Men of Men

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘See the Great Bull whose tread shakes the earth.’

  In his right hand he carried the toy spear of polished redwood, the spear of kingship. Now he raised the puny weapon high, and the nation came bounding upright; and the shields, the long shields that gave them their name, bloomed upon the slope of the hill, covering it like a garden of exotic deadly flowers.

  ‘Bayete!’ The royal salute roared like the surf of a winter sea breaking on a rocky headland.

  ‘Bayete! Lobengula, son of Mzilikazi.’

  After that great burst of sound, the silence was daunting, but Lobengula paced slowly along the ranks, and in his eyes was the terrible sorrow of a father for the sons who must die. This was the hour which he had dreaded from the first day he took the little redwood spear in his right hand. This was the destiny which he had tried to avoid – and now it had overtaken him.

  His voice boomed, and he lifted the spear and pointed to the east. ‘The enemy that comes upon us now is like—’ the spear shook in his hand, ‘like the leopard in the goat kraal, like the white termites in the kingpost of a hut. They will not stop until all is destroyed.’

  The massed regiments of Matabele growled, straining like hunting dogs against the leash, and Lobengula stopped in the centre of their lines and threw the leopard skin cloak back from his right arm.

  He turned slowly until he faced into the east, where Jameson’s columns were massing far over the horizon, and his spear arm went back to its full stretch. He stood poised in the classic stance of the javelin-thrower, and there was a soft susurration in the air as ten thousand lungs filled with breath and held it.

  Then, with a heart-stopping shout, the cry of a man crushed under the iron wheel of his own destiny, Lobengula hurled the war spear into the east, and his shout was echoed by ten thousand throats.

  ‘Jee! Jee!’ They roared, and stabbed at the air with the broad silver blades, stabbing at the still invisible enemy.

  Then the impis formed, one behind the other. Led by their indunas, their matched shields overlapping, they swept past the king, fierce in their pride, leaping high and flashing their assegais, and Lobengula saluted them: the Imbezu and the Inyati, the Ingubu and the Izimvukuzane, the ‘Moles-that-burrow-under-a-mountain,’ with their matt red shields held high and Bazo, the Axe, prancing at their head. They wound away into the eastern grasslands, and Lobengula could still hear their singing, faintly on the heated air, long after the last of them had disappeared from view.

  A little group of indunas and guards still attended the king, but they waited below at the gate of the stockade.

  Lobengula was alone upon the deserted hillside; all the dignity and regal pride had gone out of his bearing. His grossly swollen body slumped like that of a very old and sick man. His eyes were rheumy with unshed tears, and he stared out into the east without moving, listening to the fading war chants.

  At last he sighed, shook himself, and hobbled forward on his crippled distorted feet.

  Painfully he stooped to retrieve the little redwood spear, but he paused before his fingers touched it.

  The blade of the spear of kingship had snapped through. He picked up the broken pieces and held them in his hands, and then he turned and shuffled slowly down from the Hills of the Indunas.

  The Company flag stood high above the laager on a slightly crooked pole of mopani.

  It had hung limply in the stupefying heat all that morning, but now as the patrol rode in across the open ground above the river bank, it unfurled briefly on a random current of air, snapped as though to draw attention to itself, and then extended its full glory for a moment, before sagging wearily once again.

  At the head of the patrol, Ralph Ballantyne turned to his father who rode at his side. ‘That flag makes no bones about it, Papa.’

  The pretty crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick that made up the Union Jack, had the Company insignia superimposed upon them, the lion gardant with a tusk of ivory held in its claw and the letters under it ‘B.S.A.C.’ – British South Africa Company.

  ‘Servants of the Company first, and of the Queen a good deal later.’

  ‘You’re a cynical rascal, Ralph.’ Zouga could hardly suppress his smile. ‘Are you suggesting that there is a man in all our Company here for personal gain rather than glory of Empire?’

  ‘Perish the thought.’ This time Ralph chuckled. ‘By the way, Papa, how many land grants have you bought up so far? I am losing count – is it thirty or thirty-five?’

  ‘This is a dream I worked for all my life, Ralph. It’s coming true before our eyes – and when it does, I’ll have my fair reward, and nothing more.’

  The laager was drawn up in its rigid square three hundred yards from the steep banks of the Shangani river, in the centre of a dried-out clay pan. The surface was as flat and bare as a tennis court. The clay had cracked into irregular briquettes that curled up at the edges. They crunched under the horses’ hooves as Zouga led the patrol in.

  They had been out for two days, scouting the road beyond the river, and Zouga was pleased to see that during his absence St John had taken Zouga’s advice and had his axemen hack down the brush around the edges of the pan to open the field of fire. Now any attacker would have to cross three hundred yards of bare clay to reach the square of wagons, all of it under the evil little Cyclopean scrutiny of the Maxims.

  As they cantered up, a party unchained the wheels of one of the wagons and dragged it aside to allow them to enter, and a sergeant in Company uniform saluted Zouga as he passed and called after him.

  ‘General St John’s compliments, sir, and will you report to him directly.’

  ‘My bet is that you need a drink.’ Mungo St John took one look at the dust that clung like flour in Zouga’s beard and the dark patches of sweat that had soaked through his shirt. Coldly Zouga nodded his thanks and poured from the bottle that held down one corner of the map.

  ‘The impis are out in full array,’ he said, and let the whisky soak the cloying dust from the back of his throat before going on. ‘I have identified most of them. There’s Gandang’s Inyati, and Manonda’s Insukamini—’ He reeled off the names of the indunas and their impis, glancing at the notes he had made on his pad. ‘We had a brush with the “Moles” and had to shoot our way out and ride for it, but still we reached the Bembesi river before turning back.’

  ‘Where are the impis, Ballantyne? Damn it, man, we have advanced seventy miles from Iron Mine Hill and seen neither hide nor hair of them,’ Jameson demanded almost petulantly.

  ‘They are all around us, Doctor. A thousand or more in the trees just across the river, and I cut tracks that showed that two more impis have circled out behind us. They are probably lying across the Longiwe Hills watching every move we make.’

  ‘We must bring them to battle,’ Jameson fretted. ‘Every day the campaign lasts is costing the shareholders money.’

  ‘They won’t attack us here, not while we are in laager, not across open ground.’

  ‘Where then?

  ‘They will attack in the Zulu way, in broken ground, or thick bush. I have marked four likely defiles ahead of us, places where they will be able to creep up close on either side or lay to ambush the wagons as we pass.’

  ‘You want us to walk into their trap – rather than draw them out?’ Mungo asked.

  ‘You’ll not draw them out. I think their commander here is Gandang, the king’s half-brother. He is far too cunning to come at us in the open. If you want to fight them, it must be in the bad ground.’

  ‘When the serpent is coiled, with his head drawn back and his mouth agape to show the venom hanging like drops of dew upon his fangs – then the wise man does not stretch out his hands towards him.’ Gandang spoke softly, and the other indunas cocked their heads to listen to his words. ‘The wise man waits until the serpent uncoils and begins to creep away, then he steps upon the head and crushes it. We must wait. We must wait to take them in the forests, when the wagons are strung out, and the outriders
cannot see one another. Then we cut the column into pieces and swallow each one, a mouthful at a time.’

  ‘Yet my young men are tired of waiting,’ said Manonda, facing Gandang across the fire. Manonda was the commander of the elite Insukamini impi, and though there was silver on his head, there was still fire in his heart. They all knew him to be brave to the edge of folly, quick to take an insult, and quicker still to revenge it. ‘These white barbarians have marched unopposed across our lands, while we trail around them like timid girls guarding our maidenheads and giggling behind our hands. My young men grow weary of waiting, Gandang, and I with them.’

  ‘There is a time for timidity, Manonda, my cousin, and there is a time to be brave.’

  ‘The time to be brave is when your enemy stands brazenly before you. They are six hundred, you have counted them yourself, Gandang, and we are six thousand.’ Manonda grinned mockingly around the circle of listening men. On the brow of each was the headring of high office, and on their arms and legs the tassels of courage. ‘Shame on those that hesitate,’ said Manonda, the Bold. ‘Shame on you, Bazo. Shame on you, Ntabene. Shame on you, Gambo.’ His voice was filled with scorn, and as he said each of their names they hissed with angry denial.

  Then suddenly there was a sound from beyond the circle of squatting indunas, a sound in the night that chilled and silenced them all. It was the eerie wail of mourning for the dead, and as they listened it came closer, and with it were many other voices.

  Gandang sprang to his feet and challenged loudly. ‘Who comes?’

  And out of the darkness a dozen guards, half dragged and half carried an old woman. She wore only a skirt of untanned hyena skin, and around her neck the grisly accoutrements and trappings of the witch’s trade. Her eyes were rolled up into her head so that the whites flashed in the firelight, and her spittle foamed on her slack lips. From her throat issued the wails of mourning for the dead.

  ‘What is it, witch?’ Gandang demanded, his superstitious fears twisting his mouth and darkening his eyes. ‘What tidings do you bring?’

  ‘The white men have desecrated the holy places. They have destroyed the chosen one of the spirits. They have slaughtered the priests of the nation. They have entered the cave of the Umlimo in the sacred hills – and her blood is splashed upon the ancient rocks. Woe unto all of us. Woe unto those who do not seek revenge. Kill the white men. Kill them all!’

  The witch threw off the restraining hands of the guard and, with a wild shriek, hurled herself into the midst of the leaping flames of the watch-fire.

  Her skirt burst into flames. Her wild bush of hair burned like a torch. They drew back in horror.

  ‘Kill the white men,’ screamed the witch from out of the flames, and they stared as her skin blackened and her flesh peeled from off her bones. She collapsed and a torrent of sparks flew up into the overhanging branches of the forest, and then there was only the crackle and drum of the fire.

  Bazo stood in the stunned silence, and he felt the rage rising from deep within his soul. Staring into the flames at the black and twisted remains of the witch, he felt the same need of sacrifice – an atonement and a surcease from the rage and the grief.

  He saw in the yellow flames an image of Tanase’s beloved face, and something seemed to tear in his chest.

  ‘Jee!’ he said, drawing out the war cry, giving expression to his rage. ‘Jee!’ He lifted the assegai and pointed the blade in the direction of the river and the white men’s laager which lay not more than a mile beyond the dark silhouette of the hills. ‘Jee!’ and the night breeze turned the tears cold as the snow-melt from the Drakensberg mountains upon his cheeks.

  ‘Jee.’ Manonda took up the chant, and stabbed towards the enemy, and the divine madness descended upon them. Gandang was the only one who had reason and fear of consequence left to him.

  ‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘Wait, my children and my brothers.’ But they were gone already, racing away into the darkness to rouse their sleeping impis.

  Zouga Ballantyne could not sleep, though his back and thighs still ached for rest from hard riding, and the earth under his blanket was no harder than that on which he had passed a thousand other nights. He lay and listened to the snores and occasional dreamers’ gabble from the men around him, while vague forebodings and dark thoughts kept him from joining them in slumber.

  Once again vivid memories of the little tragedy in the cave of the Umlimo returned to plague him – and he wondered how long it would be before the news of the atrocity reached the king and his indunas. It might take weeks for a witness to come down from the cave of the Matopos, but when that happened, he would know it by the actions of the Matabele indunas.

  From the opposite side of the laager a sky-rocket went hissing up into the night sky, and popped into little red stars high in the heavens. The pickets had been firing a rocket every hour, to guide a missing patrol into the laager.

  Now Zouga reached under the saddle that was his pillow and brought out the gold hunter watch. In the light of the sky-rocket he checked the time. It was three o’clock in the morning. He threw off his blanket, and groped for his boots. While he pulled them on, his premonition of lurking evil grew stronger.

  He strapped on his bandolier and checked the Webley service revolver hanging on the webbing. Then he stepped over the sleeping blanket-wrapped forms around him and went down to the horse lines. The bay gelding whickered as it recognized him, and Jan Cheroot woke.

  ‘It is all right,’ Zouga told him quietly, but the little Hottentot yawned and, with the blanket over his shoulders like a shawl, hobbled across to stir the ashes of his cooking-fire. He set the blue enamel coffee pot on the coals and, while it was heating, they sat side by side and talked quietly like the old friends that they were.

  ‘Less than sixty miles to GuBulawayo,’ Jan Cheroot murmured. ‘It’s taken us more than thirty years – but now at last I feel we are coming home.’

  ‘I have bought up almost forty land grants,’ Zouga agreed. ‘That is nearly a quarter of a million acres. Yes, Jan Cheroot, we are coming home at last. By God, it’s been a long, hard road, though, from the pit of Kimberley mine to the Zambezi—’ Zouga broke off and listened. There had been a faint cry, almost like a night bird, from beyond the laager.

  ‘The Mashona,’ Jan Cheroot grunted. ‘The general should have let them stay in the laager.’

  During the slow trek up from Iron Mine Hill, many small groups of Mashona had come to the wagons, begging protection from the assembling Matabele. They knew from bitter experience what to expect when the impis swept across the land in battle array.

  ‘The general could not take that chance.’ Zouga shook his head. ‘There may be Matabele spies amongst them, he has to guard against treachery.’

  Mungo St John had ordered the refugees to keep clear of the laager, and now there were three of four hundred, mostly black women and children, camped amongst the thorn trees on the river bank, five hundred yards from the nearest wagon.

  Zouga lifted the coffee pot from the coals and poured the steaming black brew into his mug, then he cocked his head again to listen. There was a faint hubbub, a distant chorus of shrieks and shouts from the direction of the river. With the mug in his hand Zouga strolled across to the nearest wagon in the square, and climbed up onto the disselboom. He peered out of the laager, towards the river.

  The open expanse of flat clay was ghostly pale in the starlight, and the treeline beyond it was solid blackness. There was nothing to be seen – except – he blinked his eyes rapidly, for they were playing him false. Nothing, except the blackness of the treeline seemed to be closer, the blackness was spreading towards the laager across the pale clay, like spilled oil or a pool of blood.

  Now there was a sound, a rustle like locust wings when the swarms pass overhead, and the engulfing blackness was coming closer, with eerie swiftness.

  At that moment another sky-rocket went swooshing up into the night sky, and when it burst, it flooded the pan with a soft, pink light a
nd Zouga dropped the mug of steaming coffee.

  The earth was black with the Matabele horde. It swept like a black tide towards the wagons, rank upon rank of great oval shields, and the assegais twinkled in the reflection of the rocket flare.

  Zouga pulled the pistol from its holster, and fired towards the racing black wall of shields.

  ‘Stand to your guns,’ he bellowed, the heavy revolver bouncing and crashing in his fist. ‘The Matabele are coming! Stand to your guns.’ And from the black tide swelled a sound like a swarm of bees when the hive is overturned.

  The hammer of Zouga’s revolver clicked on a spent cartridge, and he jumped down from the disselboom and raced down the line of wagons to where the nearest Maxim was emplaced.

  Throughout the laager there was a rush of bodies and the shouts of frightened men running to their posts, and as Zouga reached the corner of the square, the machine-gunner came stumbling out from his bed under a wagon body. His face was a pale blob, and his hair was hanging into his eyes. He was in stockinged feet and his braces dangled down his legs as he hitched his breeches and plumped himself down on the little seat that was built onto the rear leg of the Maxim tripod.

  His number two loader was nowhere to be seen, perhaps lost in the milling confusion of newly-awakened bodies, so Zouga stuffed the revolver into his belt and dropped upon his knees beside the ungainly weapon. He yanked the top off the ammunition box and lifted out the first length of the canvas belt.

  ‘Good-oh, mate!’ muttered the gunner, as Zouga lifted the shutter in the side of the breech and passed the brass tag loader of the belt through the block.

  ‘Ready! Load one!’ he snapped, and the gunner jerked back the crank handle on the opposite side of the block and let it fly home, and the gib at the top of the extractor gripped the first round.