by Peter Rimmer
The Boer line was stretched seven miles along the Modder River. Karel Oosthuizen, along with the brothers and father, had individually dug themselves in along the high lip that looked across the open veld and confronted the British. In the protection of the river bank, and close to the water, huddled the women and children and the bellowing oxen. At first, the British had sent cavalry against the flank which had been shot down by the well-entrenched Boers. With the wagons in laager and clear targets for the British guns, the bombardment began and Karel pulled his rifle down into the bottle-shaped hole he had dug for himself and backed into a bigger hole deep enough to withstand the British shells. In the dark and noise, there was no way of knowing if anyone else was alive. For days the guns blasted the trapped Boers and every time the artillery fell silent and Karel put his head and rifle out of the hole to defend an infantry attack, there were fewer and fewer burghers able to fight.
On the sixth day of the siege, when the Boers’ laager had shrunk to two miles along the north ridge of the river, Billy Clifford watched the carnage through binoculars from a kopje half a mile on the south side of the swollen river and was sick to his stomach. If war was indeed an extension of politics, he wanted nothing of either of them. After two days of frontal attacks that had decimated British ranks, Roberts had arrived to take command from Kitchener and the little man standing close to Billy on the kopje had surrounded the Boers and bombarded them day and night with everything from pom-poms to twelve-pounders to 4.7-inch naval guns. Ammunition wagons exploded, towering mushrooms higher than trees rose from the exploding earth, green lyddite smoke drifted over the carnage and even though the rain had swollen the river and washed away the carcasses of oxen and men, the death stench was so strong Billy still wore a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Below the north ridge, and hidden from Billy by the three hundred feet drop to the river bed, were the Boer oxen, women and children among the trees that drank from the river, and many of the shells fired at the Boer trenches on the high ridge had fallen short. For Billy the fearful bellowing of dumb animals was the worst of the horror as the seventh, eighth and ninth days continued in hell and then finally, the Boers had had enough and the white flag rose from the rubble of smashed wagons and earth and the guns fell silent.
On the tenth day, with Cronjé riding into the British lines to take breakfast with Lord Roberts and negotiate his conditions of surrender, Billy watched the confusion and was pleased to see some of the Boers slip away.
The battle of Paardeberg was over.
“Please God they give up now,” said Billy to a correspondent from the Cape Argus who was standing next to him.
“Don’t be silly. Roberts has won the big war but now comes the little one. Why do the British want our land when they have so much of their own? The British can have the rest of Africa for all we care.”
“You are a Boer, sir?”
“A Cape Boer and for the moment a loyal subject of her Majesty the Queen. But when the hit-and-run guerrilla war starts I may be forced to change my mind.”
“You think they’ll go on fighting after the British enter Bloemfontein and Pretoria?”
“To the bitter end.”
While Billy was writing his daily report to be cabled to the Irish Times, Karel found his pony hidden on a long tether in the hills north of the Modder River. At the end of the stretch of the leather thong, was a small mountain stream.
“Get up on the back,” he said to Piers in Afrikaans.
“The horse will not carry both of us.”
“He will for a while and then we will walk.”
“Where are we going?”
“Away from the British. Come, young brother. We’ve both lost weight in the days of hell and my pony has been grazing good grass.”
Neither of them mentioned their father nor their brothers.
The wide-brimmed hat cast shade over both Sarie Mostert’s shoulders, the burning sun being directly over her head. Beyond and behind her the very earth of the farm was dead. Nothing moved. The tall blue gums behind the buildings, the mango tree above the bench, the brown, sun-scorched grass, the dust in the farmyard, nothing moved and the wind was far away. Even the old lady had stopped watching her through the kitchen window. Her only hope, the badly tended stands of maize, had gone in a bushfire and she wondered who was still alive in the world to have started the fire to flush out the game. Behind the mango tree, the pig pens and chicken run were as silent as a tomb. In the dark shade of the mango tree on the wooden bench, the six-year-old twins were playing a secret game. For half an hour neither of them had torn their mother’s heart by complaining they were hungry.
Picking up the heavy water buckets after her short rest, Sarie pushed open the gate to the kitchen garden and sloshed water on rows of vegetables, wilted and half dead, scorched by the summer heat, the pieces of old sacking she had propped over the rows unable to stop the deadly penetration of the sun. There was no doubt in Sarie’s mind. They were all going to starve.
After the fire, they had eaten for a day before the carcasses of burnt porcupine had rotted in the heat. Now the burnt black earth as far as she could see around the farm to the distant hills was empty and silent as the windless day. Even her dogs, who dug for the rats and moles, had given up the hunt. There was nothing to eat, not even grass or leaves from the trees. With empty buckets, she crossed again to the well where she stopped and listened.
“You hear that noise, Mummy?” asked Griet. “That’s thunder. It’s going to rain.”
‘Or guns’, thought Sarie. “Before the sun goes down, we will go to the river and look for frogs and river snails.”
Even the birds had left the burnt and barren land. Two of the dogs watched her. They were skin and bone. For three days she had caught nothing in her traps. She ignored the distant rumbling, not daring to wish for rain and the new shoots that would spring so quickly from the blackened earth.
Karel and Piers looked over the burnt black earth that stretched to the patch of distant buildings, silent in the shimmering heat, the gum trees indistinguishable from the house and barns. The brothers were silent either side of the horse they had not ridden for the past three days.
“There’s no one there,” said Piers after a long pause. “You think there’s just you and me, Karel?”
“Ma will be there. And the blacks. They’re inside away from the sun.”
“There are no cows or horses. Nothing’s moving.”
“We’ll get to the river and rest the horse.”
“All that rain we had at Paardeberg and nothing here. God has strange ways.”
The crack of thunder brought up the horse’s head.
“Maybe not. God is always watching.”
“You think we should pray?”
“Not till we reach the river. Without water, this horse will die before the sun goes down.”
“You think Pa and Frikkie are really dead?” asked Piers.
“Only God can be sure in all that carnage.”
“And the half-brothers?”
“Only God.”
“Pa said God would give us victory.”
The lizard was five feet long from the tip of its tail and it had not eaten properly since the fire. Lying on a rock in the trees overlooking the river, the reptile was quite invisible. The dappling of the brown burnt leaves blended perfectly with the mottled scaliness of the lizard. The round, bulging eyes swivelled and watched for the slightest sign of prey and the big pouched belly swelled and sank perceptibly but not enough to warn the twins. On the other side of the river, all four dogs were digging furiously in the river bank. Further downstream Sarie had found two small frogs the size of an English penny with red striped legs; the big frogs that made so much noise after the rains had gone. The only sign of life was a pied kingfisher that sat high on a tree looking hopefully into the barren water. Even the crickets were silent, oppressed by the heat.
With the patience of millions of years of ancestry, the lizard waited, its claws g
ripping the rock. The mouth came open in expectation and the tail snapped once as the reptile launched itself at Griet’s back bent over the water.
The dogs saw the movement as the lizard broke cover and, yelping with excitement, charged from rock to rock over the river, warning the twins who jumped into the river as the pack hurled their bodies at the green and orange reptile. By the time Sarie ran up the river over the rocks all four dogs had locked their teeth into the scaly lizard. The twins looked back at the fight from a rock in the middle of the river and yelled their treble excitement to the noise of grunting dogs. In the hope of drowning the dogs, the lizard tried to run to the water, thrashing at the dogs with its tail. The children backed off and plunged into the river while the dogs strained to keep the lizard out of the water, the sand between rock and river slimy with blood, the dogs silent in their desperation to hold their prey. Going into battle with her knife, Sarie plunged the blade into the lizard’s neck, which spurted blood over her arm. Sarie stabbed three more times before the lizard gave up the fight for its life with the dogs’ teeth locked in its sides and the round eyes pleading with pain. Slowly, very slowly life went out of the reptile’s eyes. Plonked on her bottom in the wet river sand Sarie looked at the bloody blade of her knife. Ten minutes later the fear had drained from her body and she got up to skin their prize. The dogs watched her patiently as she stroked the blade over a smooth rock. First, she gutted the lizard, cut off the gallbladder and threw it in the river. The entrails she gave to her dogs, the heart, the liver and the kidneys, then she skinned the lizard. By the time the sun began to sink, the rumbling from the sky had gone away and the reptile’s flesh was hanging in strips from a thorn tree. Sarie walked down to the river naked. In her hand was a piece of lizard flesh. Looking across the fading light she smiled to herself and threw the meat. The pied kingfisher dropped like a stone and by the time Sarie was floating on her back, she could see the bird high in the tree silhouetted by the violent red of the sunset, the piece of flesh clutched firmly in its claws.
At first, Karel thought the flickering light of Sarie’s campfire was a trick of the sinking sun reflecting the red and orange from the surface of the river. He watched carefully until he was certain.
“Piers, that’s a campfire down the river.”
“Khaki,” said Piers.
“Khaki would make noise. Leave the horse and come with me.”
First, the bitch brought its head up from its paws and listened, ears cocked. She’d always had the best hearing. Then the dogs half rose from the dry sand and turned their ears towards the sound Sarie could not hear. Looking into the eye of each dog in turn, she made them sit. The twins were fast asleep between the dogs and the flickering firelight showed their sweet faces. They had made camp in the cup of a giant rock where sand had washed in a past flood. The sand and the underlying rock were still warm from the day’s sun. Taking her knife, Sarie crept out from the rocks and hid in the dark of the thorn thicket.
Ten minutes later she thought she heard a sound. The light had faded from the sky and the new moon would not be up for three hours. The planets were visible but not the stars. A piece of log on the fire broke and fell into the flames, sending sparks high into the black of the African night.
By the time Karel looked down on the curled and sleeping twins and the silent vicious eyes of the bitch and the three dogs, Sarie had the knife to Piers’s throat. Then Karel laughed from ten yards away.
“It’s not khaki, it’s Frikkie’s woman, but she’s not there. Those are her dogs and the girls.”
Piers, with strong hard fingers on his windpipe and a knife to his throat, made not a sound. Then the fingers slackened and the knife blade went away.
“I’m here,” said Sarie and gave Piers a sharp shove towards his brother. She was poor white and trash and still kept her place.
“Why are you not at the farm?” asked Karel.
“No food. Your army took everything they could, and a bushfire burnt the rest.”
“Where’s Ma and the blacks?”
“The blacks went. Your Ma’s at the house.”
“Alone?”
“She’s alone.”
“Elijah went?”
“Kei first and then Elijah. He was frightened by your soldiers.”
“Have the khaki been here?”
“No English.”
The bitch and the dogs were standing high on their feet and only sank back when they recognised Piers and Karel by the light of the fire.
By the time Sarie had cooked the brothers strips of meat over the fire, the twins had still not woken from their dreams and Sarie was wondering how much worse her life could become. Her one protection, Frikkie, was dead. Then she shivered. With the sun down an hour, the temperature had plummeted. She got up and fed the fire with river flotsam to keep her children warm. Idly she softly stroked the head of the bitch while she stared into the fire.
“Now what am I going to do,” she said to herself. The two men sat on the other side of the fire away from Sarie and the twins. The girls were still fast asleep, curled up around the dogs.
Helena Oosthuizen was certain her family was dead, and she did not care anymore. Death was better than being left alone on the farm and she had neither the will nor strength to go anywhere else. Even the girl had now gone with the twins and dogs and only the sound of thunder penetrated the house. The curtains in the bedroom where she had loved and born her children were closed. She had given up praying to her God weeks ago as all that her God had given her He had taken away. She had made her peace and was ready to die alone. She was tired and long past the stage of being hungry. Helena hoped to fall asleep and never wake in the mortal world. Smiling from the thought of distant memories, she began to pray for the last time. When she slept, the smile was still on her face.
Karel found her in the late afternoon and thought she was dead. Touching the back of his big, calloused hand gently to the side of her face, his heart raced when the warmth of life flowed back to him. Then his mother opened her eyes and smiled.
“I knew I’d join you today,” she said. “Where are the others?”
“Piers is looking for you in the other rooms. Pa is dead and Frikkie.”
“But I am dead so where are they?”
“No, Ma, you are alive. The khaki shelled us for nine days and Cronjé surrendered.”
“Then let me die. I was dying. I went to sleep to die.”
“No you didn’t, little Mother.” Gently, Karel picked his mother up from the bed, a weight he barely felt. “You are still going to see your grandchildren.”
“What is that smell?”
“A stew of meat.”
“You brought me food?”
“No, Frikkie’s woman.”
“She went away.”
“To find you food. A giant lizard. The strips are dry and will feed us until I can make a plan.”
“The girl came back? Put me down. I can walk. If I am alive, I can walk.”
“Yes, Ma.” He was smiling.
“Now don’t burn the stew,” was the first thing she said to Sarie. The twins gave her one look and ran back into the yard where the dogs were chasing each other.
The Boer foraging party had not taken the hay and left alone in the barn, the horse began to eat steadily. The soft brown eyes, wet with happiness and brushed by large eyelashes, looked into Piers’s eyes and they understood and welcomed their dependency.
That night the thunder broke overhead and lightning picked out the barren veld. When the rain broke on dry earth, the combination scented the air with the smell of rich earth. The next day was overcast, the ground soaked with rain, and Sarie’s rows of scorched vegetables came to life.
On the third day, Karel took the horse and went hunting up in the hills where the streams broke from the granite outcrops. At the end of a day’s hunting, across the back of the horse’s rump, came the carcass of a female kudu and together they butchered the animal into strips of biltong. On the seventh da
y, when green shoots were springing from the veld and the sky was still overcast, the children and dogs had forgotten their hunger and the way of things had returned to normal; Sarie living in her hut like a servant, the men keeping their eyes from her body, and Helena ruling them all with her tongue. Isolated on the farm, the war was far away. Piers dug and planted another kitchen garden and as the game came back to eat the new grass and legumes, food was plentiful and the store of dried meat hanging in the barn away from the dogs was enough to feed them for weeks; and all the time Sarie waited to be told to go on her way.
Alone, she thought of Frikkie and felt nothing but thankfulness for the care and gentleness he had shown to her and the children. There had been no love, only a common need, Frikkie for a woman, Sarie for a roof over her head. Every time she tried to remember his face, the big man changed to the sensitive face of Billy Clifford, and she cried for her lost love as much as her lost protector. She let the days go by one after the other and waited for the future to take care of itself.
Major James Brigandshaw’s new orders were to reconnoitre south of the railway lines deep into Boer territory, checking British maps for accuracy. The Mashonaland Scouts, seven in number, were dressed in the same dark grey and black uniforms with slouch hats that Sir Henry Manderville and Gregory Shaw had worn when they occupied Rhodesia with the Pioneer Column. The only difference for Henry and Gregory was the new Lee-Metford bolt action rifles that had replaced the Martini-Henrys of Johnson’s column. James was dressed in the uniform of the Queen’s Light Horse topped by a white pith helmet.
For ten days they had travelled south and had long discarded the British maps as unintelligible. A few blacks had moved away from them in the distance and the Boer farmhouses had been left well alone. In their saddlebags were strips of dried meat and they no longer made fires even during the day. By the time they came upon Ezekiel Oosthuizen’s farm they were two hundred miles south of the railway. James had ridden ahead of the seven troopers and had broken out of the gorge that cut through the hills where Karel had shot his female kudu. With powerful binoculars he searched the valley below, focusing on the farmstead for a long time. A fire had recently swept through the valley and James was pleased there were no crops for the Boer army to confiscate. Through the charred black of the fire came the faint hint of green and he marvelled at the resilience of the African veld. Even after the troop caught up to him, he still searched down below for signs of life. James Brigandshaw was a good soldier and never broke the rules of training. ‘Impatience in war,’ his training officer had said at Sandhurst, ‘kills more people than stealth. The most important part of any attack is reconnaissance.’
