A Far Off Place

by Laurens Van Der Post

  With that they were silent. François heard them walking quickly on to climb the steps on to the stoep outside the kitchen, he felt the vibrations of their tread on the broad boards in the kitchen floor and the sound of feet at the end of the apparently open pantry door, going straight into the dining-room, the door of which must have been left wide open too, or he would have heard the great lock being turned.

  If ever François was to get properly into the pantry and above all the shelter of those cupboards, the moment was as good as it was ever going to be, for the attention of the people inside would be entirely concentrated on the French officer, and the report he brought.

  Once more, François pulled the door just wide enough for him to crawl through. Although the glow from the light of the lamps in the dining-room was strong enough to gleam on the broken glass and the layers of jam on the floor in the corner, the shadows there under that dark, thick wall were solid enough, he was certain, not to show him up in the dim light.

  It was one of the fastest crawls he had ever done, and well that it was so. He was hardly flat on his stomach beside the cupboards by the door opposite the dining-room entrance, when the half-open dining-room door swung wide and light fell over the sill. Someone with a heavy tread went quickly by and entered the kitchen, where he started giving orders in English, but with an African accent, to men who must be acting as cooks and kitchen hands.

  At the same time a lively conversation, or perhaps cross-examination would be a better word, started up in the dining-room. With his enemies divided between the far end of the kitchen and dining-room, François thought he could risk crawling out into the entrance of the hall to try to hear, and best of all see, what was happening beyond. Knowing his home so well and having done things in his childhood not unlike what he was attempting now, he could tell to a split-second and a millimetre how long and how far he could go without being caught, particularly now that his senses and reflexes were at their most intense under the stimulation of his peril.

  He wriggled round the cupboards, and half-way out of the pantry door stopped where he was certain he could withdraw instantly into the pantry if necessary, as a tortoise withdraws its head and neck into its shell. At the far end of the table where Ouwa had always sat, was a man with a face which he had seen only twice before but could never forget. It was the Chinese face first seen on the hillock in the valley of the Mist of Death on the way to uLangalibalela, and then again at the back of a truck which he and ’Bamuthi had once hauled out of the mud beyond the ford with their oxen and thereby unwittingly aided the disaster which had overtaken them that day.

  It was extraordinary how, even in his tragic plight and with the horror of such an imposition in Ouwa’s place, François once again remarked how superior that Chinese person, obviously the Scottish officer’s “Chairman”, looked in comparison with the men sitting on either side of the table. Apart from the Scottish and French officers there were eight others, all African. Without exception their uniforms were dirty, they themselves unwashed, unshaven, uncouth and their faces embittered and unhappy. Even the Scot and the Frenchman, standing on either side of the Chinese person’s chair, looked little better. It would have been easier for François, perhaps, had they not in their air of tiredness and tragedy looked more like the monsters their deeds had made them in his imagination. He had to concentrate on their obvious leader to recover an unmixed feeling of purpose. This person, the Chinese, was immaculate in his sky-blue tunic, red star over the breast pocket, and dark hair cut short, neatly parted and brushed. His face, even in that lamplight, looked as if he had just come fresh out of a bath. The whole expression was serene, the eyes steady and untroubled and the general bearing of the man so dignified and impressive as almost to be exalted and Olympian, to an extent that deprived him of human qualification as far as François was concerned.

  Without looking at the two officers beside him, his head merely turning slightly towards whoever was speaking, he was listening to the French officer’s reports, again given in English. Obviously, with so many nationalities and races incorporated into the forces under his command (François could tell that among the African officers alone, there were not two of the same tribe) English served as their Esperanto.

  François had not to listen long to be confirmed in what he had already suspected. The French officer had been in charge of the force sent to attack the coloured families completing the building of Sir James’s dream retreat at Silverton Hill. No one among that gay, light-hearted, colourful group of warm and affectionate human beings, had been allowed to live, for what else could have made the Scottish officer exclaim involuntarily, “You didna’ spare even a bairn among ’em? Ne’er a bairn? You bonnie French gentleman.”

  The French officer for a moment forgot he was reporting to a superior officer. He turned fiercely defensive towards the Scot and spoke with a passion which clearly showed how distasteful he had found the business, “Since seventeen, when I joined the Foreign Legion, it is nearly forty years now that I have made war, year in and year out, nothing but war and more war. I have seen more of war and nothing but war than anyone in this room, it is not? And I assure you, still I look for a way of making war which does not take life. If you can tell me of a way as our chefs would say, of making the omelette of war without breaking the eggs, please be so kind as to tell me of it.”

  “But Guid God, lad,” the Scottish officer replied, unappeased, “surely you need not break all the eggs in the larder to make one miserable omelette.”

  “Ah, but I had my orders you see, mon cher, as you had yours. Did you not break all of your eggs here too today?”

  The point must have gone home for the Scot did not answer for the moment and before he could think of one the Chinese at the head of the table, ignoring the Frenchman’s reply, turned to look at the Scot, as if he had had trouble on this particular score before that day, and said slowly, in a sing-song voice, “Velly funny, Mister Lauder, velly funny. Only we have no time to be funny. We have more serious things to discuss. I told you before: now we take little life so not to take much later on. When real war starts we take proper prisoners. I will not tell you again!”

  There François had to retreat backwards into the shelter of the pantry. The talking in the kitchen suddenly stopped and someone started back towards the dining-room. From his shelter, convinced that flat on the floor with blackened face and in the shadows, no one would have mind or other incentive to look and discover him, he dared to peer round the corner of the cupboard out of a hunch that perhaps the most important part of what the night could tell him was still to come. Already the conversation in the dining-room had fulfilled the main part of his mission, and he could no longer doubt that in addition to the massacre at Silverton Hill, there were no survivors left from among his own people at Hunter’s Drift. All of course had been foreseen and foresuffered in the course of the day behind him, so that the final confirmation did not really add to the emotional consequence of the tragedy except to swell his resolution to do what he could to hurt the people responsible and, as a preliminary to hurting, find out all he could about their plans.

  In that state, he saw the silhouette of a man pass through the hall into the dining-room, making no effort to shut the door behind him, and walk up to the head of the table, where he placed a large tray laden with wine, bread, butter, cheese, jam and pink slices of biltong. That done, he stepped back to stand still somewhere out of sight in the shadows against the wall while the Chinese, a map wide open in front of him, started to explain in his slow, fastidious sing-song manner what his plan was.

  He took his time, so much so indeed that François feared at one moment that he might have to leave before the end, in case the darkness ran out on him for his journey back to the cave. As he listened, he was more and more horrified at the subtlety, cunning and breadth of the scheme. His horror was made more terrible with disgust when he heard that apparently among the people planning the operation was a kinsman of ’Bamuthi from Osebeni, c
hosen because he knew the way of life and nature of farming at Hunter’s Drift. François remembered meeting the man who had stayed with ’Bamuthi often when he was young and helped at the farm. Even Ouwa had praised the man as living proof of the great natural intelligence of African people, because even with the little schooling he received as a boy, and a little coaching too, from Ouwa, he had proved himself so gifted that the people at Osebeni, as well as Lammie and Ouwa had combined to send him to one of the rare schools and colleges for Africans in the country. There he had lived fully up to his promise and become a teacher himself. He returned as such, on annual vacation, to Osebeni, and would visit his people at Hunter’s Drift as well. Gradually the visits became less frequent and then finally ceased. The man even stopped writing in the end and all that was known of him came from hearsay and rumour, of which the last and most sustained was that he had become an influential political leader and as such had been forced ultimately to leave the country.

  His name cropped up early on when the Chinese explained that it was his plan to rest his forces for a week at Hunter’s Drift and Silverton Hill. They had come long and far and here they had a wonderful opportunity not only to rest undiscovered but had enough food and supplies to restore their energies.

  At that point the Scottish officer, Mr Lauder, as François now took his name to be, unabashed as ever, interjected, not without some sarcasm: “And perhaps the august chairman will condescend to tell us what the people on the railway and the great mining city are going to do when the supplies which they have been receiving without a break every day for so many years from here, have not turned up? Surely our illustrious chairman will have spared one of his great thoughts for such an eventuality?”

  “Always, Mister Lauder, you so funny,” the Chinese replied, apparently unperturbed. “But that precisely is what your chairman has done.”

  François amazed heard then the first mention of ’Bamuthi’s kinsman. With this man in charge, the cows that had been gathered in the kraal, would be properly milked at first light. Men expert at milking had already been detailed for the purpose, others would be set to work in the gardens which fortunately had only been partially damaged, to gather vegetables and fruit. The cattle would be sent out to graze under men dressed more or less like Matabele herdsmen. The irrigation furrows would be filled with water again and all day long it would look from a distance as if Hunter’s Drift were its full productive self. In the evening, ’Bamuthi’s kinsman himself would take milk and fresh supplies, double the normal quantity, to the railway siding with many apologies and plausible explanations of why there had been an interruption.

  Meanwhile the reinforcements and supplies coming down the trail behind them from the north and west could be assembled in the bush all round Hunter’s Drift. When they were complete the great army would resume their advance undetected and achieve the military perfection of surprise. One small column would go due east, surround and capture the main camp in Mopani’s reserve to cut the only telephone line to the world beyond. The main body would first overwhelm Hunter’s Drift Siding and then push on straight for the mining city, surround it at night, attack at dawn and capture it, not quite as they had destroyed these two small outposts so successfully that day, for the Chairman added: “Then and only then, Mister Lauder, you can take all prisoners you want.”

  It was the first attempt at a lighter tone that evening, but still the critical Scottish voice wanted to know what was going to happen if any trader making his way north by truck, or any visitors (since they knew from the intelligence they had collected over the years that Hunter’s Drift was a place much favoured by visitors), came closer and saw what a sham it all was. What were they going to do then?

  The answer, delivered in that maddeningly meticulous Chinese way again was that, of course, first thing in the morning a patrol would be sent out all the way down Hunter’s Drift Road to prevent just that as well as to leave some scouts behind to keep the main camp in Mopani’s reserve under observation. Another patrol would do the same on the road running towards the railway siding and then of course the search for that boy would be widened and speeded up, because until he was found he was the greatest danger of the news leaking out to the world beyond.

  “And when we find the laddie, as nae doot we shall,” the Scot interrupted, “ye will not be thinking of taking his life as well, now, will ye? He surely is the one prisoner we can afford to keep.”

  “No, Mister Lauder, no,” the Chairman, staring in front of him across the table, answered in that monotonous, unemotional sing-song voice. “No. He is one life we must take. If we do not take now then one day he tell what happen today, and only what we say happen must be told to world.”

  There followed a long silence in which François heard plainly the wine gurgling out of a bottle as glasses were being refilled, and then a series of questions were asked from all sides of the table, which François did not wait to hear. He knew all that was important to know, far more than he had ever dreamt of hearing. There was only one thing to be done, to get away as fast as he could.

  So he glided backwards into the pantry, turned about, wriggled quickly to the cellar door, through it and once his hand touched the steps he came quietly to his feet, pushed the door to exactly as it had been when he had first found it, made his way to the bottom and put on his shoes. To his amazement, his hands and fingers trembled so violently, he did not know whether with fear, horror or anger, but probably with a volcanic compound of all three, that he could hardly fasten the laces properly. He took up his rifle and was about to make for the half-door into the garden when a thought, greater even than any of the other turbulent emotions within him, struck him and made him stand still, aghast. He had to stop those people from using Hunter’s Drift as a camouflage for the terrible plan the Chinese had unfolded in the dining-room. Even more than the thought, what took away his breath was that he seemed to know at once exactly what to do to stop them.

  There were two ways. First he could set his home on fire. “Home?” From the moment he had seen the Chinese officer in Ouwa’s place at the head of the table, all that home meant to him had died a sudden death. He had no emotion left to impede his thought of destroying it.

  Among the straw and packing cases which were piled in the cellar he could start such a fire as the men above would find difficult to put out. But there was just a chance that the smoke and flame might give him away before he had escaped, and that did not make the plan as appealing as another. This was more desperate and dangerous but also more effective.

  In the far corner by the great double door was a huge, old wagon chest of ironwood. This chest was always full of dynamite and the fuses used for the blasting they had to do from time to time to make new irrigation furrows through the rock as well as to quarry the gravel for their roads. The dynamite was kept in the cellar because it was the coolest and driest place with the smallest variations of temperature on the farm. François knew even as a child, for it had been impressed on him so often, that if dynamite were not kept in such conditions it could become highly unstable and dangerous. It was weeks since he had last looked into that box and found it full. No blasting had been done since and he safely assumed it would still be full.

  The one trouble about this plan was that the box was extremely well made, of the hardest wood in Africa and, because of its contents, always locked. The lock was by far the most complicated and strongest of the few locks in the house. For Hunter’s Drift itself was never locked, even in his parents’ absence. As Ouwa had always been so fond of saying, “Life in the bush is far safer and more honest than in any city in Africa.” In all the years they had been there, not even the over-scrupulous Ousie-Johanna had suspicions of anything important being stolen, unless it was from her supplies of dried and preserved fruit. The greathearted old lady of the kitchen, the Princess of the Pots, always kept that kind of suspicion to herself for the tenderest of reasons.

  Before deciding on a plan, he had to see whether he could
get at the dynamite. If he failed, it would have to be a fire. Whatever the risks to himself, he was not going to leave the house to evil men for an evil use. (It was remarkable how quickly they lost their qualifications for humanity when he no longer had his eyes upon them.) That decided, he struck a match and picked out a way clear of obstacles. When the match died between his hands, he waited just an instant for the effect of the flare on his vision to weaken before going carefully on hands and knees in the direction in which he had aligned his body. Thank God, he managed to do so without a clatter. Far sooner than he expected, his left hand fastened on the chest.

  Quickly he felt the lock, and, indeed, it was firmly shut. He had to light another match while he tried to insert the blade of his hunting knife into one of the screws which kept the hasp in place. For a moment he thought the screw was not going to budge. He was near despair when at last the screw gave and allowed itself to be turned. Then, as fast as he could, he extracted one screw after another until both hasp and lock fell into the palm of his outstretched hand.

  He opened the chest and hastily extracted a carton full of dynamite sticks, found the instantaneous detonating fuse—he had so often participated in this kind of work that the preparation presented no problem—wrapped it round the dynamite and then joined it securely to the end of a roll of ordinary blasting fuse, duly capped. He reinserted the roll into its place in the chest and crawled backwards, unwinding the roll as he moved to the half-door giving on to the garden. To his immense relief, the fuse stretched three-quarters of the way so that from the time he lit it to the moment when it would ignite its detonating counterpart, to set off the charge of dynamite in the chest, he would have at the least ten minutes to a quarter of an hour for his get-away.