Warrior

'And one that has a lesson too,' added Pampata. 'Do not send another to do one's bidding.'

This Hervey managed to understand, but not without the need to open his eyes.

'Yes, sleep, mfowethu. I will watch for us both,' said Pampata, once the parable was done.

Hervey raised a hand slightly, in thanks, and closed his eyes again. But just as he was about to succumb, he snapped to and sat up as if he had heard a distant alarm.

'What is it, mfowethu?'

'Nothing, but I forget myself.' He got up, adjusting his sabre, and the pistol at his belt. 'I must go a little way back to see how things are. Stay here. I will return before the sun falls below that hill yonder.'

Pampata looked puzzled. 'Why do you not stay here, where we cannot be seen?'

He tried to explain. 'I am a soldier, dadewethu. I cannot only hide and wait.'

She bowed, understanding what impelled the warrior, if not always why. 'I will stay here, mfowethu.'

He backtracked for half a mile, until he came to a fold in the ground which would afford him a little elevation on the otherwise flat floodplain. He ascended cautiously, for he did not want to show himself, first crawling, and then rising to his knees, and only to full height when he was sure he had seen all there was to be seen from a crouch.

But the country was empty – empty of Zulu; he knew it teemed with other life, whether he could see it or not.

He sat down. He would stay sentinel here until dusk came, and only then return to Pampata and make fast for the night.

He turned his face to the sun, taking in its strength, watching, listening – trying not to think of what had happened, but of what was to come.

After an hour he saw the vultures. Or rather, he became aware of what they did, for there had been vultures overhead since early morning. They had come together, collected, flocked, whatever it was that vultures did when they no longer patrolled alone, to circle in a slow but purposeful way above a single point. And he could not be certain of it, but the circle seemed to be advancing, just perceptibly – exactly as he had observed before Umtata, when Fairbrother had first alerted him and they had thereby detected the advancing Zulu.

But how far away they were he couldn't tell. And it might signal nothing at all, for before Umtata the vultures had flown in a sort of extended line, the formation in which the Zulu had come on. This was different. All he could do was keep watch.

Half an hour passed. They were advancing, certainly (he could now make out the wings separately from the body). And all the time they had kept up the same routine of circling. If it were a stricken animal they were intent on, it would by now have gone to ground, would it not? Why would they keep post above the Zulu? But then, why had they kept post before Umtata?

And did the Zulu – if they were Zulu – follow their trail, his and Pampata's? What trail could two people make? He tried to calculate: how long would it be before they closed on the river? He could only do so by the vultures' appearance, how it was changing, a method he'd scarcely had any practice in. Perhaps a couple of hours?

He wondered if he should alert Pampata. But what could they do? They might, he suppose, put more distance behind them, beat up- or downstream, but they would leave a trail, if they had been doing so before, and then the Zulu would hasten. And was not this the surest place to cross the Thukela, she'd said? Pampata needed to sleep; she did not need to be woken and made more fearful, especially when he couldn't be certain there were Zulu out there. No, all he could do, again, was wait – and thank God for this searching light of the veld.

The first sighting sent a shiver down his spine. Now he had no choice but to rouse Pampata.

How many? They were still too distant to tell. Before Umtata there had been dust, a sure sign of numbers and speed, but it was not the season. How far? The plain was featureless, and this light so strong . . . two miles, three perhaps?

When first he had seen Matiwane's impi before Umtata, his blood had run cold. Yes, there had been many, many more of them than could be following them now, but at Umtata he had sat before his troop of dragoons and a whole company of rifles. If there were only a dozen – half a dozen – Zulu yonder, then his situation was even more perilous than then.

He had but an hour before they would find the two of them.

He got onto all fours (even two miles away, the Zulu might see him), and retreated into the dead ground which would allow him to steal away unobserved.

And then he froze. Three hundred yards, no more, as if from out of the earth: two scouts, eyes to the ground – following spoor? He dropped to his belly and began crawling for a lone thorn bush ten yards off to his left.

How could he not have seen them? Were there more as close?

What in God's name could he do? If he ran back to the river, where could they hide? If they tried to cross . . . There was no time, even if the possibility.

All he could do was stop these two, and then take a chance of running with Pampata from the rest – upstream. No, down . . .

He could do it. He had pistol and sabre: the blade – and surprise – for the first, and the ball for the second. But if he used the pistol, the rest would at once quicken their pace, and their chance of escape would be even smaller. And he could not be certain of the pistol (there was not time to draw the charge and reload). How he wished for his percussion rifle!

No, he must take both with the sabre. He was fortunate, though: he had a minute or so more to plan his ambuscade.

Nevertheless he opened the pistol's firing pan and blew out the powder, taking a new cartridge and making sure there was dry primer. If the fight were going against him he would have no option but to put a ball in one of