That had been almost two months ago.
Tanith and Duncan’s wedding day was a memorable one, if not completely what Lorna would have wished. The only guests were two old school friends of the bride, together with Doctor Parry and Matron Kelly from the hospital, who had agreed to give Tanith away. Nobody from her family deigned to put in even a token appearance. Ginnie didn’t come either. Duncan and Dallas seemed quite unconcerned. Later in the day father and son would celebrate in a way nobody expected – least of all, Lorna.
The minister was a short, jovial fellow by the name of Jones who rejoiced in doing God’s work and if a drink or two went with it, so much the better. He arrived a good hour before the midday ceremony was due to take place and after ensuring that all the house windows were open – apparently to allow his Lord and master ease of access – he made it clear that something alcoholic to wet his whistle wouldn’t go astray. Lorna was horrified, especially when Duncan and Dallas decided to join him.
Family, friends and the minister waited inside with a slightly tipsy Duncan while farm employees lined the drive outside. Tanith and Matron Kelly, driven by Mister David in an open carriage, arrived at five past twelve. The bride wore a simple blue dress which she had made herself. Nothing fancy. Duncan thought she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her.
The service was quick and straightforward. Afterwards, bride, groom and witnesses signed the register before moving to the verandah where Lorna had finger food set out and Champagne aplenty. She had not shed a single tear during the simple ceremony.
The fact that this was also Tanith’s twentieth birthday made little difference to the small pile of wedding presents waiting to be opened on the parlour table. There were gifts from Cameron as well as Ellie and Lindsay, but nothing from Torben and Gerda. Nobody knew how one particular parcel had managed to get there– though Tanith recognised her mother’s handwriting.
Dallas and Lorna gave the young couple money – a not inconsiderable amount – and some family jewellery. They had a more appropriate gift in mind but that would have to be discussed with Cam.
A faint mewing sound turned Tanith’s head and she noticed Suza open an eye in response. The cat called again – from the far end of the verandah – and a supposedly deaf dog struggled to his feet. Nobody else had noticed so Tanith decided to follow and find out what was going on. Suza shuffled after the retreating cat, following it outside towards the stables.
Once both animals were out of sight, Tanith slipped across the garden and cautiously peeped into the tack room where they had disappeared. Suza, tail wagging, was staring into the open bottom drawer of an old chest of drawers, normally used for horsey bits and pieces, while a proud mother rubbed herself against his legs, turning and telling him what a clever girl she was. It now contained a litter of kittens, six in all. Suza turned his head one way then the other, examining the recent arrivals. Tanith must have made a slight noise of wonder for the cat heard, looked up and called her over.
Ten minutes later, Lorna found her brand new daughter-in-law sitting on the stable floor watching another mother suckle her young. ‘Look at this, ’she said quietly, ‘aren’t they adorable?’
The shot that shattered an otherwise peaceful afternoon caused understandable panic. Suza spun on the spot – fast for him – to face the stable door. The cat jumped up, shaking off her hangers-on but ready to defend them to the bitter end. Lorna and Tanith stared at each other in disbelief, listening. What they heard was a cheer, then another shot.
Lorna helped Tanith to her feet and with a look of fury on her face, marched back towards the house. Sitting on the front verandah, legs dangling over the edge, she found Dallas, Duncan and Father Jones. Another shot rang out as the minister took his turn. Lorna didn’t believe what she was seeing. Three grown men trying to shoot the heads off her roses with a bloody great .455 Webley service revolver!
A cheer went up from the assembled audience as a flower tumbled to the ground. It was bad enough not being able to host the wedding she would have wished, but now this! ‘What on earth do you three think you’re doing?’ she shouted. The answer was obvious. It didn’t matter, Lorna was furious. ‘Look at you. Talk about the antithesis of three wise monkeys!’
Nobody said a word.
Lorna realised that her reaction had a lot to do with the shock of hearing unexpected gunfire. She had been tense about the wedding but so too had Duncan and Dallas. They were only letting off steam and really doing no harm. What excuse Minister Jones had was anybody’s guess.
The silence continued. All eyes were on her. She turned to Tanith and found her grinning at Duncan.
‘Oh, bugger it, ’Lorna said. ‘Let’s have a shot.’
Mister David’s eldest son, Henry, now a powerful young man in his twentieth year of life, stood uncertainly before his father, who was preparing the family’s midday meal. He entered the kitchen full of confidence but his courage failed when the person he had come to see made it clear the interruption was badly timed.
‘I am going to join nkosi Cameron as a scout, ’ he announced. ‘Here is his letter calling for me.’ Henry tried to sound convincing but felt weak in the knees. He feared no man – except his father.
‘When did this arrive?’ Mister David said, his displeasure rumbling from deep within.
‘It came yesterday.’
‘So why did you not tell me then?’ His father used the same tone, wiping flour from his hands on an apron, his dark eyes observing the son he loved, the one who would carry on his role at Morningside when he was gone.
‘I ...’ Henry hesitated. ‘I did not know how you would feel about me leaving home to fight for the British.’
Mister David sighed and rested his hands on the heavy wooden table. Outside he could hear things that were familiar to him– the laughter and chatter of female servants cleaning the house and gossiping about who was seeing whom at the kraal, a proud chicken announcing the arrival of another egg, the soft murmur of Lorna’s voice from the verandah as she tried to console a tearful young wife worried by the infidelity of her husband. They were sounds of stability and peace in a country torn apart by the white man’s war.
‘Why is it that my firstborn son would leave when one day he must take my place here?’ Mister David was clearly concerned that Henry wanted to follow such a dangerous path in life. He went on: ‘This war between British and Boer does nothing for our people.’ The enigmatic look which for an instant clouded his son’s eyes was not lost on him.
‘It will make me a warrior, as you once were, ’ Henry answered.
‘I fought at the call of our king, ’Mister David replied. ‘Not a distant queen who knows nothing of our land.’
‘And one day I too will fight for our people, ’ Henry said quietly. ‘But first I must learn the ways of war.’
The simple statement made Mister David feel quite uneasy. His sons had grown up alongside those of Lorna and Dallas. Henry was by far the smartest when it came to academic studies. Although exposed to European customs and education he had often expressed resentment that, despite the friendship he had with their employers, he could never be an equal. Standing face to face in the kitchen, Mister David detected something in his son that could prove much more dangerous than taking sides with the British. ‘The Boers will kill you if you become their prisoner.’ Mister David knew his warning was a feeble attempt to make his son stay at Morningside.
‘I do not fear the Boers, ’Henry replied. ‘When this war is over we will still be strangers in our own land no matter who wins. The British are little better than the Boers.’
Mister David felt anger rise like an assegai ripping into the belly of an enemy, though deep in the young man’s eyes lay a truth that he had never dared admit, even to himself. Times were changing and would go on doing so. In almost thirty years the man he worked for had been both friend and enemy. What Henry said was true. His people had been dispossessed, a once-proud nation having no choice but to do as instructed by tho
se who had taken their land and traditions. If needs be, Mister David would die for Dallas, or any member of his family, without a second thought. But this was a new century, his son a young man with a European education and plenty of time to change the years that lay ahead.
Henry stood, waiting for the worst, and was more than surprised when his father turned back to knead a lump of leavened dough. ‘Do you give your permission, madala?’
‘Go with your friend, ’ Mister David said without looking up. ‘And never forget that he is a brother, no matter the colour of his skin. If you seek a cause for the Zulu nation it can no longer come with the assegai but from that which the white man has given you.’
‘They may not let me carry a rifle, ’Henry said.
‘I do not mean that, ’his father replied with a weak smile. ‘I mean with words. It is only by bringing understanding and forgiveness that we can truly become one people – Africans – not Zulu, British or Boers.’
At no other time in his life had the young man felt so much love for his father as he did at that moment, standing side by side in a Zululand kitchen. The older man had refused nothing, giving his blessing and guidance to pursue a course for the future. Progress might be made one step at a time but for the moment Henry believed that fighting alongside the British was a good place to start. All he had to do was learn and survive. Besides, being Zulu, war was in his blood. He would stand alongside his boyhood friend and together they would be men.
Without another word Henry turned and left the kitchen, his head held high.
TWENTY
The Boer farmer faced heaven in a spreading pool of blood. Beside him knelt an old woman, his wife of well over half a century, wailing her inconsolable grief for such a needless death. A few feet away lay his ancient flintlock. It wasn’t even primed. Around him chickens resumed their ceaseless search for food, ever hopeful of finding seeds or small insects in the sunbaked dirt. Winter was gone from the land, replaced by the springtime promise of an early summer. There had been no rain for many months.
Duncan sat astride his mount staring numbly at the tragic scene. The Afrikaner had done no more than try to defend his home and the few mealies a lifetime of hardship had coaxed from the barren ground.
‘Fuck, ’ Duncan heard Fairfax exclaim.
‘It was either him or one of us.’ The shaking voice came from behind him.
Duncan turned to see the youngest member of their patrol lowering his carbine. He had only ridden with them for a week, ever since Dallas had been taken sick and sent to hospital for observation. The boy was nineteen years old, a shipping clerk from Durban. His stricken expression reflected the feelings of most in the unit – this work was not to their taste. Many, including Fairy Fairfax, were farmers themselves. Unfortunately, their orders were clear and unquestionable.
It was only because of the public outcry in England that Lord Roberts had been forced to revise his scorched earth policy, limiting it to those occasions when troops were actually fired on, as a reprisal for damage to rail and telegraph lines or when providing a base for hostile operations. It sounded good but in practice made no difference whatsoever. The farm burning went on.
Fairfax and his scouts had been given the added responsibility of checking on farms and taking any action deemed necessary. Their leader felt the bile rise in his throat at the scene played out before them. The old man had been only too aware why the troop of armed soldiers came to check on his home and chose to die defending his meagre property. He appeared from the house cursing the intruders and bringing to bear an antiquated bobbejaanboud which had belonged to his father. The young man he aimed at reacted as any soldier would and fired first. His shot had been true, flinging the raggedly dressed Boer on his back as the steel-jacketed bullet found his heart.
‘What now, sir?’ Duncan asked, dreading the response.
‘You know what to do, ’ Fairfax replied, wheeling his horse towards a small kopje overlooking the farm and its buildings. He found it impossible to give the order that would cause a home and everything in it to be destroyed.
‘Burn it, ’ Duncan said quietly, though loudly enough for his men to hear. ‘House, barn, wagon, the lot. Sergeant Sims, have the boys round up any horses or cattle. We’ll take them with us.’
The man turned his mount and trotted off, pleased not to have been given any other responsibility.
Duncan decided to look inside the house. He dismounted, drew his heavy Webley revolver and cautiously approached the open door. It was dark inside the tin-roofed building. Hot too. As his eyes adjusted after the glare outside he looked around. The single room was simply furnished with a bed, table, two chairs and, in one corner, a glass-fronted cabinet displaying a few family treasures. On the table beside an open bible stood a single photograph. It showed a middle-aged man flanked by two young boys of fourteen or fifteen. Twins, Duncan thought. All three stared seriously into the camera. Each carried a modern Mauser rifle, their chests crossed with belts of ammunition. Duncan picked up the sepia-toned image, gave it a quick dust with his sleeve, then walked outside and handed it to the woman he assumed was both their mother and grandmother. She looked up, eyes filled with tears. ‘Dankie, meneer, ’ was all she said.
‘What about her?’ one soldier asked. ‘What do we do with the old woman?’
‘Leave her be, ’ Duncan said. ‘She’s suffered enough.’
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’
‘I pray so, ’ Duncan answered softly, hoping that the smoke now rising straight up in the still air would summon help. Somewhere she had a family but her husband and home were no more.
Duncan joined Fairy on top of the hill and did not look back. He could smell the burning buildings and hear the crackle of flames as they consumed all before them. Try as he might, in the years to come Duncan would be unable to escape the image of the old woman in her long black dress and bonnet cradling the frail body of her dead husband. It was something that would haunt his dreams on many a restless night.
The war of armies facing each other on the field of battle was over, replaced by a policy designed to defeat a weary yet still-proud people regardless of the cost in human suffering. Duncan perceived this as a rape of the land and those who lived there– even if they were the enemy. Promoted since his return from leave he held a Queen’s Commission and was sworn to carry out all orders issued by his superiors. In the last few weeks Duncan had become disillusioned and angry. Did not the fools in Whitehall realise the legacy their war would leave? How could those whose home was this land hope to pick up the pieces and live alongside their former enemies? The questions stayed with him as they rode away from the burning farm.
That was the moment when Duncan first realised he was African, not British. Mister David obviously was, but so too were the Boers, not to mention his own family and unborn child ...even the Indians who had made this land their home. It was a radical thought, though one that carried with it a whisper of justice.
It had been almost six months since Meggie and Mister David took Stan King home to Kingsway. Six months in which he had not once made contact.But then, why should he, Meggie kept asking herself.
The time had passed quickly, what with one thing and another. Torben had become the proud father of a baby daughter, Alice. She was the apple of his eye and quite the sweetest little thing, even if Gerda insisted on referring to her sister-in-law as Auntie Margaret. It was well-meant but made Meggie feel positively old. In June she turned eighteen.
Duncan was married to her best friend – albeit a case of better late than never – though embarrassment over their daughter’s condition had caused a serious rift with her parents. Tanith and her father were still not speaking.
Things at the hospital were quiet and on a Friday afternoon late in September Meggie decided to give life a little nudge. She could think of no believable excuse for making the journey to Nkwalini and for that reason had not lied to her mother. Lorna expressed fears for her daughter’s safety but, wh
en all was said and done, realised that she was more than capable of looking after herself. Taking her favourite palomino mare, Meggie carried both a Colt pocket pistol and Cameron’s .44-40 Winchester saddle carbine. Her preparations soothed Lorna’s fears, at least as far as four-legged predators were concerned.
Now she sat gazing at Kingsway, feeling more nervous than she ever had in all her short life. Mixed with the fear was a delicious anticipation of what might occur in the next few hours. Too many nights spent tossing and turning in her bed at Morningside had led Meggie back to the man she loved. The one they called Ndlovu.
One of the Zulus had informed him of the approaching visitor. ‘Meggie?’ She heard her name called and saw Stan standing in front of the house. Nothing had changed. ‘Is that you?’ he shouted, one hand shading his eyes from the sun. She urged her horse forwards to meet the huge bear of a man.
Meggie slid from the saddle and into his strong arms. ‘I just wanted to see you, ’ she said when her feet were back on the ground. ‘That’s all.’
His bronzed face looked down at hers. ‘The feeling is entirely mutual, ’ he said, a broad smile making Meggie’s heart pound even faster. ‘I assume you’re staying.’
‘Is that an invitation?’ she asked.
They walked self-consciously side by side, Stan leading Meggie’s horse. Reaching the house, he unslung the saddlebags and swung them over one shoulder. She had forgotten his slightly bent arm. Sliding the Winchester from its leather holder, he summoned a young umfana to come and take care of her horse.
Footprints of Lion Page 30
