The Shangani Patrol

by John Wilcox

  ‘I pay you to stay. I give you cattle and little house. Wait here until Fonthill come back.’

  Alice frowned. There was a note of angry anxiety in the king’s tone, and a warning light flashed in her brain. She remembered only too clearly the blood gushing from the thief’s forearm. The jocular, beaming monarch could change into a despot immediately he was crossed. She must be careful.

  ‘Your majesty has sixty-three wives,’ she said slowly, anxious that Mzingeli should translate every nuance. ‘That means that you have much love and care. Because of our custom, my husband only has one wife. He needs me and I must be with him. Now, I do believe that your condition is improving and that your foot will recover if you take the medicine I leave with you and change your diet and drinking habits. The choice is yours.’

  She allowed herself a smile after this homily. ‘We expect to be away only about six months. Then I shall return to see how you have progressed. It will not seem long. But then, of course, I must return with my husband to our own homeland. The king will understand that, I know.’

  But there was no answering smile from Lobengula. ‘You go now,’ he said shortly.

  Bowing, Alice picked up her bag and left.

  Outside, she mopped her brow. ‘I think that the sooner we leave, the better,’ she said to the tracker.

  Mzingeli nodded. ‘King is now . . . what is word . . . depending on you. That is bad. He has everything he want here. Now he want you.’

  ‘Well he can’t bloody well have me.’ She tucked away a stray lock of blond hair. ‘He is a petulant bully. He has to learn that he can’t have everything he wants in this world. Good God - he’s got sixty-three wives already. He mustn’t be too greedy.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Mzingeli, I have never asked you. Do you have a wife or . . . er . . . perhaps more, at home?’

  The tall man shook his head slowly. ‘One wife,’ he said, ‘but she die ten years ago.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry. Children?’

  ‘Two. They die also.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She felt a warm surge of affection for this quiet, resourceful man with whom they had already shared moments of great danger. She touched his arm. ‘I think I know how you must feel.’ They walked in silence for a moment. Then, ‘Come on. If we are leaving tomorrow, we still have much to do.’

  The next morning, the expedition was ready to leave and Fonthill, Alice and Mzingeli called on the king early to bid him goodbye. They found him clothed only in his waist circle of monkey skins, sitting on his cart under the great tree and in a surprisingly avuncular mood. Bowing, Simon asked him if he would accept the wagons and the remaining oxen as a parting present.

  ‘Good,’ said Lobengula. ‘I add to my herd. You come back soon and we drink beer together.’

  ‘How is the foot this morning, your majesty?’ enquired Alice.

  The king gave an airy wave. ‘Ah, foot is nothing. I can live with bad foot.’

  Alice and Simon exchanged glances. ‘Then,’ said Simon, ‘I will bid the king goodbye and thank him for his hospitality and many courtesies.’

  ‘Good travel. Go well. My heart is white for you.’

  The couple nodded their heads low at this traditional, warm farewell and left the king’s dwelling - perhaps for the last time.

  They set out as the sun crested the hill above the kraal, sending their shadows stretching along the ground to their left as they headed to the north-east. Fonthill had decided reluctantly that the rough nature of the terrain ahead precluded the use of horses, and he left them behind in the care of Fairbairn. He and Mzingeli now strode ahead in the lead, followed by Alice and then Jenkins. Behind them came the five mules, heavily laden with their provisions and kept moving by the urgings of Joshua and the four Kaffir boys.

  It was a fine, bright morning, but Fonthill felt no elation. To Mashonaland - but then where? To slavers, swamps and, somewhere, the Portuguese, de Sousa? He gulped, but set his jaw and lengthened his stride.

  Chapter 11

  Initially, Fonthill set off aiming for the range of high hills that sat on the horizon to the north-east of Bulawayo. These formed the watershed for a fistful of rivers flowing north into the Zambezi and also south into the Limpopo, but they looked formidable so he tacked to the north to avoid them and skirted around until on their fifth day they approached a singular mountain called, by some lone Englishman years before, Mount Hampden. Here he set course due east, and then they felt that they were in Mashonaland proper.

  Now the country was indeed magnificent: league after league of rolling plain, a grassy vista dotted with clumps of trees and bush, interspersed with the mighty baobab tree, whose pods, Alice had earlier established in Cape Town, contained liquid that was both thirst-quenching and fever-curing. The visibility was clear and the air was good, despite the heat.

  The little party’s demeanour had changed gradually as the journey had progressed. As Bulawayo, with its potential threat from de Sousa, the king and his impis, dropped well behind them and the country opened out, so their mood lightened. The few Mashonas they met were curious but diffident and clearly offered no threat. Game, if not exactly plentiful, was on offer and they feasted for two days on the meat from two impala that Jenkins shot.

  They did not press hard, for in anticipation of hard times ahead, Fonthill was anxious to preserve their energies. So day followed pleasant day. ‘If Rhodes wants to build his road this way,’ Simon confided to his wife, ‘then I can’t see what there is to stop him. But more to the point, we could farm here, darling,’ he added. ‘Good soil, plenty of water from these little rivers and the grass looks sweet. What do you think?’

  Alice tried to prevent a smile, but her husband’s enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have to agree that it all looks very fine, and the air is good, too. But settlements here would very much depend upon the king, surely. Building a road and making the odd excavation for gold or copper is one thing. Letting in people to farm is very much another.’

  Fonthill reached across and seized his wife’s hand. ‘Oh don’t be such a grouch, darling. Old Lobengula would certainly let you in. One wave of your hypodermic thingummyjig and thousands of acres would be ours. But one thing is certain. There is no one else here farming the land or making the most of it. It’s just lying gloriously fallow.’

  And indeed it was. The local Mashonas lived in small, isolated villages and the few cattle they seemed to possess grazed in enclosed paddocks close to their wickerwork houses. Only wild game roamed the open plateau.

  ‘Lions,’ said Mzingeli quietly. But no one heard him.

  As they pressed on to the east, however, the terrain became less hospitable. The land was now an ochre red, and as they dropped down from the plateau, the going became less hard underfoot. They had to cross more spruits and, importantly, the bush became thicker. For the first time, they decided to set up some form of protection for their camps overnight.

  Mzingeli explained that, in addition to lions, this could be buffalo and elephant country, and showed them how to make a scarum for the camp. This involved cutting large boughs or stakes and driving them into the ground on the windward side to form a semicircle capable of containing the whole party, mules and all. Then small bushes were cut and interwoven into the boughs, making a hedge some nine feet high, capable of withstanding a large shock, on three sides of the encampment. At the open end, wood was stacked and fires lit at night. They all slept out of doors, cutting grass to form a mattress with a blanket laid on top. Saddles or spare clothes were used as pillows.

  Some four weeks after leaving Bulawayo, as they sat near their roaring fire, Fonthill consulted his compass and the map that Fairbairn had provided. ‘I have no scale for this damned thing,’ he confided to Alice, Jenkins and Mzingeli, ‘but I reckon that we have left the Matabele kingdom now and are well out of Mashonaland. We should be somewhere in this area of small tribes and therefore not far from the border with Portuguese East Africa.’

  ‘Strange that we h
ave not seen any natives,’ said Alice.

  ‘They here,’ murmured Mzingeli.

  ‘What?’ Jenkins looked perturbed. ‘I ’aven’t seen a damned thing.’

  ‘No.’ The tracker nodded to the bush pressing in on them all around. ‘They watch us. I see. I think they frightened of us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Perhaps they think we slavers.’

  Fonthill frowned, mindful of Rhodes’s injunction to befriend the tribes. ‘Well I would like to make contact. Can you speak their language, do you think?’

  ‘Not well, but I try if they come.’

  ‘How can we make them come?’

  The tracker shrugged his shoulders. If he had nothing to say, he rarely spoke.

  ‘Right.’ Fonthill stood. ‘We will stay here all tomorrow. Tonight we will put a few of the trade goods just outside the opening. Let’s see if that will induce them to come forward, although . . .’ he looked around and wrinkled his nose, ‘I don’t think this is the best country for laying down a new road, I must say. But perhaps we can discover if the terrain is better elsewhere, if they will talk to us, that is.’

  Before retiring to his blanket, Fonthill hung a few brightly coloured lengths of cotton fabric, two axes and some copper trinkets on the edge of their scarum.

  The night was dark when something woke him. Immediately awake, he reached for his rifle and sat up. The fires at the edge of the scarum were still guttering and the low flame was reflected in the copper amulets hanging from the hedge. So they had not been taken. What, then, had woken him? He narrowed his eyes the better to see through the opening, and as he focused he made out several large grey shapes, as tall, it seemed, as the scarum, moving slowly, ponderously, past the opening.

  ‘Elephant,’ said Mzingeli from his blanket. ‘Stay quiet. They don’t harm us.’

  By the morning, both the elephants and the trinkets had gone.

  ‘Good,’ said Fonthill. ‘Joshua’ - the boy had now picked up a serviceable knowledge of English - ‘put some more of those things outside. Then we must just sit and wait.’

  It was well past midday when Mzingeli nodded. ‘They come now,’ he said. ‘Don’t show rifles. They frightened if you do.’

  Gradually, as they watched, three men emerged from the bush and stood tentatively just beyond the ashes of the fire, at the opening of the scarum. Very slowly, Mzingeli rose and ambled towards them, his arm lifted in greeting. He spoke a few words but there was no reply, so he squatted on the camp side of the ashes and silently regarded the natives. After a while, they lowered themselves to the ground and sat cross-legged.

  ‘Is it goin’ to be a card game, then?’ enquired Jenkins quietly of Fonthill.

  ‘Shush. Let’s leave it to Mzingeli.’

  Simon looked at the natives. They were of far less impressive stature than the Matabeles, and seemed unwarlike, in that they were not painted and carried no weapons. They were naked except for loincloths of some animal skin, and their hair was plastered down with red earth. The middle of the three now spoke hesitantly to Mzingeli. The tracker responded, picking his words as though only partly understanding the language. Then he stood nonchalantly, handed down the trinkets and gave them to the three.

  As a result, the conversation improved considerably, although it was clear that Mzingeli did not speak the language fluently. The tracker stood, walked back into the compound and, turning, beckoned the men to follow him. Reluctantly they did so until they stood facing Fonthill and Jenkins. Simon immediately made a gesture towards the ground and the three, followed by Mzingeli, squatted before him.

  ‘There’s cosy now, isn’t it?’ said the Welshman, grinning.

  Jenkins’s ability, proven in so many different countries and continents, to break through all kinds of linguistic barriers worked again, and his grin was immediately returned by the visitors, who revealed great yellow tombstone-like teeth.

  ‘Who are they?’ enquired Fonthill of Mzingeli. ‘Can you communicate?’

  ‘Yes, but not fluent. They Manica people, ruled by king called Umtasa. Their land goes up to Portuguese land. But Portuguese claim their land too. They heard of English and are glad we not Portuguese.’

  ‘Good. How far away is their king?’

  The tracker directed the question to the man sitting in the middle of the trio, who seemed to be senior. He had taken the gifts to himself and now sat with the cloth draped over his shoulders and the copper artefacts hanging around his neck. He replied at some length.

  ‘He say that Umtasa is at kraal, say a day’s march to east. He can take us to his village nearby and then come with us to Umtasa.’

  ‘Good. Thank you, Mzingeli. Have Joshua offer them some food and we will make ready to go. I think we will leave Joshua, Alice and the boys here - they should be all right within the scarum - and the three of us will go to the king’s kraal. It will be quicker that way.’

  ‘Thank you very much, but I am not going to be left behind.’ Alice had quietly approached. ‘Simon, will you stop treating me as some kind of fragile supernumerary who is to be perpetually excluded from the more exciting parts of this expedition. Really, I am tired of it, my dear.’

  Fonthill sighed. ‘Very well, Alice. We will leave Joshua in charge. We will be away overnight so we must go prepared. Quickly now. I would like to be there by nightfall.’

  As soon as the visitors had eaten their rice and biltong, the party moved off, taking one mule, laden with presents, food and their bedding, with them. The bush was now very thick and the going soft underfoot, deteriorating now and then to semi-swamp. Mosquitoes were accompanying them step by sodden step, and Alice was glad that she had brought quinine with her. To them all the unspoken thought occurred: this is no place for road-building.

  They reached the village after a four-hour trudge. It was a poor affair, just a few huts set in a small clearing by a stream, but so hidden by thorn bushes and low trees that even invaders knowing the territory would have difficulty in finding it. It was clear that the man leading the trio was the local headman, and Fonthill prevailed upon him that they should not pause at the village but press on towards the king’s kraal. He was retrospectively anxious that their scarum, containing most of their possessions, had been left so lightly defended, and wished to return to it as soon as possible.

  They passed several other villages on the way to the Manican capital. The people were shy but friendly, not at all militant and more pastoral than the Matabele. They possessed few cattle - indeed the land did not encourage grazing - but they grew maize and grain where they could. It was clear that if they decided to come this way, Rhodes’s engineers would have no trouble with the natives. The terrain and climate, however, could be another matter. It was hot, and the dreaded tsetse flies seemed to be as numerous as the mosquitoes. Fonthill kept a concerned eye on the mule, but, having been treated with salt, it seemed to be impervious to the insects.

  It was nearly nightfall before they came to King Umtasa’s kraal. It was set in clear land on a slight rise that took it away from the swamp and the worst of the mosquitoes and tsetses. It was not as large as Bulawayo, but was similar in shape and style, with thorn bushes providing a series of enclosures that led to the king’s own house, a circular construction of wickerwork and red clay only slightly larger than those that surrounded it. The usual chorus of barking dogs and excited children ushered them into the heart of the town. Unlike in Bulawayo, however, the adult Manicans hung back.

  The headman prostrated himself before a large man who appeared from the house, and taking their cue, Simon and his entourage bowed their heads before the king. The man was dressed inconspicuously in a loincloth of some animal skin and little else, except for a necklace of animal’s teeth - lion’s? - around his throat. His skin was very, very black and glistened in the reflection of the flames that danced from several fires lit outside the entrance to his house. Unusually, he affected a short white beard that contrasted strangely with the tight black curls of his hair. His f
rown on first seeing the Europeans disappeared as the headman, still prostrate, spoke.

  ‘He say we not Portuguese,’ murmured Mzingeli. ‘That good.’

  The king grunted to the headman, who rose to his feet, and raised his forearm, the palm of his hand facing Fonthill, in greeting.

  ‘Please tell him,’ said Simon, ‘that we bring greetings from the Queen of England and from her representative in Africa, Mr Cecil Rhodes.’

  ‘Huh,’ grunted Alice. ‘That’s a bit much.’

  Ignoring her, Fonthill continued. ‘We come to offer a treaty of friendship between the British and the Manican people. We would like to present some small gifts as a token of our goodwill. Jenkins, please . . .’

  The Welshman turned back to the mule, whose load he had begun unfastening on their way through the township. From the packs he produced lengths of cloth, several knives and axes, more of the copper decorations, two small hand mirrors, and - to gasps from the spectators who had now gathered near - two Snider rifles. He laid the gifts at the king’s feet, gave a cheery nod and said, ‘Merry Christmas, your worship.’