by Peter Rimmer
“I love everything about you, Sarie Mostert.”
“If you love so much, maybe all stay Africa and you become big, big writer. What you want, hey? I remember. Everything.”
The British were to be his judge and executioner. The two brigadiers had made no eye contact with Tinus standing in front of his chair looking at his persecutors. The soldiers standing guard at the doors to the room in the Castle looked puny in comparison to the giant of a man mocking the three officers seated at the judgement table. He wore a waistcoat made from the skin of an elephant to remind him of the years of freedom hunting alone in the bush. They had made him take off the leather hat made from the skin of the same bull elephant. It sat alone on the single chair that was all that was left to him in a world once teeming in game. For long seconds before the trial began, the trial that he knew would find him guilty, Tinus stared into the cold, smug eyes of General Gore-Bilham seated between the brigadiers. Both of them were remembering the debagging of the general. Tinus smiled and tipped his head. Had the hat been where it should have been he would have raised it to his judge and executioner.
The lawyer Alison had found began to ingratiate himself to the military court and Tinus sat himself down. Comfortably, he crossed his legs and let his mind wander. He had found many times in his life when there was nothing he could do to save a situation it was best to do nothing and allow the inevitable to take its course. If the new King of England or his representative chose to stay his execution, so be it. He was what he was. Had done what he did.
It was all very efficient and very quick. He was a rebel. He had committed treason. He was to hang by his neck in the morning and there was the end of it. They had all come, his friends, the people who had made up his life, for better or for worse, some happy, some sad, some parts remembered with joy and mostly the bad parts lost with the passage of time. It was the mosaic of his life. Alison would forget the pain in the end. Barend would forget the pain and remember his pride. Tinka would marry and have her own children and tell them the story of their grandfather. Christo would never know his father and live his life with an empty hole that would always echo in his mind.
They had brought Sebastian on a stretcher and the two had silently shaken hands before all the words began to spill. Neither could speak so the silence had been better for both of them. The young lad he had shown the bush would recover and live to go home to where they had all been happy. The animals would still be there. The fish eagles would still call from the sides of the river. The rain would come. Crops, new crops, would grow. Life would be the same without him. He was mostly significant to himself; he the centre of the universe.
Captain Doyle had come, the first man to buy his ivory, the man who had given him the money to buy Kleinfontein that was forfeit to the Crown.
The old, bumbling aristocrat, Sir Henry Manderville had come and tried his best. The kids had been right. Potty. Pleasantly potty. But in all of it, he suspected the flush toilet still worked on Elephant Walk. He smiled at the memory.
And silently, throughout the court, the Afrikaners had come, the Boers who had stayed in the Cape, the wives of the Boers who were still fighting with Smuts and de Wet. And when he turned right at the end and waved at them, many were crying.
They let him see his wife as was his due; they gave him a good meal as was his due. But in the morning at the first light of the new day, they dropped the trapdoor from beneath his feet and hanged him by the neck.
Outside the main gate of the Castle, where Sebastian had stayed all night, they heard the bell of death toll three times.
“I think it is time for all of us to go home to Rhodesia,” said Sebastian. Inside the hired coach, they had covered him in blankets to keep out the Cape winter. Only the wound in his shoulder ached. There had been no rain all night. Harry, who had not been at the trial, had stayed with his father. The rules had been made by Tinus. None of the children at the trial. No one to see him die.
“Will Aunty Alison come back?” asked Harry.
“Not now. They will in the end. We are their only family. There’s no one else.”
“Will they have any money?”
“Yes, Captain Doyle has decided to sell African Shipping to Jeremiah Shank. Half our share will go to Alison. He’s coming to visit Elephant Walk. Even stay. Strange thing of it all, he’s taken my father’s death badly. When men make friends, it’s a strange thing. I hope you’ll be lucky yourself, Harry. Now, help this cripple to sit up a little and you can drive us home. But first, take the nosebags from the horses. There’s nothing more any of us can do for Tinus except keep his memory tight in our minds. This will not go down as one of the great days of the British Empire. I hope, son, you never have to fight a war. Oh, and your grandmother is coming with us. She always hated Hastings Court.”
“You haven’t cried.”
“Oh, I will, Harry. I will. I am just too annoyed with my own people to cry just now. He was my friend. Yes, he was my friend. Silly, isn’t it, how the tribes of Africa always want to fight with each other, even the white tribes.”
“But they will stop fighting when Africa’s civilised.”
“What’s civilised? You think what we British have just done to a brave man is civilised? I don’t think so. I’ll give you an article to read written by Billy Clifford. He says war is part of our nature. That it will never stop. Sadly, I rather think he is right… Drive first to the hospital where I am going to discharge myself. Then to your grandmother’s hotel. There’s nothing more for me to do in this war. My friend’s dead, Harry. My friend’s dead! The bloody bastards hanged him! Not even a firing squad. It’s a horrible world. I wanted your mother, Harry. And they even tried to take her away from me those long years ago.”
Harry Brigandshaw got out of the coach to attend to the horses. Never once before in his life had he seen his father cry.
3
September 1901
The Boer ponies were in good condition for the first time in more than a year. Good spring rains had turned the highveld a lush green. Kei, sitting on a high rock in the middle of an open, green plain, gently stroked Blackdog’s head. The bitch lying in the long grass at the foot of the rock was pregnant again and would soon have to be carried on his saddle. Piers had made him drown the last litter and both of them had been sad for days as the pups had not even opened their eyes. The four dogs and the bitch were panting, their tongues hanging out as far as they would go, dripping with sweat. There was no shade for miles around. Ahead, the remnants of Tinus Oosthuizen’s commando moved slowly through the new grass. Even to Kei, it looked as if they had no known place to go or come from.
Kei was the scout left on the high rock to warn of danger and give the Boers time to gallop from the British. He had an off-white shirt in his saddlebag that he would put on at the first sign of danger. It was Piers’s job to turn in his saddle regularly and look for the white shirt.
The hobbled horse grazing the new grass near the bald rock was a Basuto pony with rope for reins, a blanket for a saddle and no stirrups. Twice a British patrol had caught up to Kei on his various vantage points as the war simmered and flared across the veld. As expected of him he looked dumb when approached by the soldiers. He was a black man who had strayed into a white man’s war and each time they left him alone.
Blackdog was the first to pick up the lone horseman riding hard towards the Boer commando and Kei focused his stolen British Army binoculars on the rider. The man was dressed in rags like the rest of them. His beard was thick and black and even at three miles’ distance, Kei was sure the man was a Boer. As the sun began to make its drop over the horizon, Kei watched the lone rider close with the commando. As the sun tinged the clouds pink, Kei slipped down from his rock followed by Blackdog. Untying the hobble, Kei mounted his pony and with the dogs running behind, galloped for the horse before they were lost in the dark. They had not lit a fire for a year.
When he reached Piers talking to Karel, his pony was foaming at the mouth a
nd he gave the animal a pint of his own drinking water. The dogs would have to wait until they found a stream. Most of the men left him alone. Only Karel and Piers talked to him and sometimes Magnus du Plessis the new commander, but that was when he wanted to give Kei an order. If he could have thought of something better to do with his life, he would have gone off with the dogs. He kept with the commando more from the force of habit. Majuba farm didn’t exist. The gold of Lobengula didn’t exist.
Piers put a billycan of water down for the panting dogs that Blackdog drank after a brief snapping argument. The three dogs and the bitch sat back on their haunches and watched with resignation. Piers sat down next to the dogs and looked at Kei in the torchlight.
“The British have hanged General Oosthuizen,” he said in Afrikaans. “General du Plessis and the rest of us want our revenge. There is a dorp ahead with a British garrison. We want you to go into the dorp tomorrow. We will reach a stream in an hour. The land here belongs to Shalk Pretorious. Even without the moon, we will find the water. The dogs will be all right. Will you scout the dorp for us, Kei? The day after tomorrow we want to attack before first light so we must know where to look for them.”
“Why did they hang the general? He was a prisoner.”
“You see, if the British conquer this land they will murder us at will. Boer or black man.”
Three weeks after Magnus du Plessis swore on the Bible his oath of revenge, the first report came into army intelligence at the Castle. The dorp next to Shalk Pretorious’s farm had been annihilated.
The small garrison of twelve men had been forgotten, and no instruction given to the sergeant to report his condition and that of his men. Everyone in the dorp knew Shalk Pretorious and all of them were frightened of retribution. Twenty days after Kei had scouted the exact location of each British soldier and the Boer attack had gone ahead, a British patrol called in on its way to relieve a blockhouse in the chain set down by Kitchener to flush out the last of the Boers, the Bittereinders, who refused to lay down their arms. The townsfolk had left the bodies where their throats had been cut and the sergeant where Magnus du Plessis had shot him in the middle of the small square. In fear of their lives, everyone except the blacks had evacuated the village and left it to the scavengers. The sergeant’s bones had been picked clean by the vultures and crows. The blacks gave the British soldiers blank looks and were unable to speak any language the British lieutenant could understand. When he reached Kitchener’s fence and blockhouse, he handed a full report to the retiring lieutenant who was taking his men to Cape Town on leave.
The bodies of two British patrols were next reported. A blockhouse in the long line of blockhouses across the highveld was attacked and everyone killed. The pattern coming into James Brigandshaw’s command centre was exactly the same… No one had seen anything… Every one of the British had been killed.
“Are you thinking the same thing, James?” asked Colonel Hickman.
“Exactly the same. This is revenge. An eye for an eye. Most likely General Oosthuizen’s commando with someone else in charge. Throughout the entire war, there have been wounded after a skirmish. Every one of these soldiers has either died in a firefight, had his throat cut, or been executed. The Boers don’t seem to care anymore. They are killing British soldiers right under our nose. It’s almost as if they want to get themselves killed.”
“No man wants to die.”
“They do if they feel sufficiently guilty. Tinus Oosthuizen only went to war long after we marched into Pretoria. The pressure must have been enormous. Every farmer in Franschhoek is a Cape Boer. Someone pushed him. It must have been terrible. His mother a Scot, the mother of his children English. The man had even given up hunting for ivory as he didn’t want to kill the animals. Our esteemed General Gore-Bilham in his private hate has killed over one hundred British soldiers. Unless we do something swiftly, there are going to be a lot more dead. Hate, guilt and no way out make a powder keg. This is a private war. We must kill or capture this Boer commando. I’ll plot each of the attacks and see if there is a pattern. They must have a lair.”
Magnus du Plessis prayed to his God on his knees. Every British death was part of his holy war. Hatred and righteousness mixed in his mind to create a fanatic. The obsession to kill British soldiers seethed in his belly and every time he prayed he finished screaming at the heavens.
“I will revenge you, Tinus,” he shouted. “I will send you a great host of dead Englishmen. You will see!”
Karel watched the man whose mind had snapped soon after the lone rider brought the news. He looked at Piers and Piers looked away. Both of them were sick to their stomachs of the executions. Kei had stopped talking to anyone and watched the new general screaming on his knees with a mix of fear and, Karel thought, even understanding. Of course, they were all going to be killed now as every British unit would be looking for the scourge that took no prisoners.
Karel unwillingly played through his mind the first attack and the sergeant, unarmed and with his hands up, walking across the small dusty square with a timid smile on his face.
“I surrender,” the sergeant said in English and then, just to make sure, he repeated the words in Afrikaans.
“So did my friend,” the new general had said quietly in English so again there was no mistake. “You people murdered my friend,” he then screamed at the top of his voice and shot the sergeant through the right eye. Three more times the commando watched Magnus du Plessis shoot the dead sergeant on the ground, finally kicking the body.
“How do people hate so much?” Karel said loudly.
“I’m just tired,” said Piers. “We can’t win but we go on. I want to find a quiet spot away from war and people and find out in my heart if there really is a God. At the moment I am not so sure when I look at Magnus du Plessis.”
“He made Uncle Tinus go out for the Boers. I think he has found out it was wrong to force another man to go to war. He wants to wallow in the misery. Drown himself in the blood of his enemy. He can’t even see that God forsook him the moment he shot the sergeant in the square. I rather hope for Magnus du Plessis there isn’t a heaven or a hell. That God does not exist. My brother, it is time for you and me to ride away. There is evil over there. We will all go tonight with the dogs. Enough good men have died for no good purpose. Soon, the war will be over. We’ll each find a wife and have big families and forget what we have done these last few weeks. Uncle Tinus would not have wished this to happen. Revenge and retribution have to stop.”
“It never will,” said Kei who had been standing behind them for the past few minutes. “But it is good we go from here. Maybe the farm has not been totally destroyed. The land will have been fallow for two seasons. The crops will grow.”
“The British won’t let us go home,” said Piers.
“Then we will go north,” said Karel. “Stay deep in the bush until this war comes to an end. I don’t want to kill anymore. Our new general is mad.”
For Magnus du Plessis everything had gone. His friend, murdered. His people scattered in the wilderness. His farm in Franschhoek forfeit if he returned. His family alone. And now they were deserting him. The blood of Tinus Oosthuizen had deserted him and soon, even the power of revenge would be lost to him.
“God,” he called in his agony, “why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken your chosen people? We left the land of Europe to follow your word in purity, the purity given to us by John Calvin. In the wilderness, generation following generation, we followed the purity of your word. Why have you forsaken us to the British? Why do they want our wilderness where we pray to you and live by your book? Why did you let them come here? We, dear God, are your chosen people. What have we done for you to forsake us? Oh God, can you hear me? If you do not help us, we will perish. God, they killed my friend. I made him come to war. I made him, God. Made him leave his family. God, I killed my friend, and you have forsaken me. There was the word and now there is nothing. Without you there is nothing. No meaning. No befor
e or after. Everything that is life has no meaning. We are as the cattle. Animals. To eat and to be eaten. There is no soul without you and you have forsaken me. Why did you give me life to forsake me? If you be there God, up there, the God my heart so aches for, strike down a bolt of lightning. Kill me and I will be happy. Kill my mortal life and bring me to you, God. Please bring me. If there is a God in heaven strike out my misery. Everything has gone but you God. Prove to me you exist. Strike me down. Dear God, I want to die.”
He stood on the rock, his arms to heaven, waiting. Behind, the few Bittereinders watched and heard his agony. And nothing happened. The blue heaven stayed its perfect blue, dotted with perfect clouds. No sound of thunder. No rent in the sky. Nothing.
Most of the men, dressed in rags and hungry, turned away in embarrassment; some even hoped the sky would rend asunder and take them all. They knew the war was finished, like themselves. They had fought and lost. It was the will of God and God punished his people for their sins and the sins of their fathers.
“Khaki!” The shout rang in the clear highveld air. “Up-saddle!”
And from his small mountain, Magnus du Plessis came down from trying to talk to God and ran for his pony. Even without Kei and his white shirt, they outrode the British, the power of self-preservation as strong as their belief in God. There were twenty-nine Boers left, galloping through the new grass already up to their knees.
“We will fight another day,” shouted Magnus du Plessis who had taken the lead. He had forgotten the lack of God’s thunderbolt.
The British patrol watched the Boer dust disappear ahead into the hills. Within half an hour the position of the Boer remnant had been reported by wire to James Brigandshaw in the Castle at Cape Town.
