Warrior

Somervile held up a hand to stay his tirade. 'They are blameless, I assure you. Each of them – your admirable Serjeant-Major Collins, too – protested most vehemently, but in the end I ordered them to desist.'

Hervey shifted painfully, having allowed himself to lean on the wound too heavily. 'Somervile, my dear old friend, and again with the very greatest of respect, you are not entitled to issue orders in such a way. Theirs is the responsibility for your safeguard, and you cannot absolve them of it.'

The lieutenant-governor shook his head solemnly. 'I know it; I know it. But in truth I was so greatly affeard that you were . . . well, I thought it possible you might be captive, and I could not rest if I had done otherwise than I did.'

Hervey sighed. Somervile had divided into three the already divided little force, but he had done so to search for him, and at grave risk to himself. 'When did you come here? Is Ngwadi gathering his warriors?' he asked, almost softly.

'Yesterday, in the morning. Ngwadi was at once incensed by the news of Shaka's murder. He has sent messengers to all his kraals for the army to assemble. They are about five thousand, but they're stood down for the sowing. He says it will be a week before they can all assemble. And then he will march at once on Mbopa.'

'And what if Mbopa should come with his army before they are assembled? When is Fairbrother bidden here?'

'I ordered him to remain at Nonoti when he was come from Dukuza. Ngwadi will first march thither . . . What is the matter with your shoulder?'

Hervey began flexing it to relieve the ache. 'It is well enough – merely a brush with a leopard.'

'I will have my physician see it,' replied Somervile, rising.

'No, permit him finish first with Pampata's wounds; she is very ill worn.'

'I saw as much. A remarkable woman, I hazard.'

Hervey stubbed out the cheroot and made to rise. 'Somervile, she is one of the finest women I ever met.'

His old friend, for all his earlier self-absorption, heard the catch in Hervey's voice, and nodded warily. 'We may well have cause to honour her. I hope most earnestly that she is able to find this child of Shaka's.'

Hervey seemed now to brace himself, as if to throw off the lethargy that had been overcoming him since they entered the hut. 'See, my good friend, there's not a moment to lose. We must send a galloper to Nonoti and recall Fairbrother and the rest of the troop. Here, Ngwadi's kraal, is the pivot of your stratagem. Besides, fine fellow that Ngwadi may be, I am loath to place ourselves amid a thousand of his warriors, with but a handful of riflemen, when their world has been turned upside down with the death of Shaka. One rumour that we are ourselves implicated in his fall and I would not give a half-farthing for our continuing health.'

'You suppose it could come to that?'

Hervey sighed again. 'My old friend, I do not wish to sound pious, but I am a soldier: I cannot deal in suppositions, only possibilities.'

Somervile looked remarkably chastened. 'I forget myself.'

Hervey clapped him on the arm. 'No matter. Was it Serjeant Donkers I saw with those inkwebane as we came in?'

'It was. An excellent fellow, as are they all.'

'Then I shall send him to recall Fairbrother. And thereafter I believe we should give ourselves up to Pampata.'

'I concur,' said Somervile, more happily.

Hervey realized that perhaps he, too, forgot himself, for this much was polity not soldiery. 'With your leave?'

'By all means, Hervey. By all means,' replied his old friend, seeming to brace himself to the task. 'But first it is my object that the physician treat your wound. We cannot have a single sabre that is hors de combat.'

A shot woke him. Hervey sat bolt upright, for a split second trying to grasp the place and the cause. He had been in the deepest sleep, the security that was the kraal and ten riflemen inducing him to let go that which had kept him alert these last days.

A second shot. He sprang up, seizing his swordbelt and pistol. Then a third, and a fourth, and shouting – the universal sound of alarm, no matter what the camp.

Outside the hut he found Corporal Cox. 'Sir! Kaffirs – dozens of 'em. They've killed the herd boys!'

Mbopa's men must have been pressing harder on their heels than he supposed. But the picket – four good shots – and the men of the kraal ought to be able to hold them. 'Very well. Keep up a good fire, Corp' Cox: best keep them guessing how many we are!'

He ran to Somervile's hut, finding him on his feet and priming his pistols. 'Mbopa's men, I think – the ones following our tracks. Fifty, no more, unless a second cohort were following.'

'Would you have one of the riflemen guard Pampata?' asked Somervile, anxious.

'I think not. I'll need every man. I think you must stand guard with her.'

'Very well. Where is Ngwadi?'

'I saw him making for the sango. I'll seek him out.'

Hervey saluted, turned and went back outside, shielding his eyes against the sun which was edging above the thorn fence of the cattle byre.

And then the rush of Mbopa's warriors – inside the kraal, like stampeding bulls, a great black wave, sweeping aside all in its path, a wall of spears and shields, wild cries, shots! How had they broken in?

He drew his sabre, raised his pistol and cocked it in one. He saw the riflemen left and right firing into the flanks of the wave, doublebarrelled Westley-Richards, point-blank, a relentless, fearful toll. Ngwadi's men raced from the other side of the kraal, throwing themselves at the attackers without waiting to form, striking home with their spears, in turn falling to those of Mbopa's men.

Out came Somervile, pistols raised. He rushed to Hervey's side, and they stood, silent, waiting for the wave to reach them.

But the wave was losing its force. Urged on by Corporal Cox, the cattle guards had got the great thorn hurdle back across the sango. Those Zulu inside were on their own.

And with the inescapability of numbers and the superiority of powder, the rest was slaughter. Neither Hervey nor Somervile moved a foot: Ngwadi's men, pouring into the enclosure from every corner of the kraal, did the most terrible execution. Only once had Hervey to parry: a warrior, crazed by the bloodlust of the assault, and by the spear wounds to his chest and side, broke from the melee and ran at the two friends in a gesture of suicidal defiance.

'Mine!' Hervey rasped, like a shot facing driven birds. He levelled his pistol, the man ran on to it obligingly, and the ball broke open his chest in a gory splintering of bone.

Two minutes more and the business was done. Thirty-three of Mbopa's men lay dead – every warrior of his who had entered the kraal – a dozen of Ngwadi's men, and a score more for the inyaga impi, the war-surgeon.

'The devil!' said Somervile, at length. 'That should not have happened.'

'Indeed.' Hervey pushed his pistol into his swordbelt and returned his sabre. 'Quite an affair. But by no means unhelpful. Those fellows will have quite an opinion of themselves now,' he added, nodding to Ngwadi's men. 'And of their chief. You saw how he fought?'