Men of Men - Smith Wilbur (книги бесплатно без txt) 📗

Clinton hesitated, and Mungo murmured. "Do point out, Doctor Jim, that after Lobengula surrenders, Reverend Codrington will be in a position to comfort and protect him, to ensure that the king is kindly treated and that no harm befalls him. I give him my word on that."

"Very well," Clinton capitulated sadly. "On the understanding that I am to be the king's protector and advisor, I will go with your column."

"They follow," Gandang said softly. "They still follow."

And Lobengula lifted his face and looked at the sky. The rain drops, heavy and hard as newly minted silver shillings, struck his cheeks and forehead.

"The rain," said Lobengula. "Who said they could not follow us in the rain?"

"It was me, my King but I was wrong," Gandang; admitted. "When he marched from Gubulawayo, One-Brighteye had three hundred men and four of the little guns with three legs which chatter like old women. He also had wagons and one big cannon."

"I know this," said the king.

"When the rains came, I thought that they had turned back, but now my scouts have come in with heavy news to tell. One-Bright-Eye has sent back half of his men and the wagons the cannon and two of the little three-legged guns. They could not ride over the mud, but-" Gandang paused.

"Do not try to spare me, my brother, tell me it all."

"He comes on with half his men, and two little machine-guns drawn by horses. They are travelling fast, even in the mud."

"How fast?" the king asked quietly.

"They are a day's march behind us, tomorrow evening they will camp here on this very river."

The king pulled the tattered old coat around his shoulders. It was cold in the rain, but he did not have the energy to crawl under the canvas of his wagon tent.

He looked out across the watercourse. They were camped on the Shangani river, but almost a hundred and fifty miles higher than where the first battle of the war had been fought upon the headwaters of this same river.

They were in thick mopani forest, so thick that a road had to be chopped through it to allow the king's wagons to pass. The terrain was flat and relieved only by the clay hills of the termite nests that dotted the forest, some of them as large as houses, others the size of a beer keg just big enough to smash the axle of a wagon.

The sky, grey and heavy as the belly of a pregnant sow, pressed down upon the tops of the mopani. Soon it would rain heavily again, these fat drops were merely a warning of the next deluge to come, and that trickle of muddy water, the colour of a drunkard's bile, down the middle of the watercourse would be a roaring torrent again within minutes of the onslaught.

one hundred and fifty men, Gandang," the king sighed. "How many have we?"

"Two thousand," said Gandang. "And perhaps tomorrow or the next day Gambo may come to join us with a thousand more."

"Yet we cannot stand against them?"

"The men we would eat. It is those little guns with three legs, oh King not even ten thousand warriors, each with the liver of a lion, could prevail when they begin to laugh. But if the king commands, we will run "No" It is the gold," Lobengula said suddenly. "The white men will never let me be until they have the gold.

I will send it to them. Perhaps then they will leave me in peace.

Where is Kamuza, my young induna? He speaks the language of the white men. I will send him to them."

Kamuza came swiftly to the king's bidding. He stood attentively in the spattering rain beside the front wheel of the wagon.

"Place the little bags of gold in the hands of the white men, Kamuza, my trusted induna, and say to them thus, "You have eaten up my regiments and killed my young men, you have burned my kraals and scattered the women and children of Matabeleland into the hills where they burrow for roots like wild animals, you have seized my royal herds, and now you have my gold. White men, you have it all, will you now leave me in peace to mourn my lost people?" There were ten bags of white canvas, stamped with black lettering. They made a heavy burden for one man to carry. Kamuza knelt and tied them together in bunches, and then packed each bunch into a leather grain bag.

"To hear is to obey, Great Elephant," Kamuza saluted his king.

"Go swiftly, Kamuza, Lobengula. ordered softly. "For they are close upon us."

Will Daniel sat his own horse, with the brim of his hat pulled down to protect the bowl of his clay pipe from the drizzling rain, and over his shoulders he wore a rubber groundsheet which glistened with moisture and gave him a pregnant, clumsy look as he slumped barrelbellied in the saddle.

On lead reins he held two other horses, one was a pack animal whose burden was covered by a white canvas sheet. Daniel no longer bore the lofty rank of sergeant.

After his conduct at the secret valley of the Umlimo, Zouga Ballantyne had seen him reduced to trooper, and as an additional mortification, he was now acting as batman to one of the officers of the flying column. The packhorse carried Captain Coventry's traps.

The other horse belonged to Will's old comrade in arms, Jim Thorn. That worthy was crouched behind a thorny shrub a short way off, with his belt hanging around his neck and cursing bitterly in a low monotone.

"Filthy bleeding water, stinking bloody rain, God-forsaken country, "

"Hey, jimmo, your backside must be on fire by now.

That's the twelfth time today."

"Shut your ugly face, Will Daniel," Jim shouted back, and then dropped back into his dismal monotone.

"Bloody gut-breaking trots "Come on, Jim my lad." Will lifted the brim of his hat to peer about him. "We can't fall too far behind the rest, not with the bush crawling with bloody black savages."

Jim Thorn came out from behind the bush re-buckling his belt, but wincing with another bout of stomach cramps. He climbed gingerly up into the saddle, and the three horses plodded along in the deep yellow muddy ruts of the horse-drawn carts which carried the two Maxim machine-guns.

The rear of the column was out of sight ahead of them amongst the dripping mopani trees. The two of them had soon learned to loiter at the back away from the scrutiny of the officers, so that they would not be ordered into the thigh-deep mud when the Maxim carts bogged down and had to be man-handled through one of the glutinous Imopani holes".

"Look out, Will!" Jim Thorn yelled suddenly, and his oilskins flapped like the wings of a startled rooster as he tried to draw his rifle from its scabbard. "Look out, bloody savages!"

A Matabele had stepped silently out of the thick bush alongside the cart tracks, and now he stood directly in front of the horses and held up his empty hands to show the white men that he was unarmed.

"Wait, jimmo@" Will Daniel called. "Let's see what the bastard wants."

"I don't like it, man. It's a trap." Jim searched the bush around them nervously. "Let's shoot the black bugger and get out of it."

"I come in peace!" the Matabele called in English. He wore only a fur kilt, without armlets and leg tassels, and the rain shone on his smoothly muscled torso. On his head was the headring of an induna.

The two mounted men both had their rifles out now, and were aiming from the hip, covering Kamuza at pointblank range.

"I have a message from the king."

"Well, spit it out then," Will snapped.

"Lobengula says take my gold, and go back to Gubulawayo."