"I am the Old Ghost of the Shangani Patrol And the last bullet will be mine..."

I found a reference to this battle quite by accident a few years ago. As a South African I find this kind of history fascinating. And the truth is - much like Zimbabwe - South Africa also has great stories like this but time and politics have meant that few know or care much anymore.

The Shangani Patrol was a group of white Rhodesian pioneer police officers killed in battle on the Shangani River in Matabeleland (now in Zimbabwe) in 1893.

During the First Matabele War, a column of soldiers were despatched to attempt the capture of King Lobengula, leader of the Ndebele nation. The column camped on the south bank of the Shangani River about 40 km north-east of the village of Lupane on the evening of 3 December 1893. Late in the afternoon, a dozen men, under the command of Major Allan Wilson, were sent across the river to reconnoitre. Shortly afterwards, Wilson sent a message back to the laager to say that he had found the king, and was requesting reinforcements.

The commander of the column, Major Patrick Forbes, unwilling to set off across the river in the dark, sent 20 more men , intending to send the main body of troops and artillery across the river the following morning. However, on their way to the river the next day, the column was ambushed by Ndebele fighters and delayed. The Shangani Patrol, numbering 34 men, were cut off by a rising river and they faced three Matabele impis alone. None survived.

Then came the development they had all been expecting and dreading. In the half-light they heard the clicking of rifle bolts and from behind a tree stepped a warrior wearing the induna's headring. He fired his rifle. It was the signal for a scattered volley which intensified as more warriors came running through the bush. More here.

There were no survivors, and this is the proud epitaph on their memorial. No one knew of their fate until two months later, when James Dawson, the trader, was led to the spot by a party of natives and found their skeletons. The trees all round were scored by bullet marks. The Matabele spoke of them reverently and had been so impressed by their bravery that they had refrained from mutilating their bodies and had left them where they fell. Dawson dug a large grave and gave them temporary burial close to a tree on which he cut a cross and the words, "To Brave Men". Their bones were later interred at Zimbabwe, since they had all come from Fort Victoria, and in 1904 removed to the Matopos, to the hilltop "consecrated and set apart for ever for those who had deserved well of their country."