by John Wilcox
With only inches between them, the serpent and its victim stared at each other, eye to eye. Simon saw the adder open its jaws and pull back its head to strike. He held up a hand and closed his eyes.
The shot that echoed within the confined space of the hut sounded like a howitzer cannon being fired. Fonthill felt something fall across his knee and he recoiled. When he opened his eyes, he saw the body of the headless serpent twitching on the ground by his kneecap. Turning his head, he saw Jenkins lying on his stomach, halfway through the doorway of the hut, Mzingeli’s Snider rifle at his shoulder. His head lay to one side and he was being sick.
Simon could hear Alice shouting from outside, ‘Let me in, let me in.’ He summoned up a feeble croak. ‘It’s all right. Jenkins has got him. We are both all right.’
At this the Welshman raised his head, vomit on his chin. ‘He didn’t bite you then, bach sir?’ he whispered. ‘The ’orrible thing didn’t get you?’
Fonthill stood slowly, shaking off the body of the snake with a shudder. Of its head there was no sign, except for a red smudge of some undefined matter on the wall of the hut. Jenkins’s shot had shattered it completely. He walked over to his comrade and knelt by his side, only to see the Welshman disappear slowly backwards on his stomach through the opening, as if by magic. Having pulled him clear, Alice appeared, her face ashen.
She crawled into the hut and put her arms around her husband. ‘Thank the Lord you are all right.’
‘Mind where you put your feet, my darling,’ Simon whispered into her hair. ‘I’m afraid poor old 352 has been a bit poorly. I’d forgotten how frightened he was of snakes.’
Outside, Mzingeli, Sando, Ntini and a still trembling Jenkins awaited them. Simon pulled the Welshman to his feet and regarded him severely. ‘You’ve made a terrible mess of our living accommodation,’ he said and punched him on the shoulder. ‘God bless you, old chap.’ He took his hand and pumped it. ‘I am just so grateful that my best friend just happens to be the finest shot in the world.’
‘Not with that bloody old thing he ain’t, look you.’ Jenkins wiped his chin and gestured towards Mzingeli’s rifle. ‘If the range had been a foot or so longer I would have missed. It fires up, y’see, but anyway, I was trembling so much.’ He turned to Alice and wiped away the perspiration from his face with a very dirty handkerchief. ‘Sorry about the mess, miss. Can’t stand snakes, see.’
She kissed him. ‘I don’t know how many times I have had to thank you for saving my husband’s life, 352,’ she said. ‘But this surely must have been the closest thing. My word, it must.’ She turned towards Fonthill. ‘I heard you shout, Simon, and immediately ran for Mzingeli, who of course had the only other gun. Then I saw dear old 352 coming down the hill.’
Mzingeli coughed and nodded towards Jenkins. ‘I want to go in because is my gun - only one outside hut - but he say no. He best shot. I think he right.’
Fonthill shook his head again. ‘Right. Let’s clear up inside and get rid of what’s left of the brute. Three five two, get yourself a whisky. You are relieved of duty for at least ten minutes. Then we must all talk.’
Later, the six of them squatted on the beaten earth outside the hut. ‘Now,’ began Fonthill, ‘I want to ask you something, Mzingeli. Could that snake have crawled in through the doorway of the hut on its own?’
The tracker shook his head. ‘No. Snake don’t like people, although it will attack when people come close.’ He gestured with his arm. ‘Too many people here. Snake never live in village. Out in woods and stony holes. Not here.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘What?’ asked Alice. ‘You don’t think it was planted, Simon, do you?’
‘I don’t know.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’ He was back within a minute. ‘As I thought, someone has cut a hole in the wickerwork at the back of the hut and closed the gap with a large stone. The snake was obviously slipped though the hole. The noise outside the entrance would probably have stopped it from escaping that way. By the time I got inside, it was a rather angry snake, I would say.’ He turned to Mzingeli. ‘Did you or either of the boys see anybody approaching, perhaps, say, carrying a sack?’
The question was translated but received no affirmative reply.
Fonthill frowned. It had to be de Sousa. The bastard! He looked ruefully at Alice. ‘You were right. I must have upset him. Must be very sensitive people, these Portuguese. What a nasty piece of work!’
‘What are you goin’ to do about ’im, then, bach sir?’ enquired Jenkins in a low voice. ‘Let me nip over with me knife to where’e lies on ’is fancy bed, like.’
Fonthill shook his head. ‘No. The king obviously respects the man for some reason. I certainly don’t want to have blood on my hands while I am in his kraal - and neither did de Sousa, for that matter. That’s why he used the snake. A very African way to kill a European, don’t you think? He wouldn’t have been suspected.’
He mused for a moment. ‘I think I will let the matter rest.’
Jenkins’s black eyebrows almost met his moustache. ‘You don’t mean lettin’ ’im get away with it? ’E will just try again, won’t ’e - an’ keep tryin’ till he gets you.’
‘He might, but that’s a risk we just have to take.’ He looked at them all in turn, resting his eyes last on his wife. ‘We must all be on our guard.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Anyway, we shall be getting out of here soon, when our transport arrives. I would give it only a few days now. It’s not far from the frontier.’
‘Yes,’ said Alice glumly. ‘And I have become the Royal Physician. I must get my bag and bone up on gout, or whatever it is that’s wrong with the old boy.’ Her face fell further. ‘What if it’s syphilis, or something like that? I shall be a bit stumped then. What the hell would Florence Nightingale have done?’ She rose to get her bag, then, at the hut opening, paused for just a moment.
‘Let me go first,’ said Fonthill hurriedly. ‘I’m sure there is not another one in there. But if there is, don’t worry. I can fight snakes single-handedly now. Just give me a blanket. Oh . . . and perhaps Jenkins with a rifle.’
With a grin, he crawled in and Alice followed him.
Chapter 4
Three days later, they were on their way to the border, relieved to be rid of the hothouse atmosphere, the ever-present scent of danger, that characterised Lobengula’s kraal. The king’s men had arrived with their wagon and horses remarkably quickly and the monarch himself waved them off, shouting, ‘You come back,’ as they rode away. The sun sent shafts of welcoming light across the plain and it was pleasant as, blessedly on horseback again, they followed the faint trail across the veldt. Mzingeli loped on ahead, his Snider over his shoulder, with Sando at his heels and Ntini handling their team of oxen from his seat on the wagon at the rear.
Alice, riding a little behind Simon, allowed her mind to dwell on the last three days. She had visited the king twice, on successive days, and she grinned as she recalled the details. She had been apprehensive about her ability to make a correct diagnosis, but she need not have worried. There was no thorn or broken bone under that cutaway slipper that protected the swelling - and how had that cosy item of Victorian domestic footwear come to be worn by an African chieftain? - but a significant clue was provided by the pile of empty champagne and brandy bottles that glittered in the corner of the hut. Gout, it had to be! Her little handbook on African diseases made no mention of this malady, but her father had suffered a little from it. Too much meat, port and red wine was the cause, the local general practitioner had lectured. A balanced diet was the cure.
She had alleviated the pain on both visits by administering a little morphine into the naked bottom of the monarch as he lay on his couch. Lobengula had taken it well and had called in his inDunas, wives and children to witness his bravery. They had all applauded when he waved airily to them as the needle entered the great rump. But he had taken less well Alice’s injunctions to give up the white man’s drink, reduce the
amount of beef he ingested and eat more berries and other fruits. She knew that it would take more than the homilies of a white woman to change these indulgences, so she had visited Fairbairn to ask him to refuse to sell the bottles to Lobengula. The trader had smiled, waved his pipe and delivered his own lecture on the inadvisability of him telling the King of the Matabele how to live. ‘He’s God around here,’ he had explained. ‘If he wants champagne and brandy, then by golly I’ve got to sell it to him.’
So Alice had shrugged and taken her bag away. On the morning of their departure, however, the king had summoned her and given her a bottle of splendid French cognac, vintage 1880. Whatever his vices, the man had good taste - and a sense of humour. ‘For your man,’ he had boomed, pressing the bottle into her hand. ‘Be careful he don’t get goot.’ She had decided that she liked the old ruffian. And oh how the little children had gasped, laughed and applauded as he presented his buttocks to the needle. . .
As she summoned up their laughing faces, Alice’s eyes filled with tears. Sniffing, she blew her nose, gulped and then gently urged her horse forward until she rode side by side with her husband.
‘Our son would have been four just the other day,’ she said.
Simon nodded his head, looking straight ahead but gripping her hand tightly. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘The day we shot the lions.’
They rode hand in hand for a few minutes, lost in their own thoughts. Intuitively Jenkins had let his own mount fall back a little as soon as he saw their hands meet. His godson, their son - George Jenkins Mustapha Fonthill - had lived only a few minutes after his birth at their farm in Norfolk, back in 1885. The pregnancy had been difficult and Jenkins had always had his doubts about the survival of the babe. Perhaps its unconventional conception in the sands of the Sudanese desert, amidst the trauma after their escape from the Mahdi’s camp, might have had something to do with it. He sighed. It was rarely spoken of now and it was clear that their attempts to have another child since had failed. He knew that the two people he loved most in the world carried with them this constant sadness, and he in turn was sad for them. Time to cheer them up.
He kicked in his heels. ‘What about a nice cup of tea?’ he called. ‘My mouth feels like old Lobengolly’s armpit. But if you don’t want a nice cup of tea, I can make it.’
It did the trick. ‘Perish the thought,’ said Alice. ‘But let’s stop for a minute.’
They did so and stretched their legs, standing to drink from their tin mugs near a large kopje.
Mzingeli threw away the dregs and moved close to Fonthill. ‘We are followed,’ he said quietly.
‘How long?’
‘Last hour, perhaps. Now people ahead. Behind kopje. They watch us from top.’
‘How many?’
‘Do not know. Perhaps six, ten. Perhaps more.’
Fonthill nodded and took a last reflective drink from his mug. Thank goodness for your splendid eyesight, Mzingeli. Have you any idea who they might be?’
‘Just Kaffirs, I think.’
‘Very well.’ He paused for a moment and walked to his horse on the pretence of adjusting the saddle cinch. From under his hat he scanned the top of the kopje, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile away and some sixty feet tall. He could see nothing. His gaze swept around. They were still on the plateau, although its undulations would have made it easy for them to have been followed and then overtaken. There was no sign of any other living thing.
Softly, he called Jenkins to him. ‘Mzingeli tells me that we are being followed by natives who are armed,’ he said. ‘They have been observing us from that kopje up ahead - no, don’t look! I am surprised, because I thought that if we were going to be attacked it would be when we were in the bush. But these people obviously didn’t want us too near the security of the border, in case we made a break for it.’
‘Is it that Portuguese swine, bach sir?’
‘I can’t think of anyone else who might want us dead. De Sousa must have learned of our mission to meet Rhodes and wants to stop us. The Matabele wouldn’t attack the king’s friends - and particularly his doctor.’ He gave a grin to show a confidence that he did not feel. ‘Now, the trail takes us quite close to the kopje. It is my feeling that they will attack us from its cover. So we will not give them that chance. I don’t want them to know that they have been seen, so we will gently change course to take us away from the kopje, and then they will have to break cover to attack.’
‘Do they have horses?’ he asked the tracker.
‘Not seen any, Nkosi.’
‘Good. Tell Sando to climb into the wagon with Ntini. Alice, into the wagon too, please, with your rifle ready.’
Alice opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand. ‘Only one general here today, my love,’ he said. ‘You must obey his orders. Hitch your horse to the side of the wagon away from the kopje, so that it is protected. Mzingeli, stay leading us from the front on foot but drop back a little, and as soon as the attack comes, get into the wagon quickly and fire from there.’
Jenkins frowned. ‘What do we do then, bach sir?’
‘We will act as a sort of cavalry screen. Drop back a little on the kopje side and I will do the same. They will have to run across open ground to get anywhere near us - I am gambling that they don’t have horses and that’s why they wanted to attack from the kopje. As soon as they leave cover, we charge at them, halt, fire two rounds and then gallop back to the wagon. We throw our reins to Ntini and then we climb aboard the wagon and fire from there. It will be our fortress.’
‘Humph.’ The Welshman’s eyes lit up. ‘You will probably fall off.’
‘If I do, you will just have to pick me up.’
The tracker’s face carried a faint smile as he tried to follow the exchange, but Alice’s features were grim. ‘Surely it is best to stay in the wagon, Simon? Make it a fortress, as you say.’
‘No, my love. We can break them up at short range as they run towards us. Kaffirs can’t shoot well and they certainly won’t be able to do so on the run. They may not even have guns. No. We will do as I say. Make sure that your rifles are loaded, but do so surreptitiously. I don’t want them to know that we are on to their game.’
He swallowed hard. His brain worked smoothly in assessing the situation, as that of a soldier should, but he knew that they were outnumbered and in great danger. No one in the little party betrayed open fear, not even the native boys, but he could see that faces were drawn and chins set determinedly. Everyone realised that they would need calm nerves and straight shooting - or perhaps a miracle - to survive the coming attack.
They mounted and set off again. This time Mzingeli led them slightly off to the right. Leaving the track was no hardship, for it was only faintly defined and the grassland was dry and the going firm. Fonthill put a handful of cartridges from their ammunition box into both his pockets, and he and Jenkins drifted out to the left. He tried not to eye the kopje too suspiciously, but he caught a flash of light as the sun reflected off . . . what? It wouldn’t be an assegai head, for the natives this far north had blades of beaten black iron. A rifle barrel? Possibly.
They had drawn level with the kopje, although not far enough away from it to satisfy Fonthill, when the first shot rang out. It came from the base of the rock and was the signal for a stream of spearmen to emerge at a fast trot and fan out and run towards them. Simon was reminded briefly of that terrifying moment at Isandlwana when the Zulu impis had poured down from the escarpment and spread out to surround the British camp. Except that this time there were fewer attackers - but even fewer defenders.
He saw Mzingeli and Sando climb into the wagon. He nodded to Jenkins, and the two of them galloped towards the natives. Good, they were not carrying rifles! The charging men were dressed exactly like Matabeles - monkey-tail adornments, ostrich feathers and little else - and carrying, in their left hands, the long hide shields behind which, in Zulu style, would be clutched a handful of throwing spears, and in their right, the short, stabbing as
segais. They looked formidable enough and seemed completely unfazed by the approaching horsemen.
Fonthill reined in, steadied his horse and raised his rifle at a range of about two hundred yards. Jenkins, however, was even quicker, and his shot brought down the leading native. Simon’s own missed. Cursing, he rammed another round into the breech and took careful aim, this time spinning round the third man in the line and bringing him down. Jenkins’s next shot tore through the shield of the second man, whirling it away and causing the native to stumble. Then a puff of smoke came from the base of the kopje and a bullet whistled between the two horsemen. As the smoke began to clear, Simon saw a small figure in yellow behind it.
‘Back to the wagon,’ yelled Fonthill, pulling round the head of his horse.