Finch shrugged and hobbled back to the wagon. The Highlander with the eye patch helped him up.
It was then that they heard it, blowing on the stiff northerly breeze – a volley, then a second, of rifle fire. They had been travelling half an hour but there was no mistaking where it came from – the farmstead.
Finch pushed himself to his feet, apoplectic.
“But what, Captain?”
Finch was shouting now.
“Your officer gave me his word! You have no right!”
The two Boer escorts turned and galloped away.
Tears came to Finch’s eyes, his body racked by violent tremors. He screamed it till his voice was hoarse.
“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT! … YOU HAVE NO RIGHT! … YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!”
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Mbutu could feel the stare of the youth sitting opposite. The sinewy adolescent was reclining on the floor of the goods wagon, propped against the side-board, rocking to the rhythm with an unnerving nonchalance.
He had kept his gaze trained on Mbutu the whole time. Even now, in the gloom, Mbutu could sense the eyes fixed upon him. The light of the full moon that flashed between the slats glinted on the blade of a hunting knife. The youth turned it compulsively. It was clean, well-oiled, an object of affection.
Probably well used.
The young man was not with the others – this desperate ragtag of displaced souls. Not in spirit. When Mbutu had scrambled aboard the trundling wagon, south of the halt at Hopetown, he had just sat there.
He had barely moved since – not even when Mbutu secured his passage by sharing his last shards of indestructible chicken biltong. It was twilight then. Mbutu had noted the glassiness in his eyes, the dull reddened whites of someone high on dagga.
Coyly, Mbutu touched the cloth bag containing the five shillings tucked into his waistband.
The wooden boxcar was noisy, bare and uncomfortable. There was a thin scattering of straw. Save for some crates stacked at one end, stamped with the letters ‘A.K.C.’, it was empty. One box had been prised open. It contained flat tin drums, nothing of sustenance. Having disgorged its wares at the Front, the train was creaking south on the long return to Cape Town.
Turning his head, Mbutu could see the stars and smell the baked earth of the Karoo, an antidote to the stench of unwashed male within. The air was warm and dusty, an almost physical presence that coated everything with a fine sheen of wilderness dirt.
Mbutu was thirsty, starving, aching, tired, filthy. But he dare not sleep, dare not close his eyes.
Not with the youth.
There had been eight men in the wagon at first, only seven now. When they picked up speed beyond Hopetown, a gaunt Xhosa man had tried to rouse his sleeping friend only to discover that the slumber was now permanent.
Someone said a prayer for him, not much past 20 years of age, a sad bag of bones. The Xhosa mumbled something that got translated as lungs, ‘weak lungs’. Then they engaged the lever and slid back the heavy door, just enough to heave the body out into the void.
The oldest man in the wagon was a Basuto like Mbutu. Samuel had a white-flecked beard and tight greying curls that looked as if they had been dusted with powder. He was 55, maybe 60? But stocky, still strong. Samuel assumed that common ethnicity would make Mbutu a suitable audience for a detailed narration of his life story.
The old talk. The old always talk.
He gave resumés of their travelling companions – the bereaved Xhosa and three Baralong – mine boys from Johannesburg.
“A long way from home.”
They were all a long way from home. All a long way from home.
The staring youth was fleeing the fighting, too, he whispered.
“Zulu. Be careful, my friend. Be careful …”
Samuel trusted Mbutu but Mbutu trusted no one.
Trust made you vulnerable. Trust made you weak.
* * *
It had been 13 nights now but it seemed like a lifetime. Mbutu had done as was asked by the two agents and ushered the British officer beyond the city’s perimeter. The initial danger had come from the city’s defences, the searchlights sweeping the land. But the shafts of light were regular in their movement, easy to predict, and Mbutu knew of the depressions, how to keep low.
Skirting the Boer’s vantage points, where snipers would have lodged, they had climbed, eventually, up to the narrow gully in the Spytfontein ridge, a deep crack that Mbutu knew – as much as 20ft down in places, barely a shoulder’s width at times.
Not a word was exchanged between the men over four hours as they picked their way across boulders, stopping only to sip water.
Snakes. Do not turn the rocks.
Descending toward the plain, the gully opened outwards. The temperature began to plummet. It was Mbutu who spoke first.
“See there,” he said, his hand tracing a barely visible zig-zag scar – the Boer trenches.
On the horizon he pointed out the flickers.
“Fires. British fires.”
Careless fires.
And, on the brow of the gentle rise, the low outline of a farmstead.
It was as far as Mbutu could go. He had fulfilled his mission, he said.
Mbutu knew from the position of the Southern Cross that it must be around one o’clock. He would have to move fast to sneak back into Kimberley by sun-up, move fast to keep warm. He nodded at the lieutenant and turned to go.
Suddenly it came … the thin twine tight round his neck and the jolt of being yanked upwards off his feet while the searing hot pain shot up his jugular veins. The blood pounded in his head, his tongue launched outwards. His eyes bulged near out of their sockets, his left hand clawing at the cord.
But, instinctively, as the garrote was whipped over, Mbutu had raised his right arm, meaning that the twine had failed to make clean contact with his neck, trapping his wrist to his throat, incompletely blocking the airway or pinching off the blood-flow.
Realising his miscalculation, and with a great strain, the lieutenant sought to rectify his error by crossing his hands to tighten the stranglehold, jerking Mbutu upwards onto the tips of his toes, walking backwards to negate the struggle, the killer’s hot breath raging in Mbutu’s ear.
Strong, unnaturally strong.
And then the man stumbled, staggering backwards, releasing his grip.
Mbutu was not a man of violence but a survival instinct found him reaching for a stone, a jagged rock the size of a house brick, which he swung at the man’s head, missed, connecting instead – accompanied by a sharp crack – with the man’s collarbone.
The man disappeared. Had he fallen?
Mbutu thought he saw a black shape tumbling down the rubbled slope.
And then Mbutu ran.
And ran. And ran.
* * *
Imperceptibly at first, the gaps began to lengthen between the clacking of the sleepers. Then they all felt it, the slackening of the rhythm – the train was slowing.
It was inevitable. The railway was single track. There was no means of passing. When trains met travelling in opposite directions, one had to yield, shunted into a siding. The northbound trains, loaded with troops and munitions, had priority.
The British were arriving in force now, said someone, offloaded in their thousands at the docks, flooding north. Indeed, Mbutu had heard of enlistment at Beaufort West – way down the line to Cape Town – of natives being mustered to help supply the big push on Kimberley. It was why he was here.
Sure enough, they could hear the distant toots. They were growing louder. Growing nearer. With a bellow and belch of steam, their own transport was creaking and clanking out of the way.
The only question now was when the stowaways were going to make their exit, at what speed it would be safe to jump.
But it was too late. They had been caught unawares. With a huge hiss they had jolted to a halt.
The Cape Government Railways were staffed by military personnel. Mbutu c
ould hear the guards advancing up the line, banging on the side of the goods wagons and yanking back the doors.
He heard the smack of a rifle butt and a man yell out, then other protestations of mercy as the interlopers were ejected.
They must get out. Now!
Behind them, across the carriage, the other door lever sprang back.
They did not wait. As the heavy panel began to slide, eight bodies cascaded out, knocking over a soldier and spilling onto the gravel.
There were shouts, struggles. The weak Xhosa was easy meat, going down under a succession of gleefully sadistic blows. Others had wrestled free from the soldiers’ clutches. Mbutu saw Samuel succumb and grabbed his arm, shirking off the attacker and hauling him towards the bush.
The Zulu youth’s blade would have consequences for Mbutu after all. As the young man was assailed by one Tommy, he swung it upwards, forcefully and with lethal precision, under the soldier’s ribs.
And then came the retribution.
Rifles were unslung, raised. Bolts shuttled.
An order: “Fire at will.”
There were yelps as running men were felled.
Twenty yards from the advancing troops was waist-high scrub. Mbutu tried to grab Samuel, to pull him down into cover, but the older man crumpled.
All but one had crumpled.
And Johnny Fleetfoot was on his own again.
Running. Running. Running.
* * *
The train had long gone. There was nothing but the great expanse of the Karoo in every direction. Mbutu had no water, no food, he was exhausted. He could not begin to orientate himself till first light.
It was inevitable but, once his ears adjusted, Mbutu heard it – a throaty snarl, the sound of a predator. They would be able to smell him for miles.
He had no weapon, no fire, no hiding place, no means of defence whatsoever. What good was five shillings now?
Mbutu said a silent prayer and wished a good life for his wife and child and a merciful death for himself.
Please, oh Lord – a quick, painless death.
And then, in the middle of nowhere, came another sound.
He could just make out the words.
“Aan die Koningseun gebied.”
Glory to the newborn king.
Chapter Nine
Finch had had his fill of the other man in the railway carriage. Not that he wasn’t of interest, but that he had conspired to arrive in Finch’s life at absolutely the wrong moment.
He was irrepressibly chipper, possessed of a compulsive need to fill dead air with noise.
“Say Finch?” he nudged.
Finch twisted awkwardly. A 12-hour, overnight train journey on a slatted wooden seat was insufferable enough without the aural assault from this diminutive American, one dressed in a garish yellow check suit, bow tie and oversized bowler.
“Say Finch?” he pursued, polishing thick, horn-rim spectacles.
There had been a brief lull in Lloyd’s verbal onslaught as the locomotive of the Cape Government Railways juddered to a halt, easing into yet another siding to allow one of the countless troop trains to pass in the opposite direction. At one stop there had been shots to ward off the vagabonds.
But as the train picked up speed, so did Lloyd.
“Say Finch. Did I tell you that I rode with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American?”
Finch said nothing.
“Finch? … Say Finch?”
“You did, Mr Lloyd,” he sighed.
“Well, we’d bust out of Havana, see. In the jungle. Hot as hell. Like here, but not like here, if you know what I’m saying?”
Finch shrugged.
“Green, real green. Humid with it.”
The heat of the Karoo was dry, absolutely. Even at dawn you could feel it blasting through the open window, leaching the last bit of moisture out of your throat.
Finch rested his head on his rolled-up jacket pressed against the glass, at one with the ambient clickety-clack. In the orange glow of daybreak the squat baobab trees were rising from the mist, exuding an other-worldly aura.
It was no good. He could feel Lloyd champing at the bit again. Finch lit himself a Navy Cut. He was getting a craving. His offer of one to Lloyd only increased the illusion of conviviality.
“Well anyways,” went Lloyd, “we were in the jungle see …”
Still, second class was comparative luxury. He shouldn’t complain. In third, the troops and the rag-tag of hangers-on were packed in like sardines. Behind them came the cars for the wounded. God knows the journey wasn’t being kind. Finch imagined that the unloaded freight wagons at the rear would now be largely empty. What a waste.
Here in their six-seater carriage there were just the two of them, Lloyd having seen off the interlopers who’d entered at the stops en route – De Aar, then Beaufort West.
The compartment still seemed claustrophobic, the narrow-gauge railways of the Cape – built to allow engineers easier penetration of the solid rock of the northerly mining areas – lending a certain sense of Toy Town miniaturisation.
Up front, in first class, rode the senior officers. Second had been almost excessively reserved for the gentlemen of the press, of which Lloyd was one. Though to give Lloyd credit, mused Finch, he was not like the others – swilling the booze and playing cards, exuding a certain schadenfreude at the British Army’s bloody nose.
A day-old Cape Argus lay folded haphazardly on Finch’s lap. A hat-trick of British military defeats had been dubbed the ‘Black Week’ – annihilations at Stormberg, Colenso and, as the engagement he himself had been involved in had been anointed, the Battle of Magersfontein.
‘Margaret’s Spring’, such a quaint name for a killing field.
And then there were the sieges – the border cities of Kimberley and Mafeking were cut off. So too was Ladysmith, over in Natal.
“Something the matter, Finch?” asked Lloyd.
Finch shook his head. It was difficult to explain. For all the horror, the fighting was still described in terms of ‘good sport’, as if the engagements were a Test match at the Kennington Oval. In the House of Commons, it was reported, Irish Nationalist MPs had stood and cheered at news of the defeats. The Liberals could barely suppress a smirk.
Though it had not been stated officially, it was hinted that the commander of the Imperial forces, Sir Redvers Buller – or ‘Reverse’ Buller – was to be sidelined. Currently at sea, holding fast for the Cape, were the popular General, Lord ‘Bobs’ Roberts and his number two, Lord Kitchener.
On the Natal Front, where Buller had taken personal command, it was rumoured he had forbidden his men to dig trenches, dismissing such a thing as ‘dishonourable’. They said Buller had proscribed shooting from a prone position lest his men dirty their uniforms. Finch thought about the Highlanders and their pathetic knotted rope.
After all that had happened, Finch had not expected to be granted leave and, given the slaughter, felt guilty enough about taking it.
That he should be arriving in Cape Town on Christmas Eve was a happy coincidence. He might as well enjoy it. He would be back among the carnage in five days.
Two months from the outbreak of hostilities and the troop surge was finally on, at least, soldiers disembarking en masse from Britain and the Empire – men from the Dominions of Canada, Newfoundland, New South Wales, New Zealand; loyal subjects from India, Ceylon, Queensland, Victoria, even tiny Mauritius.
The great khaki flood had included plenty of RAMC, enough for Finch’s own medical contingent to be relieved.
“We were with Teddy, right. Hell of a guy,” Lloyd was going again. “Let me tell you, when McKinley’s had his chips, Teddy’s your man. The real deal. Oh boy, I tell ya. The real deal.”
Finch studied the terrain, the only movement the bound and leap of the occasional springbok or the comedic gambol of an ostrich as the driver blew the whistle.
“And of course film, acetate, perishes in the humidity. Did I tell you that Cuba was humid?
Hot like here but not like here?”
Finch nodded.
“So, anyways, Teddy, he commandeers a refrigerator from this navy vessel at Guantanamo and they lug it all the ways up by mule. Say, you guys have refrigerators? … Well let me tell you Finch, every kitchen in America’s gonna have one within ten years. Make that every kitchen in the world.”
Lloyd puffed out his chest.
“And they’re gonna be made in the USA, Finch. Made in the US of A … You wanna make yourself a buck. Buy stock in Frigidaire.”
The door slid open from the corridor, letting in a ripe gust of bawdy singing from the infantrymen in the rear. An officer, a lieutenant-colonel, entered and closed the door behind him. He nodded at both men and took the seat opposite Finch. He looked as weary as Finch felt.
“Hi,” said Lloyd, thrusting out a hand. “Hal Lloyd … of the Cincinnati Lloyds. Director and Producer for the American Kinematograph Company.”
Lloyd explained that he and his crew had been ‘filming’ the action, taking ‘moving pictures’ of the battlefield, to be projected on a screen in the music halls of Europe and the Americas. They had seven crates of equipment in the goods wagon.
Lloyd whipped out, for the officer’s assumed delectation, a postcard-sized illustration of his kinematograph machine – a box on legs with a handle for cranking the reel of film past a lens, twenty-four frames a second.
It was ‘the future’ Lloyd assured.
The officer threw Finch a smile.
“Say, I was just telling Finch here how I rode with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American.”
Chapter Ten
It was late afternoon when they pulled into Cape Town. As the train skirted the city, Finch once again drew an intake of breath at the majesty of Table Mountain, cloaked as ever with a mist on its summit which seemed to spill down its slopes.
There were few ports in the world to match Cape Town for spectacle, the sailors on the passage had told him – New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Rio. He hoped one day to form a personal opinion.
No Ordinary Killing Page 5
