by Wilbur Smith
Jim sprang back on to the truck of the violently rocking wagon, and stared across at Manatasee. A fine slick of blood was running down her flank from the flesh wound his ball had inflicted. She saw him and pointed her assegai at his face. Her grotesquely painted features contorted with hatred, and spittle flew from her lips in a cloud and sparkled in the sunlight, as she screamed her death curses at him.
Then he saw the length of slow-match had been exposed across the last yard of trampled earth below the mound on which the queen stood. The swift flame shot along it, leaving the fuse blackened and twisted as it burned. Jim clenched his jaws and waited for the explosion. It hung fire for a terrible moment and in that pause the wagon finally toppled over, ripping a fatal gap in the barricade. Jim was thrown from his platform, and sprawled half under the wagon body. The attacking warriors shouted triumphantly and surged forward.
“Bulala!” they bellowed. “Kill!”
Then the powder keg exploded beneath Manatasee’s feet. A mighty tower of dust and stones shot higher than the treetops. The explosion tore the queen’s body into three separate parts. One of her legs cartwheeled high into the air. The other, still attached to her torso, was thrown back into the ranks of her oncoming warriors, splattering them with her blood. Her head sailed like a cannon ball over the barricade and rolled across the open ground within the laager.
The blast swept over the Nguni who had overturned the wagon, and who were crowded into the gap they had opened. It cut them down, killing and maiming them and piling their corpses on to those of their comrades who had already fallen.
Jim was protected from the full force of the explosion by the body of the overturned wagon. Half dazed he came to his feet, his first concern for Louisa. She had been with the herd-boys, and the blast had knocked her to her knees, but she jumped up again and ran to him.
“Jim, you are hurt!” she cried, and he felt something warm and wet running down from his nose into his mouth. It tasted metallic and salty. A flying splinter of rock had sliced across the bridge of his nose.
“A scratch!” he said, and hugged her to his chest. “But thank God you are unhurt.” Still clinging together they gazed through the gap in the barricade at the carnage the explosion had wrought. The Nguni dead were lying waist deep, piled upon each other. Manatasee’s impis were in full flight, back up the grassy hillside. Most had thrown aside their shields and weapons. Their terrified voices were filled with superstitious dread as they screamed to each other, “The wizards are immortal.”
“Manatasee is dead.”
“She is slain by the lightning of the wizards.”
“The great black cow is devoured by witchcraft.”
“Flee! We cannot prevail against them.”
“They are ghosts, and the spirits of crocodiles.”
Jim looked along the wall of the laager. Smallboy was leaning on the ramparts, staring after the routed enemy, in a stupor of exhaustion. The other men had slumped down, some in attitudes of prayer, still holding their hot, smoking muskets. Only Bakkat was indefatigable. He had climbed on to the top of one of the wagons, and was shrieking insults at the routed impis as they fled.
“I defecate on your heads, I piss on your seed. May your sons be born with two heads. May your wives grow beards, and fire-ants eat your testicles.”
“What is the little devil telling them?” Louisa asked.
“He wishes them a fond farewell and lifelong happiness,” Jim said, and the sound of her laughter revived him.
“To horse!” he shouted at his men. “Mount! Our hour has come.”
They stared at him dully, and he thought they might not have heard him, for his own ears still hummed with the memory of the guns.
“Come on!” he told Louisa. “We must lead them out.” The two ran to the horselines. Bakkat jumped down from his perch and followed them. The horses were already saddled. They had been held ready for this moment. Jim and Louisa mounted, and the others came running.
Bakkat retrieved Manatasee’s painted head, and spiked it on the point of a Nguni assegai. He carried it high as a Roman eagle standard. The queen’s purple tongue lolled out of the corner of her mouth, and one eye was closed while the other glared white and malicious.
As the band of horsemen sallied forth through the gap the Nguni had torn in the laager wall, each carried two muskets, one in hand and the other in the gun sheath. They had shot-belts slung over each shoulder and powder flasks tied to the pommel. Behind them came the boys, riding bareback, each leading a spare horse loaded with powder kegs, shot-bags and water bottles.
“Keep together!” Jim exhorted them. “Don’t get cut off. Like cornered jackals the Nguni are still dangerous.”
They trampled the corpses and the fallen shields under their hoofs before they reached the open grassland and spurred forward, but Jim called again: “Steady! Keep to a trot. There are still many hours of daylight ahead of us. Don’t burn up the horses!”
In a wide line abreast they swept the veld, and the muskets began to boom out as they overtook the running warriors. Most of the Nguni had thrown away their weapons and lost their headdresses. When they heard the steady pounding of the hoofs coming up behind them, they ran until their legs gave way. Then they knelt in the grass and waited like dumb animals for the blast of goose-shot.
“I cannot do this,” Louisa called desperately to Jim.
“Then tomorrow they will return and do it to you,” he warned her.
Smallboy and his men revelled and rejoiced in the slaughter. The herd-boys had to replenish their powder flasks, and refill the shot-bags. Bakkat waved the head of Manatasee on high, and shrieked with excitement as he rode down on another isolated bunch of demoralized warriors.
“He’s a bloodthirsty hobgoblin,” Louisa muttered, as they followed him. But when the Nguni saw the head of their queen they wailed with despair and threw themselves down in attitudes of surrender.
Ahead of the line of avenging riders rose another series of low, rolling hills, and it was towards these that the remnants of the broken impis were flying. Jim would not allow his men to increase their pace, and as they rode up towards the crest at a steady trot the musket fire had dwindled: the impis were scattering away to the horizon, and offered few targets.
Jim and Louisa reined in on the crest and looked down into a wide strath, a gently sloping valley through which another river meandered. Its banks were forested with magnificent trees, and open grass meadows lay beneath them. The air was blue with smoke from the fires of a vast encampment. Hundreds of small thatched huts were laid out on the grassland with military precision. They were deserted. What remained of the impis had fled: the tail end of the army disappearing over the far rise of the valley.
“Manatasee’s camp!” Louisa exclaimed. “This is where she mustered her impis before she attacked us.”
“And, by the love of all that is holy, there are her herds!” Jim pointed. Beneath the trees, along both banks of the river and spread out widely over the grassy saucer, were the dappled herds of cattle.
“They are Manatasee’s treasury. The wealth of her nation. We have only to ride down and gather them up.” Jim’s eyes sparkled as he surveyed them. Each herd was composed of animals of the same colour. The black cattle formed a dark stain on the golden veld, well separated from the red-brown herds and the dappled beasts.
“There are too many of them.” Louisa shook her head. “We will not be able to manage such numbers.”
“My sweet hedgehog, there are some things of which a man can never have too much: love, money and cattle to name just a few.” He rose in his stirrups and ran the lens of his telescope over the multicoloured masses of animals, then over the last of the fleeing Nguni. He lowered the telescope. “The impis are beaten and broken. We can call off the pursuit and count our winnings.”
Although the Nguni dead littered the grassland, not a single one of Jim’s men had been wounded, apart from little Izeze who had caught his finger in the lock of a musket he w
as reloading and lost the first joint. Louisa had dressed it and Jim told him it was a wound of honour. Izeze held the finger aloft proudly and showed off the turban of white bandage to anyone who would look.
With the eye of a stockman born and raised, Jim appraised the booty as he rode among the captured herds. These were tough, hardy animals, with massive shoulder humps and a wide rack of horns. They were tame and trusting and showed no alarm as Jim rode within arm’s length. All were in prime condition, glossy hides and rumps bulging with fat. At this first inspection Jim saw no evidence of the maggot-infested wounds of screw-worm, or the wall eyes of fly-borne ophthalmia. But he did notice with satisfaction the healed scars of sweat sickness on the glands of the throat, which proclaimed their immunity from further infection. For them to have survived in such fine condition he was sure they must also be salted against the disease of the tsetse fly.
“These are more valuable than any cattle brought from Europe,” he told Louisa. “They have immunity to the diseases of Africa, and have been lovingly raised by the Nguni. As Tegwane told us, they love their cattle more than their own children.”
Zama had left the band of horsemen and disappeared into the encampment of thatched huts. Suddenly he rode back, his face working with agitation. He was speechless with excitement, and gesticulated for Jim to follow him.
He led Jim to a stockade of freshly hewn tree-trunks. They lifted the logs out of the gateway and Jim went through, then stopped to stare in wonder. Before him lay Manatasee’s treasure house. The ivory was piled in stacks as high as a man could reach. The tusks had been graded by length and thickness. The immature ivory, some of which was no thicker than a human wrist, had been bound with strips of bark rope into fascicles, each making up a load that an ox could carry comfortably. The larger tusks were also bound with bark rope so that they could be secured to a pack-saddle for transportation. Some of the tusks were huge, but Jim saw none to match the pair he had taken from his own great bull.
While Smallboy and the other driver unsaddled the horses and took them down to the river to drink, Jim and Louisa wandered around the ivory storeroom. She watched his face as he gloated on this mass of treasure. He is like a little boy at Christmas time, she thought, as he came back to her and took her hand.
“Louisa Leuven,” he said, with solemn formality, “I am at last a rich man.”
“Yes.” She tried to wipe the smile from her lips. “I can see that you are. But, despite all your wealth, you are really quite a lovable lad.”
“I am pleased you have noticed that. That being agreed between us, will you marry me, and share my riches and my abundant charms?”
The laughter died on her lips. “Oh, Jim!” she whispered, and then the strain of the battle and the pursuit of the impis caught up with her, and she began to weep. Her tears cut runnels through the gun-soot and dust that coated her cheeks. “Oh, yes, Jim! I can think of nothing that would please me better than to become your wife.”
He caught her up and hugged her. “Then this is the happiest day of my life.” He bussed her heartily. “Now, dry your tears, Hedgehog. I’m sure we will find a priest somewhere, if not this year then next.”
With Louisa held in the crook of one arm, and his other hand laid possessively on one of the stacks of ivory, he looked over his newly acquired herds, which filled half of the valley with their abundance. Slowly his expression changed as he was struck by the age-old dilemma of the rich man.
How, in the name of Satan himself, do we keep our hands on what we have won, for every man and beast in Africa will be eager to take it from us? he wondered.
It was sunset before Jim could tear himself away from the captured encampment. Leaving Zama and half of his tiny force to guard the ivory and the herds, they set off back to the laager. The dazzling panoply of stars lit their way. As the group passed the corpses of the Nguni who had died that day, hyena and jackals scattered before the horses.
When they were almost within sight of the wagon laager they reined in their horses and stared at the night sky with awe. A mystic glow rose over the eastern horizon, and lit the world so clearly that they could see each other’s startled faces turned upwards. It was as though the sun was rising from the wrong direction. They watched in awe as an enormous fireball climbed over the horizon and hurtled silently overhead. Some of the herd-boys whimpered and pulled their blankets over their heads.
“’Tis nothing but a shooting star.” Jim reached across to take Louisa’s hand and reassure her. “They are common visitors in these African skies. This one is a little larger than most.”
“It is the spirit of Manatasee,” Smallboy cried. “She begins her journey to the land of shades.”
“The death of kings,” Bakkat whimpered. “The fall of tribes. War and death.”
“An omen of the worst kind.” Zama shook his head.
“I thought I had civilized you,” Jim laughed, “but you are still a crew of superstitious savages at heart.”
The gigantic heavenly body swept down into the west, leaving its fiery trail clear across the sky behind it as it disappeared below the horizon. It lit the sky for the rest of that night, and the next, and for many nights thereafter.
By its ghostly light they reached the wagon laager. They found old Tegwane, spear in hand, his beautiful granddaughter at his side, guarding it like a pair of faithful watch-dogs.
Although they were all nearly at the end of their tether, Jim roused the camp again before dawn. Using a span of oxen, and with much shouting and cracking of long whips, they heaved the overturned wagon back on to its wheels. The robust vehicle had suffered little damage, and within a few hours they had repacked its scattered load. Jim knew that they must leave the battlefield at once. In the heat of the sun the corpses would very soon putrefy, and with the stench of their rotting, sickness and disease would come.
At his orders they inspanned every other wagon in the train. Then Smallboy and the other drivers fired the long whips and the oxen trundled the vehicles out of the gruesome laager and into the open grassland.
They set up camp that evening among the deserted thatched huts of the Nguni town, surrounded by the vast herds of humpbacked cattle, with the piles of ivory securely enclosed within the wagon laager.
The next morning, after breakfast, Jim summoned all his men to the indaba. He wanted to explain to them his future plans, and to tell them where he would lead them next. First he asked Tegwane to explain how the Nguni used their cattle to carry the ivory when they were on the march.
“Tell us how they place the loads, and secure them to the backs of the animals,” Jim ordered.
“That I do not know,” Tegwane admitted. “I have only watched their advance from afar.”
“Smallboy will be able to work out the harness for himself,” Jim decided, “but it would have been better to use a method to which the cattle are accustomed.” Then he turned to the small group of herd-boys and said, “Can you men”—they liked to be called men and they had earned the right at the barricades—“can you men take care of so many?”
They considered the vast herds of cattle that were scattered down the full length of the valley.
“They are not so very many,” said the eldest, who was the spokesman.
“We can herd many more than that,” said another.
“We have vanquished the Nguni in battle,” squeaked Izeze, smallest and cheekiest of the boys, his voice not yet broken. “We can take care of their cattle, and their women also, when we capture them.”
“It may be, Izeze,” the name Jim had given him meant Little Flea, “it may be that neither your whip nor your whistle are yet large enough for those tasks.”
Izeze’s companions shrieked with laughter. “Show it to us!” they cried, and tried to catch him, but like the insect that was his namesake he was quick and agile. “Show us the weapon that will terrify the women of the Nguni.” Clinging to his loincloth to preserve his modesty and dignity Izeze fled, pursued by his peers.
“All of which brings us no closer to a solution of the problem,” Jim remarked as he and Louisa made the final inspection of the laager’s defences before turning in for the night.
Although it seemed apparent that the Nguni impis had been shattered and would not return, Jim was taking no chances. He set his sentries at nightfall and the next morning they stood to their guns in the dawn.
“Sweet heavens!” Jim exclaimed, as the light strengthened. “They have returned!” He seized Louisa’s arm and pointed out to her the rows of shadowy figures squatting just out of musket shot beyond the barricades of the laager.
“Who are they?” she whispered, though in her heart she knew the answer well.
“Who else but the Nguni?” he told her grimly.
“I had thought it was over, the killing and the fighting. God grant that it was enough.”
“We shall soon find out,” he said, and called for Tegwane. “Hail them!” he ordered the old man. “Tell them that I will send our lightning down upon them as I did to Manatasee.”
Tegwane climbed shakily on to the side of the wagon, and called across the open grassland. A voice answered him from among the gathered Nguni, and a long shouted exchange followed.
“What do they want?” Jim demanded impatiently. “Do they not know that their queen is dead and their impis shattered?”
“They know it well,” Tegwane said. “They have seen her head carried upon the assegai as they fled the battlefield, and her fiery spirit passing in the night sky as she travelled to meet her forefathers.”