The covenant - James A. Michener [248]
Throughout the night Hottentot scouts crept in to report the steady advance of the Xhosa horde, but Tjaart and Saltwood could not credit the numbers they recited. 'Hottentots always exaggerate,' Tjaart explained. 'Whites and blacks are so much bigger, they think there's more of us.' But at dawn the defenders gaped in sickening awe as the slopes northeast of Grahamstown showed more than ten thousand warriors descending in three massed divisions. The noise of this multitude as they began dashing toward the settlement caused fear in every heart.
The brow-scarred Xhosa prophet had predicted certain victory: 'When Grahamstown falls, we have a clear run through every frontier farm from the ocean to the mountains at the north!' Behind the exulting regiments came hundreds of women with their cooking pots and gourds, for the prophet had promised them: 'At sunset we shall feast as never before. Redcoats and Boers alike, destroyed.'
Tjaart, imbued with the spirit of the Hammer, perceived the impending attack as one more clash in a never-ending battle. There stood the enemy, here stood the men of Godand the only obligation of the latter was to chastise the former. Turning to the men near him, he said, 'Anyone afraid to fight, ride off now.' And he looked directly at Saltwood, half expecting him to flee, but throughout history no Saltwood had ever deserted, and Hilary would not break that tradition. Turning to his six Hottentots, he asked, 'Are you ready?' and the brown men nodded.
'Then let us pray,' and when he had done so in English, Tjaart asked if he might add words of his own, and in Dutch he prayed: 'Like Abraham we face the Canaanites. Like him we place our lives in Thy hands. Great God, guide us good Christians as once again we smite these Kaffirs.'
The attack came in early afternoon, wave after wave of shrieking Xhosa roaring down the hill to hurl themselves against the soldiers in the town. Those in the barracks had to watch, helpless, as the regiments rushed at the little houses.
'We must go to help them,' Saltwood said.
'Stay!' a lieutenant ordered. 'Our time will come.'
The most daring of the Xhosa got to within one hundred feet of the soldiers, but then massed gunfire raked their ranks and the two cannon wreaked devastation. Hundreds of blacks fell in the front ranks, until their commanders, seeing that the English line could not be broken, gave the order to swing onto the barracks. Here they were more successful, penetrating the small collection of buildings. This landed them in the center of the barracks square, where they were safe, since the cannon could not be brought directly against them for fear of killing fellow Englishmen and Boers. The fighting would have to be hand-to-hand.
Tjaart and Saltwood were in the midst of it, shoulders pressed. They saw two Hottentots go down, a Redcoat fall. A huge Xhosa leaped at Saltwood, swinging his war club, but Tjaart twisted about to drop him with a pistol shot. For almost an hour the battle raged in the square, then finally the gallant Xhosa, facing gunfire they had not anticipated, had to retreat. A jubilant cry arose from the white and Hottentot fighters as the warriors fled in uncontrolled panic. Grahamstown had been saved!
In the aftermath of battle Saltwood was missing, and for a while Tjaart wondered if this missionary, who had fought so bravely, had been dragged away by the fleeing Xhosa, but as Tjaart searched a field he saw Hilary, bloody and disheveled, kneeling beside a dying Xhosa. Tears streamed down his face, and when he saw his neighbor Van Doorn approaching he looked up in bewilderment.
'Seven hundred of them dead,' he mumbled softly. 'I've counted more than seven hundred lying here. Three of our men dead. May God forgive us for this slaughter.'
'Dominee,' Tjaart reasoned. 'God wanted us to win this battle.' When the missionary muttered something incoherent, Van Doorn added, 'In warfare like this, so few of us against so many of them, it's no time to love