by Peter Watt
‘Decided to go an’ get some help for the boss,’ Berry said.
That evening Patrick sat beside a small campfire and carefully wrote a brief account of Private Rosenblum’s courageous ride to save him. It was not a report that he would tell Saul about until approval had been given on his recommendation. When that time came he would have great pleasure informing Saul Rosenblum of his promotion to corporal – and that he had also been recommended for the highest award the Queen could bestow on a soldier: the Victoria Cross.
SIXTEEN
The lone girl riding out from Bloemfontein did not attract much attention from the mounted patrols of English and colonial troopers. On the few occasions the slim young woman dressed as a Boer farmer was stopped and questioned, her explanation that she was attempting to reach her father’s farm south of Pretoria seemed reasonable. Although they may have had suspicions she might be a Boer sympathiser, carrying information to the free-ranging commandos, they had no proof after searching her saddle bags. Nor was she armed with any weapon that could be considered a military firearm. Her only defence was a black powder, double-barrelled rifle of the type once popular with the elephant hunters of Africa. The large calibre weapon would provide a natural defence against any wild animals that might threaten her life alone on the veldt.
Fortunately for Karen Isaacs, the men of the English patrols, as rough and tough as they were, respected the sanctity of womanhood. For had they carried out a body search they would have discovered the soft leather belt under her shirt which contained a small fortune in diamonds destined for the port of Lourenco Marques in Portuguese East Africa.
Her gamble had paid off so far and as Karen rode north she expected to encounter patrols from Pretoria where the Boer government still held on. They would provide her with an escort to the capital where her father would ensure that the diamonds were transferred east to the neutral port. From there, the precious cargo would be smuggled out to an imperial German navy ship in exchange for badly needed war supplies to bolster the beleaguered Boer forces in the field.
Despite Germany’s fierce opposition to the English invasion of the Boer Republics, all that the Kaiser in Germany could do was give his Dutch brothers moral and materiel support in their war. He knew his own imperial navy was no match for the power of the British dreadnoughts that still ruled the oceans of the world. But the Kaiser was attempting to rectify the imbalance of naval power and his industries were already producing the strategic chess piece in global politics to challenge Britain’s powerful navy. German shipyards were busy producing their own dreadnoughts.
But as Karen rode across the rolling plains of long grass she felt uneasy. She could not understand her anxiety. She knew she was riding towards the people with whom she belonged. Was it that she had learned to live a life of lies in her own war against the English invaders, lying even to the man she had grown to love when between lovers there should be no lies? Yet from the moment she met the tall young Queensland trooper she had spoken untruths. The Afrikaner who had threatened her in the street the day the English army had marched triumphantly into Bloemfontein had not accused her of treachery. His threats were based on his suspicion that she might have in her possession the diamonds rumoured for the Boer cause, a suspicion fuelled by the knowledge that she was the daughter of a well-known diamond merchant. Piet Bronkhurst feigned loyalty to the British, while it was assumed amongst the Boer commandos he was still loyal to their cause. But Piet knew only one loyalty and that was to his desire for personal wealth.
His hatred of Jews was well known in the district and he knew that Karen Isaacs was capable of extreme cunning. Piet Bronkhurst was proved right when the young woman had befriended the Australian trooper. His frequent visits to the house she shared with the Englishwoman had made it difficult to question her again as the occupying British swarmed all over the town and she was rarely alone.
Bronkhurst was no stranger to fighting the British. He had fought in the short war of 1881 when the Boers had routed the British forces on Majuba Hill and later had fought a small and personal battle with the Irishman, Michael Duffy, who had escaped after killing Bronkhurst’s eldest son in a night skirmish thirteen years earlier. Bronkhurst had since learned that his personally sworn enemy had been brought wounded to Bloemfontein and then taken passage for Sydney in the British Colony of New South Wales. But now he sat astride his horse in the company of an English patrol that he had subtly recruited for the mission that he was about to undertake. The three English troopers and the Afrikaner watched the lone rider below them on the veldt from the rise of a small, grass-covered hill.
‘That ’er?’ the English sergeant growled as he handed the binoculars to the big Afrikaner beside him.
‘Ja. Das is her,’ he affirmed with a grunt. ‘We will wait until she laagers tonight.’
The sergeant peered across the distance of swaying grasses between his patrol and the lone rider. ‘You’d better be right, Bronkhurst,’ he growled. ‘About the diamonds. My neck could get stretched for ’elping you. If yer wrong, I promise you you won’t be comin’ back with us.’
The Afrikaner ignored the threat and spat on the ground. ‘We both have a lot to lose, sergeant, if I am wrong. My people would shoot me if they knew what I do.’
The English sergeant licked his lips. He had been drunk in one of the town’s hotels when the big Afrikaner befriended him. Bronkhurst was an astute judge of character and had measured the rowdy English soldier as a vicious and greedy man. His perceptiveness had paid off and Bronkhurst had been able to convince the man that, should he provide him with an excuse to ride out on a patrol, he would be rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. The sergeant had gained permission from his company commander to take the Afrikaner as a guide to reconnoitre a farmhouse that Bronkhurst had informed him was supplying sustenance to the commandos.
At first the company commander, an experienced soldier, had planned to send a larger patrol, but the sergeant had convinced him that the information was not much more than speculation and that he could reconnoitre with a minimum of men. If the information was valid, then the intelligence could be relayed back to Bloemfontein on the heliograph system with the other patrols in the area.
Hard riding had brought them on the trail of Karen within two days of her leaving Bloemfontein. Bronkhurst did not see himself as a renegade to the Boer cause. He had given much for his Afrikaner brothers and sisters. Now it was time to retire on a well-earned pension. For the English sergeant the possibility of a small fortune spelt women and wine in unlimited abundance.
Karen did not stop riding until the dark was almost upon her. She prepared her camp carefully. She had collected a supply of precious kindling for a small fire and while she waited for some water to boil for coffee, she chewed some biltong, savouring the juices of the dry, leathery strips of meat in her mouth. A loaf of campfire-baked bread followed the biltong and the coffee washed it all down.
By the glow of the fire she spread her blankets out, the big hunting rifle always within reach, while her hobbled horse grazed on the wild grasses of the plain a short distance away. Weary from the long day in the saddle, Karen lay back and gazed up at the myriad stars of the African night, seeking out the cruciform constellation of the Southern Cross. Her thoughts turned to Saul and she sighed as she remembered their time together in the big double bed at Mrs Ramsay’s house in Bloemfontein. Even if she had set out to use him as an unwitting protector, it had not ended that way. The mission to safeguard the diamonds stolen from the Rhodes mines was critical to the war effort. Her own remaining brother’s life was at stake, should the badly needed supplies not get through. So too were the lives of other women’s husbands, brothers and sons riding with the commandos.
At times she had fought her guilt that she was sleeping with one of the enemy by justifying her actions as a sacrifice for the mission. Then something inexplicable had occurred; she had fallen deeply in love with Saul Rosenblum. Her passionate talk of travelling to Palestine to settl
e had indeed been the truth and Karen instinctively had included Saul in her plans. She smiled as she imagined herself, her father, brother and Saul walking the land that Moses had promised as the place of their destiny. Saul was strong and his skills, both as a farmer and a soldier, would be invaluable to the settlers of the Promised Land. Oh, but that he could only believe more in his heritage than he did, she thought wistfully. If only he could see with her eyes that their destiny was to return after two thousand years of persecution.
But Saul had the irreverent nature of his countrymen, who she had so often heard cursing God as they faced death in the fever-ridden hospital wards in Bloemfontein. Even the Christian pastors attempting to minister to the tough Australians had been shocked into mumbled requests to God to forgive the dying and unrepentant men as they stumbled away to the bedsides of their more pious British countrymen. The Australians had lived lives devoid of all help except that given by their mates in the lonely and desolate places of the harsh land they came from. Prayers had not been answered in times of drought and flood. Nor had the Almighty shown mercy on the dying stockman who lay with a broken leg with no hope of survival in some godforsaken part of the Outback. Death came slowly and painfully for him, his bloated or desiccated body to be found much later by a boundary rider or perhaps a mate who went in search of an overdue friend.
Saul was such a man. He did not see God’s hand in the nature of life and death and believed only in the moment and the strength of his own abilities. Karen smiled as she remembered his lovemaking, at first clumsy but then more caring as he grew to understand her needs. She had known only one other lover in her life, a handsome Dutch boy she had grown up with in Holland and met again in Pretoria last year. He had been clumsy too but, unlike Saul, he had remained clumsy and uncaring for her feelings. She had left him and he was later killed, back in the early days of the war. Saul was not as handsome as her Dutch lover had been but he was, strangely, the most desirable man in the world to her now. His dark eyes were filled with laughter and his face always had a wry smile when she tried to be serious. He was a paradox; a combination of tough soldier and gentle man.
And when the terrible dreams of death came to him in the nights they were together, Karen would hold a little boy against her breasts as he gasped for air, fighting the scream and crash of imagined shells around him. She would hold him and rock him with soothing words and pray that the terrible war would end so they could find a life together away from Africa. Oh, how she missed having his arms around her now. To feel his strength protect her when she needed that security.
She was vaguely aware of the tears on her cheeks as her eyes finally focused on the Southern Cross. It belonged to Saul and perhaps somewhere he too was gazing up at the constellation that marked the Southern Hemisphere.
Suddenly, Karen’s horse stopped grazing and snorted as he lifted his head to stare into the night. Her instincts well honed, Karen immediately reached for the gun beside her, all thoughts of Saul set aside. She knew from her experience on the veldt that her horse had sensed something unusual in the night. It may be nothing more than a harmless wild animal roaming the plains. But it could be something more dangerous.
Cautiously she sat up and brought the heavy rifle to her lap. It was loaded and capable of bringing down the largest of African animals. As she heard the soft swish of horses’ legs brushing the long grass as they approached, she stood, peering into the night.
‘Hey, missus,’ an English voice called reassuringly from the dark. ‘Don’t be worried. We’re just a British patrol comin’ in.’
Karen was not reassured. Her pretence of English sympathy was based on a lie and they were still the enemy. She forced herself to appear relaxed while keeping her finger on the triggers of the lowered hunting gun.
Three men appeared out of the shadows and into the light of her campfire, the sergeant and his two troopers smiling as they dismounted.
‘Saw your fire and decided to have a look,’ the sergeant said. ‘Didn’t expect to meet a woman out ’ere, though.’
Something was wrong, Karen sensed, and then it dawned on her. They were speaking in English as if they knew she could understand their language. Any woman out here would normally be assumed to speak Afrikaans.
Karen raised the hunting gun again, and when she saw Bronkhurst materialise behind the three English soldiers her suspicion turned to extreme fear. The expression on his face spoke as clearly as if he had said he was going to kill her. But the smile on the face of the English sergeant disappeared when the gun exploded with a blast. She had tried to swing on Bronkhurst but had fired prematurely. Both barrels discharged their heavy lead slugs almost simultaneously and the two soldiers standing beside their sergeant cried out as the bullets slammed into them, flinging them to the earth.
Instinctively the sergeant and Bronkhurst flung themselves to the ground. Realising that the slight young woman had to reload the cumbersome gun before she could do any more damage the sergeant reacted quickly. He sprang like a leopard and tackled her, knocking the big gun from her grip.
‘You bloody bitch,’ he screamed as he smashed his fist into her face. ‘Try an’ kill me, would ya?’
His rage was heightened by how close he had been to the heavy slugs that ripped into the troopers. One of the soldiers had died instantly but the other had taken the bullet in his stomach, and was groaning in agony. Bronkhurst snatched up the dead soldier’s carbine and expertly flipped off the safety catch. The sergeant straddling the stunned woman immediately snatched up his own rifle and swung on the Afrikaner.
‘Drop it,’ he menaced. ‘Drop it now or I’ll kill ya as you stand.’
‘I was going to kill the wounded man, Sergeant,’ Bronkhurst replied calmly. ‘Not goot he die like this.’
The sergeant’s feverish expression took on a cunning look. ‘Do it, Dutchman,’ he said quietly. ‘Then drop the rifle.’
Bronkhurst fired a shot into the badly wounded soldier’s head, killing him instantly. He released the rifle knowing full well that he would not have a chance of reloading before the English sergeant shot him. ‘We blame the Jewess for killing your man, Sergeant,’ he said as the rifle lay on the ground beside him.
Karen could taste blood in her mouth and felt that the blow from the soldier’s big fist had smashed some of her teeth. Her head throbbed with pain as the raw nerve ends of where her teeth had been felt the cool night air.
‘You look through her saddlebags,’ the sergeant commanded. ‘An’ I’ll search this bitch meself.’
The Afrikaner obeyed as the sergeant reached down and ripped open the front of Karen’s shirt revealing her small, firm breasts. The soldier felt his lust rising at the sight.
‘Where you got the diamonds hidden, girlie?’ he asked with a snarl. ‘Got ’em in yer fanny?’ he continued as he rose to his feet and stared down at her with glazed eyes. ‘Maybe I should ’ave a look.’
Karen knew that she was a dead woman. She knew with the certainty of her love for the men she treasured in her life – her father, brothers and Saul – that neither Bronkhurst or the English sergeant would let her live. They would use her – probably torture her when they did not find the diamonds – then kill her. She remembered that the sharp knife she had sliced the biltong with was beside the fire. The sergeant had not seen it. Now, with all the strength she could muster, she rolled sideways to snatch up the knife.
Her hand wrapped around the handle and she hurled herself at the startled English soldier. He tried to step back but stumbled and fell heavily on his back. She was on him and the knife came down in a deadly arc, slicing along the side of his face and severing the lobe of his ear. He screamed as Karen raised the knife to deliver the killing thrust to his chest. But it did not come. She reeled back from the bone-snapping blow of a rifle butt to the side of her head. The knife fell from nerveless fingers as she sprawled on the grass, staring up with open eyes.
Bronkhurst stood holding the barrel of the rifle he had snatched from besi
de the soldier killed moments earlier. The sergeant rose shakily to his feet clutching the side of his face where the blade had carved him open from eye to ear. ‘The bloody bitch is dead,’ he moaned. ‘You killed her, you stupid Dutchman.’
‘Mebbe better she kill you, ya?’ Bronkhurst replied as he crouched beside Karen and expertly ran his hand inside her trousers. ‘She is not carrying the diamonds on her. No diamonds anywhere.’
‘So all this was a bloody waste of time,’ the sergeant snarled as he used a handkerchief to stem the profuse bleeding along the side of his head. ‘There never was any bloody diamonds. All I got is two dead men who I’ve got to explain back in Bloemfontein.’
‘She had diamonds,’ the Afrikaner said quietly as he crouched beside Karen’s body. ‘She was very smart. She has hidden them somewhere we will not find.’
‘Leaves us with burying my men and getting back. And I’m goin’ to need you to come back with me. You can tell how it happened here with the exception of a couple of minor points and that should stop any embarrassing questions. You get what I mean, Bronkhurst?’
‘Ya, I understand, Englisher. Ve vill bury your soldiers. But the Jewess, she can stay here for the animals.’
Bronkhurst dug two shallow graves and the soldiers were buried. When the work was complete the two men mounted their horses and led the other horses, including Karen’s, back towards Bloemfontein. Neither man realised that Bronkhurst had almost found the leather satchel of diamonds as he dug. For Karen Isaacs had prepared her camp very well. She had scraped away some tussocks of grass and buried the bag containing the precious stones a few yards from her campsite. Then she had carefully replaced the tussocks to conceal her hiding place. Bronkhurst had only been mere inches from digging them up. In the morning the scavengers of the veldt would come to tear apart the body of the woman Saul Rosenblum loved.
