Hurriedly Lothar tethered the mule, and reloading the rifle as he ran, headed for the dying camp-fire. One of the troopers, aroused by the escaping horses even from his drunken stupor, was on his feet, staggering determinedly towards the stockade.
The horses, he was screaming. Come on you drunken thunders! We have to stop the horses! He saw Lothar. Help me! The horses, Lothar lifted the butt of the Mauser under his chin. The trooper's teeth clicked together and he sat down in the sand and then slowly toppled over backwards again. Lothar stepped over him and ran forward.
Pig John! he called urgently. Where are you? There was no reply and he went past the fire to the inert figure he had seen from the lookout. He rolled it over with his foot, and Pig John looked up at the moon with sightless eyes and a tranquil smile on his wrinkled yellow face.
Up! Lothar kicked him with a full swing of the boot. Pig John's smile did not waver. He was far past any pain. All right, I warned you! Lothar worked the Mauser's bolt and flicked over the safety-catch with his thumb. He put the muzzle of the rifle to Pig John's head. If he was handed over to the police alive it would take only a few strokes of the hippo-hide sjambok whip to get Pig John talking. Though he did not know the full details of the plan, he knew enough to ruin their chances and to put Lothar on the wanted list for horse-theft and the destruction of army property. He took up the slack in the trigger of the Mauser.
It's too good for him, he thought grimly. He should be flogged to death. But his finger relaxed, and he swore at himself for his own foolishness as he flipped the safety-catch and ran back to fetch the mule.
Even though Pig John was a skinny little man, it took all of Lothar's strength to swing his relaxed rubbery body over the mule's back. He hung there like a piece of laundry on the drying line, arms and legs dangling on opposite sides.
Lothar leapt up behind him, whipped the mule into his top gait, a laboured lumbering trot, and steered him directly down the wind.
After a mile Lothar thought he must have missed them, and slowed the mule just as Hendrick stepped out of the moon shadows ahead of him.
How goes it? How many did you get? Lothar called anxiously, and Hendrick laughed.
So many we ran out of halters. once each of his men had captured one of the escaped horses, he had gone up on its bare back and cut off the bunches of fleeing animals, turning them and holding them while Manfred ran in and slipped the halters over their heads.
Twenty-six! Lothar exulted as he counted the strings of roped horses. We'll be able to pick and choose. He tempered his own jubilation. All right, we'll move out right away.
The army will be after us as soon as they can get troops up here. He slipped the halter off the mule's head and slapped his rump. Thank you, old fellow, he said. You can get on back home. The mule accepted the offer with alacrity and actually managed to gallop the first hundred yards of his homeward journey.
Each of them picked a horse and mounted bareback with a string of three or four loose horses behind him, and Lothar led them back towards the rock shelter in the hills.
At dawn they paused briefly while Lothar checked over each of the stolen horses. Two had been injured in the melee in the stockade and he turned them loose. The others were of such fine quality and condition that he could not choose between them though they had many more than they required.
While they were sorting the horses Pig John regained consciousness and sat up weakly. He muttered prayers to his ancestors and Hottentot gods for a release from his suffering and then vomited a painful gush of vile brandy.
You and I still have business to settle, Lothar promised him unsmilingly, then turned to Hendrick. We'll take all these horses. We are certain to lose some in the desert. Then he raised his right arm in the cavalry command: Move out! They reached the rock shelter a little before noon, but they paused only to load the waiting pack-saddles onto the spare horses and then each of them chose a mount and saddled up. They led the horses down the hill and watered them, allowing them to drink their fill.
How much of a start do we have? Hendrick asked.
The coloured troopers can do nothing without their white officers and it might take them two or three days to get back. They will have to telegraph Windhoek for orders, and then they will have to make up a patrol. I'd say three days at least, more likely four or five. We can go a long way in three days, Hendrick said with satisfaction.
Nobody can go further, Lothar agreed. It was a fact not a boast.
The desert was his dominion. Few white men knew it as well as he, and none better.
Shall we mount up? Hendrick asked.
One more chore. Lothar took the spare leather reins out of his saddle-bag and looped them over his right wrist with the brass buckles hanging to his ankles as he crossed to where Pig John sat miserably in the shade of the riverbank with his face buried in his hands. in his extremity he did not hear Lothar's tread in the soft sand until he stood over him.
I promised you, Lothar told him flatly, and shook out the heavy leather thongs.
Master, I could not help it, shrieked Pig John and he tried to scramble to his feet.
Lothar swung the thongs and the brass buckles blurred in a bright arc in the sunlight. The blow caught Pig John around the back and the buckles snapped around his ribs and gouged out a groove in his flesh below the armpit.
Pig John howled. They forced me. They made me drink The next blow knocked him off his feet. He kept screaming, although now the words were no longer coherent, and the leathers cracked on his yellow skin, the weals rising in thick shiny ridges and turning purple-red as ripe grape-skins.
The sharp buckles shredded his shirt as though it had been torn off him by lion's claws, and the sand clotted his blood into wet balls as it dribbled into the riverbed.
He stopped screaming at last and Lothar stood back panting and wiped the wet red leather thongs on a saddle cloth and looked at the faces of his men. The beating had been for them as much as for the man curled at his feet. They were wild dogs and they understood only strength, respected only cruelty.
Hendrick spoke for them all. He was paid a fair price.
Shall I finish him? No! Leave a horse for him. Lothar turned away. When he comes round he can follow us, or he can go to hell where he belongs. He swung up into the saddle of his own mount and avoided his son's stricken eyes as he raised his voice. All right, we are moving out. He rode with long stirrups in the Boer fashion, slouched down comfortably in the saddle, and Hendrick pushed his mount up on one side of him and Manfred on the other.
Lothar felt elated; the adrenalin of violence was like a drug in his blood still and the open desert lay ahead of him.
With the taking of the horses he had crossed the frontier of law, he was an outlaw once again, free of society's restraint, and he felt his spirit towering on high like a hunting falcon.
By God. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a rifle in my hand and a good horse between my legs. We are men once again, Hendrick agreed, and leaned across to embrace Manfred. You too. Your father was your age when he and I first rode out to war. We are going to war again. You are a man as he was. And Manfred forgot the spectacle he had just witnessed and swelled with pride at being counted in this company. He sat up straight in the saddle and lifted his chin.
Lothar turned his face into the north-east, towards the hinterland where the vast Kalahari brooded, and led them away.
That night while they camped in a deep gorge which shielded the light of their small fire, the sentinel roused them with a low whistle.
They rolled out of their blankets, snatched up their rifles and slipped away into the darkness.