to him with surprise. You've been married before? he asked. With a vengeance. She was half Spanish and the rest Norwegian, a smoking bubbly mixture of cold fire and hot ice. Duff's voice went dreamy. The memory has cooled sufficiently for me to think of it with a tinge of regret. What happened? I left her yWe only did two things well together and one of them was fight. If I close my eyes I can still see the way she used to pout with those lovely lips and bring them close to my ear before she hissed out a particularly foul word, then, hey ho! back to bed for the reconciliation. Perhaps you made the wrong choice. You look around, you'll see millions of happily, married people Name me one, challenged Duff and the silence lengthened as Sean thought.
Then Duff went on, There's only one good reason for marriage, and that's children. And companionship, that's another good reason. Companionship from a woman? Duff cut in incredulously. Like perfume from garlic. They're incapable of it.
I suppose it's the training they get from their mothers, who are after all women themselves, but how can you be friends with someone who suspicions every little move you make, who takes your every action and weighs it on the balance of he loves me, he loves me not? Duff shook his head unhappily. How long can a friendship last when it needs an hourly declaration of love to nourish it? The catechism of matrimony, 'Do you love me, darling?
'Yes, darling of course I do, my sweet. ' It's got to sound convincing every time otherwise tears.
Sean chuckled. All right, it's funny, it's hilarious until you have to live with it, Duff mourned. Have you ever tried to talk to a woman about anything other than love? The same things that interest you leave them cold. It comes as a shock the first time you try talking sense to them and suddenly you realize that their attention is not with you - they get a slightly fixed look in their eyes and you know they are thinking about that new dress or whether to invite Men Van der Hum to the party, so you stop talking and that's another mistake. That's a sign; marriage is full of signs that only a wife can read. I hold no brief for matrimony, Duff, but aren't you being a little unfair, judging everything by your own unfortunate experience? Select any woman slap a ring on her third finger and she becomes a wife. First she takes you into her warm, soft body, which is pleasant, and then she tries to take you into her warm, soft mind, which is not so pleasant.
She does not share, she possesses, she clings and she smothers. The relation of man to woman is uninteresting in that it conforms to an inescapable pattern, nature has made it so for the very good reason that it requires us to reproduce; but in order to obtain that result every love, Romeo and Juliet, Bonaparte and Josephine not excepted, must lead up to the co- performance of a simple biological function. It's such a small thing, such a short-lived, trivial little experience. Apart from that xnan and woman think differently, feel differently and are interested in different things. Would you call that companionship? No, but is that a true picture? Is that all there is between them? Sean asked.
You'll find out one day. Nature in her preoccupation with reproduction has planted in the mind of man a barricade; it has sealed him off from the advice and experience of his fellowmeni inoculated him against it. When your time comes you'll go to the gallows with a song on your lips. You frighten me. It's the sameness of it all that depresses me, the goddqmn monotony of it. Duff shifted his seat restlessly then settled back against the boiler. The interesting relationships are those in which sex the leveller takes no hand brothers, enemies, master and servant, father and son, man and man. Homosexuals? No, that's merely sex out of step and you're back to the original trouble. When a man takes a friend he does it not from an uncontrollable compulsion but in his own free choice. Every friendship is different, ends differently or goes on for ever. No chains bind it, no ritual or written contract. There is no question of forsaking all others, no obligation to talk about it, mouth it up and gloat on it the whole time. Duff stood up stiffly. It's one of the good things in life. How late is it? Sean pulled out his watch and tilted its face to catch the moonlight. After midnight, it doesn't look as if they're coming. ? They'll come, there's gold here, another uncontrollable compulsion.
They'll come. The question is when. The lights along the valley faded out one by one, the deep singsong voices of the Zulus in the prospect trench stilled and a small cold wind came up and moved the grass along the ridge of the Candy Deep. Sitting together, sometimes drowsing sometimes talking quietly, they waited the night away. The sky paled, then pinked prettily. A dog barked over near Hospital Hill and another joined it. Sean stood up and stretched, he glanced down the valley towards Ferrieras Camp and saw them. A black moving blot of horsemen, overflowing the road, lifting no dust from the dew-damp earth, spreading out to cross the Natal Spruit then bunching together on the near bank before coming on. Mr Charleywood, we have company.
Duff jumped up. They might miss us and go onto the Jack and Whistle first We'll see which road they take when they come to the fork. In the meantime let's get ready. Mbejane, Sean shouted and the black head popped out of the trench. Nkosi? Are you awake They are coming. The blackness parted in a white smile. We are awake. Then get down and stay down until I give the word.
The five mercenaries were lying belly down in the grass, each with a newly-opened packet of cartridges at his elbow. Sean hurried back to Duff and they crouched behind the boiler. The tin can shows up clearly from here. Do you think you can hit it? With my eyes closed, said Sean.
The horsemen reached the fork and turned without hesitation towards the Candy Deep, quickening their paces as they came up the ridge. Sean rested his rifle across the top of the boiler and picked up the speck of silver in his sights. What's the legal position, Duff? he asked out of the corner of his mouth. They've just crossed our boundary, they are now officially trespassers, Duff pronounced solemnly.
One of the leading horses kicked over the tin can and Sean fired at the spot on which it had stood. The shot was indecently loud in the quiet morning and every head in the syndicate lifted with alarm towards the ridge, then the ground beneath them jumped up in a brown cloud to meet the sky. When the dust cleared there was a struggling tangle of downed horses and men. The screams carried clearly up to the crest of the ridge.
My God, breathed Sean, appalled at the destruction. Shall we let them have it, boss? called one of the hired men. No, Duff answered him quickly. They've had enough. The flight started, riderless horses, mounted men and others on foot were scattering back down the valley. Sean was relieved to see that they left only half a dozen men and a few horses lying in the road. Well, that's the easiest fiver you've ever earned, Duff told one of the mercenaries. I think you can go home now and have some breakfast. Voit, Duff. Sean pointed. -the survivors of the explosion had reached the road junction again and there they were being stopped by two men on horseback. Those two are trying to rally them Let's change their minds, they're still within rifle range! They are not on our property any more, disagreed Sean. Do you want to wear a rope? They watched while those of the syndicate who had had enough fighting for one day disappeared down the road to the camps and the rest coagulated into a solid mass at the crossroad. We should have shot them up properly while we had the chance, grumbled one of the mercenaries uneasily. Now they'll come back, look at that bastard talking to them like a Dutch uncle. They left their horses and spread out, then they started moving cautiously back up the slope. They hesitated just below the line of boundary pegs then ran forward, tearing up the pegs as they came. All together, gentlemen, if you please, called Duff politely and the seven rifles fired. The range was long and the thirty or so attackers ran doubled up and dodging.
The bullets had little effect at first, but as the distance shortened men started falling. There was a shallow donga running diagonally down the slope and as each of the attackers reached it he jumped down into it and from its safety started a heated reply to the fire of Sean's men.
Bullets sponged off the machinery, leaving bright scars where they struck.
Mbejane's Zulus were adding their voices to the confusion. Let us go down to them now, Nkosi. They are close, let us go. Quiet down, you madmen, you'd not go a hundred paces against those rifles, Sean snarled impatiently. Sean, cover me, whispered Duff. I'm going to sneak round the back of the ridge, rush them from the side and lob a few sticks of dynamite into that donga.. Sean caught his arm, his fingers dug into it so that Duff winced. You take one step and I'll break a rifle butt over your head, you're as bad as those Blacks. Now keep shooting and let me think. Sean peered over the top of the boiler but ducked again as a bullet rang loudly against it, inches from his ear. He stared at the new paint in front of his nose, put his shoulder against it; the boiler rocked slightly. He looked up and Duff was watching him. We'll walk down together and lob that dynamite, Sean told him. Mbejane and his bloodthirsty heathens will roll the boiler in front of us. These other gentlemen will cover us, we'll do this thing in style. Sean called the Zulus out of the trench and explained to them. They chorused their approval of the scheme and jostled each other to find a place to push against the boiler. Sean and Duff filled the front of their shirts with the dynamite grenades and lit a short length of tarred rope each.
Sean nodded to Mbejane.
Where are the children of Zulu? sang Mbejane, shrilling his voice in the ancient rhetorical question. Here, answered his warriors braced ready against the boiler. JWhere are the spears of Zulu? Here. How bright are the spears of Zulu? Brighter than the Sun.
How hungry are the spears of Zulu? Hungrier than the locust. Then let us take them to the feeding. Tehho. Explosive assent and the boiler revolved slowly to the thrust of black shoulders.
Teh-ho. Another reluctant
