Chapter 2

 

I did not sleep much that first night in Owen’s hut. It was not just because I could hear rats scurrying about and gnawing fresh holes in the walls. I was to learn that Zulu huts are infested with rodents at night, probably due to the grain stored in jars inside. It was not even the pain that kept me awake; if I lay perfectly still and breathed lightly it was bearable. That afternoon Mrs Owen had confirmed that a bone in my arm was broken by squeezing it and nearly causing me to leap through the hut roof. She found splints and bandaged it as tightly as I would allow, warning that she would have to tighten the binding further to ensure the bone healed straight. She also bandaged my ribs that she thought were cracked. In all, a whole petticoat was ripped into strips and wrapped around parts of my body that showed violent hues of purple bruising. My ankle she pronounced was merely sprained and the swelling would go down if I could keep off it.

Mrs Owen was a brisk and practical woman, a typical vicar’s wife who looked after worldly affairs while her husband attended to the more spiritual. Having heard from the reverend the trials of their journey to get here, I did not doubt that she was the one who worked out how to overcome each obstacle. In between dressing my wounds that afternoon, she gave a school lesson to her daughter, William and another white boy who also lived on the hillside. She also oversaw a maid called Jane, who had come with them from Yorkshire. The girl was roasting a joint of meat over the fire and soon tempting smells filled the hut, reminding me that I had not eaten properly for days.

I sat down for dinner that evening with the Owen household, including William. We were joined by a Mr and Mrs Hulley, along with their son, who had been in the school lesson earlier. The reverend opened the meal with a rambling grace, including a plea to the Almighty for the repair of my battered carcass. I am bound to admit that by then I was feeling a little better. The fever was receding and was being replaced by a hearty appetite. I must have devoured at least a pound of beef, which my stomach appreciated much more than the king’s physic.

Talked turned to affairs in the Zulu court and I learned that Richard Hulley was another interpreter and courier. The king had recently instructed Owen to draft a letter for Gardiner, asking the captain to visit his capital. Hulley was to take it and would also travel to Port Natal. He undertook to pass back details of my whereabouts. If Louisa had not returned to that settlement, a messenger could be sent on to the Boer camps to find her there. When I predicted that Louisa would have the Dutch combing the land from dawn to dusk to find me, William thought that they would have found the village who had reported my presence to the Zulu court. From them the Boers would learn where I had been taken. I was not sure how much comfort Louisa would take from that.

“When we were with the Boers,” I remembered, “there was a man called Retief who was gathering cattle for the Zulus in exchange for a grant of land. Do you think that the king will let me return with him and his men?”

There was a pause of several seconds before anyone replied. The other adults around the table and young William exchanged meaningful glances. They seemed to be prompting each other to answer my enquiry. Eventually, Mr Hulley cleared his throat, “Yes, yes that is entirely possible.” Yet I got the distinct impression that such a thing was not advisable at all. I must have furrowed my brow in puzzlement. “Perhaps you will join the reverend and I outside after dinner,” he suggested, glancing down at where his young son was giggling with Owen’s daughter. “Now, sir,” he continued, “we have not had any new stories around this table for a while. Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us how you come to be in Africa.”

I told them some creditable tales of my time in Texas and South America, as well as how I came to know the governor. They exclaimed appreciatively, but my heart was not in it. I was getting increasingly anxious about what they would tell me when the meal was over, for I was certain that it would not be good news. Eventually, the women rose to clear the table and get their children to bed. The rest of us got up and headed outside. I was not surprised to see William join us men, for the lad appeared to know as much of what was happening as anyone else. We sat down on some log seats around the embers of a fire and as the flames were rekindled, I began to understand a little more of their precarious existence.

They started by telling me a little about the king. His name was Dingane and he was a brother of a great Zulu king called Shaka. This fearsome ruler had done much to make the tribe a powerful nation in the region. Shaka went mad after his mother died, executing thousands of his people for being insufficiently grief-stricken at his loss. He ordered no crops to be planted and any woman who became pregnant to be killed with her husband. Even cows were slaughtered so that their calves would know what losing a mother felt like. He was set to destroy everything he had built up. Dingane soon found support for a revolt and literally stabbed his brother in the back.

That had all taken place some ten years before. Given the means of his own accession to power, you could understand why Dingane was distrustful of those about him. He ruthlessly killed any who might defy him, but it was not just his own people he was suspicious of, it was his white neighbours too.

“He has heard how the Boers with their horses and guns crushed the Matabele people to the south,” explained Hulley. “The Zulus have fought the Matabele too, but they have not been able to destroy them like that. The king worries that the Boers or the British might come after his land next.”

“But has he not given Gardiner a huge tract of land? And does he not allow Port Natal to exist on his territory?” I asked, puzzled.

“It was Shaka who granted land at Port Natal to settlers there after their medicine saved him from an assassination attempt,” explained Owen. “I fear Dingane would not be as generous, for his soul is black with sin, Mr Flashman.”

“As for Gardiner’s land,” continued Hulley, “that was given to just one man. Dingane knows he can take it back whenever he wants.”

“Some of the elders,” interrupted William, “do not accept that the land has been given to Gardiner. They say Zulu land is sacred and cannot be given away.”

“Yet this is the same territory that Dingane has also promised to the Boers,” continued Owen. “I tried to warn them when they came before, but they just thought I was protecting Captain Gardiner’s interests.”

“So Dingane is trying to use the Boers to recover stolen cattle from his enemies,” I concluded, “but he has no intention of giving them their land.” I was not entirely surprised at this, for any African king would be a fool to invite a powerful neighbour to take half of his territory. More Boers would pour over the mountains to the south to join them and it would only be a matter of time before they came after the rest of his land. Many of the other Boer leaders had seen this for themselves. While Louisa and I had been in their camp they had claimed that Retief was a fool to trust the Zulu king. For others, though, the new land was the answer to their prayers and they allowed hope to outweigh caution. Many had lost their farms to Xhosa raids. They had, as they saw it, been betrayed by the British, fought the Matabele, endured hardships crossing the mountains to the south and now a vast and fertile land lay before them. They had nowhere else to go and few wanted to return south. The Boer leaders I had met had received me civilly enough. They respected D’Urban, but they took little comfort from his letter. It was the government in London that had little idea of the ways of their world that they did not trust. News had reached them that D’Urban was to be replaced and they were sure that the government would appoint a new man that was hostile to their interests. From what D’Urban himself had told me, I could not disagree.

“Well,” I continued, “Retief will only do the king’s bidding for so long, then he will realise he is being played. I would not like to be in the king’s shoes then, for the Boers are tough fighters, they have proved that.”

Owen looked over his shoulder to check that none of their African servants were within earshot before saying quietly, “The king knows that too, which is why he is likely to strike first.”

“What do you mean?” I felt the hair on the back of my neck start to prickle in alarm.

“After Retief visited Dingane the first time,” replied Owen, “I got a letter from Captain Gardiner.”

“The king demands that we read to him all the letters between us and Port Natal,” interjected Hulley, “but I hid this one in my boot.”

“Yes,” continued Owen, frowning in irritation at the interruption. “Gardiner told us that Dingane had ordered one of his chiefs to intercept Retief and his men on the way back to the Boer camps. This man, Isiguabani, was to invite Retief and his men to his village and offer them hospitality. Then, when their guard was down, he was to murder them all.”

“But they weren’t killed,” I countered. “They were away recovering Dingane’s cattle for him when I visited the Boer camp.”

“No,” replied Owen. “That is because Isiguabani refused to do the king’s bidding and his village paid a terrible cost for his disobedience. Isiguabani knew that the king would never forgive him and so he tried to take his people away. But when Dingane learned of his treason he sent his army after them. They were caught by a river and over six hundred of them were killed or drowned.” He gestured at the opposite hill and added, “Well over a hundred more ended their days on that rock.”

“Good heavens.” I was astonished. “So he did not really care about the stolen cattle at all, that was just to trick Retief into thinking there was hope for a deal.”

“Now he has sent Tom and some of his advisors after Retief,” added Hulley, “so that they can see how the Boers fight and report back to him.” Tom, I learned, was Thomas Halstead, another interpreter who lived in the buildings of Owen’s mission.

I had heard in Port Natal that Dingane jealously guarded his power, killing all who challenged him, but I had not appreciated just how cunning and ruthless he could be. He must have assumed that Retief was the only Boer leader and that once he had been murdered, the rest would be intimidated and go away. I thought he might well be right on that, for I had heard that the Zulu army had thousands of men, well organised into disciplined regiments. Now while his first attempt at dispatching a potential invader had failed, he still had the man doing his bidding. In a few weeks Retief was expected back at Umgungundlovu and probably completely oblivious to how close he had come to being killed on his last visit. Joining his men for their return journey now did not look so appealing. Which raised a rather important question.

“How the hell am I to get away, then? Damn it, why don’t we all get away from here? You men have families, you know that you are all living at the whim of this despot. Why do you stay here?”

“We have no choice,” replied Owen grimly. “Zulu soldiers guard all of the main trails and they would only let us pass with an escort of the king’s guards. Even if somehow we made it to Port Natal, under the treaty they might be obliged to hand us back if a Zulu army was hot on our heels. We need Dingane’s permission to leave and he would never grant it, at least not now. He is not a fool, Mr Flashman. I read or write all of his letters to the outside world and,” he gestured at the other two around the fire, “Richard and William speak to many of his men in their own tongue. He can guess that we know much of his plans. If we were to suddenly ask to leave, he would assume we were going to betray him.”

“But he is letting Hulley leave tomorrow,” I objected.

“Only because he has my wife and son as hostage here,” the man explained. “He knows I must come back for them.”

Once again it was young William, with his direct approach, who put his finger on a more important issue. “Instead of worrying about how you get away, we need to work out how we can keep you alive.”

“What, surely even Dingane would not dare harm a friend of the British governor?” I had thought that my friendship with D’Urban would give me some form of protection, but even as I spoke the words, I began to see that the reverse might be the case. A king willing to wipe out the man he thought was the Boer leader and all his supporters would not hesitate to kill the lone representative of a more distant enemy.

“He does not know you are a friend of the governor,” asserted young William. “I have not told his messengers that. If I had, he would have thought you were a British spy in his lands.”

“Dingane does not trust any white people,” Owen confirmed. “He is sure that they will try to take his land. He has heard that the British have pushed the Xhosa back and he would like to get some guns for his people. When I first arrived, he tried to trick me into getting him gunpowder.”

“But then what do we tell him about why I am here?” I looked up at the moon and continued, “I will have to see him in the next three days to thank him for his physic. He is bound to ask what I am doing on these shores. From the sound of things, my answer had better be a good one.”

There were a few seconds of silence as we all stared into the flames seeking inspiration and then Hulley straightened up. “You could tell him that you are a friend of the reverend and that you are visiting on your way back to England. No, wait,” he held up his hand to stall any interruption, clearly pleased with some new refinement to his plan. “Tell him that you are from England and the reverend’s mother is ill and wants him and his family to come home.” He turned to Owen, “This could be your chance to get away too.”

The cleric licked his lips and gave a slight sigh. He must have been picturing himself back in the benign setting of the Yorkshire Dales, but then his sense of duty caused him to sadly shake his head. “No, Richard. I only have a small Christian flock on this hilltop, but I will not abandon it. When we go, we will go together.”

After much debate it was decided that I was a humble clerk in the East India Company returning home. I had decided to visit my cousin, the Reverend Owen, when my ship called into Port Natal. My guide had abandoned me, I had got lost and then was injured falling into the pit.

As we talked, our faces flickering in the light of the fire in front of us, for once my first concern was not myself. I was exhausted after what had been an awfully long day and still feeling a little feverish, yet my thoughts kept straying to Louisa. What would she do when she found that I was ‘enjoying’ the hospitality of the Zulu king? There were plenty in the Boer camp who did not trust him and who would fill her ears with tales of his tyranny. I half feared that she would ride to Umgungundlovu herself and demand my release. That would rather put paid to any lies we had planned, but surely the Boers would stop her before she reached the king. While they had not heard of Isiguabani when I had been with them, many thought that Retief would be sent on a series of errands until he finally realised that he would never get his land. As I sat there in the darkness, I silently prayed that she would stay away. The alternative did not bear thinking about. During any pause in our conversation we could hear noises from the hill opposite. Wild dogs were there now, their barks, snarls and howls clearly audible as they fought over the remains at the summit. It was a stark reminder of our fate if things went wrong.