Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Hear me, oh King, think a while before you let your young men run. What do they know of fighting Englishmen?’ Zouga was angry now, and the scar on his cheek burned red as a welt raised by the lash of a whip.

  ‘My young men will eat them up,’ said Lobengula simply. ‘As did the Zulu at the Hill of the Little Hand.’

  ‘After the Little Hand came Ulundi,’ Zouga reminded him. ‘The earth was black with the Zulu dead, and they put chains on the legs of the Zulu King and sent him to an island far across the sea.’

  ‘Bakela, it is too late. I cannot hold my young men, I have held them too long. They must run now.’

  ‘Your young men are brave when there are old Mashona women to stab, and young babies to disembowel, but they have never met real men.’

  Gandang hissed with anger behind the king’s shoulder, but Zouga went on firmly.

  ‘Send them home to dally with their women and preen their feathers, for if you let them run, then you will be lucky if you live to see your kraal burning and your herds being driven off.’

  This time all three of the senior indunas hissed, and Gandang started forward impulsively, but Lobengula spread his hand to restrain him.

  ‘Bakela is a guest of the king,’ Lobengula said. ‘While he stands in my kraal, every hair of his head is sacred.’ But the king’s eyes had never left Zouga’s face. ‘Go, Bakela, leave this day and take your woman with you. Go to Daketela and tell him that my impis are ready. If he crosses the Gwelo river, I will let my young men go.’

  ‘Lobengula, if I leave then the last link between black men and white men is broken. There will be no more talking. It will be war.’

  ‘Then let it be so, Bakela.’

  It was hard riding. They took the road that Ralph Ballantyne’s wagons had recently pioneered from Fort Salisbury to GuBulawayo. They left all their furniture and possessions in the cottage outside the stockade of the king’s kraal – and they rode light, with a blanket roll on the pommel of the saddle and a food bag on one of the spare horses that Jan Cheroot brought up behind on a lead rein.

  Louise rode like a man, astride and uncomplaining, and on the fifth day, unexpectedly, they came up with Jameson’s column in camp around the skeletal headgear of Iron Mine Hill, where the volunteers from Salisbury and Fort Victoria had joined up.

  ‘Zouga, is that how Jameson is going to challenge Lobengula’s impi?’

  The little encampment looked pathetically inadequate. There were two dozen wagons, and on the canvas tents of most of them Zouga could make out the insignia of Ralph’s transport company. But he pointed to the comers of the laager.

  ‘Machine-guns,’ he said. ‘Six of them, and they are worth five hundred men each. They have field guns also, look at their emplacements.’

  ‘Oh Zouga, do you have to go with them?’

  ‘You know that I do.’

  They rode down into the camp, and as they passed the pickets there was a hail that startled the sentries and made Louise’s horse shy and skitter.

  ‘Papa!’ Ralph came hurrying from the nearest wagon.

  ‘My boy.’ Zouga jumped down from the saddle, and they embraced happily. ‘I should have known you would be wherever there was something doing.’

  Louise bent from the saddle and Ralph brushed her cheek with his fine moustache.

  ‘I still find it difficult to believe that I have a stepmother so young and beautiful.’

  ‘You are my favourite son,’ she laughed. ‘But I’d love you more if you could arrange a hot bath—’

  From behind the canvas screen Louise kept calling for more buckets of hot water, and Zouga had to carry them from the fire and top-up the galvanized hip-bath in which she sat with her thick, dark braids piled on top of her head, glowing pinkly from the almost boiling water and taking full part in the conversation beyond the screen.

  Ralph and Zouga sat at a camp table with a blue enamel pot of coffee and a bottle of whisky between them.

  ‘We have six hundred and eighty-five men all in.’

  ‘I warned Rhodes that he would need fifteen hundred,’ Zouga frowned.

  ‘Well, there are another five hundred volunteers under Major Goold-Adams ready to move off from Macloutsi.’

  ‘They would never get here in time to take a part in the fighting.’ Zouga shook his head. ‘What about lines of supply and reinforcements? What happens if we get into trouble with the Matabele? What chance of a relieving force?’

  Ralph grinned devilishly. ‘I am the whole commissariat – you don’t think I would split the profits with anyone else, do you?’

  ‘Re-supply? Relieving force?’

  Ralph spread his hands in negation. ‘The doctor informs me that we don’t need them. God and Mr Rhodes are on our side.’

  ‘If it goes against us, it will be death and mutilation for every man, woman and child this side of the Shashi river. Lobengula’s impis are mad for war now. Neither the king nor his indunas will be able to control them once they begin.’

  ‘That thought had occurred to me,’ Ralph admitted. ‘I have Cathy and Jonathan at Fort Victoria, packed and ready, old Isazi is with them and one of my best young men. I have fresh relays of mules posted all the way from Fort Vicky to the Shashi. The hour Jameson gives the word for the column to march, my family will be on their way south.’

  ‘Ralph, I am taking Louise to Fort Victoria. Can she stay with Cathy and leave with her?’

  ‘Nobody asked me,’ Louise called from behind the screen, and there was an angry splash of water. ‘I took a vow, until death us do part – Zouga Ballantyne.’

  ‘You also vowed to love, honour and obey,’ Zouga reminded her, and winked at Ralph. ‘I hope you don’t suffer the same insubordination from your wife.’

  ‘Beat them regularly and give them plenty of babies,’ Ralph advised. ‘Of course, Louise must go with Katie, but you had better leave for Fort Vicky right away – the Doctor is champing at the bit to settle Lobengula’s hash.’ He broke off, and gestured at a trooper who was hurrying towards their wagon across the laager. ‘And it looks as though he has heard of your arrival at last.’

  The trooper saluted Zouga breathlessly. ‘Are you Major Zouga Ballantyne, sir? Dr Jameson asks you please to come to his tent at your earliest convenience.’

  Dr Jameson jumped up from the travelling-desk and bustled across the tent to meet Zouga.

  ‘Ballantyne, I was worried about you. Have you come directly from Lobengula? What are the chances? What force do you reckon he disposes?’ He broke off and scolded himself with a deprecatory chuckle. ‘What am I thinking of. Let me get you a drink, man!’

  He led Zouga into the tent. ‘You know General St John, of course—’ And Zouga stiffened, his face expressionless.

  ‘Zouga.’ Mungo St John lounged in a canvas camp chair – but he made no effort to rise or offer his hand. ‘How long it is. But you are looking well. Marriage agrees with you – I have not had the opportunity to congratulate you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Zouga nodded. Naturally he had known that Mungo was the Doctor’s Chief of Staff – but still he was not ready for his anger and bitterness at the confrontation. This was the man who had kept Louise as a mistress, had held her tender precious body. He found that he was trembling, and he thrust the picture from his mind, but it was replaced instantly by the image of Louise as he had found her in the desert, her skin burned off her in slabs by the sun – and it was Mungo St John who had let her go and made no effort to follow her.

  ‘I have heard that your wife is in camp with you—’ St John’s single eye glowed maliciously. ‘You must dine with me tonight; it will be gratifying to discuss old times.’

  ‘My wife has had a long, hard journey.’ Zouga kept his voice level; he did not want to give Mungo the satisfaction of knowing how angry he was. ‘And in the morning I am taking her into Fort Victoria.’

  ‘Good!’ Jameson cut in briskly. ‘That suits my own plans – I need a trustworthy man to put a message on the telegraph line for M
r Rhodes. But now, Ballantyne, what is the news from GuBulawayo, and how do you rate our chances?’

  ‘Well, Doctor Jim, Lobengula’s ready for you – his young men are spoiling for a fight – and you have a scanty enough force here. In the ordinary way I would say that to take it into Matabeleland without reinforcements or a relieving force in the offing would be suicide. However—’

  ‘However?’ Jameson demanded eagerly.

  ‘Four of Lobengula’s regiments, those he sent against Lewanika, the king of the Barotse, are still on the Zambezi, and Lobengula will not be able to use them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Smallpox,’ Zouga said. ‘It’s broken out in those regiments, and he dare not recall them to the south. They can take no part in the fighting.’

  ‘Half the Matabele army out of it,’ Jameson exulted. ‘That’s a nudge from on high, St John – what do you think?’

  ‘I would say it’s still a risk, a damnable risk. But think of the stake. A whole country to be won with all its lands and herds and gold. I’d say if we are ever to march, we must march now.’

  ‘Ballantyne, your sister – the missionary woman, what’s her name – Codrington, is she still at Khami? Is her family there with her?’

  Zouga nodded, mystified, and Jameson snatched up a pencil and scribbled a message on his pad. Then he tore off the sheet and handed it to Mungo St John. Mungo read it and smiled. He looked like a bird of prey, beak-nosed and fierce.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perfect.’ He passed the sheet to Zouga. Jameson had written in block capitals.

  URGENT FOR JOVE MATABELE REGIMENTS MASSED TO ATTACK STOP ENGLISH WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE POWER OF THE MATABELE TYRANT STOP IMPERATIVE WE MARCH AT ONCE TO SAVE THEM REPLY SOONEST

  ‘Even Labouchère couldn’t quibble with that,’ Zouga remarked wryly. Labouchère was the London editor of Truth magazine, a champion of the oppressed and one of Rhodes’ most eloquent and persistent adversaries. Zouga proffered the sheet, but Jameson waved it back.

  ‘Keep it. Send it. I don’t suppose you could leave this evening?’ Jameson asked wistfully.

  ‘It will be dark in an hour, and my wife is exhausted.’

  ‘Very well,’ Jameson agreed. ‘But you will return here as soon as you can with Mr Rhodes’ reply?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And there will be something else I want you to do on your return, a most important assignment.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘General St John will explain.’ And Zouga turned suspiciously to Mungo.

  Mungo’s manner was suddenly placatory. ‘Zouga, there’s not one of us who hasn’t read your book Hunter’s Odyssey. I would say that it’s the bible of anybody wanting to know about this country and its people.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Zouga was unbending still.

  ‘And one of the most interesting sections is the description of your visit to the oracle of the Umlimo in the hills south of GuBulawayo.’

  ‘The Matopos,’ Zouga told him.

  ‘Yes, of course, the Matopos. Could you find your way back to the witch’s cavern? After all, it has been over twenty-five years?’

  ‘Yes, I could find it again.’ Zouga did not hesitate.

  ‘Excellent,’ Jameson interrupted. ‘Come along, St John, do tell him why.’ But Mungo seemed to digress.

  ‘You know the old Zulu who works for your son—’

  ‘Isazi, Ralph’s head driver?’ Zouga asked.

  ‘That’s the one. Well, we captured four Matabele scouts and we put Isazi in the stockade with them. He can pass for a Matabele, so the prisoners spoke freely in front of him. One of the things we learnt is that the Umlimo has called all the witchdoctors of the nation to a ritual in the hills.’

  ‘Yes,’ Zouga agreed. ‘I heard of it before I left GuBulawayo. The Umlimo is preaching war, and promises a charm to the impis that will turn our bullets to water.’

  ‘Ah, so it’s true then.’ Mungo nodded – and then, thoughtfully: ‘Just what influence does this prophetess have?’

  ‘The Umlimo is a hereditary figure, a sort of virgin demi-deity that has her origins long before the arrival of the Matabele in this land, perhaps a thousand years or more ago. First Mzilikazi and then Lobengula have fallen under her spell. I have even heard it whispered that Lobengula served an apprenticeship in sorcery under the Umlimo’s guidance, in the Matopos.’

  ‘Then she does wield power over the Matabele?’

  ‘Immense power. Lobengula makes no important decision without her oracle. No impi would march without her charms to protect them.’

  ‘If she were to die on the day we march into Matabeleland?’

  ‘It would throw the king and his warriors into consternation. They would probably act recklessly. The Umlimo’s charms would perish with her; her advice might turn like a serpent and strike the receiver. They would be demoralized – and it would take at least three months to choose a prophetess to replace her. During that time the nation would be vulnerable.’

  ‘Zouga, I want you to take a party of mounted men – the toughest and the best we have. I want you to ride to the witch’s cave and destroy her and all her witchdoctors.’

  Will Daniel was Zouga’s sergeant. He was a Canadian who had been twenty years in Africa without losing his accent. He had fought the tribes on the Fish river and in Zululand. He boasted that he had killed three of Cetewayo’s men with a single shot at Ulundi and made his tobacco pouch from the scalp of one of them. He had been in the Gazaland rebellion and fought at the Hill of the Doves against the free burghers of the Transvaal Republic. Wherever there had been trouble and shooting, Will Daniel had forged his bloody reputation. He was a big man, heavy in the gut, prematurely bald with large round ears that stood out from his polished scalp like those of a wild dog. His fists were gnarled, his legs bowed from the saddle, and he wore a perpetual wide white grin which never touched his cold little eyes.

  ‘You don’t have to like or trust him,’ Mungo St John had advised Zouga. ‘But he is the man for the job.’

  With Will Daniel went his henchman, Jim Thorn, half Will’s size but every bit as vicious. A skinny little cockney with the grey tones of the slum-dweller so deeply etched into his gaunt melancholy face that five thousand African suns had been unable to erase them. Dr Jameson had released him from the Fort Victoria gaol, where the was waiting trial for beating a Mashona servant to death with a rhinoceros-hide sjambok. His pardon dependent on his conduct during the campaign. ‘So you can rely on him to do whatever needs doing,’ Mungo had pointed out to Zouga.

  The other thirteen troopers were men of a similar type. They had all volunteered under Doctor Jim’s Victoria Agreement and signed the enlistment document, a document which Jameson made sure remained secret. No copy of it went to the High Commissioner in Cape Town nor to Gladstone’s Government in Whitehall, for it promised the volunteers a share of Lobengula’s land and cattle and treasures; the word ‘loot’ was specifically mentioned in the text.

  On the first night out Will Daniel had come silently to where Zouga slept a little apart and, as he stooped over Zouga’s recumbent form, a wiry arm had whipped suddenly around his neck and the muzzle of a Webley revolver was thrust under his ribs with sufficient force to drive the air from his lungs.

  ‘Next time you creep up on me, I’ll kill you,’ Zouga hissed into his face; and Will’s teeth flashed in the moonlight as he grinned appreciatively.

  ‘They told me you were a sharp one.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Me and the boys want to sell our land rights – three thousand morgen each, that’s ninety thousand acres. You can have them for a hundred each.’

  ‘You haven’t earned them yet.’

  ‘That’s a chance you gotta take, skipper.’

  ‘I thought you were on guard duty, sergeant.’

  ‘Well, it was just for a moment, sir.’

  ‘Next time you leave your post, I’ll shoot you myself, without bothering about a court mar
tial.’

  Daniel stared into his face for a moment.

  ‘Yep, I reckon you would too,’ Will grinned mirthlessly.

  Zouga led the patrol south and westwards through the forests where once long ago he had hunted the wandering herds of elephant. Now the tuskers were all gone, and even the herds of lesser game were wild from the unrestrained hunting of the new settlers and they scattered at the first approach of the small party of horsemen.

  Zouga avoided the established roads between the Matabele regimental towns, and when they had to pass close to a settlement or the cultivated lands surrounding it, they did so at night. Though he knew that the impis had all answered Lobengula’s call and were already assembled at Thabas Indunas, still he felt a vast relief when the granite domes of the Matopos rose above the treetops ahead of them and in single file his horsemen followed him into one of the steep-sided valleys.

  That night there was a deputation of four troopers led by Will Daniel and Jim Thorn.

  ‘The boys have all voted, skipper. We will take a hundred for the lot.’ Will grinned ingratiatingly. ‘There’s not one of us have the price of a drink to celebrate when we get home – and you have that money belt around your belly. It must be damned heavy by now, and no good it will do you if a Matabele sniper puts a bullet in your back.’

  The smile was still on Will’s face, but the threat was naked in his eyes. If Zouga did not buy their land grants, it might be a bullet in the back. They would divide up the contents of his money belt anyway.

  Zouga considered defying the big ugly sergeant, but there were fifteen of them. The gold in his belt could be his death warrant. He was in enough danger from the Matabele.

  ‘I have seventy-five sovereigns in my belt,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Fine,’ Will agreed. ‘You’ve got yourself a bargain, Major.’