by Peter Rimmer
It took Zwide all night to find the kopje and the jackalberry tree close to which he had buried his rifle. Driving through the trees, next to the whore, he had taken in the stockade and the thorn bushes to stop an assegai attack and knew on the instant the white men were not as stupid as he thought. For the first time in his manhood, he felt the cold stab of fear in his belly. The whore’s husband was looking through loopholes in the stockade with an air of confident familiarity and the big hunter was looking at Zwide. For a brief intense moment he prayed to his ancestors for help and a fat drop of rain hit the back of his hand. He saw the big man look up at the sky and the whore’s husband stopped checking the lines of fire from the stockade. The whore, sensing the rain, thrashed the reins on the back of the horse and the lurch forward gave Zwide the excuse to fall out of the open-sided cab. The whore, intent on the horse and the road, did not turn as he looked back at the buggy. Having made a previous reconnaissance like any good soldier, he knew which way to run and by the time the heavens opened with the torrents of rain, he was two hundred yards into the msasa trees heading northwest on the blazed trail that would take him to the Martini-Henry rifle, one of the guns he had taken from the buried cave of King Lobengula, the lid of the box replaced carefully to show no tampering. The two ammunition belts that crossed his body were stuffed with cartridges. With the coming of the rain, the light went completely and Zwide stopped in his track, fearful of losing the blazed trail made by breaking small green twigs on the lower branches of the trees.
He was shivering with a mixture of cold and fear and sometimes, when the wind blew the trees a certain way after the downpour had finished, he could catch glimpses of the light from the house. In the middle of the night the clouds cleared, and the new moon showed the broken branch next to his shoulder where he had stopped when the light went out. All night he waited and only in the yellow light of morning did he begin the loping run of the Zulu through the trees, running fast on the blazed trail.
By the time Tinus came looking for him, he was five miles away and still running at the same speed with the rifle and ammunition strapped to his back. Zwide ran all morning and only when the sun rose to its full did he stop by a stream for more than a drink of water. He was hungry but more exhausted and, safely wedged in a tree, he went to sleep for the rest of the day woken only by the rain. Below the tree, alone and oblivious to danger, a male kudu was browsing the green leaves. The bullet hit the kudu’s heart, the animal’s leisurely browsing turning to the throes of death. By the time Zwide climbed down from his tree the animal was stone dead. With the knife he had cached with his rifle he cut open the animal’s belly, searching for the kidneys and liver. With warm blood dripping from his jaw, Zwide ate his fill and conquered his fear. With the skin of the kudu covering his body, he spent a warm dry night under the overhanging rock of a kopje. In the morning he walked the long stride eating up the miles on his way to the hills behind the ruins of Gu-Bulawayo, twenty miles from the new town the whites were calling Bulawayo (as if they had not stolen enough from his people). In the hills of the Matopos, he would plan the massacre of the whites in the greatest of detail.
With the previous night’s rain having soaked the ploughed lands, the men and the six field labourers planted the corn each using a short-handled Dutch hoe to cover the kernels with two inches of topsoil. The straight lines, three feet apart, were made with stretched twine between pegs. Each planting down the line was one foot apart, and Seb was satisfied the reaping between the stands of maize corn would be uniform and ripe cobs would not be left in the lands. Three kernels were placed in each hole to have three chances of germination. The field officer from the Charter Company had told them what to do without charge. The hope was, the grass turned into the virgin soil would provide enough fertiliser for the corn to grow to the height of a man’s head with one or more cobs on each stand.
Tinus had briefly looked for the Zulu early that morning and put the man out of his mind, concentrating on the more important task of farming. The man had probably run off when he saw the rain to stop being put in the lands… It was a backbreaking job which Tinus, with his great height, suffered from more than the others.
An hour before dusk, with the black clouds threatening more rain, Tinus left the planting with his .375 rifle and went looking for game. He walked northwest into the bush as the game to the south and east had become shy from constant hunting. The bush was thicker to the north and the game more difficult to track. As the first drops of rain splattered down on the leaves of the trees, harbinger of the deluge in the west where the squall of rain was already slanting down in a thick wedge of water, Tinus shot a female impala at eighty yards, killing the animal with one shot. Running across the clearing through the elephant grass that had been flattened by the previous night’s storm, Tinus recovered his kill and slit the animal’s throat. The last reflexive pumps of the animal’s heart spurted rich blood from the jugular vein. When the flow stopped, Tinus hoisted the carcass onto his shoulder and began to trot in the direction of the house, quickly finding a game track that led in the right direction.
Tinus kept the wind on the same side of his face while the carcass and rifle jigged on his back. He could hear Harry yelling at his sister about something which made him think of Barend and Tinka. Then he thought of Alison and smiled again. She was a better Boer wife than he could even have imagined. Into his fourth long stride down the game trail, he saw the first broken twig and stopped in his track. From years in the bush, his unconscious mind had registered the unusual. Kudu pulled down on the leaves and never broke a twig that bent upwards. When he found the second bent twig, the leaves still green, the break still fresh, he knew what he had found. Then he saw the spoor of bare feet on the ground leading northwest and looked back over his shoulder to the trail.
“That’s no ordinary Zulu,” he said out loud, “that man knows what he is doing.”
3
March 1896
Four months later, when the main rains were over, the Reverend Nathanial Brigandshaw, missionary to the tribes of the Shona, made his half-yearly duty call on Elephant Walk. Bess, his wife, had been left on the mission as the reverend thought it appropriate to keep his wife away from the appalling scandal that overshadowed the English community in and around Fort Salisbury. It was quite clear that Captain Shaw was unable to control his wife, and it was up to the Reverend Brigandshaw to have a stern word in his ear. Whatever would the natives think, Nathanial thought in constant alarm? The Bible was quite clear. There should be no adultery and coveting of other people’s wives, and if the English could not set a proper example, how was he to bring the word of Jesus’s church to the black people and have them obey the word of God? And by all reports, the woman came from a good family!
The reverend drove himself, not wishing to make a black man his servant, and was surprised to find a strong gate made from thick tree trunks barring his way into the family compound. On either side of the gate, thorn bush had been stacked around a high stockade that ringed the properties. Tethering the horse to a post he used his brown malacca cane to knock imperiously on the gate door. After five minutes and thoroughly frustrated he shouted on the top of his voice and Emily, his sister-in-law, slid back the bar and opened the heavy gate.
“Morning, Nat. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting of course. What does it look like?”
“Flock not behaving like Christians, I suppose?”
“Not this one anyway.” Even after the main rains, it was hot and sticky and the reverend’s stock of charity was low.
Emily said nothing and waited with the high door open until her brother-in-law drove into the compound. She found him a sanctimonious hypocrite and only good manners prevented her from telling him so. She would never forgive him for siding with Arthur. Now, obviously, poor Gregory was going to get it in the neck as Emily doubted if the great missionary to Africa would confront the source of the problem. If he did, she rather thought he would come off second b
est. Fran had the ability to turn a criticism of herself into a character assassination of the critic. Fran always attacked, never defended.
“While you are rubbing down your horse, I’ll go and find Sebastian. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see his brother.”
“What’s going on here?” said Nathanial, missing the brief whiff of sarcasm.
“Tinus thinks the natives are going to revolt.”
“Does he now? How quite ridiculous. They are delighted we have come to protect them and bring them the word of Jesus Christ. Absolutely delighted. They shall be saved, I tell them. They shall be saved. Remember that, Emily.”
“I’ll try, Nat… When your horse is all tucked in you can go up to the house whilst I look for Seb.” The idea of Nat looking for himself was not part of his image. He liked his flock to come to him as supplicants; it made him feel he represented God in a better light.
Walking away on her small feet to the back gate that led into the lands, she wondered how it was possible for one set of parents to have such different children. Keeping the smile to herself, she noticed Harry scooting away before he was cornered by his uncle for a lecture on God and the bad habits of small boys. It was going to be a difficult afternoon and evening, she sighed to herself. As she turned through the back gate she saw her son disappear into the trees with his new shotgun. As he did so, he turned and waved. Then she began the walk beside the straight line of maize that stretched green and tall, acre after acre, the perfect sight for sore eyes. Idly she wondered how long Harry would stay in the bush.
Seb saw his pregnant wife from a distance and stopped chopping at the thick tree root and put down his axe. His back ached, but he was happy. The thirty-acre crop of corn was better than expected, especially where the anthills had been flattened and spread as far as possible from the great nests built by billions of ants over hundreds of years, the soil rich in their excretion. There was one good cob from every hole, sometimes two or three plants where more kernels had germinated. And he had an idea that would make the corn far more valuable than sending it to the flour mill in Salisbury for turning into mealie-meal, the staple food of the blacks. Seb waved to his wife and walked to meet her. Farming for Sebastian was highly rewarding; the result was tangible; he could place his hand on the fruit of his hard work, and it made all the years of pain worthwhile.
Emily had stopped when Seb put down the axe. The unborn baby kicked hard. Putting both hands on her belly she sat on an old tree stump that had been left to mark one hundred yards of maize and calmed the baby. She was twenty-five and as she looked back to making love with Seb beneath the great oak tree, it seemed the girl of sixteen had nothing to do with the pregnant mother sitting on a tree stump beneath the African sky. Above, the clouds were white and patched evenly in the powder-blue sky. A dove was calling across the land of maize from the top branch of a msasa tree, calling to its lover, the call saying to Emily, ‘How’s father? How’s father?’ time after time. It was their joke, hers and Seb’s, and when the bird first called in the morning, Seb would answer, ‘Father’s fine today’, and they would laugh like the children they no longer were. A powerful man, richly tanned by the African sun, thinness and ponytail long gone, the corn-coloured hair bleached white by the same sun that had turned his face to the colour of mahogany, the clear blue eyes the only feature recognisable from his youth. All her frustration evaporated as he strode down the lines of green maize, grinning from ear to ear.
“He kicked,” she called and waited on her tree stump. He kissed her gently, having taken off her broad-brimmed hat.
“What are you doing here, Em? The sun’s terribly hot. Trouble?” Anything out of context in Seb’s life usually meant trouble and, with the debacle of Jameson’s raid into the Transvaal so new, he was instantly on his guard. Dr Jim had surrendered to a Boer commando outside Johannesburg ten weeks earlier along with the police and military sent from Rhodesia. Chamberlain in England was said to be furious with Dr Jameson and Cecil Rhodes. Jameson and the leaders of the abortive raid were being sent to England for trial. Rhodes denied any connivance. The rest was murky and laced with rumours. The relations between the Boers and the British had reached close to the point of war.
“Trouble in a way, but not the sort you are thinking about,” said Emily. “Tinus’s great revolution has not started and Chamberlain’s trying to calm the Boers. Your brother is here. You’d better warn Greg. The Reverend Righteousness is high on his horse. Harry’s gone off with his new gun and I’ll take a bet our daughter has joined him.”
“Bess?”
“No Bess. Poor Bess has been left alone with the children. God, your brother tells me, is standing guard.”
“It’s Nat that needs some sense knocked into him, not Greg. You go on back to the house and I’ll join you later.”
“Don’t leave us alone for too long. He considers me a fallen woman. The looks of disapproval are almost a physical slap in the face.”
For as long as Seb could remember, Nat had never been wrong because Nat was on the side of the Lord. Calling up God as his defence had begun soon after the seven-year-old Nat’s first Sunday school. From that moment on, according to James Brigandshaw, Seb’s second eldest brother after Arthur, Nat had found his vocation. James, the soldier in the family, said brother Nat had so indoctrinated himself that he actually believed that every word in the New and Old Testaments was the gospel truth. The man had the ability to turn the Bible to his advantage every time he found himself in an argument. There was always a quotation to squash any rebellion. Simply, Nat on behalf of God was right. The only thing the three brothers ever agreed upon was that Nathanial was an insufferable boor and one day God would forsake him. To Nat, the brotherly animosity was another living proof of his path to God. They were his cross to bear.
As Seb walked back to the farmhouse two hours later, he could find no pleasure in the thought of his brother’s visit. To make matters worse, Fran was not in Fort Salisbury as the military situation was too volatile for her to travel. Five good stiff gins would probably serve his purpose and, working on the principle that safety lay in numbers, they had all agreed to meet the reverend in Seb’s house for sundowners. At the last moment, Seb’s father-in-law conveniently pleaded sunstroke and Henry Manderville went to bed. In the rondavel that made up the lounge, they sat and looked at each other. Harry was still in the bush having released his sister to the pangs of hunger. Alison sat protected by her children, the baby fast asleep in its crib by her side. Seb suspected Fran of early drinking and Gregory had his mouth clamped shut. Tinus, as usual before dusk, was patrolling their northern river perimeter on horseback. Emily sat busily darning socks. It was to this captive audience that the reverend delivered his monologue. He was used to giving sermons where nobody answered back.
With Tinus and Harry still not home, Emily lit the kerosene lamp and Seb poured the drinks and for the first time in months, Gregory Shaw failed to say his drink tasted good.
They were all waiting for Fran and Greg to be castigated when Tinus came into the room looking grim.
“Get your rifles,” he said. “Twelve people have crossed the river. Maybe more. Fresh spoor and they came from the north.”
“Looking for jobs,” said the reverend.
“Not in that quantity. Is your wife alone on the mission?”
“Of course.”
“Then you are a damn fool.”
“Blasphemy I will not allow.”
“You’ll allow a lot more than blasphemy if they kill your wife and children. Don’t you see it, Reverend? Jameson, the destroyer of Lobengula, has been destroyed himself. The Matabele want revenge and the Shona will be told to help. This is Africa, not the East End of London.”
“They love me on the mission.”
“Don’t you believe it. They hate your guts. And mine. We’ve stolen their country, don’t you remember? And please, none of that nonsense about civilisation and Christianity.”
Harry looked through the window and
saw his uncle on his knees, his hands clasped together in supplication. He was shouting at the ceiling and a fine mist of termite dust was falling in the room, caught like a sunbeam by the white light of the kerosene lamp. Harry felt the giggle come up from his belly. Madge saw him through the windows and pulled a face, safe in the knowledge that Uncle Nat’s eyes were shut tight and would stay shut tight until the tirade had finished being sent up into the rafters. The rest of the family and friends were trying not to look at each other and then the baby woke up in the crib and added her voice to the prayer. Aunty Alison tried to calm the baby to no avail and in the uproar, Harry let out his silent giggle. Uncle Tinus got up in his agitation and knocked over the small table spilling his glass onto the floor and Harry’s giggle began to build to hysterics. Uncle Tinus then told the reverend on his knees to shut up to no avail and Harry had to stop laughing because his belly was hurting.