Now, marvellously, there was the sound of other voices, distant voices, lifted in the war song. They came from the prison huts beyond the parade ground. Hundreds of imprisoned Matabele were singing with them, sharing the moment of their deaths, giving them strength and comfort.
The Shana captain lifted his right hand, and in the last instants of his life Tijngata's sadness fell away to be replaced by a soaring pride. These are men, he thought, with or without me they will resist the tyrant.
The captain brought his hand down sharply, as he bellowed the command. 'Fire! The volley was simultaneous. The line of executioners swayed to the sharp recoil of rifles and the blast dinned in on Tungata's eardrums so that he flinched involuntarily.
He heard the vicious slap of bullets into living flesh, and from the corners of his vision saw the men beside him jerk as though from the blows of invisible sledgehammers, and then fall forward against their bonds. The song was cut off abruptly on their lips. Yet the song still poured from Tungata's throat and he stood erect.
The riflemen lowered their weapons, laughing and nudging each other as though at some grand joke. From the prison huts the war song had changed to the dismal ululation of mourning, and now at last Tungata's voice dried and he faltered into silence.
He turned his head and looked at the men beside him.
They had shared the volley between them, and their torsos Were riddled with shot. Already the flies were swarming to the wounds.
Now suddenly Tungata's knees began to buckle, and he felt his sphincter loosening. He fought his body, hating its weakness. Gradually, he brought it under control.
The Shana captain came to stand in front of him and said in English, 'Good joke, hey? Heavy, man, heavy!' and grinned delightedly.
Then he turned and shouted, 'Bring water, quickly!' A trooper brought an enamel dish, brimming with clear water, and the captain took it from him. Tungata could smell the water. It is said that the little Bushmen can smell water at a distance of many miles, but he had not truly believed it until now. The water smelled sweet as a freshly sliced honeydew melon, and his throat convulsed in a spasmodic swallowing reflex. He could not take his eyes off the dish.
The captain lifted the dish with both hands to his own lips and took a mouthful, then he rinsed his mouth and gargled with it noisily. He spat the mouthful and grinned at Tungata, then held the dish up before his face. Slowly and deliberately he tipped the dish and the water spilled into the dust at Tungata's feet. It splashed his legs to the knees. Each drop felt cold as ice chips and every cell Of Tungata's body craved for it with a strength that was almost madness. The captain inverted the dish and let the last drops fall.
'Heavy, man!' he repeated mindlessly, and turned to shout an order at his men. They doubled away across the parade ground, leaving Tungata alone with the dead and the flies.
They came for him at sunset. When they cut his wrist bonds, he groaned involuntarily at the agonizing rush of fresh blood into his swollen hands, and fell to his knees.
His legs could not support him. They had to half-carry him to his hut.
The room was bare, except for an uncovered toilet bucket in the corner and two bowls in the centre of the baked-mud floor. One dish contained a pint of water, the other a handful of stiff white maize cake. The cake was heavily oversalted. On the morrow, he would pay for eating it in the heavy coin of thirst, but he had to have strength.
He drank half the water and set the rest aside for the morning, and then he stretched out on the bare floor Residual heat beat down on him from the corrugated iron roof, but by morning he knew he would be shivering with cold. He ached in every joint of his body, and his head pounded with the effects of the sun and the glare until he thought his skull would pop likea ripe cream of tartar pod on a baobab tree.
Outside in the darkness beyond the wire, the hyena packs disputed the feast that had been laid for them. Their cries and howls were a lunatic bedlam of greed, punctuated by the crunch of bone in great jaws.
Despite it all, Tungata slept, and woke to the tramp of feet and shouted orders in the dawn. Swiftly he gulped down the remains of the' Water to fortify himself, and then squatted over the bucket. His body had so nearly played him false the day before. He would not let it happen today.
The door was flung open.
'Out, you Matabele dog! Out of your stinking kennelP They marched him back to the wall. There were three other naked Matabele facing it already. Irrelevantly he noticed that they had lime washed the wall. They were very conscientious about that. He stood with his face two feet from the pristine white surface and steeled himself for the day ahead.
They shot the three other prisoners at noon. This time Tungata could not lead them in the singing. He tried, but his throat closed up on him. By the middle of the afternoon, his vision was breaking up into patches of darkness and stabbing white light. However, every time his legs collapsed and he fell forward against his bound wrists, the. pain in his shoulder sockets as his am-Ls twisted upwards revived him.
The thirst was unspeakable.
The patches of darkness in his head became deeper and lasted longer, the pain could no longer revive him completely. Out of one of the dark areas a voice spoke.
'My dear fellow,' said the voice. 'This is all terribly distasteful to me.' The voice of Peter Fungabera drove away the darkness and gave Tungata new strength. He struggled upright, lifted his head and forced his vision to clear.
He looked at Peter Fungabera's face and his hatred came to arm him. He cherished his hatred as a life-giving force.
Peter Fungabera was in fatigues and beret. He carried his swagger-stick in his right hand. At his side was a white man whom Tungata had never seen before. He was tall and slim and old. His head was freshly shaven, his skin ruined with cicatrices and his eyes were a strange pale shade of blue that Tungata found as repulsive and chilling as the stare of a cobra. He was watching Tungata with clinical interest, devoid of pity or other human sentiment.
'I regret that you are not seeing Comrade Minister Zebiwe at his best,' Peter told the white man. 'He has lost a great deal of weight, but not here-, With the UP of the swagger stick Peter Fungabera lifted the heavy black bunch of Tungata's naked genitalia.
'Have you ever seen anything like that?' he asked, using the swagger-stick with the same dexterity as a chopstick.
Bound to the stake, Tungata could not pull away. it was the ultimate degradation, this arrogant mauling and examination of his private parts.
'Enough for three ordinary men,' Peter estimated with mock admiration, and Tungata glared at him wordlessly.
The Russian made an impatient gesture and Peter nodded.
'You are right. We are wasting time.' He Rlanced at his wrist-watch and then turned to the captain who was close by, waiting with his squad.
'Bring the prisoner up to the fort.' They had to carry Tungata.
eter Fungabera's quarters in the blockhouse on the central rock kopje were spartanly furnished, but the dirt floor had been freshly swept and sprinkled with water. He and the Russian sat on one side of the trestle, table that served as a desk. There was a wooden bench on the opposite side, facing them.
The guards helped Tungata to the bench. He pushed their hands away and sat upright, glaring silently at the two men opposite him. Peter said something to the captain in Shana, and they brought a cheap grey blanket and draped it over Tungata's shoulders. Another order, and the captain carried in a trot' on which stood a bottle of vodka and another of whisky, two glasses, an ice-bucket and a pitcher of water.
Tungata did not look at the water. It took all his selfcontrol, but he kept his eyes on Peter Fungabera's face.
'Now, this is much more civilized,' Peter said. 'The Comrade Minister Zebiwe speaks no Shana, only the primitive Sindebele dialect, so we will use the language common to all of us English.' He poured vodka and whisky and as the ice clinked into the glasses Tungata winced, but kept his gaze fixed on Peter Fungabera.
'This is a briefing,' Peter explained. 'Our guest,' he indicated the old white man, 'is a student of African history. He has read, and remembered, everything ever written about this country. While you, my dear Tungata, are a sprig of the house of Kurnalo, the old robber chiefs of the Matabele, who for a hundred years raided and terrorized the legitimate owners of this land, the Mashona people.
Therefore both of you might already know something of what I am about to relate. If that is so, I beg your indulgence.' He sipped his whisky, and neither of the other two moved or spoke.
'We must go back a hundred and fifty years,' said Peter, to when a young field commander of the Zulu King Chaka, a man who was the king's favourite, failed to render up to Chaka the spoils of war. This man's name was Mzilikazi, son of Mashobane of the Kumalo sub tribe of Zulu, and he was to become the first Matabele. In passing, it is interesting to note that he set a precedent for the tribe which he was to found. Firstly, he was a master of rapine and plunder, a famous killer. Then he was a thief. He stole from his own sovereign. He failed to render to Chaka the king's share of the spoils. Then Mzilikazi was a coward, for when Chaka sent for him to face retribution, he fled.' Peter smiled at Tungata. 'Killer, thief and coward that was Mzilikazi, father
