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The Kia

Pioneer Days

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Rhodesia's First Victoria Cross

The first VC ever awarded went to Herbert Stephen Henderson who can ably tell the story in his own words (1968: 44-46), starting with their advance from Queen's Mine on March 30: “A man, Celliers and I were instructed to be the advance guard and we started off two abreast... Our horses heads were almost abreast of the sweet root [imfe, noticed on the road earlier], when we were greeted by a volley from the right flank. Our horses bolted and we had to go through a line of fire for about 100 yards [90m]... A bullet flicked my hat but I was not hit. When I got up to Celliers he said 'I am wounded'. I said, 'Nonsense man'. I thought he had got just as big a fright as I had. I said: 'Let's get back to the Column,' and then I added: 'Your horse is wounded'. He said, 'I am wounded too,' and he pushed his finger into the hole in his knee.

I took him to a clump of bushes and got him off his horse. As soon as I got him off his horse it dropped dead. The horse had been shot in five places... Celliers wanted me to kill my dog as he thought it might lead the Natives to us. I took out my knife but could not do it. In order to make him less conspicuous I rubbed him over with wet red soil and all the way on our trip into Bulawayo, when close to kraals held the dog's mouth shut so he could not bark...

There were Natives all round us and in the bush. We had to get back over 30 miles [48km] into Bulawayo... I managed to get Celliers on my horse. He was a tall man, about 6ft. 2in. and it was a bit of a job as his knee was very painful and stiff... [The next day] Celiiers refused to get on [the horse] again and begged me to leave him and fetch assistance. I had no intention of leaving him and I forced him to come... We reached Bulawayo about 9a.m. on the Wednesday morning. I took Celliers to the hospital and then I went down to my quarters. Mr. Walker, a son of Johnnie Walker, of whiskey fame, was in my rooms and he said: 'What are you doing here, you are supposed to be dead'. He gave me a whiskey and said he would get me some breakfast...

Poor Celliers lived for six weeks but he would not let the doctors amputate his leg and it finally poisoned him and he died, much to my regret” Selous (1896: 108) wrote that this deed “appears to me as brave a deed as has yet been chronicled in the annals of Rhodesia... [there is] at least one man who has shown himself capable of a self-sacrificing and generous act”.

Henderson died in Bulawayo on August 10, 1942 having lived in his adopted country for many years and enjoyed a varied career as a miner, rancher and qualified engineer. During WWII he donated the entire output of his Price Olaf Mine to the government and throughout his life made many donations and contributed to the development of the south-western districts of Matabeleland. (As an aside, his sons, Alan and Ian, later paid for the publication of the first volume of The Pioneer journal and later contributed hugely to the republication of out-of-print classics by Books of Rhodesia in the 1960s and 1970s, most notably in the 60-volume Gold and Silver Series).

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