by Fred Stenson
“Wind,” said Ovide.
“The rest of us held ours on, you might have noticed.”
“My mare.”
“Since when does it take both hands to lead a mare?”
“Lead a horse how I want.”
From his mare’s back, Jeff watched the banter.
“You said you wanted to scout,” he said to Frank, finally, squinting out the low rays of the sun. “Casey’s sick. I need somebody.”
Frank hesitated. He looked at Ovide’s grey face and his hand pushing the mutton.
“Come if you’re coming,” Jeff said, turning his horse and walking it away, the fetlocks snapping.
Frank looked at Ovide, who would not look at him. Then he collected a few things from the tent. Greatcoat. Rifle. Ammunition. He shoved his spare socks in a pocket and ran. Halfway to the picket line, Jeff was waiting. He pointed toward Callaghan’s sick wagon, to Casey’s buckskin gelding tied to the wheel.
“I asked Casey,” Jeff said. “I told him your horse would get us killed.”
The General looked indignant but allowed Frank to throw on Casey’s saddle and adjust the stirrups. From grooming him, Frank knew the big buckskin head to toe. His only flaw was clipping his cannon with his left rear hoof. There was a dirty wrap in Casey’s saddlebag, and Frank spun it over the scab. Jeff went to get rations and fill their bottles at the barrel. They left camp as the sun rose fat above the trees.
Doornkop
Frank had imagined this moment many times. Through the hills and gullies north of Night Attack, he and Jeff Davis were riding together. The General was a proud, powerful animal, so soft in the mouth Frank had only to tap a rein to move him. He had to be careful with his spurs, for the slightest touch would spark the buckskin. This made him long for Dunny, for he knew her so well he never had to think how to ride her.
Frank thought of asking what they were doing and why Jeff had chosen him. He thought of asking about Villamon. There was so much Frank did not know about Jeff now, including why he had returned to the Mounted Rifles. Was it that he had been on loan, and Major Sanders had called that loan? Or did it have to do with the day Frank tried to make him feel guilty for Kerr’s and Morden’s deaths?
Frank decided on silence. The truth was that Morden and Kerr already felt like a long-ago thing and that his own lust for scouting had been left on the other side of losing Dunny. His main reason for wanting to be out here today was to look for his horse. Instead of saying anything, Frank considered the favour Jeff was doing him. When nobody in Hutton’s column would call on Frank for more than horse labour, Jeff Davis had taken him scouting.
They rode northeast to where a large valley opened, then went to the bottom where some mimosa bush flanked a stream. They stayed in that for a mile, then crossed the narrow water into a draw that split and split again. Whatever twists and turns the coulee made, Frank guessed they were still bearing northeast. He admired how Jeff kept them in cover and shadow, and never exposed them to hilltop or crag.
Around noon, Jeff stopped at a treed edge and they got down. He studied the valley but paid most attention to one rocky hilltop. Frank stared there and finally saw heads moving between man-sized rocks. Then the late morning sun sparked off field glasses. Frank moved for his rifle and Jeff stopped him. It felt wrong to have the enemy spotted and not squeeze off a few, but Frank supposed it was the difference between common soldiering and scouting.
They led their horses through a planted forest until they came to a coulee full of brush. Jeff pushed down through heavy branches, and the coulee was much deeper than it looked. Only a bit of light could fight its way to the bottom, and what grew there was gnarled and skinny like arms begging. The steep yellow ground was corrupt and putrid. Jeff got down on hands and knees to smell the brown trickle, to taste it. He nodded and they let the horses drink. The horses sucked at it for a long time, then pissed hot and rank and drank some more.
Jeff sat on his heels on the sticky yellow and stared at the place where a path led away beside the creek. He made no offer to talk.
They stayed all afternoon. When they finally led their horses out, the sun was low in the western sky. To look in their direction, the Boers on the hill would have to stare at the strong light. Jeff and Frank left cover and crossed open ground until they were in a twisting defile on the other side. For the next half-hour, they climbed and circled, until they were north of the Boers’ hill and above it. They could see them clearly.
There were half a dozen, sitting on rocks and smoking pipes like old men, though they were young. Still Jeff did not raise a gun toward them. All he wanted from them was their back trail, and from here he found it easily. They were soon following the trail due east, and still following when the sun sank into the trees.
Frank had much time to think. He decided they were looking for a laager: the larger outfit to which the Boer boys belonged.
In the brevity of African dusk, Jeff hurried his pace. Frank assumed he was trying to find water and cover before darkness fell, but where they stopped was a slope among evergreens, a place likely to be dry. The trees were eucalyptus, a forest planted for wood.
Jeff tied his horse and put on his greatcoat. Frank did likewise. They walked a hundred yards and came to a slanted edge. They were on the north-facing side of a wedge of hills, and all the shadier slopes around them were patchy with dark forest like the one they were in.
Jeff stared at a coulee mouth dark with brush. When the dusk thickened to black, they brought the horses forward and tied them short near the forest edge. Jeff walked out of the trees and sat in the lee of an upright boulder. Frank followed and sat beside him. The moon was up, a slender peel rocking on its back, but it gave enough light to cast a shadow where they were. The cold became colder every minute, and Jeff pulled a skinny scarf out of a coat pocket and wrapped his neck. Frank envied the scarf and tied his extra socks together to make a scarf of his own.
For a long time, there was only one word, and that was Jeff whispering, “Sleep.” Frank thought not. He could tell Jeff was not going to sleep and decided he wouldn’t either. A surprise then to find himself fallen over sideways with his face in the smelly bowl of his hat and his mouth drooling. His bent knee joints were stiff. The moon was gone and some grey was invading the black. Jeff was still sitting up, his eyes trained on the coulee.
The grey light was barely allowing shapes when Jeff nudged Frank. Squinting, he saw something like a dark liquid ooze from the cut. The liquid turned into thirty horsemen and black servants on foot. A dozen Boers dismounted and led the black men into the eucalyptus. They came out dragging three Boer wagons by their tongues. More riders entered the trees and came out with trek oxen and a dozen cattle with calves at heel. There were loose horses, but none of them was Dunny.
The black men lifted yokes onto the oxen, slid in the ox bows and keyed them. They took their positions along the ox pairs, their bamboo and string whips at the ready. Everything moved when a long-bearded Boer on the lead wagon raised his arm and let it drop. The valley’s trend was east, and the Boers followed it down until a hill swallowed them. It was not yet dawn.
Half an hour after the Boers left, Jeff went to the horses. They stood with their saddles on, loosely cinched, calm and confident that their riders would water them soon and not let them starve. Jeff tacked The Blue down, and Frank stripped The General. They led them out of the forest and let them loose on the slope. The men ate hardtack and biltong as the sun nudged upward and sprayed light through the trees. Then Jeff lay on his back, head on his saddle seat, and closed his eyes. He slept one hour and woke abruptly. They saddled and started. The Boers’ track was obvious in the dew.
Frank had begun to worry about Ovide. He had only expected to be gone overnight. Now he had no idea how long Jeff intended them to be away. The way of scouting, he supposed, was not to give up until your horses were beat or something had been accomplished. While they rested by a quick small creek, Frank thought again of Ovide being sick. He could no
t prevent himself from asking how much farther they would go before they started back.
“These Boers are headed for Doornkop. We need to get there first.”
“What about Night Attack?”
“Ovide’s probably gone. Davidson told me he was sending the sick ones back. Casey and Ovide are probably in Middelburg.”
Frank sucked on the ball of biltong in his cheek. It came to him that this moment, when he and Jeff were alone together, might not come again for some time. Before they continued on and became part of an army again, there were things that should be made clear between them.
“I don’t want to scout anymore,” he said. “I just want my horse back.”
Jeff looked at the ground and smiled, then turned and faced Frank directly. He had something he wanted to say as well.
“I have a girlfriend on the Blood. Her father doesn’t want me to have her. If I kill enough Boers, he’ll change his mind.”
It was the missing piece: the reason Jeff had come to Africa, the reason he had been different from Frank and Ovide from the start.
Riding again, they left the Boers’ track for a straighter line south. To make time, they had to be more visible and they were fired upon, some bullets coming close enough to hear. They did not stop to fight the snipers.
They crossed the railway and kept on south, and when they approached a new height of land several hours along, Jeff dismounted. He gave The Blue to Frank and took field glasses from his saddlebag. He climbed the ridge and crawled the last ten yards.
Returning, Jeff said, “Doornkop’s a couple of miles south. There’s Boers here. We’ll have to pass them.”
They sprayed out of cover, and the horses galloped down the open flank. Jeff waved at Frank not to follow so close. Frank let The General weave through a dotting of thorn trees. Bullets yowled in the air and ripped the ground. When they came to the first Doornkop outposts, Jeff waved his Stetson but the piquet shot anyway. Closer, the piquets recognized them and let them pass.
Doornkop camp was spread through a few acres of blue gums near a Dutch farmhouse. While Jeff reported to the lieutenant, Frank talked to Harry Gunn. Harry said they were surrounded and expecting an attack. When Frank told him there were more Boers coming, Harry saw in it the reason for the Boers’ delay. They were waiting until they were stronger.
Nothing happened that evening. They were roused well before dawn, and the lieutenants organized the troops for battle. They had decided to challenge the Boers by sending patrols to the ridges and kopjes. If the Boers had been thinking there weren’t enough of them to carry the fight, maybe pressure would drive them off.
Jeff and Frank were teamed with Harry Gunn. After they had gone a few miles, they heard firing to the northeast. Jeff led them toward it. After half an hour’s ride, they saw a cluster of khakis near a stony kopje top. As Boers often wore khaki these days and had been known to pretend to surround a fallen man, they approached cautiously. When they were closer, they saw a horse lying dead, something harder to fake.
Bernard Flynn, an English Mountie from Maple Creek, was sitting on the ground. He had been shot in the shoulder but, strangely, was already in a sling. He had been riding with Donald Morrison when a group of Boers popped up from the rocks and opened fire. They shot Morrison’s horse and Flynn in the shoulder.
“The man who shot me was a gentleman,” Flynn said in wonder. “He wore a checkered jacket and breeches. He said he was a doctor out for a day of birding. He patched me up, wished me good day, and left.”
They got Bernard on his own horse and Morrison climbed on behind Frank. When they were almost back to camp, they heard more firing behind them. Doornkop had another outpost to the north, and when they got in, the lieutenant in charge turned them around and sent them to investigate.
Frank expected to be fired on as they got closer to this second outpost, but it did not happen. The post was a shanz, a dugout with stones piled around it. Inside, three men sat on the ground looking at a fourth who was badly wounded. Corporal Taylor and Private Mullen had been out a ways on horseback. It was one of those lucky hits the Boers made by pointing their rifles up and firing in a rainbow. Taylor was riddled and Mullen not even scratched. They had brought Taylor here, and now he appeared to be dying.
Frank helped Harry and Jeff lift the corporal onto The General. Jeff rode beside and held him on. Taylor was only back in camp an hour when he died. The effect on Frank was a fierce desperation to return to Ovide, a foreboding that crawled over his back like ants, but they were already digging a hole for Joe Taylor. The burial was held in the dark with lanterns. There were hymns and prayers. Harry Gunn was in the honour guard. Then a lieutenant said he wanted Jeff to escort Bernard Flynn back to Pan Station in the morning.
Jeff was sitting on his bedroll wrenching his boot off when Frank asked if he could leave. He meant leave alone and right now. Jeff jerked off the boot and climbed into his blankets. Frank said he needed to see Ovide. Ovide was sick and he wanted to make sure he got to Middelburg.
“Go to sleep.”
With dawn came another delay. The camp’s scouts had been out overnight and had returned with the gentleman who had shot and repaired Bernard Flynn. It was Dr. Van Erkum, who lived next door to a house full of British officers in Middelburg. Now, Van Erkum was given to Jeff and Frank to take to Pan along with Flynn. The wounded man and the prisoner rode in a light buggy. They talked amiably in English, debating who owed whom a nice meal.
The date of Taylors death was August 19. Frank and Jeff got to Pan Station on the afternoon of August 20. The sick Mounted Rifles from Night Attack had passed through Pan three days earlier. They had stopped for a few hours to rest and then had kept on for Middelburg. Jeff and Frank asked for more information. Was the scout Casey Callaghan among them? Was there a French cowboy named Ovide Smith? Someone vouched for Casey, but no one remembered Ovide.
Frank asked Jeff if they could go to Middelburg now. Jeff said he couldn’t, but that Frank had better. Casey would be wanting his horse back and was probably in a lather about it. Jeff himself had business with other Hutton scouts to the east. When an officer at Pan asked Frank to take Van Erkum to Middelburg, Frank lied and said he had an urgent dispatch, and was not allowed to travel that slowly.
Frank burst out of Pan at a gallop and rode hard along the railway line. He gave The General no rests and no water. At the British outposts along the railway, he yelled, “Dispatch!” and waved an empty bag he’d found in Casey’s saddlebag.
At Middelburg, Frank was told that the sick troop he sought were mostly recovered and had continued north to Bankfontein. Frank asked the soldier, a C Squadron corporal, about Ovide Smith. The corporal looked at the ground and shook his head.
When Frank galloped The General into Bankfontein, it was dark. Some fires were lit and lanterns hung. He had by now ridden The General to the great horse’s very bottom. The buckskin’s mouth hung open and his rasping breath blew foam. The wrap had fallen off and the leg was black with blood at the clipped spot. From his head to his tail, he was dark with sweat.
Casey came running. When he saw the condition of his horse, he grabbed Frank by the chest of his uniform; ran him backwards and threw him to the ground. Frank jumped up and ran away. He ran through the darkness, looking for his and Ovide’s tent, but could not find it.
In the dark rows of tents and bedding, Frank bumped into a private cradling a mess tin of hot tea. The private spilled tea on his hands, then danced and cursed Frank some more.
“Where’s Ovide Smith?”
“Smith? Fuck. Smith’s dead, you stupid ass.”
Frank slowed. He walked back toward the fires. Among them, he studied the faces lit by each glow. At one, he saw Greasy Griesbach and Reg Redpath. Frank had not seen Redpath since Kroonstad. The group had rum and looked happy.
“Adams!” Griesbach cried. “Pull up a stump. You’re as dirty as a soldier gets. Come and have your well-earned rum ration.”
Griesbach had a bottle an
d extra mess tins. He poured Frank a generous splash.
“We’re celebrating Reg’s return. They’ve found him a truss.”
Frank took the cup and raised it to Redpath, who grinned sheepishly and raised his back. Frank shot it into his throat, the black taste, the burn.
He waited. They were joking about Redpath’s truss and the danger of anthills in the dark. Reg took it with mild good nature, saying how glad he was to be back. No one mentioned Ovide. The fire was big and bright, perhaps the largest fire Frank had sat beside since De Aar.
“I hear Ovide Smith died,” Frank said mildly, as if it mattered little.
“Sunstroke,” someone said. Another laughed.
Frank waited, and into that cold silence two drunk privates ventured. Smith had had a sick headache, one said. He was like that when they left Night Attack, and he got worse on the march to Pan. Puking, said the other. There was no medic at Pan but there was a medicine chest.
They described how Ovide went to the chest and was there looking at it for a long time. As other fellows came along, they helped him. One read the instructions over and told him it was a number seven he needed. But the number seven pigeonhole was empty.
The privates stopped, were giddy for some reason.
“Come on, Greasy,” they begged. “You finish it. Tell it again.”
Griesbach waved them off, but when the others persisted, he smoothed his moustache and began.
“Ovide had a dilemma. He’s sick and there’s none of what he needs. No number seven. Fellow comes up and Ovide tells him his problem. Fellow says, ‘Why not try a five and a two?’”
Some could not hold back their laughter.
“So old Ovide, he thinks it over. He finds the five and he finds the two. Mixes them together, downs them, and dies. We buried him when we got here to Bankfontein.”