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

"Why do I want her?" he pondered. "When I have never loved a woman, why do I want this one? She is no longer young, and God knows, I have had my pick of a hundred more beautiful. Why do I want her!"and he grinned at his own perception. "I want her because she is the only one whom I have never had, and whom I will never have completely."

He closed the Bible with a snap, and grinned wickedly across the wide river at the dark and silent mopani forest.

"Well done, Parson. You saw it long before I did."

The tracks of Lobengula's wagons were clear to follow, even in the worsening light, and Wilson pushed the pace to a canter.

Clinton's aged grey was exhausted by two weeks of hard trekking. He fell back little by little, until after five miles they were loping along with Captain Napier's rear file. The mud thrown up by the hooves ahead speckled Clinton's face as though he was suffering from some strange disease.

The mopani thinned out dramatically ahead of the tiny patrol, and there were low bare hills on either hand.

"Look at them, Padre," Wilson called to Clinton, and gestured at the hills. "There must be hundreds of them."

"Women and old men," Clinton grunted. The slopes were scattered with silent watching figures. "The fighting men will be with the king."

The twelve riders cantered on without a check, and the thunder muttered and shook the sky above the low, swirling clouds.

Suddenly Wilson raised his right hand high.

"Troop, halfl' Clinton's grey stood, head hanging and chest heaving between his knees, and Clinton was as grateful. At his best he was no horseman, and he was unaccustomed to such hard riding.

"Reverend Codrington to the front!"The order was passed back, and Clinton kicked the grey into a plodding walk.

At that moment a squall of rain stung his face like a handful of thrown rock-salt, and he wiped it off with the palm of his right hand.

"There they are!"said Wilson tersely, and through the drizzle Clinton could make out the stained and ragged canvas tent of a wagon rising above the scrub, not more than two hundred paces ahead.

"You know what to say, Padre." Wilson's Scots accent seemed even stronger and was incongruous at this place and in these circumstances.

Clinton walked the grey forward another few paces, and then drew a deep breath.

"Lobengula, King of the Matabele, it is me, Hlopi.

These men wish you to come to Gubulawayo to parley with Dakatela and Lodzi. Do you hear me, oh King?"

The silence was broken only by the scraping of a windblown branch and the rustle of the rain on the brim of Clinton's old hat.

Then quite clearly, he heard the snick of a Martinihenry rifle being loaded; and a young voice asked in whispered Matabele from the scrub near the wagon: "Must we shoot, Baba?"

A deeper, firmer voice replied in the same language.

"Not yet. Let them come closer so there can be no mistake."

And then the voices were blotted out by a grumbling roll of thunder overhead, and Clinton backed the grey up.

"It is a trap, Major. There are armed Matabele in ambush about the wagons. I heard them talking."

"Do you think the king is there?"

"I would not think so, but what I am sure of is that even now the main impi is circling back between us and the river."

"What makes you think that!"

"It is always the Zulu way, the encirclement and then the closing in."

"What do you advise, Padre?"

Clinton shrugged and smiled. "I gave my advice on the bank of the river-" He was interrupted by a shouted warning from the rear of the column. It was one of the Americans, his accent unmistakable.

"There is a force moving in behind us."

"How many?" Wilson shouted back.

"Plenty, I can see their plumes."

"Troop, about wheel!" Wilson ordered. "At the gallop, forward!"

As the horses plunged back down the rough trail, the rain that had been threatening so long burst upon them in an icy silver cascade. It slashed at their faces" and stung their eyes, and drummed on their oilskins.

"This will cover our retreat," Wilson grunted, and Clinton flogged the grey's neck with the loose end of the reins, for the old horse was falling back again.

Through the thick silver lances of falling rain, he caught a glimpse of waving war-plumes above the scrub; they were racing in to head off the patrol. At that moment the grey stumbled and Clinton was thrown onto his neck.

"Jee!" He heard the war chant go up, and he clung desperately to the grey's neck as it plunged to regain its balance.

"Come on, Padre!" somebody yelled, as the other troopers went pounding past him in the mud and the rain.

Then his horse was running again. Clinton had lost a stirrup, and he bumped painfully on the wet saddle, clinging to the pommel for a grip, but they were through.

There were no shields or plumes in the bush around them, only the twisting streamers of rain and the gloom of gathering night.

"Are you telling me, Napier, that Major Wilson has deliberately chosen to spend the night on the far bank, despite my direct orders to return before nightfall?" Mungo Sint John asked. The only light was that of a storm lantern. The rain had washed out the fires.

The tarpaulin over the heads of the two officers flogged in the wind, spilling gouts of rainwater over them, and the lantern flame fluttered uncertainly in its glass chimney, lighting Captain Napier's face from below so that he looked like a skull.

"We got so close to Lobengula, General, within hail of the wagons.

Major Wilson considered a retreat would not be justified. In any event, sir, the bush is swarming with the enemy. The patrol has a better chance of surviving the night by stopping in thick bush and waiting for daylight., "That is Wilson's estimate, is it?" Mungo demanded, putting on a grim expression. Yet inwardly, he congratulated himself on such an accurate assessment of the Scotsman's impetuous character.

"YOU Must reinforce the patrol, sir. You must send at least one of the Maxims across, now, this very hour."

"Listen carefully, Captain," Mungo ordered him. "What do you hear?"

Even over the rain and the wind there was an echo like the sound in a seashell held to the ear.

"The river, Captain," Mungo told him. "The river is spating!"

"I have just forded it. You can still get across, sir. If you give the order now! If you wait until dawn, it may well be in full flood."

"Thank you for your advice, Napier. I will not risk the Maxims."

"Sir, sir, you can take at least one Maxim off its carriage. We can carry it in a blanket and swim across."

"Thank you, Captain. I will send Borrow across with twenty men to reinforce Wilson until morning, and this force will follow, with both Maxims, only when it is light enough to see the ford and make the crossing in safety."

"General Sint John, you are signing the death warrant of those men."

"Captain Napier, you are overwrought. I shall expect an apology from you when you have recovered yourself."

Clinton sat with his back against the bole of a mopani tree. He had one hand thrust into the front of his sheepskin jacket, to hold his travelling Bible out of the rain.

He wished above any other creature needs that he had light enough to read it.

All around him the rest of the tiny patrol lay stretched out on the muddy earth, bundled up in their rubber groundsheets and oilskins, though Clinton was certain that, like himself, none of them was asleep, nor would any of them sleep that night.