Stop that monkey chatter at once," Koots shouted. He could not understand the words but he recognized the mockery in the tone, and knew that Xhia had farted only to provoke him. "Shut your filthy mouth, and answer me straight."
must shut my mouth but answer your questions, great master?" Xhia switched into the patois of the colony, a mixture of all the languages.
"Am I then a magician?" Over the months of their enforced companionship they had learned to understand each other much better than they had at the beginning, both in words and in intent.
Koots touched the hilt of the long hippopotamus-hide sjambok that hung by its thong from the pommel of his saddle. This was another gesture well understood by them both. Xhia changed his tone and expression again, and danced just beyond the reach of the whip. "Lord, this a gift from the Kulu Kulu. Tonight we will sleep with full bellies."
"Birds?" Koots asked, and watched the shadow of this cloud sweep across the plain towards them. He had been amazed by the flocks of the tiny que lea bird, but this was far greater in height and extent.
"Not birds," Xhia told him. "These are locusts."
Koots forgot his anger, and leaned back in the saddle to take in the size of the approaching swarm. It filled half of the bowl of the sky from horizon to horizon. The sound of wings was like that of a gentle breeze in the high branches of the forest, but it mounted swiftly, becoming next a murmur, a rising roar and then a thunder. The great swarm of insects formed a moving curtain whose trailing skirts swept the earth. Koots's fascination turned to alarm as the first insects, buzzing low to earth, slammed into his chest and face. He ducked and cried out, for the locust's hind legs are barbed with sharp red spikes. One left a bloody welt across his cheek. His horse reared and plunged under him, and Koots threw himself from the saddle and seized the reins. He turned the horse's rump towards the approaching swarm, and shouted to his men to do the same. "Hold the pack-horses and knee-halter the spares, lest they are driven away before this pestilence."
They forced the animals to their knees, then shouted and jerked the reins until reluctantly they rolled flat on their sides and stretched out in the grass. Koots cowered behind the body of his own horse. He pulled his hat well down over his ears, and turned up the collar of his leather coat. Despite the partial protection afforded by the horse, the flying creatures slapped against any exposed parts of his body in a continuous hailstorm, each with the strength to sting painfully through the folds of his coat.
The rest of the band followed his example and lay behind their mounts, taking cover as though from enemy musket balls. Only Xhia seemed oblivious to the rain of hard bodies. He sat out in the open, snatching up the locusts that hit him and were stunned by the impact. He broke off their legs and goggle-eyed heads and stuffed the bodies into his mouth. The carapaces crunched as he chewed and the tobacco coloured juices ran down his chin. "Eat!" he called to them as he chewed. "After the locust comes famine."
From noon to sundown the locust swarm roared over them like the waters of a great river in flood. The sky was darkened by them so that the dusk came on them prematurely. Xhia's appetite seemed insatiable. He gobbled down the living bodies until his belly bulged, and Koots thought he must succumb to his own greed. However, Xhia was possessed of the same digestive tract as a wild animal. When his belly was stretched tight and shiny as a ball he staggered to his feet and tottered away a few paces. Then, still in full sight of Koots and with the breeze blowing directly to where Koots lay, Xhia lifted the tail flap of his loincloth and squatted again.
It seemed this abundance of food served only to lubricate the action of his bowels. He defecated copiously and thunderously, and at the same time picked up more of the fluttering insects and stuffed them into his mouth.
"You disgusting animal," Koots shouted at him, and drew his pistol, but Xhia knew that even if Koots thrashed him regularly, he could not kill him, not thousands of leagues from the colony and civilization.
"Good!" He grinned at Koots, and made the gesture of inviting him to join the feast.
Koots bolstered his weapon and buried his nose in the crook of his arm. "When he has served his purpose I will strangle the little ape with my own hands," Koots promised himself, and gagged on the odours that wafted over him.
As darkness fell, the mighty locust swarm sank down out of the air and settled to roost wherever it came to earth. The deafening buzzing of their wings faded, and Koots rose to his feet at last and stared about.
For as far as he could see in every direction the earth was covered waist deep with a living carpet of bodies, reddish brown in the light of the sunset. The trees of the forest had changed shape as the swarms settled upon them. They were transformed into amorphous haystacks of living locusts, seething and growing larger as more insects settled upon those already at roost. With a crackle like volleys of musketry the main branches of the nearest trees gave way under the weight and came crashing down to earth, but still the locusts piled on to them and devoured the leaves.
From their burrows and lairs the carnivores emerged to feast upon this bounty. Koots watched in wonder as hyena, jackal and leopard became bold with greed and rushed upon the mounds of insects, gobbling them down.
bven a pride of eleven lions joined the banquet. They passed close to where Koots stood, but took not the slightest notice of the men or the horses, for they were preoccupied with the feast. Like grazing cattle they
spread out across the plain, their noses to the earth, devouring the seething heaps of locusts, champing them between their great jaws. The lion cubs, their bellies stuffed full, stood up on their back legs and playfully batted the flying creatures out of the air as they were disturbed into flight again.
Koots's troopers swept a clear patch of earth, and built a fire on it. They used the blades of their spades as frying pans, and on these they roasted the locusts crisp and brown. Then they crunched them up with a relish almost as keen as Xhia's. Even Koots joined in and made a meal of these tit bits When night fell the men tried to compose themselves to rest, but the insects swarmed over them. They crawled into their faces, and their spiked feet rasped and scratched any exposed part of their skin and kept them from sleep.
The next morning when the sun rose it revealed a strange antediluvian landscape of dull featureless red-brown. Swiftly the sun warmed the motionless masses of locusts that had been chilled into a stupor during the night. They began to stir, to undulate and hum like a disturbed hive. Suddenly, as if at a signal, the entire horde rose into the air and roared away towards the east, borne on the morning breeze. For many hours the dark torrents streamed overhead, but as the sun reached its zenith the last had passed on. Once more the sky was brilliant blue and unsullied.
Yet the landscape they left behind was altered out of all recognition. It was bare earth and rock. The trees were denuded of their foliage, the bare branches snapped off to lie tangled below the stark boles and twisted trunks. It was as though a conflagration had consumed every leaf and green sprig. The golden grasses that had undulated in the breeze like the scend of the ocean were gone. In their place was this stony desolation.
The horses snuffled the bare earth and pebbles, then stood disconsolately, their empty bellies already rumbling with gases. Koots climbed to the top of the nearest bare hillock and played his telescope over the stony desert. The herds of antelope and quagga that had infested the land the previous day were gone. In the distance Koots made out a pale mist of drifting dust that might have been raised by the exodus of the last herds from this starvation veld. They were moving southwards to search for other grasslands that had not been devastated by the locusts.
He went back down the hill and his men, who had been arguing animatedly, fell silent as he walked into the camp. Koots studied their faces as he filled his mug with coffee from the black kettle. The last grain of sugar had been used up weeks before. He sipped from the mug,
then snapped, "Ja, Oudeman? What is it that is worrying you? You have the same pained expression as
an old woman with bleeding piles."
There is no grazing for the horses," Oudeman blurted.
Koots made a show of amazement at this revelation. "Sergeant Oudeman, I am grateful to you for pointing this out to me. Without your sharp sense of perception I might have overlooked it."
Oudeman scowled at the laboured sarcasm. He was not sufficiently glib or well enough educated to match Koots in wordplay. "Xhia says that the herds of wild game will know which way to go to find grazing. If we follow them they will lead us to it."
"Please go on, Sergeant. I never tire of gleaning these jewels of your wisdom."
"Xhia says that since last night the game herds have started moving southwards."
"Yes." Koots nodded, and blew noisily into the mug of hot coffee. "Xhia is right. I saw that from the hilltop up there." He pointed with the mug.
"We must go southwards to find grazing for the horses," Oudeman went on stubbornly.
"One question, Sergeant. Which way are the tracks of Jim Courtney's wagon heading?" Using the mug again, he pointed out the deep ruts, which were even more obvious now that the grass no longer screened them.
Oudeman lifted his hat and scratched his bald pate. "North-east," he grunted.
"So, if we go southwards will we catch up with Courtney?" Koots asked, in a kindly tone.
"No, but..." Oudeman's voice trailed off.
"But what?"
"Captain, sir, without the horses we will never get back to the colony."
Koots stood up and flicked the coffee grounds out of his mug. "The reason we are here, Oudeman, is to catch Jim Courtney, not to return to the colony. Mount!" He looked at Xhia. "Good, so! You, yellow baboon, take the spoor again and eat the wind."
There was water in the streams and the rivers they crossed, but no grass on the veld. They rode for fifty and then a hundred leagues without nnding grazing. In the larger rivers they found aquatic weeds and lily stems beneath the surface of the water. They waded out to harvest them with their bayonets, and fed them to the horses. In one steep, narrow valley the sweet-thorn trees had not been entirely stripped of their oliage. They climbed into the trees and cut down the branches that the
locusts had not torn down with their weight. The horses ate the green leaves hungrily, but this was not their normal diet and they derived only small benefit from it.
By now the animals were showing all the signs of slow starvation, but Koots never wavered in his determination. He led them on across the desolation. The horses were so weakened that the riders were forced to dismount and lead them up any sharp incline to husband their strength.
The men were hungry too. The game had disappeared along with the grass. The once teeming veld was deserted. They ate the last few handfuls in the leather grain sacks, and then were reduced to any windfall that the ruined veld might provide.
With his slingshot Xhia knocked down the prehistoric blue-headed lizards that lived among the rocks, and they dug up the burrows of moles and spring-rats that were surviving on subterranean roots. They roasted them without skinning or cleaning the carcasses. This would have wasted precious nourishment. They simply threw them whole upon the coals, let the fur frizzle off, the skin blacken and burst open. Then they picked the half-cooked flesh off the tiny bones with their fingers. Xhia chewed the discarded bones like a hyena.
He discovered a treasure in an abandoned ostrich nest. There were seven ivory-coloured eggs in the rude scrape in the ground. Each egg was almost the size of his own head. He capered around the nest, screeching with excitement. "This is another gift that clever Xhia brings to you. The ostrich, which is my totem, has left this for me." He changed his totem with as little compunction as he would take a new woman. "Without Xhia you would have perished long ago."
He selected one of the ostrich eggs, set it on end in the sand, then looped his bowstring around the shaft of an arrow. He placed the point of the arrow on the top of the shell. By sawing the bow rapidly back and forth he spun the arrow. The point drilled neatly through the thick shell. As it broke through there was a sharp hiss of escaping gas and a yellow fountain erupted high in the air, like champagne from a bottle that had been shaken violently. Xhia clapped his open mouth over the hole and sucked out the contents of the egg.
The men around him leaped backwards, exclaiming with alarm and disgust as a sulphurous stench engulfed them.
"Mother of a mad dog!" Koots swore. "The thing is rotten."
Xhia rolled his eyes with relish, but did not remove his mouth from the hole, lest the rest of the yellow liquid spray out on to the dry earth and be lost. He gulped it down greedily.
"Those eggs have lain there since the last breeding season six
months in the hot sun. They are so badly addled that they would poison a dog hyena." Oudeman choked and turned away.
Xhia sat beside the nest and drank two of the eggs without pause, except to belch or chuckle with pleasure. Then he packed those that remained into his leather bag. He slung it over his shoulder and set off again along the wheel ruts of Jim Courtney's wagon train.
The men and horses grew daily weaker and more emaciated. Only Xhia was plump and his skin shone with health and vigour. The addled ostrich eggs, the castings of owls, the dung of lions and jackals, bitter roots and herbs, the maggots of blow-flies, the larvae of wasps and hornets food that only he could stomach sustained him.
Wearily the band climbed another denuded hillside and came upon yet another of Jim Courtney's camps. This one was different from the hundreds they had found before. The wagon train had paused here long enough to build grass huts and set up long smoking racks of raw timber over beds of what was by now cold black ash, most of it scattered on the wind.
"Here Somoya killed his first elephant," Xhia announced, after only a cursory examination of the abandoned campsite.
"How do you know that?" Koots demanded, as he dismounted stiffly. He stood with clenched fists pressed into his aching back, and gazed around him.
"I know it because I am clever and you are stupid," Xhia said, in the language of his people.
"None of that monkey talk," Koots snarled at him. But he was too tired to cuff him. "Answer me straight!"
"They have smoked a mountain of meat on these racks, and these are the knucklebones of the elephant from which they have made a stew." He picked a bone out of the grass. A few shreds of sinew adhered to it and Xhia gnawed at them before he went on: "I will find the rest of the carcass nearby."
He disappeared like a tiny puff of yellow smoke, a way he had that never failed to take Koots by surprise. One moment he was standing in plain sight, the next he was gone. Koots sank down in the meagre shade or a bare tree. He did not have long to wait. Xhia appeared again, as suddenly as he had vanished, with the huge white thigh bone of a bull elephant.
A great elephant!" he confirmed. "Somoya has become a mighty hunter, as his father was before him. He has cut the tusks from the skull. % the holes in the jawbone I can tell that each tusk was as long as two men, one standing on the shoulders of the other. They were as thick around as my chest." He puffed it out to illustrate.
Koots had little interest in the subject, and jerked his head to indicate the abandoned huts. "How long did Somoya camp here?"
Xhia glanced at the depth of the ash in the pits, at the midden heaps and the worn footpaths between the huts, and showed the fingers of both hands twice. "Twenty days."
"Then we have gained that much upon them," Koots said, with grim satisfaction. "Find something for us to eat before we go on."
Under Xhia's direction the troopers dug up a spring-hare and a dozen blind golden moles. A pair of white-collared crows was attracted by this activity, and Oudeman brought them down with a single musket shot. The moles tasted like chicken but the flesh of the crows was disgusting, tainted with the carrion of their diet. Only Xhia ate it with relish.
They were sick with weariness, and saddle sore, and after they had eaten the scraps of flesh they rolled into their blankets just as the sun
was setting. Xhia woke them with squeals of excitement, and Koots staggered to his feet with his pistol in one hand, drawn sword in the other. "To arms! On me!" he shouted, before he was fully awake. "Fix your bayonets!"
Then he stopped short and gazed into the eastern sky. It was alight with a weird glow. The Hottentots whimpered with superstitious awe and cowered in their kaross blankets. "It is a warning," they told each other, but softly so that Koots could not hear them. "It is a warning that we should turn back to the colony, and abandon this mad chase."
Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon Page 50
