Jock Of Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 9 )( Page 5 ) TheImpala Stampede

After half an hour of this Jim could restrain himself no longer.  He came over to where I lay and with a look of severe disapproval and barely controlled indignation, asked me for a gun, saying that he himself meant to go out and look for Jock.  It would be nearer the mark to say that he demanded a gun.  He was so genuinely anxious and so indignant at what he considered my indifference that it was impossible to be angry; and I let him talk away to me and at me in his exciting bullying way.  He would take no answer and listen to no reason; so finally to keep him quiet I gave him the shot gun, and off he went, muttering his opinions of every one else--a great springy striding picture of fierce resolution. He came back nearly three hours later, silent, morose, hot and dusty. He put the gun down beside me without a word--just a click of disgust; and as he strode across to his waggon, called roughly to one of the drivers for the drinking water.  Lifting the bucket to his mouth he drank like an ox and slammed it down again without a word of thanks; then sat down in the shade of the waggon, filled his pipe, and smoked in silence. The trekking hour came and passed; but we did not move.  The sun went down, and in the quiet of the evening we heard the first jackal's yapping--the first warning of the night.  There were still lions and tigers in those parts, and any number of hyenas and wild dogs, and the darker it grew and the more I thought of it, the more hopeless seemed Jock's chance of getting through a night in the bush trying to work his way back to the waggons. It was almost dark when I was startled by a yell from Jim Makokel', and looking round, saw him bound out into the road shouting, "He has come, he has come!  What did I tell you?"  He ran out to Jock, stooping to pat and talk to him, and then in a lower voice and with growing excitement went on rapidly, "See the blood!  See it!  He has fought: he has killed! Dog of all dogs!  Jock, Jock!" and his savage song of triumph broke off in a burst of rough tenderness, and he called the dog's name five or six times with every note of affection and welcome in his deep voice.  Jock took no notice of Jim's dancing out to meet him, nor of his shouts, endearments and antics; slowing his tired trot down to a walk, he came straight on to me, flickered his ears a bit, wagged his tail cordially, and gave my hand a splashy lick as I patted him.  Then he turned round in the direction he had just come from, looked steadily out, cocked his ears well up, and moved his tail slowly from side to side.  For the next half-hour or so he kept repeating this action every few minutes; but even without that I knew that it had been no wild-goose chase, and that miles away in the bush there was something lying dead which he could show me if I would but follow him back again to see. What had happened in the eight hours since he had dashed off in pursuit can only be guessed.  That he had pulled down the impala and killed it seemed certain--and what a chase and what a fight it must have been to take all that time!  The buck could not have been so badly wounded in the body as to be disabled or it would have died in far less time than that: then, what a fight it must have been to kill an animal six or eight times his own weight and armed with such horns and hoofs!  But was it only the impala? or had the hyenas and wild dogs followed up the trail, as they so often do, and did Jock have to fight his way through them too? He was hollow-flanked and empty, parched with thirst, and so blown that his breath still caught in suffocating chokes.  He was covered with blood and sand; his beautiful golden coat was dark and stained; his white front had disappeared; and there on his chest and throat, on his jaws and ears, down his front legs even to the toes, the blood was caked on him--mostly black and dried but some still red and sticky.  He was a little lame in one fore leg, but there was no cut or swelling to show the cause.  There was only one mark to be seen: over his right eye there was a bluish line where the hair had been shaved off clean, leaving the skin smooth and unbroken.  What did it?  Was it horn, hoof, tooth, or-- what?  Only Jock knew. Hovering round and over me, pacing backwards and forwards between the waggons like a caged animal, Jim, growing more and more excited, filled the air with his talk his shouts and savage song.  Wanting to help, but always in the way, ordering and thrusting the other boys here and there, he worked himself up into a wild frenzy: the Zulu fighting blood on fire and he `saw red' everywhere. I called for water.  "Water!" roared Jim, "bring water"; and glaring round he made a spring--stick in hand--at the nearest kaffir.  The boy fled in terror, with Jim after him for a few paces, and brought a bucket of water.  Jim snatched it from him and with a resounding thump on the ribs sent the unlucky kaffir sprawling on the ground.  Jock took the water in great gulpy bites broken by pauses to get his breath again; and Jim paced up and down--talking, talking, talking!  Talking to me, to the others, to the kaffirs, to Jock, to the world at large, to the heavens, and to the dead.  His eyes glared like a wild beast's and gradually little seams of froth gathered in the corners of his mouth as he poured out his cataract of words, telling of all Jock had done and might have done and would yet do; comparing him with the fighting heroes of his own race, and andering off into vivid recitals of single episodes and great battles; seizing his sticks, shouting his war cries, and going through all the mimicry of fight with the wild frenzy of one possessed.  Time after time I called him and tried to quiet him; but he was beyond control. Once before he had broken out like this.  I had asked him something about the Zulu war; and that had started a flood of memories and excitement.  In the midst of some description I asked why they killed the children; and he turned his glaring eyes on me a and said, "Inkos, you are my Inkos; but you are white.  If we fight to-morrow, I will kill you.  You are good to me, you have saved me; but if our own king says `Kill!' we kill!  We see red; we kill all that lives.  I must kill you, your wife, your mother, your children, your horses, your oxen, your dog, the fowls that run with the waggons--all that lives I kill.  The blood must run."  And I believed him; for that was the Zulu fighting spirit. So this time I knew it was useless to order or to talk: he was beyond control, and the fit must run its course. The night closed in and there was quiet once more.  The flames of the camp fires had died down; the big thorn logs had burnt into glowing coals like the pink crisp hearts of giant water-melons; Jock lay sleeping, tired out, but even in his sleep came little spells of panting now and then, like the after-sobs of a child that has cried itself to sleep; we lay rolled in our blankets, and no sound came from where the kaffirs slept.  But Jim--only Jim--sat on his rough three-legged stool, elbows on knees and hands clasped together, staring intently into the coals.  The fit worked slowly off, and his excitement died gradually away; now and then there was a fresh burst, but always milder and at longer intervals, as you may see it in a dying fire or at the end of a great storm; slowly but surely he subsided until at last there were only occasional mutterings of "Ow, Jock!" followed by the Zulu click, the expressive shake of the head, and that appreciative half grunt, half chuckle, by which they pay tribute to what seems truly wonderful.  He wanted no sleep that night: he sat on, waiting for the morning trek, staring into the red coals, and thinking of the bygone glories of his race in the days of the mighty Chaka. That was Jim, when the fit was on him--transported by some trifling and unforeseen incident from the hum-drum of the road to the life he once had lived with splendid recklessness.