But if she had crossed the river before, she must surely know?
Her gestures indicated that she could not say one way or the other.
'How many times have you crossed the river?'
'Kabila.'
'Twice? Only twice?' How could she know the way to Ngwadi's kraal – a hundred miles – if she had crossed the Thukela but twice?
She understood him perfectly, and looked away. 'You will not come with me?'
He almost gasped at her determination. Instead he smiled. 'I will go with you.'
They spent an hour or so foraging, though without much success. Hervey had no great appetite for the creatures that crawled or slithered out of their path, though he could easily have caught one with his sabre, and there was no game to tempt him, even if he had thought it worth risking a shot – which he did not. He wondered if there were fish in the river, although how to catch them he did not put his mind to. They found some monkey orange, with their bitter fruit, but little else beyond the odd root that might have been enjoyable had they been able to boil it. Hervey was not hungry, though. The ostrich eggs had filled his stomach, and with a rich yolk as fortifying as red meat. He would not pine for bread and beef.
Instead they sat in the shade of a lala palm, watching the Thukela, resting and gathering their strength for the morning when the river would be lower. Hervey took off his boots as Pampata washed her feet in the river, then sat beside her to wash, and soothe, his own.
'Qaphela – ingwenya,' she said, with a cautionary laugh.
Beware the crocodiles: he took his feet out.
After a while he asked her about the rock rabbit, and how she had come to know the medicine in its urine. It was an ancient knowledge, she replied, taught her by her mother. All Zulu women knew of it, though not all of them could use it to advantage.
And then she smiled, as if at a happy memory of something in her distant past, her childhood. 'Do you know why the rock rabbit has no tail?' she asked, indeed quite childlike.
Hervey returned the smile, and shook his head.
It was a long story, made longer by frequent interruptions for the sake of clarification. 'At the newness of the land,' she began, 'animals did not have tails. All were happy except ibhubesi, the king of beasts, so one day he asked them to his court to receive presents that they might look more beautiful. All the animals went to the lion's court except the rock rabbits, who preferred to bask in the sun, although they still wished for their presents, and so asked the monkeys if they would bring them for them. The lion gave presents to all who came – presents of a tail – but being very old and his sight failing, he made many mistakes, giving, for example, the elephant a very small tail, but the squirrel a very long one. The monkeys took home their tails, wishing they were not so short, and those of the rock rabbits. But when they saw the rock rabbits they refused to give them up: "We shall attach them to our own," they said, "to make them longer." Since that day the rock rabbits have had no tail, but are no longer so lazy.'
Hervey lay back against the lala palm, hands behind his head, for all the world as if he were in the garden at Horningsham. The wound was now but a dull ache. He could take his ease. 'A charming story.'
'And one that has a lesson too,' added Pampata. 'Do not send another to do one's bidding.'
This Hervey managed to understand, but not without the need to open his eyes.
'Yes, sleep, mfowethu. I will watch for us both,' said Pampata, once the parable was done.
Hervey raised a hand slightly, in thanks, and closed his eyes again. But just as he was about to succumb, he snapped to and sat up as if he had heard a distant alarm.
'What is it, mfowethu?'
'Nothing, but I forget myself.' He got up, adjusting his sabre, and the pistol at his belt. 'I must go a little way back to see how things are. Stay here. I will return before the sun falls below that hill yonder.'
Pampata looked puzzled. 'Why do you not stay here, where we cannot be seen?'
He tried to explain. 'I am a soldier, dadewethu. I cannot only hide and wait.'
She bowed, understanding what impelled the warrior, if not always why. 'I will stay here, mfowethu.'
He backtracked for half a mile, until he came to a fold in the ground which would afford him a little elevation on the otherwise flat floodplain. He ascended cautiously, for he did not want to show himself, first crawling, and then rising to his knees, and only to full height when he was sure he had seen all there was to be seen from a crouch.
But the country was empty – empty of Zulu; he knew it teemed with other life, whether he could see it or not.
He sat down. He would stay sentinel here until dusk came, and only then return to Pampata and make fast for the night.
He turned his face to the sun, taking in its strength, watching, listening – trying not to think of what had happened, but of what was to come.
After an hour he saw the vultures. Or rather, he became aware of what they did, for there had been vultures overhead since early morning. They had come together, collected, flocked, whatever it was that vultures did when they no longer patrolled alone, to circle in a slow but purposeful way above a single point. And he could not be certain of it, but the circle seemed to be advancing, just perceptibly – exactly as he had observed before Umtata, when Fairbrother had first alerted him and they had thereby detected the advancing Zulu.
But how far away they were he couldn't tell. And it might signal nothing at all, for before Umtata the vultures had flown in a sort of extended line, the formation in which the Zulu had come on. This was different. All he could do was keep watch.
Half an hour passed. They were advancing, certainly (he could now make out the wings separately from the body). And all the time they had kept up the same routine of circling. If it were a stricken animal they were intent on, it would by now have gone to ground, would it not? Why would they keep post above the Zulu? But then, why had they kept post before Umtata?
And did the Zulu – if they were Zulu – follow their trail, his and Pampata's? What trail could two people make? He tried to calculate: how long would it be before they closed on the river? He could only do so by the vultures' appearance, how it was changing, a method he'd scarcely had any practice in. Perhaps a couple of hours?
He wondered if he should alert Pampata. But what could they do? They might, he suppose, put more distance behind them, beat up- or downstream, but they would leave a trail, if they had been doing so before, and then the Zulu would hasten. And was not this the surest place to cross the Thukela, she'd said? Pampata needed to sleep; she did not need to be woken and made more fearful, especially when he couldn't be certain there were Zulu out there. No, all he could do, again, was wait – and thank God for this searching light of the veld.
The first sighting sent a shiver down his spine. Now he had no choice but to rouse Pampata.
How many? They were still too distant to tell. Before Umtata there had been dust, a sure sign of numbers and speed, but it was not the season. How far? The plain was featureless, and this light so strong . . . two miles, three perhaps?
When first he had seen Matiwane's impi before Umtata, his blood had run cold. Yes, there had been many, many more of them than could be following them now, but at Umtata he had sat before his troop of dragoons and a whole company of rifles. If there were only a dozen – half a dozen – Zulu yonder, then his situation was even more perilous than then.
He had but an hour before they would find the two of them.
He got onto all fours (even two miles away, the Zulu might see him), and retreated into the dead ground which would allow him to steal away unobserved.
And then he froze. Three hundred yards, no more, as if from out of the earth: two scouts, eyes to the ground – following spoor? He dropped to his belly and began crawling for a lone thorn bush ten yards off to his left.
How could he not have seen them? Were there more as close?
What in God's name could he do? If he ran back to the ri
ver, where could they hide? If they tried to cross . . . There was no time, even if the possibility.
All he could do was stop these two, and then take a chance of running with Pampata from the rest – upstream. No, down . . .
He could do it. He had pistol and sabre: the blade – and surprise – for the first, and the ball for the second. But if he used the pistol, the rest would at once quicken their pace, and their chance of escape would be even smaller. And he could not be certain of the pistol (there was not time to draw the charge and reload). How he wished for his percussion rifle!
No, he must take both with the sabre. He was fortunate, though: he had a minute or so more to plan his ambuscade.
Nevertheless he opened the pistol's firing pan and blew out the powder, taking a new cartridge and making sure there was dry primer. If the fight were going against him he would have no option but to put a ball in one of them – and take the consequences.
The Zulu were young but wore the red neck feathers of the seasoned warrior. One was scarred heavily about the body. They came on side by side. Pity: it gave him no advantage, for if he attacked from a flank the one would screen the other – though it meant he would not face both at once. He must attack from a flank and behind, allowing him freedom to swing his sabre. He could first slice the spear arm of the nearer, gaining precious seconds to despatch the other, before turning back to finish off the first. They carried the short, not the war shield: that would help. All he needed was that they continue on their line, passing the thorn bush the way he expected.
Fifty yards off, they stopped suddenly. They began casting around. He could not think why (he and Pampata had not halted at all). One of them picked up something – so small he could not tell. What had they dropped – a button, a bead?
They looked about, pointed towards the river, exchanged words – a murmur to him, no more – and then resumed their advance, but at a cautious walk. His every muscle tensed; his gut churned like a water wheel (so hard he forgot the pain in his shoulder). They would search the thorn bush, he was certain: it was the only cover between here and the river.
They separated, one to pass either side. What choice had he now but the pistol?
The scarred warrior – the more seasoned of the two? – was coming left of the bush, his spear arm therefore closest.
Hervey took a last, deep breath, then sprang like a cock at set-to.
For all his caution the Zulu turned too late, Hervey's blade cleaving savagely through the flesh of his upper arm and shattering the bone.
He didn't wait to see its effect, turning on his heels to launch at the second while he yet had surprise.
The second, younger, looked afraid, eyes wide, though he still came on.
Hervey drew his pistol.
The Zulu faltered – he knew what a ball did – and Hervey rushed him with the point of the sabre.
He tried to parry with his shield, drawing his spear arm back. But in went the point – four inches, deadly.
Hervey withdrew, turned his wrist and sliced upwards and left to disarm him.
The Zulu dropped his spear and fell to his knees.
Hervey drove his sabre deep into his side to be certain.
It was a thrust too many. The other Zulu, spear now in left hand, was on him like the leopard of the night.
But, left-handed, the spear had neither the force nor the precision of the real warrior's thrust. It pierced the cartridge case not the kidneys. Hervey sidestepped and caught the Zulu without a guard. He drove in his sabre so deep he had to wrench it free. The warrior fell writhing like an eel out of water.
Hervey watched, panting, as blood ran to earth. Both Zulu had taken killing points; there was no need of coups de grâce. Yet it was a full minute before they lay still and he could trust to leave them.
What inexpert warriors they had been compared with those at Umtata! And they the scouts, supposedly the best. He need have little fear of the host which followed in their footsteps – if only they were not so many.
He braced himself. There was now, perhaps, but three quarters of an hour before the host would be upon them.
He ran as fast as he could, back to the lala palm where Pampata lay. 'Come,' he shouted, holding out a hand. 'Come, now!'
She rose, not alarmed but uncertain. 'What is it, mfowethu?'
'Mbopa!' he gasped, pulling at her arm.
She saw the blood running down his scabbard. 'Where do we go?'
'Across! Across the river!'
He pulled her to the water's edge. He looked at the Thukela's great width, the greatest river of the country of the Zulu (fifty yards across, one hundred, who could tell?), and at its great speed. Was there point, even, in taking off his boots?
And then, like the Children of Israel in the wilderness, their deliverance appeared as if by the hand of God – in the upper part of a fever tree, which bobbed towards them in the slacker water near the bank.
'There!' he cried, pointing.
But Pampata could not see deliverance. She could see only death – and this she was not yet ready to give herself up to.
Hervey saw, and her sudden fearfulness moved him the more. 'Come, dadewethu,' he said firmly. 'Trust me.'
She turned to him, trustingly.
He put an arm around her, and together they leapt for the saviour-branch.
They held fast to the sodden branches as the current took them midstream, whence the great cloudy rush of water swept them away from Mbopa's horde, like flotsam in a mill race – though east, away from Ngwadi's kraal.What creatures they shared the river with Hervey gave not a thought to, for the Thukela itself, in its angry flood, was a greater threat to life and limb than any crocodile's jaws.
But no ark of Noah's could have been a surer rescue than the fever tree. As the Thukela began swinging north, the velocity of the flood took the pair back towards the southern bank. Hervey would have been grateful for any landing, but then as suddenly as they had first been swept midstream, the river swung east again, and he and Pampata, like a billiard ball on and then off the cushion, were carried towards the north bank.
Not knowing how deep was the water even at the river's edge, for he could feel nothing beneath his feet, Hervey let go of the tree in faith, and grasped for the root of a lala palm projecting just far enough for him to reach with his left arm at fullest stretch.
The pain in his shoulder – whether by the leopard's claws or the great weight of water – almost made him let go. Pampata, who had not once struggled in their tumble downstream, content to place her life in the arms of this stranger whom she called brother, now saw what she must do, and with a strength that defied explanation pulled herself along his outstretched arm to the tree root. The weight that had pinned him now shed, and his right arm free at last, Hervey was able to hold on with both hands, and together they edged along the root to the bank, until at last they could drag themselves clear of the water – in utter exhaustion.
They lay a good while, side by side, without speaking. Hervey did not even open his eyes. Mbopa's men were a mile and more away; they might have been a hundred. They certainly could not know where he and Pampata were. And the sun's warmth was healing . . .
'Ukhululekile?' he asked at length.
He thought he asked if she were 'all right', if she were 'well'. He asked, however, if she were 'comfortable'.
Pampata had lost her cloak, but it was not cold lying on the ground, not in the warmth of the sun and the satisfaction of the escape. 'Ngikhona . . . I am there, mfowethu.'
She said it in a strange way: in a way that spoke of a threshold crossed.
* * *
Slowly, but very surely, as the afternoon sun replenished them, they sat up and looked about at their unexpected haven. Then, rising to their feet, they surveyed the Thukela, their saviour and (they prayed) now their guardian. They looked towards the country they must enter, a hillier, more broken country than hitherto. And then Pampata turned back to him, and pointed to his scabbard, the blood long
washed away, and asked why it had run red.
He told her. And in telling her he felt ill at ease, for he had killed her fellow Zulu, for all that they would have killed both of them.
Pampata, too, seemed distracted. Her arms fell to her sides, and she gazed at him distantly.
He could not meet her gaze. Instead, he took off his tunic and offered it to her.
She thanked him, and said that she had no need, and that she could not wear the mantle of a warrior – that she was unworthy to wear it.
Hervey fumbled with his words, but managed to say that he had met no braver woman.
And in their incomprehension of each other's exact meaning, they resumed their journey, silent.
Two days and two nights they marched, sometimes wearily uphill, sometimes in a jogtrot which was easier than picking up one foot after the other. They encountered few men or boys, and only a handful of women. Even the beasts of the field hid themselves. When they did come across a herdsman, or a woman carrying water, there was no alarm – only curiosity at a woman travelling alone with so strange a thing as a man with a white face. Only once, when curiosity looked as if it might become a challenge, did Pampata have to show the little spear, and its effect was immediate and powerful; she could have possessed no better laissez-passer. And all whom they met were generous with what they carried – dried meat, honey, maize cakes, milk – so that both of them were able to journey without the declining strength which Hervey had earlier feared.
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