Hendrik brandished his revolver. He signalled for Mbutu and the first man to ascend the rocks either side of where Mbutu had seen the intruder. Mbutu nodded. He gestured for them to drive the interloper down in his direction.
The pair silently scrambled up, keeping low, forming a pincer movement to converge behind the intruder. On the rim of the corral, the sentry was still crouched, looking out across the desert.
Mbutu went to alert him. He lay his flintlock pistol aside, but when he went to touch the man’s arm, he simply slumped over. Mbutu pulled his hand away. It was warm and sticky. The man rolled onto his back. A sliver of moonlight flashed on lifeless eyes. There was a dark mess under the chin. His throat had been slit.
Cold fear gripped Mbutu. His own lungs seemed to have shrunken. His breath came in short shallow gasps, like a man surfacing from too long under water.
Ahead, in the distance, came a whinny. Maybe 200 yards away, Mbutu could just make it out. The moonlight was enough for him to see horses tethered.
Get a hold of yourself.
To his colleague he signalled an exaggerated count, a finger at a time. One … two … three …
The Nama man acknowledged and turned to relay the information back down the slope. But as he did so there was the dart of a black mass. In a wild and instant blur a body was on top of him. There was a muffled yelp and the Nama man crumpled.
Now, Mbutu! Now!
He reached for his flintlock pistol on the ground but caught his foot as he picked it up. He staggered, fumbled and dropped it. The gun clanged and bounced down the rocks. Alerted, the intruder turned towards him. The moonlight glinted on the blade of a knife.
I cannot move.
*BANG! *
An ear-splitting roar and a burst of sparks came from somewhere behind and to the left. It shook him to his senses. The blunderbuss. Its blast reverberated around the rocks. But the weapon’s discharge was haphazard, the gun aimed up into nowhere. It was the last desperate reflex of a man already mortally wounded. He too tumbled over.
Mbutu swivelled back. The intruder was bounding between the boulders towards him just yards away. Mbutu leapt down the rocks. There was a swishing sound, like that of a whip, and a soft thud. His pursuer dropped to the ground, squealing and writhing in agony. Mbutu could see him clawing desperately at the shaft of a spear now protruding vertically from his abdomen.
The weapon. Find it. Now!
Mbutu scrambled to where he guessed the gun had landed. The camp was a now a frenzy of screams and panic, Nama women running this way and that, grabbing their children, huddling with the blind men behind scattered boulders in the centre. Hendrik and the others stood on the outside, backs to them, facing outwards, trying to protect them. The light was bright enough to discern more shapes among the rocks on the far side.
Mbutu was on his hands and knees clawing fruitlessly.
Where did it go? Somewhere here.
From down low, amid the swirl of bodies, Mbutu saw Hendrik raise his revolver, take aim at another intruder and miss. Against the bright muzzle flash of a rifle, Mbutu watched as another man – it looked like Stefaan – fall. The gunfire laid everybody low, crouching. This intruder was now down in the middle, carbine raised, aiming it into the huddled wretches before him who cowered and flinched. He was looking for something … someone.
Then he saw them, the white females.
“Down here,” he yelled to a comrade.
Mbutu was now on his belly, only feet from the soldier. The man had not seen him.
There. Was that it?
The flintlock pistol had fallen between two rocks. The light reflected on the engraved finery of the stock. He reached his hand into the gap and willed his arm an extra two inches in length. He could feel it. Somehow he manipulated it with his fingers. He got his full hand on the ornate metal knob screwed to the end of the butt. He pulled. He freed it.
The soldier caught Mbutu in the corner of his eye and spun to his right. Mbutu’s hands shook. The gun felt like lead. He seemed to have no control over his body. He was on his knees, trembling.
Was this how it was to be? That he would die a coward?
Time seemed to slow down, as if in a dream, as if out of his own body watching himself. He held the stock tight with his left hand while cocking the hammer with his right. It was stiff, awkward. It failed to lock in position.
The soldier’s rifle was aimed from the hip.
Mbutu tried again. It clicked. He raised the heavy weapon with trembling hands.
Aim for the body.
And with another great ‘crack!’, an explosion of smoke and fire and a recoil that knocked him onto his own backside, Mbutu shot a man stone dead.
There was still a third intruder. Mbutu heard more spears clatter against the rocks. There were more shots. More screams. Frantically Mbutu scuttled over to the white mother and child. And then he saw the third soldier charge down the rocks at the far end, running towards them.
A Nama man flung himself at the soldier, his knife at the ready, but the slight African was no match, pushed aside and shot clinically through the head.
There seemed to be no more protectors. How many had fallen?
The leather pouch was slung over Mbutu’s shoulder. He fumbled and pulled out a cartridge. The white woman clung to his arm. He had to shrug her off. He was on his knees again, the pistol now held between his thighs, pointing upwards, the acrid smoke from the red hot barrel wafting straight into his face.
He grabbed a cartridge, bit off the end, poured the powder down.
The soldier had spotted the women hunched behind Mbutu. He shuttled the bolt, the gun was raised, he was ten yards away.
Mbutu spat a wad of paper and pressed the shot on top. He withdrew the ramrod from the holder but his hands were shaking so much he dropped it. Emily handed it to him. He tried to insert it in the barrel. He was trembling uncontrollably. It was hopeless.
The man aimed first at the quaking mother, the little girl squealing and clinging to her skirt. An execution.
Mbutu rammed the shot home. There was a sneer on the man’s face. Contempt for Mbutu. The pathetic black man with his pathetic, useless gun.
But this time the hammer was cocked more easily. Mbutu knew what he had to do. He raised the pistol and shot into the guts. At close range it lifted the man off his feet. He smacked onto his back, lifeless.
It was the final act – the last resounding blast to reverberate around the rocks. Through the ringing in his ears, Mbutu could discern no more fighting. He sat there for a moment, the mother and child sobbing. To the east, the sun had begun to creep over the horizon. The first shafts of daylight were skimming the rim of the corral. There was clicking chatter from around and about him. Someone was shouting down. Their attackers were no more.
The few Nama men remaining checked the bodies of the soldiers. The two Mbutu had shot were most certainly dead. The one up on the rocks, the one with the spear sticking out of him, was still whimpering. A Nama man approached him. He twisted the spear and the man screamed. He casually sought out a rock the size of a cannon ball and wielded it above the man’s head. He brought it down. The noise stopped.
And then there was a shriek. The crone, the one who had berated Mbutu on arrival, was waving her arms, signalling across the corral.
There, the white woman and child were huddled together still, and, standing over them, was a fourth soldier. He had his revolver trained on them.
Mbutu yelled at the man: “STOP! NO!”
But he was powerless. The pistol was raised, pointed at the child this time. And then came the agony of the shot.
It happened way too quickly to comprehend but the soldier staggered back, knees bent, shoulders sagging, like a drunk stumbling for the barroom door. He was clutching his eye. Another shot. He collapsed.
In the hands of the mute woman, wrestled from under her skirts, was a tiny, smoking Derringer pistol.
* * *
The sun was up. The goat started b
leating. The Nama dead were laid out, the bodies tended to lovingly by the women. Thwarting the enemy had come at the price of five Nama dead, including Stefaan and Habobe.
The corpses of the four soldiers were dragged down far less tenderly and deposited at the far end of the corral.
Mbutu, Hendrik and a couple of the others went to examine the bodies. They were white men – young white men. Mbutu had been cooped up long enough in Kimberley to recognise the khaki uniforms of the British Army. One of the them – the executioner that the white woman had felled – had been an officer. His epaulettes bore the pips of a second lieutenant. Mbutu thought for a moment of the other lieutenant, the red-haired one, the one responsible for him being here.
Curiously, though they carried badges of rank – the others being two being privates and a lance corporal – Mbutu noticed that none bore any regimental insignia on their tunics. On their shoulders were darker patches of material and rings of thread where badges had been removed. They were bare-headed, without hats. Probably discarded before the assault to minimise their profile.
Mbutu gestured to the remaining Nama men. He could not speak their tongue but there must be words that they understood.
“Horses … Perde.”
He made a whinnying sound and flapped his hands above his ears. Hendrik translated.
They must move the horses fast. They were evidence. Others would come to look for them. The beasts would also be useful. Transport or meat.
They climbed out of the rocky corral and jogged over. With predators about, the soldiers had taken a risk leaving their steeds there. They had clearly not intended to linger, their mission an intended short, sharp killing.
But there were four horses, not three. Mbutu’s miscalculation had had near tragic consequences.
One horse, a bay mare, had been tethered away from the others. Mbutu had missed it.
The British officer. Must not fraternise with his men.
Even the man’s peaked cap, had been cast down separately, away from the three slouch hats.
The men let the horses get used to their own smell. They did not panic. They were untied from the branches of the thick thorn scrub and gently led back to the rocks. They could not be taken within, but behind the corral was a depression overhung with acacia. They could be hidden there.
Mbutu noticed a borehole. So that was where the Nama had drawn their water. The horses would be thirsty too. He hoped they did not drain their resources, though they seemed to know which grass to chew on, which leaves to nibble. Moisture came in many forms.
Once secure, they removed the saddlebags and brought them inside. There was another revolver amongst the lieutenant’s things, and clips of ammunition for both it and the rifles, which were gathered up.
They were short firearms, smaller than ordinary rifles, intended for use by horsemen – carbines. From the bodies were retrieved four good army knives. Small consolation, but the Nama were now far better armed than they were before.
There were water canteens, enamel mugs, some basic army cooking utensils, tea, biltong, no personal information or identity cards. There were waterproof capes which doubled as groundsheets. Rolls of bedding. There were compasses. There were maps.
The British and their maps.
There was also a dirty piece of linen that looked as if it had been ripped from a petticoat. The white women had not been difficult to stalk. Had they known they were being pursued, Mbutu was sure Hendrik would have covered their tracks.
And there was something else. In each saddlebag was what looked like a piece of sackcloth. Unrolled, the sackcloth became a hood. Each had two round glass eyeholes in brass sockets and a curious red rubber pipe at the mouth – actually two rubber reeds that pinched against each other, giving the impression of a bird’s beak.
The Nama recoiled. There was agitated chatter.
Round eyes.
The devil soldiers.
Hendrik pointed to the bodies of the soldiers. They must dispose of them quickly, ahead of their own dead.
They were dragged out beyond the depression. They smelled – not yet of death, but of soldiering, of leather kit, of stale sweat. They smelled of white men, of the white man’s food.
The ground was hard to dig. They found flat stones to carve as much of a hollow as they could – no man felt like expending much effort on the dead soldiers’ behalf – then lay the men next to each other and covered them with a cairn of stones.
Their boots were of no use to the barefooted Nama. They wondered whether they should keep some of the clothing. Hendrik relayed that is was essential they keep nothing whatsoever. If the bodies were found, there should be nothing that could link their deaths to them. Conceivably, as British soldiers, they could have been ambushed by a party of Boers.
When they returned to the rocks, the fire had been re-lit. Some of the Nama women were cooking. Others were preparing a more fitting burial for their own fallen.
Mbutu went and sat with the white woman and child
He asked if they were all right. The woman nodded.
“Please, sir,” asked the girl.
“What is it, Emily?”
“Will you help me find my father?”
“Your father? I thought he was … I thought he—”
Said Emily: “We don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
After leaving another message for the evidently busy Brookman, Finch took the tram to Green Point. He found Atlantic View Drive easily enough. Not far from the stop, it wound up into the hills. As he climbed, the view grew more impressive. The city sprawled before him. Below, the Point itself, formerly grassland, was now a tented city of khaki.
The wind was blowing onshore. Beyond the hum and clatter of the trams, you could hear the barks of drill instructors. In the distance, on the white-flecked bay, sat the anchored grey warships.
Turning inland, before Table Mountain, loomed Signal Hill with its artillery battery, and, between them, the conical hump of Lion’s Head.
The streets crawled upwards, doubling back on each other to follow the contours. Atlantic View Drive had a sharp switchback, the reason, he now understood, why Pinkie Coetzee had become disorientated.
With his knee hurting as ever, Finch hobbled up round the bend. The Esperanza guest house was a modest two-storey clapboard affair, set back from the dusty trail behind a small, well-tended rose garden, trimmed by a white picket fence – certainly better tended than the house’s paintwork which peeled and cracked.
Finch lifted the catch on the stiff gate and walked up the terracotta path. On the veranda, a young African maid in a headscarf swept the boards with a birch-twig broom.
“Good day, sir,” she smiled and gave a slight curtsy.
Give Coetzee credit, he thought. He had hauled Cox’s ample body all the way up.
The maid pulled back the fly screen and opened the solid wooden front door. It had a stained glass panel with a romanticised version of a sailing ship – all billowing white sails – set into it. She scurried through to find her master.
On the main drag below, the electric tram clanged lazily along its tracks. A Cape sugarbird flitted around a protea flower winding up the balustrade.
Finch removed his pith helmet and tucked it in the crook of his left arm. He stepped across the threshold. Inside, the hallway was dark and cool. From the sitting room, a carriage clock ticked with exaggerated loudness.
Presently, a woman appeared from the kitchen at the rear, wiping floury hands on her apron, fiddling with the bow behind her back, then wresting it off over her head. She was in her early 40s, Finch guessed, but looked older, her face betraying a life of toil – tanned and lined, her greying hair pulled back in a tight bun, her plain and faded blue dress fastened up to the throat. She was sinewy, her features handsome but unadorned save for a smudge of flour on her cheek. No jewellery except a modest wedding band. Keen hazel eyes fixed him. Guarded.
“Good morning,” Finch began. “I was wondering if I m
ight speak with the landlord.”
At home he’d paid a thousand house calls, priding himself on his social skills. A military uniform changed everything.
The woman threw a quick glance through the doorway to the sitting room. Above the mantelpiece, hovering over a wooden crucifix, hung a framed lithograph draped with black crepe. A stern-looking man in his Sunday finery gazed back over a full-set beard.
“You can talk to me,” replied the woman in the heavy accented English of the Afrikaner.
“Ingo Finch, Royal Army Medical Corps,” he announced.
“Du Plessis. Ans Du Plessis.”
She eyed him up and down. He extended a hand. She did not take it.
“What can I do for you, Captain …?”
He had not declared his rank but she had determined it.
“… You are not here for a room.”
She had determined that too.
The woman barked something guttural over her shoulder, towards the kitchen. He caught the name of the maid, Mathilda.
“You would like tea,” she said, a statement more than an offer.
He nodded.
This time her hand met his. The grip was firm, the skin as rough as any Tommy’s.
“Mevrouw Du Plessis, I am here to enquire—”
“You are here about Major Cox.”
He nodded.
“You are part of the enquiry?”
“No, not exactly—”
“A friend?”
Finch could never describe himself as such. It was politic to leave it there.
“We served together. He was my CO … commanding officer. The police thought it would be useful if I gathered the major’s things. I can ship them on to wherever they need to go.”
He reached into his tunic and brought out the requisition order. It contained a short paragraph, ‘To whom it may concern…’
Du Plessis read it. She beckoned Finch through the cool, dark wood hallway into the front parlour. She bade him sit. The room was on the chintzy side, a little cluttered. A potted palm sprouted behind a baby grand piano, the small portraits ranged upon it suggesting it rarely saw much use. The carpet, at the doorway, was threadbare, a sign of regular traffic.
No Ordinary Killing Page 14
