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By Sheer Pluck; A Tale of the Ashanti War, a novel by George Alfred Henty |
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Chapter 23. The Capture Of Coomassie |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. THE CAPTURE OF COOMASSIE Upon the afternoon of the arrival of the English column upon the Dah the king made another attempt to arrest their progress, with a view no doubt of bringing up fresh reinforcements. A flag of truce came in with a letter to the effect that our rapid advance had much disconcerted him, which was no doubt true, and that he had not been able to make arrangements for the payments claimed; that he would send in hostages, but that most of those whom the general had asked for were away, and that he could not agree to give the queen mother or the heir apparent. These were, of course, the principal hostages, indeed the only ones who would be of any real value. The answer was accordingly sent back, that unless these personages arrived before daybreak the next morning we should force our way into Coomassie. The Dah is a river about fifteen yards wide and three feet deep at the deepest place. The Engineers set to work to bridge it directly they arrived, Russell's regiment at once crossing the river and bivouacking on the opposite bank. It was unfortunate that this, the first night upon which the troops had been unprovided with tents, should have turned out tremendously wet. The thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and the rain came down incessantly. Tired as the troops were there were few who slept, and there was a general feeling of satisfaction when the morning broke and the last day of the march began. The rain held up a little before daybreak, and the sky was clear when at six o'clock Wood's Bonny men, who had come up by a forced march the evening before, led the advance. Lieutenant Saunders with one of Rait's guns came next. The Rifles followed in support. Before the Bonny men had gone half a mile they were hotly engaged, and the combat was for two hours a repetition of that of Amoaful. Saunders advanced again and again to the front with his gun, and with a few rounds of grape cleared the sides of the path of the enemy. At last, however, the Bonny men would advance no farther, and Lieutenant Byre, the adjutant of Wood's regiment, was mortally wounded. Lieutenant Saunders sent back to say it was impossible for him to get on farther unless supported by white troops. The Rifles were then sent forward to take the Bonny men's place, and slowly, very slowly, the advance was continued until the clearing round a village could be seen fifty yards away. Then the Rifles gave a cheer and with a sudden rush swept through to the open and carried the village without a check. In the meantime the whole column had been following in the rear as the Rifles advanced, and were hotly engaged in repelling a series of flank attacks on the part of the enemy. These attacks were gallantly persevered in by the Ashantis, who at times approached in such masses that the whole bush swayed and moved as they pushed forward. Their loss must have been extremely large, for our men lined the road and kept up a tremendous Snider fire upon them at a short distance. Our casualties were slight. The road, like almost all roads in the country, was sunk two feet in the center below the level of the surrounding ground, consequently the men were lying in shelter as behind a breastwork, while they kept up their tremendous fire upon the foe. The village once gained, the leading troops were thrown out in a circle round it, and the order was given to pass the baggage from the rear to the village. The operation was carried out in safety, the path being protected by the troops lying in a line along it. The baggage once in, the troops closed up to the village, the disappointed foe continuing a series of desperate attacks upon their rear. These assaults were kept up even after all had reached the cleared space of the village, the enemy's war horn sounding and the men making the woods re-echo with their wild war cry. The Naval Brigade at one time inflicted great slaughter upon the enemy by remaining perfectly quiet until the Ashantis, thinking they had retired, advanced full of confidence, cheering, when a tremendous fire almost swept them away. It was six hours from the time at which the advance began before the rear guard entered the village, and as but a mile and a half had been traversed and Coomassie was still six miles away, it was evident that if the Ashantis continued to fight with the same desperation, and if the baggage had to be carried on step by step from village to village, the force would not get halfway on to Coomassie by nightfall. The instant the baggage was all in, preparations were made for a fresh advance. Rait's guns, as usual, opened to clear the way, and the 42d this time led the advance. The enemy's fire was very heavy and the Highlanders at first advanced but slowly, their wounded straggling back in quick succession into the village. After twenty minutes' work, however, they had pushed back the enemy beyond the brow of the hill, and from this point they advanced with great rapidity, dashing forward at times at the double, until the foe, scared by the sudden onslaught, gave way altogether and literally fled at the top of their speed. War drums and horns, chiefs' stools and umbrellas, littered the next village and told how sudden and complete had been the stampede. As the 42d advanced troops were from time to time sent forward until a despatch came in from Sir A. Alison saying that all the villages save the last were taken, that opposition had ceased, and that the enemy were in complete rout. Up to this time the attack of the enemy upon the rear of the village had continued with unabated vigor, and shot and slug continually fell in the place itself. The news from the front was soon known and was hailed with a cheer which went right round the line of defense, and, whether scared by its note of triumph or because they too had received the news, the efforts of the enemy ceased at once, and scarcely another shot was fired. At half past three the baggage was sent forward and the headquarter staff and Rifle Brigade followed it. There was no further check. The 42d and several companies of the Rifle Brigade entered Coomassie without another shot being fired in its defense. Sir Garnet Wolseley soon after arrived, and taking off his hat called for three cheers for the Queen, which was responded to with a heartiness and vigor which must have astonished the Ashantis. These were still in considerable numbers in the town, having been told by the king that peace was or would be made. They seemed in no way alarmed, but watched, as amused and interested spectators, the proceedings of the white troops. The first thing to be done was to disarm those who had guns, and this seemed to scare the others, for in a short time the town was almost entirely deserted. It was now fast getting dark, and the troops bivouacked in the marketplace, which had so often been the scene of human sacrifices on a large scale. Their day's work had, indeed, been a heavy one. They had been twelve hours on the road without rest or time to cook food. Water was very scarce, no really drinkable water having been met with during the day. In addition to this they had undergone the excitement of a long and obstinate fight with an enemy concealed in the bush, after work of almost equal severity upon the day before, and had passed a sleepless night in a tropical rainstorm, yet with the exception of a few fever stricken men not a single soldier fell out from his place in the ranks. Nor was the first night in Coomassie destined to be a quiet one. Soon after two o'clock a fire broke out in one of the largest of the collections of huts, which was soon in a blaze from end to end. The engineers pulled down the huts on either side and with great difficulty prevented the flames from spreading. These fires were the result of carriers and others plundering, and one man, a policeman, caught with loot upon him, was forthwith hung from a tree. Several others were flogged, and after some hours' excitement the place quieted down. Sir Garnet was greatly vexed at the occurrence, as he had the evening before sent a messenger to the king asking him to come in and make peace, and promising to spare the town if he did so. Although Coomassie was well known to Frank he was still ignorant of the character of the interior of the chiefs' houses, and the next day he wandered about with almost as much curiosity as the soldiers themselves. The interiors even of the palaces of the chiefs showed that the Ashantis can have no idea of what we call comfort. The houses were filled with dust and litter, and this could not be accounted for solely by the bustle and hurry of picking out the things worth carrying away prior to the hurried evacuation of the place. From the roofs hung masses of spiders' web, thick with dust, while sweeping a place out before occupying it brought down an accumulation of dust which must have been the result of years of neglect. The principal apartments were lumbered up with drums, great umbrellas, and other paraphernalia of processions, such as horns, state chairs, wooden maces, etc. Before the door of each house stood a tree, at the foot of which were placed little idols, calabashes, bits of china, bones, and an extraordinary jumble of strange odds and ends of every kind, all of which were looked upon as fetish. Over the doors and alcoves were suspended a variety of charms, old stone axes and arrow tips, nuts, gourds, amulets, beads, and other trumpery articles. The palace was in all respects exactly as the king had left it. The royal bed and couch were in their places, the royal chairs occupied their usual raised position. Only, curiously enough, all had been turned round and over. The storerooms upstairs were untouched, and here was found an infinite variety of articles, for the most part mere rubbish, but many interesting and valuable: silver plate, gold masks, gold cups, clocks, glass, china, pillows, guns, cloth, caskets, and cabinets; an olla podrida, which resembled the contents of a sale room. In many of the native apartments of the palace were signs that human sacrifice had been carried on to the last minute. Several stools were found covered with thick coatings of recently shed blood, and a horrible smell of gore pervaded the whole palace, and, indeed, the whole town. The palace was full of fetish objects just as trumpery and meaningless as those in the humblest cottages. The king's private sitting room was, like the rest, an open court with a tree growing in it. This tree was covered with fetish objects, and thickly hung with spiders' webs. At each end was a small but deep alcove with a royal chair, so that the monarch could always sit on the shady side. Along each side of the little court ran a sort of verandah, beneath which was an immense assortment of little idols and fetishes of all kinds. From one of the verandahs a door opened into the king's bedroom, which was about ten feet by eight. It was very dark, being lighted only by a small window about a foot square, opening into the women's apartments. At one end was the royal couch, a raised bedstead with curtains, and upon a ledge by the near side (that is to say the king had to step over the ledge to get into bed) were a number of pistols and other weapons, among them an English general's sword, bearing the inscription, "From Queen Victoria to the King of Ashanti." This sword was presented to the predecessor of King Coffee. Upon the floor at the end opposite the bed was a couch upon which the king could sit and talk with his wives through the little window. In the women's apartments all sorts of stuffs, some of European, some of native manufacture, were found scattered about in the wildest confusion. The terror and horror of the four or five hundred ladies, when they found that their husband was about to abandon his palace and that they would have no time to remove their treasured finery, can be well imagined. In almost every apartment and yard of the palace were very slightly raised mounds, some no larger than a plate, others two or even three feet long. These were whitewashed and presented a strong contrast to the general red of the ground and lower walls. These patches marked the places of graves. The whole palace, in fact, appeared to be little better than a cemetery and a slaughterhouse in one. A guard was placed over the palace, and here, as elsewhere through the town, looting was strictly forbidden. All day the general expected the arrival of the king, who had sent a messenger to say he would be in early. At two o'clock a tremendous rainstorm broke over the town, lasting for three hours. In the evening it became evident that he was again deceiving us, and orders were issued that the troops, in the morning, should push on another three miles to the tombs of the kings, where he was said to be staying. Later on, however, the news came that the king had gone right away into the interior, and as another storm was coming up it became evident that the rainy season was setting in in earnest. The determination was therefore come to, to burn the town and to start for the coast next morning. All night Major Home with a party of Engineers was at work mining the palace and preparing it for explosion, while a prize committee were engaged in selecting and packing everything which they considered worth taking down to the coast. The news of the change of plan, however, had not got abroad, and the troops paraded next morning under the belief that they were about to march still farther up the country. When it became known that they were bound for the coast there was a general brightening of faces, and a buzz of satisfaction ran down the ranks. It was true that it was believed that a large amount of treasure was collected at the kings' tombs, and the prize money would not have been unwelcome, still the men felt that their powers were rapidly becoming exhausted. The hope of a fight with the foe and of the capture of Coomassie had kept them up upon the march, but now that this had been done the usual collapse after great exertion followed. Every hour added to the number of fever stricken men who would have to be carried down to the coast, and each man, as he saw his comrades fall out from the ranks, felt that his own turn might come next. At six o'clock in the morning the advanced guard of the baggage began to move out of the town. The main body was off by seven. The 42d remained as rearguard to cover the Engineers and burning party. Frank stayed behind to see the destruction of the town. A hundred engineer laborers were supplied with palm leaf torches, and in spite of the outer coats of thatch being saturated by the tremendous rains, the flames soon spread. Volumes of black smoke poured up, and soon a huge pile of smoke resting over the town told the Ashantis of the destruction of their blood stained capital. The palace was blown up, and when the Engineers and 42d marched out from the town scarce a house remained untouched by the flames. The troops had proceeded but a short distance before they had reason to congratulate themselves on their retreat before the rains began in earnest, and to rejoice over the fact that the thunderstorms did not set in three days earlier than they did. The marsh round the town had increased a foot in depth, while the next stream, before a rivulet two feet and a half deep, had now swollen its banks for a hundred and fifty yards on either side, with over five feet and a half of water in the old channel. Across this channel the Engineers had with much difficulty thrown a tree, over which the white troops passed, while the native carriers had to wade across. It was laughable to see only the eyes of the taller men above the water, while the shorter disappeared altogether, nothing being seen but the boxes they carried. Fortunately the deep part was only three or four yards wide. Thus the carriers by taking a long breath on arriving at the edge of the original channel were able to struggle across. This caused a terrible delay, and a still greater one occurred at the Dah. Here the water was more than two feet above the bridge which the Engineers had made on the passage up. The river was as deep as the previous one had been, and the carriers therefore waded as before; but the deep part was wider, so wide, indeed, that it was impossible for the shorter men to keep under water long enough to carry their burdens across. The tall men therefore crossed and recrossed with the burdens, the short men swimming over. The passage across the bridge too was slow and tedious in the extreme. Some of the cross planks had been swept away, and each man had to feel every step of his way over. So tedious was the work that at five in the afternoon it became evident that it would be impossible for all the white troops to get across--a process at once slow and dangerous--before nightfall. The river was still rising, and it was a matter of importance that none should be left upon the other side at night, as the Ashantis might, for anything they could tell, be gathering in force in the rear. Consequently Sir Archibald Alison gave the order for the white troops to strip and to wade across taking only their helmets and guns. The clothes were made up in bundles and carried over by natives swimming, while others took their places below in case any of the men should be carried off their feet by the stream. All passed over without any accident. One result, however, was a laughable incident next morning, an incident which, it may be safely asserted, never before occurred in the British army. It was quite dark before the last party were over, and the natives collecting the clothes did not notice those of one of the men who had undressed at the foot of a tree. Consequently he had to pass the night, a very wet one, in a blanket, and absolutely paraded with his regiment in the morning in nothing but a helmet and rifle. The incident caused immense laughter, and a native swimming across the river found and brought back his clothes. As the journeys were necessarily slow and tedious, owing to the quantity of baggage and sick being carried down, Frank now determined to push straight down to the coast, and, bidding goodbye to Sir Garnet and the many friends he had made during the expedition, he took his place for the first time in the hammock, which with its bearers had accompanied him from Cape Coast, and started for the sea. There was some risk as far as the Prah, for straggling bodies of the enemy frequently intercepted the convoys. Frank, however, met with no obstacle, and in ten days after leaving the army reached Cape Coast. Ostik implored his master to take him with him across the sea; but Frank pointed out to him that he would not be happy long in England, where the customs were so different from his own, and where in winter he would feel the cold terribly. Ostik yielded to the arguments, and having earned enough to purchase for years the small comforts and luxuries dear to the negro heart, he agreed to start for the Gaboon immediately Frank left for England. On his first arrival at Cape Coast he had to his great satisfaction found that the Houssas who had escaped from Coomassie had succeeded in reaching the coast in safety, and that having obtained their pay from the agent they had sailed for their homes. Three days after Frank's arrival at Cape Coast the mail steamer came along, and he took passage for England. Very strange indeed did it feel to him when he set foot in Liverpool. Nearly two years and a half had elapsed since he had sailed, and he had gone through adventures sufficient for a lifetime. He was but eighteen years old now, but he had been so long accustomed to do man's work that he felt far older than he was. The next day on arriving in town he put up at the Charing Cross Hotel and then sallied out to see his friends. He determined to go first of all to visit the porter who had been the earliest friend he had made in London, and then to drive to Ruthven's, where he was sure of a hearty welcome. He had written several times, since it had been possible for him to send letters, to his various friends, first of all to his sister, and the doctor, to Ruthven, to the porter, and to the old naturalist. He drove to London Bridge Station, and there learned that the porter had been for a week absent from duty, having strained his back in lifting a heavy trunk. He therefore drove to Ratcliff Highway. The shop was closed, but his knock brought the naturalist to the door. "What can I do for you, sir?" he asked civilly. "Well, in the first place, you can shake me by the hand." The old man started at the voice. "Why, 'tis Frank!" he exclaimed, "grown and sunburnt out of all recollection. My dear boy, I am glad indeed to see you. Come in, come in; John is inside." Frank received another hearty greeting, and sat for a couple of hours chatting over his adventures. He found that had he arrived a fortnight later he would not have found either of his friends. The porter was in a week about to be married again to a widow who kept a small shop and was in comfortable circumstances. The naturalist had sold the business, and was going down into the country to live with a sister there. After leaving them Frank drove to the residence of Sir James Ruthven in Eaton Square. Frank sent in his name and was shown up to the drawing room. A minute later the door opened with a crash and his old schoolfellow rushed in. "My dear, dear, old boy," he said wringing Frank's hand, "I am glad to see you; but, bless me, how you have changed! How thin you are, and how black! I should have passed you in the street without knowing you; and you look years older than I do. But that is no wonder after all you've gone through. Well, when did you arrive, and where are your things? Why have you not brought them here?" Frank said that he had left them at the hotel, as he was going down early the next morning to Deal. He stayed, however, and dined with his friend, whose father received him with the greatest cordiality and kindness. On leaving the hotel next morning he directed his portmanteau to be sent in the course of the day to Sir James Ruthven's. He had bought a few things at Cape Coast, and had obtained a couple of suits of clothes for immediate use at Liverpool. On arriving at Deal he found his sister much grown and very well and happy. She was almost out of her mind with delight at seeing him. He stayed two or three days with her and then returned to town and took up his abode in Eaton Square. "Well, my dear boy, what are you thinking of doing?" Sir James Ruthven asked next morning at breakfast. "You have had almost enough of travel, I should think." "Quite enough, sir," Frank said. "I have made up my mind that I shall be a doctor. The gold necklace which I showed you, which Ammon Quatia gave me, weighs over twenty pounds, and as it is of the purest gold it is worth about a thousand pounds, a sum amply sufficient to keep me and pay my expenses till I have passed. Besides, Mr. Goodenough has, I believe, left me something in his will. I sent home one copy to his lawyer and have brought the other with me. I must call on the firm this morning. I have also some thirty pounds' weight in gold which was paid me by the king for the goods he took, but this, of course, belongs to Mr. Goodenough's estate." Upon calling upon the firm of lawyers, and sending in his name, he was at once shown in to the principal. "I congratulate you on your safe return, sir," the gentleman said. "You have called, of course, in reference to the will of the late Mr. Goodenough." "Yes," Frank replied. "I sent home one copy from Coomassie and have brought another with me." "We received the first in due course," the gentleman said, taking the document Frank held out to him. "You are, of course, acquainted with its contents." "No," Frank answered, "beyond the fact that Mr. Goodenough told me he had left me a legacy." "Then I have pleasant news to give you," the lawyer said. "Mr. Goodenough died possessed of about sixty thousand pounds. He left fifteen thousand each to his only surviving nephew and niece. Fifteen thousand pounds he has divided among several charitable and scientific institutions. Fifteen thousand pounds he has left to you." Frank gave a little cry of surprise. "The will is an eminently just and satisfactory one," the lawyer said, "for Mr. Goodenough has had but little intercourse with his relations, who live in Scotland, and they had no reason to expect to inherit any portion of his property. They are, therefore, delighted with the handsome legacy they have received. I may mention that Mr. Goodenough ordered that in the event of your not living to return to England, five thousand pounds of the portion which would have come to you was to be paid to trustees for the use of your sister, the remaining ten thousand to be added to the sum to be divided among the hospitals." "This is indeed a surprise," Frank said; "and I shall be obliged, sir, if you will at once draw out a paper for me to sign settling the five thousand pounds upon my sister. Whatever may happen then she will be provided for." The accession of this snug and most unexpected fortune in no way altered Frank's views as to his future profession. He worked hard and steadily and passed with high honors. He spent another three years in hospital work, and then purchased a partnership in an excellent West End practice. He is now considered one of the most rising young physicians of the day. His sister keeps house for him in Harley Street; but it is doubtful whether she will long continue to do so. The last time Dick Ruthven was at home on leave he persuaded her that it was her bounden duty to endeavor to make civilian life bearable to him when he should attain captain's rank, and, in accordance with his father's wish, retire from the army, events which are expected to take place in a few months' time. Ruthven often laughs and tells Frank that he is a good soldier spoiled, and that it is a pity a man should settle down as a doctor who had made his way in life "by sheer pluck." [THE END] _ |
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