Warrior

said as he would make a good officer. It were a shame.

But he mustn't think about it now. The only thing he'd got to think about was watching for Colonel 'Ervey, and keeping himself out of sight.

So he watched: one hour, two, three – he'd no idea. The sun had moved a bit – he could see it every so often when there was a bit of thinning in the cloud – but he couldn't tell much from it; not like he would have been able to in England. And the Zulus kept coming and going, in and out of the kraal, more and more of them, and there was no sign at all of Colonel 'Ervey.

What if there were another opening, on the other side, and he'd been able to get out?

He couldn't just sit here – stand here, for he wasn't going to sit down and be eaten alive by ants, or crept up on by boomslangs if they'd fallen out of another sort of tree. He started to tighten Molly's girth.

He rode until the sun was fist height above the horizon. He tried showing himself as often as he could – so that Colonel 'Ervey could see him if he were lying low – but he had to keep backtracking, into dead ground, every time he saw a Zulu. And they were all over the place, and he wondered, if they saw him, whether they would think there was a whole troop of him, because he kept appearing in different places.

But he didn't see Colonel 'Ervey. Not a sign of him. Or the Zulu woman either – but it was difficult to tell because they all looked the same and because they didn't wear anything but grass skirts. But he'd know her if he saw her close up. She'd looked sad when he'd given her the overalls and the cape, and he'd noticed she looked like one of the girls in Stepney when he used to go for the things for the officers' house. She had nice eyes, and she didn't have those big lips like a lot of blackies did. In fact, if you put a dress on her she'd look better than a lot of the women you saw in the streets in London of an evening. In fact, if her hair were long, like a proper lady's was, she'd look like a proper lady – if she weren't black of course. But that didn't matter, really, because she was better looking than a lot of them, and she seemed nice. Except that she might've given Colonel 'Ervey away.

And so he rode back to the pear-tree clump the way he had come, and tried to think what else to do. He loosened Molly's girth again to let her pull at the grass, but he daresn't take her saddle off because they'd have to gallop like the blazes if the Zulus had followed them. He wasn't hungry. He'd drunk half the water in his canteen, but that was all right because it wasn't too hot, and he wasn't really thirsty. And there were plenty of streams he'd seen, but he hadn't wanted to dismount to fill his canteen again because if there were Zulus about they could be crouching in the grass, like the ones that got them this morning.

But he didn't know what to do. And it was going to get dark soon. He couldn't do anything when it was dark. Even if he could find his way to the kraal, how would he be able to get in? And how would he find his way round: there were so many huts? All he could do was wait until it was light again and then ride the way he'd gone today, and perhaps Colonel 'Ervey might have seen him and would be waiting for him to come back tomorrow.

And so now he would just have to wait until it was tomorrow. But first it was going to be night. He had never been by himself anywhere before at night. What would he have to do? He couldn't go to sleep. What would he sleep on? Not the ground; not by himself. And there were no sentries. There had to be sentries. He would have to be the sentry, all night.

When the night came it was darker than he'd ever known. He stood holding Molly's reins, short, pressed up against her. He had to put his cloak on, because it got cold as soon as the sun went down. And then the noises came – shrieking and snarling, hissing, hooting, whistling, rustling – and they went on all night, as if they were trying to frighten him out of the trees. And they nearly did. And all the time there could be Zulus creeping up on him, and he'd never know till there was a spear in his back. And it got so bad that he had to get into the saddle, although poor Molly had had to carry him all day.

And when it started to get light at last, he knew he had to stand to, so he got the rifle out of the sleeve again, and watched for all he was worth, shivering with the cold and not knowing if he'd see another living soul again that he knew. It wasn't as bad, though, now that he knew it would be light soon, except that now there were queer shadows moving about, and he knew that it wasn't anything but the way the sun came up, but he wasn't sure, because it could be Zulus not shadows, and they might even be using the shadows to creep up on him, because they were like wild animals really and they knew how to hunt.

When it was really light, and he could see there was nothing at all – just the long grass, and the kraal half a mile away – he started to feel better, because he'd stuck to his post all night and hadn't been too frit and run away, and he hadn't fallen asleep or done anything like that. Except that he'd been a burden on poor Molly. So now he got down and undid her girth again, and this time he unfastened the bit on one side of the bridle, and let her have a good length of rein so she could pull at the grass.

And now he was feeling hungry too, and he rummaged in one of the saddlebags, because he knew Colonel 'Ervey always had a few bits of things to eat (as he did too, but his pony had gone) – and there were some things to eat, some biltong and some corn cakes, and two hard-boiled eggs. He'd give Molly the corn cakes. She grabbed the first from him, and then the other two, and she nudged him for more when she'd done. He chewed a bit of biltong, but it made him want to drink, and he knew he'd have to be careful with the water just in case he couldn't get near any more till a lot later. The eggs were best. That's what he liked most of a morning, and Colonel 'Ervey always bought lots of eggs whenever he could and boiled them hard and kept them in his pocket or in the saddlebag, because old Mr Corporal Coates, his friend before he died, told him a long time ago, when he was a boy, before he joined the army, that he ought to take boiled eggs with him whenever he went on campaign, and he was always very good about sharing them with him.

He took out the telescope to have a good look round, but the glass was misted and it was a bit of time before he could dry it properly. But when he had, there was nothing – not even many Zulus about like yesterday. So he reckoned he ought to get moving soon, go round the way he had yesterday, show himself every so often – shout 'Colonel 'Ervey, sir!', even. Because the Zulus'd never be able to catch him on Molly, just so long as she didn't go lame – and there was no reason for her to go lame because she'd been hotshod, proper, before they'd left Cape Town, and this ground wasn't nearly as hard as it was in England sometimes.

So he fastened the bridle again, and tightened up the girth, and rubbed her nose and said nice things to her – as he had all night, but now he could say them so's she'd be sure to hear – and got back into the saddle and set off to find Colonel 'Ervey.

But he saw no sign of him. He didn't call him, because it didn't seem right to – because the Zulus would hear, and they'd know then that Colonel 'Ervey was hiding somewhere, and would start looking for him. He showed himself once or twice – well, three times, really, if you counted the same place twice, there and back – but it just felt like he was waiting for a Zulu to come and throw a spear at him, and then he'd be no good for anything, and certainly not to find Colonel 'Ervey. So after midday – which he could tell because he'd noticed yesterday how the shadows changed direction – he came back to the pear-tree clump to work out what he'd do next.

The easiest thing would be to go back where they'd landed. He'd be able to find his way all right. And he might even find that Mr Isaacs, where they'd left him, if he hadn't got better and gone back. But that wouldn't really be what Colonel 'Ervey would do, was it, because he wouldn't leave Mr Somervile by himself? He'd try to catch up with him; that's what he'd try to do. That's what he'd be trying to do, because he couldn't