Koots bolstered his weapon and buried his nose in the crook of his arm. 'When he has served his purpose I will strangle the little ape with my own hands,' Koots promised himself, and gagged on the odours that wafted over him.
As darkness fell, the mighty locust swarm sank down out of the air and settled to roost wherever it came to earth. The deafening buzzing of their wings faded, and Koots rose to his feet at last and stared about.
For as far as he could see in every direction the earth was covered waist deep with a living carpet of bodies, reddish brown in the light of the sunset. The trees of the forest had changed shape as the swarms settled upon them. They were transformed into amorphous haystacks of living locusts, seething and growing larger as more insects settled upon those already at roost. With a crackle like volleys of musketry the main branches of the nearest trees gave way under the weight and came crashing down to earth, but still the locusts piled on to them and devoured the leaves.
From their burrows and lairs the carnivores emerged to feast upon this bounty. Koots watched in wonder as hyena, jackal and leopard became bold with greed and rushed upon the mounds of insects, gobbling them down.
bven a pride of eleven lions joined the banquet. They passed close to where Koots stood, but took not the slightest notice of the men or the horses, for they were preoccupied with the feast. Like grazing cattle they
spread out across the plain, their noses to the earth, devouring the seething heaps of locusts, champing them between their great jaws. The lion cubs, their bellies stuffed full, stood up on their back legs and playfully batted the flying creatures out of the air as they were disturbed into flight again.
Koots's troopers swept a clear patch of earth, and built a fire on it. They used the blades of their spades as frying pans, and on these they roasted the locusts crisp and brown. Then they crunched them up with a relish almost as keen as Xhia's. Even Koots joined in and made a meal of these tit bits When night fell the men tried to compose themselves to rest, but the insects swarmed over them. They crawled into their faces, and their spiked feet rasped and scratched any exposed part of their skin and kept them from sleep.
The next morning when the sun rose it revealed a strange antediluvian landscape of dull featureless red-brown. Swiftly the sun warmed the motionless masses of locusts that had been chilled into a stupor during the night. They began to stir, to undulate and hum like a disturbed hive. Suddenly, as if at a signal, the entire horde rose into the air and roared away towards the east, borne on the morning breeze. For many hours the dark torrents streamed overhead, but as the sun reached its zenith the last had passed on. Once more the sky was brilliant blue and unsullied.
Yet the landscape they left behind was altered out of all recognition. It was bare earth and rock. The trees were denuded of their foliage, the bare branches snapped off to lie tangled below the stark boles and twisted trunks. It was as though a conflagration had consumed every leaf and green sprig. The golden grasses that had undulated in the breeze like the scend of the ocean were gone. In their place was this stony desolation.
The horses snuffled the bare earth and pebbles, then stood disconsolately, their empty bellies already rumbling with gases. Koots climbed to the top of the nearest bare hillock and played his telescope over the stony desert. The herds of antelope and quagga that had infested the land the previous day were gone. In the distance Koots made out a pale mist of drifting dust that might have been raised by the exodus of the last herds from this starvation veld. They were moving southwards to search for other grasslands that had not been devastated by the locusts.
He went back down the hill and his men, who had been arguing animatedly, fell silent as he walked into the camp. Koots studied their faces as he filled his mug with coffee from the black kettle. The last grain of sugar had been used up weeks before. He sipped from the mug,
then snapped, 'Ja, Oudeman? What is it that is worrying you? You have the same pained expression as an old woman with bleeding piles.'
There is no grazing for the horses,' Oudeman blurted.
Koots made a show of amazement at this revelation. 'Sergeant Oudeman, I am grateful to you for pointing this out to me. Without your sharp sense of perception I might have overlooked it.'
Oudeman scowled at the laboured sarcasm. He was not sufficiently glib or well enough educated to match Koots in wordplay. 'Xhia says that the herds of wild game will know which way to go to find grazing. If we follow them they will lead us to it.'
'Please go on, Sergeant. I never tire of gleaning these jewels of your wisdom.'
'Xhia says that since last night the game herds have started moving southwards.'
'Yes.' Koots nodded, and blew noisily into the mug of hot coffee. 'Xhia is right. I saw that from the hilltop up there.' He pointed with the mug.
'We must go southwards to find grazing for the horses,' Oudeman went on stubbornly.
'One question, Sergeant. Which way are the tracks of Jim Courtney's wagon heading?' Using the mug again, he pointed out the deep ruts, which were even more obvious now that the grass no longer screened them.
Oudeman lifted his hat and scratched his bald pate. 'North-east,' he grunted.
'So, if we go southwards will we catch up with Courtney?' Koots asked, in a kindly tone.
'No, but...' Oudeman's voice trailed off.
'But what?'
'Captain, sir, without the horses we will never get back to the colony.'
Koots stood up and flicked the coffee grounds out of his mug. 'The reason we are here, Oudeman, is to catch Jim Courtney, not to return to the colony. Mount!' He looked at Xhia. 'Good, so! You, yellow baboon, take the spoor again and eat the wind.'
There was water in the streams and the rivers they crossed, but no grass on the veld. They rode for fifty and then a hundred leagues without nnding grazing. In the larger rivers they found aquatic weeds and lily stems beneath the surface of the water. They waded out to harvest them with their bayonets, and fed them to the horses. In one steep, narrow valley the sweet-thorn trees had not been entirely stripped of their oliage. They climbed into the trees and cut down the branches that the
locusts had not torn down with their weight. The horses ate the green leaves hungrily, but this was not their normal diet and they derived only small benefit from it.
By now the animals were showing all the signs of slow starvation, but Koots never wavered in his determination. He led them on across the desolation. The horses were so weakened that the riders were forced to dismount and lead them up any sharp incline to husband their strength.
The men were hungry too. The game had disappeared along with the grass. The once teeming veld was deserted. They ate the last few handfuls in the leather grain sacks, and then were reduced to any windfall that the ruined veld might provide.
With his slingshot Xhia knocked down the prehistoric blue-headed lizards that lived among the rocks, and they dug up the burrows of moles and spring-rats that were surviving on subterranean roots. They roasted them without skinning or cleaning the carcasses. This would have wasted precious nourishment. They simply threw them whole upon the coals, let the fur frizzle off, the skin blacken and burst open. Then they picked the half-cooked flesh off the tiny bones with their fingers. Xhia chewed the discarded bones like a hyena.
He discovered a treasure in an abandoned ostrich nest. There were seven ivory-coloured eggs in the rude scrape in the ground. Each egg was almost the size of his own head. He capered around the nest, screeching with excitement. 'This is another gift that clever Xhia brings to you. The ostrich, which is my totem, has left this for me.' He changed his totem with as little compunction as he would take a new woman. 'Without Xhia you would have perished long ago.'
He selected one of the ostrich eggs, set it on end in the sand, then looped his bowstring around the shaft of an arrow. He placed the point of the arrow on the top of the shell. By sawing the bow rapidly back and forth he spun the arrow. The point drilled neatly through the thick shell. As it broke through there was a sharp hiss of escaping gas and a yellow fountain erupted high in the air, like champagne from a bottle that had been shaken violently. Xhia clapped his open mouth over the hole and sucked out the contents of the egg.
The men around him leaped backwards, exclaiming with alarm and disgust as a sulphurous stench engulfed them.
'Mother of a mad dog!' Koots swore. 'The thing is rotten.'
Xhia rolled his eyes with relish, but did not remove his mouth from the hole, lest the rest of the yellow liquid spray out on to the dry earth and be lost. He gulped it down greedily.
'Those eggs have lain there since the last breeding season six
months in the hot sun. They are so badly addled that they would poison a dog hyena.' Oudeman choked and turned away.
Xhia sat beside the nest and drank two of the eggs without pause, except to belch or chuckle with pleasure. Then he packed those that remained into his leather bag. He slung it over his shoulder and set off again along the wheel ruts of Jim Courtney's wagon train.
The men and horses grew daily weaker and more emaciated. Only Xhia was plump and his skin shone with health and vigour. The addled ostrich eggs, the castings of owls, the
