Warrior

Somervile arched an eyebrow.

They were halted on yet another of the hilltops which afforded an outlook of half a mile or so to the next; except that now before them was the seat of the king of the Zulu. The kraal was vast, encompassing both valley and hillside. How many huts were contained within its enormous perimeter, he could not estimate (Isaacs had said a thousand, but he could have believed it twice that number). In the centre lay the great cattle byre, empty at this time of day, but five times, at least, the size of that at the Fasimba kraal. And beyond, on the highest point of the hillside, like the dome of the Roman Pantheon, was Shaka's ndlunkulu, palace-hut. The whole kraal, indeed, radiated a brooding regal presence – something in the scale of it, the enclosing, subduing, of so immense an area of wilderness, and yet where Nature should be the pre-eminent savage force. Hervey had seen many a place where the walls were taller, wider, longer, but they did not stand out as remarkably as here, because even in the empty tracts, in India, or Spain, they stood in a landscape which belonged unquestionably to man. The very primitiveness of this place made it somehow more powerful.

' "And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness." '

'I mark well enough the passage, Hervey,' replied Somervile, sinking back into the saddle. 'But I would put no store by Joshua's stratagem here. Shaka would not be tempted from such a fastness, I think.'

'I fear that if we are drawn into its depth. . .'

'Surely your spirit is not failing you, Colonel?'

'It is not. But neither is my reason.'

There was another cause of his disquiet, however. Hervey's scheme required some degree of adroitness on the part of Brereton in holding his troop aloof but in contact with the Rifles. With Welsh's men drawn deep into the kraal, it would be hard enough for the best of officers to judge this rightly.

Somervile was not inclined to see much hazard in entering. Indeed, he saw their vulnerability as a positive advantage, for was not this Shaka a king? He would receive a delegation from a fellow king with the utmost correctness. They would have ample time to withdraw if he showed displeasure, and under the natural laws which protected such a delegation; for not to allow them such rights would surely risk undermining his own status in the eyes of his people?

Hervey conceded the logic, and was by no means reluctant in doing so; all that he had heard did indeed suggest that Shaka could behave with the most kingly decorum. Supposing, that is, that Shaka was not insane. 'Might we not first test the water, so to speak: draw up the troop and have Shaka inspect them – but outside the kraal?'

'I think not, Hervey. I see that it might serve, but if we are bidden to the royal quarters then we have no alternative but to accede. It would be folly otherwise, even to hesitate, for that might show us fearful, or give mortal offence. I am persuaded that we must trust to the normal usages of diplomacy.'

Hervey, sighing deeply but to himself, acknowledged the order with a touch to his shako peak.

Dukuza, regal as it appeared from that first vantage point, took on a meaner aspect as they came closer. It was not merely that its construction was so primitive, lacking fine craft and ennobling colour, it was the abounding image and odour of death. The whitened bones of all manner of beasts, the carcasses of slaughtered cattle and game picked over by the scavengers of the bush, lay scattered for a quarter of a mile, and the skulls of elephants, on poles, marked the processional way to the sango. But the true horror was human not animaclass="underline" the impalings, hundreds of them, like crucifixions along the Appian Way. Hervey had seen much carnage, and every dragoon had seen the gibbet at the crossroads, but here was a veritable religion of death. The column fell into a deep silence.

A furlong from the sango, Hervey held up a hand. 'This will serve.'

Somervile reined to a halt. He surveyed the ground, and sighed. 'The heathen in his blindness!'

'What?'

He turned to his old friend. ' "From Greenland's icy mountains", Hervey. You were singing to yourself, were you not?'

Hervey looked at him, almost perturbed. 'Beneath my breath, or so I'd thought.'

'We have known each other for a long time.'

'Indeed.' He broke into a smile.

Somervile shook his head as he turned once more to the prospect before them. 'A charnel house. Was there ever such a processional! I confess it troubles me.'

'You are not contemplating withdrawal?'

Somervile paused before answering. 'I am not. I am merely contemplating the meaning of it.'

Hervey was accustomed to the frequent ellipses in his old friend's manner of speaking. Ordinarily he was not troubled by it, but in the face of a potentially hostile multitude, he was not inclined to humour him long. 'Do I have your permission to deploy the troop into line?'

'Do you need it?'

Hervey sighed again, and with some consternation. 'I do not need it when it is a matter of military necessity, but I see no cause to deploy if you are to tell me you have no intention of proceeding!'

Somervile did not answer immediately, looking long at the kraal. 'I do not wish you to come in with me,' he said abruptly. 'Eggs, baskets . . .'

'Insupportable,' replied Hervey at once.

The lieutenant-governor turned to him. 'I need hardly add that I may make it an order. You shall have it in writing if that is what troubles you.'

Hervey blinked. 'Somervile, you're speaking to me, not to someone new-come from the Horse Guards!'

'I know that,' replied his old friend calmly. 'That is why I cannot have you come into the kraal with me. If anything should happen . . .'

'May I remind you that it is on the assumption that something might happen that you are furnished with an escort, which I have the honour of commanding. And strictly speaking, I'm not sure that any but General Bourke could relieve me of that duty.'

Somervile began to look resigned. 'I had merely thought . . . I have Emma, and the children, you are but new married, and . . .'

Hervey cursed. Did Somervile not imagine that he, too, had such thoughts from time to time? But then he chided himself: Somervile had so often shown both appetite and aptitude for the soldier's art that it was too easy to imagine he was of the profession.

'Come,' he said, resolved. 'Let my dragoons make a bit of a splash along this ridge, and we shall walk under their gaze into the lion's den.'

Somervile turned and looked at him, studiously. 'The lion's den?' Hervey returned his gaze, but quizzical. 'A not uncommon figurative expression. And that is what his name means, does it not? Shaka – lion?'

Somervile's brow furrowed beneath the peak of his straw hat, but his eyes displayed his incredulity just as surely. 'Where did you learn that?'

'I don't rightly recall. I . . .'

'I'm disappointed, Hervey. As a rule you have such a facility with native tongues.'

Hervey sighed, conceding his error. 'Evidently not in that of the Zulu. Shaka is not a word for "lion"?'