by Fred Khumalo
Everyone on deck was gawking in anticipation of a fight. Ngqavini and Pitso could always be counted on to offer some entertainment.
‘No, gentlemen, please bear with me,’ Milkota whimpered. ‘I do understand that Zulus and some of the other ethnic groups stopped this circumcision thing a long time ago. But those of us in the broader Xhosa community still use it as a measure of one’s commitment to one’s culture. We believe that a man has to enter into a covenant with his gods by going to the mountain to get circumcised. Now, I was on the verge of going for my circumcision when I heard the call to enlist with the King’s troops. So I had to make a tough decision. How I would prove myself – through going to the bush, where I would be circumcised and taken into proper manhood, or by fighting against the Kaiser’s men in Europe? I have tried to explain that to my chief, but he won’t hear of it. He says I can’t fight alongside men because I am not a man. I have to endure all the indignities and insults, simply because I am not a man.’ He paused. ‘Can’t you see, gentlemen, I am dirty. I am not worthy of your company. I have yet to be cleansed and accepted into the ranks of real men. I will only bring tears, sorrow and the gnashing of teeth on this ship. I should have stayed home until I was ready.’
Tlali spoke, ‘But how do they know you’re not circumcised? Do you go around showing them your weapon?’
‘No, they don’t have to see my penis to know that I am not circumcised. They have their way of finding out. The whole bush secret society has its own language.’
Pitso stormed away from the group. When he reached the corner where the chief sat on an upturned tin, he said, ‘You pieces of cow dung say we are not men, simply because we haven’t been to the bush to get our dicks messed up? You know what? I am challenging you, dear Chief, to a boxing fight.’
The chief’s spokesman shot to his feet, shouting, ‘You can’t speak to my chief like that, you half-breed piece of shit.’
Just then Officer Haig appeared. He looked around and shouted, ‘What’s all this noise about?’
Ngqavini spoke in a mixture of Zulu and English as they did in the mines. ‘My chief, the chief of the Pondos has expressed his fervent wish to tear the half-breed boy apart and have his liver for breakfast.’
‘Is that so now? Well, we should settle it in a boxing fight. I haven’t seen you boys boxing in a long time,’ Officer Haig said. He raised his voice. ‘Tonight the Pondo chief and the half-breed boy are entertaining us, no?’
‘Yes!’ the men said in unison.
Having been told of the fight, Captain Portsmouth decided that a fight between the Pondo chief and Ngqavini would make more sense and declared that it would take place the following week. Both men were popular and headstrong. Ngqavini, everybody knew, was a hardened criminal from the Johannesburg underworld, a man whispered to have killed other men. This would be a fight to end all fights.
Over the next few days, Milkota found himself spending more time with Ngqavini’s group. He ate his meals with Ngqavini, helped him make his bed and would sit on the Zulu man’s bed until lights out. Naturally, this caused some men to snigger. Stories started swirling around: ‘Hey, have you heard? That Pondo boy is Ngqavini’s wife.’
‘Oh, yes, I heard, after lights out he tiptoes from his section and sneaks into Ngqavini’s bed.’
‘Yes, that Ngqavini learned all these dirty habits in prison.’
‘They are going to bring the wrath of our ancestors upon us.’
‘Let’s throw them overboard.’
‘Let’s tell the white captains.’
‘The white captains won’t care. They do it too. It’s part of their culture.’
‘Somebody must get the cook to poison their food.’
‘I am not getting anywhere near that crazy Zulu.’
The rumours took a toll on Milkota, who avoided sharing the hurtful stories with Ngqavini.
One day Pitso and Ngqavini saw Milkota squatting in a corner on the deck. He had his back turned to them, engrossed in something that they couldn’t see. When they craned their necks to look, they saw he was playing with a sparrow, feeding it pieces of bread.
‘This fellow has been with me since we left Cape Town,’ Milkota said when the two men joined him in his corner. ‘He’s my lucky charm. Every time I come up on deck, he suddenly materialises. I don’t know where he sleeps, but he’s always there when I need him. Always ready for bread. I’ve got a small water container for him to drink from.’ He showed them, tucked discreetly in a corner, an empty pilchard container which he’d filled with water. The sparrow was chirping merrily, as if in conversation with him.
The two men exchanged glances and waited. Milkota took his time feeding the bird. They decided to let him be.
The night of the fight came at last. Ngqavini entered the ring barefoot in the usual fighting gear – sleeping shorts and boxing gloves. The chief had decided to enter the ring wearing a vest and his long pants, rolled up to his knees, to keep a modicum of respectability befitting his status.
Officer Haig, the referee, formally introduced the fighters to each other and reminded them of the rules: no holding, no biting, no kicking, no hitting below the belt, and so on.
And off they went. Ngqavini started dancing about the ring, throwing jabs at the chief. The chief stood firmly on his feet, with only his upper torso swaying this way and that as he effortlessly evaded Ngqavini’s jabs. Ngqavini couldn’t get the hang of the chief’s fighting style because he did not assume the usual fighting stance. The chief stood with his feet slightly apart and his arms raised high, like the horns of a buffalo, leaving his entire body exposed. This to the merriment of the city men, who shouted, ‘Hey, the chief thinks this is a stick-fighting match! Chief, assume a proper fighting stance, or Ngqavini will have a field day on your exposed stomach and face!’
Indeed, that’s exactly what Ngqavini was trying to do, crouching low and attempting uppercuts to the chief’s face. Unperturbed, the chief swayed his upper torso to evade Ngqavini’s welter of jabs.
The crowd roared, ‘Hail the chief! Hail the chief!’
Realising that the chief was agile enough with his neck and head, Ngqavini decided to concentrate his efforts on the man’s midriff. It is a way to tire an opponent, pounding the hell out of his midriff. But when Ngqavini crouched low and threw his left jab around the chief’s midriff, he didn’t realise that he was leaving his head wide open to the chief’s right fist, which descended on his left temple. Wham-wham! Startled by the double blow, Ngqavini staggered to his right, out of harm’s way. Too late. The chief intercepted him with a left which caught him on his neck.
The crowds roared again, ‘Hail the chief! Hail the chief!’
A seasoned street fighter, Ngqavini had encountered adversaries of all stripes and experience, but the chief was too unconventional for his liking. Those buffalo horns were driving him crazy. Then Ngqavini had a moment of inspiration: he appropriated the chief’s fighting stance. The crowd hollered approval when he raised his arms in the air like the horns of a buffalo, and immediately landed two blows to the chief’s face.
Smiling at him, the chief danced away and assumed the conventional southpaw posture, with his right foot forward, and his right hand delivering jabs powerful enough to flatten a banana tree. Ngqavini, who had fought left-handed people in the past, was happy that the chief had fallen for his trick. He moved with speed, delivering a rain of blows on his opponent. But the latter was a skilled fighter, who knew how to parry blows, duck out of the way, and continue to deliver dangerous jabs.
The chief assumed his buffalo-horn stance again, with his feet planted firmly on the ground, his upper torso swaying like a cobra responding to a snake charmer’s flute.
‘Hail the chief! Hail the chief! Hail the chief!’
The gong went. Ngqavini’s body was soaked in sweat, and a trickle of blood was snaking out of his left nostril.
‘Ngqavini,’ said Pitso, who was Ngqavini’s corner man, ‘you are exposing yourself too much. In the
next round, don’t take the fight to him. Just hold back. Provoke him into making the first offensive move and then pin him. Those buffalo horns are for show. They only work when he is on the defensive. He can’t sustain an offensive move using that strategy.’
‘Rules,’ Ngqavini cried in exasperation. ‘There must be rules. Where’s Captain Portsmouth? I think it’s against the rules and regulations to raise your arms like that. We are not fighting with sticks here.’
‘I already asked Captain Portsmouth, mfan’omdala,’ Pitso said flatly. ‘He says there’s nothing wrong with that stance. Just stick to what you know.’
Milkota was standing close by, trembling. He said, ‘My big brother Ngqavini, you can’t let the chief win. You can’t. Or I am dead. Please win this one for me.’
Pitso wiped the thread of blood trickling out of his friend’s nostril. He gave him a sip of water.
The gong went again.
‘Where’s your blanket, my boy?’ the chief said quietly as he edged towards Ngqavini. ‘You’re going to need it now. I’m going to put you into a very long and peaceful sleep.’
‘Keep that shit to yourself, you heathen,’ Ngqavini growled, and charged forward like an enraged bull. But punches to the older man’s midriff were easily, almost effortlessly, parried away.
The chief started wiggling his upper torso playfully, stamping his feet on the ground like a Xhosa warrior dancing at a wedding party. The chief’s men started singing a popular traditional song that matched their leader’s movements. Buoyed by this, he moved in for the kill. He delivered a left-right-left-left combination to Ngqavini’s face, causing snot and tears to spring from his nose and eyes.
Ngqavini’s body thudded to the wooden floor. The referee gave a count. At the count of ten, Ngqavini still hadn’t recovered. Portsmouth poured a jugful of cold water on his face, at which the fighter trembled back to life, his eyes blinking. They helped him to his feet, and he staggered drunkenly towards deck, in search of fresh air.
The chief’s supporters were singing at the top of their voices. One of them approached Ngqavini and his entourage, saying, ‘That’s what we Pondos do to men who sleep with boys. Bloody devils!’
Tlali lurched forward, landing a punch on the man’s stomach. Pitso moved swiftly to stop the fight. ‘You boys don’t want to go down to that dungeon.’
Pitso and Tlali led Ngqavini away from the melee, and they all repaired to the deck above. Once there, the vanquished boxer found himself an upturned drum, on which he sat heavily, not saying a word. A few men gathered around him. Someone gave him a jug of mahewu. He gulped the thick, sweet liquid hungrily, and stared long and hard at the orange setting sun in the distance.
‘I think these white people are lost now,’ he said after a while. ‘When last did we see a piece of land?’
‘You know, I’ve been told that when you are dying a certain kind of peace descends upon you,’ one of the men said. ‘You don’t seem to have a care in the world. That’s how I am feeling right now – I can feel it in my bones, that I’m going to die. I’m going to die before we reach our destination. I don’t know how I’m going to die. Maybe one of you is going to kill me in my sleep. All I know is I am going to die. And nothing can change that now.’
‘Don’t speak like that, man,’ Tlali said. ‘We are almost at the end of our journey, gentlemen, and we’ve travelled so regally and so peacefully. From here on, it can only get better.’
Milkota stood among the men, his sparrow eating breadcrumbs off the palm of his hand. He was muttering to himself, ‘Eat, my boy, this might be your last meal.’
Tlali spoke, ‘Ngqavini, our reputation is in tatters. We need a return fight before we reach the white man’s land.’
‘That’s the spirit, my boy,’ said Ngqavini. ‘Ngqavini always has the last word.’
The men were soon distracted by the sight of a school of dolphins playing in the water.
Somebody suddenly cried, ‘Hey you, boy, what are you doing?’
Everybody followed the gaze of the startled speaker. Milkota had scaled the railings and hung precariously over the water. He screamed, ‘Ndiyindoda! I am a man! Ndiyindoda! I am a man!’ And he plunged into the churning surf.
CHAPTER 27
Days later, the captain announced that they were about to enter the English Channel.
‘These are choppy waters, gentlemen,’ he continued. ‘It can be a bit uncomfortable. So, brace yourselves. I don’t want anyone on the upper deck. It’s dangerous. And remember to put on your lifebelts at all times. At all times!’
The men received the announcement with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, but went about their duties as usual. Not long afterwards, a light rain began to fall. The distant rumble of thunder could be heard. Weak strobes of lightning criss-crossed the darkening sky. Within minutes, the bolts of lightning had become more forceful, illuminating the sharp needles of rain which were now coming down ferociously.
A gigantic swell rose just ahead of the ship. The vessel was lifted into the air, the propellers screaming. And then the ship plunged into a deep valley, a thunderous noise reverberating all round. There were ear-shattering cries from some of the men.
Ngqavini bellowed, ‘Jesu-Maria-Josefa, kuyafiwa namuhla!’ We’re dying today!
Pitso fell to the deck and started vomiting. Tlali was soon at his side, trying to support his friend. Tlali fingered his lucky charm, the necklace made of monkey bones, chanting and muttering. More men joined Pitso in a frenzy of vomiting. Others cowered in corners, crying out in alarm as the sky broke into a dance of lightning and God coughed angrily.
There was a moment of calm, during which the ship cruised confidently forward. Men started breathing normally again, wiping sweat from their eyes. Then those on the starboard side cried out as a mountain of water came crashing down on that side of the ship, sending it spinning once again. Some lifeboats were so rattled they broke loose from the davits.
Just when the men were beginning to recover again, with the wall of water behind them, a series of angry waves started pummelling the vessel from almost all directions.
Pitso crawled across the deck. He reached the stairs and slid down them until he reached the lavatory below. Inside the lavatory, he continued to retch until his stomach was completely empty. He kept on heaving, his bowels threatening to come out of his mouth. His ears were ringing, tormented by the cracking, roaring thunder. He got back to his feet, holding on to the lavatory wall for support as the ship continued to rock, but before long he felt a strong urge to sit down. The roiling contents of his stomach came out in a torrent. Dizzy and disoriented, he reached for the toilet paper, cleaned himself and got up. He wanted to get out of that lavatory as soon as possible. He lurched forward drunkenly, trying as best he could to reach the stairs.
The gale thundered towards them, the angry hooves of a thousand buffaloes.
Suddenly, the ship was airborne again. It remained suspended there for a while, before pivoting its nose down a steep watery slope. Pitso fell onto his knees, hitting his head against the railings of the stairs. Tears welled in his eyes. He stayed on the floor for a while, catching his breath. He started muttering to himself the last words Christine had said to him at the station, ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’ Yes, it is sweet and beautiful to die for one’s fatherland. He knew he was about to die, had to make peace with it.
Moving erratically, falling to his knees every now and then, Pitso finally made it into the holds where the other men were cowering, praying loudly.
‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’ There was no going back now.
A loud crack of thunder rose above the din that already enveloped the ship’s interior. The lights went off, plunging the interior into an inky darkness. More shouts followed.
‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’
The ship pivoted into yet another valley, angry mountains of water towering on all sides. When it resurfaced,
fresh bolts of lightning seemed to slice the vessel into a thousand pieces. That illusion soon vanished, as the Mendi found itself on a relatively calm stretch of water. Like a person startled out of a nightmare, the ship panted.
But then a gigantic, angry fist of water rose on the port side, slamming the vessel with such immense power that the ship jackknifed crazily before finding its bearings again.
The roar of the engine sounded louder than usual. The men were silent, staring fearfully into the dark. One by one, the lights sputtered back to life. Somebody shouted the Zulu war cry, ‘Hebe! Usuthu! Hebe! Usuthu!’, which was taken up by more voices, ‘Hebe! Usuthu!’
Medical orderlies started moving about the ship, attending to men who were seasick, of which there were many. The medics fed them spoonfuls of sugar and made them drink some water. The vomiting and groaning subsided at last.
The men started singing and chanting again. The nightmare of the storm was now behind them.
CHAPTER 28
Someone shouted, ‘Land-ho! Land-ho! Land-ho!’ and most of the men scrambled to the upper deck. They had to strain their eyes to see the smudge of land they were approaching. Everything was cloaked in mist.
After the horrific storm, the men were relieved they were about to touch God’s soil once again. Ngqavini started teaching the men a simple war chant that would keep them calm and focused:
Ngqavini: Uph’uMkhize? Where’s the Kaiser?
Troops: Usebhoshi! He’s in the toilet!
Ngqavini: Wenzani? What’s he doing?
Troops: Uxov’amadede! He’s kneading dough from his own turds!
Ngqavini: Uzowenzani? What’s he going to do with those turds?
Troops: Uzowadla! He’s going to eat them!
Ngqavini: Uzowenzani!
Troops: Uzowadla!
Ngqavini: Uzowenzani umhlathi kanina?