caches of supplies at these places.
The rendezvous that Lothar had chosen for this meeting had an additional advantage. It was in the hills only a few miles north of the homestead of a prosperous German cattle-rancher, a good friend of Lothar's family, a sympathizer who could be relied upon to tolerate their presence on his lands.
Lothar entered the hills along the dried watercourse that twisted through them like a maimed puffadder. He walked in the open so that the waiting men could see him from afar, and they were still two miles from the rendezvous when a tiny figure appeared on the rocky crest ahead of them, wind-milling his arms in welcome. He was quickly joined by the other three and then they came running down the rough hillside to meet Lothar's party in the river-bed.
Leading them was Vark Jan', or Pig John', the old Khoisan warrior with his yellow wrinkled features that bespoke his mixed lineage of Nama and Berg-dama and, so he boasted, of even the true Bushman. Allegedly, his grandmother had been a Bushman slave captured by the Boers in one of the last great slave raids of the previous century. But then he was a famous har and opinion was divided as to the truth of this claim. He was followed closely by Klein Boy, Swart Hendrick's bastard son by a Herero mother.
He came directly to his father and greeted him with the traditional deferential clapping of hands. He was as tall and as powerfully built as Hendrick himself, but with the finer features and slanted eyes of his mother, and his skin was not as dark. Like wild honey it changed colour as the sunlight played upon it. These two had worked on the trawlers at Walvis Bay, and Hendrick had sent them ahead to find the other men they needed and bring them to the rendezvous.
Lothar turned to these men now. It was twelve years since last he had seen them. He remembered them as wild fighting men, his hunting dogs, he had called them with affection and total lack of trust. For like wild dogs they would have turned and savaged him at the first sign of weakness.
Now he greeted them by their old noms de guerre. Legs', the Ovambo with legs like a stork and Buffalo', who carried his head hunched on his thick neck like that animal. They clasped hands, then wrists and then hands again in the ritual greeting of the band reserved for special occasions, as after long separation or a successful foray, and Lothar studied them and saw how twelve years and easy living had altered them. They were fat and soft and middle-aged but, he consoled himself, the tasks he had for them were not demanding.
So! He grinned at them. We have pulled you off the fat bellies of your wives, and away from your beer-pots. And they roared with laughter.
We came the same minute that Klein Boy and Pig John spoke your name to us, they assured him.
Of course, you came only because of the love and loyalty you bear me, Lothar's sarcasm was biting, the way the vulture and the jackal come for love of the dead, not of the feast. They roared again. How they had missed the whip of his tongue.
Pig John did mention gold, the Buffalo admitted, between sobs of laughter. And Klein Boy whispered that there might be fighting again. It is sad, but a man of my age can pleasure his wives only once or twice a day, but he can fight and enjoy old companions and plunder day and night without end, and the loyalty we bear you is wide as the Kalahari, Stork Legs said, and they hooted with laughter and beat each other upon the back.
Still rumbling with occasional laughter, the group left the riverbed and climbed up to the old rendezvous point. It was a low overhanging shelf of rock, the roof blackened with the soot of countless campfires and the rear wall decorated with the ochre-coloured designs and drawings of the little yellow Bushmen who, before them, had used this shelter down the ages. From the entrance of the shelter there was a sweeping view out across the shimmering plains. It would be almost impossible to approach the hilltop undetected.
The four first-corners had already opened the cache. It had been hidden in a cleft of rock further down the side of the hill, and the entrance closed with boulders and plastered over with clay from the riverbank. The contents had survived the years better than Lothar had expected. Of course, the canned food and the ammunition cases had all been sealed, while the Mauser rifles were packed in thick yellow grease and wrapped in grease-paper. They were in perfect condition. Even most of the spare saddlery and clothing had been preserved by the desert's dry air.
They feasted on fried bully beef and toasted ship's biscuit, food they had once hated for its monotony but now was delicious and evocative of countless other meals, back in those desperate days rendered attractive by the passage of the years.
After they had eaten they picked over the saddlery and boots and clothing, rejecting those items damaged by insects and rodents or dried out like parchment, cannibalizing and re-stitching and polishing with dubbin until they had equipment and arms for all of them.
While they worked Lothar considered that there were dozens of these caches, scattered through the wilderness, while in the north at the secret coastal base from which he had refuelled and re-equipped the German U-boats there must still be thousands of pounds worth of stores. Until now it had never occurred to him to raid them for his own account,, somehow they had always been in patriotic trust.
He felt the prickle of temptation: Perhaps if I chartered a boat at Walvis and sailed up the coast, But then with a sudden chill he remembered that he would never see Walvis Bay or this land again. There would be no return after they had done what they were setting out to do.
He jumped to his feet and strode to the entrance of the rock shelter. As he stared out across the dun and heat-shot plain with its dotted camel-thorn trees, he felt a premonition of terrible suffering and unhappiness.
Could I ever be happy elsewhere? he wondered. Away from this harsh and beautiful land? His resolve wavered. He turned and saw Manfred watching him with a troubled frown. Can I make this decision for my son? He stared back at the boy. Can I condemn him to the life of an exile? He thrust the doubts aside with an effort, shaking them
off with a shudder like a horse driving the stinging flies from its hide, and called Manfred to him. He led him away from the shelter, and when they were out of earshot of the others told him what lay ahead of them, speaking to him as an equal.
All we have worked for has been stolen from us, Manie, not in the sight of the law but in the sight of God and natural justice. The Bible gives us redress against those who have deceived or cheated us, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We will take back what has been stolen from us.
But, Manie, the English law will look upon us as criminals.
We will have to fly, to run and hide, and they will hunt us like wild animals. We will survive only by our courage and our wits. Manfred stiffed eagerly, watching his father's face with bright eager eyes. it all sounded romantic and exciting and he was proud of his father's trust in discussing such adult matters with him.
