Company Of Spears

He pressed on without checking, however, or without looking behind, the canter and the slope taking him voluntarily or otherwise towards the snake-like columns. At a hundred yards the columns became things of glistening, feathered warriors, of spears and shields. Hervey knew he had seen nothing of its like. Never before, no matter how savage the enemy, had he perceived Creation so … primitive; as if from the earliest days of the Fall. He wondered how he might speak with such a people – if these primitives could be dignified by the word ‘people’. Not just speak but communicate, convey an understanding.

He slowed to a trot and then a walk, and came to a halt fifty yards from the head of the centre column. There he would wait for a propitious sign.

He waited for what felt a long age. And while he waited he began to see the remarkable uniformity of these warriors. At first he had observed merely shield upon shield; now he saw shield upon identical shield, the exact same. And they were evidently of animal hide, which uniformity spoke to him of Shaka’s powerful dominion over ‘every living thing that moveth upon the earth’. Each warrior wore an apron of bunched hide and feathers (every one the same) and a headband of spotted fur (leopardskin, perhaps?) and white streamers just above the elbow on each arm – oxtail hair probably. Hervey wondered if they fought as regularly as they looked, in close formation; or if they attacked in loose, open order, as skirmishers did. He studied the short, stabbing spear – not assegai, as he had once thought it called, but iklwa. It appeared to be their sole weapon. The blade was about a foot long, a few inches at its widest, tapering to a rounded tip, unlike the pronounced point of the bayonet or the sabre. He reckoned it would need strength to stab home with it. But such a point, driven into the gut with force, would do such damage as to confound the best surgeon’s art. The warriors held the short shafts to stab underarm. Hervey could picture the method – the shield not merely to parry, but to mask the coming thrust. He did not think it would do to face such a weapon with a sabre, dismounted.

One of the Zulu stepped forward, a thick-set, older man with a slight stoop. Hervey had not noticed him before, for he was dressed the same as the rest – except that he wore a necklace of claws.

‘Molo mhlob’am!’ said Fairbrother, saluting.

The tribesman eyed him cautiously.

Fairbrother supposed he recognized the friendly Xhosa greeting, even if the Zulu were different.

‘Yebo, sawubona!’

The words were unfamiliar, but Fairbrother fancied the raised spear was greeting enough. He would try the simplest Xhosa by return. ‘Colonel Hervey, here, commands a detachment of King George’s army.’ He indicated the royal representative.

The Zulu put the point of the spear to his chest. ‘Igama lami nguMatiwane!’

Fairbrother saluted again. ‘Ndiyavuya ukukwazi, Matiwane.’ He had learned the Zulu’s name (Matiwane); was he the cohort’s chief? He would press to know the reason for their advance. ‘You come to see your brothers the Xhosa?’

While Fairbrother continued his halting exchange, Hervey took in all that he could of the extraordinary scene. He marked that the Zulu could see the troop on the ridge, a quarter of a mile away. They watched warily, like some animal when a distant predator appeared. Perhaps the horses did indeed make them uneasy? For all Hervey knew, this Matiwane might believe the horses could leap at him in seconds, like the leopard, with many thousands more of them waiting to pounce, all hidden the other side of the hill. But even as he watched them parley he became aware that the columns were not absolutely motionless. He glanced left and right. He could not actually see the Zulu moving, only somehow that there had been movement. He glanced left and right again. The progress was now evident, as must be the purpose: the Zulu were moving to encircle them. And they would not need to complete the circle: it would only take a rush before long and their line of withdrawal would be closed. He must act at once.

He held up a hand. ‘Sharply, about turn and away!’

Fairbrother made to protest, but Hervey gave him no chance. They turned and galloped like the devil, Sam Kirwan leading.

The same blood-chilling moan followed them, like a thousand angry wasps in an echo-chamber. Hervey did not turn. He pressed Gilbert as hard as he could, but feeling with every stride that something was amiss. As they got within hailing distance of the crest at a struggling canter, the gelding stumbled once, and then again, and then tumbled on to the forearm, throwing Hervey clean from the saddle.