Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  The hills rolled away, rising gradually towards the high central plateau ahead of them, and the valleys were clad with virgin forest.

  ‘You never saw such trees on the plains around Kimberley,’ Bazo challenged him, and Ralph nodded. They stood on soaring trunks, some scaled like the crocodile, others white and smooth as though moulded from potter’s clay, their tops sailing in traceries of green high above the open glades of yellow grass.

  ‘See, the buffalo herds – thick as cattle.’

  There was other game. There were small family groups of grey kudo, pale as ghosts, trumpet-eared, the bulls carrying the burden of their long black corkscrew horns with studied grace.

  There were clouds of red impala antelope upon the woven silk carpet of golden grasses. There were the darkly massive statues of the rhinoceros seemingly graven from the solid granite of the hills, and there were the noblest antelope of all, the sable antelope, black and imperial as the name implied, the long horns curved and cruel as Saladin’s scimitar, the belly blazing white, the neck of the herd bull arched haughtily as he led his lighter-coloured females out of the open glade into the cool green sanctuary of the forest.

  ‘Is it not beautiful, Henshaw?’ Bazo asked.

  ‘It is beautiful.’

  There was the same awe in Ralph’s voice, and a strange unformed longing in his throat, a wanting that he knew could never be satisfied – and suddenly he understood his own father’s obsession with this fair land: ‘My north,’ as Zouga called it.

  ‘My north,’ Ralph whispered, and then, thinking of his father, the next question came immediately to mind.

  ‘Elephant – Indhlovu? There are no elephant. Bazo. Where are the herds?’

  ‘Ask Bakela – your own father,’ Bazo grunted. ‘He was the first to come for them with the gun, but others followed him, many others. When Gandang, my father, son of Mzilikazi the Destroyer, half brother of the great black bull Lobengula, when he crossed the Shashi as a child on his mother’s hip, the elephant herds were black as midnight upon the land and their teeth shone like the stars. Now we will find their bones growing like white lilies in the forest.’

  In the last hours of daylight, when Bazo and Isazi and Umfaan still slept to fortify themselves for the long night’s trek, Ralph took the leather-bound notebook out of Tom’s saddle-bag.

  By now the pages were dog-eared and grubby from the constant perusal to which Ralph had subjected it. It was the gift that Zouga Ballantyne had given him on the bank of the Vaal river, and the inside cover was inscribed:

  To my son Ralph.

  May these few notes guide your feet

  northwards, and may they inspire you to

  dare what I have not dared

  Zouga Ballantyne

  The first twenty pages were filled with hand-drawn sketch maps of those areas of the land between the Zambezi and the Limpopo and the Shashi rivers over which Zouga, and before him the old hunter Tom Harkness, had travelled.

  Often the map was headed by the notation:

  Copied from the original map drawn by Tom Harkness in 1851.

  Ralph recognized the unique value of this information, but there was more. Page 21 of the notebook bore a terse explanation in Zouga’s precise spiky hand:

  In the winter of 1860 while on trek from Tete on the Zambezi River, to King Mzilikazi’s town at Thabas Indunas I slew 216 elephant. Lacking porters or wagons I had perforce to cache the ivory along my route.

  During my later expeditions to Zambezia, I was able to recover the bulk of this treasure.

  There remain fifteen separate caches, containing eighty-four good tusks, which I was for various reasons unable to reach.

  Here follows a list of these caches with directions and navigational notes to reach them:

  And on page 22 the list began:

  Cache made 16 September 1860.

  Position by sun sight and dead reckoning:

  30°55'E. 17°45'S.

  A granite kopje which I named Mount Hampden. The largest for many miles in any direction. Distinct peak with three turrets. On the northern face between two large ficus natalensis trees there is a rock fissure. 18 large tusks total weight 426 pounds placed in fissure and covered with small boulders.

  The current price of ivory was twenty-two shillings and sixpence the pound, and Ralph had added the total weights of the ivory still lying out in the veld. It exceeded three thousand pounds: a great fortune waiting merely to be picked up and loaded on his wagon.

  Still that was not all. The final entry in the notebook read:

  In my book A Hunter’s Odyssey I described my discovery of the deserted city which the tribes call ‘ZIMBABWE’, a name which can be translated as ‘The Graveyard of the Kings’.

  I described how I was able to glean fragments of gold from the inner courtyards of the walled ruins, a little over 50 lbs weight of the metal in all. I also carried away with me one of the ancient bird-like statues. A souvenir which has been with me from that time until very recently.

  It is possible that there is precious metal which I overlooked, and certainly there remain within the walled enclosures six more bird carvings which I was unable to bring away.

  In Hunter’s Odyssey I deliberately refrained from giving the location of the ancient ruin. As far as I know, it has not been rediscovered by any other white man – while a superstitious taboo forbids any African to venture into the area.

  Thus there is every reason to believe the statues lie where last I laid eyes upon them.

  Bearing in mind that my chronometer had not been checked for many months when these observations were made, I now give you the position of the city as calculated by myself at that time.

  The ruins lie on the same longitude as the kopje which I named Mount Hampden on 30° 55' E. – but 175 miles farther south at 20° 0' S.

  There followed a detailed description of the route that Zouga had taken to reach Zimbabwe, and then the notes ended with this statement:

  Mr Rhodes offered the sum of £1,000 for the statue which I rescued.

  The following noon Ralph took the brass sextant from its travel-battered wooden case. He had bid ten shillings for it at one of the Saturday auctions in the Market Square of Kimberley – and Zouga had checked its accuracy against his own instrument and showed Ralph how to shoot an ‘apparent local noon’ to establish his latitude. Ralph had no chronometer to fix a longitude, but he could guess at it from his proximity to the confluence of the Shashi and Macloutsi rivers.

  Half an hour’s work with Brown’s Nautical Almanac gave him an approximate position to compare with the one that his father had given in the notes for Zimbabwe.

  ‘Less than one hundred and fifty miles,’ he muttered to himself, still squatting over his father’s map, but staring eastwards.

  ‘Six thousand pounds just lying there,’ Ralph said quietly, and shook his head in wonder. It was a sum difficult to imagine.

  He packed away the sextant, rolled the map and went to join the slumbering trio beneath the wagon for what remained of the drowsy afternoon.

  Ralph woke to a stentorian challenge that seemed to echo off the granite cliffs above the camp.

  ‘Who dares take the king’s road? Who chances the wrath of Lobengula?’

  Ralph scrambled out from under the wagon. The day was almost gone, the sun flamed in the top branches of the forest, and the chill of evening prickled his bare chest. He stared about him wildly, but some instinct warned him not to reach for the loaded rifle propped against the rear wheel of the wagon. Below the trees the shadows were alive, blackness moved on blackness, dusky rank on rank.

  ‘Stand forth, white man,’ the voice commanded. ‘Speak your business – lest the white spears of Lobengula turn to red.’

  The speaker stepped forward, out of the forest to the edge of the camp. Behind him the ring of dappled black and white war-shields overlapped, edge to edge in an unbroken circle surrounding the entire outspan, the ‘bull’s horns’ of the Matabele fighting formations
.

  There were many hundreds of warriors in that deadly circle, and the broad stabbing spears were held in an underhand grip so that the silver blades pointed forward at belly height between the shields.

  Above each shield the frothy white ostrich-feather headdress trembled and swayed in the small evening breeze, the only movement in that silent multitude.

  The man who had broken the ranks was one of the most impressive figures that Ralph had ever seen. The high crown of ostrich feathers turned him into a towering giant. The breadth of his chest was enhanced by the flowering bunches of white cowtails that he wore on his upper arms. Each separate tail had been awarded him by his king for an act of valour – and he wore them not only on his arms but around his knees also.

  His broad intelligent face was lightly seamed by the passage of the years, as though by the chisel of a skilled carpenter, forming a frame for the dark penetrating sparkle of his eyes; yet his chest was covered with the elastic muscle of a man only just reaching his prime and his lean belly rippled with the same muscle as he moved forward.

  His legs were long and straight under the kilt of black spotted civet tails, and the war-rattles bound about his ankles rustled softly at each pace.

  ‘I come in peace,’ Ralph called, hearing the catch in his own voice.

  ‘Peace is a word that sits as lightly on the tongue as the simbird sits upon the open flower, and as lightly does it fly.’

  There was movement beside Ralph, and Bazo came from his bed under the wagon.

  ‘Baba!’ Bazo said reverently, and clapped his hands softly at the level of his face. ‘I see you Baba! The sun has been dark all these years, but now it shines again, my father.’

  The tall warrior started, took a swift pace forward, and for an instant a wonderful smile bloomed upon the sculptured ebony of his face; then he checked himself, and drew himself up to his full height again, his expression grave – but the feathers of his headdress trembled and there was a light in his tar-bright eyes that he could not extinguish. Still clapping his hands, stooping with respect, Bazo went forward and knelt on one knee.

  ‘Gandang, son of Mzilikazi – your eldest son – Bazo the Axe, brings you the greetings and the duty of his heart.’

  Gandang looked down at his son, and at that moment nothing else existed for him in all the world.

  ‘Baba, I ask your blessing.’

  Gandang placed his open hand on the short cropped fleecy cap of the young man’s head.

  ‘You have my blessing,’ he said quietly, but the hand lingered, the gesture of blessing became a caress, and then slowly and reluctantly Gandang withdrew the hand.

  ‘Rise up, my son.’

  Bazo was as tall as his father, and for a quiet moment they looked steadily into each other’s eyes. Then Gandang turned, and flirted his war-shield, a gesture of dismissal, and instantly the still and silent ring of warriors turned their own shields edge on, so that they seemed to fold like a woman’s fan, and with miraculous swiftness they split into small platoons and disappeared into the forest.

  Within seconds it seemed as though they had never been. Only Gandang and his son still remained at the edge of the camp, and then they too turned and slipped away like two shadows thrown by the moving branches of the mopani trees.

  Isazi came out from under the wagon, naked except for the sheath of hollowed gourd covering the head of his penis, and he spat in the fire with a thoughtful and philosophical air.

  ‘Chaka was too soft,’ he said. ‘He should have followed the traitor Mzilikazi, and taught him good manners. The Matabele are upstart bastards, with no breeding and less respect.’

  ‘Would a Zulu induna have acted that way?’ Ralph asked him, as he reached for his shirt.

  ‘No,’ Isazi admitted. ‘He would certainly have stabbed us all to death. But he would have done so with greater respect and better manners.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Ralph asked.

  ‘We wait,’ said Isazi. ‘While that vaunting dandy, who should wear the induna headring not on his forehead but around his neck like the collar of a dog, decides what should become of us.’ Isazi spat in the fire again, this time with contempt. ‘We may have long to wait – a Matabele thinks at the same speed as a chameleon runs.’ And he crawled back under the wagon and pulled the kaross over his head.

  In the night the cooking fires from the camp of the Matabele impi down the valley glowed amber and russet on the tops of the mopani, and every time the fickle night wind shifted, the deep melodious sound of their singing carried down to Ralph’s outspan.

  In the grey dawn Bazo appeared again, as silently as he had disappeared.

  ‘My father, Gandang, induna of the Inyati Regiment, summons you to indaba, Henshaw.’

  Ralph bridled immediately. He could almost hear his father’s voice. ‘Remember always that you are an Englishman, my boy, and as such you are a direct representative of your Queen in this land.’

  The reply rose swiftly to Ralph’s lips: ‘If he wants to see me, tell him to come to me.’ But he held the words back.

  Gandang was an induna of two thousand, the equivalent of a general. He was a son of an emperor and half-brother of a king, the equivalent of an English duke, and this was the soil of Matabeleland on which Ralph was an intruder.

  ‘Tell your father I will come directly.’ And he went to fetch a fresh shirt and the spare pair of boots, which he had taught Umfaan to polish.

  ‘You are Henshaw, the son of Bakela,’ Gandang sat on a low stool, intricately carved from a single piece of ebony. Ralph had been offered no seat, and he squatted down on his heels. ‘And Bakela is a man.’ And there was a murmur of assent and a rustle of plumes as the massed ranks of warriors about them stirred.

  ‘Tshedi is your great-grandfather, and in the king’s name has given you the road to GuBulawayo. Tshedi has the right to do so – for he is Lobengula’s friend and he was Mzilikazi’s friend before that.’

  Ralph made no reply. He realized that these statements about his great-grandfather, old Dr Moffat, whose Matabele name was Tshedi, were for the waiting warriors rather than for himself. Gandang was explaining his decision to his impi.

  ‘But for what reason do you take the road to the king’s kraal?’

  ‘I come to see this fair land of which my father has told me.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Gandang asked.

  ‘No, I come also to trade – and if the king is kind enough to give me his word, then I wish to hunt the elephant.’

  Gandang did not smile, but there was a sparkle in his dark eyes. ‘It is not for me to ask which you desire most, Henshaw. The view from a hilltop – or a wagonload of ivory.’

  Ralph suppressed his own smile, and remained silent.

  ‘Tell me, son of Bakela, what goods do you bring with you to trade?’

  ‘I have twenty bales of the finest beads and cloth.’

  Gandang made a gesture of disinterest. ‘Women’s fripperies,’ he said.

  ‘I have fifty cases of liquor – of the kind preferred by King Lobengula and his royal sister Ningi.’

  This time the line of Gandang’s mouth thinned and hardened. ‘If it were my word on it, I would force those fifty cases of poison down your own throat.’ His voice was almost a whisper, but then he spoke again in a natural tone. ‘Yet Lobengula, the Great Elephant, will welcome your load.’ And then he was silent and yet expectant. Ralph realized that Bazo would have reported to his father every detail of his little caravan.

  ‘I have guns,’ he said simply, and suddenly there was an intense hunger in Gandang’s expression. His eyes narrowed slightly and his lips parted.

  ‘Sting the mamba with his own venom,’ he whispered, and beside him Bazo started. It was the Umlimo’s prophecy that his father had repeated, and he wondered that Gandang could have uttered it in the presence of one who was not Matabele.

  ‘I do not understand,’ Ralph said.

  ‘No matter.’ Gandang waved it away with a graceful pink-palmed hand. ‘
Tell me, Henshaw. Are these guns of yours of the kind that swallow a round ball through the mouth and place the life of the man that fires them in more danger than the man who stands in front?’

  Ralph smiled at the description of the ancient trade muskets, many of which had survived Wellington’s Iberian campaign and some of which had seen action at Bull Run and Gettysburg before being shipped out to Africa in trade; the barrel worn paper thin, the priming pan and hammer mechanism so badly abused that each shot fired threatened to tear the head off any marksman bold enough to press the trigger.

  ‘These guns are the finest,’ he replied.

  ‘With twisting snakes in the barrel?’ Gandang asked, and it took Ralph a moment to recognize the allusion to the rifling in the barrel.

  He nodded. ‘And the barrel opens to take the bullet.’

  ‘Bring me one of these guns,’ Gandang ordered.

  ‘The price of each is one large tusk of ivory,’ Ralph told him, and Gandang stared at him impassively for a moment longer. Then he smiled for the first time – but the smile was sharp as the edge of his stabbing spear.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘I truly believe that you have come to Matabeleland to see how tall stand the trees.’

  ‘I am leaving you now, Henshaw,’ Bazo said, without lifting his eyes from the thick yellow tusk that he had brought from his father in payment for the rifle.

  ‘We knew it was not for ever,’ Ralph answered him.

  ‘The bond between us is for ever,’ Bazo replied, ‘but now I must go to join my regiment. My father will leave ten of his men to escort and guide you to GuBulawayo – where King Lobengula awaits you.’

  ‘Is Lobengula not at Thabas Indunas, the Hills of the Chiefs?’ Ralph asked.