Serving Shaka, page 25
He lies still, holding his breath, just another corpse littering the battlefield. They pass within two strides of him without glancing down. Their eyes flick from side to side, alert to the danger of ambush. Richard can smell the spicy odour of their sweating bodies as they pass.
Once they are clear, he gulps for air before pushing to his feet, spear in hand. He follows in their wake and then breaks right for the froth of green growth hugging the river. It is bright and alive, in such a contrast to the dun plain of the battlefield.
Once the trees shelter him, Richard breathes more easily. He concentrates on bringing down his pulse rate, sitting with his back to the smooth, yellowish bark of a tree. Leaves like knife blades rustle overhead. Richard studies them as the rise and fall of his chest slows.
The leaves grow in opposing pairs, arrayed in a tight V-shape. Older leaves, close to the branches, are a shiny, dark green but pale and hairy beneath. Younger leaves, growing at the extremities of the tree, are a delicate green and covered in finer hairs. Pairs of inch-long, oval pods, brown and ridged, hang everywhere.
Calm now, Richard transfers his study to the river. The trees extend some fifteen feet from the steeply-sloping bank. Peering between the trunks, he sees the river is lower, but the current remains significant.
A crackle of dry leaf litter causes him to freeze. The pop of crushed leaves, snapped twigs and burst pods sounds close by. He thinks he is about a hundred paces from where Mgobozi was surrounded. The noises come from that direction, closer to the heart of the concentrated enemy.
Fighting his instincts, Richard begins creeping slowly towards the source of the sounds. Further off, he hears a ragged cheer, followed by a half-dozen voices yelling orders that are relayed through the assembled regiments. He pauses, and holds his breath again, listening intently.
The careless sound of men moving between the trees continues. He is close now and drops cautiously, lying prone, eyes straining, hand grasping his makeshift stabbing spear. His pistol is uncomfortable beneath him, so he tilts a hip and draws it from his waistband. He swaps spear and pistol so that his left forefinger caresses the trigger.
Looking down, he realizes he has not cocked the pistol. He wonders if he dare? What use will a single shot be? He decides to wait and carefully removes his finger from the trigger guard.
He sees a flash of movement, a dark body against the green, and then another and another. A cocked arm, hand wielding a short spear. A pair of bare feet. Zulus! But how to reveal himself without risking the slice of a broad blade between his ribs?
The answer crosses his line of vision. Although his head is obscured by branches, the man clutches a cavalry sword in one hand, his spear and shield both grasped in the other.
It is now or never.
‘Emile!’ he hisses. His friend’s head pivots, green eyes elvish amidst the lush growth. ‘It’s me, Richard!’
The Frenchman says something quietly to his companions and they freeze. A look of concern contorts Emile’s face as he spots Richard, who waves awkwardly with his left hand, pistol still in his grip.
‘My friend, what are you doing here?’
Richard has no credible answer, so he tells the truth. ‘I am tired of watching from the sidelines. Shaka asked me whether Mgobozi survives the battle. I said he did. If I am wrong, I will be executed!’ Richard cannot read Emile’s expression in the dappled light; shadows gathering as the unseen sun arcs towards the horizon.
‘We were returning when we passed men talking of Mgobozi’s plight. They were with him until an induna ordered them back to the hill. We decided to slip away. This is my chance! To rescue Shaka’s closest friend.’
Richard can only nod. ‘I saw him surrounded. He is a berserker! He broke away down the bank.’ He points beyond Emile, towards the massed Ndwandwe force that can be heard forming up for another assault. ‘We should wait until they move off before searching.’
Emile looks over his shoulder at his watchful companions and converses in rapid Zulu. The tallest, a man with cheerful cheeks but heavy eyelids, replies in a hoarse whisper.
‘It is agreed. They are reluctant to miss the fighting but these four will follow me. We are firm friends.’
Richard studies the three who have not spoken. Two are so alike they must be brothers. Wide foreheads, large eyes and heavy brows, full lips, and strong chins. They are both short and squat but muscular.
The other warrior is a giant. He is forced almost double to move beneath the tangle of branches. Richard recognises him as the behemoth Emile duelled with on the day Nobela died in a hyena’s jaws. The man’s huge head splits into a grin.
Richard returns his gun to his waistband and grips Emile tightly by the shoulder. He hopes this contact communicates the rush of emotions he is experiencing. This is not the time to put them into words. Emile plunges the tip of his sword into the damp earth and grips Richard’s hand. A serious look passes between them and Richard feels uplifted.
He cannot give orders here. Emile has earned his place. These with him are career warriors and his friends. He waits.
‘We were searching further east but when the regiments returned, we moved off,’ Emile recounts.
The four Zulus settle in a break in the trees. They sit back-to-back, eyes scanning their surroundings, shields at their feet. They leave room for Emile and another for Richard between the Frenchman and the giant.
Richard shuffles into the space, resting against the back of the man behind him. He is unwilling to relax against the support of a stranger, but the tension is uncomfortable and his abdominal muscles cramp. He gives in and immediately feels better.
The marching of many sandalled feet makes the ground tremble. They track the enemy army’s progress with their ears, the footfalls growing fainter.
A twig snaps nearby, a little further off a man coughs, to the west Richard catches a whispered exchange, and then a splash as something drops into the river.
‘Be careful, there are many Ndwandwes scattered along the river,’ whispers Emile. ‘They were thirsty. Now they fear punishment. So, they wait, hoping to slip back to their regiments unnoticed, or waiting for the right time to flee.’
A pair of shifty Ndwandwes stumble into the clearing, immobilized at the sight of Richard and his companions sitting in a ring.
One makes a gesture, that Richard interprets as a ward against evil spirits. His eyes bulge, while his companion hisses, raising his shield and thrusting awkwardly with his long spear.
Richard feels the giant’s muscles tense as he rises behind him. Great paws reach out and grasp the spear shaft behind the blade. The Ndwandwe trooper leans back, swinging the butt from side to side, but this just helps the mighty Zulu to his feet.
The big man yanks hard. The Ndwandwe yelps as the shaft slips through his fingers. Disarmed, he turns on his heel, shouting at his partner to do the same. In no time, the pair disappear along the riverbank.
‘What if they tell of our location?’ asks Richard.
‘They are deserters. Their army advances on the hill. They will try to melt away,’ Emile replies confidently. ‘Listen, Shaka is pulling his reserves from their hiding place on the hill.’
Richard’s ears detect the clash of shields and grunts of men straining every sinew. Cries echo across the battlefield, some uplifted in victory, and others in pain.
Emile and his friends get up. Emile offers a hand to Richard. They creep to the edge of the trees and peer out.
The Ndwandwes are a battering ram of humanity, twenty men wide. The column stretching for two hundred yards.
‘Look, smoke rising beyond the hill. A warning the other Ndwandwe regiments return from pursuing the cattle,’ Richard explains.
‘Shaka must press his advantage before they reinforce Nomahlanjana’s thrust,’ Emile concludes.
As they watch from the woody fringe, the Ndwandwe column slows, shocked by the Zulu reinforcements appearing over the lip of the hill. The three paces between each rank disappear as men bunch up. Rather than confronting two flimsy lines of troops, they are advancing on a deeply defended position.
Ndwandwe indunas run up and down, dressing the line and forcing them to increase their pace.
‘See!’’ calls the tallest warrior, standing beside Emile. The Zulu reserve does not deepen the lines around the hill but sweeps down the east and west flanks, moving fast in enveloping columns eight abreast.
‘Bonaparte will be loving this,’ observes Richard excitedly.
Emile nods but insists, ‘We must move. Now we can search closer to their headquarters.’
They all nod and turn reluctantly from the battle. Shields up, spears forward. Richard emulates the others as best he can, as they trawl through the vegetation, careless now of any sound they make.
Richard counts his steps. Ten, twenty, thirty, without finding anything. Suddenly, a single figure darts down the bank and throws himself into the water with a noisy splash. His arms flail as the current catches him. He gets his feet to the bottom, standing with a look of relief that dissolves as the force of water sweeps him downstream.
Richard looks away. As a child, he had an exaggerated fear of drowning. He hopes the fleeing man makes the far bank. Forty steps, fifty, soon they will reach the tree where Zwide’s son watches.
They slow without anyone speaking. There must be pickets around the command position. Richard flashes back to the darker woods of Waterloo, on the flank of the hill rising up to Hougoumont. He swivels his head from side to side, scanning for any sign of enemy troops. His heart pounds as he fights images of riflemen in uniforms of the King’s German Legion.
A shout sounds close ahead and they halt. Richard holds his breath. The challenge is repeated. One of the brothers shrugs and shouts a response.
There is a pause, then the sound of several pairs of sandalled feet advancing on their position. The other brother points at the shallow bank to their right.
They edge down the slope, abandoning shields to slip gingerly into the cool water. Richard throws his gun beneath the nearest bush. Grasping their other weapons, they ease away from the bank, clinging to the thirsty roots protruding from the earthy riverbank. Richard’s chin is in the water. The cooling embrace of the river feels wonderful, although the current tugs at his legs.
The guards stomp past, barely glancing towards the watercourse. By the time they can be heard returning, the water feels cold, chilling Richard with icy fingers. He shivers. Ripples expand across the water’s surface. He checks on Emile to his right. The Frenchman is also fighting the cold, teeth clenched to prevent them chattering.
Looking awkwardly over his shoulder, Richard can just see the sun. It is half-way between its zenith and the horizon. The guards are chattering casually as they pass.
Insects skim the surface of the river, unconcerned by the clumsy figures hauling themselves clear of the water. Each man hunches into the foetal position, shivering.
With an effort, Richard stretches out his limbs. He fights out of his jacket and waistcoat. He pulls his feet free of his knee-length boots, emptying out the water before tugging off his sodden socks. He wrings them out, fingers clumsy with cold.
As the others reclaim their shields, he scrabbles beneath a viciously thorny bush until his fingers snag the pistol.
The sounds of battle drift through the trees. There is no way to impose order on the noise so Richard struggles into his clothes. All five Zulus, for Emile is one of them now, watch with amusement. When he is finished, they resume their search, keeping a single step from the embrace of the wide river.
Richard forgets to count, but to their left, a rocky outcrop interrupts the riverbank. ‘We are behind their command position,’ he whispers. ‘The mimosa tree is part way up the southern face.’
Emile looks disappointed. ‘We have not found him. He must be taken!’
The five exchange helpless expressions. Richard scowls. He has not come this far to give up. ‘We should track back, keeping close to the water. He could be lying hurt.’
‘He might have taken to the river to escape,’ Emile counters, a glimmer of hope brightening his tone. His companions nod and begin searching again, moving deliberately back the way they came, away from the rock formation.
Richard spots where they hid. The earthy banks are disturbed, sections crumbled away, mud scored by gouging fingers. Beyond the mud, the grass is crushed and wet.
How many paces before they encountered the guards? He thinks it was close to seventy. He begins to count again. They are searching right beside the river.
Richard parts a clump of reeds. Nothing. Ten paces. He peers into the river where the bank has crumbled away. Nothing. Twenty paces. Emile prods at a bush with his sword. Nothing. Thirty paces. The two brothers point at another patch of broken bank, where fleeing Ndwandwes dropped into the flow. Nothing.
Thirty paces. Richard is sure they are on a fool’s errand. Forty paces. Richard stops with the others. There are bodies ahead. One man lies on his back, a puncture wound through his throat. A second corpse sprawls face down, sandalled feet floating comically in the water. A third body slouches against a tree, dried blood on his chest from a wound beneath the armpit. Two more float in the river, snagged by a protruding root and the tangle of their own stiff limbs.
‘Could these be the men who surrounded Mgobozi?’ Emile asks. No one answers but they look eager, spreading out to quarter the area.
They find two more bodies deeper in the trees but no sign of Shaka’s closest confidant, his hammer, the army’s drill-master, husband to twenty wives, the man who turned down command and never lost the common touch.
They press on. Another twenty paces. One after another, they come to a stop and drop dejected into the undergrowth.
They sip water from cupped hands direct from the river. Richard is reminded of a story from Sunday school. Aunt Patricia insisted he attend. It made her feel like a good guardian. He always complained but he didn’t really mind. He loved the stories first and then the poetry of the archaic language.
He could even remember the Old Testament book the story came from. Judges. God instructing Gideon to separate his men according to the way they drank water. Those who lapped at the water like dogs were turned away, while those who used their hands were chosen. He couldn’t remember why such a division was made. It sounded like a metaphor for civilisation. If that was true, these Zulu warriors passed the test.
Emile and his companions are standing stock still, heads tilted as they listen. Soon they are all grimacing. The battle continues without them. It sounds fiercely contested. They are on the wrong side of the battlefield.
‘We should go,’ the giant suggests, pointing back towards Gqokli hill. The others nod.
Richard is about to agree when he hears an animal noise. The woods are eerily quiet; all game driven away by Shaka’s forces. The coarse calls of vultures aside, even birdsong is missing. He hears it again, a throaty moaning like a lion in the dark. But the noise is not so deep.
He hears it a third time. There is a pitiful note to the groaning.
‘Wait! This way.’ He trots a few paces, head turning slowly.
Could it be a man? Someone injured? A survivor from Mgobozi’s desperate stand? He might have news of the berserker’s fate. He hears the complaining cry again, incoherent but full of pain. It is closer.
Richard tugs at the underbrush, moving it aside with his spear, homing in on the sound, now a weak whimper. Pulling aside a clump of giant anemones sprouting from a damp depression, Richard finds the source.
On his back, buck teeth bared, eyes rolled back in his head, lies Mgobozi. He is covered in dried blood from foot to face. Richard hopes it is not all his own.
The others gather around, expressions a confusion of happiness and concern. Richard holds a hand in front of the injured man’s mouth.
‘He’s alive. But he needs help. I’m not sure how long he can last.’ Placing the same hand on Mgobozi’s forehead, he feels an unnatural heat. ‘He has a fever. Let’s get some water into him.’
One after another, the six of them visit the river, returning with exaggerated care to dribble water from cupped hands into Mgobozi’s slack mouth. They complete the journey twice, before the poleaxed man coughs weakly. Richard tilts his head to one side and a trickle of water leaks out.
‘We have to get him back to the hill,’ Richard insists. No one demurs. They all want to rejoin the fighting. ‘But we have to do it quickly!’
Richard thinks of the precautions to take with a head injury, let alone multiple injuries. He spots five wounds in addition to the swelling distorting the fallen warrior’s left temple.
Before he can do anything, the giant lifts Mgobozi reverently and drapes him gently over a shoulder, in an approximation of a fireman’s lift.
Huddled together, they break cover and circle left across the flat plain. Beyond the area trampled by warriors, wispy grass brushes their shins. They keep time with the giant, who carries Mgobozi as if he is weightless. Gargantuan strides eat the distance, even though he moves with care, as if carrying a sack of precious pottery.
As they draw alongside the battle, a hundred yards to their right, Richard studies the Zulu force’s progress. The pincer movement is almost complete and the front of the Ndwandwe column has already turned, pressing against those still advancing, causing confusion as they desperately seek to escape the jaws of the trap. The teeth of oversized spear blades bite at them from all sides.
As he watches, the Ndwandwes at the rear break away, like champagne from a shaken bottle, spraying across the battlefield in tiny bubbles of ejected humanity. Then the encircling movement is complete. The cork is wedged firmly back in the bottle, trapping the bulk of the Ndwandwe forces.
Lucky escapees sprint towards the river, fizzing and foaming before dissipating. Richard’s eyes are drawn to the one group evading the Zulu trap that holds together. He sees heads heavy with feathers and shoulders draped in the skins of big cats. Around them cluster a disciplined body of some one hundred crack warriors.
‘Bodyguard?’ shouts Richard uncertainly.
