Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 12 )( Page 2 ) Jim Makokel

His real name was Makokela, but in accordance with a common Zulu habit, it was usually abbreviated to Makokel'!  Among a certain number of the white men--of the sort who never can get any name right--he was oddly enough known as McCorkindale.  I called him Jim as a rule--Makokel', when relations were strained.  The waggon-boys found it safer to use his proper name.  When anything had upset him it was not considered wise to take the liberty of shouting "Jim": the answer sometimes came in the shape of a hammering. Many men had employed Jim before he came to me, and all had `sacked' him for fighting, drinking, and the unbearable worry he caused.  They told me this, and said that he gave more trouble than his work was worth.  It may have been true: he certainly was a living test of patience, purpose, and management; but, for something learnt in that way, I am glad now that Jim never `got the sack' from me.  Why he did not, is not easy to say; perhaps the circumstances under which he came to me and the hard knocks of an unkind fate pleaded for him.  But it was not that alone: there was something in Jim himself--something good and fine, something that shone out from time to time through his black skin and battered face as the soul of a real man. It was in the first season in the Bushveld that we were outspanned one night on the sand-hills overlooking Delagoa Bay among scores of other waggons dotted about in little camps--all loading or waiting for loads to transport to the Transvaal.  Delagoa was not a good place to stay in, in those days: liquor was cheap and bad; there was very little in the way of law and order; and every one took care of himself as well as he could.  The Kaffir kraals were close about the town, and the natives of the place were as rascally a lot of thieves and vagabonds as you could find anywhere.  The result was everlasting trouble with the waggon-boys and a chronic state of war between them and the natives and the banyans or Arab traders of the place.  The boys, with pockets full of wages, haggled and were cheated in the stores, and by the hawkers, and in the canteens; and they often ended up the night with beer-drinking at the kraals or reprisals on their enemies.  Every night there were fights and robberies: the natives or Indians would rob and half-kill a waggon-boy; then he in turn would rally his friends, and raid and clear out the kraal or the store.  Most of the waggon-boys were Zulus or of Zulu descent, and they were always ready for a fight and would tackle any odds when their blood was up. It was the third night of our stay, and the usual row was on.  Shouts and cries, the beating of tomtoms, and shrill ear-piercing whistles, came from all sides; and through it all the dull hum of hundreds of human voices, all gabbling together.  Near to us there was another camp of four waggons drawn up in close order, and as we sat talking and wondering at the strange babel in the beautiful calm moonlight night, one sound was ever recurring, coming away out of all the rest with something in it that fixed our attention.  It was the sound of two voices from the next waggons.  One voice was a kaffir's--a great, deep, bull-throated voice; it was not raised--it was monotonously steady and low; but it carried far, with the ring and the lingering vibration of a big gong. "Funa 'nyama, Inkos; funa 'nyama!"  ("I want meat, Chief; I want meat!") was what the kaffir's voice kept repeating at intervals of a minute or two with deadly monotony and persistency. The white man's voice grew more impatient, louder, and angrier, with each refusal; but the boy paid no heed.  A few minutes later the same request would be made, supplemented now and then with, "I am hungry, Baas, I can't sleep.  Meat!  Meat!  Meat!" or, "Porridge and bread are for women and piccaninnies.  I am a man: I want meat, Baas, meat."  From the white man it was, "Go to sleep, I tell you!" "Be quiet, will you?" "Shut up that row!" "Be still, you drunken brute, or I'll tie you up!" and "You'll get twenty-five in a minute!" It may have lasted half an hour when one of our party said, "That's Bob's old driver, the big Zulu.  There'll be a row to-night; he's with a foreigner chap from Natal now.  New chums are always roughest on the niggers." In a flash I remembered Bob Saunderson's story of the boy who had caught the lion alive, and Bob's own words, "a real fine nigger, but a terror to drink, and always in trouble.  He fairly wore me right out." A few minutes later there was a short scuffle, and the boy's voice could be heard protesting in the same deep low tone: they were tying him up to th e waggon-wheel for a flogging.  Others were helping the white man, but the boy was not resisting.