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Authors: John Wilcox

BOOK: The Shangani Patrol
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‘Oh, I understand all right.’ She turned her head away. ‘More butcherings - this time of natives by machine guns.’ Her voice fell away to no more than a whisper. ‘It’s too high a price to pay, even for the best farmland in the world.’
 
Chapter 16
 
The bitterness that had coloured her reply stayed with Alice that night and through the next day. She received a cable from Cornford in Fleet Street congratulating her on her story of the clash at Fort Victoria and asking her to file further dispatches as and when the crisis escalated. But this did little to ease the agony in her mind and soul. She had agreed with Simon that the four of them should return to Salisbury, which was nearer to their land and to where Jameson had ridden to organise the forces needed to face Lobengula. So her morning was spent in packing their few belongings, but as she did so, her mind was racing.
 
Her years as a journalist and then with Simon had consigned her to a role as observer and housewife. True, her reportage had been proactive and might even have altered conceptions back home about the campaigns she reported upon, although she doubted it. And as chatelaine of their home in Norfolk, she had been a dutiful and hard-working supervisor of the house, who sometimes helped Simon with the estate. Nevertheless, she had never become involved with things that mattered. As a war correspondent, she had watched and noted, never integral to the events she was describing and about which she often harboured such strong feelings.
 
In the little wooden house they had rented in Victoria, there was scant privacy, and having packed the last of their meagre belongings, Alice slipped out, climbed on to the ramparts and sat, chin in hand. Below her, native working parties were collecting the dead on wagons and cracking their whips over the oxen to pull them away. It must have been very like this, she pondered, during the great plagues in medieval Britain, when cries of ‘Bring out your dead!’ echoed throughout the land.
 
Thus prompted, her mind dredged up memories from the past of so many similar scenes she had observed: the Zulu bodies, rigid in their death postures and stacked in front of the the mealie bags at Rorke’s Drift; the dead Pathans, who had had the audacity to defend their country, spread out on the plain before Kandahar; the blazing houses of the bePedi tribe, set afire by Wolseley’s troops at Sekukuni; the white-clad Egyptians, poor troops, their scattered corpses strewn across the parapet protecting the guns of El Kebir . . . Alice shook her head. What carnage!
 
She slapped away a fly that had settled on her dusty riding boots. Boots . . . breeches, shirt, wide-brimmed slouch hat. When was the last time she had worn a dress, for God’s sake, or used cosmetics? She spent her time dressed as a man but she did not do a man’s work - not
real
work. What had she ever done to try and stop the wars she had reported on so diligently? Nothing, of course. Nothing. And here she was again, observing the beginnings of another conflict and reporting on it. Just damned reporting. Oh, she tried to describe in her dispatches the blunderings and stupidity of the politicians and generals who had created the conflicts she wrote about, but there was no
real
evidence that this affected the course of events. Now it was happening all over again, the relentless, unstoppable march towards war, while she watched, an impotent observer.
 
But
was
it unstoppable, and was she quite so impotent?
 
She stayed for another ten minutes considering several courses of action, her eyes watching the disposal of the bodies down below but her brain recording nothing of it. Then, her mind made up, she stood, brushed away the flies and strode back to the hut. She found herself trembling. Was she afraid of the prospect? Dammit, yes!
 
 
They set off that afternoon riding as quickly as they could in the heat, watching warily for any sign of remnants of Lobengula’s impi who might decide to take revenge on this vulnerable party. But they met no one, except one or two Mashona herdsmen, who waved cheerily at the white people who were freeing them from the Matabele yoke. Alice spoke little and Simon humoured her, realising her distress at the turn of events in this country where she had never really wished to be. But Alice’s mind was active. She knew what she had to do, but how, and when?
 
By the time they reached Salisbury, she had decided upon the answer to the first part of that question, and circumstances provided the answer to the second.
 
They found the town agog with news of the happenings at Victoria and preparations for war. Rhodes’s horses, rifles, machine guns and ammunition were being rushed up from the Cape, and the settlers were flocking to join units to march on the Matabele. They heard that a column was being formed at Victoria and placed under the command of a Captain Allan Wilson, who had earned a reputation for competence when serving in the Cape Mounted Rifles and the Basuto Mounted Police. Jameson himself had hurried off to Tuli in the south to arrange for more volunteers to be enrolled and led by Commandant Pieter Raaf, a Dutch Colonial who had served with distinction in the Zulu War and who was now a magistrate at Tuli. Rumours had it that the High Commissioner of Bechuanaland had moved a contingent of the Bechuanaland Police to the Matabele border in support of the Tuli column, and that King Khama himself had contributed a force of tribesmen to fight in the cause.
 
More to the point for Alice, however, was the fact that Jameson had left a message for Simon asking for his help in raising a column in Salisbury. Would he move out on to the veldt and ‘borrow’ as many horses as were suitable from the scattered farms? It would be at least a couple of months before Rhodes’s mounts would arrive from the south.
 
‘I shall be gone for at least two weeks, darling,’ said Fonthill. ‘I will take Jenkins with me, but Mzingeli will stay with you on the farm. There should be no danger there. We are away from things in the north, and in any case, I don’t think hostilities will really get moving yet. Some sort of last-minute peace moves are still being made towards Lobengula, I understand, although I doubt if they will come to anything. Anyway, you will be safe enough.’
 
If Simon was surprised at his wife’s ready acceptance of his departure without insisting that he take her with him, he showed no sign. They rode back to their little house on the veldt and parted there, Fonthill having readily agreed that Alice and Mzingeli should keep their horses for the time being.
 
As soon as Fonthill and Jenkins had disappeared over the swelling grassland, Alice made Mzingeli a cup of tea, strong and black, just as he liked it, sat him down and put to him her proposal.
 
He listened, his eyes growing larger by the second, then shook his head and said, ‘No, Nkosana. Too dangerous.’
 
Alice sighed, shifted her position on the stool and tried again, but the tracker was obdurate. ‘Nkosi don’t agree so I don’t agree. Sorry, Nkosana.’
 
Nodding, Alice played her last card. ‘I need you very much for this, Mzingeli,’ she said. ‘I do not know the way and I do not speak the language. I need you also to protect me. But if you will not come with me, then I shall go alone. I am determined. I have to say, though, that I do not know what my husband will say to you when he finds that you have let me go.’ She sat back, her face flushed and feeling rather ahamed of herself. There was a long silence while Mzingeli stared at the floor. Then he looked up.
 
‘I go,’ he said.
 
By noon they had set off, each riding a horse - for Alice decided that to take a wagon would slow them down too much - and with spare water bags, one small bivouac tent, blankets and one change of clothing all carried on the back of the sprightliest of mules from the farm. This was one trip, Alice resolved grimly, where a dress would
not
be needed.
 
As they rode in silence, she felt more and more guilty at using blackmail on Mzingeli. After all, she was probably putting him in more danger than she would be in herself, for there was less chance of a white woman being killed than a member of the Malakala tribe, so despised by the Matabele. She reached across and touched his arm. ‘I am sorry, Mzingeli,’ she said. ‘I have been unfair. I am putting you in danger.’
 
His features relaxed for a quick second; it was hardly a smile. ‘Nkosana strong lady,’ he said. ‘I once married to strong lady.’
 
‘Ah.’ She gave him her best smile. ‘Then you know what hell it can be. You will feel sorry for my husband.’
 
This time he acknowledged her with a brief nod, but his eyes were dancing. Having re-established relations, Alice felt able to ask him: ‘How long will it take us to get to Bulawayo?’
 
‘Maybe bit more than two weeks. If we not killed on way.’
 
‘Oh lord, I do hope that things don’t get worse before then. If war is declared before we arrive, I will have no hope.’
 
‘Not much hope anyway, Nkosana.’ Then, rather surprisingly: ‘You leave message for Nkosi? He not like come back and find you gone. He very upset. Not know which way to turn.’
 
She nodded her head in appreciation. ‘It is kind of you to think of it. But yes, I did leave him a note. I have not told him where we have gone because I do not want him to come pounding after us, although,’ she pursed her lips, ‘I suppose he will guess.’
 
In fact, the message had been as non-committal as she could make it. It ran:
Dearest Simon,
 
I just could not sit back any longer without doing something to try and stop this senseless war. Don’t worry, I have blackmailed Mzingeli to come with me to look after me (don’t blame him). Please don’t search for me. We will be back within the month.
 
I love you.
Alice.
 
 
 
Would he guess that she had gone to Bulawayo to plead with the king? Probably, but she would have a two-week start on him if he decided to follow, which, she concluded glumly, he almost certainly would. By then, she might be on her way back - if, that is, they had not been disembowelled. Ah well. She set her jaw. At least she was at last doing something positive!
 
Considering that Alice and Mzingeli were riding into the heartland of the enemy, their journey was surprisingly uneventful, although the terrain did not make for easy going. It followed a ridge of high hills that was very heavily wooded, so reducing visibility and causing Alice to worry about sudden ambush. Towards Bulawayo, the ground levelled off somewhat, but it was cut by river valleys, with small kopjes all around. Underfoot, the soil was sandy and grey. Yet they made good progress and met no one until they neared the king’s kraal, when they glimpsed many groups of warriors, armed and painted, heading in the same direction. They received puzzled looks, for they had made no attempt at disguise, but they were not accosted nor questioned.
 
It was nearly dusk as they rode down the familiar hill and passed by the first ring of thorn
zariba
, but Alice decided against attempting to see the king that night. Instead, she pulled her mount round and urged him towards Fairbairn’s store, hoping desperately that the Scotsman had not upped and left for the border in the face of the coming hostilities.
 
She was, then, vastly relieved to see the familiar curl of blue smoke coming from his chimney, in complete disregard of the inflammable thatch all around it.
 
The Scotsman’s jaw sagged when she walked through his door. He took out his pipe. ‘Where on earth have you come from, woman? Don’t you know that everybody here’s talking about murderin’ all white folks?’
 
She smiled. ‘Yet you’re still here, Mr Fairbairn.’
 
He waved his pipe stem dismissively through the smoke haze. ‘Och, they’ll never turf me out and I’m not going to leave. But where have you come from, and where’s your husband?’
 
She explained. ‘I decided to come here to try and talk the king out of going to war. I think he knows that it would be suicide for his people and his country. I am serious, Mr Fairbairn. Someone has got to stop this senseless slide towards more killing. There is just a chance that because I helped to ease the pain of his gout, he might listen to me.’ She gestured to Mzingeli, standing diffidently by the door. ‘There’s just the two of us and we’ve been riding hard all day. Do you think we might have a seat?’
 
‘What? Oh goodness yes, my dear.’ He pushed two old wooden chairs forward. ‘Would you like a wee dram? It’ll only cost yer two shillings.’
 
She gave a weary smile. ‘Why not? And one for Mzingeli, please. I believe I have four shillings here.’ She threw the coins on his counter. The trader poured three small measures and pulled up a chair to join them.
 
‘Lassie,’ he said. ‘You’ve got an awful lot of guts, and it’s just possible that if you’d arrived, say, a week ago you might have had some chance of success, for surely to God the old boy doesn’t want to fight. But something’s happened that has pushed peace right out of the window.’

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