the escarpment of the Zambezi valley. They were forced to ack of hills and the intervening valleys follow the switchb so they were never on level ground.
The guerrillas had hidden their own women in a sate place, and only reluctantly consented to Sarah accompanying the raiding pare, but she carried a full load and kept up with the hard pace that Comrade Lookout set for them.
The ironstone hills soaked up the heat of the sun and at them, as they toiled up the steep bounced it back hillsides and dropped again into the next valley. The descents were as taxing as the climbs, the heavy load-, the backs of their legs jarring their spines and straining and their Achilles tendons. The old elephant trails that pebbles they were following were littered with round rolled under foot like hall washed out by the rains that bearings and made each pace fraught with danger.
One of the guerrillas fell, and his ankle swelled up so that they could not get his boot back on his foot. The m and left him to find his distributed his load amongst the own way back to where they had left the women.
i bees plagued them dit ring the day, The tiny mo pan clouding around their mouths and nostrils and eyes in their persistent search for moisture and in the nights the mosquitoes from the stagnant pools in the valleys took over from them. At one stage of the trek they passed fly-belt, and the silent, light through the edge of the -ie torment, settling so softh footed tsetse-flies joined ri that the, victim was unaware until a red-hot needle stabbeJ
7 into the soft flesh at the back of the, ear, or under the armpit.
Always there was danger of attack. Every few miles either the scouts out ahead or the rear-guard dragging the trail behind them would signal an alert, and they would be forced to dive into cover and wait with finger on trigger until the all-clear signal was passed down the line.
it was slow and gruelling and nerve-racking two full days' marching from freezing dawn through burning noon into darkness again, to reach Sarah's father's village.
Vusamanzi was his name and he was a senior magician, soothsayer and rainmaker of the Matabele tribe. Likeall his kind, he lived in isolation, with only his wives and immediate family around him. However great their respect for them, ordinary mortals avoided the practitioners of the dark arts; they came to them only for divination or treatment, paid the goat or beast that was the fee, and hurried thankfully away again.
Vusamanzi's village was some miles north of Tuti Mission Station. It was a prosperous little community on a hilltop, with many wives and goats and chickens and fields of maize in the valley.
The guerrillas lay up' in the forest below the kopje, and they sent Sarah in to make certain all was safe and to warn the villagers of their presence. Sarah returned within an hour, and Craig and Comrade Lookout went back to the village with her.
Vusamanzi had earnqa his name, 'Raise the Waters', from his reputed ah9ity to control the Zambezi and its tributaries. As a much younger man he had sent a great flood to wash away the village of a lesser chief who had cheated him of his fees, and since then a number of others who had displeased him had drowned mysteriously at fords or bathing holes. It was said that at Vusamanzi's behest the surface of a quiet pool would leap up suddenly in a hissing wave as the marked victim approached to drink or bathe or cross, and he would be sucked in. No living man had actually witnessed this terrible phenomenon but never an did not have much ffieless, Vusamanzi, the magici trouble with bad debts from his patients and clients.
Vusamanzi's hair was a cap of pure white and he wore a small beard, also white dressed out to a spade shape in the fashion of the Zulus. Sarah must have been a child of his old age, but she had inherited her fine looks from him, for he was handsome and dignified. He had put aside his only a simple loin-cloth and his body was regalia.
He vote straight and lean, and his voice, when he greeted Craig IR courteously, was deep and steady.
Clearly Sarah revered him, for she took the beer-pot from one of his junior wives and knelt to offer it to him herself. In her turn, Sarah obviously had a special place in the old man's affections, for he smiled at her fondly, and when she sat at his feet, he fondled her head casually as he listened attentively to what Craig had to tell him. Then he sent her to help his wives to prepare food and beer and take it down to the guerrillas hidden in the valley before he turned back to Craig.
4the man you call Tungat a Zebiwe, the Seeker after justice, was born Samson Kumalo. He is in direct line of succession from Mzilikazi, the first king and father of our people. He is the one upon whom the prophecies o t. e ancients descend. On the night he was taken by the Shons Idlers, I had sent for him to appraise him of his responsiso bility and to make him privy to the secrets of the kings. It he is still alive, as my daughter tells us he is, then it is the duty of every Matabele to do all in his power to seek his m. The future of our people tests with him. How can free do I assist you? You have only to ask.'
'You have already helped us with food,' Craig thanked him. 'Now we need information.'
'Ask, Kuphela. Anything that I can tell you, I will.' and the camp of the 'The road between Tuti Mission soldiers passes close to this place. Is that correct?'
isi
'Beyond those hills,' the old man pointed.
'Sarah tells me that every week the trucks come along this road on the same day, taking food to the soldiers and the prisoners at the camp.'
'That is so. Every week, on the Monday late in the afternoon, the trucks pass here loaded with bags of maize and other stores. They return empty the following morning.
'How many trucks?'
'Two or, rarely, three.'
'How many soldiers to guard them?'
'Two in front beside the driver, three or four more in the back. One stands on the roof with a big gun that shoots fast.' A heavy machine-gun, Craig translated for himself. 'The soldiers are very watchful and alert and the trucks drive fast.'
'They came last Monday, as usual?' Craig asked.
As usual,' Vusarnanzi nodded his cap of shiny white wool. He must believe then that the routine was still in operation, Craig decided, and bet everything on it.
'How far is it to the mission station from here?' he as cec.
'From there to there.' The witch-doctor swept his arm through a segment of the sky, about four hours of the sun's passage. Reckoned as the pace of a man on foot, that was approximately fifteen mil4;s.
'And from here to the camp of the soldiers?' Craig went on.
Vusamanzi shrugged. 'The same distance.'
'Good.' Craig unrolled his map, they were equidistant between the two points. That gave him a fairly accurate fix. He began calculating times and distances and scribbling them in the margin of the map.
'We have a day to wait.' Craig looked up at last. 'The men will rest and ready themselves.'
'My women will feed them,'Vusamanzi agreed.
'Then on Monday I will need some of your people to -help me.' 'There are only women here,' the old man demurred.
'I need women young women, comely women,' Craig told him. - 'he next morning, leaving before dawn, Craig and Comrade Lookout, taking a runner with them, reconnoitred the stretch of road that lay just beyond the line of low hills. It was as Craig remembered it, a crude track into which heavy trucks had ground deep ruts, but the Third Brigade had cleared the brush on both sides to reduce the risk of ambush.
A little before noon they reached the spot where Peter Fungabera had stopped during their first drive to Tuti, the causeway where the road crossed the timber bridge across and where they had eaten that lunch of the green river baked maize cobs.
Craig found that his memory was accurate. 'Me approaches to the bridge, firstly down the steep slope of the valley and then across the narrow earthen causeway, must force the supply convoy to slow down and engage low ear. It was the perfect spot for an ambush, and Craig sent the runner back to Vusamanzi's village to bring up the rest of the force. While they waited, Craig and Comrade t over their plans and adapted them to the Lookout well actual terrain.
'The main attack would take place at the bridge, but if that failed, they must have a backup plan to prevent die through. As soon as the main force of convoy getting guerrillas arrived, Craig sent Comrade Lookout with five men along the road beyond the bridge. Out of sight from the bridge, they felled a large mhoba-hobo tree so that it fell across the track, as an effective roadblock. Comradu Lookout would command here, while Craig coordinated the attack at the bridge, 'Which are the men who speak Shana?' Craig demanded.
'This one speaks it likea Shana, this one not as well.'
'They are to be kept out of any fighting. We cannot risk losing them,' Craig ordered. 'We will need them for the camp.'
'I will hold them in my hand, 'Comrade Lookout agreed.
'Now the women.' Sarah had chosen three of her half-sisters from the village, ranging in age from sixteen to eighteen years.
They were the prettiest of the old witch-doctor's multitudinous daughters, and when Craig explained their role to them, they giggled and hung their heads, and covered their mouths with their hands and went through all the other motions of modesty and maidenly shyness. But they were
