trees that led down to the staff village. The trunks were thicker than a man's chest, and the dark green branches met overhead. At the head of the avenue, almost screened by the trees and the long grass, was a low whitewashed wall with a rusty wrought-iron gate. Craig pulled onto the verge and switched off the engine.
'Why are we stopping here?' Samson asked.
They always spoke English when they were alone, just as they always spoke Sindebele when anyone else was listening, just as Samson called him 'Craig' in private and 'Nkosi' or 'Mambo' at all other times. It was a tacit understanding between them, for in this tortured war-torn land, there were those who had taken Samson's fluent English as the mark of a 'cheeky mission boy', and recognized by the easy intimacy between the two men that Craig was that thing of doubtful loyalties, a kaffir-lover.
Kaffir' is derived from the Arabic word for an infidel. During the nineteenth century, it denoted members of the southern African tribes. Without any derogatory bias it was employed by statesmen, eminent authors, missionaries and champions of the native peoples.
Nowadays its use is the sure mark of the racial bigot.
'Why are we stopping at the old cemetery?' Samson repeated.
'All that beer.' Craig climbed out of the Land-Rover and stretched. 'I have to pump ship.' He relieved himself against the battered front wheel, then went to sit on the low wall of the graveyard, swinging his long bare sun-browned legs. He wore khaki shorts and suede desert boots without socks, for the barbed seeds of arrow grass stick in knitted wool.
Craig looked down onto the roofs of Khami Mission Station that lay below the wooded hills. Some of the older buildings, dating back to before the turn of the century were thatched, although the new school and hospital were tiled with red terra cotta However, the rows of low-cost housing in the compound were covered with unpainted corrugated asbestos. They made an unsightly grey huddle beside the lovely green of the irrigated fields. They offended Craig's aesthetic sense, and he looked away.
'Come on, Sam, let's get cracking-' Craig broke off and frowned.
'What the hell are you doing?' Samson had gone through the wrought-iron gate into the walled cemetery and was urinating casually on one of the gravestones.
'Jesus, Sam, that's desecration.' 'An old family custom.' Samson shook himself and zipped up. 'My Grandpa Gideon taught it to me,' he explained, and then switched into Sindebele. 'Giving water to make the flower grow again,' he said.
'What the hell is that supposed to mean?' 'The man that lies down there killed a Matabele girl called Imbali, the Flower,' said Samson. My grandfather always pees on his grave whenever he passes this way.'
Craig's shock was gradually replaced by curiosity. He swung his legs over the wall, and went to stand beside Samson.
'Sacred to the memory of General Mungo St. John, Killed during the Matabele Rebellion of 1896.' Craig read the inscription aloud. 'Man hath no greater love than this that he lay down his life for another.
Intrepid sailor, brave soldier, faithful husband and devoted father.
Always remembered by his widow Robyn and his son Robert.' Craig combed the hair out of his eyes with his fingers, 'Judging by his advertising, he was one hell of a guy.' 'He was a bloody murderer he, as much as any one man could, provoked the rebellion.' 'Is that so?'
Craig passed on to the next grave, and read that inscription.
'Here lie the mortal remains of DOCTOR ROBYN ST JOHN, nee BALLANTYNE Founder of Khami Mission, Departed this life April 16th 193I, aged 94 years. Well done thou good and faithful servant.' He glanced back at Samson. 'Do you know who she was?' 'My grandfather calls her Nomusa, the Girl-Child of Mercy. She was one of the most beautiful people who ever lived.' 'Never heard of her either.' 'You should have, she was your great-great-grandmother.' 'I have never bothered much with the family history. Mother and father were second cousins, that's all I know. Mellows and Ballantynes for generations back I've never sorted them all out.' 'A man without a past, is a man without a future',' Samson quoted.
'You know, Sam, sometimes you get up my nose.' Craig grinned at him. 'You've got an answer for everything.' He walked on down the row of old graves, some of them with elaborate headstones, doves and groups of mourning angels, and they were decked with faded artificial flowers in domes of clear glass. Others were covered with simple concrete slabs in which the lettering had eroded to the point of illegibility.
Craig read those he could.
'ROBERT ST JOHN Aged 54 years Son of Mungo and Robyn.' 'JUBA KUMALO Aged 83 years Fly little Dove.' And then he stopped as he saw his own surname.
'VICTORIA MELLOW Nee CODRINGTON Died 8th April 1936 aged 63 years Daughter of Clinton and Robyn, wife of Harold.' 'Hey Sam, if you were right about the others, then this must have been my great-grandmother.'
There was a tuft of grass growing out of a crack through the slab, and Craig stooped and plucked it out. And as he did so, he felt a bond of affinity with the dust beneath that stone. It had laughed and loved and given birth that he might live.
'Hi there, Gran, he whispered. 'I wonder what you were really like?' 'Craig, it's almost one o'clock,' Sam interrupted him. 'Okay, I'm coming.' But Craig lingered a few moments longer, held by that unaccustomed nostalgia. 'I'll ask Bawu,' he decided and went back to the Land-Rover.
He stopped again outside the first cottage of the village. The small yard was freshly raked and there were petunias in tubs on the veranda.
'Look here, Sam,' Craig began awkwardly. 'I don't know what you're going to do now. You could join the police, like I am doing.
Perhaps we could work it that we were together again.' Perhaps, 'Sam agreed expressionlessly.
'Or I could talk to Bawu about getting you a job at King's Lynn.'
'Clerk in the pay office?' Sam asked.
'Yea! I know.' Craig scratched his ear. 'Still, it's something.'
'I'll think about it, 'Sam murmured.
'Hell, I feel bad, but you didn't have to come with me, you know.
You could have stayed in the department.' 'Not after what they did to you.' Sam shook his head. 'Thanks, Sam.' They sat silently for a while, then Sam climbed down and lugged his bag out of the back of the Land-Rover.
'I'll come out and see you as soon as I'm fixed up. We'll work something out,' Craig promised. 'Keep in touch, Sam.' 'Sure.' Sam held out his hand, and they shook briefly. 'Hamba gashle, go in peace,' Sam said.
'Shala gashle. Stay in peace.'
Craig started the Land-Rover and swung back the way they had come.
As he drove up the avenue of spathodea, he glanced in the rear-view mirror. Sam was standing in the centre of the road with his bag on one shoulder, watching him go. There was a hollow feeling of bereavement in Craig's chest. The two of them had been together for so long.
'I'll work something out,' he repeated determinedly. raig slowed at the top of the rise as he always did here, anticipating his first glimpse of the homestead, but when it came it was with that little shock of disappointment. Bawu had stripped the thatch off the room and replaced it with dull grey corrugated asbestos sheet. It had to be done, of course, an RPG-7 rocket fired into the thatch from outside the perimeter and the whole building would have gone up like the fifth of November. Still Craig resented the change, just as he did the loss of the beautiful jacaranda trees. They had been planted by Bawu's grandfather, old Zouga Ballantyne who built King's Lynn back in the early 1890s. In spring their gentle rain of blue petals had carpeted the lawns, but they had been cut down to open a field of defensive fire around the house, and in their place now stood the ten-foot security fence of diamond mesh and barbed wire.
Craig drove down into the shallow dip below the main homestead towards the complex of offices, storerooms and tractor workshops which were the heart of the vast sprawling ranch. Before he was halfway down, a lanky figure appeared in the high doorway of the workshop, and stood with arms akimbo watching him approach.
'Hello, Grandpa.' Craig climbed out of the Land-Rover, and the old man frowned to cover his pleasure.
'How many times have I got to tell you, 'Don't call me that!' You want people to think I'm old? 'Jonathan Ballantyne was burned and dessicated by the sun to the consistency Of biltong, the dark strips of dried venison that were such a Rhodesian delicacy.
It seemed that if you were to cut him, dust and not blood would pour from the wound, but his eyes were still a brilliant twinkling green and his hair was a dense white shock that fell to his collar at the back of his neck. It was one of his many conceits. He shampooed it every day, and brushed it with a pair of silver-backed brushes that stood on the table beside his bed.
'Sorry, Bawu.' Craig reverted to his Matabele name, the Gadfly, and seized the old man's hand. It was mere bone covered by cool dry skin, but the grip was startlingly strong.
'So you got yourself fired again,' Jonathan accused. Although his teeth were artificial, they were a neat fit, filling out the wizened cheeks, and he kept them so sparkling white as to match his hair and silvery moustache. Another of his
