The Horns of the Buffalo (28 page)

Simon stirred uncomfortably but it was Jenkins who spoke. ‘Now, now, Mr Dunn. That's a bit unfair, isn't it? Look you, Mr Fonthill 'as been stuck 'ere for weeks, existin' on milk and mush and without even the sniff of a gourd o' beer. We've got work to do and we've got to get out of 'ere to do it.'

‘And if you won't help us,' added Simon, ‘then we must break out ourselves.'

Dunn regarded them both impassively. ‘So far, I've chosen not to help you,' he said, ‘although there was precious little I could have done anyway.'

Simon's jaw dropped. ‘Do you mean that you knew I was here all this time?'

Dunn raised a placatory hand. ‘Now, don't get excited. The King wouldn't let me see you because he wanted you to stew for a while.' For the first time a wry smile spread across his face. ‘To be honest, he just didn't know what to do with you - and neither did I. You got into this mess by riding to the King, shooting up some of his warriors on the way, and then raising his expectations before giving him a lecture on how bloody marvellous your army was. Well, things have developed quite a bit while you've been here.'

‘Please tell us.'

‘Right. You remember those trumped-up border incidents?'

Simon nodded.

‘I got nowhere in Natal. It was clear to me that the Cape Governor, Frere, was determined to use them as an excuse to invade.' Dunn passed a hand across his mouth and jaw and looked suddenly older. ‘Well, he has. I've just got back from a big meeting on the Lower Drift of the Tugela between Shepstone, representing Frere, and the King's senior inDunas.' He sighed. ‘The results of the Boundary Commission are out and they are completely favourable to the Zulus, so we all attended expecting that the judgement would be handed down and that all would be sweetness and light again. But not on your life.'

Simon realised that Dunn was speaking as though drawing from a deep well of personal sadness. Here was a man who was facing the destruction of everything he had built: his farm, his possessions, his lifestyle. His world was collapsing, not on the whim of the savage neighbour with whom he had lived so long, but as a casualty of the latest twist in Britain's long saga of empire-building. Simon leaned across and put a hand on the big man's riding boot.

‘I am so sorry, Mr Dunn. Please tell us what has happened.'

Dunn shrugged. ‘Shepstone announced the results of the Boundary Commission all right. But he made much more of the Sihayo affair. He is demanding the impossible. He wants Sihayo's son and his three brothers delivered for trial in Natal and he's levied a fine of five hundred cattle for that business and a further one hundred head for the so-called offences committed on those two surveyors. All of this within twenty days. But there's more. Much more.'

Dunn looked at Simon and Jenkins in turn with his sad eyes. ‘Frere is demanding the virtual dismantling of Cetswayo's authority in Zululand.' He slapped one thick finger after another into the palm of his hand. ‘He is ordering the disbandment of the whole Zulu army, with the men returned to their homes; every Zulu is to be free to marry on reaching maturity; all missionaries banished by the King - and what a troublemaking lot
they
were - are to be allowed to return and preach without asking permission of anyone; a British resident is to be established in Zululand to watch over the King . . . and so it goes on. There is plenty more. He is demanding the complete humiliation of the King - and he wants agreement to all of this within thirty days. If he doesn't get it, he will invade.'

A silence fell on the hut. Simon cleared his throat. ‘How much time is left?'

Dunn gave a mirthless smile. ‘This was all ten days ago,' he said. ‘Even if the King bent the knee completely, he couldn't collect the cattle fine alone within the time limit. There is nothing to stop the invasion. Your redcoats are massing at three points to invade: in the north, in the south across the Tugela's Lower Drift, and in the centre across the Buffalo at Rorke's Drift. Lord Chelmsford himself will lead this central column and they'll probably all head for Ulundi.' Dunn leaned across to his listeners. ‘So you will see that I haven't had much time to worry about you two.'

‘What is the King going to do?' asked Jenkins.

‘Do? What can he do? He still can't believe that the British would do this to him and he can't understand why they should. He is offering to pay the fines - although he needs more time to gather the cattle because the rivers are in flood - but he cannot give in to the other demands. That would mean the end of his reign. So he's playing for time.'

‘Will he get it?' asked Simon.

Dunn pulled a lugubrious face. ‘Wouldn't think so. Frere is determined to annex Zululand and that's the end of it.'

The sadness came back into Dunn's eyes. ‘I must help the King as long as I can, but when the invasion starts, I'll just have to round up as many of my cattle as I can and then ride for the border with my family.' The Natalian looked round the hut. ‘But that's not the point. You are the problem now.'

Jenkins nodded his head earnestly. ‘Kind of you it is to think of us now, in all this bother.'

Simon got to his feet. ‘Will the King have us killed?'

Dunn stretched and rose. ‘No, I don't think so. But he is still undecided about you.' The Natalian smiled ruefully. ‘He's no fool, of course, and he has a pretty fair idea that I've got to clear out because he knows I won't fight against my own kind, although I haven't said as much. That means that you could be useful to him in doing my old job of maybe interceding with the soldiers or writing letters for him.' He shot a sharp glance at Simon. ‘I hope your Zulu has improved.'

Simon ignored the shaft. ‘No. We can't do that. We've got to get out.'

‘All right, but it's a hell of a risk, with the country literally up in arms. But yes, I will help you.'

Simon and Jenkins went to express their thanks, but Dunn held up a hand. ‘Look, you will have to be patient,' he said. ‘I can't do much until I get home and organise my affairs and that could take up to a week. Then I will send someone, probably James, to get you out of here. It will have to be at night, so sleep lightly. Here . . .' He reached into a game pocket in his jacket and pulled out a Navy Colt revolver. ‘Keep this hidden. Don't use it unless you really have to, but it could prove useful.' Then, before they could argue or agree, he was gone.

On New Year's Day 1879, Alice Griffith rode into Helpmakaar. The tiny settlement stood at the intersection of the main north road in Natal, leading from Pietermaritzburg and Durban in the south, and, to the east, the track that led down to Rorke's Drift and the border crossing of the Buffalo to Zululand, twelve miles away. Lord Chelmsford had chosen Helpmakaar to be the assembly point and main supply depot for his central column, and this had transformed the sleepy hamlet, with its three houses, into a bustling military camp of store sheds, cattle and horse pens and temporary cantonments of bell tents covering acres of scrubland.

Alice had camped that night some twelve miles south of the settlement and it was mid-morning as she entered the camp. Now she looked about her with fascination as she let the reins fall on to the horse's neck and allowed the beast to pick its way along the dusty track, long worn into corrugations by hundreds of wagon wheels. The place was a strange mixture of seeming indolence and great activity. Along the camp lines Europeans in a bewildering variety of dress - some in serge trousers held up by braces showing over green cotton vests, with cap comforters askew on their heads; others in long john drawers and little else - sat smoking, cleaning equipment or simply lounging. Soldiers on duty, in white helmets and red jackets or blue drill uniforms, bustled about their business. Civilian wranglers, rangy men with full beards and slouch hats, led strings of horses, and wagoners unloaded boxes of stores into tin-roofed shacks under the eyes of commissariat staff. Outnumbering the white men, however, were hundreds of natives, who milled between the tent lines, the paddocks and the huts like worker ants. Alice's inexperienced eye could not distinguish between them but she noted that many who carried spears, and some of them even rifles, wore a red rag round their heads. These, she presumed, must be some of the Natal Native Levies, whom Colonel Anthony Durnford, an experienced native fighter, had raised to supplement the white troops.

As Alice gazed about her, fascinated by the scene, so she, in turn, attracted many eyes. With her Kaffir servant, who now rode behind her leading a lightly laden packhorse, she had journeyed from Durban, stopping once at Pietermaritzburg but otherwise camping in her small tent at the roadside. Despite the days on the trail, however, Alice betrayed no signs of disarray. She wore a fresh cream cotton shirt, open at the throat and tucked into whipcord jodhpurs. Her riding boots, while no longer highly polished, gleamed dully under the dust and she sat loosely erect, astride the horse like a man. Her white pith helmet only partly concealed her long fair hair, that had been gathered together at the back with a scarf the colour of English spring grass. As she wound her way between the horse strings and bullock carts towards the centre of the camp, Alice cut a bizarre and even disturbing figure in that male environment.

Nor was she unaware of it. On landing in South Africa some three months ago, Alice had quickly realised that she was destined to turn heads. Her appearance in itself, with her cool white skin and confident bearing, was enough to set her apart from the mousy memsahibs and leather-cheeked locals of the Cape. But her role as the
Morning Post
's accredited correspondent usually added, in sequence, disbelief, consternation and then cynical amusement to the studied courtesy with which she was first greeted by the officials and senior army officers with whom she had to mix professionally. Alice had long since decided that she would not let these reactions either daunt her or change her personality in any way. Accordingly, she neither dressed down nor up to go about her business and she displayed an air of careful politeness to all she met.

As she now led her modest cavalcade down the main street of Helpmakaar, then, she smiled and nodded a cheerful ‘good morning' to whoever had the courage to hold her eye. A young captain of infantry, wearing a dark blue patrol jacket and the bright brass numerals of the 24th on his jaunty cap, caught it longer than most and saluted gallantly. She approved of him and nodded.

‘Can I be of assistance, ma'am?' he enquired, reining in his horse.

‘Good morning, Captain. Yes you can. I am looking for somewhere to pitch my tent. I must enquire of the camp commandant or senior officer. Where will I find him, pray?'

The young man's jaw sagged. ‘Camp, ma'am? Camp? I, ah, don't think that will be in order. This is a military establishment, you see.'

‘Yes, I know that. That is why I am here. But you are quite wrong. Even if I were not accredited to General Chelmsford's army - which I am - Helpmakaar remains a civilian settlement, despite the presence of the army. And so I should have every right to stay here.' Alice smiled again. ‘Now, who should I see about pitching my tent? I know the General is not here because I saw him the other day at 'Maritzburg.'

The cool, assured tone as much as the reference to Chelmsford daunted the captain. He saluted again. ‘Continue about two hundred yards down the road, ma'am, and on the right you will see the battalion headquarters of Lieutenant Colonel Covington. It is a large tent with a standard outside. He is the senior officer in the absence of the General and Colonel Glynn and Colonel Lamb. Good day, ma'am.'

‘Thank you so much. Good morning.'

Alice smiled to herself. What luck! Covington was one of the officers to whom her father had written when she had finally overcome her parents' objections to her appointment. Those objections had proved to be stronger than she had anticipated but, as she had hoped, her father's underlying admiration for her guts in applying for and getting the post had finally tipped the scales, and, with pen and paper, he had settled down to call in his old contacts to help her. Brigadier Griffith hardly knew Covington, he had grumpily explained, but their paths had briefly crossed some years ago when Griffith had rejoined the regiment after a brief spell as an observer with Lee in the American Civil War. He had heard that the man had taken his battalion to Zululand and, therefore, could certainly be of use to his daughter. Alice rummaged in her saddlebag for a copy of the letter, as well as her accreditation from the
Post
.

She found the tent easily enough, dismounted, left her horse in her servant's care and presented her card to the sentry at the entrance.

‘Please ask the Colonel if he can spare me a moment,' she said, smiling into the young soldier's flushed face.

Alice was kept waiting for perhaps two minutes and she sighed as she pictured the scene within the tent: the frown as the card was studied, the ‘what-the-hell-can-she-want-here' and then the hunt in the files to find any reference to her. She felt sure that her father's letter would be forgotten. But she was wrong.

Covington rose from behind a trestle table and ushered her to a folding camp chair facing the table. He sat again and gave her a welcoming smile that, she noted, did not quite reach as far as his icy-blue eyes, which remained watchful. For a moment, her memory stirred. Wasn't this the man with whom Simon had had trouble? But she could not remember the details, even if she had known them in the first place. Simon had never been very communicative, either in speech or letters.

‘I am so glad to meet you, Miss Griffith,' said Covington. ‘Your father wrote to me about you, and alas, I never did get around to replying to him, what with the move to Natal and so on. Tell me, how is the Colonel?'