You have to charge out from those and those bushes, I say. Do you see that bit of sandy soil where the stream is shallow? If you can occupy that terrain, you have a crossing to the other side, you can surround the attackers, trap them against their own screens.
The little bantams stand counting their toes. The gang on the other side yell and jeer at us. One of the cheeky snot-nosed Heathens shouts something about my paunch. I grab Michiel’s stick from his hand, press a piece of clay around the point, and switch the little mocking monkey between the eyes.
The meeting scatters, the war now once again at full pitch. My men find the crossing I told them about, but so do the enemy. The lines clash and mingle and soon it’s a free-for-all. Ten-year-old fists fly and the sticks are now just sticks. If there is any throwing, it’s with stones. My toe is playing up again today; the hands are also not that wonderful at aiming the stick. I alone have to play by the rules. I can damnwell not pummel and pepper the children as they’re doing to each other. To them I’m just as much a part of the battle and perhaps the only adversary – the white man, the fat man, the old man. I trip, the damp clay sags under me.
The first one is on top of me and then the next. I’m lying under a heap of wriggling and squealing boy children who fell me like an exhausted elephant. They scramble over me, tug at my hair and beard and then tackle each other. My Midge is in between somewhere, now and again I spot a familiar arm or a pair of green eyes. My last linen shirt tears. Somewhere under the children I stop wriggling. I lie back in the river clay, close my eyes. Never have I heard Midge laugh like that. Never ever have I played like that with my own brood. It’s not too unpleasant.
Makaba says Stockenström and Campbell are poking about, sniffing the air for any smelly rumours about him blowing about. I am paramount chief here, he says and spreads his arms and sticks out his belly: They are welcome to pay me obeisance, but they dare not send me messages as to how I should lead my people. We dispatch two messengers, one of his men and one of mine. They tell Campbell Makaba invited me to stay with him in exchange for two or three herds of cattle, but when I turned up here, he gave me only thirty head of cattle. So I was supposedly highly upset and did not want to accept the measly number of cows. Makaba sends me two oxen to slaughter. According to the customs of the Ngwaketse these sacrificial animals say that I am his prisoner. Every time I want to escape from his trap, two more slaughter oxen arrive, saying Not so fast. Campbell swallows the story like Stellenbosch sweetmeats. So that when the messengers invite him cordially to visit Makaba, he stays well away, scared that he also will be detained here against his divinely established will.
Behold, I neither slumber nor sleep. There are noises in the night. If I as much as put my nose out of the tent, I always and everywhere carry at least three guns with me. I have taught Elizabeth to load them. If the attack comes, I need only fire while she reloads. For what it’s worth: This anxiety and sleeplessness story is all true and real and I make sure that the men convey it as it is to Campbell. Instead of the message conjuring me up in his mind’s eye as an unpredictable and terrifying bogeyman, it moves the bloody dodderer to pity me. Apparently he enquires with great concern about the extent of my fear and misery. When they tell me this, I feel as if every vein in my body is going to explode. I am not miserable! I want to shout at the shit-slobbering minister across the vastness. I am not afeard: I am able-bodied!
Apparently Stockenström also spoke of wanting to set eyes on me. There was even talk of a pardon if I could provide him with useful information regarding the interior. A pardon for a road map, provided that recent malfeasances have not proved me unworthy of his mercy. Begone, viperous wretch! The bugger never got hold of me. So sorry to disappoint him.
I’m living quite comfortably with Makaba. With all our looting I’m building up a respectable herd again, but my army is dwindling. The pox-afflicted cowards desert me, at first one by one, then in droves. I’m under the thumb of Makaba with little more power than one of his captains. My men want to get rich. They want to trade ivory with lazy frontier farmers, not blast away their precious gunpowder for a Caffre chief’s empire. Anyway. You take what you can, while you can.
See: This is October 1820 and I’m on the back of my last horse, a large stallion of burnished copper. Along with Diutlwileng’s Hurutshe my people and I rustle the cattle of the Ngwaketse and I shoot out my most precious gunpowder on the cattle-herds and warriors of my recent ally, my comrade, the dreaded Makaba.
Another friend betrayed, another wagon laden and away we go, back to Lehurutshe, and here I want to stay. We lay out farmlands, we extract water, we sow what there is to sow. The horses have all died by now.
One morning, hardly a month after we’ve finished sowing, two of my dogs lie impaled in my kraal. The Hurutshe Caffres who greet me amiably during the day steal my cattle the moment the sun sets. The dogs fend off the thieves with their lives night after night. Soon I’ve had enough of this. One fine night I have the dogs tied up. Doors and Doris are on guard in the kraal. I give them one of my last powder horns. Doors is ten and Doris has just turned seven. It’s not long before they spot some bodies in the bushes. Two Caffres climb into the kraal. Doors knows pretty well by now how to wield a gun and he rounds up the two chancers. The others disappear into the night. We unleash the dogs and they charge after the others. I push one of the Caffres up against the branches of the kraal. I ask why they want to take my cattle. He says the command comes from the captain. He’s heard that I want to trek to the Bakwena. I curse the Caffre onto his knees and Doris is at hand promptly to keep him there. Doors keeps the other one quiet with a gun to his head.
Doris, today is your day, my son, I say.
Father.
Shoot the bastard.
I keep my gun trained on the kneeling Caffre while my son gets the better of his shakes. Doris rests his gun securely against the Caffre’s forehead.
Shoot, child, don’t think.
Father.
The Caffre is crying and Doris is crying and Doors also starts sobbing and I ask the Caffre if he’s telling the truth and he says yes.
Shoot, I say.
Doris gapes at me open-mouthed; I shove him.
Goddam, child, have you no ears?
The gun kicks in my son’s hands and the top of the Caffre’s head splatters against the kraal wall. Doris’ face is spattered with blood. I chase the other Caffre back to the captain with the message:
On this day I’m trekking, you god-cursed villain. If you’re planning to do anything to me, you’d better come now.
We haven’t yet done inspanning, when we see them seething down the hills like ants. We fasten the last yokes securely while the Caffres surround us. The oxen mill around between the wagons and the Buys clan. There’s no space to move or think. The Caffres move in upon us, the noose starts tightening. I ask through my interpreter what they want. They remain silent and come closer. I ask them who they think bears the guilt for the blood that flowed last night. They remain silent. The interpreter, a nervous creature with a big mouth and little limp arms, flings his assegai into the ruck. He hasn’t properly recovered his footing after the throw when he has a Hurutshe assegai in his shoulder. I drag him into the wagon and pluck out the thing and tell the daughters to minister to him with Elizabeth’s concoctions. I take up all three of my guns and climb out of the wagon and walk in among them and start firing and around me I think I hear other shots ringing out and when I come to my senses, ten Caffres are lying dead and the others are in full flight and I chuck away the empty powder horn and we finish the inspanning and I crack the whip.