They were on the move again. The second cattle truck was a distance traveller, the ‘road train’, as Ashley referred to it. The sleeping cabin in the back was small, but Gertrude would at least travel comfortably. They had driven out on the Victoria Falls road, towards Hwange, and stopped.
For Scott it was hard to see Zol say goodbye to Gertrude, knowing that this separation would cause the two of them still more unwanted stress.
‘I put my wife in your care now,’ Zol said as he laid his hand on Scott’s shoulder. ‘She is my life.’
‘I know. She is my sister-but-one,’ Scott replied. ‘Be careful.’
They had waited a week and a day for the all-clear from Gertrude’s doctors, giving permission for her to travel with them. Gertrude still needed help but they would manage between them. It was hard watching them part, especially since he and Ashley had only just been reunited after their time apart.
Scott turned his back on his friend to give him privacy as he said goodbye to Gertrude, then Zol vanished into the bushland. He would see them once he crossed the river into Zambia. Scott knew for certain that Zol’s decision was correct. He wouldn’t cross at the conventional border post this time, but had chosen to catch up with the farm workers and make sure they got across the river.
Scott walked slowly back to the small convoy of three trucks. Two large cattle trucks and one bakkie left. Elliott would drive the first truck and he would drive the other. Ashley would drive the four-wheel drive through some of the roughest bush tracks in Africa, and Lisa would accompany her and watch the children. He grinned at the thought of his wife five years ago and the woman sitting on the rug breastfeeding his son now. She looked radiant, like she could take on the world, and he smiled, knowing that if she did, she’d conquer that too.
He’d married a woman in a million.
Zol picked up the anti-poaching unit’s spoor. It was not hard to follow a huge group of fifty people, including women and children, through the bush. He knew almost every child in the group from birth. Each little slippery sucker who had sat and watched his wife adoringly as she taught them their ABCs. ‘A’ for assegai, ‘B’ for bush, ‘C’ for Coke. This was his family moving through the sticks, towards the mighty river. He knew his and Gertrude’s own children were already safe in Zambia; now it was his job to protect the extended family who had shared his life on the ranch for all those years.
Tobias’s old dad, James, as he shuffled along; the old woman who lived up to her name and never had a good thing to say, Miserable. These were his family, and they had chosen to start a new life along with Scott and Zol, becoming refugees. He needed to be there to protect them. It was his promise to Charlie all those years ago for saving him – that he would always look after the good of the Decker family.
It was simple. Both he and Scott believed these people were worth saving, so he would protect them.
Zol looked at the tracks in the dirt. The grass had already begun to cover the indentations. A week was lot of time to be away from the spoor, but Zol knew he could find the men and their precious voyagers.
He travelled fast, having stripped down to his normal minimum pack requirements before he left the convoy. He took a swig from his water bottle and looked at the sun. He had one hour of sunlight left at most. Already he was near Chizarira Game Reserve’s first concession. Here, he had to take care, as the private game rangers also had their own anti-poaching units. He noticed the spoor begin to detour east. It was a good sign. The anti-poaching men had realised where they were, and adjusted their bearings accordingly. He’d taught them well.
The sun slipped behind the trees at his back. He watched his lengthening shadow disappear as the blackness descended into the night. His eyes adjusted to the reduced light, constantly scanning the bush for signs of predators. Lions, leopards or humans.
His nose detected smoke. He grinned. If he was correct, this was the first of the two groups he should find soon. Cautiously, he followed the scent. He switched his radio on. The digital screen time read 19:45, and he adjusted the dimness. The darkness was complete, no moon shining. He clicked twice and waited.
No reply.
He clicked again.
No clicks answered him.
He tried again at 20:00.
Still no reply.
The fire he could smell was not his anti-poaching unit’s. He turned in the night and made a large detour to avoid the human contact.
As the sun rose into the sky above the escarpment and shed her warmth on the trees, Zol turned his radio back on and clicked twice. Two clicks returned. After a further half-hour’s walk, he strolled towards the camp. He hadn’t quite reached it when he was confronted by Kwiella.
‘Zol, good to see you,’ he said as he clasped Zol’s arm, old comrade style.
‘Likewise, Kwiella. How are things?’
‘We travel too slowly. The old people, they can’t walk faster, and we take turns in carrying the weaker ones. Still our time is bad. We’ll need to kill for fresh meat at this rate, and that will mean we are poaching on someone’s land.’
Nodding, Zol listened intently.
‘The children are good. They gather berries, fruits, monkey oranges, even honey as we go, to supplement the rations we all carry. The stronger women have taken some of the older people’s rations into their head bundles, and carry more than they should. This is a hard trek, keeping hidden in the bush all the time.’
‘How do they manage with their water ration?’ Zol asked, almost afraid of the answer.
‘We have been lucky and found fresh water troughs twice. Only three men and three children travelled back and forth filling the storage containers. Then we wiped the tracks. The farmers might suspect someone has been there, but it’s unlikely, unless they see our spoor further in the bush.’
‘You are covering your movements well, even I was having to track carefully to follow.’ Zol complimented his guard. ‘Any other troubles?’
‘No. We have been left alone so far. We have shown the children and women how to blend into the bush. They do it well.’
They walked into the small camp together.
‘Zol has come! Zol has come!’ greeted some of the children in a singsong fashion. They ran up to him with their small hands outstretched and, as always, he had sweets to give them, his one concession to his lighter travel pack. He rationed out two hard-boiled sweets each for the children in the camp.
After some hot coffee and honey-sweetened sadza at the fire, he was ready to move out with the rest of the camp.
He addressed the whole camp together. ‘My people,’ he said, ‘the night we left Delmonica was very sad. As Kwiella has probably already told you, Boss Scott’s bakkie was lost and Gertrude was hurt. She’s been in hospital for the last week, but now she’s with Boss Scott in the cattle truck. She wanted to travel with you all to help, but I was being a stubborn old man and wanted her with me. She’s broken her leg but she is fine.’ He knew Gertrude would forgive him for his white lie. But he needed it to help the group along.
‘Madam Ashley and Lisa are looking after her. She wanted to say hello to everyone, and give a lesson to the children while we walked. I promised her instead I would teach all the children to survive this crossing, as that is more important at the moment. My wife was laughing about this. So, I’ll travel for a week with you, then I must leave and meet Scott in Zambia. I’ll check the river crossing, and mark the place well for you. Then I’ll see you again when you cross. It will be a good day when we are all in Zambia together.’
They all clapped at his words and danced a little. Then they picked up their things and followed Kwiella and Zol out of the camp. Vusi lagged behind, erasing all traces that a group of travellers had camped there for the night. It wouldn’t do for the Zimbabwean forces to find the group of travellers planning on border jumping.
Zol surveyed the group. Kwiella carried the old crone, Miserable, and Vusi carried a young child who had woken up coughing badly. The small amount of medicine he had ensured they carried was not adequate for a bad infection but would cure most daily ailments. Marion was showing signs that her baby would be born any day, having dropped low in her stomach. He worried about her being on the move, but knew that for years African women had delivered babies together, each in the community helping the other if needed. There were no midwives and doctors for most deliveries in the bush, and usually they continued with their work or chores afterwards, the baby simply strapped onto the new mum. They were strong.
He thought of the difference in each of Gertrude’s four births compared to Ashley’s one. He knew the comparison was unfair, but he liked to think his wife the strong Ndebele woman. She had been worth every cow he had paid for her lobola.
His radio clicked three times. A sign of danger. He raised his hand in a stop signal to the small band of people walking behind him. Every one of them stopped dead in their tracks, even the children. All fell silent. Kwiella had done a good job with teaching them to follow him.
They listened and heard low rumblings and snapping branches. Jumbo. Directly in their path. The scouts out front had detected them early enough to warn the group not to walk blindly into their midst.
They turned west so they were downwind of the elephants and detoured around them. They would scare away most animals in the bush, but buffalo, rhino and jumbo were the three they had to be extremely careful of and avoid wherever possible.
According to Zol’s calculations, they had just crossed the border into the Chizarira Game Reserve. Now they would have to be extra vigilant for traffic coming along the tracks throughout the bush. Not as popular as Hwange or as densely populated with tourist and hunting camps, Chizarira had a reputation as a jewel within Zimbabwe, a last outpost of unspoiled wilderness. Their game guards were as well trained as his, and as protective and passionate about their charges. They had had to be, to stop an influx of poaching on their black rhino population. Slowly, their neighbours, the local Batonka people, were being educated to stop the poaching and enjoy the benefits of the concessions and the game reserve, like the free elephant meat handed to them from the annual legal cull.
The anti-poaching units in the reserve knew Zol and his men. They often ran training exercises together, where Scott organised the two national game reserves swap guards, and ensured that they were adequately trained and knowledgeable of both regions. Zol’s men had all been through this course. If they were confronted, the danger wouldn’t be that they would be turned in, but that they would be joined by more people fleeing to make a better life.
He inhaled the scents of the bush. It was good to be walking freely after all these years and to have a specific purpose in mind. To be actually going somewhere again – that was something special. He laughed quietly, remembering his last true cross-country trek with Charlie during the war of independence.
‘Come on, Zol. Get packed up and let’s move out of this godforsaken place,’ Charlie had said, as he threw the dregs of his coffee into the fire.
‘Yes, Boss,’ Zol answered obediently. He’d been with Charlie for ten years, and they were in their second war. Only this one they were not for hire, but fighting for their own country. Zol was riding Elizabeth, or Queen Vic for short – Charlie’s first horse – and Charlie had acquired Lady Thatcher. She was a bad-tempered horse, and was named after the Prime Minister of England, who in Charlie’s opinion would sell Rhodesia down the drain sooner or later, no matter what they did to try to prevent it.
Lady Thatcher was as hard as brass tits, and as crafty as her namesake when it came to getting things done her way. She’d won the hearts of both men the week before when they’d been ambushed by gooks and she’d shown she had her namesake’s balls. She’d performed like the true warhorse she was trained to be, and carried Charlie out of the melee. Zol had been dragged out, literally, by Queen Vic as he held tightly to his stirrup leather after being thrown from his saddle by the claymore that exploded near them. And he loved her for not leaving him behind. But Lady Thatcher didn’t even get a graze as she dodged bullets, claymore shrapnel and jumped tripwires invisible to Charlie. She had saved their lives.
‘Where we heading now?’ Zol asked, as he packed up Charlie’s sleeping bag and killed the small fire.
‘Northwest. I’ve had enough war for a while. I heard that just west of here there are diamonds as big as fists lying in the river bends.’
‘I heard that too. But there are also guards with rifles and Rottweilers patrolling the area.’
‘In South West Africa surely, but not in Angola. That area is too hot with action to have anyone lay claim just yet. With the South African defence force fighting the Angolans in the Caprivi Strip, and the internal strife of the MPLA and UNITA, we dare not head for the Namib Desert. But head north, behind the enemy lines, and we could go make a man’s fortune.’
‘But what about this war?’
‘It’ll still be here when we get back.’ Charlie laughed. ‘Zol, I don’t think they will miss one grey scout and his boy for a few months.’
Tightening Lady Thatcher’s girth, Zol smiled. He was always grateful to Charlie for saving him, but never more so than when he got these crazy ideas of going walkabout. This was the third detour they’d had in their years together. They had acquired some prime horseflesh on Charlie’s ranch, mustangs running wild on the flats of Northern Rhodesia. It had taken time and patience to get them home, but it had been worth every minute.
But it was the diamond fossicking that was going to be Scott and Zol’s saving grace now.
Zol smiled at the memory of the desert. He could almost taste the sand and heat as he remembered. But it was not in the desert where they found their riches: it was north, in a country so beautiful and rich with green trees and animals and rivers that defied logic and flowed northwards. Angola. Zol had been there before, but this time he saw it as a man, not a boy. And he saw it as a free man, not a seconded guerrilla terrorist.
Behind the lines the war was worse, and it was the people of the country who were affected the most. They saw suffering and death everywhere. They lost Queen Vic to a landmine explosion that left Zol deaf for weeks afterwards, but they found diamonds on a river bend high up in the Chimbe River.
They worked the bend for four months and then headed home, Lady Thatcher proving she was every bit the survivor as her political namesake, completing the journey with them. Along the way they collected Zahra, a zorse. She was a striped beauty as rugged as her wild ancestors but sterile, as she was a cross between a wild zebra stallion and a horse.
She didn’t like Lady Thatcher much, and was fiercely racist towards Charlie, biting him whenever he got close enough, her ears flattening against her head and trying to kick him when he was near her rear end. For Zol, she was the perfect mount. She cost him three large uncut diamonds, but Charlie and Zol figured she was worth it. She’d been trained in the Angolan bush, and was already shy proof. She wouldn’t take a saddle, nor a bit, and was totally leg and neck controlled, but he could shoot off her back without her flinching, and her uniqueness helped camouflage their passage through the countryside.
They avoided the guerrillas and the South African defence force the whole journey, and couldn’t believe their luck had held. They had enough diamonds to set them up comfortably for life. Instead of heading southeast towards home, they had travelled eastwards, and went via Zambia and Malawi. They found a perfect place to stash some of the rocks in peaceful Malawi ‘tree bank’ within a national park, then they continued home to Delmonica.
Zol smiled, thinking of his old friend, and now of his grandson.
‘He has a boy, Charlie,’ he whispered into the bushes. ‘And a girl. You would have loved them, Boss. You would be so proud of your son.’
‘Zol.’ Kwiella’s voice interrupted Zol’s memories, yanking him back across the chasm of time. ‘We are making camp for the night, Marion just had her baby.’