Fire Across the Veldt Read Online Free Page A

our horses and bring them over here quietly. The Boers will have got back here in the darkness so there’s just a possibility that they’ve not unsaddled them. Go now. I’ll watch over this fellow.’
    Within minutes the two were back, leading three horses, all fully saddled and bridled. ‘Look,’ said Jenkins, his face expressing disgust. ‘They’ve even put our rifles back in the saddle holsters, see. Lazy bastards. They know nothin’ about ’orses, absolutely.’
    ‘Splendid. Right. Let’s go. Quietly, now.’
    They had retreated some five minutes down the path when Jenkins gave the reins of the horses he was leading to Mzingeli. ‘I’ll just be ’alf a mo’, bach sir,’ he said.
    ‘No,’ hissed Fonthill. ‘Where are you going? Come back. Now.’
    But the little Welshman had disappeared back up the hill into the night.
    Cursing, Simon indicated to the tracker that they should continue the descent but they had reached the bottom and were met by a relieved Alice before Jenkins rejoined them.
    ‘Where the hell did you go?’ demanded Fonthill.
    ‘I couldn’t let them beasts stay up there with one leg tied up,’ he said. ‘So I cut as many free as I could. Too many, o’course, to do ’em all. But enough to let ’em wander about a bit and stray, like. That’ll give them Boer buggers a bit to think about first thing in the mornin’, see. Oh.’ He held up his knife, the point of which was bloodstained. ‘I just poked this into the leg of that guard, see. Not far. Just a bit of a scratch. That’ll teach ’im to sleep on guard and serve ’im right for treatin’ ’orses that way, so it will.’
    Fonthill blew out his cheeks. ‘For God’s sake get on your horse. Alice, you get in the saddle, 352 can ride behind you. Leave the cart and the mules. We must ride hard through the night so that we don’t have a horde of bloodthirsty Boers breathing down our necks. Right. Now ride!’
    Heads down, with Jenkins clinging to Alice for dear life, they rode through the darkness as fast as the horses and the terrain would allow. Just before dawn they reached the armoured train. It was getting steam up, for the sappers had worked through the night to repair the rails. They were just in time to wolf down hot tea and bacon sandwiches before the train snorted into motion, on its journey to Pretoria, the newly captured capital of the Transvaal, carrying them aboard.

C HAPTER T WO
    On the journey, which proved uneventful, Fonthill looked again at the cable that he had received only last month in the half-ruined British consulate in Peking, after the siege of the capital had been raised. He, Alice and Jenkins had been visiting his wife’s uncle, a missionary in China, when the Boxer Rebellion had burst around their ears. The three of them had played a role in the defence and final relief of the besieged consulates in the heart of the city – a role that had been well reported in the world’s press. As a result, General Kitchener, Roberts’s chief of staff in South Africa, had cabled him:
    WE NEVER MET IN SUDAN BUT WARMEST CONGRATS ON YOUR WORK CHINA STOP WAR WITH BOERS HERE FAR FROM OVER STOP DESPERATELY NEED YOU HERE FOR URGENT TASK STOP CAN YOU SHIP TO CAPE TOWN SOONEST STOP LETTER FOLLOWS STOP
    Kitchener had been only a major of intelligence when Fonthill and Jenkins had infiltrated the Dervish lines around Khartoum to reach the besieged General Gordon years before. But Simon knew, of course, of the meteoric nature of the man’s rise to become Sirdar of the Egyptian army and the eventual conqueror of the Mahdi’s forces at the Battle of Omdurman two years before. He was now Lord Kitchener of Khartoum – ‘K of K’ – and rumoured soon to take over from the elderly Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa.
    Fonthill, having rather surprisingly received Alice’s approval, had cabled his acceptance but Kitchener’s explanatory letter had revealed little more when it had arrived just before they