The Sound of Thunder (18 page)

Slowly he turned his head and looked out to the left where the tall peaks rose sheer out of the heights. The formation of the ground resembled the bak of a gigantic fish. Jan Paulus stood upon its head, on the relatively smooth slope of Tabanyana. but on his left rose the dorsal fin of the fish. This was a series of peaks, Vaalkrans, Brakfontein, Twin Peaks, Conical Hill and, the highest and the most imposing of all, Spion KOP.

Once again, he experienced the nagging prickle of doubt.

Surely no man, not even Buller, would throw any army against that line of natural fortresses. It would be senseless as the sea hurling its surf at a line of granite cliffs. Yet the doubt remained.

perhaps Buller, that pedestrian and completely predictable man, Buller who seemed eternally committed to the theory of frontal assault, perhaps this time he would know that the slopes of Tabanyama were too logically the only point at which he could break through. Perhaps he would know that the whole of the Boer Army waited for him there with all their guns Perhaps he would guess that only twenty burghers guarded each of the peaks on the left flank-that Jan Paulus had not dared to spread his line so thin, and had risked everything on Tabanyarna.

Jan Paulus sighed. Now it was past the time for doubt. He had made the choice and tomorrow they would know. Tomorrow, van more.

Heavily he turned away and started down towards the laager.

The moon was setting behind the black massif of Spion Kop, and its shadow hid the path. Loose rock rolled under his feet.

Jan Paulus stumbled and almost fell.

“Wies Door? ” The challenge from an outcrop of granite beside the path.

“A friend.” Jan Paulus saw the man now, he leaned against the rock with a Mauser held low across his hips.

“Tell me-what commando are you with?”

“The Wynbergers under Leroux.

“So! Do you know Leroux?” the sentry asked.

“Yes.

“What colour is his beard?”

“Red-red as the flames of hell.

The sentry laughed.

“Tell Oom Paul from me I’ll tie a knot in it next time I see him.

“Best you shave before you try-he might do the same for you,” Jan Paulus warned him.

“Are you his friend?”

“And his kinsman too.

“The hell with you then also.” The sentry laughed again.

“Will you drink coffee with us?

It was an ideal opportunity for Jan Paulus to mingle with his men and gauge their temper for tomorrow. “Dankie. ” He accepted the invitation.

“Good.” The sentry straightened up and Jan Paulus saw he was a big man, made taller by the homburg hat he wore. “Karl, is there any coffee left in the pot?” He yelled into the darkness beyond the rocks and was answered immediately.

“in the name of God, must you bellow? This is a battlefield, not a political meeting.

“The English are as loud. I’ve heard them all night.”

“The English are fools. Must you be the same?”

“For you, only for you.” The sentry dropped his voice to a sepulchral whisper, and then roared again suddenly: “But what about that damned coffee?”

This one is not short of stomach, Jan Paulus grinned to himself, as the man, still chuckling happily, placed an arm about his shoulder and led him to the screened fire among the rocks.

Three burghers squatted about it with blankets draped over their shoulders. They were talking among themselves as the sentry and Jan Paulus approached.

“The moon will be down in half an hour,” one of them said.

“Ja. I will not be happy to see it gone. If the English plan a night attack, then they will come in the dark of the moon. ” “Who is with you?” Karl asked as they came towards the fire.

“A friend,” the sentry replied.

“From what commando?”

“The Wynbergers,” Jan Paulus answered for himself, and Karl nodded and lifted the battered enamel coffee-pot from the fire, you are with Oorn Paul. And what does he think of our chances for tomorrow?”

“That of a man with one bullet left in thick cat bush with a lung shot buffalo coming down in full charge.”

“And does it worry him?”

“Only a madman knows no fear. Oom Paul is afraid. But he tries not to show it, for fear spreads among men like the white sore throat diphtheria,” Jan Paulus replied as he accepted the mug of coffee and settled down against a rock out of the firelight so they would not recognize his face nor the colour of his beard.

“Show it or not,” grunted the sentry as he filled his mug.

“But I reckon he’d give one of his eyeballs to be back on his farm at Wynberg with his wife beside him in the double bed.”

Jan Paulus felt the glow of anger in his belly and his voice as he replied as harsh.

“You think him a coward!”

“I think I would rather stand on a hill a mile behind the fighting and send other men in to die,” the sentry chuckled again, but there was a sardonic note in it.

“I’ve heard him swear that tomorrow he will be in front wherever the fight is fiercest,” growled Jan Paulus.

“Oh, he said so? So that we fight more cheerfully? But when the Lee-Metfords rip your belly open-how will you know where Oorn Paul is?”

“I have told you he is my kin. When you insult him you insult me.

” Anger had closed Jan Paulus’s throat so that his voice was hoarse.

“Good! ” The sentry stood up quickly. “Let us settle it now.”

“Be still, you fools.” Karl spoke irritably. “Save your anger for the English,” and then more softly, “all of us are restless, knowing what tomorrow will bring. Let your quarrel stand.”

“He is right,” Jan Paulus agreed, still choked with anger.

“But when I meet you again… ! ” “How will you know me?” the sentry demanded.

“Here!” Jan Paulus jerked the wide-brimmed Terai hat from his head and flung it at the man’s feet. “Wear that and give me yours in exchange.

“Why?” The sentry stood puzzled.

“Then if ever a man comes up to me and says,

“You’re wearing my hat,” he will be saying,

“Jan Paulus Leroux is a coward!”

The man grinned so that his teeth glittered in the firelight, then he dropped his own black homburg into Jan Paulus’s lap and stooped to pick up the Terai. In that instant, faintly on the wind, soft as the crackle of dried twigs, they heard the rifle-fire.

” Mausers! ” shouted Karl and he leapt to his feet sending the coffee-pot flying.

“On the left, ” moaned Jan Paulus in anguish. “Oh, God help us!

They’ve tried the left. ” The chorus of rifle-fire rose, swelling urgently; and now blending with the crisp crackle of the mausers was the deep belling of the Lee-Metfords.

“Spion Kop! They’re on Spion Kop,” and Jan Paulus ran, hurling himself down the path towards the laager with the black homburg jammed down over his ears.

The mist lay heavily on the peak of Spion Kop that morning, so that the dawn was a thing of liquid, pearly light. A soft uncertain thing that swirled about them and condensed in tiny drops upon the metal of their rifles.

Colonel John Acheson was breakfasting on ham sandwiches spread thickly with Gentleman’s Relish. He sat on a boulder with his uniform cloak draped over his shoulders and chewed morosely.

“No sign of the jolly old Boer yet,” the captain beside him announced cheerfully.

“that trench is not deep enough. ” Acheson glowered at the shallow ditch which had been scraped in the stony soil and which was filled to capacity with men in all the various attitudes of relaxation.

“I know, sir. But there’s not much we can do about it. We’re down to bedrock and it would need a wagon-load of dynamite to sink another foot. ” The captain selected a sandwich and upended the Relish bottle over it. “Anyway, all the enemy fire will be from below and the parapets will cover that. ” Along the front edge of the trench clods of earth and loose rock had been piled a height of two feet. Pathetic cover for two thousand men.

“Have you ever been on this mountain before?” Acheson asked politely.

“No, sir. Of course not.

“Well, what makes you so bloody certain how the land lies.

You can’t see a thing in this mist.”

“Well, sir, we are on the crest, and it is the highest . But Acheson interrupted him irritably. “Where are those damned scouts?

Haven’t they come in yet?” He jumped up and with his cloak swirling about him strode along the trench. “You men.

Can’t you get that parapet higher there!

“At his feet a few of them stirred and began halfheartedly lifting stone. They were exhausted by the long night climb and the skirmish which had driven the Boer garrison from the mountain, and Acheson heard them muttering sullenly behind him as he walked on.

“Acheson!” Out of the mist ahead of him loomed the figure of General Woodgate Mowed closely by his staff.

“Sir!” Acheson hurried to meet him.

“Are your men entrenched?”

“As best they can.”

“Good. What of the enemy? Have your scouts reported back yet?

“No. They’re still out there in the mist.” And Acheson pointed into the smoky billows that limited the range of their vision to fifty feet.

“Well, we should be able to hold until we are reinforced. Let me know the moment … ” A small commotion in the mist behind them, and Woodgate paused. “What is it?”

“My scouts, sir.”

Saul Friedman began delivering his report from a range of twenty feet. His face was working with excitement as he scurried out of the mist.

“False crest! We’re on the false crest. The true summit is two hundred yards ahead and there’s a rise of ground out on our right flank, like a little knoll all covered with aloes, that enfilades our whole position. There are Boers everywhere. The whole bloody mountain is crawling with them.”

“Good God man! Are you certain?”

“Colonel Acheson,” snapped Woodgate, “turn your right flank to face the knoll,” and as Acheson strode away he added under his breath, “if you have time!” and he felt the agitated swirl of the mist as it was swept away before the wind Jan Paulus stood beside his pony. The mist had de wed in his beard and set it asparkle in red-gold. Across both shoulders heavy bandoliers of ammunition drooped, and the Mauser rifle seemed like a child’s toy in his huge hairy hands. His jaw was thrust forward in thought as he reviewed his dispositions. All night he had flogged his pony from laager to laager, all night he had roared and bullied and driven men up the slopes of Spion Kop. And now ground him the mountain rustled and murmured with five thousand waiting burghers, and in an arc of 120 degrees behind it stood his guns. From Green Hill in the northwest to the reverse slopes of the Twin Peaks in the east, his gunners crouched beside their creusots and their Nordenfeldts, ready to range in upon the crest of Spion Kop.

All things are ready and now I must earn the right to wear this hat. He grinned and settled the homburg more firmly over his ears.

“Hennie, take, my horse back to the laager.

The boy led it away and he started up the last slope towards the summit. The light strengthened as he climbed and the burghers among the rocks recognized the flaming beacon of his beard.

” Goeie Jag, Oom Paul,” and,

“Kom saam om die Rooi Nekke te ski et ” they called. Then two burghers ran down to meet him.

“Oom Paul. We’ve just been forward to Aloe Knoll. There are no English on it!”

“Are you sure?” It seemed too generous a gift of fortune

“Ja, man. They are all on the back of the mountain. We heard them digging and talking there.”

“What commando are you?” Jan Paulus demanded of the men massed around him in the mist.

“The Carolina commando” voices answered.

“Come,” ordered Jan Paulus. “Come, all of you. We are going to Aloe Knoll.”

They followed. Skirting the summit, with the brush, brush, brush of hundreds of feet through the grass, hurrying so that their breathing steamed in the moist air. Until abruptly ahead of them humped the dark mound of Aloe Knoll and they swarmed over it and disappeared among the rocks and crevices like a column of ants returning to their nest.

Lying on his belly Jan Paulus lit his pipe and tamped down on the glowing tobacco with a fire-calloused thumb, sucked the smoke into his mouth and peered into the solid white curtain of mist. In the eerie silence that had fallen upon the mountain his stomach rumbled loudly and he remembered that he had not eaten since the previous noon. There was a stick of biltong in his coat pocket.

A lion hunts best on an empty stomach, he thought and drew again on his pipe.

“Here comes the wind,” a voice whispered near him, and he heard the rising sibilance of it through the aloes above his head.

The aloes stood tall as a man, multi-headed, green candelabra tipped in crimson and gold, nodding slightly in the morning wind.

“Ja. ” Jan Paulus felt it stirring deep in his chest, that blend of fear and exhilaration that drowned his fatigue. “Here it comes.”

He knocked out his pipe, stuffed it still hot into his pocket and lifted his rifle from the rock in front of him.

Dramatically, as though unveiling a monument, the wind stripped the mists away. Beneath a sky of cobalt blue, soft golden brown in the early sunshine, lay the rounded peak of Spion Kop.

A long uneven scar of red earth five hundred yards long was slashed across it.

“Alinagtig! ” Jan Paulus gasped. “Now we have them.”

Above the crude parapet of the trench, like birds on a fence rail, so close that he could see the chin straps and the button on each crown, the light khaki helmets contrasted clearly with the darker earth and grass. While beyond the trench, completely exposed from boots to helmets, standing in the open or moving leisurely forward with ammunition and water canteens, were hundreds of English soldiers.

For long seconds the silence persisted, as though the burghers who stared over their rifles at this unbelievable target could not bring themselves to press the triggers on which their fingers rested. The English were too close, too vulnerable. A universal reluctance held the mausers silent.

“Shoot!” roared Jan Paulus. “Skiet, Kerels, Skiet, ” and his voice carried to the English behind the trenches. He saw all movement among them suddenly paralysed, white faces turn to stare in his direction-and he sighted carefully into the chest of one of them. The rifle jumped against his shoulder, and the man went down into the grass.