The Horns of the Buffalo (45 page)

‘Stop!' Simon put both his hands on Alice's shoulders and looked directly into her grey eyes. ‘Alice. There is no way that that letter from Colonel Lamb to the court could have reached you in time. What exactly did you do?'

‘Oh, for goodness' sake, Simon.' Alice waved her hand airily. ‘Sometimes, you know, you can be a bit strait-laced. Of course I forged it. When I first came to the Cape I . . . er . . . purloined, I think is the word, a few sheets of the General Staff notepaper from HQ on my first visit there. They have been quite useful to me in the past in pushing open doors.' She turned to Nandi. ‘As I am sure you know, my dear, we working women have to cut corners occasionally if we are to get anywhere. There was clearly no time for Lamb to write a letter and post it to the court. I doubted if I would have enough weight of my own to introduce Nandi as a witness at the last moment. So I put pen to paper. I am sure that the Colonel would have done so, had I been able to ask him. He seemed a sweet little man. I sat next to him at dinner once and he remembered.'

Simon cast his eyes towards the bright blue sky and grasped an elbow of each woman. ‘I think it best that we get out of here quickly before they organise a second court martial,' he said, marching them away.

That evening, Alice gave Simon and Nandi dinner, cooked by her servant, George, over an open fire blazing before her tent - she had repossessed her original campsite at Helpmakaar. At first the atmosphere was stilted. Alice overcompensated by being too jocular; Nandi was mainly silent, switching her black eyes between the others; and Simon behaved far too courteously to the ladies. However, as the champagne began to take its effect - once again Alice refused to divulge her sources - they all loosened and began to behave like old friends and young people.

After the fourth glass, Alice leaned across to Nandi and gestured towards Simon. ‘I'm not going to marry him, you know. In fact, I'm not going to marry anyone. I am having far too much fun. But he does kiss rather nicely. Has he kissed you, Nandi?'

‘For goodness' sake, Alice,' stormed Simon, ‘stop behaving so shockingly.'

‘Oh, I'm not shocked, Simon,' said Nandi, taking the question solemnly, as she so often did. ‘Yes, Alice, he has kissed me. It was very nice. In fact we made ukuHlongonga together.'

‘Nandi!' screamed Simon. ‘How dare you! Alice, it's not what you think. It's not quite that. It's . . .' He halted in confusion.

‘Well, my little wounded buffalo,' said Alice. ‘You
did
it, so presumably you can remember what it was. I am dying to know. It could be useful to me - for purely professional reasons, you understand, Simon. Local colour and all that. Perhaps Nandi can tell me?'

‘Nandi, if you continue this conversation, I shall leave.'

‘Simon, don't make such a fuss. It is done quite a lot in Zululand, Alice, but as we are embarrassing Simon, perhaps we should change the subject.'

‘Very well, my dear.' Alice sipped from her glass and her face grew serious. ‘Now, Simon. What are you going to do? Apart from your loss of seniority - which, by the way, Covington regards as a slap in the face to him because he believes the sentence to be derisory, and he is quite right - the Colonel remains your enemy, I am afraid. There will be no future for you in his regiment and I presume that Lamb has finished with your services?'

Simon drained his glass. ‘Oh yes. I know exactly what I have to do and I will do it first thing in the morning. But I would rather not discuss it further tonight, if you don't mind. I
am
enjoying this champagne. Where on earth did you get it? May I have another glass, do you think?'

‘Of course. Nandi?'

The Zulu girl did not respond. She was now sitting with head bowed, and as both Alice and Simon looked at her with concern, a teardrop rolled down her cheek, on to her chin and dropped on to her bare knee. She fumbled for a handkerchief, blew her nose and looked up with starry eyes. ‘I am sorry,' she said. ‘I am so sorry.'

Alice rose immediately and kneeled by Nandi's side, putting her arm around her shoulder and drawing her towards her. ‘My dear girl,' she said. ‘Whatever is the matter?'

Nandi shook her head. ‘It is nothing,' she said. ‘Please do not be concerned.'

‘No,' snorted Alice. ‘It is certainly not nothing, for you are clearly upset. Is it Simon? Has he been beastly to you?'

Nandi smiled through her tears and gently pushed Alice away. ‘Oh no. Of course not. I don't think Simon could be beastly to anyone.' Simon squirmed on his haunches and bit his lip. ‘No. It is no one. It is just that . . .' The tears came again and quickly this time so that she was forced to open the folds of the shred of handkerchief in an attempt to stifle them. ‘It is . . .' She frowned and now looked up at them both, almost accusingly. ‘What is going to happen to my country? What are you white people going to do with us all when you invade again, as you are now preparing to do, with Papa's help? Will you kill all of the Zulus - my family, my friends? What have we done to harm you?' The words were now tumbling out. ‘All we did was to defend ourselves when you invaded us. We killed a lot of white men in that big battle that day - but you killed more Zulus. You did that. The English. People like that big colonel in there who called me a damned half-breed.'

Nandi's face was tear-stained but her eyes burned with a fierce sincerity as she switched her gaze between them. Simon realised with a shock of guilt that inwardly he had always regarded Nandi as a European: a half-caste indeed, but one whose leanings were towards the white races and whose education and general upbringing had distanced her from the Zulu people with whom she lived. Now he perceived that he could not have been more wrong. Whatever her appearance and manners, her emotions and sympathies had been forged by her mother's family, not her father's - although his, too, now probably leaned that way.

He gulped and searched for words. But Alice, of course, was quicker. ‘My dear Nandi,' she said, leaning forward and taking both dark hands in her own. ‘We have been so insensitive and selfish, joking when you obviously had such deep concerns for your country. I . . . we . . . quite understand how you feel, and we both,' she shot a quick glance at Simon, who nodded vigorously, ‘share your feelings. People like Colonel Covington have been raised in a narrow environment - English public school, the army, you know the sort of thing - which means that they do not understand or even consider the rights of less well-educated people whom they think stand in the way of what I suppose they would call the “onward march of civilisation”, or something like that.'

Alice was now speaking earnestly and quickly and Simon dreaded that she was going to lapse into another of her lectures about the necessity for reform. Nandi needed something more than that at this stage.

But he need not have worried. With great solicitude, Alice produced a handkerchief of her own and began to wipe Nandi's cheeks.‘My dear girl,' she said, ‘there will be no slaughter of the Zulu people, I can promise you that.' She held up her hands as Nandi made to interrupt. ‘No. A general I am not, but I can promise you that. And there are several reasons why I can do so. Firstly, the British people would not tolerate it. We have a strong opposition to the Government in Parliament back home and there has already been much criticism of this invasion. Any gratuitous cruelty would not be countenanced.'

Simon sucked in his breath. That was all very well, but the British people, he surmised, would want revenge for what had already been described as a massacre at Isandlwana - and so would the army. He doubted if a dozen Gladstone speeches could prevent that revenge being taken. But he decided not to interrupt. Alice in full flood, anyhow, was not to be diverted.

‘The second reason is that the British Government will want to rebuild Zululand: to recreate some sort of non-military government of your people
by
your people, for we do not have sufficient bureaucrats to put into this land to govern it directly ourselves. We will need the co-operation of your chieftains and tribal heads, as we do in India. For that reason alone, there could be no widespread killings.' Alice was now leaning forward, her face gleaming in the firelight, her hands gripping those of Nandi fiercely to drive home her argument. Nandi was listening wide-eyed, her tongue protruding slightly between her lips. Simon thought with a sigh that both women looked deliciously desirable.

‘The third reason,' Alice continued, ‘is me - or rather people like me. As a result of Isandlwana, a whole contingent of journalists, newspaper writers, are travelling here from England to cover this campaign. If the coming invasion is brutal, then, I promise you, we shall report it and tell the whole world. The General Staff here knows that and will be very careful.'

Simon cleared his throat, and Alice looked across at him and suddenly sat back and released Nandi's hands. ‘Of course,' she said, lowering her eyes for a moment, ‘there will have to be another battle, I am afraid, and this will inevitably mean more casualties.' Simon nodded his head as Nandi looked at him, following Alice's eyes.

‘But,' and Alice shrugged her shoulders, ‘this
is
a war and the Zulu are very warlike people, you must admit that.'

Nandi nodded slowly and looked into the fire. ‘I hope you are right, Alice,' she said. She looked across at Simon again. ‘I am so tired of all this killing, you know. So tired.'

Simon scrambled across to Nandi and seized her hand. ‘Oh, so am I, Nandi,' he said. ‘So am I.'

Alice took the girl's other hand and the three of them sat silently, hand in hand, as the flames of the firelight sent shadows flickering and dancing around the clearing. George crept silently in with another bottle of champagne but the spell of jocular friendship had been broken and the three sat, half-full glasses in hand, staring into the flames as the air grew colder. Simon's thoughts turned back to Jenkins and to the prospect of life without his brave and resourceful companion. It was a cheerless prospect and he made no objection when Nandi stood and gave her farewells. He kissed her still damp cheek, and that of Alice, and in sombre mood the little party broke up.

 

Simon rose early in the morning, having slept the night in his prison quarters, and penned a long letter to his parents. Then he carefully dressed in what was left of his civilian clothes: worn corduroy breeches, bloodstained still from the assegai thrust sustained at Rorke's Drift; torn shirt; scuffed, down-at-heel riding boots; and the blue patrol jacket issued to him at Isandlwana. He then reported to the tent that was the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion and asked to see the commanding officer.

Covington looked up with interest when Simon was ushered in. His cynical smile turned to a scowl as he took in the young man's appearance. ‘You're a damned mess,' he exploded. ‘Why on earth aren't you in proper uniform?'

‘Because I prefer to wear these clothes,' said Simon, his hands in his pockets. ‘And there is no need to shout.'

‘What?' Covington rose to his feet. ‘How dare you talk to me like that? Consider yourself under arrest.'

‘I asked you not to shout,' replied Simon evenly. ‘I shall consider nothing of the kind.' He reached into his pocket, removed the letter he had written the day before and threw it on to the desk. ‘I am no longer under your jurisdiction - or that of anyone else, for that matter. This letter is my resignation from the regiment, taking effect immediately.'

Slowly Covington's glare relaxed, a half-smile began to play beneath the whiskers and he sat back in his chair, languidly cocking one leg over the armrest. ‘Ah, I see,' he drawled. ‘Still running away, eh, Fonthill?'

‘No, not running away. Running
to
. To freedom and to a life that does not include taking orders from mountebanks like you. If by some chance our paths do cross again, I suggest that you keep well out of my way. It seems that I am no coward after all and I should warn you that I have learned to handle an assegai quite well.'

Covington's eyebrows rose. ‘Strong words from a man who usually lets a woman talk for him. Very well, Fonthill, creep away. I am sorry that I shall not have the opportunity of breaking you, but no doubt someone else will. Be off with you.'

‘Oh no. Not quite yet. There are several things I want from you.'

‘Damn you. You'll get nothing from me.'

‘Indeed I will. First of all, I want a month's pay. I need to draw from the battalion's paymaster some cash against my salary banked in Cape Town. Secondly, I need fresh clothes - mufti hunting gear will do. I know that the stores have it. Then I need a Martini-Henry and a service revolver with ammunition, a bedroll and a horse, together with a saddle, bridle, and so on. I have noted these needs down here as an instruction to the QM,' he threw the paper on to the table, ‘and it only requires your signature. I will give you a receipt.'

Covington's eyes narrowed. ‘You can go to hell.'

‘No, not there. I shall go to Lord Chelmsford. I understand that he is already upset by the fuss you caused by calling this court martial on what turned out to be completely false charges, and he will not be amused to hear of the way in which you interfered with and delayed the delivery of my message back to Colonel Lamb. I shall call the Adjutant to give evidence that you threw my messenger into the guardroom for two days.'

Simon kept his eyes fixed on Covington's. ‘If I don't get what I want, I shall relay to the C-in-C the full story of that interference and of your persecution of me. As it is, I doubt if His Lordship, with all of his other troubles at this time, is going to take kindly to the Horse Guards' reaction when they read the account of the court martial in the
Morning Post
. And the court martial, after all,
was
your idea, was it not?' He sighed, histrionically. ‘Oh dear. I shall make an awful nuisance of myself . . .'