dark massif of the mountain. MbeJane was waiting with his men beside a
small, well, screened fire.
'I see you, Mbejane.
'I see you, Nkosi. ' In the firelight Mbejane's legs were coated with
dust to the knees and his face was grey with fatigue.
'What news?'
'Old sign. Perhaps a week ago, many men camped over there below the
river. 'twenty fires not in lines as the soldiers make them.
They left no little tin pots as the soldiers (to when they have emptied
them of meat. No tents, but beds of cut grass, many beds.'
'How many?' It was an idle question for Mbejane could not count as a
white man counts. He shrugged.
'As many beds as there are men with us?' Sean sought a comparison.
'More.' Mbejane thought carefully before answering.
'As many again?' Sean persisted.
'Perhaps as many again, but no more than that.'
Probably five hundred men, Sean guessed. 'Which way were they
moving?'
Mbejane pointed south, west.
Back towards Vryheid and the protection of the Drakensberg mountain.
Yes, it was part of the Wynberg commando without doubt.
'What news from the kraals?'
'There is fear among them. They tell little, and that of no
importance.' Mbejane made no attempt to hide his disgust, the contempt
that the Zulu feels for every other tribe in Africa.
'You have done well, Mbejane. Rest now for we ride before the dawn. '
Four more days they moved south, west, Sean's trackers sweeping the
ground ten miles on each side of their path and finding it empty.
The Drakensberg reared up like a serrated back of a prehistoric monster
along the south horizon. There was snow on the peaks.
Sean exercised his men in the counters to a surprise attack.
Riflemen wheeling out and dismounting in line to cover the Maxims as
they galloped wildly for the nearest high ground.
Holders gathering the loose horses and pelting away to the cover of the
nearest don ga or kopJe. Again and again they repeated this
manoeuvre.
Sean worked them until they leaned forward in their saddles to nurse
aching backsides and cursed him as they rode. He worked them to the
edge of exhaustion and then on to a new physical fitness. They
sprouted beards, their faces reddened and peeled, then darkened with
the sun, their uniforms darkened also, but with dirt. Now they no
longer cursed him. There was a new feeling among them, they laughed
more and sat solid in the saddle, slept soundly at night despite the
cold and woke with eagerness.
Sean was moderately satisfied.
On the morning of the tenth day Sean was scouting ahead of the column
with two of his troopers. They had just dismounted to rest among an
outcrop of boulders when Sean picked up movement out on the plain
ahead. With a savage lift of anticipation he scrambled down from the