The Horns of the Buffalo (11 page)

‘Stuff!' The little man bounded to his feet. ‘You know nothing of it yet. Yes, the territory is enormous.' He swept the map with his palm. ‘Well-watered, grassy flatlands is what everybody - white and black man alike - wants. But there is not enough of
that
to go around. We've got steep mountain ranges and arid tracts eating up vast acreages, and great stretches of potentially fertile flatlands that are only usable when we get water trickling through the stony riverbeds for a couple of months a year. Winter pasturage is always a problem, and when we have a drought it can be as bad as India.'

The Colonel bristled with animation, his blue eyes shining from his seamed face as he jabbed the map in emphasis. Simon realised that this was a breed of soldier new to him. He had long been accustomed to the languid career officer typified by Covington: mannered, confident and arrogant from his breeding, able enough but with little interest beyond regimental matters, hunting and the social round. Lamb carried the missionary zeal of an empire-maker. He had, Simon remembered being told, served long years in India.

‘As you would expect,' continued the Colonel, ‘two hundred years of European settlement has meant that the white man has taken the best of the land and the water availability.' He gestured to the map again. ‘Only here, in Natal, has any land been set aside for the natives, where we've pushed about three hundred thousand Kaffirs into reserves. But the Boers do nothing. They think that the Transvaal goes on for ever - and that it's all theirs.'

He sighed in exasperation. ‘Here on the border of the Transvaal and Zululand, between the headwaters of the Buffalo River and the Pongola, there's been a land dispute between the Boers and the Zulus going on for years. God knows when it will be settled but there will probably be another Boer-Zulu war before it is.'

Simon peered pensively at the map. ‘What's the answer to it all, then, sir?'

Lamb bounced on his heels. ‘One word - confederation.'

‘Confederation?'

‘Confederation. Uniting all of the territories into one big colony or dominion under the British flag, as we've just done in Canada. That way we can have central government and begin to impose some discipline and long-term planning. It will take time, but it's the only way to build this sprawling mess into a proper nation within the Empire.'

The Colonel took Simon by the arm and led him to his chair. ‘In fact,' he said, ‘the process has already begun. I am sure that the new Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, has come out with this intention.' He leaned forward confidentially. ‘Can I rely completely on your discretion?'

‘Of course, sir.'

‘Shepstone is already in the Transvaal, preparing to annex it to the British Crown.'

‘Shepstone?'

‘Yes. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, formerly Secretary for Native Affairs in Natal - he knows Cetswayo well - has come out from the Colonial Office with a special mission.' Lamb smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, Shepstone is a bit of a loose cannon crashing about the deck. He does tend to be a trifle unpredictable. But he knows the territory well and Sir Bartle should be able to handle him.'

‘I see.' Simon nodded slowly. The history lesson and the tour d'horizon of South African politics was all very interesting, but what the hell had they to do with an infantry second lieutenant who spoke good French, some German and no Zulu? ‘May I ask, sir, how I fit into all of this?'

‘You may well. I spoke a second ago - perhaps a touch indiscreetly - about a loose cannon. Well, there is a whole battery of loose cannons also out there: Cetswayo and his Zulus. Know anything about them?'

‘Very little, I have to confess, sir.'

‘Well you should. Any soldier should. Damned fine people. Let me tell you about them.'

Colonel Lamb returned to his chair, threw a cheroot to Simon and settled back and lit another for himself. ‘At the end of the last century, the Zulus weren't up to much. They were a small clan - only about fifteen hundred people - living a pastoral life in the Umfolozi Valley in an area of what we now call Zululand only some ten miles square. Then came Shaka. He was probably illegitimate and he had no privileges, although he was undoubtedly the son of a chief. He made his own way and became a fine warrior, allegedly killing a treed leopard when he was a young teenager.'

The Colonel sucked on his cheroot. He was enjoying the telling of a good story. ‘He eventually became leader of his small clan and began building up the finest army that has ever been seen among the tribes of South Africa - perhaps the whole of Africa. He started with the weapons. He threw away the light throwing spears that he considered just toys and introduced the assegai, a short stabbing spear which became known as the iklwa. Know why?'

Simon shook his head.

‘Because that's the noise it makes when the blade is twisted in the victim's body and drawn out. A sort of sucking sound . . . iklwa!' Lamb savoured the word and chuckled.

Simon swallowed and put a firm rein on his imagination. The story was too interesting to have it interrupted in any way. He leaned forward, fascinated.

‘Anyway,' Lamb continued, ‘he taught his troops how to hook the bottom of their shields around those of their enemy in personal combat and then, as the body is swung round and left unprotected, to sweep under with the iklwa so . . .' The little man danced to his feet and demonstrated the movement with his pointer.

‘He introduced discipline and unquestioned obedience to orders: the fundamental of success in battle, as you know. He had to chop off a lot of heads along the way and he undoubtedly was a despot, but he knew what he was doing.' Lamb chortled again. ‘Shaka felt that the leather sandals worn by his warriors impeded movement, so he had them all thrown away. When his men objected, he made 'em dance on thorns.

‘He also introduced battle tactics which were revolutionary in their time and are still in use by the Zulus to this day. Look.' He took a piece of paper from his desk and gestured to Simon to look over his shoulder. He roughly pencilled two rectangular blocks opposing each other.

‘Zulu warfare used to consist of two bodies of men facing each other and hurling insults and light throwing spears. Not many casualties. Shaka changed all that. He reasoned that warfare wasn't sport, it was a means of acquiring power. And to do that you had to kill.'

Lamb tapped the block on the right. ‘Shaka's Zulus became a buffalo in battle. This was the chest of the beast, which faced the enemy in the traditional way. Suddenly, however, it developed horns.' He drew quickly. ‘The top horns would break out of the main body from the rear, like this, and race quickly behind the enemy, while the bottom horn would do the same in the other direction, so that the enemy was suddenly surrounded and had to fight on all fronts. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But the skill lay in the timing of it and the speed with which it was done. They're still doing it and it's easy to be fooled.'

The Colonel wrinkled his brow in admiration. ‘Shaka was a remarkable man. A complete innovator. He trained his impis - they're Zulu divisions, or even corps - to move fast over rough country. They can trot for twenty or so miles and then fight a battle. But his most profound move was his complete reorganisation of the army.

‘He structured his warriors into separate regiments, usually segregated by age and marital status. Each was separately trained, given names and shield insignia to distinguish them in battle. A remarkable esprit de corps and regimental loyalty was established, with great competition growing between the units.' The Colonel drew reflectively on his cheroot. ‘Do you know, Fonthill, this savage intuitively established within four years the same regimental system which it had taken sophisticated European military theorists four hundred years to evolve.

‘When he died, about fifty years ago - murdered, of course - the Zulus had established complete superiority over all clans within their reach. They had grown to be a nation of some quarter of a million and their territory had expanded from that original hundred square miles to a vast tract, stretching from the Swazi border on the Pongola River in the north to what is now called Central Natal in the south, and from the Drakensburg mountain range in the west to the India Ocean in the east.'

‘And now, sir?'

‘Now, Fonthill, Shaka's people have consolidated into a semi-pastoralist, semi-militarist nation, within their own borders. They've battled with the Boers over the years and, of course, with neighbouring tribes. But under Cetswayo they've been reasonably quiet. People here are a bit undecided about the Zulu king. Some call him a savage who poses a constant threat. Others suspect that he's a shrewd operator who has accepted the reality of the white man's presence and wants to find a way to live in peace and retain his independence.'

‘So what's your view, sir?'

‘I lean towards the latter persuasion, although I rather fear I am in the minority.' The Colonel rose to his feet, agitated once again.

‘But that's not the point, dammit. It's not as simple as that. Firstly, Cetswayo maintains a standing army of about thirty thousand warriors, all disciplined, trained men, unlike most Bantu troops. They exist to fight - they call it “washing their spears” - and they get fretful when they don't. It's like keepin' a pack of hounds and not letting 'em hunt. They haven't had a run-out for some time now and the King must have a problem there.'

He approached the wall map again. ‘Secondly, look at his frontiers. They stretch for miles with the Transvaal and Natal. We can't defend that sort of border. There's absolutely nothing to stop the Zulus pouring over into these settlements, marauding and killing, if they want to. It doesn't matter a damn that they may never do so. They can if they want to. That's the point.'

The Colonel slapped the map with his hand. ‘Cetswayo remains a destabilising influence and a threat to confederation as long as he remains independent. If he will not accept annexation and control by us, then he will have to be put down.'

The two men regarded each other across the room in silence. Several questions crowded into Simon's mind - Why should the Zulu king accept annexation, and, if he didn't, what would world opinion think of him being ‘put down'? - but he left them unsaid. Instead, he asked: ‘And me, sir?'

The Colonel pulled up a chair and dragged it towards Simon, sitting on it akimbo, the wrong way round, with his chin resting on the chair back.

‘We know quite a lot about Cetswayo, but not enough. Shepstone was at his coronation and kept an eye on him for years but he's out of touch now. We think the Zulus have about thirty thousand men but we're not sure. We believe he is well intentioned towards the British - although not the Boers - but, again, we are uncertain how far this goes. Will he go to war if we put pressure on him to come under the flag? We don't know. You know what they're like, back home. We don't lightly want to start another native war, particularly one that would undoubtedly be a damn sight more serious than some Kaffir skirmish. No, these chaps would be a very different kettle of fish.'

‘So you need information?'

‘Precisely.'

‘But surely you have informants, if not among the Zulus, at least across the border in Natal?'

‘Well, we do and we don't.' Lamb shrugged his shoulders fatalistically. ‘Everyone living anywhere near the Buffalo on the Natal side professes to be an expert on the Zulus. But they're mainly poseurs. Even Shepstone, who speaks Zulu well and has been close to them for twenty years or more, has lost touch with Cetswayo. And he's got his hands full in the Transvaal now, anyway.'

The Colonel edged his chair closer. ‘But there is one man who knows as much as there is to know about the Zulu nation.'

‘An Englishman?'

‘Sort of - half Irish, actually. His name is John Dunn, or “Jantoni” as he's known to the Zulus. He is the son of a drunken Irish trader and while still a boy went off on his own to hunt and trade. He can read and write but he has little formal education, and although he's now in his fifties and is quite a rich man, he's never been accepted in Natal social circles.'

Lamb smiled. ‘Mind you, it's no great accolade to be accepted in Natal social circles. However, Dunn has become Cetswayo's only European confidant. Years ago, he backed the wrong horse in the Zulu battle for succession and he even fought against Cetswayo. But somehow he made his peace. He now lives in some style in Zululand on a large tract of land north of the Tugela given him by the King. He has the full rights of a Zulu chieftain, and I am told that he rules over kraals with a population of about ten thousand Zulus. He has his original half-caste wife - at least, I think he married her - but also twenty or more Zulu wives and God knows how many children.'

Simon frowned. ‘He sounds as though he has gone completely native. Whose side is he on?'

‘That's just the point. We have to make sure it is ours, although this could be difficult, in that I understand he scorns what we might call the fat burghers of Natal. Nevertheless, he will know Cetswayo's thinking and also the state and location of his army. We must harness Dunn and gain information from him.'

‘Why not just summon him to Durban and question him?'

‘Can't do that. Firstly, he's not the sort of man one just orders about. Don't forget, formally he's a Zulu chieftain, and anyway, he has lived a life of great independence for years, having nothing to do with what you might call civilisation. Having said that, we are gambling that, if it comes to a fight, he will cast in his lot with the strongest side, which must be us. There is a second point, however. He has been deliberately evasive for some time. Shepstone, who knows him well, of course, has sent several couriers to him, who all returned saying that Jantoni was away hunting. The man ain't exactly being helpful to us, Fonthill.'