CHAPTER FOUR: GOD BLESS THE KAISER

As I clambered back to terra firma the sight that met my eyes made my blood turn cold. Before me were half-a-dozen armed, mounted Boer militia men, one of whom had a smoking rifle resting across the crupper of his saddle. On the ground in front of the man’s horse, flat on his back, a Khyberi knife in one outstretched hand, one good eye staring sightlessly skyward and with blood seeping from over his heart, lay Khazi. I didn’t need to reach down to feel for a pulse to know that he was dead. Anyway, it was clear from the gestures of the Boers that if I didn’t get my hands in the air quickly I would soon be joining my Afghan in Eternity. As I complied, a kaleidoscope of fifty-plus years of memories and emotions flashed through my mind leaving me numb and with a terrible feeling of irreplaceable loss. How was I going to explain Khazi’s senseless death to his wife, his children and Searcy? That was a question with which my mind couldn’t even start to grapple. But before I had time to give the awful event any further consideration the Boer spoke again.

“Wat de hel doen jy hier?” The roughly asked question dragged me back to the moment. My Afrikaans is pretty well non-existent, but I’d got the drift of his question.

“Do any of you speak English?” I asked slowly and deliberately, as I fought back tears at the loss of my most loyal servant.

“I do,” said a coarse looking cove on the edge of the group. “My Commandant wants to know what you are doing here.”

Clearly, my property speculator alias would be laughable cover, given my previous position up the tree with a pair of binoculars, so – as I desperately tried to push Khazi’s death temporarily to the back of my mind - I decided to take a position nearer (but not too near) to the truth.

“I’m a retired British officer on holiday,” I said, “makin’ my way to Mafekin’ from where – until you shot him – my servant and I were to return to the Cape.”

“That’s as may be,” said the slouch-hatted lout, “but what were you doing up that tree?”

“What any experienced military man would do: takin’ a look before proceedin’.”

“But why would our outpost be of any interest to you?” That was a poser.

“Because…” but I couldn’t think of a watertight reason.

“I will tell you why, meneer, it’s because you are a scout for that party of rebels who are gathered at Pitsani waiting to ride to Johannesburg.”

I couldn’t fault him on his appreciation of the situation; what I had to do was pull off yet another bluff in a long career of bluffing. I failed and, before I knew it, two of the buggers dismounted, my hands were bound behind my back and I was roughly bundled back onto the saddle of my horse. It was clear that the Boer patrol was going to move off and leave Khazi to the vultures. That was something I could not under any circumstances allow.

“Stop!” I ordered in my best parade ground voice. The Boers were so surprised at this sudden show of authority that they did so and, as one, turned in their saddles to face me. “I demand that, before you take me to wherever it is that we are goin’, you bury that man. And if you won’t, let me down and I will.”

“But he’s just a damned nig…” the English speaking Boer started to say. I cut across him.

“As a matter of fact he was a noble Afghan. He was also a very fine man and he deserves a proper burial.” The Boers muttered amongst themselves.

“We can’t.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because we’re not carrying any spades,” which a quick glance at their saddles showed was true.

“In that case, put him over his horse and we will bury him when we get to your camp.” The Boers again muttered gutturally amongst themselves, but eventually they did as I demanded. As I now had the moral upper hand, if not the physical one, I decided to push my luck. “Where are you takin’ me?”

“To watch what happens when you damned British try to impose your will on a free and independent state,” the English-speaking Boer responded.

And that’s exactly what happened. Instead of trekking to Pretoria, which is what I’d expected, the patrol rode to a small tented encampment about half-a-mile to our rear. There they buried Khazi, using the rites of the Dutch Reform Church, which I hoped wouldn’t trouble the soul of the old Mussulman. Call me sentimental, but I slipped the Boer undertaker a sov and told him to see that a proper headstone was erected in due course on which I wanted the following words inscribed:

Here Lies

Muhamad Khazi

1820? – 27th December 1895

A gallant man, loyal friend and trusted retainer

This corner of the African bush

Will be, forever, Afghan

Then a dour looking Boer, who was in charge of the HQ and spoke broken English, demanded my parole. I had little choice but to give it. After that I was treated with courtesy but they kept a constant eye on me.

The next few days, during which I had absolutely nothing to do except mope about the loss of Khazi, dragged by at a snail’s pace. However, on the evening of the 31st, a rider cantered into camp. Of course, at the time, I couldn’t understand much of what was said but what follows is a rough translation based on what I found out later.

“The riders have crossed the border, Commandant Cronjé.”31

“We’ll let them come on to Krugersdorp. Colonel Speedicut,” he said turning to me, “I would like you to come with me so that you can give a full report of our capabilities to your countrymen in the Cape.”

“If I must.”

“You must.”

A short time later we were hunkered down behind a small rise which overlooked the Boers’ ambush positions which I’d previously spotted. There we waited… and waited. I was beginning to think that Jameson had taken a different route when, at noon on New Year’s Day, the fool came galloping into view at the head of his motley crew. The Boers waited until most of his column was in range and then let rip. It was carnage. Jameson’s men and horses were mercilessly felled by controlled and highly accurate rifle fire from the entrenched Boers. But I’ll say this for the medic-turned-rebel leader: he didn’t lose his nerve and skedaddle. Instead, his men dismounted and returned fire. It was only as dusk started to fall that the Doctor ordered his men to fall back.

“He’ll try and outflank us,” said Commandant Cronjé, “and, unless I’m much mistaken, he’ll take a route south-east. It’s the obvious way and he’s no tactician. Anyway, we’ll track him, harry him to keep him going in the right direction and then crush him at Doornkop tomorrow at sunrise.”

My readers won’t be surprised – nor was I at the time - to learn that that is exactly what happened. Unofficially attached as I was to Boer HQ, I had a grandstand view of the whole grisly debacle the following morning. The engagement didn’t last long, for Jameson was outnumbered and outgunned; he lost about thirty men and then hauled up the white flag. But that was not the end of it. I had thought that Cronjé might disarm the raiders and then send them, me included, ignominiously back over the border with our tails between our legs. It’s what I would have done and, if the hacks had been properly briefed, it would have been a humiliating defeat for the British lion - but not one that could have been used as an excuse by Britannia for armed and overwhelming retaliation. But the Boers are not that subtle. Instead, Jameson and his boys were herded off to Pretoria and that night thrown into clink, along with Frank Rhodes and the other leaders of the Johannesburg-based conspirators, the so-called Reform Committee, who’d already been swept up by the Boer authorities. And what about me?

I’ve just stated that the Boers aren’t very subtle but, in my case, they tried (and signally failed) to be Machiavellian. Whilst Jameson, Frank Rhodes & Co went to jail, with the promise of a sentence of death hanging over their heads, I was sent off under a light guard the following day, the 3rd January I think it was, to see Oom Paul at his house in Pretoria. The ghastly old gargoyle was seated in an ancient rocking chair on his stoep as I was led up the steps of his residence.

I’d been expecting to meet a leathery old farmer, instead I found myself looking at the Boer’s answer to Gladstone.32 Bulky, with a white beard that fringed his chins and heavily hooded eyes that looked like those of a large lizard, he was dressed in a silk top hat and a double-breasted frock coat of really quite a decent cut. To my surprise he spoke English, albeit it of the King James Bible variety. I later found out that he had been brought up in the Cape and was a fundamentalist who believed that the earth was flat and had been created in seven days. Barking, of course, but - as a Head of State - he’s not alone in that regard.

“Englishman,” he said, “I am sending thee back to Mafeking, from where thou wilt take a train to Cape Town. Once thou art there, and before thy boat leaves for England – yes, I know all about thy itinerary - thou wilt give Mr Rhodes a first-hand account of what has happened in my country over the past few days. Thou wilt also give him a copy of this,” and he handed me a telegram flimsy. “Read it.” I did so and I couldn’t believe my eyes:

FOR THE PRESIDENT OF TRANSVAAL STOP I EXPRESS TO YOU MY SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS THAT YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE COMMA WITHOUT APPEALING TO THE HELP OF FRIENDLY POWERS COMMA HAVE SUCCEEDED COMMA BY YOUR OWN ENERGETIC ACTION AGAINST THE ARMED BANDS WHICH INVADED YOUR COUNTRY AS DISTURBERS OF THE PEACE COMMA IN RESTORING PEACE AND IN MAINTAINING THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE COUNTRY AGAINST ATTACK FROM WITHOUT STOP WILHELM EMPEROR AND KING

It was from Vicky’s idiot grandson.33 When Kruger saw that I had digested the nonsense, he adopted the air of a toad that has just swallowed a particularly juicy fly. Well, more fool you, was all I could think: I may not be Searcy, but it didn’t take my secretary’s superior brain to work out that the Kaiser had, with a few short sentences, turned a British-backed disaster into a triumph. When it was published – and, thanks to Oom Paul, I was determined that wouldn’t be long delayed – there would be an outcry and all those who should have been calling for Jameson, Rhodes and the rest of them to be sent to St Helena would be hailing them as heroes. And so it turned out - well, or almost. But that was to come.

Once I’d handed back the Kaiser’s missive, Kruger delivered himself of a ranting lecture on the virtues of the flat-earthers and the vices of everyone else and Cecil Rhodes in particular. By the time he’d finished I knew how Vicky felt after her weekly Audience with Gladstone. Anyway, I was handed, as promised, a copy of the Kaiser-gram, given a terse About Turn and dispatched to Mafeking in the care of my Boer escort. The following day, after a hard over-night ride made worse by the fact that the bastards wouldn’t remove my handcuffs, I was unceremoniously deposited at Mafeking.

Now, dear reader, you may be wondering what had happened to young Fahran Khazi; I certainly was, when I wasn’t thinking about his late father that is. Indeed, I was concerned that Fahran had been swept up with the rest of Jameson’s raiders and be languishing in a Pretoria jail. He may, as it later emerged, have cut the wrong bloody telegraph wire but it quickly became clear that he was also resourceful – for there he was, seated on a sack of maize, waiting for me at Mafeking’s railway station as instructed, albeit that I was several days overdue.

“Greetings, Colonel,” he said with a cheery wave of his hand, as my Boer escort un-cuffed me and gave me a none-to-gentle prod with their carbines in the direction of home. I was damned glad to see him, but I was also dreading having to give him the fell news of his father’s demise. “I await you as instructed.”

“Well done, m’boy,” I said. “I want to hear what you’ve been up to since Johannesburg, but first I have some rather bad news for you.” I paused for a moment. “There’s no easy way of tellin’ you this: your father’s dead.” I admit that my delivery was a bit abrupt and I had, indeed, thought to break the news to him gently, but what difference would that have made in the long run?

“Dead, Colonel? How?” I told him.

“So he died defending you?” he said when I’d finished, his upper lip quivering slightly.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Then he died not only as he lived but as he would have wished, Colonel. There is no more to be said.” And, you know, there wasn’t. In one short sentence Fahran Khazi had summed up my relationship with the old Afghan rogue. Anyway, I’m as sure as I can be that he wouldn’t have relished his declining years, for Khazi was a man of action. But before I could say as much, Fahran went on: “And may I, Colonel, be permitted to take his place at your side?”

“I can’t think of a better tribute to his memory than to grant that wish, Fahran.”

“And Atash, too, Colonel? Your safety is too big a job for just one of his son’s to fill my father’s place.”

“I can’t see why not, providin’ you both carry on doin’ your day jobs.”

“Of course, huzoor!”

“Right, Fahran, your first job is to find out the time of the next train to Cape Town and reserve us two First Class seats on it. Whilst you do that, I’ve got some telegrams to send.”

“Consider it already done, huzoor,” he said as he bounded off in the direction of the ticket office.

With Fahran gainfully occupied, I bimbled off to find the Station Master and demanded the use of his telegraph. An hour later Fahran and I were headed south. In the interim, I’d sent a telegram to Rhodes telling him, in brief, what had happened to me, what I’d seen and done (including my meeting with Oom Paul) and, more importantly, the gist of the Kaiser’s ill-judged message to Kruger. If I knew Rhodes, the latter would be all over the Cape Town and London rags by breakfast the following morning. I was certain it would cause more upset tea cups than if the silly Kraut had lobbed a bomb at his granny. I sent much the same message to the GB, who I knew would brief Salisbury. Finally, I sent a short one to Charlotte-Georgina telling her I was on my way back, that I would be in good time for the sailing – and that her maid had lost her husband.

I won’t trouble you with the events that followed my arrival in Cape Town, beyond saying that Rhodes was all frantic activity – protecting his back amongst other things – and Charlotte-Georgina had only one thing in mind (two actually, but we discharged the first that night) which was to get back to Stratton Street. I didn’t need to speak to Miss Prissy about Khazi’s death, as C-G had done that with the aid of a laundry sack full of handkerchiefs (my beloved said that Prissy positively howled for twenty-four hours and still wasn’t full recovered). Nor did I need to speak to Atash about his father, as Fahran had said that I was to leave it to him. However, after he’d received the news, I gave my newly promoted head coachman, who fell to his knees at my approach and swore undying loyalty to me, a reassuring hug after I’d raised him to his feet.

…

We got back to London towards the end of February 1896. The sea journey from Cape Town to London was, unfortunately, completely without an incident worth reporting. C-G’s chum from her previous sojourn in the Cape, the barking-mad Polish Princess Rampunzel,34 was on board and gave me the eye, as did the Assistant Purser, but my beloved wife never let me out of her sight for a moment, so my good behaviour was assured. Unremarkable though the voyage was, I fretted horribly towards the end of it at the prospect of having to give Searcy the awful news of Khazi’s demise. I think that even Charlotte-Georgina, who’d already had to deal with Mrs K’s hysterics, was anxious on that subject as, over the years, her attitude to the old boy had changed from suspicion to respect to affection.

“Where’s Mo, Colonel?” were Searcy’s first words when he met us with the carriage at the London docks.

“It’s a long story, I’m afraid, old fellow. But - in short - I left him six feet under in the Transvaal.” Searcy choked back a sob.

“I feared as much,” he said quietly.

“I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to Stratton Street.” I said, whilst Charlotte-Georgina very uncharacteristically reached forward and gave Searcy’s arm a pat.

An hour later, I sat my faithful secretary down in my study and told him the whole sad story. If ever a man looked woebegone at the end of the most painful interview I’ve ever conducted, it was Searcy. There was a long silence when I’d finished.

“And Mo’s two eldest boys have sworn to look after you in their father’s memory?” I confirmed the fact. “Well, Colonel, that makes what I have to tell you somewhat easier.” I sat bolt upright at what I was sure was going to be further bad news. “Whilst you and Her Ladyship were away, Colonel, I’ve done a lot of thinking. I’m no longer a spring chicken, ’fact none of us are, and - after Miss James, Mrs Searcy as was, died - I rather neglected the business. Well, that’s now all back to rights and young Ivan has shown that he’s more than capable of taking it over from me. So, I’ve got a proposition to put to you, Colonel, and it’s just been made a whole lot easier by your dreadful news.” He paused and seemed reluctant to go on.

“Out with it man,” I cried, “the suspense is killin’ me.”

“With your agreement, Colonel, I’d like to retire - and I’d like Ivan to leave your service with me so that he can concentrate full-time on the catering.”

For some reason the announcement didn’t come as too much of a shock. Khazi’s death had focused my mind on the future staffing of the Stratton Street household, Searcy had to be my age and we all had to hang-up our spurs at some point. But it left me feeling bereft nonetheless - as though Searcy, too, was beneath the sod out there in the African bush.

“I see,” I said thinking furiously. Then, like the approach of a bright new dawn, the solution came to me. “Well, I’ve got a proposition for you.” This time it was Searcy’s turn to sit straighter. “If I agree to let Ivan work full time in the business, would you agree to stay on part-time as my secretary – and, full time, as my friend and councillor?” I thought Searcy was going to bulb at this expression of my true feelings, so I pressed on quickly. “You know, after all these years I really don’t think I can do without your brain or your cheeky smile.” A tear trickled down his lined but still handsome phiz. “In the unlikely and most unwelcome event that I should ever have to stir from this hearth again, I’ll have Atash and Fahran to look after me. In the meantime, I’ve made the one head coachman and the other can be my valet in place of Ivan - and, if the worst comes to the worst, you can watch my back from the safety of Stratton Street. Of course, if you want a place of your own, I’ll set you up in one of those new cottages in Pimlico. What do you say?”

“‘Say’, Colonel?” he asked, as he struggled to keep his emotions under control. “You’ve just offered me the best of both worlds, so the answer of course is ‘yes’. And, with your agreement, I’d like to remain here at Stratton Street, with Ivan, for as long as it suits you.”

“That’s fine with me,” I said, “and, if you put it to Her Ladyship, I’m sure she’ll agree as she won’t want to lose you either. Was there anythin’ else I need to know about, other than that mountain of mail?” I asked pointing at my well-ordered in-tray.

“There was one thing, Colonel. Whilst you were away, Ivan and I had a ride in one of those new petroleum-fuelled horseless carriages. Major St Albion has just imported the first one from Germany, we saw him in it in Piccadilly and he offered us a ride.” Before he could go on I raised my hand.

“The short answer to the question you haven’t yet asked, Searcy, is ‘no’. Major St Albion may want to be at the forefront of transportation technology - he can well afford to indulge such a fancy - but this household will stick to four legs, at least for the time bein’, and if we do decide to get one it won’t be made by the damned Krauts. Anyway, the idea of Atash at the reins of one those noisy and dangerous contraptions don’t bear thinkin’ about.”

“But, Colonel, you need to move with the times…”

“The subject, my dear Searcy, like that of your future, is closed.”

Over the next two or so months I watched with interest and some amusement - but safely from the side lines - the growing pickle that the so-called Jameson Raid was causing for the government. Chamberlain denied all knowledge of the affair and, on every occasion he could, expressed his outrage at it. He also warned Rhodes publicly that the British South Africa Company could lose its charter over the affair. It was almost, but not quite, a case of ‘methinks he doth protest too much’, although not even the Thunderer took that line; quite the contrary in fact. For, as I’d predicted, the intervention of the absurdly moustachioed bratwurst, who squats on the Imperial Meissen potty in Potsdam, triggered an outburst of jingoistic outrage in the sewers of Fleet Street. While Frank Rhodes and the Johannesburg jokers mouldered in a Pretoria prison on a charge of high treason, with a noose dangling over their heads, Jameson and his associates were sent back to London by Oom Paul to face the music. Consequently, ‘dear Doctor Jim’ was very much the man of the moment and fêted all around Town. The announcement by Chamberlain that Jameson and his ‘fellow conspirators’ were to be tried under some arcane and previously unused legislation, called the Foreign Enlistment Act, only heightened their appeal to the hostesses of London, C-G included.

When we weren’t playing host to ‘the Raiders’, as the rags had dubbed them, there was the start of the Season to be enjoyed, invitations to Marlborough House to be (whenever possible) avoided and the planning to be done (by C-G and Searcy) for a short trip in May to Russia for the new Tsar’s Coronation.35 Now you may be wondering why, with Jameson and his chums all the rage, I didn’t allow my own involvement in the fiasco to be known. The fact is that, for all the huzzas and back-slapping of the Doctor and his colleagues in the capital’s clubs and salons, I was fairly sure that - in the long run - the Raid would not be seen as anything other than an appalling cock-up and would be more likely to damage rather than to make reputations. Time would show if I was right but, I thought, whilst it makes up its mind, I decided - with not a little encouragement from Searcy - to keep a low profile on the subject and to keep my thoughts (and my involvement) to myself. I was a bit surprised, therefore, to receive a summons from the GB to hoof around to Whitehall House to ‘discuss the situation in southern Africa’. What the hell did he want, I asked myself?