War on the Drakensberg - 3
Tsiguni was running downhill as fast as the heavy soldier’s spear he was carrying would let him. But he was fit and barely out of breath as he approached the outskirt huts outlined in the early dawn rays of Ozol. Women were busy in front of the huts. Two of them caught sight of this wild young Wafizi stranger with a spear. He shouted “Kanoko! Kanoko!” as loud as he could. The women took this as a warcry and turned tail. “No! Princess Alisa! Princess Alisa!” he shouted now, panic raising his voice high but standing still now, halted to show his peaceful intentions. He pointed with the spear at the hut where Alisa should have been. Something in his voice made the women turn back towards him. In front of the large hut Tsiguni’s instinct warned him not to go in himself. It was a stand-off. But now a group of village men appeared, themselves angry, puzzled and shouting. One of them snatched the spear from Tsiguni, who was only too ready to let it go, and pushed Tsiguni aside before entering the hut. A moment later he showed again, now alarmed and furious, and made to kill Tsiguni with the spear. He was stopped by the sudden appearance of a tall athletic figure. With immense relief Tsiguni recognised Kanoko. His relief grew when Kanoko recognised Tsiguni. Kanoko wrenched the spear from the cowed plains-dweller, and himself entered Alisa’s hut. For several breaths nothing happened. Then Kanoko emerged carrying in his arms an older woman who was tied with rope. While he laid her on the ground and untied her, the other women questioned her rapidly in their own tongue, which was not quite the tongue of the Wafizi. Kanoko seemed not to know what to do next. He slowly turned to Tsiguni, but instead of questioning him at once about Alisa - he had heard Tsiguni shouting her name and now knew she was missing - he angrily, accusingly questioned him about the scout’s spear, which it was taboo for a boy to handle, about bringing a weapon to a place of feast, an insult showing lack of trust in the hosts, about failing to prepare for his initiation, and about Tsiguni’s presence at the plainsmen’s kraal at all, seeing that he should never have left Umgazi, his mother’s place. Tsiguni had committed all these breaches of custom, tradition, hospitality and religion -- and deserved punishment. No sign from Kanoko to acknowledge Tsiguni’s bravery, his presence of mind, his observation, his raising the alarm. Only after Tsiguni had taken all the abuse did Kanoko demand to know what it was that Tsiguni had seen. The tale of the murder of the lookout, the six marauding Wagoro, the abduction of Alisa, was soon told. It struck Kanoko dumb. But as Tsiguni then too fell silent, waiting for his hero to act, Kanoko felt impelled to do something, to act the part of a military commander, to do anything -- anything except nothing. In a wild voice he ordered Tsiguni to run back home as fast as possible and to breathe no word to anybody: Tsiguni was too young to help; he could leave the rescue of Alisa and retribution on the Wagoro, whatever was involved in that, to Kanoko and his companions and the cattle-tribe, whose princess after all Alisa was. Taken aback by this rejection, but obedient, Tsiguni had no words. Slowly he turned round and began to retrace his steps to climb up the steep slope - up to the rock and to the body, still warm and wet. On reaching it he stopped, regaining his breath and out of respect. He would never see the scout, his friend, again. The broad shoulders had wielded their last spear and lifted their last load. Death was mysterious, solemn, important. Tsiguni recited a short incantation, for the first time understanding its meaning. He was about to move on, when he saw something protruding from the skin pouch hanging from the lookout’s moocha. Tsiguni knew what it was. He had had to bribe the scout to let him come with him the night before, and this shiny thing was the bribe - a trinket. The brief respite was enough for Tsiguni to make up his mind. He had to avenge his friend’s death, or atone for his own guilt in allowing it, or in his own survival. With a shudder at the touch of death he slipped the trinket out from the scout’s pouch and into his own. Without looking back he set off at a steady trot in the footsteps of the Wagoro party, towards the fork where with no hesitation he took the left way, the Wagoro way, towards enemy hill-country, his back now to highland Umgazi, safety and home. He was disobeying his hero’s orders, but to his own surprise with no qualms. If his hero Kanoko would not take control - how could Kanoko do anything by staying among the tame cattle-prodders in whose company they had been feasting the night before without spears and without shields? And yet that seemed to be what Kanoko had in mind - nothing. No, if Kanoko would not act then Kanoko was no longer Tsiguni’s hero. Just a few paces, and Tsiguni, all senses alert, was picking red berries and tracking the six Wagoro who had abducted the slim, the beautiful princess Alisa, whose eyes, and Tsiguni was sure of this, had fleetingly met his own as she was led past the lookout scout’s corpse. Ants, scenting death, were already assembling. Soon they would swarm.
War on the Drakensberg - 4
“Go!” The urgency in Fr O’Donovan’s voice broke through Padraig’s brooding mood as he stared unseeingly at the low Atlantic clouds that he could smell and almost touch as they sped towards him across the treeless Connemara landscape and tugged him with them, eastwards. Sooner or later the clouds would break, as they had done since he was a boy, and a torchlight sun would illumine the wave-lined sea, the islands, the cliffs, the dancing seals, and the slopes. And the too few stone-cold dwellings.
The year was 1849. Padraig had buried his last surviving child, the only girl, to join his wife’s body and their two sons in the graveyard where he now sat, ill-clad and gripping a hurley-stick. His girl had fought but even the strength of the two of them had not been enough. In 1847 everyone from local farmer and priest to demagogue Fenian and politicians like Sir Robert Peel in London had thought the worst of the potato blight was over. That was no more than wishful thinking, but enough to cut off the pitiful dribble of aid that had reached Connemara. In 1848 the blight hit, hit, and hit again. What pratees could be harvested rotted in the sheds. Disease, a quiverful of biblical pestilence, took toll of whole families. Now Padraig had nothing but himself, and his hurley. No one but himself and Fr O’Donovan had even stayed for the burial.
“You have your faith”, Fr O’Donovan said. They were seated on the bench outside the pathetic, barnlike church. Towers and steeples were forbidden to the catholic faithful. Oliver Cromwell’s laws still stalked Ireland.
“I have not”, Padraig replied softly, with a slow shake of the head.
Fr O’Donovan, who had seen so much death in his parish, tried to keep the despair in Padraig’s voice out of his own as he ignored the rebuke.
“I can help you, you know, Padraig.”
“You couldn’t help any of my family”, Padraig regretted this but it was off his tongue too fast.
“And many another like yours, Padraig my son. They’re in God’s hands now. But you are still in mine, and I can help you.”
Padraig didn’t want help, but he held his peace this time as Fr O’Donovan continued.
“I have faith in you, my son. God has faith in you. Nothing now holds you in Connemara, or in Ireland. I’ve taught you all I know, and you’ve read every book in the parish and the manor. You’ve listened to the agitator James Stephens speechifying against the English and I know you agree with some of what he says. You’ve loved the folk tales of Tir na Nog too. We’ve talked about this before. You may not want charity from the English but I have had some. It’s not much, and I can pay -- for your passage to America.” He lifted a hesitant eyebrow.
“Is that what you want me to do, Father?”
The priest was ready for this. His long pause was deliberate, and his voice was firmer as he spoke again.
“There is another possibility, but I’m not certain that it’s for you, or if you are in a good state to decide.”
“What harm is there in telling me about it?” Padraig involuntarily blurted out, half from politeness, half from curiosity. His long-starved mind craved a problem, a task.
“You could study to become a missionary.”
“The faith isn’t in me, Father.”
“Oh, that’s what you say. But I think that it is. I know you better than you think, Padraig. I’ve believed in you for a long time and now that the Lord has removed all other ties from you, and you’re no more than thirty years old, the signs are plain. But it has to be your decision, Padraig my son.”
Padraig knew Fr O’Donovan was right. Not about everything, perhaps, but about some things, and who knew if those things were the most important? Why not give it a try? What was the alternative? America? No, in America he would be among others of his kind, he would never escape from Connemara if he set off in stowage of a steamer with scores of other Micks, shipped off like African slaves without the shackles. The terrible tales told by the old slaver’s mate on the Isle of Achill blazed for a moment. That journey was not for him. But perhaps another journey was, a journey with a destiny. That, surely, was the point, the point that Fr O’Donovan had seen long before he had. With this chance, Lord or no Lord, perhaps something was on his side.
Padraig looked Fr O’Donovan in the eyes and nodded.
There was silence again, broken at last by Padraig.
“The two foals,” he said quietly. “I gave my promise to O’Halloran, my neighbour, you know, before....”
Fr O’Donovan smiled to himself, committing the sin of pride for which he would later confess. He had foreseen this moment too, and knew that it was critical to Padraig’s decision. “The foals can go with you, my son. The Abbot at Mount Argus will let you keep them if I put it to him. Which I shall do in my letter. I can do more. If you collect the foals at Mullingar a barge on the Royal Canal will take all three of you to Dublin. As for Mullingar, leave that to me, my son. The foals will go by cart. I’ll see to it. I promise you. There’s no need to thank me, my son.”
Padraig stared at Fr O’Donovan in disbelief. Then, against his instinct, he took the priest’s hand in both of his and kissed the ring.
“Go, then, my child, to Mount Argus. It’s a fine place, though I haven’t seen it myself. God’s blessing - and this letter to the abbot - go with you, Padraig!”
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