Jock of the Bushveld

by Percy Fitzpatrick

  He was buried under a big fig-tree where another and more honoured grave was made later on.

  Jim sat by himself the whole evening and never spoke a word.

  The Last Trek

  It was Pettigrew’s Road that brought home to me, and to others, the wisdom of the old transport-riders’ maxim: ‘Take no risks.’ We all knew that there were ‘fly’ belts on the old main road but we rushed these at night, for we knew enough of the tsetse fly to avoid it; however, the discovery of the new road to Barberton, a short cut with plenty of water and grass, which offered the chance of working an extra trip into the short Delagoa season, tempted me, among others, to take a risk. We had seen no ‘fly’ when riding through to spy out the land, and again on the trip down with empty waggons all had seemed to be well; but I had good reason afterwards to recall that hurried trip down and the night spent at Low’s Creek.

  It was a lovely moonlight night, cool and still, and the grass was splendid; after many weeks of poor feeding and drought the cattle revelled in the land of plenty. We had timed our treks so as to get through the suspected parts of the road at night, believing that the fly did not trouble after dark, and thus we were that night outspanned in the worst spot of all – a tropical garden of clear streams, tree ferns, foliage plants, mosses, maidenhair and sweet grass! I moved among the cattle myself, watching them feed greedily and waiting to see them satisfied before inspanning again to trek through the night to some higher and more open ground.

  I noticed then that their tails were rather busy. At first it seemed the usual accompaniment of a good feed, an expression of satisfaction; after a while, however, the swishing became too vigorous for this, and when heads began to swing round and legs were also made use of, it seemed clear that something was worrying them. The older hands were so positive that at night cattle were safe from fly that it did not even then occur to me to suspect anything seriously wrong. Weeks passed by, and although the cattle became poorer, it was reasonable enough to put it down to the exceptional drought.

  It was late in the season when we loaded up for the last time in Delagoa and ploughed our way through the Matolo swamp and the heavy sands at Pessene; but late as it was, there was no sign of rain, and the rain that we usually wanted to avoid would have been very welcome then. The roads were all blistering stones or powdery dust, and it was cruel work for man and beast. The heat was intense, and there was no breeze; the dust moved along slowly apace with us in a dense cloud – men, waggons and animals, all toned to the same hue; and the poor oxen toiling slowly along drew in the finely powdered stuff at every breath. At the outspan they stood about exhausted and panting, with rings and lines of brown marking where the moisture from nostrils, eyes and mouths had caught the dust and turned it into mud. At Matolo Poort, where the Lebombo Range runs low, where the polished black rocks shine like anvils, where the stones and baked earth scorched the feet of man and beast to aching, the world was like an oven; the heat came from above, below, around – a thousand glistening surfaces flashing back with intensity the sun’s fierce rays. And there, at Matolo Poort, the big pool had given out!

  Our standby was gone! There, in the deep cleft in the rocks where the feeding spring, cool and distant, had trickled down a smooth black rock beneath another overhanging slab, and where ferns and mosses had clustered in one little spot in all the miles of blistering rocks, there was nothing left but mud and slime. The water was as green and thick as pea soup; filth of all kinds lay in it and on it; half a dozen rotting carcasses stuck in the mud round the one small wet spot where the pool had been – just where they fell and died; the coat had dropped away from some, and mats of hair, black, brown and white, helped to thicken the green water. But we drank it. Sinking a handkerchief where the water looked thinnest and making a little well into which the moisture slowly filtered, we drank it greedily.

  The next water on the road was Komati River, but the cattle were too weak to reach it in one trek. Remembering another pool off the road – a small lagoon found by accident when out hunting a year before – we moved on that night out on to the flats and made through the bush for several miles to look for water and grass.

  We found the place just after dawn. There was a string of half a dozen pools ringed with yellow plumed reeds – like a bracelet of sapphires set in gold – deep, deep pools of beautiful water in the midst of acres and acres of rich buffalo grass. It was too incredibly good!

  I was trekking alone that trip, the only white man there and – tired out by the all night’s work, the long ride and the searching in the bush for the lagoon – I had gone to sleep after seeing the cattle to the water and grass. Before midday I was back among them again; some odd movements struck a chord of memory and the night at Low’s Creek flashed back. Tails were swishing freely, and the bullock nearest me kicked up sharply at its side and swung its head round to brush something away. I moved closer up to see what was causing the trouble: in a few minutes I heard a thin sing of wings, different from a mosquito’s, and there settled on my shirt a grey fly, very like and not much larger than a common housefly, whose wings folded over like a pair of scissors. That was the ‘mark of the beast’. I knew then why this oasis had been left by transport-rider and trekker, as nature made it, untrodden and untouched.

  Not a moment was lost in getting away from the ‘fly’. But the mischief was already done; the cattle must have been bitten at Low’s Creek weeks before and again that morning during the time I slept; and it was clear that, not drought and poverty, but ‘fly’ was the cause of their weakness. After the first rains they would begin to die and the right thing to do now was to press on as fast as possible and deliver the loads. Barberton was booming and short of supplies and the rates were the highest ever paid; but I had done better still, having bought my own goods, and the certain profit looked a fortune to me. Even if all the cattle became unfit for use or died, the loads would pay for everything and the right course therefore was to press on; for delay would mean losing both cattle and loads – all I had in the world – and starting again penniless with the years of hard work thrown away.

  So the last hard struggle began. And it was work and puzzle day and night, without peace or rest; trying to nurse the cattle in their daily failing strength, and yet to push them for all they could do; watching the sky cloud over every afternoon, promising rain that never came, and not knowing whether to call it promise or threat; for although rain would bring grass and water to save the cattle, it also meant death to the fly-bitten.

  We crossed the Komati with three spans – forty-four oxen – to a waggon, for the drift was deep in two places and the weakened cattle could not keep their feet. It was a hard day, and by nightfall it was easy to pick out the oxen who would not last out a week. That night Zole lay down and did not get up again – Zole, the little fat schoolboy, always out of breath, always good-tempered and quiet, as tame as a pet dog.

  He was only the first to go; day by day others followed. Some were only cattle: others were old friends and comrades on many a trek. The two big after-oxen, Achmoed and Bakir, went down early; the Komati Drift had overtried them and the weight and jolting of the heavy disselboom on the bad roads finished them off. These were the two inseparables who worked and grazed, walked and slept, side by side – never more than a few yards apart, day or night, since the day they became yokefellows. They died on consecutive days.

  But the living wonder of that last trek was still old Zwaartland, the front ox! With his steady sober air, perfect understanding of his work and firm clean buck-like tread, he still led the front span. Before we reached the Crocodile his mate gave in – worn to death by the ebbing of his own strength and by the steady indomitable courage of his comrade. Old Zwaartland pulled on; but my heart sank as I looked at him and noted the slightly ‘staring’ coat, the falling flanks, the tread less sure and brisk and a look in his eyes that made me think he knew what was coming, but would do his best.

  The gallant hearted old fellow held on. One after another we
tried with him in the lead, half a dozen or more; but he wore them all down. In the dongas and spruits, where the crossings were often very bad and steep, the waggons would stick for hours, and the wear and strain on the exhausted cattle was killing: it was bad enough for the man who drove them. To see old Zwaartland then holding his ground, never for one moment turning or wavering while the others backed, jibbed and swayed and dragged him staggering backwards, made one’s heart ache. The end was sure: flesh and blood will not last for ever; the stoutest heart can be broken.

  The worst of it was that with all the work and strain we accomplished less than we used to do before in a quarter of the time. Distances formerly covered in one trek took three, four and even five now. Water, never too plentiful in certain parts, was sadly diminished by the drought, and it sometimes took us three or even four treks to get from water to water. Thus we had at times to drive the oxen back to the last place or on to the next one for their drinks, and by the time the poor beasts got back to the waggons to begin their trek they had done nearly as much as they were able to do.

  And trouble begot trouble, as usual! Sam the respectable, who had drawn all his pay in Delagoa, gave up after one hard day and deserted me. He said that the hand of the Lord had smitten me and mine, and great misfortune would come to all; so he left in the dark at Crocodile Drift, taking one of the leaders with him, and joined some waggons making for Lydenburg. The work was too hard for him; it was late in the season; he feared the rains and fever; and he had no pluck or loyalty, and cared for no one but himself.

  I was left with three leaders and two drivers to manage four waggons. It was Jim who told me of Sam’s desertion. He had the cross, defiant, preoccupied look of old: but there was also something of satisfaction in his air as he walked up to me and stood to deliver the great vindication of his own unerring judgment: ‘Sam has deserted you and taken his voorloper.’ He jerked the words out at me, speaking in Zulu.

  I said nothing. It was just about Sam’s form; it annoyed but did not surprise me. Jim favoured me with a hard searching look, a subdued grunt and a click expressive of things he could not put into words, and without another word he turned and walked back towards his waggon. But halfway to it he broke silence: facing me once more, he thumped his chest and hurled at me in mixed Zulu and English: ‘I said so! Sam lead a Bible. Sam no good. Umph! M’Shangaan! I said so! I always said so!’

  When Jim helped me to inspan Sam’s waggon, he did it to an accompaniment of Zulu imprecations which only a Zulu could properly appreciate. They were quite ‘above my head’, but every now and then I caught one sentence repeated like the responses in a litany: ‘I’ll kill that Shangaan when I see him again!’

  At Lion Spruit there was more bad luck. Lions had been troublesome there in former years, but for a couple of seasons nothing had been seen of them. Their return was probably due to the fact that, because of the drought and consequent failure of other waters, the game on which they preyed had moved down towards the river. At any rate, they returned unexpectedly and we had one bad night when the cattle were unmanageable and their nerves all on edge. The herdboys had seen spoor in the afternoon; at dusk we heard the distant roaring and, later on, the nearer and more ominous grunting. I fastened Jock up in the tent-waggon lest the sight of him should prove too tempting; he was bristling like a hedgehog and constantly working out beyond the cattle, glaring and growling incessantly towards the bush.

  We had four big fires at the four corners of the outspan and no doubt this saved a bad stampede, for in the morning we found a circle of spoor where the lions had walked round and round the outspan. There were scores of footprints – the tracks of at least four or five animals.

  In the Bushveld the oxen were invariable tied up at night, picketed to the trek-chain, each pair at its yoke ready to be inspanned for the early morning trek. Ordinarily the weight of the chain and yokes was sufficient to keep them in place, but when there were lions about, and the cattle liable to be scared and all to sway off together in the same direction, we took the extra precaution of pegging down the chain and anchoring the front yoke to a tree or stake. We had a lot of trouble that night, as one of the lions persistently took his stand to windward of the cattle to scare them with his scent. We knew well enough when he was there, although unable to see anything, as all the oxen would face upwind, staring with bulging eyeballs in that direction and braced up tense with excitement. If one of them made a sudden move, the whole lot jumped in response and swayed off downwind away from the danger, dragging the gear with them and straining until the heavy waggons yielded to the tug. We had to run out and then drive them up again to stay the stampede. It is a favourite device of lions, when tackling camps and outspans, for one of them to go to windward so that the terrified animals on winding him may stampede in the opposite direction where the other lions are lying in wait.

  Two oxen broke away that night and were never seen again. Once I saw a low light-coloured form steal across the road, and took a shot at it; but rifle shooting at night is a gamble, and there was no sign of a hit.

  I was too short-handed and too pressed for time to make a real try for the lions next day, and after a morning spent in fruitless search for the lost bullocks we went on again.

  Instead of fifteen to eighteen miles a day, as we should have done, we were then making between four and eight – and sometimes not one. The heat and the drought were awful; but at last we reached the Crocodile and struck up the right bank for the short cut – Pettigrew’s Road – to Barberton. There we had good water and some pickings of grass and young reeds along the riverbank.

  The clouds piled up every afternoon; the air grew still and sultry; the thunder growled and rumbled; a few drops of rain pitted the dusty road and pattered on the dry leaves; and that was all. Anything seemed preferable to the intolerable heat and dust and drought. Each day I hoped the rain would come, cost what it might to the fly-bitten cattle; but the days dragged on, and still the rain held off.

  Then came one black day, as we crawled slowly along the riverbank, which is not to be forgotten. In one of the cross-spruits cutting sharply down to the river, the second waggon stuck. The poor tired-out cattle were too weak and dispirited to pull it out. Being short of drivers and leaders, it was necessary to do the work in turns, that is, after getting one waggon through a bad place, to go back for another. We had to double-span this waggon, taking the span from the front waggon to hook on in front of the other; and on this occasion I led the span while Jim drove. We were all tired out by the work and heat, and I lay down in the dusty road in front of the oxen to rest while the chains were being coupled up. I looked up into old Zwaartland’s eyes, deep, placid, constant, dark grey eyes – the ox-eyes of which so many speak and write and so few really know. There was trouble in them; he looked anxious and hunted; and it made me heartsick to see it.

  When the pull came the back span, already disheartened and out of hand, swayed and turned every way, straining the front oxen to the utmost; yet Zwaartland took the strain and pulled. For a few moments both front oxen stood firm; then his mate cut it and turned; the team swung away with a rush, and the old fellow was jerked backwards and rolled over on his side. He struggled gamely, but it was some minutes before he could rise; and then his eye looked wilder and more despairing; his legs were planted apart to balance him, and his flanks were quivering.

  Jim straightened up the double span again. Zwaartland leaned forward once more, and the others followed his lead; the waggon moved a little and they managed to pull it out. But I, walking in front, felt the brave old fellow stagger, and saw him, with head lowered, plod blindly like one stricken to death.

  We outspanned on the rise, and I told Jim to leave the riem on Zwaartland’s head. Many a good turn from him deserved one more from me – the last. I sent Jim for the rifle, and led the old front ox to the edge of the donga where a bleached tree lay across it… He dropped into the donga under the dead tree; and I packed the dry branches over him and set fire to the p
ile. It looks absurd now; but to leave him to the wolf and the jackal seemed like going back on a friend; and the queer looks of the boys, and what they would think of me, were easier to bear. Jim watched, but said nothing: with a single grunt and a shrug of his shoulders he stalked back to the waggons.

  The talk that night at the boys’ fire went on in low-pitched tones – not a single word audible to me; but I knew what it was about. As Jim stood up to get his blanket off the waggon, he stretched himself and closed off the evening’s talk with his Zulu click and the remark that All white men are mad, in some way.’

  So we crawled on until we reached the bend where the road turned between the mountain range and the river and where the railway runs today. There, where afterwards Cassidy did his work, we outspanned one day when the heat became so great that it was no longer possible to go on. For weeks the stormclouds had gathered, threatened and dispersed; thunder had come half-heartedly, little spots of rain enough to pockmark the dust; but there had been no break in the drought.

  It was past noon that day when everything grew still; the birds and insects hushed their sound; the dry leaves did not give a whisper. There was the warning in the air that one knows but cannot explain; and it struck me and the boys together that it was time to spread and tie down the bucksails which we had not unfolded for months.

  While we were busy at this there came an unheralded flash and crash; then a few drops as big as florins; and then the floodgates were opened and the reservoir of the long months of drought was turned loose on us. Crouching under the waggon where I had crept to lash down the sail, I looked out at the deluge, hesitating whether to make a dash for my tent-waggon or remain there.