by Wilbur Smith
"Why me, Doctor?"
"You speak the language fluently."
"So do many others, Zouga Ballantyne is one of them.
He is also a soldier."
"Your brother-in-law has other important work to do "Stealing the king's cattle," Clinton cut in acidly.
It was already common knowledge that Zouga Ballantyne had been given the task of rounding up the vast Matabele herds and bringing them in to Gubulawayo for distribution.
However, Jameson might not have heard the remark, and he went on smoothly. "Besides, Reverend, you and your wife have been close friends of Lobengula for many years, he trusts and likes you. But, since it was Major Ballantyne who delivered our ultimatum, Lobengula looks upon him as an enemy."
"Not without reason," Clinton murmured dryly. "However, Doctor, I refuse to be your Judas goat."
"Your presence with the column may help to avert another bloody conflict, with the inevitable result of hundreds if not thousands more Matabele slaughtered. I would think it your Christian duty to try to prevent that."
Clinton hesitated, and Mungo murmured. "Do point out, Doctor Jim, that after Lobengula surrenders, Reverend Codrington will be in a position to comfort and protect him, to ensure that the king is kindly treated and that no harm befalls him. I give him my word on that."
"Very well," Clinton capitulated sadly. "On the understanding that I am to be the king's protector and advisor, I will go with your column."
"They follow," Gandang said softly. "They still follow."
And Lobengula lifted his face and looked at the sky. The rain drops, heavy and hard as newly minted silver shillings, struck his cheeks and forehead.
"The rain," said Lobengula. "Who said they could not follow us in the rain?"
"It was me, my King but I was wrong," Gandang; admitted. "When he marched from Gubulawayo, One-Brighteye had three hundred men and four of the little guns with three legs which chatter like old women. He also had wagons and one big cannon."
"I know this," said the king.
"When the rains came, I thought that they had turned back, but now my scouts have come in with heavy news to tell. One-Bright-Eye has sent back half of his men and the wagons the cannon and two of the little three-legged guns. They could not ride over the mud, but-" Gandang paused.
"Do not try to spare me, my brother, tell me it all."
"He comes on with half his men, and two little machine-guns drawn by horses. They are travelling fast, even in the mud."
"How fast?" the king asked quietly.
"They are a day's march behind us, tomorrow evening they will camp here on this very river."
The king pulled the tattered old coat around his shoulders. It was cold in the rain, but he did not have the energy to crawl under the canvas of his wagon tent.
He looked out across the watercourse. They were camped on the Shangani river, but almost a hundred and fifty miles higher than where the first battle of the war had been fought upon the headwaters of this same river.
They were in thick mopani forest, so thick that a road had to be chopped through it to allow the king's wagons to pass. The terrain was flat and relieved only by the clay hills of the termite nests that dotted the forest, some of them as large as houses, others the size of a beer keg just big enough to smash the axle of a wagon.
The sky, grey and heavy as the belly of a pregnant sow, pressed down upon the tops of the mopani. Soon it would rain heavily again, these fat drops were merely a warning of the next deluge to come, and that trickle of muddy water, the colour of a drunkard's bile, down the middle of the watercourse would be a roaring torrent again within minutes of the onslaught.
one hundred and fifty men, Gandang," the king sighed. "How many have we?"
"Two thousand," said Gandang. "And perhaps tomorrow or the next day Gambo may come to join us with a thousand more."
"Yet we cannot stand against them?"
"The men we would eat. It is those little guns with three legs, oh King not even ten thousand warriors, each with the liver of a lion, could prevail when they begin to laugh. But if the king commands, we will run "No" It is the gold," Lobengula said suddenly. "The white men will never let me be until they have the gold.
I will send it to them. Perhaps then they will leave me in peace.
Where is Kamuza, my young induna? He speaks the language of the white men. I will send him to them."
Kamuza came swiftly to the king's bidding. He stood attentively in the spattering rain beside the front wheel of the wagon.
"Place the little bags of gold in the hands of the white men, Kamuza, my trusted induna, and say to them thus, "You have eaten up my regiments and killed my young men, you have burned my kraals and scattered the women and children of Matabeleland into the hills where they burrow for roots like wild animals, you have seized my royal herds, and now you have my gold. White men, you have it all, will you now leave me in peace to mourn my lost people?" There were ten bags of white canvas, stamped with black lettering. They made a heavy burden for one man to carry. Kamuza knelt and tied them together in bunches, and then packed each bunch into a leather grain bag.
"To hear is to obey, Great Elephant," Kamuza saluted his king.
"Go swiftly, Kamuza, Lobengula. ordered softly. "For they are close upon us."
Will Daniel sat his own horse, with the brim of his hat pulled down to protect the bowl of his clay pipe from the drizzling rain, and over his shoulders he wore a rubber groundsheet which glistened with moisture and gave him a pregnant, clumsy look as he slumped barrelbellied in the saddle.
On lead reins he held two other horses, one was a pack animal whose burden was covered by a white canvas sheet. Daniel no longer bore the lofty rank of sergeant.
After his conduct at the secret valley of the Umlimo, Zouga Ballantyne had seen him reduced to trooper, and as an additional mortification, he was now acting as batman to one of the officers of the flying column. The packhorse carried Captain Coventry's traps.
The other horse belonged to Will's old comrade in arms, Jim Thorn. That worthy was crouched behind a thorny shrub a short way off, with his belt hanging around his neck and cursing bitterly in a low monotone.
"Filthy bleeding water, stinking bloody rain, God-forsaken country, "
"Hey, jimmo, your backside must be on fire by now.
That's the twelfth time today."
"Shut your ugly face, Will Daniel," Jim shouted back, and then dropped back into his dismal monotone.
"Bloody gut-breaking trots "Come on, Jim my lad." Will lifted the brim of his hat to peer about him. "We can't fall too far behind the rest, not with the bush crawling with bloody black savages."
Jim Thorn came out from behind the bush re-buckling his belt, but wincing with another bout of stomach cramps. He climbed gingerly up into the saddle, and the three horses plodded along in the deep yellow muddy ruts of the horse-drawn carts which carried the two Maxim machine-guns.
The rear of the column was out of sight ahead of them amongst the dripping mopani trees. The two of them had soon learned to loiter at the back away from the scrutiny of the officers, so that they would not be ordered into the thigh-deep mud when the Maxim carts bogged down and had to be man-handled through one of the glutinous Imopani holes".
"Look out, Will!" Jim Thorn yelled suddenly, and his oilskins flapped like the wings of a startled rooster as he tried to draw his rifle from its scabbard. "Look out, bloody savages!"
A Matabele had stepped silently out of the thick bush alongside the cart tracks, and now he stood directly in front of the horses and held up his empty hands to show the white men that he was unarmed.
"Wait, jimmo@" Will Daniel called. "Let's see what the bastard wants."
"I don't like it, man. It's a trap." Jim searched the bush around them nervously. "Let's shoot the black bugger and get out of it."
"I come in peace!" the Matabele called in English. He wore only a fur kilt, without armlets and leg tassels, and the rain shone on his smoothly muscl
ed torso. On his head was the headring of an induna.
The two mounted men both had their rifles out now, and were aiming from the hip, covering Kamuza at pointblank range.
"I have a message from the king."
"Well, spit it out then," Will snapped.
"Lobengula says take my gold, and go back to Gubulawayo."
"Gold?" demanded Jim Thorn. "What gold?"
Kamuza stepped back into the scrub, picked up the leather grain bag, and carried it to them.
Will Daniel was laughing excitedly as he pulled out the little canvas bags. They jingled softly in his hands.
"By God, that's the sweetest music I ever heard!"
"What will you do, white men?" Kamuza demanded.
"Will you take the gold to your chief?"
"Don't fret yourself, my friend." Will Daniel clapped him delightedly on the shoulder. "It will go to the right person, you have the word of William Daniel hisself on it."
Jim Thorn was unbuckling his saddle-bags and stuffing the canvas sacks into it.
"Christmas and my birthday all in one," he winked at Will.
"White men, will you turn and go back to Gubulawayo, now?" Kamuza called anxiously.
"Don't worry about it another minute," Will assured him, and ferreted a loaf of hard bread out of his own saddle-bag. "Here's a present for you, bonsela, present, you understand?" Then to Jim. "Come on, mister Thorn, it's Mister I'll be calling you now that you are rich."
"Lead on, mister Daniel," Jim grinned at him, and they spurred past Kamuza, leaving him standing in the muddy pathway with the mouldy loaf of bread in his hands.
Clinton Codrington came slipping and sloshing along the bank of the Shangani river. The lowering clouds were bringing on the night prematurely, and the forests on the far bank were dank and gloomy.
The thunder rumbled sullenly, as though boulders were being rolled across the roof of the sky, and for a few seconds the rain spurted down thickly and then sank once more to a fine drizzle. Clinton shivered and pulled up the collar of his sheepskin coat as he hurried on to where the Maxim carts stood at the head of the column.
There was a tarpaulin draped between the two carts and beneath it squatted a small group of officers. Mungo, Sint John looked up as Clinton approached.
"Ah, parson!" he greeted him. Mungo had learned that this address irritated Clinton inordinately. "You took your time." Clinton did not reply; he stood hunched in the rain and none of the officers made room for him beneath the canvas.
"Major Wilson is going to make a reconnaissance across the river with a dozen men. I want you to go with him to translate, if he meets any of the enemy."
"It will be dark in less than two hours," Clinton pointed out stolidly.
"Then you had best hurry."
"The rains will break at any minute," Clinton persisted.
"Your forces could be split "Parson, you bother about brimstone and salvation let us do the soldiering." Mungo turned back to his officers. "Are you ready to go, Wilson?"
Allan Wilson was a bluff Scot, with long, dark moustaches and an accent that burred with the tang of heather and highlands.
"You'll be giving me detailed orders then, sir?" he demanded stiffly. There had been ill-feeling between him and Sint John ever since they had left Gubulawayo.
"I want you to use your common sense, man," Sint John snapped. "If you can catch Lobengula, then grab him, put him on a horse, and get back here. If you are attacked, fall back immediately. If you let yourself be cut off, I will not be able to cross the river to support you with the Maxims until first light, do you understand that?"
"I do, General." Wilson touched the brim of his slouch hat. "Come on, Reverend," he said to Clinton. "We do not have much time."
Burnham and Ingram, the two American scouts, led the patrol down the steep bank of the Shangani. Wilson and Clinton followed immediately behind.
Clinton's lanky, stooped frame, in the scuffed sheepskin jacket and with a shapeless stained hat pulled down over his ears, looked oddly out of place in the middle of the uniformed patrol of armed men. As he came level with Mungo Sint John, standing on the top of the bank with his hands clasped behind his back, Clinton bent low from the saddle of his borrowed horse and said, so quietly that only Mungo heard him, "Read "1 Samuel, chapter eleven, verse fifteen." Then Clinton straightened, gathered the old grey gelding with which he had been provided by the Company, and the two of them went sliding untidily down the cutting in the steep bank which the Matabele had dug to take Lobengula's wagons across.
At this point, the Shangam river was two hundred yards across, and as the little patrol waded the deepest part of the channel, the muddy waters reached to their stirrup irons. They climbed the far bank and almost immediately were lost from view in the dripping woods and poor light.
Mungo Sint John stood for many minutes, staring across the river, ignoring the fine, drizzling rain. He was wondering at himself, wondering why he had sent such a puny force across the river, with only hours of daylight left. The priest was right, of course, it would rain again soon. The heavens were leaden and charged with it. The Matabele were in force. The priest had seen the Inyati impi under its old and crafty commander, Gandang, escorting the wagons away from Gubulawayo.
If he were going to reconnoitre the lie of the land beyond the river, then he knew that he should have used the last of the daylight to ford his entire force. It was the correct tactical disposition. That way the patrol could fall back under the protection of the Maxims at any time during the night, or he could go forward to relieve them if they ran into trouble.
Some demon had possessed him when he gave the orders. Perhaps Wilson had finally irritated him beyond all restraint. The man had argued with him at every opportunity, and had done his best to subvert Mungo's authority amongst the other officers, who resented the fact that he was an American over British officers. It was mostly Wilson's fault that this was such an unhappy and divided little expedition. He was well rid of the overbearing and blunt Scotsman, he decided. Perhaps a night spent in company with the Inyati regiment would take some of the pepper out of him; and he would be a little more tractable in the future, if there was a future for him. Mungo turned back to the sheltering tarpaulin strung between the gun carriages.
Suddenly a thought struck him, and he called down the line. "Captain Borrow."
"Sir?
"You have a Bible, don't you? Let me have it, will you?"
Mungo's batman had a fire going, and coffee brewing in the shelter, and he took Mungo's coat to dry and.
spread a grey woollen blanket over his shoulders as Mungo squatted beside the fire and paged slowly through the little leather-bound, travel-battered Bible.
He found the reference and stared at it thoughtfully: And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.
Mungo wondered that he was still capable of surprising himself. There were still strange places in his soul that he had never explored.
He took a burning stick from the fire and lit his cigar, then plunged the glowing red of the brand into the black coffee to enhance the taste of the brew.
"Well, well, Parson!" he murmured aloud. "You have a sharper instinct than I ever gave you credit for."
Then he thought Of Robyn Codrington, trying to consider his feelings objectively, and without passion.
"Do I love her?" he asked, and the answer was immediate.
"I have never loved a woman, and by God's grace, I never will."
"Do I want her, then?" And again there was no hesitation. "Yes, I want her. I want her badly enough to send anybody who stands in my way to his death."
"Why do I want her?" he pondered. "When I have never loved a woman, why do I want this one? She is no longer young, and God knows, I have had my pick of a hundred more beautiful. Why do I want her!"and he grinned at his own perception. "I want her because she is the only one whom I have never had, and whom I will ne
ver have completely."
He closed the Bible with a snap, and grinned wickedly across the wide river at the dark and silent mopani forest.
"Well done, Parson. You saw it long before I did."
The tracks of Lobengula's wagons were clear to follow, even in the worsening light, and Wilson pushed the pace to a canter.
Clinton's aged grey was exhausted by two weeks of hard trekking. He fell back little by little, until after five miles they were loping along with Captain Napier's rear file. The mud thrown up by the hooves ahead speckled Clinton's face as though he was suffering from some strange disease.
The mopani thinned out dramatically ahead of the tiny patrol, and there were low bare hills on either hand.
"Look at them, Padre," Wilson called to Clinton, and gestured at the hills. "There must be hundreds of them."
"Women and old men," Clinton grunted. The slopes were scattered with silent watching figures. "The fighting men will be with the king."
The twelve riders cantered on without a check, and the thunder muttered and shook the sky above the low, swirling clouds.
Suddenly Wilson raised his right hand high.
"Troop, halfl' Clinton's grey stood, head hanging and chest heaving between his knees, and Clinton was as grateful. At his best he was no horseman, and he was unaccustomed to such hard riding.
"Reverend Codrington to the front!"The order was passed back, and Clinton kicked the grey into a plodding walk.
At that moment a squall of rain stung his face like a handful of thrown rock-salt, and he wiped it off with the palm of his right hand.
"There they are!"said Wilson tersely, and through the drizzle Clinton could make out the stained and ragged canvas tent of a wagon rising above the scrub, not more than two hundred paces ahead.
"You know what to say, Padre." Wilson's Scots accent seemed even stronger and was incongruous at this place and in these circumstances.
Clinton walked the grey forward another few paces, and then drew a deep breath.
"Lobengula, King of the Matabele, it is me, Hlopi.
These men wish you to come to Gubulawayo to parley with Dakatela and Lodzi. Do you hear me, oh King?"
