The covenant - James A. Michener [342]
Indeed, when the river lowered and the seventy-odd Voortrekkers completed the crossing, Lukas easily consented when little Paulus asked, 'Can I stay with Tjaart tonight?' The Van Doorns camped much farther to the west than the De Groots, so that late at night when frenzied messengers galloped in from the northeast, they reached the latter family first.
'Where'd you come from?' two dusty, tired men shouted, scarcely halting to rest their horses.
'Thaba Nchu,' De Groot replied.
'Go into laager immediately. Kaffirs on the rampage.'
Before Lukas could interrogate the men they disappeared, spurring their horses westward and leaving the De Groot family with a difficult decision. They had nine wagons, not enough for a proper laager, and even these were well scattered. To assemble them would necessitate much maneuvering, and there was no certainty that blacks would come their way. Besides, the hurried trek up from Thaba Nchu had tired the men, so it was decided to wait till morning.
When the messengers took a last look back and realized that the Voortrekkers were not protecting themselves, they were appalled; reining in their horses, they returned to shout, 'Damnit, go into laagernow!' But again the De Groots ignored the warning, for as Lukas pointed out, 'Those men are not our friends. They're Englishmen, and they're trying to scare us into turning back.'
In disgust the messengers galloped westward along the Vaal River until they came to the Van Doorn encampment: 'Go into laager at once. Kaffirs.' 'What Kaffirs?' Tjaart shouted back. 'Mzilikazi!'
It was a name to strike terror among those acquainted with the north, and although the Van Doorns had known no one who had contact with the Bull Elephant, as he was now called, they had heard around the campfires at Thaba Nchu reports of his annihilations. One hunter who knew the area north of the Vaal had said, 'Mzilikazi was the shrewdest of the Zulus. Three times they came after him and three times he beat them off. To protect himself he has cleared an area, maybe two thousand square miles. Killed everything. Men, women, cattle, wild animals. Only thing I saw in fourteen days' travelhyenas, jackals, a few small birds. I've spotted his scouts south of the Vaal, not far from here. He's watching us every day, the Great Bull Elephant.'
'Is that the Mzilikazi we were warned against?' Tjaart asked. 'The same. He has twenty thousand warriors.' 'Good God! If they all come at us . . .'
'They're spread across the area. It will be only a small detachment.' The two Englishmen, who had been hunting in the north, accepted a drink of water, and asked, 'Any other companies of you Dutchmen?'
'Three others. Farther west.' So off the two messengers went, spurring their horses.
Even before they were gone, Tjaart had started bringing his eleven wagons into an abbreviated laager, and this consisted of jamming the front of one against the rear of the one ahead, guiding the disselboom almost completely under the front wagon and fastening it with the trek chains, then lashing the wheels together and sending children out to gather thorn bushes, which the boys cut and the girls carried back to their mothers, who wove the prickly wood into spokes and wheels and each crevice along the outside perimeter. When they were finished, no enemy could sneak up to the laager and force his way either through or between or under the wagons, for he would face a wall of wood and canvas and thorn. One small opening was provided, and for it a gate of thorn was hastily built. Nine of the sixteen Coloured servants were sent back toward the river with the cattle and sheep; the other seven would fight alongside their masters.
Two people watched the construction of the laager with keen interest: Tjaart van Doorn and little Paulus de Groot, too young to help cut the thorn branches, not old enough to herd the cattle. What he did was stay at Tjaart's heels, running errands for him.