Hervey 10 - Warrior (37 page)

For a full five minutes Hervey endured such a pain as brought the most prodigious sweat to his brow.

She removed the linen, threw back her head and poured the white powder into her mouth, which she had filled with saliva.

Before he could ask her purpose – he now saw it was wholly impractical – she took his shoulders firmly in her hands, put her mouth to the wound, and squirted the milky astringent into the torn flesh.

Hervey was at once filled with admiration, and more – which he could not rightly determine. When she was finished, a new poultice of ncwadi applied and his arm eased carefully back into its sleeve, he turned to thank her. '
Ngibonga kakhulu, Nkosazana.
'

She made a face, as if to say it was nothing.

But Hervey would not have it. He took her wrists to express his earnest. '
Ngibonga kakhulu.
'

She gave a half smile of content, though of sadness too, unlike the earlier exchange, and rose. 'We have many miles to make today,
mfowethu.
'

He nodded. This was mere diversion; it gained them nothing in their true mission. But he could not let it pass without a proper expression of his esteem. He did what he had not done in many a year: he pulled a button from his tunic – not one of the black ones, but the silver dragoon button which he wore on the inside of his tunic-fall – he buffed it bright on the leg of his overalls, and presented it to her. '
Ngibonga kakhulu . . . dadewethu.
'

He had called her 'my sister', as she had called him 'my brother'.

Pampata took the token reverently.

XX
A SOLITARY DUTY

Earlier

Johnson had lain all day among the wild pear trees on the little hill to the south-east of the kraal, with Molly calmly pulling at the grass beside him. He had fastened the reins to his swordbelt so that if he fell asleep she would not break cover and reveal their hiding hole – or, worse, take off and leave him in this wild and Godless place.

She had not done so when the Zulu attacked. His Cape pony and the bat-horse had bolted good and proper when he had walked back towards the troop – on account, doubtless, of the rifle fire – but Molly had stood her ground, as a well-trained charger ought. And when he had raced back to her pursued by more Zulu than he could count, and vaulted half into the saddle, so that he lay rather than sat astride, she had broken into the most even of trots, allowing him to get his balance, and then the reins and finally the stirrups. They had galloped, then, for the ridge on which the troop had camped, and when he had stopped shaking, and recovered his breath, and his wits (the instinct for flight displaced everything but brute strength), he had begun to take stock of the sorry situation.

From this position, he could see even better the fate that had befallen Captain Brereton's dragoons, and the certainty that none had escaped death. The Zulu were already stripping the bodies. But where Colonel 'Ervey was he had no notion – except that he was not among the dragoons below. Was he inside the kraal still? Had the Zulu woman given him away?

What was he supposed to do, now? What
could
he do?

First, he could make sure he wasn't caught. Even if the Zulus did have some of the troop horses, they wouldn't be able to catch him as long as he stayed mounted and Molly stayed sound. He would have to show himself, though, or how would Colonel 'Ervey know he was there? Could he keep riding round the kraal till Colonel 'Ervey saw him?

But what if he were a prisoner inside the kraal? Could he leave Molly tied up, hidden, and go into the kraal by himself ? He had the rifle, after all. And when it was dark he ought to be able to get in somehow . . .

But he would have to look in every hut! And as soon as he fired the rifle, the whole of the kraal would stand-to, and then there would be no chance of getting out (there were only twenty or so cartridges left).

No, surely it would be better to keep looking for him outside. Colonel 'Ervey would know how to get out; he'd got out of worse places than here! Just as long as the Zulu woman hadn't given him away.

He reloaded the rifle and slipped it back into the saddle sleeve. 'Right, Molly, lass; we're gooin' lookin' for thi master!'

He had to think sharp again, however, for there were Zulus coming up the rise. Had they seen him (he thought he had kept his head down)? Were they after him, or just wanting to scour the camp ground?

He looked left, the way the rest of the troop had gone. Perhaps if he dropped back a bit, and headed in that direction, he would find somewhere to keep watch on the entrance which Colonel 'Ervey and the Zulu woman had gone through?

But there were Zulus over on the left, too. They looked like they were searching for him. Perhaps he ought to head back a little, the way they had come yesterday? Yes, that was the best course: if he got the other side of the hill behind him – only half a mile or so west – and then turned south for about a mile, he would come onto the queer-shaped hill they had stopped on to look at the kraal yesterday, and then from there he'd be able to see if there were any Zulus on the south side of the kraal, and if there weren't he could watch from there. He'd got Colonel 'Ervey's telescope after all.

He gave them the slip – bastard Zulus! Why didn't they come at them fair instead of sneaking up like that? – and circled south, unseen. And from the queer-shaped hill he saw the clump of pear trees, and not a Zulu for half a mile and more. That would be the place to hide (Colonel 'Ervey wouldn't have said 'hide': he'd have said 'conceal themselves', but that didn't matter; just as long as nobody saw them).

He knew how the scouts did it. He may have been a groom for twenty years, but he knew a thing or two (and if he didn't, all he had to do was think what Colonel 'Ervey would do). He halted well short of the clump, in the open (but there was no other cover), and took out the telescope. He knew how to use it, except that even with Molly standing still it was difficult to find the trees through it, and then they were a bit of a blur.

He gave up after a while. But he'd have seen if there were Zulus among the trees, even blurred, because they'd have been moving – and there wasn't anything moving. He screwed up his bare eyes against the sun just to make sure. No – there were nothing.

The scouts used to dismount, and one of them would go forward and check a place on foot. But that was with another man covering him, and he hadn't got anyone. So ought he to dismount? No; he bloody well wasn't going to get down from Molly till he was certain there wasn't a Zulu in half a mile!

He slipped the rifle from its sleeve, pulled back the hammer, and edged Molly towards the clump of pear trees, as the sahibs did in India when they were hunting tiger.

There was nothing. Just wild pear trees, ten of them, and stunted little things, not like proper pear trees in England. In fact he wouldn't have known they were pear trees at all unless Old Bez – Corporal Bezuidenhuit – the Rifles' commissary, had told him. Not that they had come past this particular clump, but these were the same trees all right. Not that he needed to know. It wasn't even as if there were pears on them. He'd have to wait all summer for pears.

Not that he felt like eating. Except that Old Bez had told him – warned him – about the
boomslang,
the snake that were so pois'nous that when it bit you, you didn't have time to say, 'God 'ave mercy', before you were dead. And this
boomslang
hung about in trees waiting for people to walk underneath, and then it dropped on top of you and you'd be dead. But it didn't like pear trees, said Old Bez, or some other sort of trees, which he couldn't remember now. But definitely not the pear tree. So here he could hide – conceal himself – with Molly and have a good scout of the ground with his – Colonel 'Ervey's – telescope, and then he could work out what best to do next.

He slid from the saddle and loosened the girth – he thought it was safe to, and Molly would have to have some grass in her or she'd get colic and then they'd be in trouble. They were in trouble already, but they'd be in real trouble with colic. And then he began thinking about the dragoons down there, with the vultures circling round. There was . . . He wasn't sure exactly
who
there was, because he'd been hammering a shoe back onto his pony right up until they mustered. There was Connell, because he was Captain Brereton's coverman that morning. He didn't like Connell much, but everybody said he was good at skill-at-arms, and riding school. And there must've been French, because he was Colonel 'Ervey's coverman, wasn't he? Poor old Frenchie. He were a gentleman really, but he didn't put on airs at all. He'd help anybody, in fact – write letters for them that didn't write an' all. And that new lad, Hanks, who'd thrown up when he'd had to drink rum from the pisspot, which everybody had to do when they joined. And Mr Petrie, whose father had come to see him off, a nice old gentleman who'd shaken his hand and asked if he'd been at Waterloo, and gave him a sovereign when he'd said yes. He was a nice man, too, was Mr Petrie. He always smiled when he returned your salute; Colonel 'Ervey liked him as well, and said as he would make a good officer. It were a shame.

But he mustn't think about it now. The only thing he'd got to think about was watching for Colonel 'Ervey, and keeping himself out of sight.

So he watched: one hour, two, three – he'd no idea. The sun had moved a bit – he could see it every so often when there was a bit of thinning in the cloud – but he couldn't tell much from it; not like he would have been able to in England. And the Zulus kept coming and going, in and out of the kraal, more and more of them, and there was no sign at all of Colonel 'Ervey.

What if there were another opening, on the other side, and he'd been able to get out?

He couldn't just sit here – stand here, for he wasn't going to sit down and be eaten alive by ants, or crept up on by boomslangs if they'd fallen out of another sort of tree. He started to tighten Molly's girth.

He rode until the sun was fist height above the horizon. He tried showing himself as often as he could – so that Colonel 'Ervey could see him if he were lying low – but he had to keep backtracking, into dead ground, every time he saw a Zulu. And they were all over the place, and he wondered, if they saw him, whether they would think there was a whole troop of him, because he kept appearing in different places.

But he didn't see Colonel 'Ervey. Not a sign of him. Or the Zulu woman either – but it was difficult to tell because they all looked the same and because they didn't wear anything but grass skirts. But he'd know her if he saw her close up. She'd looked sad when he'd given her the overalls and the cape, and he'd noticed she looked like one of the girls in Stepney when he used to go for the things for the officers' house. She had nice eyes, and she didn't have those big lips like a lot of blackies did. In fact, if you put a dress on her she'd look better than a lot of the women you saw in the streets in London of an evening. In fact, if her hair were long, like a proper lady's was, she'd look like a proper lady – if she weren't black of course. But that didn't matter, really, because she was better looking than a lot of them, and she seemed nice. Except that she might've given Colonel 'Ervey away.

And so he rode back to the pear-tree clump the way he had come, and tried to think what else to do. He loosened Molly's girth again to let her pull at the grass, but he daresn't take her saddle off because they'd have to gallop like the blazes if the Zulus had followed them. He wasn't hungry. He'd drunk half the water in his canteen, but that was all right because it wasn't too hot, and he wasn't really thirsty. And there were plenty of streams he'd seen, but he hadn't wanted to dismount to fill his canteen again because if there were Zulus about they could be crouching in the grass, like the ones that got them this morning.

But he didn't know what to do. And it was going to get dark soon. He couldn't do anything when it was dark. Even if he could find his way to the kraal, how would he be able to get in? And how would he find his way round: there were so many huts? All he could do was wait until it was light again and then ride the way he'd gone today, and perhaps Colonel 'Ervey might have seen him and would be waiting for him to come back tomorrow.

And so now he would just have to wait until it was tomorrow. But first it was going to be night. He had never been by himself anywhere before at night. What would he have to do? He couldn't go to sleep. What would he sleep on? Not the ground; not by himself. And there were no sentries. There had to be sentries. He would have to be the sentry, all night.

When the night came it was darker than he'd ever known. He stood holding Molly's reins, short, pressed up against her. He had to put his cloak on, because it got cold as soon as the sun went down. And then the noises came – shrieking and snarling, hissing, hooting, whistling, rustling – and they went on all night, as if they were trying to frighten him out of the trees. And they nearly did. And all the time there could be Zulus creeping up on him, and he'd never know till there was a spear in his back. And it got so bad that he had to get into the saddle, although poor Molly had had to carry him all day.

And when it started to get light at last, he knew he had to stand to, so he got the rifle out of the sleeve again, and watched for all he was worth, shivering with the cold and not knowing if he'd see another living soul again that he knew. It wasn't as bad, though, now that he knew it would be light soon, except that now there were queer shadows moving about, and he knew that it wasn't anything but the way the sun came up, but he wasn't sure, because it could be Zulus not shadows, and they might even be using the shadows to creep up on him, because they were like wild animals really and they knew how to hunt.