The Induna's Wife

by Bertram Mitford

In such silence—in such stillness—did the dawn lighten. Then two or three men began to stir, moving sleepily inside the encampment. We could wait no longer. The word was given to fall on.

I could not sit still with the izinduna when blows were falling, and at the head of the right horn of the impi I found myself flying over the defences, spear in hand. Within, the awakening for those whites was terrible. Wild shrieks arose with the roar of our appalling war-shout, as women, with the stamp of death upon their pale countenances, rolled from the waggons, and with arms tossed on high, screamed for that mercy we were not there to show. Men were there, too; but these were few, yet they fought. Shaggy faces confronted me, jets of flame shone redly in my eyes. My great assegai was shearing around, cleaving the hearts and bodies of these. Whau! that was a moment! And through it all, I could see lines upon lines of flying bodies, of tufted shields and gleaming spears come surging over the waggons on the other side. We had taken the camp.

Not yet, however, was our work complete. Grouping together, those Amabuna stood and fought. Au! they fought! It was worth living, Nkose, to see the fight those men made. With hatchets and knives they defended themselves; with clubbed guns, too, for they could no longer reload. Man to man, hand to hand, eye to eye, they fought. But the breadth of our broad shields met blow or stab, and the whelming weight of those behind threw upon them such masses of men that they could no longer lift hand, and were borne to earth. Blood streamed forth everywhere, and amid the grim death-yells of the Amabuna and the screams of their women beneath the assegais rose the shrill “I-ji!” the fierce triumph hiss of each victorious warrior as he drove his spear home.

And now the whole inside of that great waggon camp was as a den of raging lions let loose. The dead lay in heaps, but any movement seen among such heaps would draw a rush to the place, to stab and stab again. Children of all ages—boys, girls, infants—were dragged from their hiding-places and speared. Even the cattle within the enclosure were ripped and slain. Nothing was spared, young or old, male or female—all were slain; for it was not our custom to spare; and in this matter the King’s word had been explicit: “Make an end of them utterly.” And this we had done.

Now that all were slain we began to see what plunder the camp contained, that it might be collected for the King. And there was much of it—for besides all manner of provisions and stores, there were things of iron and of glass, knives and axes, and all manner of useful things; but, best of all, there were the long guns of the Amabuna, and powder and ball. So much of all this was there that it took time to remove it all, and arrange it in such wise that it could be borne back to Nkunkundhlovu, and even then we had to leave some of it.

“Make an end of them utterly.” Such had been the word of Dingane, and looking at that waggon camp when we left it, I think, Nkose, you would have said we had obeyed the word of the Great Great One to the full. By hundreds the slain lay there, heaps and heaps of dead bodies whom the assegai had kissed again and again. In darker heaps, too, lay our own dead; but of this we thought not much, for even these whites, dreaded alike by all nations who had met them, had not been able to stand before the power of Zulu. They had been swept away, as all black nations had been before them; swallowed up, and the wave of our might had rolled over them. And as we moved from the place a fierce new song of triumph thundered forth from the ranks of our host.

There were some who would have burned the waggons and such stuff as could not be taken away, but this we izinduna would not permit, lest the smoke, seen from afar, should convey warning to other camps of the Amabuna. For our work was not yet done.

Word was now passed that the impi should form up, and indeed not much telling was needed, for their appetite for blood, only whetted with what had already been shed, the warriors could hardly be kept in hand, so eager were they to reach those other camps. But it would have served no good purpose that they should tire themselves by marching at a run. Yet, short of this, our advance was a rapid one.

Even then, however, rapid as it was, we were not to fall upon those other camps, as we had expected, all unprepared. Whether it was that some had escaped from the first camp, or that the noise of the shouting and the firing had reached their ears, we found these Amabuna with their waggons drawn up so as to form a wall, the spaces between the wheels even being filled in with bags and boxes, and as we drew near they were still busy driving in their cattle and horses, for some of their herds had sighted us from afar. Yet even then they were obliged to leave much of their cattle outside.

But to this we gave no heed, for we counted all these as ours already, and such as were scattered about the land we could collect at our leisure. With a roar and a rush our impi went at the waggon forts, spreading out in “horns” so as to enwrap the whole in a wall of living leaping men.