by Peter Rimmer
The piece of string round the letters was tight. Her fingers tried to loosen the knot where the string had furred. Her grandfather leaned over with his small red penknife and cut the string. Quickly, she searched the pile for Barend's handwriting and came up empty-handed. As the next best thing there was a letter from Aunty Alison addressed to her mother. She gave the rest of the pile to her grandfather as most were addressed to Sir Henry Manderville Bart. To everyone's surprise on Elephant Walk, there were people all over the world who collected dead butterflies and dead bugs. And they all seemed to write to Grandfather Manderville in search of more bugs and butterflies. And he was writing a book that would be very nice if he could find an illustrator, someone who could accurately draw the poor things stuck forever through the back in glass-topped boxes, the produce of grandfather's years of tramping through the bush. Madge also thought it surprising a lion or a leopard had not eaten her grandfather. On his hunt for bugs in the bush he was oblivious to everything other than his quest. Madge thought maybe the lions felt sorry for him searching for so small a prey. There had to be some honour among predators.
She took the letter into the main house, as the servant, dressed in a starched white long shirt and shorts to his knobbly knees, put a large tea tray down on the table under the msasa tree. Lucky for Uncle Peregrine there was a large chocolate cake she had baked that morning. She left her grandfather and Peregrine talking nineteen to the dozen between messy bites of chocolate cake.
Her mother put the letter aside unopened while they both watched the cake demolition from the veranda that ran the length of the house. Madge was itching for her mother to open the letter but knew from experience that nagging would prolong the agony. She had not heard one word from Barend since he left Elephant Walk, having long refused to speak English to anyone. The grief for his father had turned to a bitter hatred of the British.
"But your mother is English. I am English," she had pleaded with him.
"Then I shall go."
Why Uncle Tinus being hanged by the British for treason, should have ruined her life and Barend's made no sense whatsoever. She was equally and hysterically furious with the British but, as her father had said, no war had ever been petty, that in the stupidity of war people killed each other, even friends killed each other.
When she looked up her mother was crying again, tears silently falling down her face, her eyes not even seeing the two old men crouched around the chocolate cake. For a moment, she forgot her own pain and went to give her mother a hug. There was so much more to learn of life and none of the new experiences were proving pleasant.
The world of Madge Brigandshaw had been turned upside down.
The others came back from their ride around the farm as the sun was going down behind the small hill on the other side of the Mazoe River. Peregrine the ninth and Grandfather Manderville had moved onto the veranda, where the servants were putting the fly screens in place, before lighting the four lamps that hung along the back wall between the heads and antlers of long dead animals.
The tea tray had gone back into the kitchen with the cake dish cleared of every morsel of chocolate cake.
A servant was putting glasses on the sideboard at the far end of the veranda that Tinus Oosthuizen would have called the stoep. There were sherry glasses, glasses for the bottles of beer that were protruding from a large zinc bucket, and small, fluted wine glasses. Separate were two cut crystal whisky glasses. Comfortable chairs and low tables littered the length of the veranda. The daily ritual of sundowners was about to begin.
Jared Wentworth, always curious, looked in the zinc bucket and was astonished to see large chunks of ice floating on water in between the bottles of beer. There was a separate bucket full of ice chunks.
"My grandfather," said Harry seeing what Jared was looking at. "He gets magazines from all over the world. Says just because we live in the bush doesn't mean we can't be civilised. Had the paraffin fired refrigerator imported from America. There's a new type that works from electricity but it will be a long, long time before Elephant Walk has electric lights… Fresh clean water from the Mazoe River and a chunk of ice in your whisky. Or a cold beer in the heat of the day. Now that's civilisation. That's living. Help yourself to a beer. One of the rules in this house. We don't like the servants kept up just to serve us food and drinks after six o'clock at night. They need their time to relax as much as we do. Sara, what are you going to drink? Jared, please take a glass of sherry to my mother. That bottle over there. Jack, after that ride I expect you'll go for a beer. Help yourself… Oh, dear, Uncle Peregrine has filled his whisky glass to the top so if we want the best of his stories we had better gather round him now."
"You would never think we are in the middle of nowhere," said Sara.
"We're not," said Madge taking a small glass of sherry. "We're on Elephant Walk. That's not nowhere."
"To Sara and Jared Wentworth and Uncle Peregrine," said Harry. "Welcome to Elephant Walk."
By the end of the second tumbler of whisky, Peregrine the ninth was in full flight about a cave to the north he had heard about that had once been inhabited by the most powerful witch of the nineteenth century. He even claimed the woman had instigated the Shona uprising in 1896. Peregrine told the story second-hand, only saying what he had heard from an old Shona he had befriended years ago on his travels. In the witch's cave was a beam of light that shone into the bowels of the earth and anyone who found the beam of light would find the hidden hoard of gold, the gold of Lobengula, King of the Matabele. Whoever found the gold would rule Rhodesia.
Harry was half listening, more interested in the light falling from the nearest paraffin lamp on Sara Wentworth's long hair, bringing out the lovely streaks of red. The dogs, exhausted by following the horses all day, were spread out around the reed mat covered floor, flat on their sides and fast asleep. He was coming to terms with being on Elephant Walk without the sound of his father's voice. He was gone, Harry thought, but would live on in the minds of his friends and family. The elephant had gone too. Maybe one day someone would find the great tusks. Uncle Peregrine had said, before launching into his story of the witch, that some in the villages doubted the reports of the Great Elephant. That the isolated attacks on villagers by elephants had been going on for as long as anyone could remember. That evoking of the Great Elephant had brought the white men to chase away the elephants that were eating the villagers' crops of maize. The old people were saying the Great Elephant was dead, dead of its terrible wound.
Then Harry heard Uncle Peregrine talk about a man who had helped the witch and the uprising. For some unknown reason, this great right hand of the witch could speak the language of the conquerors, the only black man in the north of the country who could speak English.
"What was his name?" asked Harry, humouring Uncle Peregrine and to keep the story flowing. The guests were enjoying their first taste of the myths and legends of Africa.
"Tatenda."
"What did you say, Uncle Peregrine?" asked Harry, every one of his senses brought into focus.
"His name was Tatenda. And he hated the English."
"Is he alive?"
"Probably. Why?"
"Because I think we know him, we taught him English, we saved his life from the Matabele. Elephant Walk was his home until he ran away. And soon after that we had the rebellion. Uncle Peregrine, could you take me to your friend who knows Tatenda?"
"Probably. Can I have another whisky?"
So far as Peregrine the ninth was concerned, a good story deserved its reward. He kept his gnarled fist firmly around the cut crystal glass, holding it out to Harry to fill from the bottle. Only when the glass was full to the brim did he go on with the story. The old man had never been a one for ice or water in his whisky; there was only so much room in a glass.
He made them all wait while he took a long, welcome sip. Then, with everyone still hanging on his words, he continued the story. And like all good actors he played to the
audience. Using his imagination to brighten the brief facts he had heard about the young man they had called Tatenda, he made him the centre of the story. The evil witch took a step backwards. If young Harry wanted to find his old friend Tatenda, he could lead him around the bush for weeks drinking whisky every night. With a smile of deep satisfaction, he went on and on with the story, stopping twice for a refill until he lost his train of thought in the whisky.
By the time everyone went in for supper, the temperature had dropped near to freezing, the sky above Elephant Walk crystal clear, the night sky littered with millions of twinkling stars, layer after layer going back into the black void of the universe.
A big log fire had been lit in the lounge where they carried their plates of cold supper from the dining room.
From the grip of cold and silence of the bush outside came the snores of Peregrine the ninth. Without his supper, but with half a bottle of whisky in his stomach, Harry and Jack had carried the old man to his covered wagon. They had got him up on the tailgate where he had stood for a moment before crumbling forward on his face.
Before opening the whisky bottle, Grandfather Manderville had gone across to make sure the mattress was in its place. It was part of the myth of the man that required him to fall flat on his face when sufficiently drunk. Somewhere behind the old man's wagon, probably a mile away, Harry thought a lion roared as he covered the old man with the patchwork of skins that made do for a blanket.
As will happen after a long day in Africa, soon after they had eaten their fork supper the eyelids began to droop.
The double front gates and the two back gates to the stockade had been closed by the servants when they had gone off duty in the quickly falling dusk. The dogs had found a better place round the fire as it glowed less and less into the beginning of the night. Once more the lion roared and one of the half-tame ducks quacked in its sleep. In all directions, a man could have walked all night without likely seeing another human being.
When the moon rose at two in the morning it threw a colourless light through the stark bows of the msasa trees and shadowed the slopes of the houses across the lawn.
By the time they woke in the morning the moon had gone. Only the big stars, the planets, could be seen in the chill clear air of morning. Peregrine the ninth was still sleeping face down on his mattress. The dogs were the first to get up and look at the dawn, sending the geese into cackling flight up and over the stockade and down to the river. They were the first to splash the water, and then the buck and a wild pig came down to drink and the new day began, the cycle of life. Somewhere further down river a blood-curdling scream rent the dawn. For one life, the day would never be again.
By the time Harry got out of bed, the dawn was blood reddening the sky and when he looked out of the window he was glad to be home. He hoped he would marry and have a son of his own to one day look out of the same window. Then he smelt the richness of cooking bacon and put on his clothes to hurry through for his breakfast. Robert St Clair was already seated at the breakfast table the servants had set up on the veranda. The screens had been taken away and the sun was licking through the trees. Even though the air was cold, the rays of the sun were warm and full of colour. Jack Merryweather came in next, rubbing his hands against the cold and wrinkling his nose with pleasure at the coffee pot. Within a minute of sitting down at the table, a plate of hot bacon, eggs, tomatoes, and sausage was put in front of him. Even the toast was warm from the open fire in the kitchen.
Sir Henry Manderville preferred his breakfast alone in the privacy of his home.
A metal plough disc was being hit continuously in the native compound, bringing the farm workers out for their day. The ducks flew back over the stockade into the compound. Doves and pigeons called from the trees, sweet in their sounds. A grey heron landed slowly on the lawn on long gangly legs.
"I have never slept so well in my life," said Sara coming in for breakfast. She and Jared were staying in Alison Oosthuizen's house while she was away looking for her son Barend. "A good bed beats the hell out of my bunk in the wagon. Where's Madge?"
"She has something about her weight," said Harry. "She'll be over at grandfather's later having her coffee. Mother has a little veranda off her bedroom where she likes to eat her breakfast alone and plan her day. It was a way for my father to have some peace in the morning without us children."
"Where's young George?" asked Robert. "Not like him to miss his breakfast."
"He's eating with Uncle Peregrine in the wagon I expect," said Harry. "They kind of like each other. Mother will dunk him later in the bathtub and delouse his clothes. Now, who wants another cup of coffee?… Today, I have to plan this year's ploughing for the maize and then we will be dipping the cattle. We should have ploughed at the end of the rainy season, the moisture would have stayed in the ground. But father was dead and I was in England. Without careful management and pre-thought, farming in Africa quickly becomes a disaster. I wish my grandfather would take more interest in the farming aspect of Elephant Walk but he says it's not his business. Can you all look after yourselves? I'll take my lunch in the lands… It's going to be another beautiful day."
"So you're going to be a farmer and not a geologist?" said Robert, still pleased that Sara had sat down next to him for her breakfast.
"It rather looks that way," said Harry. "Jared, you and Sara can stay as long as you like. Aunt Alison is not coming back to Elephant Walk. She is going to stay in Cape Town hoping Barend will contact friends he knew when they farmed in Franschhoek. No one has heard of him. Poor Aunt Alison. After three years and no trace he's likely dead. Running away from home at the age of fourteen to disappear into the African bush on your own is not the most sensible start to life. Hatred does terrible things to people, even young boys. Hatred and love. My poor sister. Madge has been set on spending her life with Barend since they could first talk to each other. Mother says the letter was terribly sad but there is nothing more she can do for Aunt Alison and Katinka. Katinka's fifteen. Well, there we are. Make yourself comfortable in their house."
Book 2 – Journeys of Discovery
Chapter 6: December 1912
After Madge had given up hope of receiving a letter, it had taken Barend Oosthuizen another five years to find what he wanted, and he had found it twice in one day.
With the consummate charm of a man who knows he is good-looking but doesn't have to use it to get his own way, the eight year odyssey since leaving Elephant Walk at fourteen had been surprisingly easy. Wherever he had found himself people had wanted to do him only good. They wanted to give him things. They liked him. And most of all they only wanted him to like them in return. And it did not matter whether they were old or young, male or female. Everyone wanted to do Barend a favour and many of them did.
Not long after crossing the Limpopo River into South Africa at the beginning of his journey, he had found a solitary farm house in the lonely scrub, and ridden his horse for three hours before coming up on the homestead he had first seen from the hill that overlooked the flatland of the veld. No one, especially Marie Putter, who had been widowed in the Boer War when she was twenty-seven, childless, would have taken the good-looking man for fourteen years old. When they met in the chicken run at the back of the house he received from a woman the first carnal look of many to come. When he asked her for a job on the farm she was so excited she left the door to the hen house open along with the gate to the run. With squawking chickens running in all directions they were soon laughing happily together. That night, Barend lost his virginity.
That one had lasted a month. When they parted it was as friends, and the saddle bags of the packhorse he led on a long rein behind the one that he rode, was full of dried meat that would see him, if necessary, as far as Cape Town.
Long before he reached Cape Town, a journey of twelve, interesting months, he had forgotten about his mother, sister, and Madge. The only thing that had travelled with him from Elephant Walk and stayed was his ha
tred of the English who had killed his father. And he always felt at home on the Boer farms as most of the farms nursed the same hatred of the British.
Even when in 1910 the two Boer republics and the two British colonies became the Union of South Africa under General Louis Botha, a Boer, some Boers were still looking for revenge.
At the age of seventeen, he stood on a kopje overlooking the battle field at Paardeberg where many of his relations had fallen and swore his oath to the Brotherhood of Hate.
"I, Barend Oosthuizen, in the name of my father General Tinus Oosthuizen and the Oosthuizens that fell at Paardeberg, do hereby swear I will do all in my power for the rest of my life to revenge the Boer republics and restore the Boer nation to its rightful position in Africa, so help me God."
On the same day Barend climbed down from the kopje to wash his face in the Modder River that seven years before had flowed with so much Boer blood, Harry Brigandshaw was setting out from Elephant Walk, hundreds of miles to the north, to be lead a dance by Peregrine the ninth in Harry's abortive quest to find out what had happened to his childhood friend Tatenda.
When Barend turned eighteen a year later, in 1908, he was six feet tall and worked in a gold mine, chipping gold-bearing rock in a tunnel that made him lie on his side to swing his pick. The mineworkers union demanded the good jobs for whites and higher pay than the blacks, but they all died together when the tunnels collapsed. It was the hardest work he had ever endured in his life but the money was better than odd jobs on the farms. With very little education except what he had learned from his mother, Barend had few skills that would pay him money. His charm went only so far and the thought, at eighteen, of marrying a farmer's daughter had never entered his mind. To work for twenty years waiting for an old man to die to inherit the farm was not his style. After months at the rock face his arms and shoulders were taut with muscles, his skin smooth, washed by the daily sweat and the fine dust from the bowels of the mother earth.
