The Last Horseman (28 page)

The men tightened their grip on their reins; Mausers rested on their hips. They spoke to each other quickly in Afrikaans, which Edward did not understand. But their eagerness to attack needed no translation.

‘Wait,’ said Hertzog as he put the binoculars back to his eyes, searching out the rear flatbed that in any normal supply train would hold a half-dozen soldiers to guard the rear. There was no sign of any soldiers. Boer women and children were less important than horse fodder. This cargo was of no practical use to an enemy. No weapons or supplies were being carried. Hertzog turned to the others. ‘When the train passes and Liam blows the track we take them. Be watchful, people. If the escort is still with them they will be further back along the track. I don’t want any of those women and children caught in crossfire.’

Edward sat dumbly listening to the orders issued in the guttural language. All he could do was wait until he was ordered – in English – to do otherwise. His stomach knotted and his throat dried up, excitement churned with fear. He was glad he would take no part in the killing.

Hertzog was about to climb down from his vantage point when he stopped. His weather-creased face made it difficult to see him frown with doubt. He raised the binoculars again. Something was wrong. He watched the train. What was it that did not seem right? He cursed himself for not understanding what his instincts were trying to tell him. Keep looking! he told himself desperately. The steam puffed above the boxcars; the women’s bonnets shielded their faces from wind and soot. And then he realized what was wrong. There were no children aboard the train. He pressed the binoculars tighter to his face, willing his old eyes to be as sharp as when he levelled a rifle against an enemy. As one of the women in a boxcar turned to face the direction of travel, her bonnet pulled back from her face. Hertzog gasped in realization and quickly turned to the men waiting below.

‘They are not women! They’re soldiers! Boy! Ride to Liam, tell him it’s a trap! There’ll be other soldiers somewhere. Tell Liam to retreat. Before they kill us all. You tell him!’

Even as the battle-hardened Boers digested the warning, Edward had already spurred his horse away.

Hertzog clambered down and mounted his horse. One of the men called: ‘Hertzog? What now?’

‘We retreat. We cannot help Maguire,’ the old man commanded.

It was a grim fact. There could be no telling where the British had laid their ambush. Hertzog and the others must live and fight another day. The Irish girl had been used. The British knew everything. With a curse, Hertzog heeled his horse, leaving behind the sound of the puffing train and the disguised soldiers ready to kill Liam Maguire’s commando. Unless the boy got there in time.

*

Belmont had studied the ground carefully before he gave Sheenagh the false information. He and his men had lived as did the commandos and knew the most likely place for a Boer ambush on the train. The Boers would need a quick escape route after their attack and that would mean a place where their wagons could be used for the women and children. Belmont knew his enemy; the Irishmen who had worked the goldfields were efficient with their explosives and were a boon to the Dutchies. They would do exactly as he expected. Dumb bastards. Blow the track before it reached the final bend and the safety of the mountainside, grind the train to a halt and then rush the boxcars. There’d be no embrace from the Dutchy women though – the only kiss they’d be getting was a twelve-inch shaft of steel if they got past the gunfire. He wished he could be on the train to see the look of surprise when they were cut down. And those that weren’t would turn tail and run. Straight on to his men.

He and his troopers had followed the rail line until a depression in the land a couple of miles back allowed them to move south of its intended journey and to stay below the skyline. Further back still from this depression were boulders that could hide man and horse, allowing the troopers he had placed there to shoot any survivors who got past him and his ambush.

Belmont and his riders waited in the saddle, carbines at the ready. Horses shifted their weight; men tilted their bush hats above their eyes now that the sun had dipped. He wished he could light a cheroot, but denied himself the pleasure. A wisp of tobacco smoke might carry and could lose him his advantage. No one drank from their canteens; no sabres were yet drawn; there was no sound except for the occasional jangling of bridle as a horse shook flies from its eyes. He glanced down the extended line at his hard-bitten men. Common bastards, men who fought with their fists if no other weapon presented itself. Miners, boiler-makers and peasant-stock labourers. The army had given them shelter and food and a life to be proud of. And he had given their aggression full rein. They relished a good fight and if a wounded Boer needed dispatching there was none who would shirk his duty. Despite their impatience to engage their enemy no one moved or showed any sign of nervousness. They could beat the Boer at his own game. The harsh land held no surprises for them; they adapted and lived like their enemy. Meagre rations and hardship. The harder the better. Bread was only that in name; meat was either horse or trek ox and even those men who had lived with little more than army biscuits and salted beef found it difficult to get their teeth into that. It was a welcome comfort to relieve the Boer farms of milk, eggs and chickens. A low, indistinct rumble reached them. Saddle leather creaked as men braced themselves. Horses’ ears pricked as the beasts felt their riders’ tension. Now the rumble became the sound of a train. Its engine tooted. Three short blasts followed by two more told Belmont the train was about to enter the open plain.

He saw the impending events in his mind’s eye. There would be an explosion, a nerve-jangling screech as the train’s wheels were locked, cries of greeting from the Boers and then volley fire from the men on the train. Shouts, curses and screams followed by the thunder of hooves as the commando retreated. There was never a good day to die but today was as good as any – for the Boers.

*

The rail track erupted, showering the air with metal bolts and ripped timber sleepers. Liam Maguire grabbed the shoulder of his brother who was clambering over the rocks, eager to reach the slowing train, its wheels locked, metal on metal rending the air as the engineer desperately tried to halt his train.

‘Wait! You wanna get your head ripped off!’

The debris clattered around them and then Liam rose from the shelter of the rocks, through the dust that was yet to settle. The American Jackson Lee was in reserve with half a dozen men, two wagons and the commando’s horses. ‘Us first! Wait ’til we get the women down! Then the wagons!’ he shouted, swarming forward with forty others. ‘We need those boxcars in the middle covered! Frenchie! See to it!’

‘I’ll do it!’ said Corin, running from his brother’s side.

‘Corin!’ Liam yelled in a vain attempt to stop the lad from running along the length of the track, eighty yards from the train. He watched as Frenchie and half a dozen other men peeled away to run with his brother towards the middle of the train. Uncertainty made Liam falter for a moment as he watched the commandos sprint ever closer to the boxcars. There was barely time to think about why the Boer women were not screaming. They would, wouldn’t they? a voice demanded in his head.

Before he could answer his own question the Boer women levelled rifles at them.
Mother of Christ!

‘
Take cover!’ he screamed.

Too late. Gunfire raked the men. Disbelief and shock struck them as hard as the bullets that ripped into them. Men fell dead, wounded crawled, survivors threw themselves flat, desperately pressing their faces into the dirt, scrabbling to find the smallest rock that might give them cover. The rapid gunfire from the train raked across the open ground. Men lay writhing, gripping stomachs that spilled their innards into the dirt. No saviour of a bullet found them: the English were going to let them suffer. Bodies lay strewn the length of the train. Skulls smashed, brains splattered, limbs splintered. One man crawled with half his leg dragging behind him: multiple rounds had shattered the bones. He screamed in pain and half rose: an act of incredible bravery and defiance – or the death wish of a mutilated man. No sooner had he lifted his torso from the ground than more bullets tore into him.

Liam panicked. They had to get back to the rocks and the horses but that meant a retreat across the face of the train. Corin! A greater fear made him roll and clamber to his feet. He fired as rapidly as the bolt-action Mauser allowed, not caring where the shots fell, in a vain attempt to keep the soldiers’ heads down. Bullets spat up dirt around him; one tugged at his coat, another ripped his boot leather. Miraculously he was untouched as he ran to where he had last seen his brother. Another fighter joined him but Liam heard the thwack of bullets crushing bone and flesh and the man went down head first, arms askew, dead before he hit the ground.

The commandos were pulling back, trying to give each other covering fire. Then rifle fire came from the kopje which hid Jackson Lee. It gave them a chance. Something hit his side. A searing tear that felt like a serrated knife blade. The bullet ripped flesh but missed bone. He twisted and fell, his rifle falling from his hands. Shock surged through him, his mouth suddenly more parched than it had been before the shooting started – if that were possible. Dizziness claimed him, and then strong hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. One of his men mouthed something. Shouting. Unheard. Gunfire crackling, the likes of which he’d never heard before. Not this close. Corin! He couldn’t see him. A thought lodged in his mind behind the fear that gripped it. Hertzog would ride in once he heard the gunfire. He could already hear shooting coming from their rear.
Come on, you old bastard! We need you! Hurry, man!
In the distance a horseman led the way. One horseman.

*

Hertzog’s riders galloped away from the train, feet pushed forward in stirrups, reins long in their hands, leaning back in the saddle as they crested the lip that would hurtle the horses down into the depression. The broad horizon that had lain before them a few heartbeats before changed to a line of mounted soldiers who levelled rifles at them. Terror and surprise made them cry out in helpless warning to each other. At least half fell from the volley. Hertzog felt and heard a bullet whip past his face. Horses screamed, tumbling as some of the rounds tore into them, throwing riders beneath hooves. He spurred his horse and saw that their momentum carried the survivors through the Englishmen’s line, galloping hard to escape the ambush. He dared a backward glance, saw the fallen men, saw the wounded horses floundering, their distress and misery ignored as the English rode through them. They were going for the train! Thank God they did not pursue him. They were clear! His men’s horses surged up the far bank of the depression. The etched line of the horizon beckoned. The men cried out to each other in exultation.

Belmont’s hidden riflemen shot them all.

*

Edward reached the rear of the train, urging his horse away from the gunfire that shattered rocks as the soldiers sought him out. He pressed himself low across the horse’s withers, shortening his grip on the reins, his face against the musky smell of its mane. He could see the remnants of the attack as the soldiers in the boxcars trained their rifles on the retreating commando, firing over the corpses littering the ground. Gunfire rattled back and forth as some of the men in the kopje helped give cover to the survivors of the failed attack. Somewhere off to the left he could see a line of horsemen fast approaching.

It was a tableau from a music hall. Men dressed as women kept up a sustained fire on Liam’s commando. A smashed violin case lay open, its instrument intact, the strings taut, the wood polished. Corin crawled towards it, blood smeared across his jacket from a gunshot wound. Around him lay dead men, men that Edward recognized. The Frenchman stared, gaping at the blue sky, chest shattered, life wrenched from him. Edward yanked back on the reins and brought the horse to a sudden halt. Throwing himself off its back, he kept a grip on the reins, determined to reach Corin and get him to safety. The horse defied his strength and wrenched itself free, galloping away as soldiers cried out muffled warnings that Edward could barely hear.
Cease fire! Cease fire! Cavalry!

Edward scrambled frantically towards the fallen Irishman. The ground trembled from the approaching cavalrymen, who were suddenly among them, sabres slashing down into the retreating men. Edward hauled Corin to his feet, and saw horsemen bearing down on him. There was a revolver tucked in Corin’s belt. Edward snatched it, losing his grip on the young Irishman as he fumbled with the cumbersome Webley pistol. Grasping it in both trembling hands he pulled back the knurled hammer, pointed the barrel at the trooper who bore down on them, sword arm raised, chest exposed. He fired.

The heavy-calibre .45’s recoil snapped through his wrists and forearm, almost making him drop the weapon – as did the sudden horror of killing a man. The horse had veered, and the rider smashed into the ground barely yards from them. Fear gave Edward strength as he tried to drag the groaning Corin away. The young Irishman staggered to his feet as Edward realized another horsemen was almost upon them. He twisted away but the horse struck him, and as he fell back he saw the sabre slash down, cut through Corin’s neck from ear to shoulder, severing his head.

Edward screamed as the dead man staggered on for another yard, spurting blood splashing the ground. He turned and blindly fired again at the cavalrymen who wheeled their horses left and right. One of them fell as the bullet struck him in the face. Another trooper, seeing him standing defiantly, spurred his horse around, pulling the reins, wrenching the horse towards Edward. The man’s bush hat had blown free. It was Belmont. There was no violence or rage in his face. His eyes locked on the boy, his body bent to urge on his horse. Tears stung Edward’s eyes as terror took an even firmer grip on him. He was going to die. He pulled the trigger. And missed. The gun exploded two, three times more as he shot wildly at Belmont. One of the bullets tore the tunic of his sword arm, but no blossoming blood rose appeared. Sunlight caught the blade, making it shimmer in the glare. The horse whinnied; the swordsman grunted with effort. Blood pounded in Edward’s ears as the muffled screams and cries of battle receded into a distant place in his mind. He half turned his body, arm extended, aiming directly at Belmont’s chest, and felt the gun explode.