The Horns of the Buffalo (27 page)

Jenkins rocked back and chuckled at the memory. ‘So he asked me what I was doin' there, and I says waiting for the Colonel, and he says why and I says, it's very confidential, sir, so 'e gets very, very angry, so I 'ave to tell 'im that I've got a message, look you, from you to the Colonel, an' he says, let me'ave it, and I says, no it's for the Colonel's eyes only, and 'e shouts, don't be impertinent, man, give it to me and that's an order, and I says no, so 'e 'as me arrested then and there.' The little Welshman beamed across at Simon, his great moustache spread across his face.

Simon waited for a moment and then said, ‘You're not going to sit here and tell me that's as far as it went?'

‘No, but I thought it was a good spot to take a breath, see.' Jenkins, thoroughly enjoying the tension he was creating, looked around the hut. ‘I don't suppose you've still got that little flask thing, 'ave you, bach sir? My mouth's like the bottom of one of them dongler things.'

‘No, I haven't. If you remember, I gave it to the King.'

‘Ah, so you did. So you did.' He wiped his mouth sadly. ‘Anyway, so I'm thrown into the guardhouse for three days, no less. An' I'm not brought up on a charge, mind you, durin' this time, which, accordin' to Queen's Regulations, is quite out of order.'

‘Yes, yes. Do get on with it.'

‘Right. All the time these orderly officers - obviously under instructions from the CO - are tryin' to wheedle your letter out of me, but I won't let 'em. Now,' Jenkins swayed forward in emphasis, ‘it's obvious that they can't keep me in the jug and bottle for ever without chargin' me, so eventually I'm hauled up before Colonel Covington and charged with disobeying an order and bein' impertinent to an officer.'

‘Oh no.' Simon put his hand to his head. ‘Are you telling me that Colonel Lamb never received my message?'

‘Now, bach sir, you're gettin' very impatient.' Jenkins leaned across and tapped his companion's boot reprovingly. ‘It seems to me that we shall probably 'ave quite a bit of time on our'ands 'ere, isn't it, so you can 'ear me out properly now.'

‘Sorry, my lord. Do take your time.'

‘Very good, then. So there I am, standin' in front of this firin' squad, so to speak, an' I'm gettin' a bit annoyed, see. I mean, I don't mind bein' busted for drinkin' an' fightin' an' all that, but 'ere I was doin' my duty, see. So I says, “I'm within my rights in demandin' to see the superior officer who I've got a confidential message for.” An' I quote the proper passage from Queen's Regulations, see.' Jenkins chuckled again at the memory. ‘Well, the Adjutant is sittin' next to the CO, an' 'e leans across an' whispers somethin' in 'is ear. The Colonel doesn't like it, look you, but 'e 'as to accept it because the old Adj knows the Queen's Regulations like I do, see. So that's 'ow I got to see Colonel Lamb,' Jenkins finished triumphantly, his button eyes glowing, his air that of a master raconteur waiting for applause.

Simon nodded his head slowly. ‘Very good, Jenkins,' he said. ‘Now, let's see. You manage to get thrown off the boat at Port Elizabeth and lose four days there, then you are insubordinate to our CO and get thrown into the guardhouse and lose another three or four days - all before you get to deliver the letter to Colonel Lamb.'

Jenkins's eyes widened in innocence. ‘None of my doin', sir, was it?'

‘All right. You gave Colonel Lamb the letter?'

‘Oh yes, sir. 'E read it with great interest. You needn't 'ave worried about him not gettin' the code, like, 'cos 'e understood that right away. 'E asked me a lot of questions about what we'd done, where we'd been and so on - 'e was particularly impressed that we'd seen the King - and 'e made a lot of notes. Course, I 'ad to tell 'im why I'd been 'eld up gettin' to 'im, see, and I could tell 'e didn't like that one little bit. 'E made a note or two about that, too. There's one other thing 'e didn't think much of, I'm afraid, bach sir.'

‘What was that?'

‘The price old Dunn made 'im pay for the cattle.' Jenkins grinned. ‘Gave 'im a bit of a shock, I'm thinkin'. Still, they was good meat an' I told 'im so. Anyway, the Colonel finished up as good as gold. 'E told me 'e was Welsh 'imself and that we'd done a good job. 'E allowed that the charges against me would be dropped and reminded me to say that if either of us got into what 'e called “further misunderstandings with the army” we was still seconded to his staff until further orders.'

Simon threw back his head in exasperation. ‘Yes, but what about those further orders? Did he give you any?'

With mock annoyance, the Welshman clicked his fingers. ‘Ah, I knew I'd forgotten somethin'.' He slipped off his jacket. ‘They took my knife. 'Ave you got one?'

Impatiently, Simon threw him the kitchen knife and Jenkins hacked away at the lining of his jacket until, with a careful look at the hut entrance, he produced a letter and handed it to Simon. It was addressed to ‘Simon Fonthill Esquire', and on uncrested paper, from an address in central Cape Town headed ‘George Lamb & Son, Cattle Dealers', the letter ran:

 

Simon passed the letter back to Jenkins, who shook his head and handed it back. ‘I know what's in it,' he said. Wordlessly Simon tore the page and envelope into small pieces, divided them into four little piles and buried them in different parts of the floor of the hut, stamping down the soil with his heel. Then he sat again, opposite Jenkins.

‘Right, 352. Tell me how you got here - but first, did the Colonel give any other message?'

Jenkins nodded. ‘ 'E told me to say to you congratulations and well done. It seems that we've got a new Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, a general called Thesiger, and all the information you supplied has been fed through to 'im and the General Staff, see.' He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘There's no doubt about it, bach sir. There's goin' to be a war. Everybody knows about it in the Cape and Natal. This new general - 'e's soon goin' to be called Duke Chelmsford, or somethin', because'is da back 'ome is very sick and when 'e dies 'e'll get 'is title, like - well, he's preparin' the invasion of Zululand right now. I don't know if the information you sent back . . . by the way, where did you get all that stuff?'

Simon shook his head. ‘Never mind that now.'

‘Well, I don't know if it made any difference, but they all think that knockin' over the Zulus will be easy.'

Simon felt his heart sink. Had it been for nothing, his agonies over betraying Nandi, the risk they had all run? Perhaps he should have emphasised more strongly in his message the quality of the Zulu army. Perhaps . . . His line of thought was interrupted as the blade of an assegai pulled aside the hut flap and held it open and a Zulu woman crawled in, pulling behind her a crude tray. Simon was glad to see that food and drink for both of them had been provided, but Jenkins had gulped down his milk before she could turn. He gestured to her, beaming. ‘Could I just 'ave a drop more, then, missus, do you think?' He held out his gourd. She took it expressionlessly and returned very quickly with it full.

As Jenkins took it, rewarding the woman with his face-splitting grin, Simon could not wait to get on. ‘Tell me, how did you get here?'

‘Everyone is bein' pushed into Natal, ready for the invasion, see. Our battalion, the 2nd, complete with old Covington - beggin' your pardon, sir - sailed out with me from the Cape to Durban, and I 'ear that our old lot, the 1st Battalion, has already been brought up from Kingbillystown to this Rorke's Drift place.'

Simon wiped the last of the mealies from the bowl with his bread. ‘So, what about you?'

For the first time, Jenkins looked discomforted. ‘Well, Colonel Lamb sent me back to you at Mr Dunn's place. Now, sir . . .' The Welshman looked as plaintive as his worldly-wise features would allow. ‘You know that I'm just about the best officer's servant in the entire army?'

Solemnly, Simon nodded.

‘You will also know that I am an extremely splendid'orseman, a cognissuer of wine, look you, an' not a bad fighter?'

‘For goodness' sake, get on with it.'

‘Very good, sir. But what you don't know is that I couldn't find me way from A to B if they was next door to each other. You remember that I was in Birmingham when old Coley recruited me? Well, I didn't mean to be there at all. I thought I was in Shrewsbury. As well as lookin' for work, I was lookin' for me brother-in-law, see. No wonder I couldn't find 'im.'

He fumbled in his pocket. ‘Look, they gave me this compass thing in Durban. I was all right, see, ridin' from there to the Tugela at the Lower Drift thing where we crossed before, because there's more or less a proper road on the Natal side of the river. But once across in Zululand, I just got lost when the track ran out. They gave me a course to follow once I'd crossed.' His brow furrowed. ‘I think it was north-north-west. Or was it north-north-east? I'm dashed if I know. They told me to keep the sun on my left shoulder. But do you know, sir, the bloody thing keeps buggerin' about all over the sky.' He sighed. ‘In the end, look you, I didn't know my north-north-west from my elbow, so to speak. I'd been wanderin' around for about six days when this party of black lads surprised me.'

‘You are lucky they didn't kill you out of hand. Did they treat you badly?'

‘They wasn't exactly friendly at first, an' one lad would 'ave stuck me for nothing, there's certain. But I tried your trick of this “Jantoni” thing. I was tryin' to get 'em to take me to Mr Dunn's place, see. But this is where they brought me. An' bless me, 'ere you were. Now,' he leaned forward and slapped Simon's boot, ‘I don't mind saying, bach sir, that I'm glad to see you. But not like this. What 'appened?'

Simon quickly related the events of the last weeks and the two men fell silent. The weather had turned and now the day was humid and hot. Jenkins looked around the unprepossessing interior. ‘Why 'ave they stuck us together, d'you think?'

‘I suppose it saves effort and manpower to have us under one guard.'

Jenkins wrinkled his nose. ‘I don't fancy stayin' 'ere long. What are the odds on breakin' out, then?'

‘Pretty short on getting out of the hut, I would say, but long on getting far without horses.' Simon gestured towards the back of the hut. ‘It would be relatively easy to cut our way out over there at night, when the guard's asleep, but then the difficult bit starts. We should have to pick our way through the huts, get out of the stockade, then march across the plain about a hundred miles to the Buffalo - all without being spotted. How would a master batman, wine connoisseur and elite warrior handle all that, then?'

Jenkins wrinkled his nose. ‘Not well at all. But can't Mr Dunn get us out of 'ere?'

‘I've been hoping for nothing else for weeks. God knows where he is. I don't believe he would abandon us, but perhaps he has. Look, I think we must just get out of here and take our chances. At least we have two compasses now, and I can't stand being in this place any longer. We can cut a hole at the back there, tear this shawl into two, wrap it around us, carry our boots underneath it and just try and walk out when the place is asleep.'

Simon studied the back of his hands and his forearms, which had now lost their tan and looked white and fragile, like those of a scholar. ‘We're out of condition for a hard march, we've no hard tack to take with us and no weapons to kill game or defend ourselves on the way. So we can't break out right away. We must save a little of our bread and milk each day to provision us for a while, at least.'

Jenkins sniffed. ‘Won't keep long in this climate, bach.'

‘I know. We'll give it three days and then go.'

The next day, however, John Dunn arrived. He pulled back the hut flap without ceremony and crawled through, his slouch hat in his hand and his brow covered in perspiration.

‘My God, Mr Dunn, we're glad to see you,' said Simon with feeling.

Dunn regarded them without expression. ‘No doubt,' he said dryly. ‘You've got yourselves into a steaming pot of trouble this time, right enough.' He lowered himself to the ground. ‘And I suppose you're looking to me to get you out of it?'

Simon decided that it would be a mistake to be supplicatory. ‘We are, and you must, Mr Dunn. I have spoken to the King and it is important that we reach the British lines to give them the information that I have gathered.'

Dunn smiled wearily, his eyelids drooping and his body betraying tiredness and resignation. ‘Mr Fonthill,' he said, ‘if I wasn't so damned tired and indignant with you British I would find your air of self-importance just a touch amusing.'