Simon Kambule, a forty-year-old Zulu politician, welcomed Gustafsson and his crew into an outbuilding that had survived the disaster, partly wrecked but usable. There were benches and tables enough to seat the Indaba members and visitors. It was noontime, and the roof, even with a few holes in it, provided welcome relief from the sun.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Kambule said, speaking English with a singsong British-African accent. “We are so happy that there are others who have survived this terrible event. We wish to offer you every possible means of support, and we hope and expect that you will share with us in equal measure whatever resources you may have brought with you. Let us exchange ‘vital statistics,’ if you will: names, numbers, facts about ourselves. If I may, I will start off the discussion and call upon my countrymen to fill in details as I go. Then we will ask you to provide us with similar information about yourselves.”
As he spoke, the charismatic African gestured elegantly, looking directly in turn at each of the newcomers. Meanwhile, water and fruit appeared—bananas, mangoes, and pineapple—brought by local women. The visitors eagerly partook of the refreshing fare.
Kambule began his narrative account with a recollection of Christmas Eve. Without warning, shortly before midnight on December 25, the inferno had descended upon Ulundi and its environs. At first the strange glow in the night was far off in the distance, but within minutes, fire swept across the landscape and entered the city. From Kambule’s description, Gustafsson perceived that although Ulundi was well within the “safety zone” as defined by Jane Warner’s calculations, it had nevertheless suffered terrible damage. While spared the lethal rain-down from the sky, the city had been attacked by wind-driven forest fires from outside the zone.
Suddenly, violently, the streets became rivers of flame, the buildings instant pyres. Most of the people were in their beds and never knew what happened. In many places the fire darted in jets, as if shot from flamethrowers, enveloping some individuals, leaving others untouched. Small firestorms swirled about like tornadoes, sucking up the oxygen in certain locations, leaving it unaffected in others. Never, it seemed, had death been more capricious. People staggered about, stunned and in anguish. However, unlike most of the earth’s surface, where the slaughter was total, there was in and about Ulundi a remnant, a population of survivors.
Early in the morning, just as the inferno began to subside, enormous waves of ocean water rolled across the lowlands and up into the hills, swallowing everything in their path. The water lapped at the edges of the city. For people used to living at a high elevation far removed from the sea, the flood was as incredible as it was terrifying. When the waves receded, it seemed as if everything that had existed below the high water mark was suddenly gone. Then came darkness and bitter chill. Suffering and delirium, Simon Kambule said, were beyond description.
Late on the third day, however, just when it seemed that the frigid night would be everlasting, heavy rain began to fall, the same downpour that the cruise ship passengers had experienced. The next morning, the sky lightened and the cold began to abate. Then the rainbows appeared, interpreted by many in Ulundi, as aboard the
The chaos and panic subsided. In this moment of crisis, tribal traditions provided a valuable support. The Zulus had a ready-made clan structure to fall back on, and the whites and the Indians also demonstrated remarkable resilience. Surviving family members gathered together, followed by spontaneous assemblies in each community. On the seventh day, several of the founding members of the Ulundi Indaba came together and established a rudimentary government center.
“Our first concern, of course, was medical care and food,” Kambule said, “although we quickly learned that there were few medical facilities remaining. Strangely, it seems there were not that many injured who required care. Some people had been carried away by the floods—they were simply gone. The fire had been so fierce and— what is the word, idiosyncratic, perhaps?—that individuals had either been suffocated, totally consumed, or completely spared. For the relatively few who had been badly burned but not killed outright, there was little that could be done. They died within forty-eight hours.” For all his apparent composure, it was clear that Kambule was tormented by these horrific memories. He shook as he spoke, and his voice wavered.
“As for food, enough of the farming lands have been spared, along with cattle and sheep, that our supplies are, for the present, more than adequate. Many open fields were unaffected by the fires, and though the brief frost has done damage, much of the crop survives. This was cause for great thanksgiving among my people, since a few more days of dark and cold might have finished us. We began to ration the food in a humane manner, making sure especially that the children were adequately fed.
“Then, when we seemed to have gained some control of the situation in the immediate vicinity of Ulundi, we decided to send out scouting parties, some on foot, some on horseback. Many of these scouts returned just hours before your arrival,” he told Gustaffson. “As best we can tell, there is a circle around Ulundi, with a radius of about a hundred kilometers, where life exists. Perhaps—our estimate—twenty-five thousand people survived, along with a sizable number of animals. As I have said, many of the fields have also been spared, along with their crops. To our amazement and dismay, outside that circle—what we now call the Ulundi Circle—the earth appears to be totally scorched. And, of course, between here and the coast, below the elevation of about six hundred meters, everything but a few bushes has been swept out to sea. That is why one of our scouts was so amazed to see your camp on the beach. We were about to make plans to contact you; but you have come to us!”
The following day, the Governing Council held an open session to report on the events at Ulundi, and to decide on the next steps to be taken. Nordstrom and Hardy presided, and young Wilson Hardy, Jr., scribbled away to record everything as best he could. It was comfortably dry and cool, with a breeze from the sea blowing inland. A large group of onlookers gathered around the canvas-roofed shelter, anxious to hear the news.
Nordstrom gave the most momentous information first. There was a surviving population concentrated in the area around Ulundi, and praise God, there was food. In the near future, the Inlanders—as he labeled the new neighbors—would be sending shipments of vegetables and fruit, and even meat. A great sigh of relief could be sensed among the listeners.
The captain then reported on other matters that had been discussed. Deck Officer Gustafsson and his hosts agreed that it was important to establish joint planning between the Ulundi Indaba and the beachside Governing Council. A Coordinating Committee was to be formed. But how was communication to be maintained after the radio batteries gave out? A community hardly more than a hundred miles across is not large in the scheme of things; yet carrying on a discourse across such a distance presents a troublesome problem.
“The short-term solution,” Nordstrom said, “suggested by Hugh Russell, one of our men in the expeditionary party, is a Pony Express.”
There was a smattering of laughter among members of the Council and observers, but Nordstrom, in his commanding way, obtained silence and continued with his presentation.
It turned out that Russell, a mining engineer from Utah, was also an amateur historian of his home state, and had many facts and figures about the Pony Express ready at hand. When that fabled institution was founded in 1860, Utah, then a territory, contained twenty of the 190 Pony Express stations established between Missouri and California. The celebrated mail service featured riders who typically covered
“We will also investigate the possibilities of a semaphore system,” Nordstrom said, “but as a start, the Pony Express it will be.” Seeing that several of the engineers were continuing to smile and shake their heads, he continued: “Scientifically ingenious solutions will be happily accepted, gentlemen. But they have to be workable— now! Right now! And while you’re snickering about America’s Wild West, be advised that we will also borrow from South African frontier history. We have agreed with the Inlanders that we will assist them in trying to resurrect the ox-wagon, the symbol of the Great Boer Trek, which was used during many generations of pre-machine age commerce. Fortunately, the basic roadbeds for railways and highways are in pretty fair condition, even though rails and paving have been swept away by flood or destroyed by fire. Wheeled vehicles may be salvaged; others can be assembled from odd parts. The oxen have survived upland and can be rounded up and put to work.”
