The Book of War

by James Whyle

  The kid was seated in that company and Providence the Fingo took from the coals a long length of sizzling intestine and offered it to him. The kid put out his hand but Providence shook his head and pulled the intestine out of reach. He looked at the kid and opened his mouth. The kid did likewise and Providence inserted the charred end of the tube between the kid’s teeth and he cut off six inches. The kid sucked and expelled air between his teeth with great energy and he sat there bent forward with the hot tube dangling. Providence pounded his thigh and laughed.

  Eat, he said.

  The kid let the gut drop into his cupped hands and juggled it and blew on it and then he put it in his mouth. The charred chewy flesh tasted of ash and beneath that something rich and there was a sweet tang also from the fermented grasses it had recently contained. Providence lifted a great coil from a bowl at his side and cut off a section as long as a man. He laid it on a stone with one end lying in the coals. He pointed at the intestine and then at the kid.

  The kid thanked Providence and when the intestine started to sizzle he picked it up at the cooking end. The yellow dog tugged at the tube and the kid put it between his teeth and cut off a section and he cut another for the dog.

  The men sat and ate and the Fingos spoke of the recent engagements. They listened to each other with great attention and each story or anecdote ended in a chorus of astonishment or laughter. Often the last sentence or exclamation was repeated all around the fire and the speakers dwelt profoundly on the penultimate syllable so that the conversation took on the quality of a resonant music. The kid ate and listened and nodded and sometimes he caught words that he understood.

  When the meal was finished a dagha pipe was prepared and lit and passed around the circle. The horn came to Providence and he put his lips to its mouth and drew in smoke and the hemp glowed and spat in its bowl. Providence sat back and looked at the stars and he kept his breath for a considerable time and then he blew the smoke out. He passed the pipe to the kid and took a drink from the gourd which followed it about the circle. He leaned forward and spat a thin stream of dark liquid from between his incisors with an odd whistling sound. He wiped a hand across his mouth and looked at the kid.

  The kid put his mouth to the horn and sucked and breathed in and the smoke caught in his throat. He coughed convulsively and bent forward. Tears streamed from his eyes. The watching men threw back their heads and laughed until tears flowed down their cheeks also. Providence clapped the kid upon his back and gestured to the pipe.

  Little bit, little bit, he said.

  The kid looked at Providence and then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and he looked at the pipe. The men were laughing and imitating the kid in his reaction and laughing again. The kid looked again at Providence and Providence pointed at the pipe.

  The kid lifted it and sucked carefully. He looked up and held his breath for a moment and blew out. He passed the pipe on and took the gourd and took a small careful bitter sip. He screwed up his face into a dire contortion and spat a thin stream from between his incisors and though he did not whistle the warriors applauded like proud parents.

  The pipe and the gourd passed on around the circle and Providence put a great arm about the kid’s shoulders and drew him closer. Providence looked at his companions and he said that he saw a fine future for the boy as a warrior and his audience nodded gravely and grunted in affirmation. The kid watched the flames lick up and then he looked at the men about the fire.

  Their faces are animated and attentive and they smile with white teeth and their eyes are bright. They smile and talk and laugh and the flames shift and dance and the blood pumps a great iambic beat that demands that a man should walk. The flames lick up and they light the faces and the blood pumps like a palm that beats upon the tautened surface of a new-made drum. The blood pumps and the heart beats and the blood spools up with the flames. There is a path a man can tread that leads him down among the walls of caves whose stone is hot to reddening. He walks a tunnel of pulsing coals and he must be formed from fire himself because he does not burn and great herds of antelope leap where the flames draw them orange and flickering upon the red glowing stone.

  XVIII

  Mfengu polity – A beast in the reeds – The kid’s discretion – A necklace – Fate of the God-struck Lieutenant – Colonel Ire advises – The General crosses the Big Fat – Chicanery.

  PROVIDENCE THE FINGO shook the kid and the kid looked at him.

  Jesus, said the kid. Jesus Christ.

  Providence smiled and the kid stood quickly and the yellow dog howled. The kid looked down and removed his boot from the dog’s tail. Providence picked the dog up by the scruff of its neck and he held it up to the kid. The kid took the dog and looked at it.

  Jesus, he said.

  The dog looked at him and it seemed reproachful.

  That’s strong tobacco, said the kid.

  He put out his hand as though searching for a pole to steady himself on and he set his feet wider apart. Good tobacco, said Providence. Strong.

  The kid looked at the men about the circle and he raised his hand in salute.

  Nkosi, he said. Sala khahle.

  The men raised their hands.

  Hamba khahle, they said.

  The kid walked carefully through the camp towards the irregulars’ tents. He looked down at the dog and he saw how his body curved away beyond it and how far in the distance his feet came forward in turn upon the earth and he began to laugh.

  He passed the Captain’s tent still laughing and he saw through the doorway that the Captain hunched between two candles and scribbled dark ink upon the pages of his book. The kid approached carefully and stood at the doorway of the tent.

  Skipper, he said.

  The Captain looked up.

  Here’s the dog.

  The Captain indicated a place at his feet.

  Put him there.

  The kid stepped into the tent and put the dog down. The dog sat there and licked its chops and then it laid its head upon the Captain’s boot and looked upwards with little new moons of white beneath its dark eyes. The kid turned and went out and walked through avenues of tents and heard how men snored and grumbled within.

  The Captain stared thoughtfully at the dog and then he took up his pen.

  I have been told by Colonel Ire, he wrote, that the Fingos were driven from their position in the north-east by the warlike Zulu and took refuge in the territory of Hintsa. This savage monarch, king of all the heathen, Tsaleka and Gagabee alike, kept them in a state of most barbarous servitude. Sir Benjamin D’Urban, with the General’s assistance, set them free in 1835. They were given territory between the Little and Big Fat rivers and have remained our faithful allies ever since.

  The Captain put his pen down and rested his head in his hands. The matter of defectors was a troublesome one and he wondered how much his potential readers needed to know.

  The kid walked through the long rows of tents and down to the fires of the sentries and he stood for a moment and stared at the river where it flowed quietly in the moonlight. The night was clear and bright and away on the opposite bank something rustled in the reeds and there came on the breeze a scent of decay. The kid stared. A shadow slipped away to the east and the reeds were still again. The kid stood there watching for a long time and then he turned and walked back.

  He entered his tent and stepped over Evans and the joiner who snored in their blankets and found his place in the gloom. The moon shone in through the open entrance and Waine lay there and watched. He pointed to the armband on the kid’s wrist.

  Where you get that?

  What?

  On your arm.

  The kid looked at the bone bracelet.

  Found it.

  Where?

  Up on the Kromme. Day they got the Lieutenant Colonel.

  Waine felt in his blanket and drew out a string of convoluted blackened objects threaded on a leather thong.

  Look at this, he said.

 
; He held it out to the kid and the kid took it and stepped into the moonlight and examined it. Some of the objects were soft to the touch and others were dry and hardened.

  What is it?

  Ears.

  The kid looked down at the necklace and then he nodded and handed it back. Waine took it and tied it around his neck.

  One for every one I killed, he said.

  The kid stood silent, watching him.

  You never told no one.

  About what?

  Captain’s wine.

  The kid shook his head. Waine lifted a hand and touched the dark shapes about his neck.

  If they get me, said Waine, I want you to keep it.

  On the day following the irregulars assembled for daily drill and the God-struck Lieutenant was absent. His tent was examined and it was found that his patrol uniform and his bible were missing. The Captain ordered a search and a scout discovered tracks on the far side of the river. The tracks were made by a single man walking in wet boots and they led to a clearing in the bush at the side of which lay the Lieutenant’s jacket and trousers.

  The General and Colonel Ire and the Captain crossed the river at a ford a little way downstream and walked up to the clearing. They stood and examined the Lieutenant’s clothing where it lay in the dust.

  God grant, said the General, that he did not meet the same fate as the Provost Marshal.

  I’m sure he did, said Colonel Ire.

  What did the scouts report?

  They could find no further trail here, said the Captain. He pointed to a narrow rocky path that led into the forest.

  That goes over into the next valley. They found heathen spoor there on the far side of a brook. It leads upstream for a few hundred yards and then into the water. From there it’s possible to walk up the bed of the brook for at least ten miles.

  They’ll roast him at their leisure, said Colonel Ire.

  The Hottentot, said the General, understand when they have met a superior force. And once you have conquered them they make perhaps the best scouts in the world outside of the American Indian. But these God-damned savage heathen are the most cunning and perverse enemy I have encountered. They are the equal of the Pashtun of Afghanistan. Do you know that their children are actually trained in duplicity? I was told by a respectable Dutchman that they are initiated in acts of thievery almost as soon as they can walk. They hold competitions and gather to congratulate the winner. He said that lying is an accomplishment held in the highest esteem among them.

  General, said Colonel Ire. May I speak?

  Of course.

  I think you have to cross the Big Fat again.

  The Tsaleka are neutral.

  They harbour stolen cattle. And aid defectors.

  They harbour stolen cattle, said the General.

  In their thousands. With fifty thousand head we could fuel this campaign for another year. I personally have ten or fifteen times followed trails of stolen cattle straight to the banks of the Big Fat.

  The General looked at Colonel Ire and then he nodded.

  If you armed Jinqi’s forces with modern rifles and supplied him with ammunition this entire God-forsaken continent would be lying at his feet within ten years.

  He is a cunning strategist, said Colonel Ire. He is changing the nature of warfare itself. If they unified around him they might have gained their profoundest wish.

  Which is?

  They believe that God banished us to the sea for killing his son. They want us to go back there.

  To the sea?

  From whence we came.

  Extraordinary, said the Captain.

  Their ignorance of the wider world, said Colonel Ire, is both profound and understandable. As is our ignorance of the mythology they call their history. But the missionaries are hard at work educating them. It is important that they are properly subjugated before the missionaries succeed.

  And how, said the General, do you suggest we do that?

  You must cross the Big Fat for supplies. And then we must prosecute our policies with a proper degree of terror.

  What does that mean?

  It means that those who do not acknowledge our sovereignty must be exterminated. And it is my belief that this policy would best be executed at night.

  Why?

  If you come upon them at night in their homesteads, you can get them all.

  It was quiet in the clearing and the sun shining through the leaves cast a dappled light upon the three men. The Captain looked down and saw that a column of ants had encountered the God-struck Lieutenant’s uniform. He noted how their scouts examined its perimeter and then returned to the parent force.

  God grant I never have to fight his equal, said the General, armed like us.

  On the day following the General departed for Gatestown and a week later the Captain heard word that he was preparing for a move across the Big Fat to punish the king of the Tsaleka. Colonel Ire was given command of various forces with which to hold the areas around Fort Cox and the irregulars were ordered to accompany a party of Highlanders to Post Retief.

  On hearing the news the Captain went into Fort Cox with the party carrying the mail and he took the kid and Evans with him. In the village the Captain hired a wagon and a team of oxen and a Hottentot wagon driver and a Gonah voorloper. The Captain consulted the list he had drawn up with Lieutenant Bruce of the Highlanders and then he visited various traders and bought supplies and he negotiated terms for two pack horses.

  The Hottentot and the Gonah were tardy in bringing the oxen and the mail departed and the Captain and his wagon and the two pack horses left Fort Cox without escort in the late afternoon. Evans and the kid and the yellow dog travelled on the wagon and ate a form of cured beef sold to them by a Dutch trader. The Captain rode next to the wagon and worried. As night came down they proceeded through a bushy part of the track and the Captain struck a flame to light a small cheroot. He lifted it to the tip and there were great flashes and staggered reports to his right. Evans cursed and the Captain’s horse rose up on its hind legs and screamed and it bounced upon the side of the wagon as it came down. The Captain beat the horse about the head and unsheathed his Adams and fired a shot. One of the oxen lay dead on its side and two others knelt and groaned and bled. The panicking survivors veered about and bellowed in a great entrapment of thongs and yokes and with each attempt to escape their bonds tightened incrementally.

  Evans and the kid fired in the direction of the flashes and jumped down in the lee of the wagon to charge their weapons. The Captain shouted at the Hottentot driver.

  Unyoke that dead ox and straighten out the rest of the team.

  The Hottentot looked towards the bush whence the defectors had fired.

  Wij kunnen het niet doen, mijn meester, he said.

  Why not?

  The Hottentot looked at the Gonah and the Gonah looked towards the bush and hesitated. The oxen were bellowing and struggling in tightening configurations. The Captain walked the horse forward and put the barrel of the Adams against the Hottentot’s head.

  Do it.

  Doden ons niet, mijn baas, said the Hottentot.

  Yoke the team.

  Tevreden, mijn meester. Doden ons niet.

  If you don’t yoke the team, said the Captain, I will kill you.

  The Hottentot looked towards the Gonah and once more the Gonah looked towards the bush. The Captain swung the Adams towards the Gonah.

  Untangle the lines and yoke the oxen.

  Hardloopen, said the Gonah, and he ran. Hij gat ons moord. Hardloopen.

  De beste God beschermt ons, said the Hottentot.

  He beat his whip stock on the horse’s head and the Captain swung the Adams back towards him and the horse reared up again and the Hottentot fled. Evans and the kid came round the back of the wagon and fired towards the fleeing men and when the horse came down the Captain fired also but the Hottentot and the Gonah were invisible in the dark bush.

  The valley was silent in the wake of the
gunfire and they heard a single branch crack somewhere. The Captain spoke in a whisper.

  Can you ride?

  No, said the Kid.

  You?

  No, said Evans.

  You’re going to now.

  The Captain uncoupled the two pack horses from the back of the wagon and he tied two crude halters and put them over the horses’ heads.

  Get on, he said.

  Evans and the kid approached warily and scrambled up. Evans leaned forward and embraced the horse’s neck and he spoke low and calm like a lover in its ear.

  If you throw me off, he said, I’ll kill you.

  The horse shivered and then it pricked its ears forward.

  Just hold on, said the Captain.

  He took up the traces and held them with his own reins and then he spurred his horse forward. They galloped up the rocky trail towards the camp and there were shots fired after them and Evans and the kid were cursing as they went.

  They came into the camp in a great clatter with the Captain shouting, don’t shoot, don’t shoot. Evans and the kid clung to the horses’ manes and embraced their girths with their legs and when the horses stopped they dismounted fast and staggered on wobbly legs. Evans looked at his horse.

  Bastard.

  He shook his head and spat.

  The Captain roused a group of Fingos and a team of oxen and the party ventured back down the trail. The Captain kept his mount at a trot and the Fingos ran barefoot and silent behind it for two miles. They found the wagon supplies intact apart from a box of cheroots and a case of brandy but the oxen were gone and their trail led off into the bush to the east and there were scraps of crumbled cheroot and empty bottles upon it. The Fingos were astonished that the Captain did not want the dead oxen and they skinned and dismembered the beasts. The new team was yoked and the Fingos hoisted great bloody lumps of flesh upon their shoulders and sang in the mode of call and response peculiar to them as they returned to the camp.