piled up in front of the barricades, and the warriors coming up from the rear ranks had to clamber over them. The limp corpses were treacherous footing, and slowed them down, while the muskets were changed swiftly and a continuous rolling fire thundered down the line of wagons.
When the most determined Nguni reached the barricades they tried to tear away the thorn branches with their bare hands, but the musket fire never slackened. They climbed over their own dead and tried to scale the sides of the wagons. The relentless fire from the redoubts caught them in enfilade, and they tumbled back on to those below them.
The narrow wedge of land between the pool of the river and the high clay bank of the stream compressed the impi as they advanced in a solid mass. Like the sweep of a scythe, every blast of shot from the muskets cut swathes through them.
The wind was blowing from the direction of the river, into the faces of the attackers, and the gunsmoke rolled over them in a dense fog, half blinding them and confusing their attack. The same wind cleared the range for the defenders.
One of the warriors used the spokes of a wagon wheel as a ladder and succeeded in clambering over the tailboard of the central wagon. Jim was occupied with the Nguni storming the barricade directly in front of him when Louisa's scream alerted him. As he turned, the warrior stabbed at Louisa over the side of the wagon. She jumped back but the steel point slit the front of her tunic.
Jim dropped his empty musket and grabbed the cutlass he had pegged into the wood of the wagon, ready to hand. He sent a thrust deep into the man's chest, under his raised right arm. As he fell back, Jim jerked his blade clear and pegged the point back into the wagon, then reached back to take the loaded musket from the boy behind him.
'Good lad!' he grunted, and shot down the next attacker as he tried to pull himself up the side of the wagon. Jim glanced to his right and saw that Louisa had returned to her place by his side. The front of her tunic flapped open where the assegai had ripped it and a flash of her tender white skin showed in the tear.
'You're not hurt?' He smiled encouragement at her. Her face and arms were already blackened with the soot of gunsmoke, and her eyes were misty blue in contrast. She nodded without smiling, and took the next gun her loader handed her. She paused, let the oncoming warrior reach up to start scaling the barricade and then she fired. The recoil rocked her back on her feet, but the man cried out as the shot whipped into his face and throat and he slumped back on to the man beneath him.
Jim lost track of the passage of time. It all became a blur of smoke, sweat and gunfire. The smoke choked them, the sweat ran into their eyes, and the gunfire deafened and dazed them. Then, abruptly, the warriors who, a moment before, had been swarming like hiving bees upon the barricades were gone.
The defenders gazed about them in astonishment, seeking another target to fire at. The bank of gunsmoke drifted away, and it came as a shock to see the shattered imp is running and staggering back up the hillside, dragging their wounded with them.
'To horse! We must mount and pursue them,' Louisa called to Jim.
He was amazed by her aggressive spirit, and that her grasp of tactics
was so astute. 'Wait! They are not beaten yet.' He pointed beyond the retreating imp is 'Look! Manatasee still has half her forces in reserve.' Louisa shaded her eyes. Just below the crest of the high ground she saw the orderly ranks of warriors sitting on their shields, waiting for the order to attack.
The herd-boys ran up with the water bottles. They swallowed and gasped, and drank again, spluttering in their eagerness. Jim hurried down the line, anxiously questioning each of his men.
'Are you hurt? Are you all right?' It seemed impossible, but not one had been touched. Louisa had come closest, with the assegai thrust that had split open her tunic.
She scrambled through the afterclap of her own wagon and, within a short while, emerged again. Her face and arms were scrubbed pink. She wore a fresh tunic, and a starched, ironed head cloth bound about her hair. She hurried to help Zama relight the cooking fires and prepare a hasty meal for the defenders. She brought Jim a pewter plate piled with hunks of bread, and cuts of grilled venison and pickles.
'We have been fortunate,' she said, as she watched him wolf down the food. 'More than once I was certain they were going to overwhelm us.'
Jim shook his head and replied, with his mouth half full, 'Even the bravest men cannot prevail against firearms. Have no fear, Hedgehog, it's hard but in the end we will survive.'
She saw that he spoke to encourage her rather than out of conviction, and smiled. 'Whatever comes we will face it side by side.'
As she spoke the singing started again on the hillside. The defenders, who had been stretched out in the shade of the wagons, pulled themselves to their feet, and went back to their places at the barricade. The fresh imp is were moving forward through the wounded and exhausted stragglers, who were scattered back from the battlefield. Manatasee danced ahead of the advancing cohorts, surrounded by her drummers.
Jim picked his best London rifle from the rack. He checked the priming. Louisa was watching him.
'If I can kill the she-wolf, her pack will lose heart,' he told her.
He stepped to the side of the wagon, and measured the shot. The range was long even for the rifle. The wind had risen and was swirling and gusting it could blow even the heavy lead ball off its trajectory. Dust obscured the range, and Manatasee was dancing and twisting like a serpent. Jim handed the telescope to Louisa.
'Call the strike of my shot,' he told her, and braced himself, holding the rifle at high port, waiting for the moment. The wind gusted coolly
against his sweaty cheek, then dropped. At the same time a gap opened in the curtain of dust, and Manatasee raised both arms above her head, and posed in this dramatic attitude. Jim swung up the rifle and picked up her tall shape in the notch of the rear sight. He did not try to hold the picture, but let the pip of the foresight ride smoothly up her painted body. At the same time his forefinger took up the slack of the trigger, and the shot crashed out as it came level with her eyes, aiming high to allow for the drop of the ball over the range.
For an instant Jim was unsighted by the recoil and the smoke, then he focused again. It took the heavy ball a heartbeat to cover the distance, and he saw Manatasee spin round and fall.
'You have struck her!' Louisa screamed with excitement. 'She is down.'
A growl went up from the imp is the voice of an angry beast.
That will break their spirit,' Jim exulted. Then he grunted with surprise. 'Sweet Jesus, I do not believe my eyes!'
Manatasee had risen to her feet again. Even at this range Jim could see the tint of crimson on her painted skin, a rose petal of blood that ran down her flank.
'It has grazed across her ribs.' Louisa stared through the lens. 'She is only lightly wounded.'
Manatasee pirouetted before her imp is showing herself to them, proving that she was still alive. They responded with a joyous shout and lifted their shields to salute her.
'Bayetel' they bellowed.
'Zee!' the queen screeched. 'Zee, Amadodal' and she began to ululate. The sound drove her imp is into frenzy.
'Zee!' they exhorted themselves and those about them, and they came down to the wagons like lava pouring from the mouth of the volcano. Manatasee still pranced at the head of the charge.
Jim snatched up the second rifle of the pair, and fired again, trying to pick out her slender weaving figure from the flowing tide of blackness. The plumed and una at her side threw up his arms and went down, struck squarely by the ball, but Manatasee danced on. Fortified by her rage, she seemed at every instant to grow stronger.
'Stand firm, and wait your chance,' Jim called to his men.
The first ranks of the attackers poured across the open ground, and clambered over the mounds of the dead and wounded.
'Now!' Jim yelled. 'Hit them! Hit them hard!'
The fusillade struck them as though they had run into a wall of stone, but those behind dragged the dead and wounded from the pile and scrambled up into the hell storm of shot. The barrels of the muskets
blistered the fingers of the musketeers when they touched them. The steel was so hot that it could have set off the gunpowder as it was poured into the muzzle. The gun barrels hissed and sizzled when the boys plunged them into the water kegs to quench them. Even in their haste they were careful not to immerse the locks and soak the flints.
The need to cool the guns slowed up the rate of reloading, the fire slackened as the defenders at the barricades shouted desperately for fresh muskets. Some of the smaller boys were almost exhausted by the gruelling work and were beginning to panic. Louisa left her place at the barricade and ran back to steady and encourage them. 'Remember your drill! Steady now, don't try to hurry!'
Through the haze of gunsmoke and over the heads of the attackers Jim glimpsed Manatasee again. She was close behind her impi, waving them forward to the attack. Her wild screams and ululation goaded them to mightier efforts. Many more of the warriors were swarming over the piles of corpses and reaching the
