Amelia’s While Abernethy combed Umtata for the survivors, Andrew tried to find transport for the journey to St John’s. With the Frontier wars flickering to an untidy end and rumours of an impending struggle with the Zulus, wagons were hard to come by.
“Hire a wagon?” The Boer dragged a hand down his shaggy beard and looked at Andrew through narrow brown eyes. “Why?”
“To take the civilian shipwreck survivors to St John’s,” Andrew explained.
The Boer, sun-browned and slow of speech, stroked his beard again. “That’s a bad road,” he said. “You might damage my wagons.”
In Andrew’s experience, all the roads in South Africa had proved to be bad.
“Bad or not, we’ll be travelling that road,” Andrew said. “I’ve twenty-five civilians to take to St John’s.”
The Boer shook his head and turned awa
