By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War, G. A. Henty [100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

“Could we not make some too?” the Ashanti general asked.

“No,” Frank replied. “At least, not without a knowledge of the things you should mix with the powder, and of that I am ignorant. Besides, the rockets require great skill in firing, otherwise they will sometimes come back and kill the men who fire them.”

“Why did you not tell me that the white men could fight in the bush?”

“I told you that there would be a change when the new general came, and that they would not any longer remain in their forts, but would come out and attack you.”

A few days after this fight the Ashantis broke up their camp at Mampon, twelve miles from Elmina, and moved eastward to join the body who were encamped in the forest near Dunquah.

“I am going,” Ammon Quatia said to Frank, “to eat up Dunquah and Abra Crampa. We shall do better this time. We know what the English guns can do and shall not be surprised.”

With ten thousand men Ammon Quatia halted at the little village of Asianchi, where there was a large clearing, which was speedily covered with the little leafy bowers which the Ashantis run up at each halting place.

Two days later Sir Garnet Wolseley with a strong force marched out from Cape Coast to Abra Crampa, halting on the way for a night at Assaiboo, ten miles from the town. On the same day the general sent orders to Colonel Festing of the Marine Artillery, who commanded at Dunquah, to make a reconnaissance into the forest from that place. In accordance with this order Colonel Festing marched out with a gun and rocket apparatus under Captain Rait, the Annamaboe contingent of a hundred and twenty men under their king, directed by Captain Godwin, four hundred other Fantis under Captain Broomhead, and a hundred men of the 2d West India regiment. After a three mile march in perfect silence they came upon an Ashanti cutting wood, and compelled him to act as guide. The path divided into three, and the Annamaboes, who led the advance, when within a few yards of the camp, gave a sudden cheer and rushed in.

The Ashantis, panic stricken at the sudden attack, fled instantly from the camp into the bush. Sudden as was the scare Frank's guards did not forget their duty, but seizing him dragged him off with them in their flight, by the side of Ammon Quatia. The latter ordered the war drums to begin to beat, and Frank was surprised at the quickness with which the Ashantis recovered from their panic. In five minutes a tremendous fire was opened from the whole circle of bush upon the camp. This stood on rising ground, and the British force returned the fire with great rapidity and effect. The Annamaboe men stood their ground gallantly, and the West Indians fought with great coolness, keeping up a constant and heavy fire with their Sniders. The Houssas, who had been trained as artillerymen, worked their gun and rocket tube with great energy, yelling and whooping as each round of grape or canister was fired into the bush, or each rocket whizzed out.

Notwithstanding the heavy loss which they were suffering, the Ashantis stood their ground most bravely. Their wild yells and the beating of their drums never ceased, and only rose the louder as each volley of grape was poured into them. They did not, however, advance beyond the shelter of their bush, and, as the British were not strong enough to attack them there, the duel of artillery and musketry was continued without cessation for an hour and a half, and then Colonel Festing fell back unmolested to Dunquah.

The Ashantis were delighted at the result of the fighting, heavy as their loss had been. They had held their ground, and the British had not ventured to attack them in the bush.

“You see,” Ammon Quatia said exultingly to Frank, “what I told you was true. The white men cannot fight us in the bush. At Essarman the wood was thin and gave but a poor cover. Here, you see, they dared not follow us.”

On the British side five officers and the King of Annamaboe were wounded, and fifty-two of the men. None were killed, the distance from the bush to the ground held by the English being too far for the Ashanti slugs to inflict mortal wounds.

Ammon Quatia now began to meditate falling back upon the Prah—the sick and wounded were already sent back—but he determined before retiring to attack Abra Crampa, whose king had sided with us, and where an English garrison had been posted.

On the 2d of November, however, Colonel Festing again marched out from Dunquah with a hundred men of the 2d West India regiment, nine hundred native allies, and some Houssas with rockets, under Lieutenant Wilmot, towards the Ashanti camp. This time Ammon Quatia was not taken by surprise. His scouts informed him of the approach of the column, and moving out to meet them, he attacked them in the bush before they reached the camp. Crouching among the trees the Ashantis opened a tremendous fire. All the native allies, with the exception of a hundred, bolted at once, but the remainder, with the Houssas and West Indians, behaved with great steadiness and gallantry, and for two hours kept up a heavy Snider fire upon their invisible foes.

Early in the fight Lieutenant Wilmot, while directing the rocket tube, received a severe wound in the shoulder. He, however, continued at his work till, just as the fight was ended, he was shot through the heart with a bullet. Four officers were wounded as were thirteen men of the 2d West India regiment. One of the natives was killed, fifty severely wounded, and a great many slightly. After two hours' fighting Colonel Festing found the Ashantis were working round to cut off his retreat, and therefore fell back again on Dunquah. The conduct of the native levies here and in two or three smaller reconnaisances was so bad that it was found that no further dependence could be placed upon them, and, with the exception of the two partly disciplined regiments under Colonel Wood and Major Russell, they were in future treated as merely fit to act as carriers for the provisions.

Although the second reconnaissance from Dunquah had, like the first, been unsuccessful, its effect upon the Ashantis was very great. They had themselves suffered great loss, while they could not see that any of their enemies had been killed, for Lieutenant Wilmot's body had been carried off. The rockets especially appalled them, one rocket having killed six, four of whom were chiefs who were talking together. It was true that the English had not succeeded in forcing their way through the bush, but if every time they came out they were to kill large numbers without suffering any loss themselves, they must clearly in the long run be victorious.

What the Ashantis did not see, and what Frank carefully abstained from hinting to Ammon Quatia, was that if, instead of stopping and firing at a distance beyond that which at their slugs were effective, they were to charge down upon the English and fire their pieces when they reached within a few yards of them, they would overpower them at once by their enormous superiority of numbers. At ten paces distant a volley of slugs is as effective as a Snider bullet, and the whole of the native troops would have bolted the instant such a charge was made. In the open such tactics might not be possible, as the Sniders could be discharged twenty times before the English