by Wilbur Smith
"Go at once, great chief. Go before the coming of darkness and before the hyena find the wounded Nguni." Then he turned to Bakkat. "Have your musket ready. Never trust a Nguni, especially a dead one."
Three times Jim looked up from inspecting the defences of the laager at the sound of Bakkat's musket booming out across the battlefield. He knew that the little Bushman was finishing off the wounded enemy. Just as the light was fading, Bakkat and Tegwane returned to the laager. Both were carrying assegais and looted ivory ornaments. Tegwane had fresh blood on his hands.
"I spoke to a wounded and una before he died. You were right. This
was only a scouting party. However, Manatasee is very close, with the rest of her imp is and the cattle. She will be here within two days."
"What did you do with the man who told you this?"
"I recognized him," Tegwane replied. "He was the one who led the first attack on our village. Two of my sons died that day." Tegwane was silent for a while, then smiled thinly. "It would have been heartless to leave a fine warrior, such as he was, to the hyenas. I am a man of compassion."
A;r dinner, the drivers and other servants drifted across from their fires and gathered at a respectful distance around Jim and Louisa. The drivers smoked their long-stemmed clay pipes. The smell of the strong Turkish tobacco was rank on the sweet night air. This was one of the informal councils, which they called indaba, that had become a tradition of camp life over the months. Although most of them listened more than they spoke, every man present from Small boy, the head driver, to Izeze, the youngest herd-boy knew that he was entitled to state his views as strongly as he felt inclined.
They were all nervous. At even the most ordinary night sounds they started and peered out into the darkness beyond the walls of the laager. The yipping of a jackal might be the rallying call of the Nguni pickets. The whisper of the night wind in the thorn trees along the river bank might be the sound of their war rattles. The rumbling hoofs of a stampeding herd of wildebeest, frightened by a marauding pride of lions, might be the sound of assegais drumming on rawhide shields. Jim knew that his men had come to him to seek reassurance.
Though he was younger than any of the adults except Zama, he spoke to them like a father. He told them of the battles they had fought already, and singled them out one by one to praise their feats, their steadiness in the heat of the action, and the terrible losses they had inflicted on the enemy. He did not forget the part played by the herders and the voorlopers, and the boys grinned with pride. "You have proved to me, and yourselves, that the Nguni cannot prevail against our horses and muskets as long as we stand firm and hold hard."
When they drifted away at last from the campfire to their own mattresses their mood had changed. They chatted cheerfully among themselves, and their laughter was unfeigned.
"They trust you," Louisa said quietly. "They will follow where you lead them." She was silent a moment and then she said, so softly that he barely caught the words, "And so will I." She paused, then "Come!" she said, took his hand and pulled him to his feet. Her voice was firm and
decided. Before this she had always come to him surreptitiously once the rest of the camp was asleep. Now she went openly with him to his wagon. She could hear the murmur of other voices in the darkness and knew that the servants were watching them. It did not deter her.
"Hand me up," she said when they reached the rear steps of the wagon. He stooped and lifted her in his arms. She placed both her arms round his neck and pressed her face into its curve. He made her feel as small and light as a child as he carried her up the ladder and brushed through the curtain of the afterclap. "I am your woman," she told him.
"Yes." He laid her on the car dell bed. "And I am your man."
He stood over her and stripped off his clothing. His body was pale and strong in the lamplight. She saw that he was fully aroused, and felt no revulsion. She reached out unashamedly and took him in her hand, her thumb and fingers barely encompassing his girth. He was as hard as if he had been carved from a branch of ironwood. The tips of her breasts ached with wanting him. She sat up and unlaced the front of her tunic.
"I need you, Jim. Oh, how I need you," she said, still staring at him. He was rough with haste, his need surpassing hers. He pulled off her boots, then stripped off her breeches. Then he stopped and stared in awe at the pale golden cluster of curls in the fork of her thighs.
"Touch me," she said, her voice husky. For the first time he laid his hand upon the entry-port to her body and soul. She let her thighs fall apart, and he felt the heat almost scald his fingertips. Gently he parted the fleshy lips, and slippery beads of moisture anointed him.
"Hurry, Jim," she whispered, and clasped him again. "I can bear it no longer." She tugged at him insistently, and he fell forward on top of her.
"Oh, God, my little hedgehog, how I love you." His words were choked.
Clasping him in both her hands, she tried to guide him into herself, but there was a moment when she thought she was too small for him. "Help me!" she cried again, and placed both hands upon his buttocks. She pulled him towards her desperately, and felt the hard round muscles convulse under her hands as he thrust forward with his hips. She cried out incoherently, for he was cleaving her apart. It was pleasure driven to the frontiers of agony. Then, suddenly, he forced his way past all resistance, and she felt the full slithering length of him. She screamed, but when he tried to pull back she locked both legs over his back to hold him. "Don't leave me," she cried. "Don't ever leave. Stay with me for ever."
When he woke, the first light of dawn was pearling the canvas curtain of the afterclap. She was awake and watching him, lying quietly with
her head on his bare chest. When she saw his eyes open she traced with her forefinger the shape of his mouth. "When you sleep you look like a little boy," she whispered.
"I will prove to you that I am a big boy," he whispered back.
"I want you to know, James Archibald, that I am always open to proof." She smiled, then sat up and placed her hands on his shoulders to pin him down. In one lithe movement, as though she were mounting Trueheart, she straddled his lower body.
Their joy was so incandescent that it seemed to light the whole encampment, and changed the mood of all those around them. Even the herd-boys were aware that something monumental had taken place, and they giggled and nudged each other when they watched Jim and Louisa together. It gave them all something to gossip about, and even the threat of Manatasee and her imp is seemed to recede in the face of this new fascination.
Jim sensed the lackadaisical mood that was spreading through the laager, and did all he could to keep them alert and vigilant. He exercised the mounted musketeers every morning, honing the tactics of the fighting withdrawal they had struck upon almost by chance.
Then he reviewed the defence of the laager. Each of the musketeers was allotted his station on the perimeter, and given two boys to load for him. Jim and Louisa together drilled the voorlopers and herd' boys at reloading the muskets. Jim nailed a gold guilder coin to the tailboard of his wagon. "On Sunday, after Welanga reads to you from the Bible, we will hold a competition for the fastest gun team," he promised, and hauled from his pocket the big chiming watch on its gold chain that Tom and Sarah had given him on his last birthday. "I will time you with this, and the gold guilder goes to the champions."
A gold coin was a fortune beyond the imagining of the boys, and the promise spurred them on until soon they were almost as quick as Louisa. Although some were so small that they had to stand on tiptoe to rod the charge down the long barrels, they learned to cant the weapon so they could reach the muzzle more readily. They weighed the powder charge by scooping a handful from the kegs, rather than fumbling with the flask, and stuffed the shot into their mouths to spit it into the muzzle. Within days they were able to keep a ripple of gunfire running up and down the barricade, handing the recharged muskets to the front almost as fast as the men could fire them. Jim felt that the expenditure
&nb
sp; of gunpowder and shot was worthwhile. The boys were inflamed with excitement as the day of the loading competition drew nearer, and the men gambled heavily on the outcome.
On Sunday Jim woke while it was still dark. He was immediately aware that something was amiss. He could not place it, but then he heard the horses moving restlessly in the lines, and the cattle milling about in the laager.
"Lions?" he wondered, and sat up. At that moment one of the dogs barked, and the others joined in. He jumped out of bed and reached for his breeches.
"What is it, Jim?" Louisa asked, and he could hear that she was still half asleep.
"The dogs. The horses. I'm not sure." He pulled on his boots, sprang down from the wagon, and saw that most of the camp was already astir. Smallboy was throwing wood on to the fire and Bakkat and Zama were in the horse lines trying to soothe the agitated animals with words and caresses. Jim strode to the barricade and spoke softly to the two boys who were crouched there, shivering in the dawn chill.
"Have you seen or heard anything out there?" They shook their heads and peered out into the darkness. It was still too dark to make out the tops of the thorn trees against the sky. He listened intently, but the only sound he heard was the dawn breeze in the grass. Nevertheless, he was as restless as the horses, and relieved that he had ordered all the livestock brought in from the veld at sunset the previous evening. The laager was sealed off and barricaded.
Louisa came to stand beside him. She was fully dressed with a shawl over her shoulders, and she had bound up her hair with a head cloth They stood close together, waiting and listening. Trueheart whickered and the other horses stamped and jingled the chains of their halters. Every person in the laager was awake now, but their voices were strained and subdued.
Suddenly Louisa seized Jim's hand and squeezed it hard. She heard the singing before he did. The voices were faint, but bass and deep on the soft dawn breeze.
Tegwane came from the fire, still limping from his wounds. He stood by Jim's other side and they listened to the singing. "It is the Death Song," Tegwane said softly. "The Nguni are asking the spirits of their fathers to prepare a feast to welcome them in the land of shades. They are singing that this day they will die in battle or bring great honour to the tribe." They listened in silence for a while.
"They are singing now that tonight their women will weep or rejoice for them, and their sons will be proud."
"When will they come?" Louisa asked softly.
"As soon as it is light," Tegwane told her.
Louisa was still clinging to Jim's hand. Now she lifted her face to his. "I have not said it before, but I must say it now. I love you, my man."
"I have said it many times before, but I say it again," he replied. "I love you, my little hedgehog."
"Kiss me," she said, and their embrace was long and fierce. Then they drew apart.
"Go to your places now," Jim called to the men. "Manatasee has come."
The herd' boys brought them their breakfast from the cooking fires, and they ate their salted porridge in darkness, standing by the guns. When daylight came, it came swiftly. First the tops of the trees showed against the brightening sky, then they could make out the vague shape of the hills beyond. Suddenly Jim drew breath sharply, and Louisa started next to him.
"The hills are dark," she whispered. The light strengthened and the singing grew with it, rising in majestic chorus. Now they could make out the mass of the regiments that lay like a deep shadow upon the pale grassland. Jim studied them through the lens of the telescope.
"How many are there?" Louisa asked softly.
"As Tegwane has said, they are many. It is not possible to count their numbers."
"And we are only eight." Her voice faltered.
"You have not counted the boys." He laughed. "Don't forget the boys."
Jim went back to where the boys waited beside the gun racks, and spoke to each of them. Their cheeks were stuffed with goose-shot, and they held the ramrods ready, but they grinned and bobbed their heads. Children make fine soldiers, he thought. They have no fear for they think it is a game, and they obey orders.
Then he walked along the line of men who stood behind the barricades. To Bakkat he said, "The Nguni will have seen you from afar, for you stand tall as a granite hill in their path and strike terror into their hearts."
"Have your long whips ready," he told Smallboy and the drivers. "After this little fight you will have a thousand head of cattle to drive down to the coast."
He clasped Zama's shoulder. "I am glad that you stand beside me as you have always done. You are my right hand, old friend."
As he returned to Louisa's side the singing of the imp is swelled to a crescendo, then ended with the stamp of hundreds of horny bare feet that rang out like a salvo of artillery. The silence after it was shocking.
"Now it begins," Jim said and lifted the telescope.
The black ranks stood like a petrified forest. The only movement was the rising dawn wind ruffling the vulture feathers in their headdresses. Then Jim saw that the centre of the line was opening like the petals of a night orchid, and a column of men came through, winding like a serpent down the grassy hillside towards the laager. In stark contrast to the massed imp is they wore kilts made of strips of white oxhide, and tall headdresses of snowy egret feathers. Twenty men led the column. On their hips were slung war drums made from hollowed-out logs. The rank behind them carried trumpets of kudu horn. In the centre of the column there was a massive litter whose interior was screened by leather curtains. Twenty men carried it on their shoulders, shuffling and swaying, dipping and turning.
One of the drummers began to tap out a tattoo, which throbbed like the pulse of all the world, and the imp is swayed to the rhythm. One by one the other drummers joined in and the music swelled. Then the trumpeters lifted their kudu horns, and blew a warlike fanfare. The column opened into a single file with the great litter in the centre, and halted just out of range of the barricade of the laager. The trumpets sounded a second blast that rang against the hills, then another eerie silence fell.
By now the first rays of the rising sun played over the massed regiments. It struck sparks of light from the blades of the assegais.
"We should strike now," Louisa said. "We should sortie on horseback, and attack them first."
"They are already too close. We would only get in two or three volleys before they drove us back into the laager," Jim told her gently. "Let them expend themselves on the barricades. I want to save the horses for what will come later."
Again the trumpets sang out and the bearers lowered the litter to the ground. There was another trumpet blast, and from the litter emerged a single dark shape like a hornet from its nest.
"Bayetel' thundered the regiments. "Bayetel' The royal salute drowned the drums and trumpets. Hurriedly Jim snatched up the telescope and stared at the macabre figure.
The woman was slim and sinuous, taller than her bodyguards in their egret headdresses. She was stark naked, but her entire body was painted in fantastic patterns. There were glaring white circles around her eyes. A straight white line ran up her throat, over her chin and nose, between her eyes and over her shaven scalp, dividing her head into hemispheres. One half was painted blue as the sky, the other half blood red. She
carried a small ceremonial assegai in her right hand, the haft covered with fine designs of beadwork and tassels of lion's mane hair.
Whorls and swirls of white paint highlighted her breasts and her mons Veneris. Diamond and arrowhead patterns enhanced the length of her slim arms and legs.
"Manatasee!" Tegwane said softly. The queen of death."
Manatasee began to dance, a slow, mesmeric movement like that of an erect cobra. She came down the hillside towards the laager, graceful and deadly. None of the men in the laager moved or spoke and stared in dread fascination.
The imp is moved forward behind her, as though she were the head of the dragon and they the monstrous body. Their weapons sparkled like repti
lian scales in the low sun.