Lesotho
The track snaked upwards and the air got thinner. It was warm when they left Sipho’s friends in the valley far below. Dew covered the ground and the slopes were carpeted in African violets. Now, the only flowers were of the alpine sort and the air was bitterly cold. Sipho led the way and the ponies followed close behind.
At first it was a steady slog. Then the hillside steepened and the track became more difficult. In places, it was so steep that waist-high steps had been cut. The ponies managed these by rising up on their hind legs and propelling themselves forward.
David had been on similar tracks in the Andes. There, people had left the arid coastal planes and gone to live in fertile valleys high in the mountains. There was no shortage of good farming land in southern Africa. He wondered why anyone would leave it. Sipho came up with the answer.
‘People fled into these mountains to escape the Zulus,’ he said. ‘These pony trails are all over Lesotho. When my grandfather was a boy, he used to come up this one. Now people go by road to enter Lesotho.’
‘And Lesotho is a separate country?’
‘It is not part of The Republic of South Africa. The British conquered land from the Zulus and the white Afrikaners. The Basutos were their enemies and they sought protection from the British.’
It sounded a bit confusing.
‘How do the Basutos fit into this?’
‘They are the people who live in Lesotho. It is like Wales and the Welsh. It is the same with the Afrikaners. They used to call themselves Boers. Some still do. Boer means farmer in their language.’
‘How big is Lesotho?
‘About the same size as Wales. That is what I was taught in school. Both countries are mountainous but the mountains in Lesotho are much higher than those in Wales.’
David figured that Sipho must be right on that score. He had climbed in Wales and the air was never as thin as this. Even the ponies were beginning to puff.
‘How high do we get?’
‘About three thousand metres.’
David figured he could cope with that.
‘And the Zulus never conquered Lesotho?’
‘They tried but they failed.’
‘I read somewhere about a chief call Shaka.’
‘Yes, David. He was the founder of the Zulu nation.
‘When was that?’
‘In the nineteenth century. Shaka killed his rivals and became paramount chief. That was when Napoleon made himself emperor of France. Shaka and Napoleon were alike. They invented new ways of killing people.’
David guessed he was getting a biased view. Asking a Xhosa about Shaka Zulu was like asking a Brit or American about Adolf Hitler.
‘Shaka’s army was a killing machine,’ Sipho said.
‘Isn’t that what war is about?’
‘No!’ Sipho was adamant.
‘So what is it about?’
‘Making peace, David.’
That was a novel idea.
‘You mean you make war to make peace?’
‘You make war to show people that there is a price to pay if they trespass on what is yours, David. You show them there are limits that must not be crossed.’
David glanced over his shoulder. Mario and Petra were following along behind. Earlier, he had tried to give Petra a dose of sedative and she had refused. Mario had supported her. He said that sedatives were like a band aid. You used them when necessary then stopped before you developed a dependence on them.
Petra had taken that to heart. She was pressing on by his side and he was helping her over the difficult bits. Mario did a lot of field work as a biology student and was used to tough conditions. Petra spent a lot of time in libraries and was finding it difficult to cope.
‘In the old days, the tribes used to fight over cattle and land,’ Sipho continued. ‘There were no big battles. The warriors threw spears at one another. Then, after a while, one side would suffer casualties and decide to leave. They were always given a chance to escape. No one wanted unnecessary killing. That leads to reprisals and more killing.
‘And that changed with Shaka?’ David said.
‘Shaka had his blacksmiths make a different sort of spear. It was short and had a stabbing blade like the Roman legions used. When their enemies threw their spears at them the Zulus didn’t throw them back. They charged and killed as many of the other side as they could. Then they went into the villages and enslaved the women and children. All the old people and the bigger boys were killed. Women were taken as wives and small children were brought up as Zulus.’
David didn’t doubt that he was hearing a biased account of history. The Xhosas had good reason to hate what had happened. All the same, the main points had to be true. The Zulus created a fighting force so powerful that it could take on the British army and wipe out battalions armed with rifles.
He continued to trudge up the slope, listening to Sipho and glancing back every so often to see how Petra was coping. They would soon be in Lesotho. From what Sipho said, it was a remote place that was surrounded by South Africa but not a part of South Africa. It had a troubled history and many of its people eked out a precarious living from the land and depended on money sent by relatives working in the South African gold fields. It seemed as good a place as any to hide.
The little mermaid looked happy. The sun was shining and someone had given her a good clean and polish. Louise Magnusson was happy too. She had just received a big bunch of flowers from her adoring son, Olaf. A courier brought them to her door. He said he had fetched them from the airport and it was a special delivery.
‘They were picked only yesterday, Mrs Magnusson.’ He translated from the label. ‘It says to keep them upright or the nectar will run out and they won’t smell so nice.’
Louise signed a receipt and took the flowers into her apartment. They were the same as those she had received the last time. That was only a week or so ago. That meant Olaf was back in that place he had been to before.
She consulted the label. It was written in English and another language that was more like Danish. She recognised Africa without any difficulty and remembered that Olaf’s friend said the flowers came from Cape Town, which was in South Africa.
She wondered about Olaf’s friend. He came with his mother and her name was Kirstin. They seemed such nice people but things were missing when they left. One was a woollen hat belonging to Olaf and another was the label on the flowers that he had sent. She wondered if she should warn Olaf about them.