by John Wilcox
It came within ten minutes, another disconcertingly short time. Simon rose as the tribunal members filed into the room and once again felt his knees trembling, so that he had to brace them against the chair to hide his weakness. There was no trace of either satisfaction or beneficence in the gaze of Colonel Glyn as he looked up from his papers and rose to his feet. The room was completely silent once more as the Colonel cleared his throat. Simon closed his eyes.
‘Lieutenant Fonthill,’ said the Colonel, ‘on the charge of desertion in the face of the enemy, this court martial . . .’ he paused as though for cruel effect, and Simon kept his eyes firmly closed, ‘finds you not guilty.’ Simon was conscious that the room behind him seemed to exhale in a gasp of both relief and surprise. He opened his eyes and realised that they were moist. His legs still trembled and he thrust them harder against the chair rim.
The Colonel continued: ‘On the other charge, that of assaulting a senior officer, the court finds you guilty. However, it accepts that exceptional circumstances forced you to act as you did and the punishment levied on you will be one year’s loss of seniority. That will be all. You may now leave this room and rejoin your regiment.’
Simon nodded abstractedly, put on his cap, saluted, turned and marched quickly from the room, robot-like, as though in a dream. Once outside, in the sunshine - the shimmering, liberating sunshine - he clenched his fist and raised it for a moment to the sky in unreal relief. Then he realised that he had not noticed if Alice or Nandi had been in the courtroom, so tense was he in waiting for the verdict. He re-entered the room. Alice was engaged in close conversation with Covington in one corner; he coldly erect, she talking animatedly to him, one hand on his arm in friendly intimacy. For a brief moment Simon felt that sharp pain of jealousy again. What was she saying to the bastard? What could she be saying to him that demanded she be so close and talk to him so earnestly? And then he saw Nandi, standing alone and uncertainly at the back of the room.
He beckoned to her and together they walked out into the sunlight. ‘Nandi.’ He took her hand and held it in both of his. ‘How can I thank you enough? I think - no, I am sure - you saved my life.’
She gave him that wistful half-smile and he saw that there were tears in her eyes. ‘Ah, Simon,’ she said. ‘You must thank Miss Griffith, Alice. She saved you, not I. It was she who rode to Durban to telegraph the big Colonel at the Cape and she who found my father at the Tugela. He could not leave, so of course I was happy to come and give this evidence for you, but I would have known nothing of the trial had it not been for Alice.’ She paused and looked down at the ground. ‘She must love you very much.’
They both turned and regarded Alice, who was now standing in the doorway, laughing at Covington, whose icy demeanour had visibly melted. ‘No, I am sure that is not so,’ murmured Simon. ‘But come.’
They walked a few steps. ‘My dear Nandi,’ he said. ‘I am a very lucky man indeed to have two such fine people to help me when I needed them most. But, oh, I am so sorry that this war began. You must believe me when I tell you that I could do little to stop it. It is an evil war, brought about by politicians. I learned during the trial that the decision to invade Zululand was taken before the information you gave me reached Cape Town.’
He took her hand again. ‘So, you see, you cannot be blamed for helping to bring the tragedy about. Nor can I - and I did try and persuade the King not to fight.’
Nandi nodded. ‘I know, Simon, and I thank you for that. All of the British are talking about Isandlwana as a great loss for them. But even though the Zulus won that day, they also lost. Do you know how many men were killed by your rifles?’
Simon shook his head.
‘More than two thousand. Some say it was nearer three thousand. Most of the inDunas hailed it as a great victory, but King Cetswayo says that Isandlwana was like a great assegai plunged into the bowels of the nation and there are not enough tears to mourn the dead.’
‘Nandi, I am sorry. I really am.’
‘Sorry. Sorry. What do you have to be sorry about? You have just won a great victory, so do cheer up.’ It was Alice, fresh-faced and, of course, perfectly groomed, who had stolen up on them. She now looked with affection at Nandi and linked arms with her. Standing there smiling, they complemented each other perfectly: brown and white, black eyes and grey, the south and the north. Simon looked at them both with admiration and his old ambivalence returned. Was it possible - was it honourable - to love two women at once? They both smiled back at him.
‘Wasn’t she marvellous in there?’ asked Alice. ‘I think, Simon, that she saved the day, don’t you?’
‘I think, actually, that you both did.’ He smiled ruefully at Alice. ‘Do you know, I thought that you had deserted me. But all that time you were dashing around, working hard on my behalf. I don’t know how you did it or how I shall ever repay you.’
‘Oh tosh! The trouble was that there was so little time. When I read Lamb’s affidavit—’
‘What?’ Simon interrupted her. ‘You read Lamb’s affidavit? You were not even in court when it was presented.’
For the first time Alice looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Oh yes. I had to be well on the road by then. We journalists have our sources, you know, and they are not to be revealed. Anyway,’ she hurried on, ‘when I read what the Colonel had said, I thought that he could do better than that, so I rode to the nearest telegraph - which, unfortunately, happens to be in Durban - and requested his help urgently. He came back like a shot with the information about Dunn, so I took the letter and rode over to the Lower Drift to find him, and produced Nandi instead, which was probably better because—’
‘Stop!’ Simon put both his hands on Alice’s shoulders and looked directly into her grey eyes. ‘Alice. There is no way that that letter from Colonel Lamb to the court could have reached you in time. What exactly did you do?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Simon.’ Alice waved her hand airily. ‘Sometimes, you know, you can be a bit strait-laced. Of course I forged it. When I first came to the Cape I . . . er . . . purloined, I think is the word, a few sheets of the General Staff notepaper from HQ on my first visit there. They have been quite useful to me in the past in pushing open doors.’ She turned to Nandi. ‘As I am sure you know, my dear, we working women have to cut corners occasionally if we are to get anywhere. There was clearly no time for Lamb to write a letter and post it to the court. I doubted if I would have enough weight of my own to introduce Nandi as a witness at the last moment. So I put pen to paper. I am sure that the Colonel would have done so, had I been able to ask him. He seemed a sweet little man. I sat next to him at dinner once and he remembered.’
Simon cast his eyes towards the bright blue sky and grasped an elbow of each woman. ‘I think it best that we get out of here quickly before they organise a second court martial,’ he said, marching them away.
Chapter 17
That evening, Alice gave Simon and Nandi dinner, cooked by her servant, George, over an open fire blazing before her tent - she had repossessed her original campsite at Helpmakaar. At first the atmosphere was stilted. Alice overcompensated by being too jocular; Nandi was mainly silent, switching her black eyes between the others; and Simon behaved far too courteously to the ladies. However, as the champagne began to take its effect - once again Alice refused to divulge her sources - they all loosened and began to behave like old friends and young people.
After the fourth glass, Alice leaned across to Nandi and gestured towards Simon. ‘I’m not going to marry him, you know. In fact, I’m not going to marry anyone. I am having far too much fun. But he does kiss rather nicely. Has he kissed you, Nandi?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Alice,’ stormed Simon, ‘stop behaving so shockingly.’
‘Oh, I’m not shocked, Simon,’ said Nandi, taking the question solemnly, as she so often did. ‘Yes, Alice, he has kissed me. It was very nice. In fact we made ukuHlongonga together.’
‘Nandi!’ screamed Simon. ‘How dare you!
Alice, it’s not what you think. It’s not quite that. It’s . . .’ He halted in confusion.
‘Well, my little wounded buffalo,’ said Alice. ‘You did it, so presumably you can remember what it was. I am dying to know. It could be useful to me - for purely professional reasons, you understand, Simon. Local colour and all that. Perhaps Nandi can tell me?’
‘Nandi, if you continue this conversation, I shall leave.’
‘Simon, don’t make such a fuss. It is done quite a lot in Zululand, Alice, but as we are embarrassing Simon, perhaps we should change the subject.’
‘Very well, my dear.’ Alice sipped from her glass and her face grew serious. ‘Now, Simon. What are you going to do? Apart from your loss of seniority - which, by the way, Covington regards as a slap in the face to him because he believes the sentence to be derisory, and he is quite right - the Colonel remains your enemy, I am afraid. There will be no future for you in his regiment and I presume that Lamb has finished with your services?’
Simon drained his glass. ‘Oh yes. I know exactly what I have to do and I will do it first thing in the morning. But I would rather not discuss it further tonight, if you don’t mind. I am enjoying this champagne. Where on earth did you get it? May I have another glass, do you think?’
‘Of course. Nandi?’
The Zulu girl did not respond. She was now sitting with head bowed, and as both Alice and Simon looked at her with concern, a teardrop rolled down her cheek, on to her chin and dropped on to her bare knee. She fumbled for a handkerchief, blew her nose and looked up with starry eyes. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I am so sorry.’
Alice rose immediately and kneeled by Nandi’s side, putting her arm around her shoulder and drawing her towards her. ‘My dear girl,’ she said. ‘Whatever is the matter?’
Nandi shook her head. ‘It is nothing,’ she said. ‘Please do not be concerned.’
‘No,’ snorted Alice. ‘It is certainly not nothing, for you are clearly upset. Is it Simon? Has he been beastly to you?’
Nandi smiled through her tears and gently pushed Alice away. ‘Oh no. Of course not. I don’t think Simon could be beastly to anyone.’ Simon squirmed on his haunches and bit his lip. ‘No. It is no one. It is just that . . .’ The tears came again and quickly this time so that she was forced to open the folds of the shred of handkerchief in an attempt to stifle them. ‘It is . . .’ She frowned and now looked up at them both, almost accusingly. ‘What is going to happen to my country? What are you white people going to do with us all when you invade again, as you are now preparing to do, with Papa’s help? Will you kill all of the Zulus - my family, my friends? What have we done to harm you?’ The words were now tumbling out. ‘All we did was to defend ourselves when you invaded us. We killed a lot of white men in that big battle that day - but you killed more Zulus. You did that. The English. People like that big colonel in there who called me a damned half-breed.’
Nandi’s face was tear-stained but her eyes burned with a fierce sincerity as she switched her gaze between them. Simon realised with a shock of guilt that inwardly he had always regarded Nandi as a European: a half-caste indeed, but one whose leanings were towards the white races and whose education and general upbringing had distanced her from the Zulu people with whom she lived. Now he perceived that he could not have been more wrong. Whatever her appearance and manners, her emotions and sympathies had been forged by her mother’s family, not her father’s - although his, too, now probably leaned that way.
He gulped and searched for words. But Alice, of course, was quicker. ‘My dear Nandi,’ she said, leaning forward and taking both dark hands in her own. ‘We have been so insensitive and selfish, joking when you obviously had such deep concerns for your country. I . . . we . . . quite understand how you feel, and we both,’ she shot a quick glance at Simon, who nodded vigorously, ‘share your feelings. People like Colonel Covington have been raised in a narrow environment - English public school, the army, you know the sort of thing - which means that they do not understand or even consider the rights of less well-educated people whom they think stand in the way of what I suppose they would call the “onward march of civilisation”, or something like that.’
Alice was now speaking earnestly and quickly and Simon dreaded that she was going to lapse into another of her lectures about the necessity for reform. Nandi needed something more than that at this stage.
But he need not have worried. With great solicitude, Alice produced a handkerchief of her own and began to wipe Nandi’s cheeks.‘My dear girl,’ she said, ‘there will be no slaughter of the Zulu people, I can promise you that.’ She held up her hands as Nandi made to interrupt. ‘No. A general I am not, but I can promise you that. And there are several reasons why I can do so. Firstly, the British people would not tolerate it. We have a strong opposition to the Government in Parliament back home and there has already been much criticism of this invasion. Any gratuitous cruelty would not be countenanced.’
Simon sucked in his breath. That was all very well, but the British people, he surmised, would want revenge for what had already been described as a massacre at Isandlwana - and so would the army. He doubted if a dozen Gladstone speeches could prevent that revenge being taken. But he decided not to interrupt. Alice in full flood, anyhow, was not to be diverted.
‘The second reason is that the British Government will want to rebuild Zululand: to recreate some sort of non-military government of your people by your people, for we do not have sufficient bureaucrats to put into this land to govern it directly ourselves. We will need the co-operation of your chieftains and tribal heads, as we do in India. For that reason alone, there could be no widespread killings.’ Alice was now leaning forward, her face gleaming in the firelight, her hands gripping those of Nandi fiercely to drive home her argument. Nandi was listening wide-eyed, her tongue protruding slightly between her lips. Simon thought with a sigh that both women looked deliciously desirable.
‘The third reason,’ Alice continued, ‘is me - or rather people like me. As a result of Isandlwana, a whole contingent of journalists, newspaper writers, are travelling here from England to cover this campaign. If the coming invasion is brutal, then, I promise you, we shall report it and tell the whole world. The General Staff here knows that and will be very careful.’
Simon cleared his throat, and Alice looked across at him and suddenly sat back and released Nandi’s hands. ‘Of course,’ she said, lowering her eyes for a moment, ‘there will have to be another battle, I am afraid, and this will inevitably mean more casualties.’ Simon nodded his head as Nandi looked at him, following Alice’s eyes.
‘But,’ and Alice shrugged her shoulders, ‘this is a war and the Zulu are very warlike people, you must admit that.’
Nandi nodded slowly and looked into the fire. ‘I hope you are right, Alice,’ she said. She looked across at Simon again. ‘I am so tired of all this killing, you know. So tired.’
Simon scrambled across to Nandi and seized her hand. ‘Oh, so am I, Nandi,’ he said. ‘So am I.’
Alice took the girl’s other hand and the three of them sat silently, hand in hand, as the flames of the firelight sent shadows flickering and dancing around the clearing. George crept silently in with another bottle of champagne but the spell of jocular friendship had been broken and the three sat, half-full glasses in hand, staring into the flames as the air grew colder. Simon’s thoughts turned back to Jenkins and to the prospect of life without his brave and resourceful companion. It was a cheerless prospect and he made no objection when Nandi stood and gave her farewells. He kissed her still damp cheek, and that of Alice, and in sombre mood the little party broke up.
Simon rose early in the morning, having slept the night in his prison quarters, and penned a long letter to his parents. Then he carefully dressed in what was left of his civilian clothes: worn corduroy breeches, bloodstained still from the assegai thrust sustained at Rorke’s Drift; torn shirt; scuffed, down-at-heel riding boots; and the blue patrol jacket issue
d to him at Isandlwana. He then reported to the tent that was the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion and asked to see the commanding officer.
Covington looked up with interest when Simon was ushered in. His cynical smile turned to a scowl as he took in the young man’s appearance. ‘You’re a damned mess,’ he exploded. ‘Why on earth aren’t you in proper uniform?’
‘Because I prefer to wear these clothes,’ said Simon, his hands in his pockets. ‘And there is no need to shout.’
‘What?’ Covington rose to his feet. ‘How dare you talk to me like that? Consider yourself under arrest.’
‘I asked you not to shout,’ replied Simon evenly. ‘I shall consider nothing of the kind.’ He reached into his pocket, removed the letter he had written the day before and threw it on to the desk. ‘I am no longer under your jurisdiction - or that of anyone else, for that matter. This letter is my resignation from the regiment, taking effect immediately.’
Slowly Covington’s glare relaxed, a half-smile began to play beneath the whiskers and he sat back in his chair, languidly cocking one leg over the armrest. ‘Ah, I see,’ he drawled. ‘Still running away, eh, Fonthill?’
‘No, not running away. Running to. To freedom and to a life that does not include taking orders from mountebanks like you. If by some chance our paths do cross again, I suggest that you keep well out of my way. It seems that I am no coward after all and I should warn you that I have learned to handle an assegai quite well.’