The Book of War

by James Whyle

  The column came on up the valley and began to ascend the heights and half an hour after the rear guard quitted the ground some forty heathen emerged from the bush and gathered around the smouldering fires and searched for what they could find.

  For nine hours the irregulars waited and watched as the force came up the pass with twenty-eight scrawny half-starved oxen to each wagon. A group of heathen stood on a clifftop and shouted down at the wagon drivers. They suggested that the drivers be careful because the cattle they were driving were so sleek and swift and powerful that they might be dangerous. The Hottentots cursed and spat and lashed the famished tottering beasts with their short heavy whips.

  When the sun sank orange in a red sky only half the column was up. Three companies of redcoats occupied the irregulars’ position and on the day following the remainder of the column ascended and the entire force encamped. The irregulars returned to Post Retief and so for the first time the English occupied a long-term position on the plains below Mount Misery.

  The road to the top of the Shining Water Valley became impassable and a working party was sent up from the camp on the river below. The irregulars marched out from Post Retief and met the working party at the top of the pass. They cut trees and filled the ruts with logs and stone and earth and some fifty yards of the track were patched by three o’clock when a bugle called out from the covering position above. The irregulars climbed up and took up their weapons and marched the twelve miles back to Post Retief.

  On the day following they returned and they camped that night at the ruins of a farm in order to be closer to the work. The darkness came fast and there was little time to collect fuel and the small fires guttered and spat in the wind. The men sat and stared at the coals which glowed and darkened like the organs of some living thing disembowelled and pulsing before them and all night the wolves yipped and wailed and cried out in strange rising whoops and they might have been demons risen from the dreamlands of the Tigris in the time of Ur and come to haunt.

  The irregulars laboured again on the day following and in the evening the kid gathered kindling and made a fire beneath a tree and set a kettle on it. Clayton was with him and the yellow dog lay between them and gnawed at a blackened knob of indifferent origin. Clayton was unable to shoot because of the injury to his right hand which had healed into a distorted lump. When the irregulars patrolled he remained at the camp or the fort and in the evening he cleaned the irregulars’ weapons. Clayton was thus engaged as the flames of the kid’s fire leapt up and the green wood spat and sent its smoke into the branches.

  Get some coffee on, he said.

  The kid picked up the coffee in its tin and bent over the kettle and a writhing slim length of virulent green fell from the tree and began to coil about his neck. The kid cried out and straightened and turned and grasped at the thing. The kettle went over onto Clayton’s bare ankle and Clayton jerked away and a rifle went off in his hands.

  The kid flung the thing to the ground and he stared at it. It writhed and coiled and began to slither away. It moved in a swift curving motion that took each part of its length through identical coordinates in the dimensional fabric of that fire-lit scene. They were caught, men and dog and departing serpent, in a dim mantle of light with the tree arched above.

  The kid stared after the snake and then he looked down at Clayton. Clayton sat facing the fire and rocking. He held his wrist in his gnarled right hand and he stared at the place where his good hand had been.

  Jesus, said the kid.

  He went to Clayton and squatted and looked at the blood which pulsed out from the stump and dropped onto Clayton’s thighs and groin and flowed down his arm.

  Jesus.

  The yellow dog was barking after the snake in the undergrowth and men came running and gathered around them and Clayton held his wrist and rocked slowly back and forth.

  What happened, said Basson.

  There was a snake, said the kid.

  Snake, said Evans.

  It fell on me.

  What happened to Clayton?

  Rifle went off. While he was cleaning it. A snake fell on me.

  Clayton sat rocking and holding his wrist and the blood dropped from it.

  You didn’t shoot him, said Basson.

  No. A snake fell on me. The dog’s after it.

  The men turned and looked into the darkness towards the barking dog.

  Whose rifle was it?

  I don’t know, said the kid. I knocked the kettle.

  Higgs looked down at the kettle and then he bent to pick it up.

  Better get this filled up again.

  He turned and walked into the night.

  The kid took off his jacket and his shirt. He took his dirk from its sheath in his belt and began to cut off a sleeve.

  Need something to bind that with or he’ll bleed to death.

  Clayton sat and held his wrist and rocked and the blood pulsed steadily out onto his thighs.

  It was Waine’s rifle, he said.

  The joiner shook his head and then he spat into the flames.

  On the day following Herrid lined the irregulars up at dawn and they stood formally as if on parade. The Captain paced up the line and he looked into each man’s eyes and then he took up a position from which to dare them all.

  Whose rifle was it, he said.

  The men glanced about at each other.

  Whose rifle was it?

  There was a cool breeze blowing and the autumn light was clear on the grasses. The irregulars stood there like ragged penitents.

  Whose rifle was it?

  The Captain stared at them and most looked down at the ground but a few glanced at Waine.

  Because of one man’s carelessness, said the Captain, another has lost a hand. The Bedouin will tell you that the guilty man should lose a hand also. But we are not savages. And I have a problem. If I cannot punish the individual, if the group feels that the individual must be protected, even when his carelessness has cost a comrade a hand …

  He held up his own right hand and regarded it.

  With which we eat. With which we hold a gun. With which a man might take his wife and pull her to him.

  The men watched him. They knew something of whores in diverse ports but little of wives. The wind moved among them and the grasses bent and straightened as it passed.

  If the group feels that the criminal must be protected, it is the group that must be punished. Within a month we will be back at Fort Cox. And General Cathcart will be happy to line this entire force up on the parade ground for two hundred lashes with whole platoons of medical men present. You can spend the coming days contemplating that.

  The men muttered and Herrid shouted for silence and they obeyed.

  Or you can desert. You can go now. Because the Gaika will not lash you. The Gaika, I have learnt, have neither lash nor jail. They do not believe in imprisonment or lashing. They find these practices cruel. What the Gaika do is cut your parts off and force them down your throat. And then they gut you while you watch.

  The irregulars glanced about and the joiner looked at Waine.

  Whose rifle was it?

  They stare back at him like statues, like forefathers caricatured in stone, each as rugged and grotesque in his construction as the next. Earless Evans and the gaunt carpenter and Higgs and Basson like two sturdy clowns with jaws like spades.

  You would rather wait for the lash and march with a man who is so careless of your lives? We are dependent on each other. Each man dependent on the next.

  Waine, said the kid.

  What’s that?

  It was Waine’s gun.

  The Captain walked down the line and he stopped in front of Waine and he looked at him.

  Was it your rifle?

  Waine looked at the Captain and then he leaned to the side and spat. A man like you, said the Captain, no more deserves to bear arms than a Barbary ape.

  That evening the work was finished early and the irregulars assembled and watched i
n silence as Herrid lashed Waine and the Captain counted each of the fifty strokes out aloud. When the thing was done, Waine lay slumped and silent against the wagon wheel. Herrid held the cat and worked the stiffness from his shoulder and then he untied the thongs and Waine slid to the ground. Higgs and Basson stepped forward and picked him up and walked him to a tent where he lay with Clayton and two other men who had been injured during the roadwork and one who had been shot by a Hottentot sniper while fetching water.

  On the day following the wounded were sent down the Shining Water Pass to Fort Cox and the kid and the joiner and Basson watched them go.

  Hope they don’t bring him back, said the kid.

  Waine?

  Yes.

  Pray that they don’t, said Basson.

  XXIII

  Cathcart’s assault on Mount Misery – The Captain’s desire – Giants in a story – Fort Gaunt – Return to Fort Cox – Waine and the kid – Ire’s strategy – Cathcart crosses the Big Fat – A council of apes.

  THE IRREGULARS CONTINUED with their roadwork and in the evenings the Captain joined with officers of the party from Shining Water Post and they practised their shooting on small apes and grey-crested parrots and on the vultures that roosted on the crags across the ravine. When the road was passable again the irregulars marched back to Post Retief. After some weeks they heard word that General Cathcart felt that he had sufficiently reconnoitred the valleys leading up into the Eastern Mountains and those below Mount Misery and had decided on an attack on the latter where increasing numbers of warriors were reported to be joining Jinqi and Branders.

  On the 6th of July the irregulars left Post Retief in the night and marched in bitter cold and sleet and took up a position of ambush in a clearing above the path that led out of the Western Ravine. Only one small fire was allowed for the kettles and a Dutch scout stood over it and dispersed the smoke with his hat. The rest sat and shivered. The rain cleared with the dawn and as the sun rose green and crimson parrots flew in from the surrounding forest. They screamed and chattered and fluttered close about and the marauders remained still and silent but to little effect as any man indigenous to that country was aware of the birds’ warning.

  The clearing was not more than a mile distant from a large heathen village and the Captain could see it from the edge of his cover. There came a boom from General Cathcart’s artillery in the valley below and the villagers started up and commenced to move about. The warriors threw off their blankets and cloaks and armed themselves and ran towards the point of attack. Two of them came out towards the irregulars to catch some horses grazing well within rifle range and the irregulars watched and waited.

  The fire of the artillery became continuous and the men lay in their cover and many struggled to stay awake. The Captain watched through the Dollond as Cathcart’s troops began to appear on the Kromme Heights across the valley. The women of the village likewise took up positions from which they could watch the fighting. The Captain swung the Dollond across and focused his lens on them.

  The women made themselves comfortable under the shade of a spreading tree. They sat there smoking and gesticulating and the younger among them were naked from the waist up. Their sleek brown skin glowed in the sun and their breasts and their dark nipples shook when they laughed. They seemed so close through the lens that the Captain felt he could reach out and take a tender dug in his hand and feel the magic of its elasticity and the softness of it as the nipple hardened against his palm. The Captain was shocked and frightened by the beauty which he felt in the pit of his stomach and he blushed beneath his grime. He lowered the Dollond and he rubbed the back of his hand roughly against his eye and then he lifted the eyeglass again and focused it on the action across the valley.

  He saw the red coats of the infantry and the dark green of the Mounted Rifles move across the Kromme Heights and join with General Cathcart’s forces. The column proceeded towards the mouth of the pass beneath Mount Misery and they threw rockets into the forest and the missiles exploded in great bursts of smoke and dust and shattered tree.

  The kid lay in the glade with Evans and the joiner and sunshine streamed down upon them through branches hung with swathes of lichen. There were horses picketed to the tree trunks and bridles and other accoutrements hung from the lower limbs and they waited in a strange balmy peace as General Cathcart blasted away at the forests.

  In the evening a column came through the pass onto the Northern Highlands and passed close to their hiding place. Smith stepped from his cover and waved a hat at them and the mounted Fingos on their left flank let loose a volley that whined through the irregulars’ position.

  The Dutch scouts swore extravagantly at the Fingos and after some careful signalling and shouted questions communication was established. The Captain rode over to the column’s camp which was on the irregulars’ old ground at Mundell’s farm. The picketing pins and the cattle enclosures were still there and the blackened circles of the fires but the grass was long over Norris’ grave.

  The Captain partook of soup and grog with fellow officers and then rode back to his own lines. He pushed his way through thickets to the illuminated centre of the forest where the horses stood sleeping in the firelight with drooping heads and the great bearded Dutchmen sat in their red woollen nightcaps and smoked their pipes like giants in a story told to children.

  The irregulars remained in their clearing for a night of sleet and snow and there came also a frigid searching wind that found its way through blanket and jacket alike. When the dim sun rose the mountain ranges to the north were white. The sleet turned to rain and the wind strengthened and its effect was so chilling that men stood helpless and moaning in their sodden clothes. They waited for some hours and then a mounted party of the Cape Corps came from the General’s column with orders for a return to Post Retief.

  On the 14th of July General Cathcart’s forces assembled once more on the plain below Mount Misery and the General consulted with the officers of the engineers and selected positions for a permanent defensible camp and two stone redoubts that would command approaches from the twin valleys in the east and from the Great Western Ravine. The place was close to the clearing where the Lieutenant Colonel had been killed and was given the name of Fort Gaunt.

  Colonel Ire returned from the Cape and took command of the troops below Mount Misery and the Captain received orders to return to Fort Cox and it was arranged for Lieutenant Bruce to go with them as a replacement for the God-struck Lieutenant.

  The irregulars came down into the village with a dry vindictive wind behind them and the yellow dog trotting at the side of the Captain’s horse. They marched in a haze through the Hottentot and Fingo encampments and they passed shouting women with hoes over their shoulders and children on their backs. Naked men rode oxen and brown urchins charged up the street on calves. There were droves of cattle and goats returning from pasture and these too cried out in the tumult and the dust. A mounted patrol rode past with slathered horses and then a long wagon train with Fingo escort. They passed a canteen where a man whipped a woman who writhed and shrieked and cursed. They marched on through the square to the further side of the town and out onto the plain where their tents were waiting adjacent to those of the Cape Mounted Rifles.

  The kid dropped his gear and was sent for water and he came upon Waine and Clayton sheltering from the wind in the lee of the kitchen walls. Waine was thin and grey and when he saw the kid he rose slowly and he spat. He stood bent as though the lashing had changed his shape.

  Someone was going to do it, said the kid.

  Waine shook his head and then he turned and walked away.

  Clayton sat on his log and watched. His wrist ended in a tattered and filthy bandage which showed dark patches of brown and yellow.

  Windy, he said.

  The kid looked at him. Clayton stared back and he lifted his stump and waved it before his eyes and then he lowered it carefully to his knee.

  General Cathcart, searching as his predecesso
r had for a success to offer to his superiors in London, led a large force east across the Big Fat to extort an unpaid fine from the chieftain of the Tsaleka. Colonel Ire watched with the Captain as the great column departed.

  On the day following Herrid assembled the irregulars and marched them out of the town and down the river and up a tributary to a secluded glade. It was surrounded by wooded hills and at its centre lay a lakelet formed from ledges of rock which lay across the path of the stream. The overhanging trees and the tall fringe of papyrus around the pool were filled with small birds whose plumage flashed hues of crimson and green and yellow and blue as they flew about.

  On the cliffs above the pool were large apes with pink buttocks and long blue faces. The young scampered about the ledges and the elders groomed each other and a senior male stood sentinel on an outcrop as Colonel Ire addressed the irregulars.

  Your commanding officer has told me that many of you have an interest in settling. He has told me also that you are fine soldiers and skilled bush skirmishers and that there are some who have been convicted in the past. It appears that there is doubt as to your eligibility. I tell you now that if you do the work you will get paid.

  The Colonel looked at the Captain and the Captain nodded.

  It is necessary, said Colonel Ire, that the Gaika are sent a signal of our seriousness. It is a task for which I need a special breed of man.

  Colonel Ire paused. The irregulars were silent.

  Waine raised his hand.