Moran had spun on his heel at the sergeant’s scream, and I swear I never saw his right hand move. But the Remington was in his fist, and the boom-boom-boom of its triple explosion was almost like one echoing shot. The Zulu on the rock jerked upright, snatching at his face, and toppled backwards; the foremost of the two running towards us pitched headlong, with half his head blown away in a sudden bloody spray, and the third man stumbled crazily, dropping his shield and rolling over and over to finish a bare two yards from us, sprawled on his back. There was a hole where his right eye had been. And Moran’s pistol was back in his sash.
'Twins, by the look of ’em,' says he. 'Did you know the Zulus think they make the best scouts?[6] Well, don’t stand gawping, old fellow—there’ll be plenty of live ones on the scene presently. Mind the step!' And he was over the back of the moving wagon, with me tumbling breathlessly after him, shocked out of my wits by the speed and terror of it all. I’d say from the moment the sergeant fell to our jumping into the wagon had been a good five seconds—and in that time three men had died, thank God, and the man beside me was chuckling and pushing fresh shells into his revolver.
He was right about the live ones arriving, too—as our wagon wheeled out of the village on to a great empty stretch of plain beyond it, we could see black figures gliding in among the huts on the far side, and by the time we were a furlong out on the plain itself, with the driver lashing like fury and the wagon rolling dangerously from side to side, they were breaking cover in pursuit. There must have been more than twenty of them, and I don’t recall a more fearful sight than that silent half-moon of racing black figures, each with his mottled red and white shield and fistful of glittering spears, their white hide kilts and garters flying as they ran.
'Udloko, unless I’m mistook,' says Moran. 'Good regiment, that. Let’s add to their battle honours, what?'
He had got a Martini from one of the wounded men who were lying pale and silent behind us in the jolting wagon, and now he snuggled the butt into his shoulder, keeping the barrel clear of the rattling tailboard, and let off four shots as fast as he could eject and reload. He hit three more Zulus—this at a range of two hundred yards, from a wagon that was bucking like a ship at sea, and at moving targets. I tell you, I was stricken between terror and sheer admiration.'
'Damnation!' says he, after his missed shot. 'Bet he felt the wind of it, though.' He saw me staring, and grinned. 'Don’t be alarmed, old boy; just pass up the cartridge packets and I’ll have our gallant foes discouraged in half a jiffy, just see if I don’t!'
But when I applied to the wounded for more cartridges, damned if there was a round among them.
'Well, we’re sitting on half a ton of the things,' says Moran, cool as you please, and tapped the ammunition boxes. 'Let’s forage, shall we?' So we broke open a case—and it was carbine ammunition, quite unsuitable for Martinis. I swallowed my innards for about the twentieth time that day; all the boxes carried the same stamp. And there, still loping across the sun-scorched plain behind us, not apparently having lost any distance, were the twenty Zulus, looking as fit as fleas and a dam' sight more unpleasant.
'Now, that’s vexing,' says Moran, laying down his rifle and unlimbering his Remington again. He spun the chamber. 'Six shots—hm’m. Well, let’s hope none of the horses breaks a leg, what?'
'For God’s sake, man!' My voice came out in a dreadful squeak. 'They can’t keep up this pace forever!'
'Who—the horses, or Ketshwayo’s sporting and athletic club?' He gripped the tailboard and weighed the distance between us and our pursuers. 'I think, on the whole, I’d put my money on the blacks. More staying power, don’t you know? By George, can’t they run, though!'
'But, my God, we’re done for! They’re gaining on us, I tell you—'
'Quite,' says he. 'Better think of something, eh? Unless we want our hides stretched over some damned Udloko war-drum, that is. Let’s see, now.' He stood up in the swaying wagon, clutching a support, and peered ahead under the canvas cover, resting a hand on the shoulder of the terrified nigger driver who was rolling his eyes and letting his team rip for all it was worth. 'If I remember right, this blasted plain ends in a deep gully about a mile ahead—there’s a crazy kind of bridge over it … we came across it on the way up. It took the wagon, all right—but very slowly. ’Fraid by the time we get across our friends will be calling on us—an' six shots won’t go far among that crowd, even if I make every one tell—which I would, of course. Wait, though!' And he dropped down on one knee, pushing one of the wounded men aside and ferreting among the ammunition boxes.
I was hardly listening to him; my eyes were fixed on that line of steadily-running black figures, coming on inexorably in our wake. They were losing distance, though, it seemed to me—yes, there must be nearly a quarter of a mile between us now—but our beasts were tiring, too; they couldn’t keep up this speed much longer, dragging a heavy wagon behind them. When we reached the bridge, would there be time for the wagon to make its careful way across, before they caught up? … I scrabbled at Moran’s arm, yammering hopefully, and he grinned as he straightened up from his search among the boxes, holding up a large packet of waxed brown paper in one hand.
'There we are, sonny boy,' says he, chuckling. 'Thought I remembered it. Blasting powder—and a darling little primer! Now, watch your Uncle Jack!'
I don’t want to live through another five minutes like those last agonising moments while we sped across the plain, slower and slower with every yard, straining our eyes back at those distant black figures behind. Even when we reached the gully, a great rocky cleft that stretched as far as one could see on either side, like a volcanic crack, with a rickety plank bridge spanning its thirty feet, there was the time-consuming labour of getting the wounded out and across. The nigger driver and I managed it between us, and sinful hard it was, for two of ’em had to be carried the whole way; Moran, meanwhile, coaxed the team on to the swaying bridge, until the wagon was fairly in the middle of it; then we outspanned the horses and led them across, glancing back fearfully. There they came, those black fiends of the pit, a bare hundred yards away, sprinting full lick now that they saw we were halted and apparently stuck. They set up a great yell of 'Suthu!' as they tore in towards the bridge, and Moran, who had been working in the wagon, jumped down and ran across to the little cluster of boulders where we had laid the wounded.
He dropped down beside me, looking back at the wagon; it was perhaps thirty yards off, with the waxed brown packet of gun-powder sitting on top of the ammunition boxes, and the tiny white primer fixed to the side of the packet. With a rifle, I might have hit it myself; all he had was a hand-gun.
'Well, here’s luck,' says he. 'One shot’ll have to do it.'
He was right, I realised, and my mouth was parched with fear. If he missed the primer, his shot would hit the powder packet, but that wouldn’t explode it. It would just knock it over, and the primer would go God knew where. And the first Zulu was racing on to the bridge, shield aloft in triumph, with his hideous legion shrieking at his heels.
'Gather round, dear boys,' murmurs Moran, cocking his pistol. 'Get yourselves nice and comfy round the bonfire … Christ!'
His head jerked up, the colour draining from his face. It may have been a puff of wind, or perhaps the Zulus swarming past the wagon on that shaky bridge had disturbed it—but the front flap of the canvas cover suddenly swung across, momentarily hiding the tiny white target. It rapped again—for a split second the primer was visible —the first half-dozen Zulus were past the wagon and within three strides of the solid ground, assegais gleaming and knobkerries brandished—howling black faces—another flap of the canvas—the crash of Moran’s revolver—and with a roar of thunder the wagon, the bridge, and everything on it dissolved in a great blast of orange flame. I was hurled flat, my ears deafened and singing; a piece of timber clattered against the rock beside me. I came dizzily to my feet, to stare at the empty ravine, with a great black cloud billowing in the air above it, a few shreds of rope and timber dangling from the far lip, and on this side, lying in the dust, a single assegai.
Moran reversed his revolver in his hand and pushed it into the back of his sash. Then he tilted his hat back and flicked his fore-finger at its brim.
'Bayete, Udloko,' says he softly. 'I do like a snap shot, though. Give the gentleman a coconut.'
• • •
That was in ’79, my first acquaintance with Tiger Jack, and it was to last only a few more feverish hours which I’ll describe at length some other day, for they don’t matter to the Tiger’s tale, which is strange enough without Rorke’s Drift to interrupt it. That was a nightmare in its own right, if you like—worse than Little Hand or Greasy Grass, for at least at those I’d been able to run. Why, at the Drift there wasn’t even room to hide, and it’ll make a ghastly chapter of its own in my African odyssey, if I can set it down before drink and senility carry me off.
Enough for the moment to say that Moran and I were driven absolutely into that beastly carnage. You see,
