TESSA CLAIBORNE

TESSA CLAIBORNE

A
Novel
By
Smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 2007 by Smcallis.

Chapter 17

TESSA’S CHOICE


THERE IN THE SUN-BAKED African earth of Hendricks’ station I lay sprawled in a forlorn heap surrounded by dust—literally turfed out the door of my own castle, the people had risen up and deposed of their monarch in a coup d’état of one. It’s funny; as I lay there, I didn't feel all that afraid. I felt foolish, angry, betrayed and abandoned. As for fear, that’s the one emotion I did not have. I did have the presence of mind to look around me to make sure I wasn't about to be stabbed to death. The Zulus miraculously were gone.

I'm not exactly sure, how long I sat there, a long time I suppose. Long enough for Burlingham to get all-grotty with me, he yelled at me to BUGGER-OFF! Pffft, I scoffed. As if he genuinely thought, he owned the front yard too! The bastard was sure to get his in the end; God could not be so unjust. I took stock of my situation. I didn't seem to be hurt (well, not physically anyway). I found being tossed out the door on my arse, summarily sitting there in squalid dirt a humbling emotional catharsis. I felt a little bit surprised, quite a bit foolish. However, mostly, peculiarly, I found myself feeling sorry for Davy Burlingham. It must be a terrible burden to be so selfish, cowardly, and self-centered. To live ones life so evilly narcissistic that the only person you thought of was yourself. I couldn't imagine living life burdened with such travails.

Such was my misery my soul ached. I missed my Henry; my beloved, shy, insecure Henry. Its funny how things work out, Henry, he initially was my biggest detractor, he dismissed my idea of joining the army, after all, I was nothing but a girl. Sargent Bourne on the other hand, he had other ideas; he recognized, I had a natural talent for this soldiering. How could anyone have known? Six months later, I found myself in Natal, South Africa, twenty-five miles west of the Central column; knee-deep-in-the-dead, a Sargent in the Queen's army.

I remember reading in my sixth-term classroom, a quote from the play JULIUS CAESAR: A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave die but one. My teacher, did not expound on this passage, I don't think she understood or even comprehended the profundity of these words. I found it was left to me, sitting in the dirt of Africa to learn the answer for myself; with a crystal clarity, I understood the words of William Shakespeare. Burlingham, he was a miserable wretched creature—if I died, at least I died honorably, knowing I had done my duty.

Even though this wasn't my first reconnoiter, I was officially over due. I couldn't help but wondered if Captain Fredrickson even considered me missing? For whatever the reason, I certainly did possess a knack for getting myself into predicaments, even though the conflagrant particulars were never my fault. The fall-out, the repercussions, the consequences of whole bloody rot was forever left for me to clean up. I caught myself longing for the days when my life was simple, the shilling, the Sunday afternoon walks to the fire station, Domino, the comfort of my snug bed at WSPFS; the reassuring softness of Sally, her warm flesh cuddled beside mine.

Davy Burlingham, he had done me in this time for sure. My hand slipped under my duty-blouse, my chest ached where he kicked me. I know I don't have much, but what I had sure did hurt. I didn't like being a victim, why did I always let him do these things to me? I couldn't comprehend how anyone could be so cruel and hateful. I was so angry I spat and spat, my mouth was full of grit, I was so parched, no spit came. Well, this was getting me nowhere fast. I didn't have time to wallow there feeling sorry for myself.

All right, Tessa, what to do now? On your feet soldier!

I should think the exact level of military catastrophe confronting me might very well have confounded the combined talents of Alexander, Napoleon and Wellington. After risking my life—I saved his life. (Remember that?) I pulled that god-cursed spear out of his chest. I sat beside him, I nursed him, I even held his tally whacker so he could pee. What had Burlingham done for me in return? He choked me, assaulted me, tried to rape and murder me. All this after I ran the gauntlet to retrieve the weapons, Burlingham still had the brass bollocks to toss me out on my ear.

Somehow, I found all of this surprising.

My real problem was my soldier; Davy Burlingham was holed up in a fortress. I was left outside, I was vulnerable. That was exactly what he intended. I amounted to nothing more than Zulu bait. From Burlingham perspective if the Zulus came again, now, with virtually unlimited ammunition, he could shoot them down at his leisure. If I was killed, that was of little consequence. My legitimate death at the hands of the Zulus was a bonus. He could report to Captain Fredrickson how he fought a desperate engagement. How Sargent Claiborne was tragically killed. Instead of a hangman’s noose, the bastard was sure to get a medal.

Out in the open, the Zulus were sure to kill me. The Zulus, they would descend on me like a chick on a June bug. To kill a British soldier, to Wash their Spears, this was the all-consuming objective of every Zulu warrior. With their blood lust sated—with me dead. The war party could then move on, leaving Burlingham to his own devices. Exactly how he thought he was going to make it back to the Central column without me, without horses, I’m sure he had not thought that far ahead.

I for one did not intend to participate in his fantastic narrative. I didn't even trouble him to open the door. He'd done me wrong, and he knew it. I loathe to subject myself to groveling to the likes of Davy Burlingham. I wasn't going to plead; I wasn't going to beg. I had my pride. I'm sure this course of action disappointed him mightily. Even now, he was sitting in the storehouse licking his chops waiting for me to bang on the door, wail, shout, scream. All because I was a girl, he persisted in perceiving me as weak and stupid. Burlingham, of course was in his glory, he'd call me a "Little Blighter" and say something smug like "NOT BY THE HAIR OF MY CHINNY, CHIN, CHIN" or some such tommyrot. I did not oblige him; I did not allow him the pleasure. To that end, I picked myself up and fled.

It's curious how things work out. Fifteen minutes ago, I was in anguish, I was in tears over the apparent loss of the rifle. Now my seeming carelessness, my incompetence, turned out to be my salvation. I seized the neglected carbine from the Hendricks' yard. I had cartridges in my pockets; I was once again well armed. I scampered to the safety of the barn, the one place I thought I could make a stand. My strategy was to make myself scarce. I knew Burlingham in his paranoia was sure to persist in making a spectacle out of himself, incurring the Zulu wrath by shooting at anything that moved. If I held my fire, the Zulus might very well forget about one very small girl holed up in the barn.

I buried myself in the haymow. For the next six hours, I listened to the intermittent crackle of rifle fire. However improbable, I think I must have fallen a sleep. I woke with a start, afflicted with a raging thirst. I checked Mrh. Hendricks’ pocket watch. It was well on to nine pm. Dusk was starting to settle; the Zulu’s seldom persisted in attacks after dark. I crawled out of the safety of the haymow. There was a glorious moonrise. The night stars were just creeping out from the last retreating shadows of the setting sun. It was a perfect twilight. The first thing I noticed was there were no additional Zulu bodies. This didn’t surprise me, as the Zulu always drag away their own dead. I had killed half-a-dozen in their initial assault, a couple of more bodies were strewn about, those were the same ones I had killed myself that afternoon. Despite a constant din of rifle fire from the storehouse. Burlingham had not succeeded in killing a single Zulu. Were the Zulus gone?

My answer came in the form of fire. Smoke more precicely. As I said before, the Zulus are not stupid people. Brave, fanatical at times, they do not throw their lives away carelessly by charging headlong into accurate rifle fire. The Zulus quickly adapt, change their tactics. The storehouse with its many blind spots was even more vulnerable due to its thatched roof. The clever Zulus simply kept the rifleman busy with faints all during the long afternoon. They waited for nightfall, and then they simply set the roof alight. Fire was sure to do the rest. I heard my name.

“CLAIBORNE! Duh niggahs, dey’s burn’n me alive! Help me Claiborne!”

Déjà vu, in a surreal moment of gallows humor, at first I snickered, then I succumbed to outright laughter. After all he'd done to me; he still had the brass bollocks to expect me to pull his fat out of the frying pan. From my vantage point, I watched the storehouse go up in a catastrophic blaze. I watched the thatch roof burn; it could only be a matter of minutes. I counted the seconds. The roof sagged a bit, and started to collapse. I watched in horror; That could have been me. Burlingham, he burst out of the storehouse door in a fit of panicked rage. I believe he may have caught fire. Five Zulus ambushed him almost straight away. He lunged, he feinted, he parried. The Zulus crushed him by shear weight of numbers. They beat him with their knobkerries, a sort of wooden mace. I was sure he was dead.

I heard a strike-click; followed by an almost imperceptible delay as gunpowder hissed in the frizzen, then KABOOM! The muzzle flash sent a shower of sparks into the air. One of the Zulus had a flintlock musket; the shock value succeeded in halting the killing frenzy. The lower ranked Zulus poised to beat and stab Burlingham to death, scattered. The Chieftain took charge of the prisoner. I watched; I did not intervene. I heard many angry voices, they were arguing. It was obvious that there was some division in the ranks. There is no word in the Bantu language for “English solider,” so the Zulus simply borrowed from the Afrikaans and called us what the Boers called us, Redcoats. He was an English soldier, this they understood, he was more valuable to them alive than dead. They intended to take him back to the Royal Kraal at Ulundi and present him to King Cetshwayo himself.

“Claiborne! ‘ elp me Claiborne, I knows yous der! Dey's kill'n me! Don't let dem kill me! I don't want to die! Fer gawd sakes Claiborne! HELP ME!”. . . Burlingham continued to call my name; his cries grew faint until his voice trailed off into the darkness. He was as good as dead, carted off to feed the ants, or whatever gruesome fate awaited him. I didn't care.

After all, he’d done to me; did he really expect me to save him? Fuck him! I didn’t care.

The problem was I did care. He was my soldier, he was my responsibility. Goddamn him! Goddamn him all to hell! Why couldn’t he just buck-up and die like a man? Oh, no, he had to go and get himself captured—trussed up and carted off like a prized Christmas goose. Once again, Burlingham had succeeded in creating a mess and it was left to me to clean-up the bloody rot!

The Zulus were gone. For the next two hours, I sat in the haymow in the failing light of the burning storehouse. I listened to the steady pop, pop, pop as the ammunition cooked off, I imagined my spyglass, maps, compass all my kit burned to a cinder. I located a lantern; I dared to make a light. For the first time, I had the presence of mind to examine my stomach where the Zulu stabbed me, just below my bellybutton, exactly where the pockets of my shell jacket over-lapped my belt-line, was a pink welt. Otherwise, I was unharmed. I removed the packet of ammunition that had saved my life. The short chamber boxer-Henry cartridge was solidly constructed of rolled brass, the size of a man’s index finger, I was awestruck the first time I saw one. The bullet its self weighed nearly a quarter of an ounce and could stop a Zulu dead in his tracks at four hundred yards. These cartridges, my lucky cartridges, clearly showed where the broad iron spear point struck. They were pieced, crumpled, mangled and bent. I held them in my hand in wonder; This is what had saved my life.

My thirst was such, my dehydration had reached such a deplorable state, I was certain I was no longer thinking clearly. It had been eight hours or more, since I'd had so much as a sip. Self-preservation trumped any fear of a renewed Zulu attack. If I died of thirst, it was no different than a spear point. I crept to the pump in the center of the yard. They say horses can smell water. This is true; I suspect the same must be true of people. I was so thirsty, I wasn't very careful. I should imagine I failed "Gideon's Test."

At first I only washed my face and hands, the water felt so good, I took off my shell jacket and pulled back the collar on my duty-blouse, before I knew it, I had plunged my whole head under the gushing torrent, I let the cold water stream over my head washing away my tears, anger and sorrow along with a considerable amount of smudge and smoke. I shook my head dry like a shaggy dog. I'M STILL ALIVE! I shouted, whooped and screamed and stuck my head under the pump again. The cold water was exhilarating, my mind was clear again. Sitting there by the pump, under the glorious twilight of the night sky, I contemplated what to do next. There In the shadows of the dying embers of the storehouse, I did something that surprised even me. Up to this point, I had worked hard to maintain the fragile façade that I was a boy. I don't know what possessed me to do such a foolish and dangerous thing. I did it anyway; I took my wedding ring off from the chain around my neck. I carefully placed it on my finger. If I died in the next few hours, I wanted to die close to my Henry.

“I love you Henry . . .”

This was my own private little rebellion against what I considered an ignominious injustice. The irony of my situation was I was a girl pretending to be a boy. I was considered unworthy to perform anything but the most menial of task; I had my choice, bar wench, washerwoman, factory worker or worse. Here in the Army, I was a man. I had respect, authority, and responsibility. I held the Queen's NCO. I couldn't help but feel resentment towards a society that held my sex in such low esteem. Was I not the same person?

In 1874, there was an accident in the deep pit of Abernant Colliery one of the many pits owned and operated by the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company Ltd., where my Papa, Robert Chard Claiborne worked as a shift supervisor.

I still remember the day, I was nine-years-old. The shrill sound of the emergency whistle shook the foundation of the town of Glamorganshire. Mama stopped washing the dishes and Mama never stopped doing anything she put her hand to. She wiped her hands on her apron; I watched as Mama ran to the door. All the other women-folk of the town came to their doors as well, every wife and mother in the whole town looked in the direction of the mine. There was a panic. All the grownups were screaming and yelling it seemed the complacent fabric of the sleepy shire was torn asunder. Nothing but pandemonium as friends and family alike dropped whatever it was they were doing and ran towards the pit. I was so frightened. I heard words I'd never heard before, words like “fire” and “collapse.” I didn't understand what was happening, I knew it was something bad, something terrible. Papa, he was missing—for hours, we waited for news in front of the Mine Director's office. Mama sat up all night.

Two terrible days past while we waited. Papa, he finally emerged from the pit, blackened, hungry and tired; all his men were with him alive! Papa led his men to safety. I knew he would come home! Later, when I asked him about it, he told me there was a fire the choking smoke was terrible. However, he couldn't leave his men. He found a pocket of fresh air; they say he braved the smoke and flames and went back three times, until all his men were safe. For two days and a night, he and his men huddled there in the blackest of black until the fire burnt its self out. When I asked him WHY, why he went back . . . Papa only chuckled.

“Come here lamb,” Papa, he took me on his lap, I felt safe in his broad powerful arms. He hugged me tight, smoothed my hair; I looked into his brave honest face, perpetually creased with the black from the pit. Papa's one good eye twinkled; he smiled that jolly Welsh smile of his. What he told me left me puzzled. At nine-years-old, I didn't understand.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

There under the full moon of the African sky, I remembered Papa's words. My hand slipped to the sleeve of my shell jacket, my fingers explored the stitching, the three chevrons of my Sergeant's stripes. I was a Sargent in the Queen's Army; I considered my responsibility, my duty. My conundrum, my puzzlement was such I didn't know what to do. Well, that wasn't exactly true; I knew WHAT to do, I just didn't want to do it—that was all. I sat there for a good hour wrestling with my conscience. I wracked my brain in a self-deluding effort to find a reason, any pretext; any excuse no matter how small in postponing, avoiding, or even outright shirking the obvious. My alternative seemed so clear. I could just walk out.

“Don't be so earnest all the time Tessa, consider yourself for once. You can just walk out.” I startled myself by the sound of my own bitterness.

I found myself half-way persuaded by my own argument. Afterall, I was healthy, it was as a twenty-five mile walk; if I set out in the morning, with any luck I could reach the Buffalo river and safety in two days. Burlingham, he was of no concern of mine; I owed him nothing. It was too late for him; he was as good as dead. Who was I trying to fool? My brain twisted and turned like a steel-head trout on a line, I was caught. No matter how many excuses I contrived to convince myself otherwise, ultimately in my heart, I knew I only had one choice. Tessa's choice.

The Zulus had my soldier; they had my property. One Davy Burlingham and I for one wanted him back. I hefted my rifle; a grim resolve came over me, then a calm confidence, I was finally at peace. I worked the loading lever, what was I waiting for? It was time to give the Zulus a well deserved what's for. It was time to hunt some Zulus.

* * *

I SCAVENGED WHAT I COULD from the fire. There was not much left; I did retrieve the singular infamous bayonet. Burnt, tarnished, blackened in the fire, the triangular point still gleamed; it remained sharp enough to pierce Zulu flesh. Even though the Martini-carbine possessed no lug upon which to fix the weapon, I took it; I shoved it in my belt.

I still had several pounds of ship biscuits. Oh, joy! If you've never had the singular displeasure of eating, worse yet, relying on hard tack for survival, well, let me tell you, it lives up to its name, its hard, tasteless and when faced with the prospects of subsistence or starvation, hard tack presents a difficult choice. In addition, I had one precious canteen that survived the fire, I filled it with water and shook it—it didn't seem to leak.

I turned my shell jacket inside out. However disloyal it seemed the scarlet red color, much revered by the public, historians and the military hierarchy a like, was not particularly advantageous in the bush of Africa. I could never figure how that worked to the common soldier's advantage. I found one of Mrh. Hendricks' slouch hats, now looking appropriately drab like a Boer, with my fair skin shielded from the African sun; I was ready to set out on my trek.

Sixty cartridges; I had sixty cartridges. I figured there were less than dozen Zulus left in the war impi. That should be enough. My biggest problem was, I was already four hours behind, and the Zulus were legendary in their ability to cover fifty miles in a day. In the British army, fifteen miles is considered a forced march, how could I hope to keep up, let alone catch up? My only hope was they stopped somewhere along the way to camp at a waterhole. I imagined a comical scenario where Burlingham caused his Zulu captors as much trouble as he had caused me . . .

That was when Star returned to me. I first spied her as a black smudge on the horizon. I couldn't believe as to what I saw. She was tentative, agitated, she nickered softly, and then she came to me. Good old loyal Star, apparently unhappy with her Zulu captors she had escaped, returned to the last place she had good food and water. Saddled, watered, I once again felt powerful. I knew how the Zulus felt about horses. “Giddy up!” I urged her on. I felt like a Western cowboy in one of my novels. Now I could make fifty miles in one day.