'Padre, I was lying,' the boy whispered. 'I am afraid.'
'We all are.' Clinton squeezed his hand. 'I tell you what, lad. If you like, you can load for Dillon here. He's got eyes to shoot, but only one arm, you're got two good arms.'
'Bully on you, Padre,' Dillon grinned. 'Why didn't we think of that.'
Clinton draped a bandolier across the blind boy's legs.
There were only fifteen cartridges in the loops, and at that moment, out in the mopani, the singing started.
It was slow and deep and very beautiful, echoing and ringing through the forest. The praise song of the Inyati.
And Clinton turned his head and looked slowly around the circle.
All the horses were dead; they lay in a litter of saddlery and broken equipment, of crumpled yellow scraps of waxed paper from the ammunition packets, of empty brass cartridge cases and discarded rifles. In the confusion, only the row of dead men was orderly. How long was that row, Clinton thought, oh God, what a waste this is, what a cruel waste.
He raised his eyes, and the clouds were at last breaking up. There were valleys of sweet blue sky between the soaring ranges of cumulus. Already the sunset was licking the cloud mountains with soft, fleshy tones of pink and rose, while the depths of the billowing masses were the colour of burnt antimony and tarnished silver.
They had fought all day on this bloody patch of mud.
In another hour it would be dark, but even now there were dark specks moving like dust motes against the high singing blue of the evening sky. The tiny specks turned in slow eddies, like a lazy whirlpool, for the vultures were still very high, waiting and watching with the infinite patience of Africa.
Clinton lowered his eyes, and across the circle Wilson was watching him.
He sat with his back against the belly of one of the dead horses. His right arm hung uselessly at his side, and the wadding over the wound in his stomach was crimson with seeping blood, but he held his revolver in his lap.
The two men held each other's gaze while the singing soared and fell and soared again.
'They'll be coming now, for the last time,' Wilson said.
Clinton nodded, and then he lifted his chin, and he, too, began to sing: 'Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee, ' His voice was surprisingly clear and true, and Wilson was singing with him, holding the wadding to his stomach wound.
Darkness comes over me, My rest a stone The blind boy's voice cracked and quavered. Dillon was beside him; though his ankle and elbow were shot through, he lay upon his back with a rifle propped on his crossed knees, ready to fire one-handed when they came. His voice was flat and tuneless, but he winked cheekily at Clinton and grinned:
Angels to beckon me Eight of them, all that were left, every one of them wounded more than once, but all of them singing in the wilderness of the mopani forests, their voices tinny and thin, almost lost in the great crashing chords of the praise song of the Inyati regiment.
Then there was thunder in the air, the drumming of two thousand assegais on black and white dappled shields, and the thunder came rolling down upon their little circle.
Allan Wilson dragged himself to his feet to face them.
Because of his stomach wound, he could not stand erect, and the one arm dangled at his side. His service revolver made a strangely unwarlike popping sound in the roar of the war chant and the drumming blades.
Dillon was still singing, snatching the loaded rifles and firing, and singing, and grabbing the next rifle. The blind boy felt the last cartridge into a rifle breech, and passed the hot rifle back to Dillon, and then he groped for another round, his fingers becoming frantic as he realized the bandolier was empty.
'They're finished,' he cried. 'They are all finished!'
Dillon pushed himself erect on his one good leg, and hopped forward, holding the empty rifle by the muzzle, and he swung the butt at the wave of shields and plumes that reared over him, but the blow lacked power and was deflected harmlessly aside by one of the tall oval shields; and then quite miraculously a long, broad blade sprang from between his shoulder blades, driven through from breast bone to spine, and the silver steel was misted pink.
'I don't want to die,' screamed the blind boy. 'Please hold me, Padre.'
And Clinton put his arm around his shoulders and squeezed with all his strength.
'It's all right, lad,' he said. 'It's going to be all right.'
The bodies were stripped naked. Their skin, never touched by the sun, was snowy white and strangely delicate-looking, like the smooth petals of the arum lily.
Upon this whiteness, the wounds were the shocking colour of crushed mulberries.
Around the killing ground was gathered a vast concourse of warriors, some of them already wearing items of the looted uniforms, all of them still panting with the exhilaration of that last wild charge and the stabbing with which it had ended.
From the dense ranks, an old grizzle-headed warrior stepped forward with his assegai held under-handed, like a butcher's knife. He stooped over the naked corpse of Clinton Codrington. It was the time to let the spirits of the white men free, to let them escape from their bodies and fly, lest they remain on earth to trouble the living. it was time for the ritual disembowelment. The old warrior placed the point of his blade on the skin of Clinton's stomach, just above the pathetic shrivelled cluster of his genitals, and gathered himself to make the deep upward stroke.
'Hold!' A clear voice stopped him, and the warrior stood back and saluted respectfully as Gandang came
