Zulu Hart (15 page)

‘That’s not how your chief sees it.’

‘No. But I fear
it’s
wishful thinking. He’s as determined as the rest of us to make a name for
himself
. I know it’s hard to believe, but I haven’t been on the warpath since the Mutiny. Twenty-three years a soldier and just a single step in rank. This might be my last opportunity to win a brevet.’

‘I wouldn’t fret. Colonel Wood seems to think the Zulus will be your next opponents.’

‘Does he now?’ said Gossett, his features brightening. ‘That would be a war worth fighting. The Zulus are seen as the most formidable opponents in southern Africa.’

‘Yes,’ said George, ‘and they’re not called the Black Spartans for nothing. I’d be careful what you wish for.’

East London, Cape Colony, 4 March 1878

The wind howled in the rigging as the helmsman fought to keep the ship from turning broadside to the high rollers that kept coming, at ever-shorter intervals, from the northeast. The sails had been furled, leaving the ship on steam power alone, but the combination of a southwest current and a southeaster breeze was rolling the ship so violently that it seemed only a matter of time before the yards went under.

‘I’m sorry, General Thesiger,’ said Captain Wilson, his double-breasted pea-jacket glistening with a fine sea spray. ‘There’s not a hope of landing you in this wind. We’ll have to bear away until the weather improves.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Thesiger, peering anxiously through the saloon windows towards the white buildings of East London, less than half a mile distant. ‘I must land today. The war’s coming to an end and it wouldn’t do to miss it altogether.’

‘That’s as may be. But there’s a sandbank between us and the port and it’s far too dangerous to cross it in these conditions. The surfboat is useless in high winds and I can’t risk the lifeboat. You’d never make it.’

By morning the wind had dropped sufficiently for an attempt to land General Thesiger and his military secretary, Crealock, by lifeboat. Captain Wilson was still against the idea, citing the strength of the current, but Thesiger insisted.

Sensing some drama, the ship’s company gathered on the main deck to watch the two officers descend by the stern ladder to the lifeboat below. Before Crealock climbed over the side, he sought out George from the throng of onlookers. ‘I just wanted to say,’ murmured the major, ‘that your secret’s safe with me.’

George watched Crealock depart with a mixture of loathing and relief. He had never been more pleased to see the back of someone, and could not help wishing for some terrible accident to befall the man. It soon seemed as if he might get his wish. As the little boat approached the foaming line of water that marked the sandbar, its crew of rowers were fighting hard to keep it from turning side-on to the waves that followed each other in quick succession.

‘They’ll never make it,’ muttered George with a shake of his head.

At that moment, just yards from the bar, the rudder slipped from the helmsman’s grasp and the lifeboat turned broadside to the waves. ‘Right yourself, you
fools
,’ shouted Gossett.
‘Before it’s too late!’

They could see the crew, all hard-drinking, foul-mouthed men from the slums of Cape Town, pulling desperately on their oars to bring the boat around. Thesiger and Crealock were sitting towards the rear of the boat with shoulders hunched, powerless to avert the approaching calamity. The next wave was just feet away, a huge roller that threatened to swamp the flimsy craft. It struck the rear quarter of the lifeboat and sent it hurtling over the bar. His view obscured by the foam and spray, George held his breath. A part of him wanted the craft to sink, so that Crealock would be silenced for ever; but the others would die too, and he did not wish for that. So when, miraculously, the lifeboat bobbed back into view, its crew rowing hard for the shore, George joined the huge cheer that rose spontaneously from the watching passengers and crew. It died in his throat as Crealock celebrated his escape from danger with a dismissive wave of his hand.

With Thesiger and Crealock safely ashore, preparations were made to disembark the remaining soldiers and their kit by the safer, but more laborious means of the surfboat, an eighty-ton lighter with a central hatchway. Again George was a fascinated onlooker as the first batch of men and equipment was passed down the side of the ship, by means of the stern ladder and a derrick, and into the hold of the surfboat, amidst a hubbub of shouts and oaths. With its cargo safely stowed, the surfboat was towed by steam-tug to a buoy, where it picked up a hawser made from coconut husk, one end anchored inside the bar and the other out to sea. The hawser was then passed over sheaves in two posts on the deck, fore and aft, and secured with iron pins.

‘Haul away!’ hollered the surfboat’s white skipper, and his ten-man crew, their naked black bodies shiny with sweat and spray, began to heave the boat towards the shore, hand over hand along the hawser. At the bar the surfboat seemed to stop with a jolt, as if it had struck sand. But the next wave swept it over into the smooth water beyond.

Among the last batch to disembark was Captain Gossett. ‘Goodbye,’ he said, giving George’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘I hope we meet again.’

‘I’m sure we shall,’ replied George.

Gossett waved as he disappeared over the side.

The sick were next: three cases of fever, a corporal with a broken arm and Thomas, his pale face and scrawny frame proof that he had yet to recover from the flogging. Despite this, he was in full uniform and carrying his pack and slung rifle.

‘Need any help?’ asked George.

‘Thankee, Mr Hart,’ said Thomas, using George’s arm for support as he eased on to the top of the stern ladder. ‘Much obliged.’

‘Best of luck, Thomas, and don’t forget to give my regards to Second Lieutenant Morgan.’

‘I won’t. Goodbye and God bless you for all your kindness.’

George had read somewhere that you could smell Africa long before you saw it. But only once, as the SS
American
was steaming in clear blue water off the West Coast of Africa, had the distinctive scent of palm oil and decayed vegetation wafted over the deck. Now, as the ship gently rose and fell in the evening swell off Durban, he detected a different smell: that of wood-smoke, from the hundreds of fires the natives of Natal had lit to cook their meal of porridge. It was a strangely reassuring odour and, like the vast canopy of sky above him, made him think,
Yes
, maybe this land is truly in my blood after all. He was anxious to get ashore, but, as at East London, the presence of strong currents and a sandbar meant that all passengers had to land by day. He consoled himself with the knowledge that, after a month at sea, one extra day was little hardship.

Next morning the sound of barked orders and scurrying feet woke George from a deep sleep. With the unloading of the final passengers and cargo clearly under way, he quickly dressed and made his way down to the horsedeck. Emperor welcomed him with a whinny. Despite the rigours of the long journey the horse looked surprisingly fit, his chestnut coat glowing with health. ‘You’ve looked after him well,’ George told the groom, handing him a crown. ‘But we’ll both be glad to see dry land. Can you get him ready for the derrick?’

‘At once, Mr Hart.’

The groom led Emperor out of his narrow stall and under the open hatchway, where a canvas sling was dangling from the derrick. The other horses had already been dropped into a waiting lighter. Emperor was the last to go. The groom attached the sling and gave a signal to a sailor peering down through the hatchway. He, in turn, told the crew of the derrick to haul away. Slowly but surely, Emperor’s limp form, his hooves almost touching, was raised out of the hold until it hung motionless above the deck.

George, meanwhile, had reached the poopdeck, from where he watched anxiously as the derrick swung Emperor over the side. Three times they tried and failed to lower him into the lighter’s hold, the swell spoiling their aim. On the fourth they succeeded, though the lighter was rocking violently. George breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his cabin to collect his luggage and the revolver from under his pillow.

With everyone aboard, the lighter was towed by steam-tugs through a gap in the sandbar and on towards Durban Harbour, where it was tied to a wharf thronged with people. George marvelled at this first sight of Natal’s multi-hued population: a white harbour official, in blue coat with brass buttons, waving his clipboard and shouting the odds; barefooted tars swarming over the various vessels; prostitutes of all colours, in various states of undress, hawking their wares from windows and doorways; redcoats with even redder faces; and a host of half-naked black stevedores, some wearing tribal kilts, others rough trousers, but all jabbering away in a plethora of dialects as they carted goods to and fro. George was pleased to catch some words in Zulu, a reward for his study with the trader Laband.

With the sun already high in a cobalt-blue sky, and the heat oppressive, George retired to the shelter of a quayside bar. A glass of chilled porter in hand, he watched as a crane lifted the heavy cargo and horses out of the lighter. One horse panicked, its frightened kicks breaking the rear of the sling. Luckily the remaining canvas held long enough for it to reach solid ground. Emperor was next, and no sooner had he been deposited on the quayside, his flanks still trembling with fear, than George was there to soothe him. He had been advised not to ride the horse for at least twenty-four hours, to give him a chance to recover from the voyage, so instead he tacked him up and led him the mile or so into Durban proper.

After a sleepless night in the spectacularly misnamed Grand Hotel on Smith Street - its only pretension to grandeur being the size of its cockroaches - George packed his kit into two saddlebags, collected Emperor from the nearby livery stable and, map of Natal in hand, began the fifty-mile ride inland to his uncle Patrick’s farm near Pietermaritzburg. It was early, and few people were about as he left the environs of Durban at a trot. The road climbed steadily through rolling country, known locally as the Valley of a Thousand Hills, but Emperor kept a good pace, happy to stretch his legs after so long inactive. George was struck by the barrenness of the terrain, its red soil relieved here and there by tufts of yellow grass and the green and brown of the occasional acacia thorn tree.

At noon George stopped by the side of a stream to eat a lunch of bread and cheese, while Emperor grazed nearby. It was a beautiful shaded spot, nestled between high brown hills, and as he lay back, head on hands, George reflected on how relieved he was to be free of Crealock, the ship and all association with the dead private detective. But a nagging question remained: why had he refused to let Lucy accompany him beyond Cape Town?

He had his practical reasons, of course, like not having enough money and needing to travel light. Yet neither was insuperable. Was it not instead, he asked himself, a simple case of snobbery, viz. that he was embarrassed to be seen in the company of a former domestic servant, even in South Africa? And what about the term in his father’s legacy that stated he had to marry respectably? Did that also play a part, in the sense that he knew if he fell in love with Lucy he might forfeit the only portion of the legacy he had a chance of winning? He feared it had; it would, he knew, be hard enough keeping his African blood a secret. This fleeting moment of self-knowledge made him ashamed. For one thing was not in doubt: he missed Lucy and thought about her often. There was, however, little to be done to make amends in the short term. He had no way of contacting her, and if they met again it would owe more to luck than design.

Preoccupied with such melancholic thoughts, George did not hear the silent approach of three black men, naked but for their monkey-skin loincloths. He had risen to his feet and was tightening Emperor’s girth when he felt the slight prick of a bladed weapon in his ribs. ‘Don’t move, white man,’ said a deep voice behind him.

George
froze,
his hands still on the girth. ‘Who are you?’

The man behind him snorted. ‘You hear that, boys? The white man wants to know who we are. You must be new to this country or you would know that all black men are called “Kaffirs”, and not as a compliment. Most of us are Zulus and proud of it.’

George had read about the Natal Kaffirs, mostly political refugees from Zululand. The colony contained almost a quarter of a million of them, compared to just 20,000 whites, and to keep them under control the authorities had confined them in locations under their traditional chiefs. These men had obviously broken out and were planning to rob him, or worse.

‘I too am Zulu,’ said George in an attempt to find some common ground with his assailants.

‘You -
a Zulu?’ said the man, laughing. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘No, it’s true,’ said George, slowly turning round with his arms raised.

Facing him were three young warriors, each clutching an oval shield and a vicious-looking spear with a long, flat blade. The warrior closest to George, in the centre, was powerfully built with a chiselled, handsome face; he wore an elaborate headdress of leopardskin and widow-bird plumes, and was obviously in charge. ‘So tell me, white man, how you came to have Zulu blood.’

‘My maternal grandmother was the daughter of a chief called Xongo kaMuziwento.’