by James Whyle
The brigade re-formed and moved on to join the General’s column and almost immediately the heathen opened fire on them from a belt of bush to their left. The column halted and men took cover where they could and the skirmishers of the Highlanders were sent out once more.
The enemy were too spread out for artillery to be effective and an order came to the Captain and the Captain told the God-struck Lieutenant and Sergeant Major Herrid that it was time to show how it was done. He spoke to a lieutenant of the Highlanders and this man’s company fired a volley and the irregulars charged forward. They took cover behind a rocky shelf and fired a volley of their own and then they rose and ran screaming into the bush. Evans and Waine came upon two wounded Hottentots who struggled to reload their double-barrelled carbines.
The Hottentots threw down their weapons and knelt and one looked at Evans.
Gelieve te doden mij niet, he said.
Evans lifted his heel and brought it down on the side of the Hottentot’s head and the man fell away and groaned and tried to crawl. Evans leapt on him and put his knee in the centre of his back and lifted his head and began to cut through his throat with his reaping hook. Waine battered the second Hottentot about the head with the butt of his rifle and he struggled up onto his knees and Waine lifted his weapon and pounded him with it and so it went. When the Hottentots were dead Evans and Waine ran on through the undergrowth and fired at the fleeting defectors who bounded away into the forest and down the cliff faces with an antelope agility.
When the irregulars came to the edge of the plateau they looked down and the forest and the cliffs were silent and appeared deserted.
They turned to rejoin the column and on their way they found the kid sitting with his head upon his knees.
What’s wrong with him, said the Captain.
He’s sick, said the joiner.
The Captain stared at the kid for a moment and then he stooped and took him by the collar and lifted him to his feet and shook him.
What’s wrong with you?
The kid’s head lolled and he did not answer. Evans and the joiner came forward to take him under each arm but the kid pushed them off and the party moved on. The irregulars rejoined the column and the wounded and the dead were slung on stretchers and the brigade proceeded and they had gained no more than three-quarters of a mile when they came under fire from the bush they had just cleared. A group of some twenty Hottentots and heathen emerged thence and ran forward and fired but the shots fell short. The artillery unlimbered a gun and swung it round and their third shell fell directly among the heathen and the Captain could only count thirteen as they retreated.
Late in the afternoon the column regained their previous position at Mundell’s farm and found Norris’ body lying some distance from his excavated grave and partially eaten. The kid stumbled and Evans and the joiner steered him towards the hospital tent but he fought them off and sat on the ground and when the fire was made he lowered his head to his knees and slept. Evans and Waine and the joiner were eating when Providence the Fingo came to join them and squatted next to the kid. He took Evans’ reaping hook and he held it among the coals. Then he took the kid’s head in his hand and looked into his eyes.
I cut, he said.
The kid stared at Providence uncomprehending. Providence turned the kid’s head to the side and pushed with the point of the reaping hook into the taut swollen skin at the place where the kid’s lobe joined with his neck. The kid swore and rose unsteadily to his feet and Providence smiled and nodded and handed the reaping hook back to Evans. Evans took it and stared at it and then he sniffed at the blade.
The kid stood looking about wildly and a thick yellow ooze came out with the blood and plasma from his ear and flowed down his neck. Providence searched in his daghasack and found some dried and mouldy matter which might have been vegetable in origin. He took boiling water from the kettle and infused the substance in it. He took a rag and wet it and wiped the oozing matter from the kid’s ear and offered him the remains of the infusion.
Drink, he said.
The kid did as instructed and Providence pointed to the kid’s ear.
Gone, he said.
The kid sat and stared into the flames. His skull throbbed and he saw in the coals a child who stood in the doorway of a house and pulsed and dimmed in the same rhythm as the pain. The kid did not eat and after a time he laid down his blanket near the flames and slept and the men stepped over him as they went about their evening chores.
XIII
Recovery – A head for Mlanjeni – To Fort Cox for supplies – Bivouac on the Shining Water – Deluge – The joiner on ownership – The kid intuits an outcome – Stolen munitions – Progress towards the pass – Argument for invasion – The lies in their rows.
AT DAWN ON THE DAY following a thick fog lay on the uplands and the marauders stood silent and insubstantial like beings only partially imagined. The dead lay neatly in a row and Norris’ half-eaten body was concealed among them in a fresh blanket. The kid stood in the murk and he heard with both ears the sounds of bridles clinking and the lowing of cattle and the voice of the officer of the day. Ashes to ashes, said the officer of the day. Dust to dust. Bravery, duty, purpose. The kid put his hand to the side of his head and felt how the swelling was reduced and he scratched away at the crust that clung to his neck. He shifted in the mist and pulled his blanket about him and drew breath and the world smelt clean.
The graves were close to the spot where Norris had been buried for the first time and when the bodies had been lowered and covered with earth there were large fires lit to keep the wolves and jackals at bay and to conceal the location from the heathen and then the column moved out. The air was cold and raw and they felt their way forward and the kid could see little but the grass beneath his feet and the back of the man before him.
After five miles the fog lifted and they came upon a ruined farmhouse and the loosely assembled bones of its previous owner. The Captain approached an officer of the Highlanders and this man told the Captain that he had been told by a scout that the dead man’s name was Eastwood. He was a settler who had been killed at the commencement of the war and his skull was missing because his head had been removed and sent to the heathen prophet at that time.
What for, said the Captain.
Who knows, said the officer of the Highlanders.
The Lieutenant Colonel was much disturbed by the discovery. He stood above the remains and closed his eyes and his cheeks were suffused with blood. He ground his teeth and winced as if in pain and remained in this posture for some time. Slowly the redness faded from his face and a few tears ran down as if released by the change in hue. The Lieutenant Colonel wiped them away and ordered that all operations be halted for the burial.
While the grave was dug some of the men went unarmed in search of firewood into a nearby patch of forest and ran out shouting that it was full of heathen. Skirmishers were sent in and killed three warriors who had been cut off there by the open tableland about.
A cavalry express arrived with a message from the General and the Lieutenant Colonel cursed and sent the message back. The men waited and further messages were received and sent and the day passed without further incident or accomplishment and then they returned to their camping grounds at Mundell’s farm and the Captain was disgruntled as he wrapped himself in his blanket and went to sleep.
On the morning of the 18th of October the Lieutenant Colonel’s brigade marched north and then east and then wheeled again and proceeded south down the Shining Water Pass towards Fort Cox to meet the commissariat supplies. The irregulars were in the midst of the column and the kid strode betweens Evans and Waine and on their right were the ravines that led up to the Northern Highlands. The kid felt carefully at his ear and the swelling was gone and there was only a dry scab that itched and he did not scratch it. He lifted his head and drew in smells of horse and sweat and leather and the fresh sweet dung of animals which eat only grass. The pass was a rough rocky wagon road
and it wound down from the mountains through thriving forest where small apes shrieked and scampered.
A great cliff rose above the column on the right and from its summit the General’s brigade covered their flanks and threw down artillery fire into a gorge which sheltered a heathen homestead. The column passed on and the men trudged and Evans looked about at the countryside.
Things grow here, he said.
Things?
Fruit, said Evans. Nuts.
Used to be Matroos’ land, said the joiner.
Who’s Matroos?
Hermanus Matroos. Hottentot chief. Joined the Gaika. Nearly took Fort Cox at the start of the war.
Where’s he now?
Dead.
They marched on. The heathen from the bombed homesteads stood and watched their passing from a cliff top. The artillery dropped a shell among them and they fled all but one who seemed to float out slowly into the air and then he bounced and rolled down the cliff face until he was halted by the bush at its foot.
In the afternoon they bivouacked on the warm banks of a river close to the ruins of an old military post. The kid went to the water and washed his shirt and then he spread it on a hot rock to dry. He washed the last remains of the dried blood from his ear and neck and he lay on the sand next to the rock and listened to the sound of the water and of the doves calling and he slept. When he woke his shirt was dry and the scab behind his ear was itching but he did not scratch it. He put on his shirt and he went to join his companions in their lines. The sun sank behind the mountains and apes barked in the cliffs. There were heathen fires lit on the peaks to the east and these fires burned brightly throughout the night.
On the day following the irregulars remained in that position and waited for the supplies from Fort Cox. In the afternoon the light dimmed and clouds rolled down from the mountains and a steady rain began to fall. The men sat around their fires and the rain soaked through their blankets and through their leather jackets and the harsh smoke eddied around them and induced tears which the many horrors they had taken part in had not yet evoked. They were like sodden and cursing derelicts who sat dripping in the cold. Evans said that maybe the next time they were in Gatestown they should just quietly desert because there must be better places in the world.
Like Norfolk Island, said the joiner.
Evans spat wetly into the wetness.
The kid sat between Evans and the joiner. Waine and Smith and Higgs and Basson sat opposite. The kid was thoughtful and he wiped the water from his nose with the back of his hand. He shivered and then he looked at Evans.
You ever killed a woman?
No, said Evans.
You?
No, said the joiner.
Child?
No.
Higgs looked at Waine.
You?
Not yet, said Waine.
The fires smouldered through the night and that vast assembly of men and animals lay about them and snored and muttered and stank in the darkness.
They awoke at four o’clock on the morning of the 19th of October and marched towards Fort Cox. The rain cleared and the clothes dried on their backs as they went. They halted within sight of the town to wait for the wagons. The Captain and some other mounted officers rode on and came into the village at a canter. They carried rusty weapons and their uniforms were rent and their mounts were foul. They rode past a group of settlers on their way to Sunday church. The settlers were dressed in dark suits and their women wore fine dresses and held the hands of their children. They shrank back from the muddy hooves and watched in silence as the horsemen went past.
The Captain galloped on and found the barracks in confusion with a regiment of infantry just arrived and a body of marines and a party of sappers and miners and detachments of other forces and the new arrivals numbered more than a thousand men in all. The Captain found an acquaintance and this man took the Captain to his quarters and served him a breakfast of eggs and bacon and cold ham and coffee upon a white tablecloth. The Captain ate fast and thanked his acquaintance and when he rode out he carried two fresh loaves in his haversack and a bottle of brandy and a large cabbage.
The Captain caught up with the wagons just as the last of them had met with the Lieutenant Colonel and the column was preparing to move north towards the pass. The Captain rode through the waiting ranks and he came upon the Lieutenant Colonel and a group of officers and Fingos who stood regarding a line of Hottentot women. In front of each woman lay the objects which the Fingos’ recent search had revealed in her clothing. One had carried ninety-five rounds of government ammunition and another a bullet mould and turnscrew. One of them was young and defiant and she had carried eighty rounds and a quantity of black powder. The Lieutenant Colonel examined the small piles of ammunition and then he looked at the defiant woman and cursed her.
Where does this come from? Where do you get it? Ask them where they get it.
Johnny Fingo took the woman by the wrist and cuffed her with his free hand.
Waar kry jy deze kogel?
The woman struggled to free her arm but she did not answer.
They get it from Hottentots in Fort Cox, said the Lieutenant Colonel. They get it from Christian Hottentots in the pay of the government. And they go off and hide it in the bushes for collection.
The Lieutenant Colonel lifted a hand as if to strike and Fingo warriors jumped forward with stabbing spears in hand and took the women and threw them shrieking to the ground.
The defiant woman shouted, bevrijd mij jou varken, and a Fingo hit her with a knobbed stick and hit her again when she fell and then he bent back her head to better expose her neck for cutting. The Lieutenant Colonel shouted at Johnny Fingo and Johnny Fingo shouted at the Fingos and after some time they released the women into the charge of a platoon of Mounted Rifles who escorted them back to the prison at Fort Cox.
The brigade moved on and late in the afternoon the rain began again and it fell steadily and strongly. In the evening they made camp on what seemed a small floodplain. When the men rose at three o’clock in the morning there were pools of water in the indentations their bodies had made in the soft earth. The irregulars fell in and they stood for an hour and the rain fell upon them. They shivered like souls stricken by ague and their teeth chattered in their skulls and they waited. Eventually they followed the wagons at a torturous pace for an hour and then the oxen began to slip and fall and the wagons bogged down and they dug them out and hauled them back to the camp and waited there in the rain.
The irregulars waited for the rain to stop and it did not and after a time they busied themselves in trying to make their fires burn better. They gathered wood and they collected stones and they built the fires upon the stones to keep them clear of the flooded ground. They stood about and stamped and cursed and waited for coffee to brew and the rain came down.
A steaming cavalry express arrived from the brigade on the heights. They gave the Lieutenant Colonel a letter from the General which asked why he had not marched as the covering party on top of the pass had been waiting for several hours. The Lieutenant Colonel cursed and dictated a reply and the cavalry express departed and the irregulars spent another night in the mud and the fat drops fell steadily from the low clouds.
On the day following the rain stopped with the dawn and the column made another attempt to move up towards the pass and covered five hundred yards in one hour. The oxen struggled on and the wagons inched forward and the men froze in their thin damp clothing. Their hands were so cold that they could barely grasp their weapons. They came eventually to the foot of the pass and they paused to rest the oxen. There was a party of heathen on the summit of an isolated sugarloaf hill to their left and these warriors shouted down at the column.
Nina AmamFengu. Khuteni nisilwa nathi abahlobo.
The heathen shouted and the men of the Fingo levies shouted in reply and the Captain and the God-struck Lieutenant rode up to Johnny Fingo and dismounted and asked him the meaning of the bellowed conversation.
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They say why do you fight against your friends. They say they gave us corn and milk.
And what do your men say?
You made us slaves. We do not thank you.
Did they?
Yes, said Johnny Fingo.
The three men stared up at the mountain top. They looked like representatives of unruly Israelite tribes awaiting a tardy prophet.
Maybe we should have just left them alone, said the God-struck Lieutenant.
They’d be running around naked and killing each other for the next two thousand years.
So be it.
It’s too late.
Why?
They already smelt iron. And now they’ve got the wheel. And horses. And guns.
They can’t make guns yet.
They’ll learn.
The Captain looked at Johnny Fingo and Johnny Fingo took out a clasp knife and opened it and scraped with the blade at the dark matter beneath his thumb nail. The Captain looked at the God-struck Lieutenant.
What does your book say?
The Lieutenant thought for a time. When he spoke he sounded as though there was a hand at his throat that was throttling him.
Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, he said. And hast found them liars.
XIV
Regulations – Dutch scouts – The General’s cutlets – Attacked at the path to the Kromme – Clayton’s second misfortune – A spy – Debate on first settlers – Hail.
THE HEATHEN CEASED their shouting and departed to the west and after a time the wheezing oxen recovered their breath and the drivers reached for their whips and the wagons began to grind up the pass. They rolled forward for twenty yards and then the oxen slipped and fell to their knees and bellowed their pain and the whips and the lengths of rhinoceros hide came down on their backs and they rose and hauled their burdens for another ten yards and so the column proceeded and they gained the top of the pass at three o’clock in the afternoon.