Blue Horizon c-3

by Wilbur Smith

  Tom had kept one of the most serious matters to the last. Now he fetched a mariner's tarpaulin chart case from the dog-cart and came back to sit beside Jim again. He opened the flat case, and drew out a chart. This is a copy of a chart I've been drawing up over the past fifteen years. I have kept the original, and this is the only copy. It's a valuable document," he told Jim.

  "I will keep it safe," his son promised.

  Tom spread the sheet of heavy parchment on the ground in front of them, and placed small stones on each corner to hold it down in the light morning breeze. Jim studied the finely drawn and coloured topography of the south continent. "I had no idea, Father, that you were a talented artist."

  His father looked mildly uncomfortable and glanced at Sarah. "Well," he drawled, "I had a little help."

  "You are too modest, Tom." Sarah smiled. "You did all the supervision."

  "Of course," Tom chuckled, 'that was the difficult part." Then he was serious again. "The outline of the coast is accurate, more accurate than any other map I have seen. Your uncle Dorian and I made the observations as we sailed and traded along both the western and eastern coastlines over the last twenty years. You have been on one of these voyages with me, Jim, so you will remember these places." He named them as he pointed them out. "On the west coast the Bay of Whales and New Devon Harbour I named it for the old country. On the east coast this is Frank's Lagoon, where your great-grandfather buried the treasure he captured from the Dutch galleon the Standvastigheid. It's a fine anchorage guarded from the open sea by an entrance protected by rocky headlands. Here much further north is another great bay, which the Portuguese call Nativity Bay, or Natal."

  "But you don't have go downs built at these ports, Father," Jim interjected. "I know that they are desolate, deserted places, all of them."

  You're right, of course, Jim. But one of our schooners calls in at these places every six months or so, depending on the season and the winds. The natives know that we come regularly, and they wait for us there with hides, gum arable, ivory and other goods to trade."

  Jim nodded.

  Tom went on, "Because you have already been there, you will recognize any of those places on the coast when you reach it. You know where the mail stones are." These were large brightly painted flat stones set at prominent places on shore under which visiting sailors could leave letters in waterproof tarpaulin packets to be found by other ships and carried on to the person to whom they were addressed. "If you leave a letter there you know that I or your uncle will find it in time. We also will leave them for you, on the off-chance."

  "Or I could wait there for the next visit of one of our ships."

  "Yes, Jim, you could do that. But make sure it's not a VOC ship that you meet. By now Governor van de Witten will have a large bounty on your head and Louisa's too."

  They all looked serious as they considered the predicament in which the young couple now stood. Tom went on quickly to cover the pause: "Before you reach the coast, however, you will have to cross hundreds, even thousands of leagues of virtually unexplored wilderness." Tom spread his big scarred hand across the map. "Just look what lies ahead of your wagons. It's an opportunity I've been hankering for all my life. This place where we are sitting now is as far into the interior as I have ever been able to travel."

  "You have nobody to blame for that but yourself, Thomas Courtney," Sarah told him. "I never stopped you, but you were always too busy making money."

  "And now it's too late. I'm getting old and fat." Tom put on a lugubrious expression. "But Jim here is going in my place." He stared longingly at the map, then lifted his gaze across the plain to where the wagon train was rolling away in its own yellow dust cloud and murmured, "You lucky devil, you are going to see places never before looked upon by civilized eyes."

  Then he returned his attention to the map. "Over the years I have sought out every man, black, white and yellow, who was ever reputed to have travelled beyond the borders of the Cape colony. I questioned them exhaustively. When Dorian and I went ashore on our trading expeditions we interrogated the natives we traded with. I have written everything that I ever learned from these sources on to this map. I have spelled the names as they sounded in my ear. Here, in the margins and on the reverse side, I have made notes of every story and legend I was told, the names of the different tribes, their villages, kings and chiefs. Then I have tried to mark in the rivers, lakes and water-holes, but there was no way of telling the distances between them and their compass bearings from each other. You, Bakkat, Zama and Smallboy between

  you speak a dozen or so native dialects. You will be able to hire guides and translators as you travel on and come in contact with new and unknown tribes." Tom folded the map again and placed it back with reverential care in the tarpaulin case. He handed it to Jim. "Guard it well, my boy. It will guide you on your journey."

  Then he went back to the dog-cart and brought out a hard leather case. He opened it and showed Jim what it contained. "I would have liked you to have one of those newfangled chronometers that Harrison in London has so recently perfected, so that you could more accurately determine your latitude and longitude as you travel, but I have never even laid eyes on one, and they do say that even if you find one they cost five hundred pounds each. The same goes for one of John Hadley's reflecting quadrants. But here are my trusty old compass and octant. They belonged to your grandfather, but you know well how to use them, and with this copy of the Admiralty tables you will always be pretty sure at least of your latitude any time you can see the sun. You should be able to navigate to any of the places I have marked on the chart."

  Jim took the leather case from his father, opened it and lifted out the beautiful, complex instrument. It was of Italian manufacture. On top was the brass ring from which it could be suspended to establish its own level, then the rotating brass rings lovingly engraved with star charts, circles of latitude and a marginal circle of hours. The alidade, or diametral rule, which served as a sun sight, could pick up the sun's shadow, and throw it across the coinciding circles of time and latitude.

  Jim fondled it, then looked up at his father. "I shall never be able to repay you for all these wonderful gifts and for all you have done for me. I do not deserve such love and generosity."

  "Let your mother and me be the judge of that," Tom said gruffly. "And now we must start for home." He called to the two servants who were returning to the colony with them. They ran to in span the draught horses to the dog-cart, and to saddle Tom's big bay gelding.

  Up on Drumfire and Trueheart, Jim and Louisa rode beside the dogcart for almost a league, taking this last chance to repeat their farewells. When at last they knew they should go no further if they wanted to catch up with their own wagons before sunset, they lingered and watched the dog-cart dwindling across the dusty veld.

  "He's coming back," Louisa exclaimed, as she spotted Tom returning at a gallop. He reined in beside them again.

  "Listen to me, Jim, my lad, don't you forget to keep a journal. I want you to record all your navigational notes. Don't forget the names of the native chiefs and their towns. Keep a lookout for any goods we might be able to trade with them in future."

  fe.

  "Yes, Father. We have spoken about this already," Jim reminded him.

  "And the gold pans," Tom went on.

  "I will pan the sands of every riverbed we cross." Jim laughed. "I won't forget."

  "You remind him, Louisa. He is a scatterbrain, this son of mine. I don't know where he gets it from. Must be his mother."

  "I promise, Mr. Courtney." Louisa nodded seriously.

  Tom turned back to Jim. "James Archibald, you look after this young lady. She is obviously a sensible girl, and much too good for you."

  At last Tom left them and rode off after the dog-cart, turning in the saddle every few minutes to wave back at them. They saw him rejoin the distant cart, and then suddenly Jim exclaimed, "Name of the devil, I forgot to send my respects and farewells to Mansur and Uncle Dorian.
Come on!" They galloped in pursuit of the cart. When they caught up with it they all dismounted and embraced again.

  "This time we really are leaving," Jim said at last, but his father rode back with them a mile before he could bring himself to let them go, and he waved them out of sight.

  The wagons had long ago disappeared into the distance, but the tracks of their iron-rimmed wheels were scored into the earth, and as easy to follow as a signposted road. As the two of them rode along it the herds of spring buck were driven ahead of them like flocks of sheep, the smaller herds mingling with those ahead, until the land seemed to seethe and the grass was hidden beneath this living sea.

  Other larger wild animals became part of this tide of life. Dark troops of gnu pranced and cavorted, shaking their shaggy manes, arching their necks like thoroughbreds and kicking their hind legs to the sky as they chased each other in circles. Squadrons of quagga galloped away in ranks, barking like packs of hounds. These wild horses of the Cape, striped like the zebra except for their plain brown legs, were so numerous that the Cape burghers killed them in thousands for their hides. They sewed them into grain bags and left the carcasses for the vultures and the hyenas.

  Louisa looked upon this host with amazement. "I have never seen such a marvelous sight," she cried.

  "In this land we are blessed with such multitudes that no man need stint himself or put up his gun until his arms are too exhausted to lift it," Jim agreed. "I know of one great hunter who lives in the colony. He destroyed three hundred head of big game in a single day, and rode four horses to a standstill to achieve it. What a feat that was." Jim shook his head in admiration.

  The campfires guided them to the laagered wagons in the last mile of

  darkness, where Zama had the black iron kettle boiling and coffee beans freshly ground in the mortar.

  Relying on his father's chart and navigational instruments, Jim steered the wagons north by east. The days fell into a natural rhythm, and became weeks, which in their turn became months. Each morning Jim rode out with Bakkat to spy out the land that lay ahead, and to find the next water-hole or river. He took his breakfast with him in the canteen slung with his bedroll on the back of his saddle, and Bakkat led a pack-horse to bring in any game they bagged.

  Often Louisa was busy around the wagons, mending and cleaning, directing the servants in running her movable home the way she wanted, but most days she was free to ride out with Jim on Trueheart. From the beginning she was enchanted by the animals and birds that teemed in every direction she cast her eye. Jim taught her the names of all of them and they discussed their habits in detail. Bakkat joined in with an endless fund of facts and magical stories.

  When they halted at midday to rest and graze the horses, Louisa brought out of her saddlebag one of the pads Sarah had given her and sketched the interesting things they had seen that day. Jim lounged nearby and advised on how she might improve each portrait, though secretly he was amazed at her artistic skills.

  He insisted she always carry the little French rifle in the gun sheath under her right knee. "When you need a gun you need it in a hurry," he told her, 'and you had better be sure you know how to use it." He rehearsed her in loading, priming and firing the weapon. With the report and recoil of her first shot she cried out with alarm and would have dropped the rifle, had not Jim been ready to snatch it out of her hands. After much reassurance and encouragement he convinced her that it had not been as fearful an experience as her reaction had indicated, and Louisa expressed herself ready for a second attempt. To encourage her, Jim placed his own hat on a low thornbush twenty paces away.

  "I tell you now, Hedgehog, you'll not come within ten feet of it." It was a calculated challenge. Louisa's eyes narrowed into blue diamond chips of determination. This time her hand was steady. When the gunsmoke cleared after the shot, Jim's hat was spinning high in the air. It was his favourite hat, and he raced after it. When he stuck his forefinger through the hole in the brim his expression was of such

  fe disbelief and dismay that Bakkat dissolved into hoots of mirth. He staggered in circles demonstrating with hand signals how the hat had sailed into the air. Then his legs gave way under him, and he collapsed in the dust and beat his belly with both hands, shrieking with laughter.

  His mirth was infectious and Louisa broke into peals of laughter. Up to that time Jim had not heard her laugh so naturally and so wholeheartedly. He placed the riddled hat on his head, and joined in the merriment. Later he stuck an eagle feather in the hole and wore it proudly.

  They sat in the shade of a sweet thorn tree and ate the lunch of cold venison and pickles that Louisa had packed into his canteen. Every few minutes one of them would start laughing again and set off the other two.

  "Let Welanga shoot your hat again," Bakkat pleaded. "It was the greatest joke of my life."

  Jim declined, and instead he blazed the trunk of the sweet thorn tree with his hunting knife. The bright white patch formed an idle target. He was learning that when Louisa set her mind on something she was determined and tenacious. She swiftly mastered the art of loading the rifle: measuring the powder charge from the flask, ramming the wad down upon it, selecting a symmetrical ball from the bag on her belt, wrapping it in the greased patch, and rodding it down the bore, tapping it home with the little wooden mallet until it seated on the wad, then priming the pan and closing the friz zen over it to prevent it spilling.

  By the second day of instruction she could load and fire the weapon unaided, and soon she was able to hit the sap-oozing blaze on a tree with four balls out of five.

  "This is becoming too easy for you now, Hedgehog. Time for your first real hunt."

  Early the next morning she loaded the rifle in the way he had trained her, and they rode out together. As they approached the first herds of grazing game Jim showed her how to use Trueheart as a stalking horse. They both dismounted and Jim led Drumfire, while she followed in his tracks leading the mare and staying close to her flank. Screened by the bodies of the horses they angled across the front of a small bachelor herd of spring buck rams. These animals had never seen human beings or horses before and they stood and stared with innocent amazement at the strange creatures passing by. Jim approached them on the diagonal, not heading directly towards the herd, which might have alarmed them and set them to flight.

  At the point of closest approach, less than a hundred paces from the nearest animals in the herd, Jim halted Drumfire and whistled softly.

  Louisa dropped Trueheart's reins. The mare stopped and stood obediently, trembling in anticipation of the shot she knew was coming. Louisa sank down and, from a seated position, took careful aim at a ram who was standing broadside to her and slightly separated from the rest of the herd. Jim had drummed into her the point of aiming behind the shoulder, showing it to her on a drawing of the animal, and on carcasses that he had shot and brought into camp.

  Nevertheless, she found this different from aiming at a blaze on a tree. Her heart was racing, her hands shook almost uncontrollably and her aim danced up and down and across.

  Softly Jim called to her, "Remember what I told you."

  In the excitement of the hunt she had forgotten his advice. "Take a deep breath. Swing it up smoothly. Let half of your breath out. Don't hang on the trigger. Squeeze it off as your sights bear."

  She lowered the rifle, gathered herself and did it just the way he had taught her. The little rifle felt light as thistledown as it floated up, and fired of its own accord, so unexpectedly that she was startled by the crash of the shot and long spurt of gunsmoke.

  There was a thud of the ball striking, the ram leaped high in the air, and came down in a graceful pirouette. Then its legs collapsed under it, it rolled like a ball across the sun-baked earth, and at last stretched out and lay still. Jim let out a whoop of triumph and raced out to where it lay. With the smoking rifle in her hand Louisa ran after him.

  "Shot cleanly through the heart," Jim cried. "I could not have done it better myself." He turned t
o meet her as she came running up. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair had escaped in glorious disarray from under her hat and her eyes sparkled. Despite her efforts to avoid the sun, her skin had taken on the colour of a ripe peach. Her excitement matched his own, and he thought he had never seen anything as beautiful as she was at that moment.