Warrior

Somervile gave him a cheroot.

'Thank you. I would have given a king's ransom for this match last night,' said Hervey as he lit it. He blew a satisfyingly dense cloud of smoke towards the roof of the hut, and then turned earnestly to his old friend. 'We must speak about what you intend. Mbopa's men were hard on our heels, and I suspect them mere voerlopers. More will follow if he believes Ngwadi will challenge him – which he must believe, else why pursue Pampata thus?'

Somervile nodded as he got his own cheroot alight. 'When we reached Nonoti and told him what had happened, the chief minister declared himself at once against Mbopa, and Dingane and the others, and asked for our protection while he summoned all the indune. He has a sizeable guard, and said he could call on the warriors who had been stood down for the sowing. I judged they could match what Mbopa could muster immediately, so I instructed young Kemmis – excellent fellow, he! – to stay at Nonoti with half the dragoons to strengthen the old man's resolve. That allowed Fairbrother and the rest to go back to Dukuza to see if they could find you and learn what they could.'

'Then why did you come on here? And unescorted? A dozen riflemen only!'

Somervile attempted to look defiant, although he knew his offence. 'Because we had decided on the necessity of alerting Ngwadi, if you remember.'

Hervey frowned, and with some impatience. 'But the situation then changed materially. You had no right . . . with respect, to place your life in jeopardy so. And what in the name of heaven were Welsh and Fairbrother doing permitting it? And Collins, for that matter!'

Somervile held up a hand to stay his tirade. 'They are blameless, I assure you. Each of them – your admirable Serjeant-Major Collins, too – protested most vehemently, but in the end I ordered them to desist.'

Hervey shifted painfully, having allowed himself to lean on the wound too heavily. 'Somervile, my dear old friend, and again with the very greatest of respect, you are not entitled to issue orders in such a way. Theirs is the responsibility for your safeguard, and you cannot absolve them of it.'

The lieutenant-governor shook his head solemnly. 'I know it; I know it. But in truth I was so greatly affeard that you were . . . well, I thought it possible you might be captive, and I could not rest if I had done otherwise than I did.'

Hervey sighed. Somervile had divided into three the already divided little force, but he had done so to search for him, and at grave risk to himself. 'When did you come here? Is Ngwadi gathering his warriors?' he asked, almost softly.

'Yesterday, in the morning. Ngwadi was at once incensed by the news of Shaka's murder. He has sent messengers to all his kraals for the army to assemble. They are about five thousand, but they're stood down for the sowing. He says it will be a week before they can all assemble. And then he will march at once on Mbopa.'

'And what if Mbopa should come with his army before they are assembled? When is Fairbrother bidden here?'

'I ordered him to remain at Nonoti when he was come from Dukuza. Ngwadi will first march thither . . . What is the matter with your shoulder?'

Hervey began flexing it to relieve the ache. 'It is well enough – merely a brush with a leopard.'

'I will have my physician see it,' replied Somervile, rising.

'No, permit him finish first with Pampata's wounds; she is very ill worn.'

'I saw as much. A remarkable woman, I hazard.'

Hervey stubbed out the cheroot and made to rise. 'Somervile, she is one of the finest women I ever met.'

His old friend, for all his earlier self-absorption, heard the catch in Hervey's voice, and nodded warily. 'We may well have cause to honour her. I hope most earnestly that she is able to find this child of Shaka's.'

Hervey seemed now to brace himself, as if to throw off the lethargy that had been overcoming him since they entered the hut. 'See, my good friend, there's not a moment to lose. We must send a galloper to Nonoti and recall Fairbrother and the rest of the troop. Here, Ngwadi's kraal, is the pivot of your stratagem. Besides, fine fellow that Ngwadi may be, I am loath to place ourselves amid a thousand of his warriors, with but a handful of riflemen, when their world has been turned upside down with the death of Shaka. One rumour that we are ourselves implicated in his fall and I would not give a half-farthing for our continuing health.'

'You suppose it could come to that?'

Hervey sighed again. 'My old friend, I do not wish to sound pious, but I am a soldier: I cannot deal in suppositions, only possibilities.'

Somervile looked remarkably chastened. 'I forget myself.'

Hervey clapped him on the arm. 'No matter. Was it Serjeant Donkers I saw with those inkwebane as we came in?'

'It was. An excellent fellow, as are they all.'

'Then I shall send him to recall Fairbrother. And thereafter I believe we should give ourselves up to Pampata.'

'I concur,' said Somervile, more happily.

Hervey realized that perhaps he, too, forgot himself, for this much was polity not soldiery. 'With your leave?'

'By all means, Hervey. By all means,' replied his old friend, seeming to brace himself to the task. 'But first it is my object that the physician treat your wound. We cannot have a single sabre that is hors de combat.'

A shot woke him. Hervey sat bolt upright, for a split second trying to grasp the place and the cause. He had been in the deepest sleep, the security that was the kraal and ten riflemen inducing him to let go that which had kept him alert these last days.