by Peter Rimmer
“Not a sign of life, old chap,” he said to Henry Manderville as they sat their horses next to each other, looking down into the valley. “Not a horse or a cow. Cronjé’s men foraged far from the Modder River by the looks of it. Now down there is what I call an isolated farm. Wonder what they did for a social life? Middle of bloody nowhere, old chap. Least you and Seb can go into Fort Salisbury and have a noggin or two.”
“Not even the sign of blacks,” said Henry having taken the binoculars. “No food. This war’s going to be harder for the women and children than the fighting men. And the blacks? Where have they all gone? Thought there was something under that tree in the yard for a moment but probably a trick of the shade moving with the breeze.”
“They won’t give up,” said Gregory Shaw. “Too many people have been hurt. A skirmish you can forgive and forget. Not full-scale war.”
“They’ll pack up once we take Bloemfontein and Pretoria,” said Henry.
“Hope you’re right, old chap. Now, I’m going to watch that farmhouse for another hour and if there’s still no sign of life, we are going to make it home. Bet you chaps could do with a bath and a cooked meal. That place is so isolated no one can get within five miles of us without being seen. At night we’ll bivouac away from the buildings. It’s now four hours before sunset. Perfect. Bath, hot meal and sleep among those gum trees behind the house. Gregory, have a look, old chap. You know the drill as well as I do.”
The heat pressed down on the iron roof of the farmhouse making loud cracks from the expansion of the metal. Inside Sarie’s hut the heat was stifling, but with the window and door tightly closed all day, it was cooler than the shade of the mango tree. The twins were too hot to do anything else than lying on their beds staring at the ceiling. In recognition of the intense heat, they had stopped talking to each other. The dogs, kicked out of the hut, were spread under the bench in the shade of the mango tree next to a large bowl of water put out for them by the twins. The three dogs and the bitch had given up swishing their tails at the flies and their eyes were closed.
In the house, Karel, lying on the bed he had used since he could first remember, was trying not to think. From the room next door he could hear Piers snoring and mentally wished him happy dreams. As he thought of his family, the pain pricked behind his eyes and alone, away from prying eyes, he let the tears flow and the pain of loss seep through his body. Finally, like always, he began to feel sorry for himself, as if they had left him as head of the family on purpose. Trying to think what to do, his thoughts went in circles. There was going to be no escape as the British were going to win the war, and even if he came out alive they would take the farm from him and give it to one of their soldiers. When he slept the heavy sleep of day, his nightmare continued, convoluted and incomprehensible.
The eight horses walked slowly towards the buildings shimmering ahead of them in the heat haze bouncing from the iron roofs. For the last time, James put up his hand for them to stop while he watched the buildings. He could see the dark green top of the mango tree but the trunk and bench were hidden by the barn. James’s binoculars looked straight at the drawn curtain of Karel’s bedroom. All the windows he could see were curtained.
“The owners have locked up and gone,” he said and waved them forward.
The bitch opened her eyes first. Then she got up and moved out of the shade and looked around the barn. The horses were three hundred yards away. Frightened, the bitch ran back to the closed door of Sarie’s hut and scratched, waking her instantly. She opened the door and followed her dog to the end of the barn. On top of the shimmering heat and dust, she could see the slouch hats of the Mashonaland Scouts, mistaking them for Boers. She crossed the yard back to the house and went in through the kitchen. She tapped lightly on Karel’s door and the snoring stopped. She tapped again.
“Soldiers coming.”
“Khaki?”
“Boer, I think. Wearing slouch hats.”
Karel came out of the room with his Mauser.
“How far?”
“Close. Three, four hundred yards. You can see them through your window if you draw the curtains.”
Back in the room, Karel pulled a corner of the curtain. “Hold the curtains like that,” he said to Sarie and adjusted his binoculars to focus on the horsemen.
“Sarie, go tell Piers to go out the back and up-saddle. The officer is British. The troop’s colonial. They won’t hurt you or Ma but they’ll kill me and Piers. And keep your dogs quiet.”
With the greatest of care not to move the curtain, Karel got his hand on the catch and very slowly opened his bedroom window. Taking two books he wedged open a gap at the bottom of the curtain and slowly pushed out his rifle, bringing it to rest firmly on the windowsill. He could sight over his rifle perfectly at the British officer. Patiently he waited for Piers to ready the horse. They were coming towards him over the veld very slowly, conserving their horses.
‘Even two up we’ll get away on a fresh horse,’ he said to himself. ‘Those animals have been riding all day.’
Riding directly behind James Brigandshaw, Gregory Shaw was thinking of Sing and India and the face he saw was still clear and beautiful. In all the many years they had been apart she had never aged a moment. The sound of the Mauser travelled just behind the bullet which cut a neat hole through James Brigandshaw’s white pith helmet tracing a slight furrow through his hair before shattering Gregory’s skull an inch below his hairline. The picture of Sing in his mind and his life was expunged in the same moment. The body slid from the horse.
Behind the house, two Boers on a single horse broke cover and James watched them go. Then he took off his topi and inspected the neat hole in both sides before putting it back on his head.
They rode into the farmyard.
“We’ll bury him under those gum trees,” said Henry Manderville.
“Yes. That’ll be a good spot but it doesn’t really make any difference now.”
“Who were they?”
“Deserters, probably. What a bad show. Shot by a deserter.”
“But he was in uniform. He’d have liked that.”
“I suppose so.”
The bitch and three dogs had slunk off with their tails between their legs well before the horses stopped under the mango tree. Helena Oosthuizen watched the enemy from her bedroom window and stood in full view, hoping they would shoot her there and then and have it over with. Even the thought of Karel and Piers getting away left her soul empty.
Standing back from her window, Sarie watched James take off his white hat and acknowledge the old woman standing at her bedroom window. The body of a dead soldier was slumped over a horse and far down the track, she could see her dogs trotting away from danger. Now the stock of dried meat they had so carefully hung in strips from the roof of the barn would be taken by the soldiers. Without the horse and rifle, they would be hungry even if the soldiers did not ransack the kitchen garden; the plants after the drought were too small to be eaten.
“Be careful she hasn’t got a gun,” said Henry, still holding the reins of Gregory Shaw’s horse. “In the wars with the blacks the women fought alongside the men.”
“Is she alone? We can’t leave an old woman alone. Think of wild animals, the blacks. Anyway, she’ll starve. If the Boers don’t surrender, we’ll have to do something with people like this. Not the gentlemanly thing to leave women helpless. We’ll have to bring them in and feed them. Just staring at me. I can feel the hatred and her men have just killed my friend. No, old chap, this is not going to turn out to be a good war. Curse the gold and diamonds. We’d have all been better off without them, Boer and British.”
“Can’t run an empire without gold,” said Henry.
“Anyway, we’re here now so we’ll have to finish the job. Take a ride around the back but make sure she doesn’t try to shoot you. You speak any of their language, Henry?”
“Not a word. Tinus spoke English from his Scots mother and anyway, the English never bother to lear
n other people’s languages. Rather pointless, really. Sooner or later they all speak English.”
“Don’t get far without English. After you come back, we’ll dig a grave for Gregory. Damn shame. Damn shame.”
When the soldier opened her door to look inside, she was waiting for him with the knife and the twins were under the one large bed.
“There’s another one here,” he shouted and closed the door. “Got a knife. Young one dressed in rags. Do they have white servants? What shall I do, sir?”
“Open the door and take the knife away,” said James.
“Yes, sir.”
When the door opened again, Sarie was standing with the twins holding her hands. Ignoring the trooper, Sarie let out a piercing whistle and watched the dogs far away stop in their tracks. Sarie whistled again, and the dogs trotted back.
‘They can’t be any worse than the Boer soldiers,’ she said to herself and walked out into the heat of the sun, the twins on either side of her each still clutching a hand. Over by the gum trees, they were digging a grave.
6
June 1900
The chief of British Intelligence in South Africa inspected James Brigandshaw’s topi with mild interest, poking his index finger through the hole in the front before handing the pith-helmet back across the desk. Colonel Hickman had arrived in Cape Town three weeks earlier and was red raw round the neck from his exposure to the African sun. His nose above the large, drooping moustache was peeling badly and the little red cheeks between the sideburns and the moustache were the colour of a ripe tomato. The whole face had fascinated James for the full five minutes of the interview.
“What are you staring at, sir?” snapped the new colonel, bringing James back from his reverie… Everything he had to say was in the report on the mahogany desk.
“Sorry, sir. Been in the saddle too many weeks. Mind wanders off.”
“Officers whose minds wander off are a danger to their men, Brigandshaw. A danger to their men and don’t you forget it. Trooper Shaw would probably be alive if your mind hadn’t wandered. Shot by a deserter! Bad enough these Boers are uneducated with not a gentleman between them. But you, Brigandshaw. A British officer. A gentleman. Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst. And you lose a soldier shot by a deserter.”
There had never been any point in arguing with a senior officer sitting behind a desk and James let the verbal abuse pass over his head, convinced the tomato nose was about to explode with the tomato cheeks.
“And stop staring, sir!”
“And will that be all, sir?”
“And no it won’t! Sit down! You have not been dismissed. Luckily for all of us, this war is all but over with the British flag flying over Pretoria. So this nonsense in your report about protecting Boer women can be ignored.”
“Have Smuts, de Wet and de la Rey surrendered?” asked James, showing interest for the first time.
“They will now Lord Roberts has taken Pretoria.”
“The Boer commandos can muster twenty thousand men.”
“They will surrender without Kruger and their capital.”
“Yes, sir.” He was going to say something about telling that to General Smuts and thought better.
“You may take some leave, Major Brigandshaw. You can go back to England with Lord Roberts if you wish to. General Kitchener will be taking command.”
“Before the war is over?”
“Are you questioning your senior officers?”
“They may not have been deserters.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The two that shot Captain Shaw.”
“He was a trooper. Two up on a horse. Why didn’t you ride after them?”
“Our horses were blown.”
“There are going to be some changes around here, you mark my words.”
“I would prefer to go north. I have brothers and Captain Shaw…”
“He was a trooper. Man lucky not to be cashiered. Consorting with natives. Can you imagine what would happen to the empire if every Englishman hobnobbed with the natives? We have to remain aloof to maintain our authority. You can leave now, Brigandshaw. Deserters, dammit. Shot the wrong man, I’d say. Report to me in three months, by when I hope to have forgotten this report. Shot by deserters. What on earth has the British Army come to?”
They rode north together. Henry Manderville had been discharged from the Mashonaland Scouts on the grounds of ill-health. He was too old at forty-eight for the rough life of a soldier and with Gregory Shaw dead, the fight had gone out of him. Being in another man’s company for so many years was a habit and for Henry, good habits were hard to break. He was too old to make new friends in the troop and too old to keep up with them in the field. They had tolerated the old man but never tried to make him a friend. And with the troop given leave, he was too old to follow them around the bars and whorehouses of the mining camp they called Johannesburg. His books and butterfly net called. His daughter and grandchildren called. Even his small home with the ‘pull and let go’ invention of Mr Crapper was all he wanted. He was tired and counted most of his life to be over. Most, nearly all of what he wanted from life was in the past and when he reached the farm on the banks of the Mazoe River, he was going to put his feet up, relax and think of his dead wife and live with her in his memory and let the rest of the world go by unnoticed. If people wanted to have wars and kill each other, they could do it on their own without the help of Henry Manderville.
“You know what, James,” he said, “being out of uniform and going home is rather pleasant. And the fact is, I really do think of Rhodesia as home. So let’s try not to bump into a Boer commando before we cross the Limpopo River. Do you really think this war is going to be over in the next few weeks?”
“No. All we did was capture Cronjé and five thousand men. The rest are undefeated. They don’t need Pretoria and Bloemfontein to fight a war. They can play hide and seek with us in this vast country till the cows come home. And they won’t forget defeating a regular British army at Spion Kop. Kruger’s run off to Switzerland with the Boer treasury and the young men have taken command. We’ve lived off the land for months and made a damn nuisance of ourselves. And we have another problem. We either leave their women and children to the misery of starvation and the natives, or we bring them into camps and feed them ourselves. I can’t get the eyes of those little girls out of my mind. They looked so alike. You think they were twins, Henry?”
“Most likely.”
“Leaving white children all alone like that will give the natives the wrong idea. Wasn’t long ago the British Army were protecting our people and the Boers from the Zulus and the Xhosas. This blasted war is bad for the white man’s image. There’s more to this than Boer and British. There’s the native question, one that’s far bigger for all the white men in Africa… I think we’ll make camp by that stream over there. The sun’s almost down. Be across the Limpopo tomorrow and then we can make a fire… It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“What?” asked Henry looking ahead to the river.
“Africa.”
Two miles to the west, a group of Boer commanders had gathered to discuss the fall of Pretoria and to decide the future conduct of the war. Tinus Oosthuizen, slimmed down by months of dry meat and living in the saddle, had seen and watched the two men for half an hour through his binoculars as they dismounted by the stream and began to make camp.
“They look like Boers and ride like Boers on a short stirrup but why aren’t they making a fire to brew the coffee?” he said to Magnus du Plessis. GJ Scheepers, the leader of the Cape rebels, was in the talks with the other generals, and Tinus as a chief scout was in charge of the sentries and responsible for making sure the generals were not caught off guard even though the Northern Transvaal was firmly controlled by the Boers.
“Maybe they don’t like coffee. Maybe they are tired.”
“Funny thing is even at this distance one of them reminds me of an old friend of mine. Just the way he walks.”
>
“A lot of people walk the same way… You think we can resupply ourselves from the British?”
“Hit-and-run. Guerrilla war.”
“The line’s cut to Delagoa Bay. How can we survive? All right for us. Our wives and children are in the Cape where there’s food and protection. What about the women on the farms?”
“The men can go home and rest, check on the places. Provided the natives don’t rise up there won’t be a problem… I want to ride down and check those two men.”
“By the time you get there, it will be dark. If they’re still there in the morning, we’ll have a look. There’s roast sheep on the fire tonight and I haven’t eaten mutton for a very long time.”
“I don’t like animals behaving strangely. In the bush it means danger. And those two men down there should have made a fire by now to keep off wild animals even if they don’t drink coffee.”
“You worry too much, Tinus.”
