Warrior

Somervile nodded.

'Sir, will you lash up Serjeant Wainwright's bridle to lead him? Run a rein through the bit 'stead of the halter, though. If he passes out and the horse takes fright it'll be a deal easier to keep a hold.'

Somervile nodded again, and made to do Armstrong's bidding, for he understood the purpose well enough (whatever his unacquaintance with the particulars of cavalry work, he was no greenhorn when it came to horses).

He unfastened the bridoon rein on the offside, slipped it over the trooper's head and under its chin, then back through the offside bit ring, which would leave Wainwright with the curb reins. He presented himself ready for duty with some satisfaction.

Armstrong, having replaced the compress on Wainwright's wound and bound the barrel sash even tighter, stood up, turned to Somervile, and sighed. 'I'm sorry, sir, I should have said: would you lead from the nearside, please?'

Somervile looked puzzled. 'But I cannot then use my sword and pistol arm so freely.'

'I know, sir,' replied Armstrong, as Corporal Hardy hauled Wainwright to his feet. 'But, with respect, Wainwright here will be able to.'

Somervile's jaw fell. He was being written off as worse than an invalid – all because he dropped the pistol ball.

'It's just, sir, that it's Wainwright's job, this. We're the ones in uniform. We're the escort.'

Somervile could scarcely credit it. Three dragoons, one of them only half conscious, and a burgher, a part- civilian – that was what the escort amounted to. And yet Serjeant-Major Armstrong was insisting on the proprieties as if the entire regiment were on parade. Doubtless were there a trumpeter he would have him sound the advance!

But there could be no argument.

In a quarter of an hour they were ready to move, the bodies of Corporal Allott and Private Parks lashed across the saddle of Parks's trooper, the lead rope in Armstrong's hands, with another around the captive. Then came Somervile leading Wainwright's mount, with Piet Doorn fifty yards behind, and Corporal Hardy scouting the same distance ahead.

It would be scarcely true scout work, though (Armstrong was only too aware of it). In any sort of country, let alone such trappy country as here, the leading scouts needed twice the space to do their work properly. The same went for the rearguard. And there were no flankers. All Hardy would be able to do, at best, was give the others a few seconds in which to take aim or throw up a guard. A few seconds. To Armstrong, however, it was better than nothing: a few seconds might allow him to get to Somervile's side, before turning to fight off the attack.What more to it was there than that?

He raised his right arm and motioned to Corporal Hardy to advance. Turning to Somervile, he smiled grimly. 'Very well, sir, just a couple of miles.'

Somervile nodded.

Serjeant Wainwright's face was bereft of all colour, even the browning of the summer's sun, but he was conscious enough to gather up the reins – no doubt instinctively, Somervile supposed.

The hoofs sounded like so many drums on that parched earth. A little flock of Cape starlings left a nearby kiaat tree noisily. They must have sat out the Xhosa attack, or else alighted soon after, he reckoned; why did they take off now? He was certain that in India the branches would by this time be full of vultures.

A weasel ran across the track between him and Armstrong a dozen yards ahead, its white-striped back arched like a cat at bay.

His trooper stopped dead. 'Just a couple of miles,' he thought, wearily, as he dug in his spurs to get her moving again.

It was strange, this country. Not at all like India, yet so different from England as to make a man wonder powerfully about the nature of Creation. Why was there no native civilization in Africa? There might conceivably be something in the middle of the great dark continent – ex Africa semper aliquid novi – but he imagined the place was so vast as to be unexplorable inside a hundred years, even if they set the whole of the Ordnance Survey to the task. Whatever an explorer might find, however, he could not suppose it likely to approach the advancement that India had known even five centuries ago. The savagery of the kind they were seeing here was as primitive as . . . well, if Mr Hobbes had wished to demonstrate his theories, he could have found no more brutish state of nature than here.Why, there was not a single road but that was cut by a colonist; even the track they rode along now was made by the beasts of the field. The trouble was—

Piet Doorn's big American rifle went off like a cannon. And then two more shots, less thunderous – his pistols, perhaps.

Armstrong turned to look, without halting.

The rifle boomed again. Armstrong nodded with grim satisfaction: fifteen or twenty seconds to reload – a sure sign that Piet had things in hand (it certainly helped to have a breech-loader in the saddle). Warning shots, maybe?

There was silence for a full minute but for the plodding hoofs. Armstrong cursed he had not a man to drop back to see the business. He could only wait for Piet to canter in and tell him.

Another minute passed. He felt like handing the two lead-ropes – Parks's trooper's and the one binding the captive – to Somervile and going himself. But that would have been asking too much. It was the deucedest luck that this stretch of the track was so thread with trees: he could see nothing to the rear beyond fifty yards.

Then he had his answer. Instead of Piet Doorn, it was Xhosa who came down the trail – warily, almost stealthily, though not concealing themselves. One of them carried Piet's rifle; others brandished his pistols. Had they known how to load them?

Now was the reckoning. Perhaps they could make a run for it; or threaten to put a bullet into the captive's brains? But these savages had shown no sentiment for one another before. And how could they outrun them, making the river without being cut off? There were probably Xhosa waiting for them astride the track even now.