Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I have fifty good tusks in the wagon already.’

  ‘Fifty!’ Bazo’s chuckles died and he stared at Ralph in amazement; then he stood up and crossed to the wagon. He untied one of the straps and lifted the canvas cover to peer in at the load, while Isazi looked up from his cooking fire, frowned and called to Ralph.

  ‘This boy’s great-grandfather, Mashobane, was a thief, his grandfather, Mzilikazi was a traitor – you have every reason to trust him with our ivory, Henshaw.’

  Bazo did not look at him, but glanced up into the trees. ‘The monkeys hereabout make a frightful chatter,’ he murmured, and then came back to Ralph.

  ‘Fine tusks!’ he admitted. ‘Like the ones the hunters took when I was still a child.’

  Ralph did not tell him that most of those in the wagon were taken even before that time. He had discovered all but two of the caches that his father had bequeathed to him.

  The ivory had dried out – lost almost a quarter of its green weight; but most of it was still in good condition, and would fetch the market price once he got it to the railhead.

  Though Ralph had hunted diligently for his own elephant whilst he sought out Zouga’s ancient dumps, he had had little success. He had killed five, only one of which was a bull and whose green tusks had weighed just over sixty pounds. The others had been small female ivory, barely worth taking.

  The great herds that Zouga had described in A Hunter’s Odyssey no longer existed. Since those days there had been many hunters, some of them inspired by Zouga’s own writing. Boer and Briton, Hottentot and German, they had hunted and harried the huge grey beasts and left their white bones piled on the veld and in the forest.

  ‘Yes, they are good tusks,’ Ralph nodded. ‘And my wagon is heavy laden now. I am on the road back to the king’s kraal to ask him for permission to leave Matabeleland and go back to Kimberley.’

  ‘Then when you have gone, we will see you no more,’ Bazo said quietly. ‘You will be like the other white men who come to Matabeleland. You will take what you want, and never come back.’

  Ralph laughed. ‘No, old friend, I will be back. I do not have everything I wish, not yet. I will come back with more wagons, perhaps six wagons, all loaded with trade goods. I will set up trading posts from the Shashi river to the Zambezi.’

  ‘You will be a rich man, Henshaw. I am sure of it,’ Bazo agreed. ‘But rich men are not always happy men. This I have remarked often. Is there nothing else in Matabeleland for you but ivory and gold and diamonds?’

  Ralph’s expression changed. ‘How did you know that?’ he demanded.

  ‘I asked, I did not know,’ Bazo denied, still smiling. ‘Though I do not have to throw the bones or look in the magic calabash to know it is a woman – you have suddenly the look of a dog that smells the bitch. Tell me, Henshaw, who is she and when will you take her to wife?’ Then he laughed aloud. ‘You have not yet asked her father? Or you have asked and he has refused?’

  ‘It is not a matter for laughter,’ Ralph said stiffly, and with an effort Bazo wiped the mirth from his face, though it twinkled still in his eyes.

  ‘Forgive one who loves you as a brother, I did not know it was such a heavy matter.’ And at last he managed to match Ralph’s portentous expression, while he waited for him to speak again.

  ‘Once, long ago, while we rode up in the skip, you spoke of a woman with hair as white and fine as the winter grass,’ Ralph said at last, and Bazo nodded.

  ‘It is she, Bazo. I have found her.’

  ‘She wants you as much as you want her?’ Bazo said firmly. ‘If she does not, then she is so stupid that she does not deserve you.’

  ‘I haven’t asked her yet,’ Ralph admitted.

  ‘Do not ask her, tell her, and then ask her father. Show the father your tusks of ivory; that will settle the matter.’

  ‘You are right, Bazo,’ Ralph looked dubious. ‘It will be that simple.’ And then softly in English, so that Bazo could not understand. ‘God knows what I shall do if it is not. I don’t think I can live without her.’

  If he did not follow the words. Bazo understood the sense and the mood. He sighed, and his eyes strayed to Tanase at the cooking fire.

  ‘They are so soft and weak, but they wound more deeply than the sharpest steel.’

  Ralph followed his eyes, and then suddenly his own expression cleared and it was his turn to guffaw and reach across to slap Bazo’s shoulder.

  ‘Now I recognize the look you spoke of earlier, the dog with the smell of the bitch in his nostrils.’

  ‘It is not a matter for laughter,’ said Bazo, haughtily.

  Long after the last gnawed buffalo bone was thrown upon the fire and the last beer pot emptied; long after the Matabele warriors had tired of singing the song of Pemba, the ode to their own prowess and courage on the hill of the wizard, and rolled into their sleeping karosses; long after the last captive girl had ceased wailing, Bazo and Ralph sat on beside their own fire – and the drone of their voices and the munch of the oxen chewing the cud were the only sounds in the camp.

  It was as though every last moment was precious to them for both sensed that when they met again they would be changed, and perhaps the world with them.

  They relived their youth, remembering Scipio, the falcon, and Inkosikazi, the great spider; they smiled at the stinging memory of the fighting sticks, and Bakela’s wrath when Bazo gave him the shattered diamond; they talked of Jordan and Jan Cheroot and Kamuza and all the others – until at last reluctantly Bazo rose.

  ‘I will be gone before the sun, Henshaw,’ he said.

  ‘Go in peace, Bazo – and enjoy the honours that await you and the woman you have won.’

  When Bazo reached his sleeping-mat, the girl was already wrapped in his kaross.

  As soon as Bazo lay down beside her, she reached for him. She was as hot as though she was in high fever – her body burning and her skin dry. Silent sobs racked her and her grip was fierce.

  ‘What is it, Tanase?’ He was shocked and alarmed.

  ‘A vision. A terrible vision.’

  ‘A dream.’ He was relieved. ‘It was only a dream.’

  ‘It was a vision,’ she denied. ‘Oh, Bazo, will you not take this terrible gift from me, before it destroys us both?’

  He held her and could not answer her; her distress moved him deeply, but he was helpless to alleviate it.

  After a while she was quiet, and he thought that she slept, but then she suddenly whispered.

  ‘It was a terrible vision. Bazo Lord – and it will haunt me unto my grave.’

  He did not answer, but he felt the superstitious chill in his guts.

  ‘I saw you high upon a tree—’ She broke off, and another single sob hit her like a blow. ‘The white man, the one you call Henshaw, the Hawk – do not trust him.’

  ‘He is as my brother, and like a brother I love him.’

  ‘Then why did he not weep, Bazo, why did he not weep when he looked up at you upon the tree?’

  Salina Codrington rolled out her pastry with long and expert strokes of the pin. The sleeves of her blouse were rolled high and she was floury to the elbows. Little blobs of pastry stuck to her hands and fingers.

  The thatched ceiling of the kitchen at Khami Mission Station was sooty from the open iron stove, and the smell of the dough was yeasty and warm.

  A single skein of white-gold hair had escaped the ribbon and now tickled her nose and chin. Salina pursed her lips and blew it away; it floated like gossamer and then gently settled across her face again, but she did not change the rhythm of the rolling-pin.

  Ralph thought that little gesture the most poignant he had ever witnessed, but then everything she did fascinated him – even the way she cocked her head and smiled at him as he slouched against the jamb of the kitchen door.

  Her smile was so gentle, so unaffected, that his chest squeezed again, and his voice sounded choked in his own ears.

  ‘I am leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes,’ Salina
nodded. ‘We shall all miss you dreadfully.’

  ‘This is the first chance I have had to speak to you alone, without the monsters—’

  ‘Oh Ralph, that’s an unkind, if totally accurate, description of my darling sisters.’ Her laughter had a surprising timbre and depth to it. ‘If you wanted to speak to me, you should have asked.’

  ‘I’m asking now, Salina.’

  ‘And we are alone.’

  ‘Will you not stop still for a moment?’

  ‘The baking will spoil, but I can listen well enough while I work.’

  Ralph shifted his feet, and hunched his shoulders uncertainly. It was not as he had planned it. It was going to be a feat of timing and dexterity to sweep her up in arms all covered with flour and dough and with a heavy rolling-pin clutched in her hands.

  ‘Salina, you are the most beautiful girl – woman – I mean, lady, that I have ever seen.’

  ‘That’s kind, but untrue, Ralph. I do have a mirror, you know.’

  ‘It’s true, I swear—’

  ‘Please don’t swear, Ralph. In any event, there are much more important things in life than physical beauty – kindness, and goodness and understanding, for instance.’

  ‘Oh yes, and you have all those.’

  Suddenly Salina stopped in mid stroke, and she stared at him with an expression of dawning consternation.

  ‘Ralph,’ she whispered. ‘Cousin Ralph—’

  ‘Cousin I may be,’ he was stammering slightly in his rush to have it all said, ‘but I love you. Salina, I loved you from the first moment I saw you at the river.’

  ‘Oh Ralph, my poor dear Ralph.’ Consternation was mingled now with compassion.

  ‘I would never have spoken, not before – but now, after this expedition I have some substance. I will be able to pay off my debts, and when I come back I will have my own wagons. I am not yet rich, but I will be.’

  ‘If only I had known. Oh Ralph, if only I had suspected, I would have been able to—’

  But he was gabbling it out now.

  ‘I love you, Salina, oh how dearly I love you, and I want you to marry me.’

  She came to him then, and her eyes filled with blue tears that trembled on her lower lids.

  ‘Oh dear Ralph. I am so sorry. I would have given anything to save you from hurt. If only I had known.’

  He stopped then, bewildered. ‘You will not – does that mean you will not marry me?’ The bewilderment faded, and his jaw thrust out and his mouth hardened. ‘But why not, I will give you everything, I will cherish and—’

  ‘Ralph.’ She touched his lips, and left a little dab of flour upon them. ‘Hush, Ralph, hush.’

  ‘But, Salina, I love you! Don’t you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But, dear Ralph, I don’t love you!’

  Cathy and the twins went as far as the river with Ralph. Vicky and Lizzie rode, two up, on Tom’s back. They rode astride, with their skirts up around their thighs, and squealed with delight every few seconds, until Ralph thought his eardrums would split, and he scowled moodily ahead – not replying to Cathy’s questions and comments as she skipped along beside him, until the spring went out of her step and she, too, fell silent.

  The bank of the Khami river was where they would part. All of them knew that, without speaking about it. And when they reached it Isazi had already taken the wagon through the drift. The iron-shod wheels had left deep scars in the far bank. He would be an hour or so ahead. They stopped on the near bank and now even the twins were silent. Ralph looked back along the track, lifting his hat and shading his eyes with the brim against the early sunlight.

  ‘Salina isn’t coming then?’ he said flatly.

  ‘She’s got a belly ache,’ said Vicky. ‘She told me so.’

  ‘If you ask me, it’s more like the curse of Eve,’ said Lizzie airily.

  ‘That’s rude,’ Cathy said. ‘And only silly little girls talk about things they don’t understand.’

  Lizzie looked chastened, and Vicky assumed a virtuous air of innocence.

  ‘Now both of you say goodbye to Cousin Ralph.’

  ‘I love you. Cousin Ralph,’ said Vicky, and had to be prised off him like a leech.

  ‘I love you, Cousin Ralph.’

  Lizzie had counted the kisses that Vicky had bestowed on him, and she went for a new world record, a noble attempt, but frustrated by Cathy.

  ‘Now, scat,’ Cathy told them. ‘Go, both of you.’

  ‘Cathy is crying,’ said Lizzie, and both twins were immediately entranced.

  ‘I am not,’ said Cathy furiously.

  ‘Oh yes you are,’ said Vicky.

  ‘I have something in my eye.’

  ‘Both eyes?’ asked Lizzie sceptically.

  ‘I warn you,’ Cathy told them. They knew that expression of old, and reluctantly they retired just out of range. Cathy turned her back to them so they missed half of what followed.

  ‘They are right.’ Her whisper was as blurred as her eyes. ‘I am crying, Ralph. I hate so to see you go.’

  Ralph had not truly looked at her, not ever, his eyes had been for Salina alone, but now her frank admission touched him and he saw her for the first time.

  He had thought her a child, but he had been wrong, he realized suddenly. It was the thick dark eyebrows and the firm chin that gave strength to her face, so that he sensed that anything that made her cry was deeply felt. Surely she had not been so tall when first he met her almost a year before. Now the top of her head reached his chin.

  The freckles on her cheeks kept her young, but her nose was set in the shape of maturity and the gaze of her green eyes below the arched brows, though flooded now with tears, was too wise and steady for childhood.

  She still wore the muddy green dress of sewn flour sacks, but its fit had altered. Now it was baggy at the waist, while at the same time it was too tight across her chest. Yet it could not suppress the thrust of young firm breasts, and the seams strained across hips that he remembered being as narrow and bony as a boy’s.

  ‘You will come back, Ralph? Unless you promise, I cannot let you go.’

  ‘I promise,’ he said, and suddenly the pain of rejection by Salina, which he had thought might destroy him, was just supportable.

  ‘I will pray for you each day until you do,’ Cathy said, and came to kiss him. She no longer felt skinny and awkward in his arms, and Ralph was suddenly very aware of the softness of her against his chest – and lower.

  Her mouth had a taste like chewing a stalk of green spring grass. Her lips formed a pillow for his. He had no burning desire to break the embrace, and Cathy also seemed content to let it persist. The pain of unrequited love ebbed a little more to be replaced by a warm and comforting sensation, a most pleasant glow, until with a shock Ralph realized two things.

  Firstly, the twins were an avid audience, their eyes enormous and their grins impudent. Secondly, that the pleasant glow which had suffused him had its source considerably lower than his broken heart, and was accompanied by more tangible changes that must soon become apparent to the fresh young innocent in his arms.

  He almost shoved her away, and vaulted up onto Tom’s back with unnecessary violence. However, when he looked down at Cathy again, the tide of green tears in her eyes had receded and been replaced by a look of satisfaction, a knowingness that proved beyond doubt what he had just come to realize, that she was no longer a child.

  ‘How long?’ she asked.

  ‘Not before the end of the rains,’ he told her. ‘Six or seven months from now.’ And suddenly that seemed to Ralph to be a very long time indeed.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I have your promise.’

  On the far bank of the river he looked back. The twins had lost interest and started home. They were racing each other down the track, skirts and plaits flying – but Cathy still stood staring after him. Now she lifted her hand and waved. She kept waving until horse and rider disappeared amongst the trees.

  Then she sat down on a log besid
e the track. The sun made its noon and then sank into the misty smoke of the bush fires that blued the horizon and turned to a soft red orb that she could look at directly without paining her eyes.

  In the gloaming a leopard sawed and hacked harshly from the dense dark riverine forest nearby. Cathy shivered and stood up. She cast one last lingering glance across the wide river bed and then at last she turned for home.

  Bazo could not sleep; hours ago he had left his sleeping-mat and come to squat by the fire in the centre of the hut. The others had not even stirred when he moved, Zama and Kamuza and Mondane, those who would accompany him tomorrow.

  Their finery was piled beside their recumbent figures. The cloaks of feathers and furs and beads, the headdresses and kilts – the regalia reserved for only the most grave and momentous occasions – like the Festival of the First Fruits, or a personal report to the king, or, again, the ceremony for which they had gathered and which would start at the dawn of the morrow.

  Bazo looked at them now, and his chest felt congested with his joy, joy so intense that it sang in his ears and fizzed in his blood. Joy even more intense in that these his companions of the years, with whom he had shared boyhood and youth and now manhood, would be there again at one of the most important days of his life.

  Now Bazo sat alone at the fire while his companions snored and muttered in sleep, and he took each coin of his good fortune and, like a miser counting his treasure, fondled it with his mind, turning each memory over and gloating upon it.

  He lived again every moment of his triumph when the lines of captive women had filed before Lobengula and piled the spoils in front of his wagon, the bars and coils of red copper, the axe heads, the leather bags of salt, the clay pots full of beads, for Pemba had been a famous wizard and had gathered his tribute from a host of fearful clients.

  Lobengula had smiled when he saw his treasure, for that was what had been at the root of his feud with Pemba. The king was not above the jealousies of common men. When Lobengula smiled, all his indunas smiled in sympathy and made those little clucking sounds of approval.

  Bazo remembered how the king had called him forward, and smiled again when Bazo emptied the bag he carried over his shoulder, and the wizard’s head, which by then was in an advanced state of decomposition, had rolled to the forewheel of the wagon and grinned up at Lobengula with ruined lips drawn back from uneven teeth stained by the hemp pipe.