by Fred Stenson
From Melrose House, fresh decrees came daily. The blockhouse system that was presently guarding the railways would be greatly expanded. The lines would cross open country until the whole of rebel South Africa was sectioned and fenced.
He demanded new units of mounted infantry, small ones made up of his toughest scouts. Travelling light and fast, they would pounce on the enemy, like tigers. Lord Kitchener’s very own bitter-enders.
Pongola River, April 1901
The problem with Kitchener’s Swaziland drive was that it had no back wall. The Boers who killed Gat Howard were in theory trapped, but then they dissolved into the foggy landscape. The only advantage the drive had created was that many of the Boers no longer had homes and so must hide in the wildest places. This included women and children who had avoided the camps but now lived in wagons.
Even at this stage, Kitchener was not ready to call off the drive. A few columns were ordered to carry on into Swaziland and south of it, despite the flooded rivers and dissolving roads. The Assegai River had risen an astounding eighteen feet, and the Pongola was higher than a horse’s head. The armies that went south and east were soon locked between these rivers. The Swazis were willing to feed the invading British army at a price. A two-hundred-pound bag of mealies cost a gold sovereign.
As the hungry British floundered in the wet, the Swazis—in sympathy or embarrassment—killed fourteen Boers with their assegai spears. It was the biggest one-battle addition to Kitcheners bag since the great summer drive of 1901 began.
Trapped beside the Pongola River, Frank finally heard a lion. There was no question. As they cowered in the muck, after another day spent up to their necks in the river trying to build a pontoon bridge, the Canadian Scouts woke to its awesome roars. The piquet was doubled. Some of the men surrendered to fear and fired blindly into the dark.
The following day, Charlie Ross went to the Swazis and parted with more of his dwindling mealie money to convince them to hunt the lion. When the Swazis returned, there was no lion hanging by its feet from a pole, but they assured the soldiers it was gone.
It was not far-fetched to say that Jeff and Frank and their horses survived this sickly camp because Dunny and The Blue could swim. Jeff told Charlie Ross that he and his horse-holder were willing to cross the flooded river and do some hunting and scouting in the highlands to the north. As most everyone else was afraid to cross, Ross said yes.
The mares swam the brown flood. Then they crossed the remaining fever fiats and climbed out of them. The air cooled and sweetened as they lifted into the highlands. The first thing Jeff did was head for high grazing, so their horses could have a feed away from tsetse flies and other torturing bugs. Jeff and Frank rested in the open and scouted for Boers only in the sense of staying well away from them.
This was the first of several trips. They always stayed away two or three nights. Toward the end of each time, Jeff would exert himself to hunt. He would bring down a blesbok, a kudu, or a couple of impala. With the animals butchered and hanging in meat bags off their saddles, they descended and dared the river again. Coming back was not difficult. The horses were much stronger from the firm grass and clean air.
Though Jeff was supposed to be scouting on these trips, not even Charlie Ross quizzed him about Boer activity across the river. Charlie and everyone else was grateful for fresh meat and left it at that. The Boer fighters and their fugitive women were out there somewhere, in the pinch between the Swazis and the Zulus, but the British never saw them and were in no shape to chase them.
That this followed Gat Howard’s death and Frank’s refusal to take Charlie Ross’s oath amounted to a good thing for Frank. For the moment, he was a part of what brought meat. That was more important than principle and revenge.
When the engineers finally built enough bridges and firmed enough roads for food convoys to arrive from Newcastle and Volksrust, the emptied wagons went back laden with soldiers suffering fever and dysentery. Alderson’s column built a depot as its final act. It was April by the time they emerged from the bush.
A few days later, they boarded a northbound train on the Durban-Johannesburg line. The moment it jerked into motion, Frank was washed in sweet relief. Dunny and The Blue were in an open car behind him. Jeff was on the bench beside him. They were, all four, headed northeast. Frank did not know their destination but the direction suited him. North was the high veldt and Transvaal. Middelburg and Alma.
Magaliesberge, May-June 1901
All through May, the Canadian Scouts rode around the west Transvaal with divisions commanded by Colonel Hackett-Thompson. They were chasing General De La Rey but the wily Boer divided his army and had little trouble eluding them.
The majority of the Scouts had signed up with Gat Howard in December for six months, a period that was up at the end of May. A good many had decided to call it a war, and when the end of May passed, and then most of June, with no word on when they could de-enlist, frustration mounted.
Though his reasons were different, Frank Adams was as frustrated as anyone. As long as they were chasing De La Rey in West Transvaal, they were on the wrong side of Pretoria for what Frank wanted, and he had lately begun to think of leaving again, even though they might call him a deserter and even a thief for taking his own horse. Jeff Davis could read this thought off Franks face, and he counselled him to wait. When the time to re-enlist or de-enlist came, their new assignment might take them to Middelburg. Failing that, there might be a break when Frank could do what he needed to do.
Finally, Charlie Ross could stonewall no longer. They started for Pretoria where he said the men who wanted to de-enlist could do so. Those who wanted to stay on would be headed for the Orange River Colony to renew their pursuit of Christiaan De Wet. It would be an exciting time, Charlie said, because they were going to serve under the legendary Lt.-Col. Mike Rimington, the best commander of irregular army Charlie had ever seen.
Inside the railway station at Pretoria, men who had been together since they signed up for the Mounted Rifles or the Canadian Dragoons a year and half ago were suddenly parting. There was not much time for ceremony, because those de-enlisting had to get on trains for Cape Town, and those staying had to get on different trains that would take them to Heilbron, where Colonel Rimington was waiting.
On the platform at Pretoria, Jeff Davis caught up with Charlie Ross. Charlie asked Jeff what his plans were, and Jeff shocked him by saying he wasn’t sure. Charlie was counting on Jeff to stay and had not even considered that he might go. Before he could decide for sure, Jeff said, he had to know what his horse-holder, Frank Adams, was doing. The two worked so well together that Jeff might not continue if Adams quit.
Charlie still held his grudge against Adams, who had never sworn the oath, and didn’t wear a black feather in his hat to honour Gat Howard. “Well, what the hell’s he going to do then? Stay or go?”
“Frank’s not sure. He’s got a personal errand he needs to run before he can make up his mind.”
“What the hell do you mean, personal?” It annoyed Charlie deeply to have to think so much about Frank Adams.
“Well, personal is personal, but it has something to do with a concentration camp he needs to visit,” said Jeff. This darkened Charlie’s mood even more.
Shortly after, Jeff found Frank and gave him two letters. One was scrawled by Charlie Ross and said that Frank Adams and his dun horse should be allowed on a train to Middelburg and then from Middelburg back to Pretoria. After that, they would need transport to Heilbron.
The second letter had been carefully printed and signed by Regimental Sergeant-Major Jefferson Davis and was addressed to whomever was in charge of the Middelburg concentration camp. It said that Frank Adams, Davis’s orderly, needed to interview a Boer inmate named Alma Kleff and should be given every assistance to do so.
The last thing Jeff told Frank was that Charlie Ross had imposed a deadline. If Frank was not back with the Scouts in a week, Charlie would regard him as having deserted. His relat
ionship with the Canadian Scouts would be over.
Middelburg
To make himself presentable, Frank heated a couple of buckets of water; washed, deloused, and shaved. He brushed Dunny thoroughly, cleaned her feet, and pulled her tail. This he managed in an African town beside the Hope of the People distillery at Eerste Fabrieken. He had ridden there from Pretoria, and slept there, because he thought the paperwork might be simpler in a less congested station.
What he had wanted and did not manage was a proper haircut. Maybe he could get that in Middelburg, before he went to Alma.
The British corporal in charge at Eerste Fabrieken was a surly, difficult brute. There was a train for Middelburg due any minute but the Tommy claimed he could not read Charlie Ross’s writing. As Frank coached him through it, the corporal became concerned about Franks accent.
“You’re American?”
“I’m not.”
“Accents are my hobby.”
“People in my part of Canada sound like me.”
“What part is that?”
“District of Alberta.”
“Never heard of it.”
The soldier said this with satisfaction. Frank’s place of origin dismissed. Frank stopped himself from asking where the Tommy was from. Some centre of commerce and sophistication like Roadapple-on-Tyne?
“Why are you not in uniform, then, if your errand is military?”
Frank showed him part of Jeff’s letter. Jeff had anticipated this problem at the concentration camp. Frank placed a finger where it read uniform stolen while a prisoner of the Boers. Awaiting replacement.
“Is that horse healthy?”
Dunny was the healthiest horse at the station.
By then, the train was at the siding. A stack of wooden boxes, probably liquor, was being loaded. When the train started getting up steam, the corporal scribbled something and ink-stamped Franks letter from Ross. Frank hung on the wall of the horse car for the first mile, then climbed forward to a crate with humans in it. Soon they were climbing Diamond Hill, where the carrion eaters and the cycle of seasons had mostly cleaned up the battle of a year ago.
Sometimes, on a curve, Frank’s face would appear in the window he was looking out. Each time, he felt sick at heart. No wonder the Tommy at the station hadn’t readily believed him. When the train rocked, his long greasy hair flopped against his face. He tucked it down his collar as best he could. Still, he looked like someone you would not hire for a roundup, even if you were desperate for men.
As the train descended the final hill before the familiar town, a dam of impatience broke inside Frank that caused him to clamber along the cars while they were still moving. Inside the open horse car, he ran on the horses’ backs and jumped on Dunny. He urged her until they were in front of the door. The moment the gate opened and the railway workers were clear, he jumped her out and rode her to the flatcar that held their tack. Moments later, they were headed for the swamp west of town.
At the concentration camp, another Tommy, an old one with the rank of sergeant, took Frank into the corrugated iron shack, where there was a table and a thick ledger book. The old Tommy’s right arm was severed in its sleeve. He worked the book with his left hand and every action was difficult. He moved down the pages slowly, using the edge of a dirty wooden ruler.
“Kleff, Kleff.”
After many pages, he rapped a line near the top with a huge-knuckled finger.
“There,” he said. He stared close and ran his eyes along the ruler’s edge. “Now let’s see what this means.”
Frank could see that there was a line through Alma’s name. Other names were drawn through. The old fellow squeezed his eyes shut and flung them open before he attempted to read a fine scribble in the farthest margin.
“Line can mean several things.” He had seen the colour leave Frank’s face.
Then he tapped again.
“See? What did I tell you? Barberton.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t make it…” He put his eye an inch from the paper. “No, it’s just a blot. Date’s a blot. But I can make out Barberton.”
Frank looked at him, pleading.
“Barberton’s another camp. When this one became overcrowded—it’s overcrowded again now—a list was made and a hundred were sent to Barberton. Normally, you wouldn’t go there for something like this, because it’s fever country. Lesser of evils, I guess you’d say.”
“What about her mother? Mrs. Kleff.”
“Right you are. Just below. Mrs. Kleff went too.”
At the Middelburg train station, Frank tried to explain why his letter was no longer in line with his needs. Barberton was an old gold rush capital, a long way east near Mozambique. Though he did not have written permission to ride the train beyond Middelburg, his other letter from Sergeant-Major Davis said to interview Miss Alma Kleff, who was now in Barberton. If you put the two letters together …
What came of an hour of talk was a one-way trip to Machadodorp. The officer who gave the permission had become interested in the story and stood with Frank and Dunny while they waited for the train. He explained a new device the Boers had for blowing up track. The barrel and lock from a rifle were geared to a dynamite cartridge. They’d slip this device in a hole under the sleeper and cover it. When the train came, the weight would depress the track and the sleeper enough to trigger the rifle lock and blow the dynamite. That was what had happened on the slope down to Waterval Boven. That was why Frank could go no farther than Machadodorp.
From Machadodorp, Frank started riding. At first, he went along beside the railway line as the station master at Machadodorp had instructed. But going that route meant being held up at every stubby tin fortress, every blockhouse, and having to show his papers and explain himself.
In a long gap, where a trestle crossed a donga, Frank pulled Dunny up and considered the country to the south. He rode her into the steep gully and never came out the other side. Reading the landscape as Jeff had taught him, he wove his way through brush and shadows, and stayed out of sight of the kopje tops.
Travelling southeast, Frank finally came to the high veldt’s edge. Before him, a chasm had opened. Hundreds of yards straight down was a carpet of deep green bush. He rode around the escarpment’s massive split knuckles until he found a trail. It was not a wagon trail but one for animals, and he hoped that meant there would be no Boers or British on it.
The descent was in switchbacks long and short, black with shadow. He could feel the air warm up as he went down. A rich scent of warmed foliage rose to his nose. The drop felt like miles and probably was, and where he and Dunny finally bottomed, the country was dense with bush. Through the green, a sluggish river meandered and bumped along the escarpment’s foot. He tacked Dunny down and let her graze and water. He found a place for them to hide for the night, where he could see a trail coming to meet the river on its far side. They would cross there come morning.
What woke him was not the dawn but riders in the river. They were two Boers, decked out for war, who kicked their horses to the river’s middle before they let them drink. Frank had his rifle across the brace of his knee. He had a bead on the lead Boer, and could have killed both. For Alma’s sake, he would let them go if he could. The Boers sat on their horses talking and laughing. Finally, they continued on their way.
Below the Drakenberg cliffs, the broad valley ran east for miles toward a wrinkle of dusty horizon that was another set of mountains. Frank expected to find Barberton there.
When hours had passed and the far mountains changed from dusty humps to veined and fluted things, he came to a place where smoke rose over the bush and a clearing opened. It was an African kraal, somewhat like the Basuto town in which he had been pegged out. He went to a round hut and tapped its door. A handsome woman came out, looking unafraid. He said the word several ways—Barr-burr-ton, Baa-baa-tun—and finally she brightened. She gestured vigorously at the trail he was on. He motioned toward his mouth and showed some
shillings. She gave him two strips of biltong for the silver and handfuls of mealie flour for his horse. He mimed his thanks and continued on.
At Barberton, a creek came toward them. Dunny was anxious to drink, and Frank drank too, for the water was almost as clear as a mountain creek at home.
He asked a few people and was soon at the gate of a wire cage full of Boer prisoners. Not one child played in that enclosure, something Frank had seen before during a starvation spring on the Blood Reserve. He was not as full of exhilaration as he had been in Middelburg and was not sure why. Was it not more likely he would see Alma here, he challenged himself.
What he felt was a pulling dread, a rope from his neck to a stone in the ground. He was desperate to cut it loose, to deny it, for he knew it was an intuition that she had died. Or, if not death, then a presage of some other calamity as negative.
When he said he had a letter of introduction to interview the prisoner Alma Kleff, the guard at the gate scowled but needed no book to know who she was or where to find her. He was a young Tommy, short and fit, with dark hair plastered across his head from a severe part on the side. He had shaved this morning. His thin moustache was neatly trimmed.
“What is it you want with her?” he asked, as they walked among the tents.
Frank tried to sound like an intelligence officer.
“Before Miss Kleff was put in the concentration camp at Middelburg, when she was still on her home farm, some shady types lived with her family. Englishmen and Canadians. At least one of the Canadians was a known deserter. I have orders to find out what she knows. Is there someone who can interpret for me?”
The Tommy ignored the question and stopped by a tent. He tapped the canvas.
“Alma,” he called.
He turned and walked away a dozen paces, then stopped to watch.
The tent’s flap was on the far side, out of sight of where Frank stood. Alma came around, looking at the ground. It struck Frank that she expected to know the person she was coming to see. She looked up and stopped abruptly.