The Sound of Thunder (4 page)

“We’ll say good-bye here on a mountain in the sunlight, Though we’ll ride together a little further-it’s here we’ll say good-bye. ” “Ruth .

he started, but she placed the hand across his mouth and he felt the metal of the ring on his lips and it seemed to him that the ring was as cold as his dread of the loss she was about to inflict upon him.

“No,” she whispered. “Kiss me once more and then let me go.

Mbejane saw it first and spoke quietly to Sean, perhaps two miles out on their flank, like a smudge of brown smoke rising beyond the fold of the nearest ridge, so faint that Sean had to search a moment before he found it. Then he swivelled away from it and hunted frantically for cover. The nearest was an outcrop of red stone half a mile away, much too far.

“What is it, Sean?” Ruth noticed his agitation.

“Dust, he told her. “Horsemen. Coming this way.

“Boers?”

“Probably. ” “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing. ” “Nothing?”

“When they show on the ridge I’ll ride to meet them. Try to bluff our way through. ” He turned to Mbejane and spoke in Zulu. “I will go to them. Watch me carefully, but keep moving away. If I lift my arm let the packhorses go and ride. I will hold them as long as I can, but when I lift my arm then it is finished. ” Quickly he unbuckled the saddlebag which held the gold and handed it to the Zulu. “With a good start you should be able to hold them off until nightfall. Take the Nkosikazi where she wishes to go and then with Dirk return to my mother at Ladyburg. ” He looked again at the ridge just in time to see two horsemen appear upon it. Sean lifted the binoculars from his chest; in the round field of the glasses the two riders stood broadside, their faces turned towards him so he could make out the shape of their helmets. He saw the burnished sparkle of their accoutrements, the size of their mounts and their distinctive saddlery and he yelled with relief.

“Soldiers!”

As if in confirmation a squadron of cavalry in two neat ranks broke over the skyline with the pennants fluttering gaily on the forest of their lances.

Dirk hooting with excitement, Ruth laughing beside him and Mbejane dragging the packhorses after them, Sean galloped standing in the stirrups and waving his hat above his head to meet them.

Unaffected by the enthusiasm of the welcome the lancers sat stolidly and watched them come and the subaltern at their head greeted Sean suspiciously as he arrived.

“Who are you, sir? ” But he seemed less interested in Sean’s reply than in Ruth’s breeches and what they contained. During the explanations that followed Sean conceived for the man a growing dislike. Although the smooth, sun-reddened skin and the fluffy, yellow moustache aggravated this feeling, the central cause was the pair of pale blue eyes. Perhaps they always popped out that way, but Sean doubted it. They focused steadily on Sean only during the short period when Sean reported that he had made no contact with the Boer, then they swivelled back to Ruth.

“We’ll not detain you longer, Lieutenant,” Sean grunted and gathered his reins to turn away.

“You are still ten miles from the Tugela River, Mr. Courtney.

Theoretically this area is held by the Boers and although we are well out on the flank of their main army it would be much safer if you entered the British lines under our protection. ” “Thank you, no. I want to avoid both armies and reach Pietermaritzburg as soon as possible.” The subaltern shrugged.

“The choice is yours. But if it were my wife and child … ” He did not finish, but turned in the saddle to signal the column forward.

“Come on, Ruth. ” Sean caught her eye, but she did not move.

“I’m not going with you.” There was a flat quality in her voice and she looked away from him.

“Don’t be silly. ” It shocked him and gave his reply a harshness that lit sparks of anger in her eyes.

“May I travel with you?” she demanded of the subaltern.

“Well, ma’am.” He hesitated, glancing quickly at Sean before he went on. “If your husband … ” “He’s not my husband. I hardly know him.” She cut in and ignored the exclamation of protest from Sean. “My husband is with your army. I want you to take me with you, please. ” “Well, now … That’s a horse of another colour,” the officer drawled, but the lazy arrogance of his tone barely concealed his pleasure at the prospect of Ruth’s company. “I’d be delighted to escort you, ma’am.

With her knees Ruth backed her mount and fell in beside the subaltern. This small manoeuvre placed her directly facing Sean-as though she were on the far side of a barrier.

“Ruth, please. Let me talk to you about this. Just a few minutes. ” “No. ” There was no expression in her voice, not in her face.

“Just to say good-bye,” he pleaded.

“We’ve said good-bye.” She glanced from Sean to Dirk and then away.

The subaltern raised his clenched fist high and lifted his voice.

“Column! Column, Forward!” and as his big, glossy hunter started he grinned maliciously at Sean and touched the brim of his helmet in ironical salute.

“Ruth!”

But she was no longer looking at Sean. Her eyes were fixed ahead and as she swept away at the head of the column her chin was up, that smiling type of mouth was drawn into two straight lips and the thick braid of hair thumped against her back with each thrust of the horse beneath her.

“Rough luck, matey!” called a trooper from the rear rank and then they were past.

Hunched in the saddle Sean stared after them.

“Is she coming back, Pa? ” Dirk inquired.

“No, she’s not coming back.”

“Why not?”

Sean did not hear the question. He was watching, waiting for Ruth to look back at him. But he waited in vain, for suddenly she was gone over and beyond the next fold in the land and a few seconds later the column had followed her. Afterwards there was only the vast emptiness within him.

Sean rode ahead. Ten yards behind they followed, Mbejane restraining Dirk from a closer approach for he understood that Sean must now be left alone. Many times in the years they had been together Mbejane and Sean had travelled in this formation-Sean riding ahead with his sorrow or his shame and Mbejane trailing him patiently, waiting for Sean’s shoulders to straighten and his chin to lift from where it drooped forward on his chest.

There was no coherence in Sean’s thoughts, the only pattern was the rise and swoop of alternate anger and despair.

Anger at the woman, anger almost becoming hatred before the plunge of despair as he remembered she was gone. Then anger building up towards madness, this time directed at himself for letting her go.

Again the sickening drop as he realized that there was no means by which he could have held her. What could he have offered her?

Himself? Two hundred pounds of muscle and bones and scars supporting a face like a granite cliff? Poor value! His worldly goods? A small sack of sovereigns and another woman’s child-by God, that was all he had. After thirty-seven years that was all he had to show! Once more his anger flared. A week ago he had been rich-and his anger found a new target. There was at least somewhere he could seek vengeance, there was a tangible enemy to strike, to kill. The Boer.

The Boer had robbed him of Ins wagons and his gold, had sent him scurrying for safety; because of them the woman had come into his life and because of them she had been snatched away from him.

So be it, he thought angrily, this then is the promise of the future. War!

He straightened in the saddle, his shoulders seemed to fill out wide and square. He lifted Ins head and saw the shiny snake of a river in the valley below. They had reached the Tugela. Without pause Sean pushed his horse over the lip of the escarpment.

On its haunches, loose rock rolling and slithering beneath its hooves, they began the descent.

Impatiently Sean followed the river downstream, searching for a drift. But between the sheer banks it ran smooth and swift and deep, twenty yards wide and still discoloured with mud from the storm.

At the first place where the far bank flattened sufficiently to promise an easy exit from the water, Sean checked his horse and spoke brusquely.

“We’ll swim. ” In reply Mbejane glanced significantly at Dirk.

“He’s done this before,” Sean answered him as he dismounted and began to shed his clothing, then to the boy,

“Come on, Dirk. Get undressed.

They drove the packhorses in first, forcing them to jump from the steep bank and watched anxiously until their heads reappeared above the surface and they struck out for the far bank.

Then all three of them naked, their clothing wrapped in oilskins and lashed to the saddles, they remounted.

“You first, MbeJane. ” A splash that rose above the bank.

“Off you go, Dirk. Remember to hang on to the saddle.”

Another high splash, and Sean flogged his mount as it baulked and danced sideways along the bank. A sudden lunge outwards and the long drop before the water closed over them.

Snorting water, they surfaced and with relief Sean saw Dirk’s head bobbing beside that of his horse, and heard his shouted excitement.

Moments later they stood on the far bank, water streaming from their naked bodies, and laughed together at the fun of it.

Abruptly the laughter was strangled to death in Sean’s throat.

Lining the bank above them, grinning with the infection of merriment but with Mauser rifles held ready, stood a dozen men.

Big men, bearded, festooned with bandoliers of ammunition, dressed in rough clothing and a selection of hats that included a brown derby and a tall beaver.

In imitation of Sean, both Mbejane and Dirk stopped laughing and stared up at the frieze of armed men along the bank. A complete silence fell on the gathering.

It was broken at last by the man in the brown derby as he pointed at Sean with the barrel of his Mauser.

“Magtig! But you’d need a sharp axe to cut through that branch.

” “Don’t anger him,” warned the gentleman in the beaver. “If he hits you over the head with it, it will crack your skull! ” and they all laughed.

It was hard for Sean to decide which was the more discomforting; the intimate discussion of his nudity, or the fact that the discussion was conducted in the Taal (or Cape Dutch). In his impatience he had walked, or rather swum, into the arms of a Boer patrol. There was just a forlorn hope that he might be able to bluff his way through, and he opened his mouth to make the attempt. But Dirk forestalled him.

“Who are they, Pa, and why are they laughing? ” he asked in clear piping English, and Sean’s hope died as abruptly as did the Boer laughter when they heard that hated language.

“Oh! So!” growled the man in the beaver, and gestured eloquently with his Mauser. “Hands up please, my friend.”

“Will you allow me to put my trousers on first?” Sean asked politely.

“Where are they taking us?” For once Dirk was subdued and there was a quiver in his voice that touched Beaver, who rode beside him. He answered for Sean.

“Now, don’t you worry, you’re going to see a general. A real live general. ” Beaver’s English was intelligible and Dirk studied him with interest.

“will he have medals and things?”

,-Nee, man. we don’t use such rubbish.” And Dirk lost interest.

He turned back to Sean.

“Pa, I’m hungry.”

Again Beaver intervened. He pulled a long black stick of biltong, dried meat, from his pocket and offered it to Dirk.

,

“Sharpen your teeth on that, Kerel. ” With his mouth full Dirk was taken care of and Sean could concentrate on the other Boers. They were convinced they had caught a spy, and were discussing the impending execution. In a friendly manner Sean was admitted to the argument, and they listened with respectful attention to his defence. This was interrupted while they forded the lbgela and climbed the escarpment once more, but Sean continued it while they rode in a bunch along the crest. Finally, he convinced them of his innocence which they accepted with relief, as none of them were really looking forward to shooting him.

Thereafter the talk turned to more pleasant topics. It was a glorious day, sunshine lit the valley in gold and green. Below them the river twisted and sparided, world rig its devious way down from the smoky blue wall of the Drakensberg that stood along the far horizon. A few fat clouds dawdled across the sky, and a light breeze took the edge off the heat.

“The youngsters in the party listened avidly as Sean spoke Of elephant beyond the Limpopo, and of the wide land that waited for men to claim it.

“After the war . they said, and laughed in the sun. Then a change in the wind and a freak lie of the hills brought a faint but ugly sound down to them and the laughter died.

“The guns,” said one of them.

“Ladysmith. ” Now it was sean’s turn to ask the questions. They told him how the commandos had raced down to the town of Ladysmith and rolled up the force that stood to oppose them. Bitterly they remembered how old Joubert had held his horsemen and watched while the broken English army streamed back into the town.

“Almighty! Had he loosed us on them then! We would sweep them into the sea.

“If Oom Paul had commanded instead of old Joubert, the war would be finished already-but instead we sit and wait.”

Gradually Sean filled in the picture of the war in Natal.

Ladysmith was invested. General George White’s army was bottled and corked within the town. Half the Boer army had moved forward along the railway and taken up a defensive line straddling the Escarpment, overlooking the river and the tiny village of Colenso.

Below them on the great plain of the Tugela, General Buller was massing his army for the breakthrough to relieve Ladysmith.

“But let him try-Oom Paul is waiting for him.”

“Who is Oorn Paul-Surely not Kruger?” Sean was puzzled.

Oom Paul was the affectionate nickname of the President of the South African Republic.

“Nee, man! This is another Oom Paul. This one is VechtGeneral Jan Paulus Leroux of the Wynberg commando.” And Sean caught his breath.

“Is he a big man with red hair and a temper to go with it?”

Laughter, and then. “Ja! that’s the one. Do you know him?