The Shangani Patrol (36 page)

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Authors: John Wilcox

BOOK: The Shangani Patrol
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‘Ah yes. Sorry about that - an’ I was worried that we might ’it you an’ that’s why I shouted. Mind you,’ he sniffed, ‘my shootin’ wasn’t the best it’s ever been. I managed to pot quite a few of the black fellers, see, but I missed old Saucepot again, dammit. Only got ’im in the arm, so that’s two lives ’e owes me. I’ll get ’im next time, though.’
 
‘No. I think he’s reserved for me.’ Fonthill looked up as smoke once again drifted down across the clearing. ‘Right. It looks as though the lads have done that job. Let us go. We must find Alice.’
 
Jenkins laid a hand on his arm. ‘’Ere, ’alf a mo. What if old Yellow Pants ’as taken ’er?’
 
‘I’ve thought of that. If he had got her, he would surely have exhibited her to me in delight. And if he had . . .’ he gulped, ‘already killed her, he wouldn’t have taken her bed. Above all that, as I’ve said before, there is no way he could have overtaken us in the bush and arrived at the scarum before us. If he had, he would have waited and ambushed us on arrival. No.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Someone else has taken her. But they have left a good spoor and we must get on our way and catch them.’
 
Jenkins sniffed. ‘That’s all very well, but you’ve been carved about a bit and ’ad a fair old bump on the ’ead, an’ with respect, bach sir, I don’t see you doin’ much forced marchin’ for long, see.’
 
‘Nonsense. I can march. Come on.’
 
But Jenkins was right. They made what progress they could through the bush, yet everyone was tired, and when eventually Fonthill collapsed, there was almost an air of relief. They carried him into a glade and made him as comfortable as possible, and took turns to stand guard through the day. The next morning, Simon was clearly delirious and moving into a fever. Mzingeli carefully examined the cuts on his chest and declared that there would be no marching that day. Instead, he dug into the earth until he found what he wanted, some strange-looking, bulbous roots. He made a small fire, carefully disseminating the smoke, and boiled the roots in the only kettle they had. Then he mashed them into a paste with a rifle butt, spread them on to a couple of leaves from a baobab tree and tied them to his patient’s chest. Lastly, he took a couple of baobab buds, crushed them and forced Fonthill to drink the resulting liquid.
 
The next morning, Simon awoke clear-eyed and with no sign of fever. ‘You’re a bloody marvel,’ said Jenkins, and patted the tracker on the back. Mzingeli just shrugged.
 
During this enforced stop, Jenkins had posted guards on a rota back in the bush the way they had come, but there was no sign of pursuit. It looked indeed as though the Portuguese and his men had been forced to flee and lick their wounds. So they set off again, this time at a slightly reduced pace to allow Fonthill time to recover fully.
 
However, they were soon confronted with what seemed a virtually impossible hurdle. The trail, so clearly marked and which they had been following so assiduously, now suddenly branched into three. ‘Clever bastards,’ cried Fonthill. ‘Mzingeli, can you tell which one would have been carrying the litter?’
 
The tracker frowned. While the rest of the party waited impatiently, he carefully and slowly walked down each of the three spoors a little way, sometimes bending to inspect a piece of grass or the edge of a footprint in a patch of dust. Then he returned.
 
‘Cannot tell,’ he said. ‘I go a longer way now down each spoor. This will take time. You wait.’
 
Fonthill shouted a curse. ‘We are already behind by about four bloody days,’ he cried. Then he regained his composure. ‘Yes, of course, Mzingeli. Do what you can and take your time. We will wait here.’
 
But the tracker returned within ten minutes, holding out his hand and indulging in his joyful half-smile. ‘Nkosana leave these,’ he said. ‘Very clever lady.’ And he handed three gout pills to Simon.
 
‘What . . . ?’ Fonthill examined the little white capsules. ‘Gout pills. What the hell could they . . . Ah!’ He slapped his thigh with delight. ‘Of course. Why didn’t I think of this before? It’s old Lobengula! He’s sent half a bloody impi or whatever to take her back to Bulawayo to treat his damned gout. It all fits - not caring about the rifles, the tents or the mules, but taking her bed and Joshua to look after her. The old devil!’
 
Jenkins nodded. ‘His worship might have left us a note or somethin’. It would ’ave saved us a lot of worry an’ trouble, wouldn’t it?’
 
Fonthill’s relief was etched into his face. ‘Well, Alice left us a note of sorts. It means that she’s being looked after and she will be safe with his men, even with Gouela on the rampage.’
 
‘Do we take it a bit easier, then?’ asked Jenkins. ‘Now that we know which way we’re goin’, like.’
 
‘No. We carry on following the trail. I want to catch them up. And when we get to Bulawayo, the king is going to get a piece of my mind and . . .’ He broke off as a disturbing thought struck him and he turned to Mzingeli. ‘Could somebody just have taken her bag and the pills simply dropped out, do you think?’
 
The tracker shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. Pills not in little pile. Dropped regular. A trail to show us way. Clever lady. Perhaps she do this earlier but we missed in dark.’
 
‘Yes. Bless her. Now, you found the pills on this trail?’ He pointed.
 
Mzingeli nodded his head. Fonthill produced his compass, squinted at it and consulted the much-folded map from his pack. ‘Yes, it is to the north-west, roughly in the direction where Bulawayo lies.’ He nodded his head, relief etched into his face. ‘That settles it. They are taking her back to the king.’
 
‘So we don’t need to rush about like blue-arsed flies tryin’ to catch up, then?’ Jenkins’s question was more of a plea for mercy.
 
‘Oh yes we do.’ The frown had returned to Fonthill’s face. ‘Knowing Alice, she might very well tell the king to go to hell, and he could lose his temper and . . . and . . . anything might happen. I want to catch them up, if we can, before they reach Bulawayo.’
 
‘But think about it, bach sir. They’ve got about five days’ start on us, you said so yourself. We’ll never catch them.’
 
‘We might. If they’ve taken Alice’s bed, then she’ll be on it and they’ll have to carry her and it. Whether she’s able to or not, she will not leave that bed. She’ll do everything she can to delay them. We should be able to move faster. Come on. Up, everybody. Take the north-west spoor.’
 
So they pressed on, no longer attempting to increase their pace by breaking into jog trots from time to time, for Fonthill, at least, could not sustain that effort. But they made good time, particularly once they had broken out of the bush country into the more open high veldt of what was now clearly Mashonaland. Here the signs of the passage of the Matabele party were less distinct, but Fonthill had set a compass course for them, removing the necessity to rely on Mzingeli’s tracking skills, and he estimated that they were covering perhaps twenty miles a day. They must, he argued, be closing the gap. The pace could not be maintained, however, not least because Simon had by no means completely recovered from his treatment at the hands of de Sousa, and they were forced to take longer spells of rest at midday.
 
Fonthill was also showing the signs of the deprivations of the last two months. The years of peaceful farming in Norfolk had added flesh to what had always been a rather sparse frame, but all that had disappeared shortly after their arrival in Africa, and the recent fighting and forced marching had now left him gaunt and as taut as a bowstring. The threat of losing Alice had weighed heavily on his imagination and his conscience, and he was now hollow-eyed and drawn-a driven man, pushing himself and his party to the limits.
 
Nevertheless, they were now nearing the end of their stocks of biltong, and most of one day had perforce to be devoted to allowing Mzingeli to stalk and kill an impala. It gave them not only fresh meat and the chance to replenish their biltong, but also a blessed day’s rest. The enforced break impelled Fonthill to consider his position vis-à-vis Lobengula and Cecil John Rhodes. He did so even while realising that his mind was perhaps not in its most balanced state to rationalise and draw conclusions. But his chest still hurt like hell and the muscles of his legs told him that there was now a limit to how fast and how far he could walk in a day.
 
So, sitting and chewing on the last of the biltong, he resolved that if the king had harmed Alice in any way, then he would kill the man. Life would not be worth living without his wife, and his act would show to the world that even the most powerful despot in Africa could not behave like a barbarian without attracting the consequences. If, however, he found Alice alive and unharmed, then he would have no more of this surrogate adventuring for Cecil John Rhodes. This strange millionaire would have to do his own exploring in future. Alice had never wished to come on this journey, and now she was being forced to suffer because of her husband’s own arrogance and selfishness. No, he resolved, she would do whatever she wished now, and he would meekly follow her desires, even if it meant going back to sowing more wheat in flat bloody Norfolk!
 
The next day, their stomachs full and hopes renewed by the promise of another day of blue sky and scurrying snowball puffs of cloud, they set off as soon as the sun appeared over the hills behind them. It was towards the end of the day when they glimpsed a party of warriors trotting across the plain towards them.
 
Fonthill ordered a halt and they formed a square, their rifles at the ready. ‘Who are they, do you think, Mzingeli? They don’t look like Mashonas.’
 
The tracker shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘They black blades,’ he said. ‘Matabele. They coming straight for us.’
 
Chapter 14
 
It was Fairbairn who told Alice that her husband had been found and was at that moment approaching the king’s kraal. She immediately hurried to wash her face and comb her hair, then ran - for her leg had now completely healed - to meet Simon. She saw the party walking slowly down the hill, past the first thorn hedge, still accompanied by the platoon of warriors, who were anxious to reap the approval of the king for so successfully accomplishing their mission, but also by the usual cacophony of dogs and children barking and singing.
 
Alice strode forward to meet them and opened her arms in greeting. She could not help but release a sob, for Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli now resembled scarecrows, their clothes torn, their bodies thin and, in the case of Simon and 352, wearing unkempt beards. Their eyes, however, were bright, and Simon, holding her close, whispered, ‘Are you all right? They’ve not hurt you?’
 
‘No, of course not. Now you are back I am perfectly fine.’
 
She made them all break away from their escort and walked them to her hut, where Joshua - and Ntini also - greeted them with a warmth that only diminished when they realised that just three of the boys, their friends and contemporaries, had returned. Alice made the two build a fire and she busied herself with boiling water so that they could all wash, including the boys. Then she made tea and they sat around the fire drinking it while she and Fonthill exchanged their stories.
 
Simon and his party had only been gone an hour, she explained, when about sixty warriors had descended on the camp. They had been led by an
inDuna
and at first she had been terrified, helpless and crippled as she was, because they were painted as for war and carried assegais. Joshua had whispered that they were Matabele, and when she shouted - through the boy - that her husband and his party would be back within minutes, their purpose became clear. They had gently pushed her back on to the bed, put blankets over her, bundled a change of clothes into her pack, picked up the bed and her medicine bag and jogged away into the bush, Joshua being forced to trot with them.
 
She was clearly being kidnapped, for there had been no attempt to take her rifle or other items that would have been attractive to natives. But the medicine bag had been a priority, and it was now being carried with care by a warrior just ahead of her litter. Her attempts to put a foot to the ground had been firmly resisted, but no extreme force had been used and it was evident that she was not to be harmed.
 
It did not take long for her to speculate that she was being taken to Bulawayo so that she could continue her treatment of the king’s foot. She had been sure that Mzingeli could follow the signs that so large a party would make through the bush, but she had been able to take a few of the gout pills from her bag and drop them to indicate where they would be heading. She had saved her last three pills, and it was well that she had done so, for she had used them to indicate which of the three trails she had taken when the party split up.
 
Simon nodded. ‘Clever girl,’ he said. ‘This finally confirmed to us where you were heading and who had taken you. We felt much better after that. But you must have been in great pain being jolted about on that litter.’

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