From many of the points in the forest held by the Ashantis the sea could be seen, and on the morning of the 2d of October a steamer which had not been there on the previous evening was perceived lying off the town. The Ashantis were soon informed by spies in Elmina and Cape Coast that the ship had brought an English general with about thirty officers. The news that thirty men had come out to help to drive back twenty thousand was received with derision by the Ashantis. “They will do more than you think,” Frank said when Ammon Quatia was scoffing over the new arrival. “You will see a change in the tactics of the whites. Hitherto they have done nothing. They have simply waited. Now you will see they will begin to move. The officers will drill the natives, and even a Fanti, drilled and commanded by white officers, will learn how to fight. You acknowledge that the black troops in red coats can fight. What are these? Some of them are Fantis, some of them are black men from the West Indian Islands, where they are even more peaceful than the Fantis, for they have no enemies. Perhaps alone the Fantis would not fight, but they will have the soldiers and sailors from on board ship with them, and you saw at Elmina how they can fight.”
The ship was the Ambriz, one of the African company's steamers, bringing with it thirty-five officers, of whom ten belonged to the Commissariat and Medical staff. Among the fighting men were Sir Garnet Wolseley, Colonel M'Neil, chief of his staff, Major T. D. Baker, 18th Regiment, Captain Huyshe, Rifle Brigade, Captain Buller, 60th Rifles, all of the staff; Captain Brackenbury, military secretary, and Lieutenant Maurice, R. A., private secretary, Major Home, R. E., Lieutenant Saunders, R. A., and Lieutenant Wilmot, R. A.. Lieutenant Colonel Evelyn Wood, 90th Regiment, and Major B. C. Russell, 13th Hussars, were each to form and command a native regiment, having the remainder of the officers as their assistants.
The Ambriz had left England on the 12th of September, and had touched at Madeira and at the various towns on the coast on her way down, and at the former place had received the news of the disaster to the naval expedition up the Prah.
The English government had been loath to embark upon such an expedition, but a petition which had been sent home by the English and native traders at Sierra Leone and Elmina had shown how great was the peril which threatened the colony, and it had been felt that unless an effort was made the British would be driven altogether from their hold of the coast. When the expedition was at last determined upon, the military authorities were flooded with recommendations and warnings of all kinds from persons who knew the coast. Unfortunately these gentlemen differed so widely from each other, that but little good was gained from their counsels. Some pronounced the climate to be deadly. Others said that it was really not bad. Some warmly advocated a moderate use of spirits. Others declared that stimulants were poison. One advised that all exercise should be taken between five and seven in the morning. Another insisted that on no account should anyone stir out until the sun had been up for an hour, which meant that no one should go out till half past seven. One said take exercise and excite perspiration. Another urged that any bodily exercise should be avoided. One consistent gentleman, after having written some letters to the papers strongly advocating the use of white troops upon the coast instead of West Indian regiments, when written to by Sir Garnet Wolseley for his advice as to articles of outfit, replied that the only article which he could strongly commend would be that each officer should take out his coffin.
Ten days passed after the landing. It was known in the Ashanti camp that the Fanti kings had been ordered to raise contingents, and that a white officer had been alloted to each to assist him in this work. The Ashantis, however, had no fear whatever on this score. The twenty thousand natives who occupied the country south of the Prah had all been driven from their homes by the invaders, and had scattered among the towns and villages on the seacoast, where vast numbers had died from the ravages of smallpox. The kings had little or no authority over them, and it was certain that no native force, capable in any way of competing with the army of the assailants, could be raised.
The small number of men of the 2d West Indian regiment at Elmina had been reinforced by a hundred and twenty Houssas brought down the coast. The Ashanti advanced parties remained close up to Elmina.
On the 13th of October Frank accompanied the Ashanti general to the neighborhood of this town. The Ashanti force here was not a large one, the main body being nearly twenty miles away in the neighborhood of Dunquah, which was held by a small body of Houssas and natives under Captain Gordon. At six in the morning a messenger ran in with the news that two of the English war steamers from Cape Coast were lying off Elmina, and that a number of troops had been landed in boats. The Ashanti general was furious, and poured out threats against his spies in Cape Coast for not having warned him of the movement, but in fact these were not to blame. So quietly had the arrangements been made that, until late in the previous afternoon, no one, with the exception of three or four of the principal officers, knew that an expedition was intended. Even then it was given out that the expedition was going down the coast, and it was not until the ships anchored off Elmina at three in the morning that the officers and troops were aware of their destination. All the West Indian troops at Cape Coast had been taken, Captain Peel of the Simoon landing fifty sailors to hold the fort in case the Ashantis should attack it in their absence. The expedition consisted of the Houssas, two hundred men of the 2d West India regiment, fifty sailors, and two companies of marines and marine artillery, each fifty strong, and a large number of natives carrying a small Armstrong gun, two rocket tubes, rockets, spare ammunition, and hammocks for wounded.
The few Ashantis in the village next to Elmina retired at once when the column was seen marching from the castle. Ammon Quatia had taken up his quarters at the village of Essarman, and now advanced with his troops and took post in the bush behind a small village about three miles from the town. The Houssas were skirmishing in front of the column. These entered the village which had been deserted by the Ashantis, and set it on fire, blowing up several kegs of powder which had been left there in the hurry of the flight. Then as they advanced farther the Ashantis opened fire. To their surprise the British, instead of falling back, opened fire in return, the Houssas, West Indians, and natives discharging their rifles at random in all directions. Captain Freemantle with the sailors, the gun, and rockets made for the upper corner of the wood facing them to their left. Captain Crease with a company of marine artillery took the wood on the right. The Houssas and a company of West Indians moved along the path in the center. The remainder of the force remained with the baggage in reserve. The Ashantis kept up a tremendous fire, but the marines and sailors pushed their way steadily through the wood on either side. Captain Freemantle at length gained a point where his gun and rockets could play on Essarman, which lay in the heart of the wood, and opened fire, but not until he had been struck by a slug which passed through his arm. Colonel M'Neil, who was with the Houssas, also received a severe wound in the arm, and thirty-two marines and Houssas were wounded. The Ashantis were gradually driven out of the village and wood, a great many being killed by the English fire.
Having accomplished this, the British force rested for an hour and then moved on, first setting fire to Essarman, which was a very large village. A great quantity of the Ashanti powder was stored there, and each explosion excited yells of rage among the Ashantis. Their general was especially angry that two large war drums had been lost. So great was the effect produced upon the Ashantis by the tremendous fire which the British had poured into every bush and thicket as they advanced, that their general thought it expedient to draw them off in the direction of his main body instead of further disputing the way.
The English now turned off towards the coast, marching part of the way through open country, part through a bush so dense that it was impossible to make a flank attack upon them here. In such cases as this, when the Ashantis know that an enemy is going to approach through a dense and impassable forest, they cut paths through it parallel to that by which he must advance and at a few yards' distance. Then, lying in ambush there, they suddenly open fire upon him as he comes along. As no idea of the coming of the English had been entertained they passed through the dense thickets in single file unmolested. These native paths are very difficult and unpleasant walking. The natives always walk in single file, and the action of their feet, aided by that of the rain, often wears the paths into a deep V-shaped rut, two feet in depth. Burning two or three villages by the way the column reached the coast at a spot five miles from Elmina, having marched nine miles.
As the Ashantis were known to be in force at the villages of Akimfoo and Ampene, four miles farther, a party was taken on to this point. Akimfoo was occupied without resistance, but the Ashantis fought hard in Ampene, but were driven out of the town into the bush, from which the British force was too small to drive them, and therefore returned to Elmina, having marched twenty-two miles, a prodigious journey in such a climate for heavily armed Europeans. The effect produced among the Ashantis by the day's fighting was immense. All their theories that the white men could not fight in the bush were roughly upset, and they found that his superiority was as great there as it had been in the open. His heavy bullets, even at the distance of some hundred yards, crashed through the brush wood with deadly effect, while the slugs of the Ashantis would not penetrate at a distance much exceeding fifty yards.
Ammon Quatia was profoundly depressed in spirits that evening.
“The white men who come to fight us,” he said, “are not like those who come to trade. Who ever heard of their making long marches? Why, if they go the shortest distances they are carried in hammocks. These men march as well as my warriors. They have guns which shoot ten times as far as ours, and never stop firing. They carry cannon with them, and have things which fly through the air and scream, and set villages on fire and kill men. I have never heard of such things before. What do you call them?”
“They are called rockets,” Frank said.
“What are they made of?”
“They are made of coarse p............