard. This incident had not been reported by any member of the Column.
Suspicion fell on two men, Daniels and Wilson, both officers' servants who had not been members of the rear guard that day, though it was possible that they had dropped to the rear. Soon after the Column's return they had been seen to be in possession of large amounts of gold. Daniels explained that he had won the money at cards and Wilson said he had brought his money with him. They had both bought farm rights from various members of the invading forces and had paid for them in cash.
A point in favour of the two men was a statement by Sehuloholu that the man to whom he had given the money could speak his language well. Neither Daniels nor Wilson knew Sindabele. The only man knowing the language who had been in the main body of the Column that day was the hospital orderly, and he had never been in the rear guard.
Indignation over this report ran high. It was generally considered that had the receipt of the money, and Lobengula's message, been reported Forbes might have been induced to turn back on reaching the Shangani, and the tragedy of the Wilson Patrol would have been avoided. The circumstantial evidence against Daniels and Wilson was too strong to be ignored. They were tried by the Resident Magistrate and four assessors at Bulawayo, found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment with hard labour.
But the High Commissioner's legal experts pointed out that the magistrate's powers did not entitle him to pass sentences of more than three months' imprisonment. They also considered that the conviction was against the weight of evidence. The sentences were afterwards quashed and the men released. The identity of the Sindebele speaker alleged to have received the money was never established, nor, beyond the Matabele statements, was it ever proved that there had been a box of sovereigns, which, of course, could have been part of the payments for the Rudd Concession. It is inconceivable that the Matabele would have invented the story, and Lobengula's unflattering view that the white men might stop for money rings true. The whole incident remains a dark blot on the pages of Rhodesia's story.
A question that intrigued the pioneer population when the fate of Allan Wilson's patrol became known was why so many officers were permitted to accompany him across the Shangani river. Major Forbes had granted him the privilege of picking his own men, and it was only natural that the officers of the Victoria Column - many of them his own personal friends, men he had known in civilian life - should clamour for the honour of helping him to capture Lobengula. Dr. Jameson paid Allan Wilson a tribute when he reported officially on the Shangani episode.
Major Allan Wilson was one of the most gifted leaders of men I have met. Personally brave to rashness, yet extremely careful and considerate of the men under his command, it followed that the men would go anywhere with him. It is to this hero worship of Wilson, so well deserved, that I attribute the large number of officers who accompanied him on that last fatal reconnaissance.
Jameson's first task, now that hostilities were finally over, was to secure the complete surrender of the Matabele and to establish suitable conditions for white and black to live together in amity. The main need was to impress on the Matabele the fact that they had been conquered, that their military system could no longer be allowed to exist and that their impis must be disbanded. The first essential was to compel them to surrender all the weapons in their possession, especially their rifles and ammunition, not only to impress on them the fact of their defeat but also to ensure the safety of the white population. Jameson sent messengers round the kraals to announce that only those who surrendered their arms would be allowed to return to their villages and proceed with the cultivation of their crops.