by John Wilcox
‘We will follow this stream down and camp within the hour,’ he called to Jenkins. ‘But I think we had better not light a fire, because we must be in Kaffir country now.’
In the event, however, they were able to find a mossy bank, surrounded by rocks and close up against a stone face in which a chimney-like fissure enabled them to light a fire without the smoke curling for all to see. They hobbled the horses, brewed tea and ate the last of the cold meat, fruit and cheese they had brought with them from Durban. It would be biltong from now on. Then they stood watch in turn throughout an uneventful but bitterly cold night.
They had been in the saddle for at least an hour when the sun rose behind them, kissing the top of the mountain and immediately suffusing their bodies with warmth. In the valley, the way was easier and, using the spare horse to spell their mounts, they were able to make quick progress along the springy grass. There was no sign of fixed habitation, but here and there, they passed the cold ashes of camp fires.
‘I know nothing about these Sothos,’ confided Simon, ‘but it could be that they are nomads.’
‘I don’t care if they’re Church of England,’ replied Jenkins, sucking in his moustache, ‘as long as they keep their spears to themselves.’
‘It’s not spears I’m worried about. According to the General, these fellows have got rifles, so keep your eyes open.’
The inevitable encounter came at about noon, when the two were looking for a place to stop for a midday meal. From around a copse of stunted trees loped a party of six Sothos. To Simon, they looked exactly like Zulus in that they all wore the umuTsha, a thin belt around the waist from which strips of dressed hide hung down front and back, and white cow-tail fringes decorating their calves. They carried shields, although none had the Zulu isiCoco, the fibre ring sewn into the hair to signify maturity. Four of them were armed with the Zulu-type iklwa or short stabbing spears and the other two had rifles, though not, Simon noted with relief, Martini-Henrys but the older, less accurate Sniders. Their comparative lack of decoration meant in Zulu terms that they were stripped for battle, but Simon was not sure if this carried the same significance in Basutoland. The six spread out to bar their passage.
‘Keep me covered,’ said Simon quietly, ‘and pull the pack animals in on a short rein. Don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to.’
‘Be careful, bach sir,’ said Jenkins, gently easing his Colt from its holster and partly covering it with his hand holding the reins. ‘I don’t like the look of ’em.’
Simon held up his hand and trotted towards the six men, all of whom regarded him with expressionless faces.
‘Do you speak English?’ he asked, in conversational tones.
No one spoke and no flicker of expression crossed their faces. Slowly Simon reached behind him into one of his saddle bags and produced a small buckskin pouch, loosely tied with cord at the neck. He had bought it in Durban on a last-minute impulse and was glad now that he had done so. He unknotted the drawstring, reached inside, took a pinch of snuff and then leaned down and offered it to the nearest warrior. The man waited for a moment, regarding Simon from black pupils set within amazingly yellow eyeballs. Then he took a pinch and sniffed, and then took another. He made as if to hold on to the bag, but Simon gestured for him to pass it to his fellows. He did so, grudgingly, and they all indulged.
‘Where you come from?’ The question came in stilted English from a man in the middle of the semicircle. He held his rifle with one hand, as if it was a revolver, pointing at Simon’s midriff. Simon noted, however, that the cocking hammer was not pulled back. The second needed to do that would give Jenkins time to fire.
‘From Natal,’ he replied, twisting in the saddle to point behind him. ‘We are not soldiers and we come in peace. We cross your land because we journey to the Boer country of the Orange Free State. We do not stay here.’
The Sotho continued to regard him unblinkingly. Then he pointed. ‘If you not soldiers, why you have soldiers’ guns?’
‘It is possible to buy these in Natal. We need them for protection against lions.’
For the first time an expression crossed the man’s face. It seemed to signify contempt. Of what? The white man’s fear of the big cats, or just his ignorance?
‘No lion here,’ he sneered. He pointed to the north with his rifle. ‘Many miles that way.’
‘We did not know that. We have never been to your country before. We only cross it. We do not stay.’
The impasse continued. Simon held the man’s stare and allowed a faint expression of truculence to creep across his face. He would not be bullied.
The Sotho gestured to the Martini-Henry in the saddle holster. ‘No lions so you no need that gun,’ he said. ‘You give that gun to me.’
Simon slowly withdrew the rifle from its holster. Still holding the Sotho’s gaze, he pulled down the lever behind the trigger and gently brought the barrel up so that it was pointing directly at the native’s chest. ‘No,’ he said.
The Sotho broke the stare and looked at the muzzle of the gun. His companions had not moved during the confrontation and they all now regarded their leader. At last he looked up, back at Simon, and then stepped to one side.
‘Thank you,’ said Simon. And he gently urged his horse forward, looking directly ahead.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ said Jenkins, giving the Sothos the benefit of one of his beaming smiles. But as he rode through them, following Simon, he turned in the saddle and, still beaming, covered them with his Colt. The natives stayed in their semicircle, watching them go.
When the Sothos were out of sight, Jenkins eased alongside Simon. ‘Just as well we didn’t ’ave to gallop, look you,’ he said. ‘You would ’ave to ’ave ’ung on to ’is neck.’
‘Oh, do shut up. Can you still see them?’
‘No.’
‘Right. That seemed too easy. They shouldn’t be able to catch us without horses, but if they’re anything like the Zulus, they’ll be able to move over this ground very quickly. We need to move fast. Come on.’
The two men eased the animals into a trot, with the pack mule protesting at the rear so that Jenkins had to drop back and give it a kick in the rump. The mule now became a hindrance in that every time the horses trotted, he pulled back on the lead rope and dug in his front hoofs. Only curses and blows from Jenkins would persuade him to go forward at anything above a leisurely walk. Both men now became concerned at their lack of progress and they forsook their midday meal to put distance between themselves and the Sothos. Constant scrutiny with the telescope of the landscape behind them, however, revealed no sign of pursuers, and Simon eventually decided that it would be safe to stop just before nightfall at what appeared to be a reasonable campsite, within a small cluster of trees which afforded them good cover and where they could tether the horses. But they lit no fire and the man off watch lay with his hand on his rifle.
Simon took the first guard, and as he watched the daylight disappear, he debated with himself whether he had mishandled the confrontation with the Sothos. After all, by the sound of it, these people were still in a state of some kind of hostilities with the Cape authorities and they would argue, no doubt, that they had every right to disarm strangers who rode through their land. Yet, clearly, he could not have surrendered their rifles, for, from what Sir Garnet had told him, it was the very question of the possession of firearms that had provoked the hostilities in the first place. On the other hand, he had threatened the leader of the party with his Martini-Henry. Would he have caused this man to lose face in front of his tribesmen? Had he thrown out some kind of challenge? Simon’s chin sank on to his chest as he considered the question. The answer was probably yes. The English-speaking Sotho had been faced down. In Zululand this would have evoked revenge. Given that the Sothos were virtually neighbours of the Zulus - they certainly looked and dressed alike - the same standards probably applied here. There would have to be an accounting. Almost certainly, then, they would have been pursued - an
d skilfully, for there were no signs of them being followed. The watch would have to be keen.
It turned into an extremely uncomfortable night for Simon, who now found his attempts to sleep when off watch disturbed by his preoccupation with those implacable black faces. The sight of the spear tips up close to him had stimulated his imagination and, perforce, he lived again the sharp, searing pain of the assegai wounds he had suffered in the Zulu War. The night was cold but he found perspiration trickling down his forehead on to his blanket. He had told Jenkins that he felt they had left the six warriors far behind them, but his every instinct now told him otherwise.
After lying wide-eyed in the darkness, it was a relief to come back on watch, and Simon looked with envy at Jenkins, who slipped into sleep as soon as his head touched the rolled jacket that served as pillow. Peering out into the valley from the safety of the trees, Simon could see very little. He was gambling that the Sothos, if they had followed them and were planning to attack, would wait until dawn. Certainly, Zulus and Afghans both followed this precept. If the natives of Basutoland were different, then he and Jenkins stood little chance, because attackers would be upon them in the darkness before they could raise their rifles.
Simon had stood night guard many times in his army career, but this vigil was the worst he had experienced. It was like keeping watch in a graveyard, for this valley seemed to be bereft of nocturnal animals, and light cloud hid the moon and stars. Little broke the silence, except the gentle rhythm of Jenkins’s breathing, yet Simon sensed that somewhere out there in the velvet blackness, those spearmen were waiting, biding their time. His tongue felt like a lump of dough inside his dry mouth as he leaned against a tree, his rifle across his knee, straining his eyes into the blackness.
It was almost a relief when he saw the Sothos. It was just after dawn, as the sun, still hidden behind one jagged peak, was shooting spokes of bright light into the dark sky, that Simon’s tired eyes caught a movement, somewhere out on the plain. His hand reached out to touch Jenkins, who wriggled out from beneath his blankets in a second, rifle in hand.
The Sothos were crawling on their bellies, making clever use of dead ground. They were spread out and approaching with extreme caution.
‘How many can you see?’ whispered Simon.
‘Just three.’
‘Agreed. If there’s still only six of them, then the other three are probably on the other side of the trees, coming to take us from there.’
‘Is there time to mount up and make a run for it?’
‘No. Not a hope.’
‘Shall I try and pull the horses down, in case they start firin’?’
‘No. They will want the horses as much as the rifles, so keep them standing. They won’t want them killed so it may deter them from using those Sniders. They will probably try and rush us in the hope that we’re still asleep. We’d better stay back to back. We mustn’t lose each other in this brush.’
Jenkins sniffed. ‘Wish I’d got a lunger.’
Simon swallowed at the mention of cold steel. ‘I’m not sure bayonets would be much good, two against six. We must try and bring them down before they reach us. How’s your shoulder?’
‘Bit stiff, that’s all. It could do with a drink.’
The Sothos had disappeared from sight for the moment, and Simon felt certain that now that the sun was up, they were spreading out to attack the copse from several sides. It was time to flush them out. Yet still he hesitated. He was in their country. Until they showed actual signs of aggression he did not wish to kill, but if he allowed them to come nearer they could charge and be in the trees before he and Jenkins had time to reload.
Suddenly he stood up. ‘Do not come any further, or we will open fire,’ he shouted. ‘What do you want?’
‘For Gawd’s sake,’ gasped Jenkins. ‘Don’t give them a target.’
A hand carrying a spear rose from the ground, frighteningly near, and suddenly three natives sprang from concealment and rushed towards Simon. He hardly had time to gasp, ‘Watch the rear,’ before the Welshman’s gun roared and the nearest attacker fell. Simon brought down the second, but as he had feared, the third warrior was upon him before he could reload. He heard Jenkins’s rifle fire again behind him and he just had time to pick up his Colt before the Sotho pushed the stave-tip of his shield under his arm and spun him round. It was the typical Zulu tactic devised years ago by the great Chief Shaka: the shield used as an offensive weapon in close-quarter fighting, the tip tucked under the other man’s shield to twist him off balance and open him for the spear thrust under the ribs. But Simon had no shield to encumber him, and as he was spun, he cocked the revolver with his thumb, pointed it blindly behind him under his elbow and pressed the trigger. At that range he could not miss and the native folded across Simon’s back, drenching him with blood.
He pushed him away and whirled round. At the foot of a tree, some fifteen feet away, lay another warrior, his blue-blackness somehow accentuated by the red blood that flowed from the bullet hole in his chest. He lay very still. But there was no sign of Jenkins nor of the other two - and perhaps there were more - Sothos.
Simon stood stock-still and listened. The horses were whimpering, and then they fell silent. He found himself shaking and he thumbed back the hammer of his Colt once more but that click was all that he heard. Where, for as long, perhaps, as half a minute, there had been shrieking and firing, now there was only silence. He gulped and dropped on to one knee, the better to peer through the low bushes and brushwood in the clearing. The action saved his life, for as he did so, a spear thudded into the tree behind him, vibrating with the force of the throw.
Immediately, another shot rang out; the unmistakable crack of a Martini-Henry, and Simon saw a thin curl of blue smoke rise languidly into the air between the low branches of a bush to his right. Thank God, Jenkins was still alive! Neglecting caution, Simon ran bent double towards the bush and, for his pains, a Snider bullet - creating a higher, lighter report than that of their rifles - whistled over his head. He threw himself down in the bracken, his revolver poised.
‘352,’ he called. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, bach sir. Still thirsty, though.’
‘I can’t see you.’
‘Aye, well that’s the idea, see. One of the buggers is still ’ere in this wood somewhere an’ I can’t flush ’im out. You ’elped me with that one, just a second ago, an’ I got ’im. But if you’d like to dance around a bit more, like a fairy, look you, I could get the last one.’
‘Are you sure there are no more?’
‘No. I’m just ’opin’ like.’
As he spoke, the Snider fired again, to their left. Knowing that it took perhaps all of twenty seconds to reload that model, Simon immediately sprang to his feet and ran towards where he saw the smoke rising from the hidden rifle barrel. But he was too late. Jenkins’s own rifle had barked and a man crashed from behind the bush and fell, face down, on to the ground, his head shattered.
Simon knelt beside him and turned him over. It was the leader of the Sothos, the man who had demanded his rifle. Slowly Simon rose, revolver at the ready, and looked around. The horses were whinnying again after the renewed firing but there was no other noise or movement until Jenkins, treading carefully, eventually joined him.
‘You all right, bach sir?’
‘Shaking a bit, that’s all. Oh damn. You’ve been hit.’
Jenkins looked down at his shoulder. ‘No. All the fuss an’ rushin’ around in this wood like Red Indians ’as bust me stitches. Nothing new, look you. Phew! That was a bit warm while it lasted.’ He lifted his great black eyebrows in indignation. ‘Fancy them comin’ in on us like that - an’ after you’d given ’em snuff an’ all. Ungrateful bastards! Just as well you thought of the devils coming from the back of us, otherwise we would be lookin’ like pin cushions now.’
Simon found himself trembling but returned the smile.‘My dear old 352, it was your shooting once again that got us out of this mes
s. But come on, better get moving. I think those six were on their own, but you never can tell. Let’s make for the border as fast as we can.’
Cautiously, the pair scouted the interior of the copse and, finding nothing, Simon applied a rough dressing to Jenkins’s shoulder. Then they examined the bodies of the Sothos to ensure that there was no binding of wounds to be done there. All six, however, were dead. Simon thought for a moment of burying them, for a vulture had already begun to circle overhead, but they had no digging tools - nor could they afford the time. So they dragged the corpses into the wood, piled as many stones as they could find over them and set out westwards, towards a lower range of hills that Simon hoped would mark the border with the Orange Free State.
In fact, as far as the travellers could tell, it did not do so, for the range only masked yet another ridge of peaked mountains which rose from a rock-strewn plain ahead of them. The country was inhospitable in the extreme and Simon wondered how its natives scratched sustenance from the hard, infertile soil. His answer came the following day when they descended into a much wider valley, covered with long, straw-coloured grass on which bony, high-shouldered cattle grazed. These were tended by semi-naked boys who watched sullenly as the two white men passed. But they returned no greetings nor was there any sign of habitation or adult warriors. If the Sothos had aggressive intentions towards the strangers, they had either been frightened away by the carnage in the copse or they were waiting for a more suitable place for ambush.
There were plenty of these, for the pair toiled for another day through defiles and between rocky crags that could have provided sites for half a dozen attacks. But their only visible companions were large, pale Cape vultures, circling high overhead, and, less frequently, the ubiquitous mountain goats, the latter too shy and distant to provide any chance for a shot and an evening meal. It was with all kinds of relief, then, that the two men eventually descended on to a grassy plain that undulated to the horizon, broken only by an occasional kopje. Rising unsteadily in his stirrups to look ahead into the setting sun, Simon felt that, at last, they had reached the veldt country. This must be the independent Boer Republic of the Orange Free State.