protect and hold safely those things the are precious; if, during the
building, a man loses and expends those things which he wishes to
protect, then the finished fortress is a mockery. I have not lost it
all, a little I have used in barter. I have traded a little faith for
the knowledge of evil; exchanged a little laughter for the
understanding of death; a measure of freedom for two sons (and this was
a good trade)-but I know there is still something left.
At his side Mbejane noticed the change of Sean's mood, and he moved in
front of it to turn it once more into sunshine.
'Nkosi, we must hurry if you wish to reach your drinking place at
Frere. ' With an effort Sean thrust his thoughts aside, and laughed.
They rode on into the north, and on the third day they reached
Chievely.
Sean remembered his innocent amazement when, as a youth, he had joined
Lord Chelmsford's column at Rorke's Drift at the beginning of the Zulu
War. He had believed then no greater accumulation of men was possible.
Now he looked out across the encampment of the British Army before
Colenso and smiled; Chelmsford's little force would have been lost in
the artillery and ordnance park, yet beyond that the tents stretched
away for two miles. Row upon row of white canvas cones with the horse
lines in between-and to the rear the orderly acres of import vehicles,
thousands of them, with the draught animals scattered grazing across
the veld almost to the range of the eye.
it was an impressive sight not only in its immensity but also in its
neat and businesslike layout; so was the military precision of the
blocks of men at drill, the massed glitter of their bayonets as they
turned and marched and counter marched
When Sean wandered into the camp and read the names of the regiments at
the head of each row of tents he recognized them as the sound of glory.
But the new khaki uniforms and Pith helmets had reduced them all to a
homogeneous mass. Only the cavalry retained a little of the magic in
the pennants that fluttered gaily at their lance-tips. A squadron
trotted past him and Sean eyed their mounts with envy. Great shiny
beasts, as arrogant as the men upon their backs. Horse and rider given
an air of inhuman cruelty by the slender bright-tipped lance they
carried.
A dozen times Sean asked his question,
'Where can I find the Guides' and though the answer was given in the
dialects of Manchester and Lancashire, in the barely intelligible
accents of Scotland and Ireland, each had a common factor-they were all
singularly unhelpful.
Once he stopped to watch a group training with one of the new Maxim
mach me-guns. Clumsy, he decided, no match against a rifle.
Later he would remember this judgement and feel a little foolish.
All morning he trudged through the camp, with MbeJane trailing him, and
at noon he was tired and dusty and bad tempered The Natal Corps of
Guides appeared to be a mythical unit. He stood on the edge of the
camp and looked out across the open veld, pondering his next move in
the search.
Half a mile out on the grassy plain a thin drift of blue smoke caught
