by John Wilcox
‘No. We carry on following the trail. I want to catch them up. And when we get to Bulawayo, the king is going to get a piece of my mind and . . .’ He broke off as a disturbing thought struck him and he turned to Mzingeli. ‘Could somebody just have taken her bag and the pills simply dropped out, do you think?’
The tracker shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. Pills not in little pile. Dropped regular. A trail to show us way. Clever lady. Perhaps she do this earlier but we missed in dark.’
‘Yes. Bless her. Now, you found the pills on this trail?’ He pointed.
Mzingeli nodded his head. Fonthill produced his compass, squinted at it and consulted the much-folded map from his pack. ‘Yes, it is to the north-west, roughly in the direction where Bulawayo lies.’ He nodded his head, relief etched into his face. ‘That settles it. They are taking her back to the king.’
‘So we don’t need to rush about like blue-arsed flies tryin’ to catch up, then?’ Jenkins’s question was more of a plea for mercy.
‘Oh yes we do.’ The frown had returned to Fonthill’s face. ‘Knowing Alice, she might very well tell the king to go to hell, and he could lose his temper and . . . and . . . anything might happen. I want to catch them up, if we can, before they reach Bulawayo.’
‘But think about it, bach sir. They’ve got about five days’ start on us, you said so yourself. We’ll never catch them.’
‘We might. If they’ve taken Alice’s bed, then she’ll be on it and they’ll have to carry her and it. Whether she’s able to or not, she will not leave that bed. She’ll do everything she can to delay them. We should be able to move faster. Come on. Up, everybody. Take the north-west spoor.’
So they pressed on, no longer attempting to increase their pace by breaking into jog trots from time to time, for Fonthill, at least, could not sustain that effort. But they made good time, particularly once they had broken out of the bush country into the more open high veldt of what was now clearly Mashonaland. Here the signs of the passage of the Matabele party were less distinct, but Fonthill had set a compass course for them, removing the necessity to rely on Mzingeli’s tracking skills, and he estimated that they were covering perhaps twenty miles a day. They must, he argued, be closing the gap. The pace could not be maintained, however, not least because Simon had by no means completely recovered from his treatment at the hands of de Sousa, and they were forced to take longer spells of rest at midday.
Fonthill was also showing the signs of the deprivations of the last two months. The years of peaceful farming in Norfolk had added flesh to what had always been a rather sparse frame, but all that had disappeared shortly after their arrival in Africa, and the recent fighting and forced marching had now left him gaunt and as taut as a bowstring. The threat of losing Alice had weighed heavily on his imagination and his conscience, and he was now hollow-eyed and drawn-a driven man, pushing himself and his party to the limits.
Nevertheless, they were now nearing the end of their stocks of biltong, and most of one day had perforce to be devoted to allowing Mzingeli to stalk and kill an impala. It gave them not only fresh meat and the chance to replenish their biltong, but also a blessed day’s rest. The enforced break impelled Fonthill to consider his position vis-à-vis Lobengula and Cecil John Rhodes. He did so even while realising that his mind was perhaps not in its most balanced state to rationalise and draw conclusions. But his chest still hurt like hell and the muscles of his legs told him that there was now a limit to how fast and how far he could walk in a day.
So, sitting and chewing on the last of the biltong, he resolved that if the king had harmed Alice in any way, then he would kill the man. Life would not be worth living without his wife, and his act would show to the world that even the most powerful despot in Africa could not behave like a barbarian without attracting the consequences. If, however, he found Alice alive and unharmed, then he would have no more of this surrogate adventuring for Cecil John Rhodes. This strange millionaire would have to do his own exploring in future. Alice had never wished to come on this journey, and now she was being forced to suffer because of her husband’s own arrogance and selfishness. No, he resolved, she would do whatever she wished now, and he would meekly follow her desires, even if it meant going back to sowing more wheat in flat bloody Norfolk!
The next day, their stomachs full and hopes renewed by the promise of another day of blue sky and scurrying snowball puffs of cloud, they set off as soon as the sun appeared over the hills behind them. It was towards the end of the day when they glimpsed a party of warriors trotting across the plain towards them.
Fonthill ordered a halt and they formed a square, their rifles at the ready. ‘Who are they, do you think, Mzingeli? They don’t look like Mashonas.’
The tracker shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘They black blades,’ he said. ‘Matabele. They coming straight for us.’
Chapter 14
It was Fairbairn who told Alice that her husband had been found and was at that moment approaching the king’s kraal. She immediately hurried to wash her face and comb her hair, then ran - for her leg had now completely healed - to meet Simon. She saw the party walking slowly down the hill, past the first thorn hedge, still accompanied by the platoon of warriors, who were anxious to reap the approval of the king for so successfully accomplishing their mission, but also by the usual cacophony of dogs and children barking and singing.
Alice strode forward to meet them and opened her arms in greeting. She could not help but release a sob, for Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli now resembled scarecrows, their clothes torn, their bodies thin and, in the case of Simon and 352, wearing unkempt beards. Their eyes, however, were bright, and Simon, holding her close, whispered, ‘Are you all right? They’ve not hurt you?’
‘No, of course not. Now you are back I am perfectly fine.’
She made them all break away from their escort and walked them to her hut, where Joshua - and Ntini also - greeted them with a warmth that only diminished when they realised that just three of the boys, their friends and contemporaries, had returned. Alice made the two build a fire and she busied herself with boiling water so that they could all wash, including the boys. Then she made tea and they sat around the fire drinking it while she and Fonthill exchanged their stories.
Simon and his party had only been gone an hour, she explained, when about sixty warriors had descended on the camp. They had been led by an inDuna and at first she had been terrified, helpless and crippled as she was, because they were painted as for war and carried assegais. Joshua had whispered that they were Matabele, and when she shouted - through the boy - that her husband and his party would be back within minutes, their purpose became clear. They had gently pushed her back on to the bed, put blankets over her, bundled a change of clothes into her pack, picked up the bed and her medicine bag and jogged away into the bush, Joshua being forced to trot with them.
She was clearly being kidnapped, for there had been no attempt to take her rifle or other items that would have been attractive to natives. But the medicine bag had been a priority, and it was now being carried with care by a warrior just ahead of her litter. Her attempts to put a foot to the ground had been firmly resisted, but no extreme force had been used and it was evident that she was not to be harmed.
It did not take long for her to speculate that she was being taken to Bulawayo so that she could continue her treatment of the king’s foot. She had been sure that Mzingeli could follow the signs that so large a party would make through the bush, but she had been able to take a few of the gout pills from her bag and drop them to indicate where they would be heading. She had saved her last three pills, and it was well that she had done so, for she had used them to indicate which of the three trails she had taken when the party split up.
Simon nodded. ‘Clever girl,’ he said. ‘This finally confirmed to us where you were heading and who had taken you. We felt much better after that. But you must have been in great pain being jolted about on that litter.’
�
��It was not as bad as all that. They were very gentle with me, and later, I was able to wash and change the dressing.’
‘What happened when you reached Bulawayo, and why did the king send a party to look for us? If he wanted me back here, he could simply have waited for our return.’
Alice grinned. ‘I refused to see the old rascal. I was not going to let him think that he could just send his warriors and drag me back here. So when he summoned me, I told him to go to hell.’
Jenkins nodded his head approvingly. ‘Good for you, Miss Alice.’
Alice’s smile had disappeared, however. ‘Yes, well, he sent his sister to fetch me, but I insisted on talking to Fairbairn first. It was he who told me that Rhodes had sent a huge column that had already crossed into Matabeleland, that the king was in great pain and that his relationship with the white men had worsened.’ She pulled a face. ‘I realised that it would do no one any good for me to continue playing the Great White Lady, so I struck a bargain with his majesty.’
Fonthill frowned. ‘What sort of bargain, for goodness’ sake?’
‘Oh, don’t worry. Your position has not been compromised and I haven’t sold bloody Rhodes short. I said that I would treat his foot if he would send a party out to find you and bring you back here. Eventually,’ her smile returned, ‘after we had exchanged a few choice words through Fairbairn, he agreed. And here you all are at last, my darlings, though you look as though you could do with a good bath and a hot meal - which shall be forthcoming, I promise.’
Simon took her hand. ‘And your leg . . . ?’
‘It has healed perfectly well. Now, when you have eaten, I think you should go and see the king.’ Her expression was now very serious. ‘And I should be very careful about what you say to him, my dear.’
‘To echo you, to hell with him.’
‘Yes, well, you won’t find him very contrite, I fear. He is not a happy monarch. Rhodes’s column of pioneers has crossed over the Shashe into Matabeleland at Tuli and is building a fort there.’
‘Rhodes has moved remarkably fast.’
‘Yes, and I understand from Fairbairn that it’s quite a crowd. The king thinks he is about to be invaded. This is a dangerous time, Simon.’
Fonthill lowered his brows over the edge of his cup. ‘But he signed the agreement. He knew that a column would be coming sooner or later to build the road.’
Alice smiled wanly. ‘Yes, but it’s very much sooner rather than later, and it sounds as though it’s a virtual army. Fairbairn tells me that there are some two hundred prospectors, a hundred and fifty native labourers and, would you believe it, five hundred “police” - they’re really soldiers - together with the usual paraphernalia of about one hundred and twenty wagons and two thousand oxen. They have even brought along a giant naval searchlight, which they shine into the bush at night to deter attack. Fairbairn is drafting a letter of protest from the king.’
Fonthill nodded and then looked at her sharply. ‘That still doesn’t excuse the bloody man from abducting my wife.’
Alice reached across and gripped his knee. ‘I think, darling, that you must be very careful how you handle Lobengula. He has not harmed me and he did agree to send men to find you. To repeat, my love, these are dangerous times. In fairness to the man, remember that he has about twenty thousand warriors who are just dying to wash their spears in British blood. He is trying to restrain them.’
Jenkins, who had been listening, pulled at his moustache. ‘Sounds a bit to me like Zululand all over again, isn’t it?’
Fonthill nodded. ‘Hmm. I think we have all done our bit for Rhodes now. You, my love, have had a bullet in your thigh, I have had my chest used as a carving block by this Portuguese madman and we have all tramped more miles than I would have wished over this bit of Africa. I have no intention of doing any further exploration to the east. I think we now make our way back down to the Cape, don’t you agree?’
‘’Ear, ’ear,’ growled Jenkins.
There was, however, an awkward silence from Alice, who looked away with an air of embarrassment.
‘What?’ Fonthill frowned in puzzlement. ‘You never wanted to come on this expedition in the first place. Whatever is the matter?’
Alice gave him a weak smile. ‘You will see that Ntini is back,’ she said. ‘He arrived just a few days ago. He came with this cable for me. I think you had better read it.’
Simon took the cable form. It was from the editor of the Morning Post in London, and it read:
SPLENDID COPY STOP UNDERSTAND PIONEER COLUMN HEADING NORTHWARDS STOP TROUBLE EXPECTED FROM LOBENGULA STOP OPPOSITION PAPERS WITH COLUMN STOP CAN YOU JOIN IT SOONEST AND REPORT TROUBLE AND PROGRESS STOP CONGRATULATIONS STOP LIKE OLD TIMES STOP CORNFORD
Fonthill looked up in astonishment. ‘You don’t mean that you are going to join the column, surely?’
At this point, Jenkins rose and ostentatiously walked to where his pack lay. There he began unpacking it. Alice followed him with her eyes before replying.
‘I must, Simon.’ She spoke softly and slowly. ‘When I agreed to accompany you on this expedition, I did so on the understanding that I would report it for the Morning Post. You know that. I made a commitment to Cornford.’
‘Yes, but this thing could develop now into a full-scale war, another Isandlwana for all I know. You can’t be involved in that, my darling. It would be far too dangerous.’
She blew out her cheeks. ‘Well, my love, let’s see.’ She began counting on her fingers. ‘So far on this trip I have been involved in a close-up encounter with lions; two attacks by Portuguese mercenaries; a fight with slavers; and I have been abducted. Now, a bit of old-fashioned campaigning with a British invading force - for that’s what it sounds like - should really represent only a touch of light relief, don’t you think?’
Fonthill’s face was thunderous. ‘Don’t be flippant, Alice. We agreed that you would report for the Morning Post only on our expedition, not some bloody invasion of the whole territory.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ Alice now gave her husband her sweetest smile, ‘did you not wish to see for yourself this wonderful farming country in Mashonaland that the prospecting column will discover? And didn’t Mr Rhodes offer to give you some of this prime land - even though it wasn’t his to give? Don’t you think you should look at it?’
‘Oh come along, Alice. You know that I never wished you to become involved with the column. I really thought that your journalistic days were over - with the exception, that is, of reporting on our particular expedition.’ He held up the cable. ‘Cornford speaks about “the opposition” accompanying the column. This means that you will be in it again up to your neck, trying to get scoops and all the rest of it. I know what you are like. You will be sticking your neck out, taking risks to get exclusives and so on. You will be well and truly back in the profession. And I shall lose you, I know it.’ He floundered for a moment, lost for further words. ‘Dammit all, it’s not right, you know.’
Alice’s face lost its expression of sweet cynicism and she reached out and took his hand. ‘My darling, you will never lose me, you know that.’ She paused for a moment and then spoke softly again. ‘When I look at you, my love, I see a nose broken by a musket barrel in Afghanistan, a back terribly scarred by a Dervish whip in the Sudan, and now a chest cut horribly by a Portuguese knife. You have sustained all of this in the service of the Empire, although you haven’t served formally in the army for years. Yet I do not begrudge you your adventuring, although I worry about you terribly. But I must have a life too, you know. It would perhaps be different if we had a child, but . . .’ her voice faltered for a moment, ‘we do not, so one half of us can’t be off adventuring for the Queen and the other sitting at home knitting. Well, not this half anyway.’
Fonthill gripped her hand tightly in return.
‘You see,’ she continued, ‘I have made a commitment to Cornford and he was kind enough to take me on. Now I don’t anticipate for one moment returning to the Morning Post as a f
ull-time correspondent, even if they would have me. But to be here, on the spot, so to speak, of this remarkable expansion of the Empire - even if I don’t approve of it, perhaps particularly because I don’t approve of it - and not write about it would be a terrible waste of the talent I know I have. I must report on what happens to this column and see it through. Then I can stop. Do you see?’
Simon sighed. ‘Very well. I shall come with you, of course. But I must give 352 and Mzingeli the chance to opt out, if they wish.’
‘Of course.’
Wearily, Fonthill stood and called Jenkins and Mzingeli over. They sat around Alice while Simon explained the situation. ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘we cannot ask you to accompany us - nor the boys, of course - and I can understand why you in particular, Mzingeli, would want to return to the Transvaal. It is up to you.’
‘Well.’ Jenkins looked affronted. ‘I go where you go, you know that, bach sir. But if you don’t want . . .’
‘Don’t be silly. Of course we both want you. Please come with us. There will be plenty to do. What about you, Mzingeli? I would continue to pay you, of course, but we shall quite understand if you have had enough of danger and fighting.’