Stones for My Father

by Trilby Kent

  “Don’t say anything,” I told Gert. The soldier didn’t appear to have any gun, and the river formed a safe barrier between us: we could still outrun him.

  The black-haired man’s smile faded. “Lions,” he said again, pointing to the ugly gash that ran across the springbok’s belly. Then he stopped, as if realizing who we were, and squinted up into the sun, thinking hard.

  “Leeu,” he said at last. “Lions.”

  My brother fixed me with a terrified look. “Lions, Corlie,” he said. “Ma didn’t say there were lions about —”

  “Sh!”

  The black-haired man gently lowered the animal’s legs to the ground, and then he stood up straight, in full view. He eyed me up and down, wiping his hands on his trousers.

  “I’ve seen you before,” he said, pulling the back of his hand across his brow. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that looked a bit like the kind our men favored, different from the English soldiers’ domed helmets. “You’re the little girl from the farm back Amersfoort way.”

  Gert looked up at me. “What’s he saying, Corlie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The black-haired man knelt by the water and began to wash his hands.

  “Boer kids, are you?”

  Gert nodded at the word Boer, and I thumped him.

  The black-haired man smiled. “You’ve walked a long way,” he said. “What are your names?”

  We stared at him.

  “I’m Corporal Malachi Byrne,” he said. He pointed one finger at himself. “Corporal Byrne.” He pointed at us. “And you?”

  “Gert Roux,” blurted Gertie, understanding the gestures. And, before I could stop him, “en Corlie Roux.”

  “Corlie Roux.” The black-haired man said my name slowly, drawing out the vowels. “Well, pleased to meet you, Corlie Roux. That’s a mighty big coat you’ve got on.” He drew his hands up and down his sides, then pointed at my father’s coat. When I realized what he was saying, I drew it more tightly around my shoulders.

  “Don’t get me wrong — it’s a nice coat,” continued the black-haired man. What had he said his name was? Corporal Byrne. He stroked his mustache with the finger and thumb of one hand, looking thoughtful. “Are you kids hungry? ’Cause there’s no way I’m going to haul this fellow all the way back to camp.” He pointed to the springbok and mimed eating.

  Gert tugged at my side. “The lions will follow him, Corlie. He shouldn’t drag it around like that.”

  Corporal Byrne drew a small knife from his belt and began to cut away at one of the haunches. The flesh was tender and yielding, pink. Suddenly, I was very hungry. “This isn’t so different from the deer we get back home,” he said. Then he stopped, and looked up at me. “On my farm,” he said.

  Farm. I knew that word.

  “Engeland,” I said, to show him that I knew. I said the word as if it made a rotten taste in my mouth, just in case he had any doubt as to what I thought of his country.

  But Corporal Byrne just laughed — a full-throated laugh, with a smile that opened up his whole face — and shook his head.

  “No, not England,” he said. “Alberta. Canada.” He pointed to the badge that I had noticed before. “See this? It’s a maple leaf. A leaf —” He pointed into the treetops, and I nodded. “Canadian Mounted Rifles.” The smile faded as he returned to work. “But you’re right, we’re giving the Tommies a hand out here. King and Country, and all that. Seems a little crazy, now that I think about it. I’ve never even been to England, you know — and here I am, fighting for the English king.”

  We watched him deftly slice a lump of glistening flesh from the animal’s side before withdrawing a handkerchief from his pocket. My brother looked up at me, gauging my reaction. At that moment, we both would have done anything for a taste of juicy buck. After days of heavily salted biltong and dry pot-bread, the thought of fresh meat was almost too much to bear.

  Corporal Byrne wrapped the lump of haunch in the handkerchief and fastened the cloth together with the pin that had attached the badge to his lapel. The badge he slipped into another pocket.

  “I’ll tell them it fell off in the bush,” he grinned. “You kids look hungry. Can you catch?” He mimed tossing the bundle across the river. “Are you ready? You, Gert — will you catch this?”

  Gertie nodded.

  Corporal Byrne slung the wrapped haunch through the air, and my brother lunged for it, cradling it to his chest with a grunt.

  “You’d make a sharp wide receiver, Gert,” smiled the soldier.

  I decided that Pa would have liked Corporal Byrne. Maybe that’s why, as I watched him start to gather the springbok’s legs to haul him off once more, I shouted, “Laat dit vir die leeus!” Leave some for the lions. I knew that they would return to finish off their kill — and if they caught a human scent on it, they’d track Corporal Byrne all the way back to his camp.

  He turned and stared at me. “What’s that, Corlie?”

  I made a growling sound, swiping at the air as if my hand had become a paw. “Leeu,” I said. Then I pointed at the ground.

  Corporal Byrne looked down at the springbok and back up at me. At last, a look of comprehension dawned across his handsome face.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re a clever girl, Corlie.” He contemplated the springbok and withdrew his knife once more. “I guess it’ll be just a couple of chops for supper, then.”

  We watched him butcher a leg before returning the carcass to the bush. “Let’s hope the lions don’t mind my borrowing some.” Then he tipped his hat at us and raised one hand in farewell. “Take care, you two. Be sure to cook that meat good and proper.”

  And then, just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.

  THE ORPHAN

  I told Gert to get rid of the handkerchief and the pin so that Ma wouldn’t know we’d been given the meat by a khaki.

  “We’ll tell her that we found the buck ourselves,” I said. It was clear that my brother was just as impatient as I was to bite into a hot roast. “We can say that we cut it up with the fishhooks. If she hears we spoke to a soldier, she’ll use the sjambok.” And then, just to be sure that he understood, I added, “Otherwise, I’ll tell her that you were the one who gave him our names.”

  “I won’t tell, Corlie — promise.”

  Ma’s mouth dropped open when I presented her with the dark red lump of haunch meat.

  “Where’d you find this?”

  “Lions must have got him, Ma. We left the rest so they wouldn’t follow us.”

  My mother took the flesh in both hands, feeling the fine white hairs on the side that Corporal Byrne hadn’t bothered to skin.

  “We’ll have sosaties tonight,” she said. “There’s still some ginger jam for a sauce … and the last of the peaches …” For the first time in many weeks, I detected the glimmer of a smile on her weather-beaten face.

  I couldn’t remember when last I’d done something to please my mother, but that night she seemed almost happy. She told Gert she was proud of him, and although she did not say as much to me, I felt sure that I had also won some approval. I basked in her good favor all evening.

  After dinner, lying beneath the wagon with Gert curled up against one side of me and Lindiwe cradling me with her body on the other, I wondered if Corporal Byrne had eaten as well as we had. Before taking my first mouthful of tender meat, it occurred to me that perhaps the buck had been poisoned, that Gert and I had fallen prey to a khaki trap. But the springbok had tasted exactly as it should: lighter than kudu or ostrich meat, and slightly sweet. I couldn’t remember ever having feasted on anything so delicious.

  Then, another thought: what if Corporal Byrne told his comrades about us? What if, even now, a group of khakis was scouring the riverbank for traces of the two children sighted casting for fish? Surely Gert wasn’t old enough to be considered a threat; we obviously hadn’t been part of any guerrilla commando. But what if they tracked us back to Ma — what would become of Sipho and Lindiwe?

>   These were the questions that troubled me as I drifted off to sleep, lulled by a lavender breeze and the distant cries of a lone bush baby.

  “Corlie! Corlie, wake up!”

  The blurry shape of my brother’s arrowhead swung to and fro against a pale blue sky. I rubbed my eyes and raised myself onto my elbows, grumpily pushing Gert aside.

  “What is it?” Had Corporal Byrne betrayed us after all? Were the khakis on their way?

  “Sipho has found the laager!”

  He’d sighted it a mile upstream, heading south. Apparently one of the men had recognized him as Bheka’s son and told the others not to shoot.

  When my mother saw Oom Sarel emerging from the bush, she let out a cry that cut through the still morning air like a jackknife.

  “Sarel!” Ma flung both arms around the old man’s leathery neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. I had never seen her look so happy in my life, and suddenly I realized just how frightened she had been.

  “What have you been doing all the way out here, Maria?” His puckered mouth quivered into a smile as he took in the details of our feeble camp. “Surviving on flies and dew, by the looks of it. Get your boy to pack up the wagon, and I’ll take you back to the laager. Minna will be relieved to see you.”

  “Minna?” My mother’s hand shot to her mouth. “She’s with you? And the boys?”

  “They caught wind of a British column near the farm with only minutes to spare. She keeps saying she’d never forgive herself if the devils got to you. Apparently they destroyed everything.” The old man spat at the ground. “Khaki scum.”

  “God be praised — He heard my prayers!” My mother smoothed her hair with trembling hands. “Corlie! Gert! Don’t just stand there like a couple of domkops. Help Lindiwe with the mule, get your brother into the wagon, put out the fire — we’re leaving this place.”

  Oom Sarel showed us the point at which we had diverged from the laager’s course, about two miles from where we had set up camp. “We’ve been keeping near to the river, where it’s sheltered by the forest. We didn’t want to risk pitching up by the open water,” he said. I stole a look at Gert, whose forehead had puckered in thought. I could tell he was thinking about Corporal Byrne.

  There were about twenty people in the laager, living out of four covered wagons garrisoned by a line of ebony trees. It was the largest gathering of Boere that I could remember seeing for many months. When Tant Minna saw us, she gathered Hansie in her arms and covered Gert’s golden head with kisses. Her sons, Danie and Andries, poked their heads from their wagon to eye us warily.

  “We thought you’d been eaten by lions,” said Danie.

  “Or arrested by the khakis,” said Andries.

  As they peered out at us from beneath the canvas, their eyes, ringed with dark circles, were as piercing and defensive as those of a couple of cornered foxes.

  “Well, we weren’t,” I snapped, wishing that they wouldn’t stare so. Only then did I realize how ragged I must have looked. “We ate buck meat last night.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “We did!” Gert caught my eye just in time: he must have realized that if he said any more I would let him have it.

  “Gert and I found it near the river. Lions got it,” I said.

  There was no time to discuss this any further, as Oom Sarel began to usher us toward the wagons. “There are leopards about these parts, and they hunt at night,” he told us. “They’ll take you for a warthog, and then you’ll be sorry.”

  This made Gert laugh. Just a few weeks earlier, when we had been wandering through the bush near our house, my brother had stopped dead in his tracks and pointed at the pair of yellow eyes staring at us through the undergrowth. The protruding snout, heavy jowls, and curved tusks were caked in mud. Stiff bristles rose from erect, pointed ears and spine; the rest of its body was covered in thick, black fur that shimmered in the late afternoon sun. The warthog’s brawny shoulders looked as powerful as a horse’s hindquarters, and its breath escaped in parallel gusts from its nostrils in hot, swirling bursts. Our voices must have startled the beast, which had come to drink at the stream, and it let out something between a belch and a groan before crashing off into a thicket with its wiry, black tail flung high in the air. To my shame, I had screamed — a noise that frightened Gert even more than the creature with the yellow eyes — before realizing that the warthog was even more scared than we were. We had laughed about it all the way home.

  “From now on, we stay in the laager,” said Lindiwe. “See how the wagons make a circle, Gertie? You must not leave the circle.”

  “Why, Lindiwe?”

  “To stay safe.”

  “What if we need to fetch water?” I asked.

  “There’s more than enough water here already,” said Oom Sarel proudly. “The Van Zyls and the Cronjes brought two barrels. There’s no need for anyone to go any farther than those thornbushes.” He must have mistaken my look of horror for stunned relief, as he pulled one sinewy arm around my shoulders and smiled, chucking me gently under the chin. “You’ll be well looked after from now on, Corlie Roux. There’s four of us men here in the laager, so no need for the womenfolk to fret. Go help your ma with that little brother of yours. There’s a good girl.”

  From what I could tell, the four men Oom Sarel had mentioned were all at least as old as he. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise — no local man under the age of sixty would be caught dead cowering in the bush with women and children — but it didn’t make me feel any safer. To be the only girl in a laager of men and boys: now that would have been a great accomplishment. But to be just one of many girls and women, who had no choice but to defer to their elders, was simply humiliating.

  Besides Tant Minna and my cousins, the other families were from farms on the other side of Amersfoort. They watched us silently from between fluttering canvas curtains, no doubt judging how much we’d eat into their rations. Would there be enough to feed our family and Lindiwe’s? And for how long?

  I wandered up to my mother, who was still chattering excitedly with Tant Minna and another woman who I recognized as the local midwife.

  “Ma, I need to pee,” I said. “Can I go to the bushes?”

  My mother looked at me distractedly. “Do you need to ask me before doing anything, Corlie?” she snapped. Then she turned back to the other women to ask how long the meat had been drying in the wind, and how many loaves of ash bread they could bake in the communal fire.

  It was precisely the permission I had been hoping for.

  We’d not been in the laager for half an hour, and already I was feeling suffocated by the swarm of half-starved children, the exhausted mothers slapping at mosquitoes, and the feeble old men bossing everyone about. Tant Minna’s wagon may have been bigger than ours, but beneath the heavy canvas shell it looked crowded and stuffy, and as dark as a snake hole. If this was where I’d have to sleep — entangled with my brothers and cousins and our mothers, while Lindiwe and Sipho camped in the open air — I could at least make the most of my solitude while it was still light.

  The coppice of thornbushes was just a stone’s throw from the edge of the forest. As usual, no one was paying me any notice: the men were too busy marshaling Sipho and Lindiwe into chores, while the women fussed over the blisters on Gert’s feet.

  Oom Sarel had said that the river was nearby, so I decided to take the opportunity to give my hair a freshwater dousing. I didn’t much fancy sharing a bath in the big iron tub with all the other children, where we’d almost certainly be roughly scrubbed by my mother or Tant Minna before being bundled back into the same dirty clothes. For once, I thought, I might impress Ma by turning up freshly washed and combed all on my own.

  The forest was really a sprawling ebony grove. Smooth, slender tree trunks stretched to the sky, forming a quivering canopy of leaves through which sunlight filtered to the forest floor, dappling the ground in greens and golds. Soon enough I came upon the river, which was narrower and shallower than at the poin
t where Gert and I had gone fishing the day before. Kneeling, I cupped my hands in the water and splashed my face and neck. It wasn’t as cold as I had hoped it might be; the sun had warmed the riverbed, so it felt more like tepid bathwater. Still, I doused my hair and felt better for it. Something about washing away a week’s accumulated grime immediately strengthened my resolve. The world began to look good again.

  I decided to continue walking a little farther. There had been rain the previous night, which meant that the ground was strewed with snails. They had come out to gorge themselves on sweet, damp mulch — but the rain had ended suddenly and now they were stranded, like so many tiny shipwrecks. The woods were silent except for the skeletal clattering of leaves through crisp, still air, and the occasional twittering of invisible birds. Farther ahead, a fallen tree blocked my path; its roots had been torn from the ground and towered, glistening and exposed, in the air. I clambered over it and landed with a bump on the other side.

  That was when I heard the mewing.

  An ebony forest on the edge of beyond is no place for a cat. The next time I heard the cry, I headed in the direction of the noise, scanning the undergrowth for any sign of movement. I must have scared it then, because it fell silent. Just as I had decided to retrace my steps, it mewed again.

  This time, I saw it.

  The monkey was curled up in the crook of a low branch. Cradling its head in hairless fingers, it moaned softly. From its long tail and tiny, dark face, I could tell it was a vervet. Its downy coat was mostly gray, except for a brilliant white patch on its stomach. Its ears were still too large for its round little head, and it hadn’t quite grown into its claws. There was no sign of its mother.

  I took another step toward the monkey. Two wide, brown eyes peered down at me defensively, trying to decide if I presented a threat. Something had happened here, I was sure of it. A hyena attack was the most likely explanation — why else would this tiny creature be here all alone, without the protection of mother and pack?