Warrior

The corporal came doubling. 'Sir!'

'Take out all your riflemen. Get up the briskest fire. Drive them off their perch!'

'Ay, sir!'

'Can they do the trick, Hervey?' asked Somervile, sounding doubtful.

'I have no idea. But if yon black line stands obligingly it'll be a deal whittled down in ten minutes!'

If the line merely withdrew to cover, he would be content – but even if it began to advance he would take satisfaction, for he would have forced Mbopa's hand. The initiative was a damned fine thing to gain at the beginning of an affair thus!

The line stood for a quarter of an hour. Or rather, that part of it stood which was not knocked down by Corporal Cox and his riflemen. Hervey could scarcely believe that the Zulu held their ground against such accurate fire. He swept back and forward with his 'scope, trying to find some clue to their resolution. 'Boys, in all likelihood. The first courage.' He swore beneath his breath at Mbopa's cynical play with their inexperience.

The smoke had thickened to a dense fog on the right of the line of rifles, the sun not yet hot enough to disperse it.

Hervey suddenly stiffened. What if these Zulu were a decoy? He looked about for Ngwadi, seeing him standing just outside the sango, and hailed him. 'Nkosi, your warriors, there and there,' (pointing to either flank of the firing line) 'ikhulu . . . I need a hundred.'

Ngwadi had his men assembled in moments.

Hervey jumped from the platform and ran back to the horses, loosing the mare he had ridden the day before and vaulting astride.

Fairbrother and the dragoons were saddling up as fast as they could.

'Keep them out of sight till I call!' he shouted over his shoulder, beckoning to Ngwadi to have him and his men follow as he galloped out.

'Hervey, what . . .' But all Somervile could do was watch as the press of warriors burst from the kraal, their chief at the head.

They beat Mbopa's men to the ground by a mere half-minute: for as if from out of the earth itself now sprang his best, the veterans, fifty and more on each flank, like a flash-flood. Without Ngwadi's men they would have overwhelmed the rifles in seconds.

Hervey galloped hard for the picket. In their determined sharpshooting they had not seen the peril on their flanks. 'Up, Rifles! Up! Up!' he bellowed hoarsely, as Ngwadi's men rushed to counter the veterans.

He managed somehow to get them to their feet. And then as they saw the trap they ran like the wind.

He only managed to rally them at the entrance to the kraal.

'Hervey, what happened there?' barked Somervile, now atop his horse.

'A deuced clever ruse. I should have seen it earlier. This ground is the devil!'

Corporal Cox had got his riflemen formed again, directing their fire on Mbopa's veterans, though the fight with Ngwadi's men was so entangled as to be a tricky thing for bullets.

'Those fellows, the Rifles: they looked as if they'd run all morning!' gasped Somervile, his excited gelding pulling defiantly.

'Oh, they all do that at some time or other,' replied Hervey, impatiently, returning his sabre and trying to make out where was Ngwadi. 'The point is whether or not they'll rally. And they have. What are you doing?'

'Hervey, I can't sit on my backside while—'

But out from the kraal burst the rest of Ngwadi's warriors, eager for the fray.

'Christ! Get back! Get back!' yelled Hervey, turning his horse to try to halt them. 'Get back, damn you! Get back, I say!'

Even had he shouted in perfect Zulu they were in no mind to hear. There was battle without, their chief was in the midst of it, and no warrior could remain inside with his honour intact.

'I must see what they do!' declared Somervile, breathily.

'No, Somervile, I beg you would remain here. We may very well have to gallop for it. Where's Pampata?'

'I . . .'

Hervey cursed, and reined about.

Corporal French was there, his coverman once more, and exactly where a coverman ought to be, except that he had not been given much chance of it these past days. 'Corp' French, detail a dragoon to guard the Zulu woman!'

'Which Zulu woman, Colonel?'

'Pampata, damn it!'

French shook his head. 'Sir, I . . .'

Hervey realized. 'Captain Fairbrother knows.'

'Sir!'