The Angels Weep (34 page)

He was a tall man, finely muscled, although one arm seemed
deformed, for it was twisted from the shoulder at an awkward
angle. Though the body was that of a man in his full prime, the
face was eroded and ravaged, as though by grief or pain, and was
aged before its time. On the neat cap of dense curls, the man
wore the headring of an induna, and around his forehead a
headband of grey fur.

‘Baba, my father,’ said the induna. ‘We hear
your words, but like children we do not understand
them.’

‘Who is this fellow?’ Mungo demanded of Sergeant
Ezra, and nodded when he heard the reply. ‘I know about
him. He is a troublemaker.’ Then to Bazo, raising his
voice, ‘What is so strange about what I say? What is it
that puzzles you?’

‘You say, Baba, that the sickness will kill the cattle
– so before it does, you will shoot them dead. You say,
Baba, that to save our cattle you must kill them for
us.’

The quiet ranks of Matabele stirred for the first time. Though
their expressions were still impassive, here a man coughed and
there another shuffled his bare feet in the dust or yet another
flicked his switch at the circling flies. No man laughed, not one
mocked with word or smile, but it was mockery nonetheless, and
Mungo St John sensed it. Behind those inscrutable black African
faces, they were gleefully following the mock humble questions of
the young induna with the old worn face.

‘We do not understand such deep wisdom, Baba, please be
kind and patient with your children and explain it to us. You say
that if we try to hide our cattle, then you will confiscate them
from us to pay the heavy fines that Lodzi demands. You say in the
same breath, Baba, that if we are obedient children and bring the
cattle to you, then you will shoot them and burn them
up.’

In the packed ranks an elderly whitebeard who had taken snuff
sneezed loudly, and there was immediately an epidemic of sneezing
and coughing. Mungo St John knew they were encouraging the young
induna in this sly impudence.

‘Baba, gentle Father, you warn us that you will double
our work quotas, and we will be as slaves. This is another matter
which escapes from us, for is a man who works one day at
another’s command less a slave than he who works two days?
Is not a slave merely a slave – and is not a free man truly
free? Baba, explain to us the degrees of slavery.’

There was a faint humming sound now, like the sound of a hive
at noon, and though the lips of the Matabele facing Mungo St John
did not move, he saw that their throats trembled slightly. They
were beginning to drum, it was the prelude and unchecked it would
be followed by the deep ringing ‘Jee! Jee!’ of the
chant.

‘I know you, Bazo,’ Mungo St John shouted.
‘I hear and mark your words. Be sure that Lodzi also will
hear them.’

‘I am honoured, little Father, that my humble words will
be carried to the great white father, Lodzi.’

This time there were cunning and wicked grins on the faces of
the men around Bazo.

‘Sergeant,’ Mungo St John shouted. ‘Bring
that man to me!’

The big sergeant leaped forward with the brass badge of his
rank glittering on his upper arm, but as he did so the ranks of
silent Matabele rose to their feet and closed up. No man raised a
hand, but the sergeant’s forward rush was smothered and he
struggled in the crowd as though in living black quicksand, and
when he reached the place where Bazo had been, the induna was
gone.

‘Very well,’ Mungo St John nodded grimly, when the
sergeant reported back to him. ‘Let him go. It will wait
for another day, but now we have work to do. Get your men into
position.’

A dozen armed black police trotted forward and formed a line
facing the throng of tribesmen, holding their rifles at high
port. At the same time the rest of the contingent climbed up onto
the thorny walls of the kraal and at the command they pumped
cartridges into the breeches of the repeating Winchester
rifles.

‘Let it begin,’ Mungo nodded, and the first volley
of rifle fire thundered out.

The black constables were firing down into the milling mass of
cattle in the kraal, and at each shot a beast would fling its
horned head high and collapse, to be hidden at once by the
others. The smell of fresh blood maddened the herd and it surged
wildly against the thorn barrier, the din of the blood-bellow was
deafening, and from the ranks of watching Matabele went up a
mourning howl of sympathy.

These animals were their wealth and their very reason for
existence. As
mujiba
they had attended the birthings in
the veld, and helped to beat off the hyena and the other
predators. They knew each animal by name and loved them with that
special type of love that will make the pastoral man lay down his
own life to protect his herds.

In the front rank was a warrior so old that his legs were thin
as those of the marabou stork and whose skin was the colour of a
tobacco pouch and puckered in a network of fine wrinkles. It
seemed there was no moisture left in his dried-out ancient frame,
and yet fat heavy tears rolled down his withered cheeks as he
watched the cattle shot down. The crash of rifle fire went on
until sunset, and when it at last was silent, the kraal was
filled with carcasses. They lay upon each other in deep windrows
like the wheat after the scythes have passed. Not a single
Matabele had left the scene, they watched in silence now, their
mourning long ago silenced.

‘The carcasses must be burned,’ Mungo St John
strode down the front rank of warriors. ‘I want the
carcasses covered with wood. No man is spared this labour,
neither the sick nor the old. Every man will wield an axe, and
when they are covered, I will put the fire to it
myself.’

‘W
hat is
the mood of the people?’ Bazo asked softly, and Babiaan,
the senior of all the old king’s councillors, answered him.
It was not lost on the others in the packed beehive thatched hut
that Babiaan’s tone was respectful.

‘They are sick with grief,’ said Babiaan.
‘Not since the death of the old king has there been such
despair in their hearts as now that the cattle are being
killed.’

‘It is almost as though the white men wish to plunge the
assegai in their own breast.’ Bazo nodded. ‘Each
cruel deed strengthens us, and confirms the prophecy of the
Umlimo. Can there be one amongst you who still has
doubts?’

‘There are no doubts. We are ready now,’ replied
Gandang, his father, and yet he also looked to Bazo for
confirmation, and waited for his reply.

‘We are not ready.’ Bazo shook his head. ‘We
will not be ready until the third prophecy of the Umlimo has come
to pass.’

‘“When the hornless cattle are eaten up by the
cross”,’ Somabula whispered. ‘We saw the cattle
destroyed today, those that the pestilence has spared.’

‘That is not the prophecy,’ Bazo told them.
‘When it comes, there will be no doubt in our minds. Until
that time we must continue with the preparations. What is the
number of the spears, and where are they held?’

One by one the other indunas stood and each made his report.
They listed the numbers of warriors that were trained and ready,
where each group was situated and how soon they could be armed
and in the field.

When the last one had finished, Bazo went through the form of
consulting the senior indunas, and then gave the field commanders
their objectives.

‘Suku, induna of the Imbezu impi. Your men will sweep
the road from the Malundi drift southwards to Gwanda mine. Kill
anybody you find upon the road, cut the copper wires at each
pole. The
amadoda
working at the mine will be ready to
join you when you reach there. There are twenty-eight whites at
Gwanda, including the women and the family at the trading-post.
Afterwards, count the bodies to make certain that none has
escaped.’

Suku repeated the orders, word-perfectly, displaying the
phenomenal recall of the illiterate who cannot rely on written
notes, and Bazo nodded and turned to the next commander to give
him his instructions and to hear them recited back to him.

It was long after midnight before all of them had received and
repeated their orders, and then Bazo addressed them again.

‘Stealth and speed are our only allies. No warrior will
carry a shield, for the temptation to drum upon it in the old way
would be too strong. Steel alone, silent steel. There will be no
singing the war songs when you run, for the leopard does not
growl before he springs. The leopard hunts in darkness, and when
he enters the goatshed he spares nothing – as easily as he
rips the throat from the billy, he kills also the nanny and the
kids.’

‘Women?’ asked Babiaan sombrely.

‘Even as they shot down Ruth and Imbali,’ Bazo
nodded.

‘Children?’ asked another induna.

‘Little white girls grow up to bear little white boys,
and little white boys in their turn grow up to carry guns. When a
wise man finds a mamba’s lair, he kills the snake and
crushes the eggs under foot.’

‘Will we spare none?’

‘No,’ Bazo confirmed quietly, but there was
something in his voice that made Gandang, his father, shiver. He
recognized the moment when the real power shifted from the old
bull to the younger. Indisputably, Bazo was now their leader.

So it was Bazo who said at last, ‘
Indaba pelile
!
The meeting is finished!’ And one by one the indunas
saluted him and left the hut and slipped away into the night, and
when the last was gone, the screen of goatskins at the back was
pushed aside and Tanase stepped out and came to Bazo.

‘I am so proud,’ she whispered, ‘that I want
to weep like a silly girl.’

I
t was a long
column, counting the women and children, almost a thousand human
beings. It was strung out over a mile, winding like a maimed
adder down out of the hills. Again custom was being flouted, for
although the men led, they were burdened with grainbags and
cooking-pots. Of old, they would have carried only their shield
and weapons. There were more than the two hundred strong men that
Bazo had promised Henshaw.

The women came after them. Many of the men had brought more
than one wife and some as many as four. Even the very young
girls, those not yet in puberty, carried rolls of sleeping-mats
balanced upon their heads, and the mothers had their infants
slung upon their hips so that they could suckle from a fat black
breast while on the march. Juba’s roll of matting was as
heavy as any of them. However, despite her great bulk, the
younger women had to step out to keep pace with her. Her high
clear soprano led the singing.

Bazo came back along the column at an easy lope, unmarried
girls turned their heads, careful not to unbalance their burdens,
to watch him as he passed, and then they whispered and giggled
amongst themselves, for though he was ravaged and scarred, the
aura of power and purpose that surrounded him was intensely
attractive to even the youngest and flightiest of them.

Bazo came level with Juba, and fell in at her side.

‘
Mamewethu
.’ He greeted her respectfully.
‘The burdens of your young girls will be a little lighter
after we cross the river. We will leave three hundred assegais
concealed in the millet-bins and buried under the goatshed of
Suku’s people.’

‘And the rest of them?’ Juba asked.

‘Those we will take with us to the Harkness Mine. A
place of concealment has been prepared. From there your girls
will take them out a few at a time to the outlying
villages.’

Bazo started back towards the head of the column, but Juba
called him back.

‘My son, I am troubled, deeply troubled.’

‘It grieves me, little Mother. What troubles
you?’

‘Tanase tells me that all the white folk are to be
kissed with steel.’

‘All of them,’ Bazo nodded.

‘Nomusa, who is more than a mother to me, must she die
also, my son? She is so good and kind to our people.’

Gently Bazo took her by the arm and led her off the path,
where they could not be overheard.

‘That very kindness which you speak of makes her the
most dangerous of all of them,’ Bazo explained. ‘The
love that you bear for her weakens us all. If I say to you,
“We will spare this one,” then you will ask,
“Can we not also spare her little son, and her daughters
and their children?”’ Bazo shook his head. ‘No,
I tell you truly, if I were to spare one of them, it would be
One-Bright-Eye himself.’

‘One-Bright-Eye!’ Juba started. ‘I do not
understand. He is cruel and fierce, without
understanding.’

‘When our warriors look on his face and hear his voice,
they are reminded once again of all the wrongs we have suffered,
and they become strong and angry. When they look upon Nomusa,
they become soft and hesitant. She must be amongst the very first
to die, and I will send a good man to do that work.’

‘You say they must all die?’ Juba asked.
‘This one, that comes now. Will he die also?’ Juba
pointed ahead, where the path wound lazily beneath the spreading
flat-topped acacia trees. There was a horseman cantering towards
them from the direction of the Harkness Mine and even at this
distance there was no mistaking the set of his powerful shoulders
and his easy and yet arrogant seat in the saddle. ‘Look at
him!’ Juba went on. ‘It was you who gave him the
praise name of “little Hawk”. You have often told me
how as youths you worked shoulder to shoulder, and ate from the
same pot. You were proud when you described the wild falcon that
you caught and trained together.’ Juba’s voice sank
lower. ‘Will you kill this man that you call your brother,
my son?’

‘I will let no other do it,’ Bazo affirmed.
‘I will do it with my own hand, to make sure it is swift
and clean. And after him I will kill his woman and his son. When
that is done, there will be no turning back.’