The Shangani Patrol (28 page)

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Authors: John Wilcox

BOOK: The Shangani Patrol
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A silence fell on the circle once more. It was broken by a question from Mzingeli. ‘How long we away?’
 
Fonthill nodded at the question’s relevance. ‘I just don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe six, maybe nine months. I can’t be sure. It depends upon so many things, in particular the terrain and our welcome or otherwise from the tribes.’
 
Mzingeli translated quickly for Joshua.
 
‘Is this all right for him?’ asked Alice.
 
The tracker smiled his slow smile. ‘He say he go where I go.’
 
‘Oh, there’s cosy then, isn’t it,’ said Jenkins. ‘I’ll come with you as well.’
 
‘Now,’ Fonthill pointed again at the map, ‘it’s a hell of a long way, but I have worked out what we need for provisions, and by the look of it, Fairbairn can provide virtually all we want, particularly native presents.’ His face slipped into a frown. ‘I am afraid that we must be prepared for anything, and the man has some old Sniders that should be all right for the boys to use if they have to, so I have bought them. Can you give them shooting lessons, 352?’
 
‘Of course.’
 
The silence returned, to be broken, inevitably, by Jenkins. ‘Do you think you could spare just a drop more?’ he asked, holding out his empty mug. In fact, they all - except for Joshua - took one more drink before, deep in thought, they retired to sleep.
 
The next three days were spent in steady preparation for their journey. Thinking of the possible dangers, Fonthill ensured that every morning Jenkins took Joshua and the four Kaffir boys, together with their Sniders, away from the kraal to teach them target practice, speed reloading and rifle care. Their new skills could be vital in the weeks to come. As he watched, however, he became more concerned than ever about the perils that almost certainly lay ahead. So few riflemen against Gouela - and who else? He shrugged his shoulders. They were committed now and they must just prepare as best they could.
 
Alice continued her evening visits to the king. Concerned that rheumatism was affecting the royal joints, she added sweet spirits of nitre and quinine to Lobengula’s daily dosage. She had also acquired a second patient. The cattle thief had made a good recovery and was now taking his place in looking after his family. Alice showed his wife how to change the dressing on his stump, left her a precious supply of bandage, padding and a little antiseptic, and recommended, through Mzingeli, that they leave Bulawayo to be away from the king.
 
On the eve of their own departure, she found Lobengula in a particularly melancholy mood as she completed his treatment.
 
‘You don’t go on this bad journey,’ he said.
 
Alice, methodically packing away her bottles, shook her head and smiled. ‘I must,’ she said. ‘I am not really a doctor, as you know, and I must accompany my husband.’
 
The king growled. ‘I need you here. I am getting better. You help me. You stay. He not need you as I need you.’
 
‘No, sir. I must go.’
 
‘I pay you to stay. I give you cattle and little house. Wait here until Fonthill come back.’
 
Alice frowned. There was a note of angry anxiety in the king’s tone, and a warning light flashed in her brain. She remembered only too clearly the blood gushing from the thief’s forearm. The jocular, beaming monarch could change into a despot immediately he was crossed. She must be careful.
 
‘Your majesty has sixty-three wives,’ she said slowly, anxious that Mzingeli should translate every nuance. ‘That means that you have much love and care. Because of our custom, my husband only has one wife. He needs me and I must be with him. Now, I do believe that your condition is improving and that your foot will recover if you take the medicine I leave with you and change your diet and drinking habits. The choice is yours.’
 
She allowed herself a smile after this homily. ‘We expect to be away only about six months. Then I shall return to see how you have progressed. It will not seem long. But then, of course, I must return with my husband to our own homeland. The king will understand that, I know.’
 
But there was no answering smile from Lobengula. ‘You go now,’ he said shortly.
 
Bowing, Alice picked up her bag and left.
 
Outside, she mopped her brow. ‘I think that the sooner we leave, the better,’ she said to the tracker.
 
Mzingeli nodded. ‘King is now . . . what is word . . . depending on you. That is bad. He has everything he want here. Now he want you.’
 
‘Well he can’t bloody well have me.’ She tucked away a stray lock of blond hair. ‘He is a petulant bully. He has to learn that he can’t have everything he wants in this world. Good God - he’s got sixty-three wives already. He mustn’t be too greedy.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Mzingeli, I have never asked you. Do you have a wife or . . . er . . . perhaps more, at home?’
 
The tall man shook his head slowly. ‘One wife,’ he said, ‘but she die ten years ago.’
 
‘Oh, I am sorry. Children?’
 
‘Two. They die also.’
 
‘Oh dear.’ She felt a warm surge of affection for this quiet, resourceful man with whom they had already shared moments of great danger. She touched his arm. ‘I think I know how you must feel.’ They walked in silence for a moment. Then, ‘Come on. If we are leaving tomorrow, we still have much to do.’
 
The next morning, the expedition was ready to leave and Fonthill, Alice and Mzingeli called on the king early to bid him goodbye. They found him clothed only in his waist circle of monkey skins, sitting on his cart under the great tree and in a surprisingly avuncular mood. Bowing, Simon asked him if he would accept the wagons and the remaining oxen as a parting present.
 
‘Good,’ said Lobengula. ‘I add to my herd. You come back soon and we drink beer together.’
 
‘How is the foot this morning, your majesty?’ enquired Alice.
 
The king gave an airy wave. ‘Ah, foot is nothing. I can live with bad foot.’
 
Alice and Simon exchanged glances. ‘Then,’ said Simon, ‘I will bid the king goodbye and thank him for his hospitality and many courtesies.’
 
‘Good travel. Go well. My heart is white for you.’
 
The couple nodded their heads low at this traditional, warm farewell and left the king’s dwelling - perhaps for the last time.
 
They set out as the sun crested the hill above the kraal, sending their shadows stretching along the ground to their left as they headed to the north-east. Fonthill had decided reluctantly that the rough nature of the terrain ahead precluded the use of horses, and he left them behind in the care of Fairbairn. He and Mzingeli now strode ahead in the lead, followed by Alice and then Jenkins. Behind them came the five mules, heavily laden with their provisions and kept moving by the urgings of Joshua and the four Kaffir boys.
 
It was a fine, bright morning, but Fonthill felt no elation. To Mashonaland - but then where? To slavers, swamps and, somewhere, the Portuguese, de Sousa? He gulped, but set his jaw and lengthened his stride.
 
Chapter 11
 
Initially, Fonthill set off aiming for the range of high hills that sat on the horizon to the north-east of Bulawayo. These formed the watershed for a fistful of rivers flowing north into the Zambezi and also south into the Limpopo, but they looked formidable so he tacked to the north to avoid them and skirted around until on their fifth day they approached a singular mountain called, by some lone Englishman years before, Mount Hampden. Here he set course due east, and then they felt that they were in Mashonaland proper.
 
Now the country was indeed magnificent: league after league of rolling plain, a grassy vista dotted with clumps of trees and bush, interspersed with the mighty baobab tree, whose pods, Alice had earlier established in Cape Town, contained liquid that was both thirst-quenching and fever-curing. The visibility was clear and the air was good, despite the heat.
 
The little party’s demeanour had changed gradually as the journey had progressed. As Bulawayo, with its potential threat from de Sousa, the king and his impis, dropped well behind them and the country opened out, so their mood lightened. The few Mashonas they met were curious but diffident and clearly offered no threat. Game, if not exactly plentiful, was on offer and they feasted for two days on the meat from two impala that Jenkins shot.
 
They did not press hard, for in anticipation of hard times ahead, Fonthill was anxious to preserve their energies. So day followed pleasant day. ‘If Rhodes wants to build his road this way,’ Simon confided to his wife, ‘then I can’t see what there is to stop him. But more to the point, we could farm here, darling,’ he added. ‘Good soil, plenty of water from these little rivers and the grass looks sweet. What do you think?’
 
Alice tried to prevent a smile, but her husband’s enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have to agree that it all looks very fine, and the air is good, too. But settlements here would very much depend upon the king, surely. Building a road and making the odd excavation for gold or copper is one thing. Letting in people to farm is very much another.’
 
Fonthill reached across and seized his wife’s hand. ‘Oh don’t be such a grouch, darling. Old Lobengula would certainly let
you
in. One wave of your hypodermic thingummyjig and thousands of acres would be ours. But one thing is certain. There is no one else here farming the land or making the most of it. It’s just lying gloriously fallow.’
 
And indeed it was. The local Mashonas lived in small, isolated villages and the few cattle they seemed to possess grazed in enclosed paddocks close to their wickerwork houses. Only wild game roamed the open plateau.
 
‘Lions,’ said Mzingeli quietly. But no one heard him.
 
As they pressed on to the east, however, the terrain became less hospitable. The land was now an ochre red, and as they dropped down from the plateau, the going became less hard underfoot. They had to cross more spruits and, importantly, the bush became thicker. For the first time, they decided to set up some form of protection for their camps overnight.
 
Mzingeli explained that, in addition to lions, this could be buffalo and elephant country, and showed them how to make a scarum for the camp. This involved cutting large boughs or stakes and driving them into the ground on the windward side to form a semicircle capable of containing the whole party, mules and all. Then small bushes were cut and interwoven into the boughs, making a hedge some nine feet high, capable of withstanding a large shock, on three sides of the encampment. At the open end, wood was stacked and fires lit at night. They all slept out of doors, cutting grass to form a mattress with a blanket laid on top. Saddles or spare clothes were used as pillows.
 
Some four weeks after leaving Bulawayo, as they sat near their roaring fire, Fonthill consulted his compass and the map that Fairbairn had provided. ‘I have no scale for this damned thing,’ he confided to Alice, Jenkins and Mzingeli, ‘but I reckon that we have left the Matabele kingdom now and are well out of Mashonaland. We should be somewhere in this area of small tribes and therefore not far from the border with Portuguese East Africa.’
 
‘Strange that we have not seen any natives,’ said Alice.
 
‘They here,’ murmured Mzingeli.
 
‘What?’ Jenkins looked perturbed. ‘I ’aven’t seen a damned thing.’
 
‘No.’ The tracker nodded to the bush pressing in on them all around. ‘They watch us. I see. I think they frightened of us.’
 
‘Why?’
 
‘Perhaps they think we slavers.’
 
Fonthill frowned, mindful of Rhodes’s injunction to befriend the tribes. ‘Well I would like to make contact. Can you speak their language, do you think?’
 
‘Not well, but I try if they come.’
 
‘How can we make them come?’
 
The tracker shrugged his shoulders. If he had nothing to say, he rarely spoke.
 
‘Right.’ Fonthill stood. ‘We will stay here all tomorrow. Tonight we will put a few of the trade goods just outside the opening. Let’s see if that will induce them to come forward, although . . .’ he looked around and wrinkled his nose, ‘I don’t think this is the best country for laying down a new road, I must say. But perhaps we can discover if the terrain is better elsewhere, if they will talk to us, that is.’
 
Before retiring to his blanket, Fonthill hung a few brightly coloured lengths of cotton fabric, two axes and some copper trinkets on the edge of their scarum.

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