Company Of Spears

The country is so very like the Wiltshire plain that at times I almost imagined to see Dan Coates riding to his sheep. The march from Grahams-town, nine days, has been uncommonly tiring though, two hundred and thirty miles is the reckoning. Not so great a distance, perhaps, compared with marches in India, and the Peninsula, but the going has not been easy for the men of the 55th, and the waggons have frequently fallen behind. The artillery is six guns: four 9-pdrs and two 6-pdrs, drawn by oxen, and are a day’s march to our rear. I cannot but think that a pair of galloper guns would be of better service, and were the troop to remain long in the Cape I should have a pair made. Our horses are good doers, perhaps better so than would have been the troopers brought from England, and our sick have been few. Private Attewell was left with an orderly two days ago at the Kei River, very sick of a sting.E.F. has been sent to find Dundas – the excellent fellow from Graham’s-town who is sent to speak with Shaka Zulu – to tell him what Somerset has decided. We are now to rest here a day while the artillery rejoins and Gaika sends word to his other chiefs…

‘ ’Ow’d tha like thi steak, then, sir?’ Johnson had left Hervey in peace with his journal for half an hour. He considered that to be more than enough time spent on a book of any description, even the Bible (on which he spent no time at all; but the Bible he knew to be special).

Hervey looked at him, puzzled. ‘I said that I have eaten enough for three men already.’

Johnson was equally puzzled. ‘That’s what ah said, sir: were it good?’

Hervey’s brow furrowed deeper. It was a trivial matter, but he was not going to let it pass. ‘No, Johnson, you said, “How would I like my steak?” ‘

‘Ah didn’t! I asked ‘ow’d tha like thi steak!’

Hervey’s mouth fell open. ‘Precisely!’

‘What, sir?’

Hervey sighed, thinking. ‘A moment. How would you ask, “How did you like your steak”?’ ‘‘Ow’d tha like thi steak.’

‘And how would you ask, “How would you like your steak”?’

‘‘Ow’d tha like thi steak.’

Hervey raised his hands, smiling. ‘As tricky as translating Xhosa. You see my difficulty.’

‘No.’

‘The words are exactly the same.’

‘Ay, sir, but ah wouldn’t ask thee ‘ow’d tha like thi steak doin when ah knew th’d ‘ad plenty already!’

Hervey shook his head with mock gravity. ‘How could I have made such a mistake?’

‘Because tha’s tired, an’ that mead.’

Hervey looked long at him. ‘Johnson, is there any of the India ale left?’

‘Couple o’ bottles.’

‘Then fetch two, and I’ll tell you about Gaika’s hut, and what I think we’ll do next.’

Not long before dusk Fairbrother returned unexpectedly – and urgently. Hervey was first alerted by a trail of dust which he observed through his telescope a full ten minutes before making out the rider. The lathered flanks of Fairbrother’s Caper testified to their hard gallop: he had left his escorts far behind. He looked more purposeful than troubled, however, as he dismounted in the Sixth’s lines. But all knew that a man did not ride as hard as he had for no good reason.

One of the dragoons took the reins. The horse was blown but by no means finished, Hervey noted: Fairbrother had judged it well. There were some who believed it necessary to ride a horse into the ground when carrying an urgent dispatch, but Hervey had always been of the opinion that the precise moment of collapse was never predictable, and therefore that it was too hazardous a principle to follow. ‘What’s the alarm?’

Fairbrother took off his shako and wiped his brow with his forearm. ‘Dundas,’ he began, shaking his head, and taking a long drink from a flask of Cape wine which Johnson had produced from nowhere. ‘Done the deucedest thing. I ought to report to Somerset straight away.’