No Place For a Lady

by Ann Harries

  ‘In contwavention of the wesolutions of the Hague Peace Conference, I know!’ interrupts Miss Griffen, who has heard the contents of Miss Molteno’s letter several times. ‘I wonder if the forty-one cases of clothing the Women’s Congress despatched to Bloemfontein ever reached the burnt-out families.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘To say nothing of the burnt-out native families. Sophie is quite horrified by what is going on. Her friend Sarah sends her graphic accounts of the conditions in their camp. I have urged the Aboriginal Committee to look into this.’

  Emily narrows her eyes. ‘What nobody really knows,’ she says in a low, intense voice, ‘is where or how the families, whatever their skin colour, are being held, apart from those in Bloemfontein. This worries me a great deal.’ She pauses. Miss Griffen can feel something coming. ‘I am learning to speak Dutch, Griffy.’

  ‘I want to go to South Africa as soon as possible to see for myself what is happening to the families whose homes have been destroyed by our army.’ Emily speaks so quickly now that her friend can scarcely hear what she is saying. ‘We are receiving money and the donors wish to know who will actually convey relief to these families. I should like to be able to tell them that I myself will do the conveying.’

  ‘But Emily – would you be allowed into the war zone, as I suppose it still must be called?’ Miss Griffen looks alarmed.

  ‘My aunt is a friend of Sir Alfred Milner, as you know. If she supports my plan, she will write a letter of introduction for me. Of course, I cannot go without my aunt and uncle’s permission.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I plan to ask them this afternoon. I must take with me all those letters from the Cape expressing hope and support, and the English letters asking how the funds could best be spent.’

  ‘I shall put them together for you now,’ says Griffy at once. ‘Thank heaven for the new filing cabinet.’

  Five

  Bloemfontein Concentration Camp, November 1900

  Sarah is holding a sheet of paper covered in triangles. Before she studies it, she watches the mothers gliding in their long aprons and kappies among the bell tents and the tumult of livestock, Tommies, bread ovens, kaffir servants, crockery, bits of furniture. You cannot see their faces. Many wear black.

  She closes her eyes. How is it possible that these blameless slopes have become a pestilence-ridden camp where children die daily of simple diseases and women covered in filth queue for rotten meat and adulterated coffee? Can a hill like this ever recover its innocence? And how many other hills like this pollute the air of Africa?

  At this stage of the day she still has the energy to think of such things. But now there is a disturbance in the temporary mortuary tent where the children’s bodies are laid out in preparation for burial in the town centre. A mother has begun screaming in the tent. A pig rushes out from beneath the tent flaps, followed closely by the screaming woman; then lumbers off, its jaws moving. Now the mother is wrenching out fistfuls of her hair from beneath her dark kappie, and howling out to the Lord: That a pig should eat the hand of my dead son! Have mercy on us O Lord, have mercy!

  Sarah feels she might be sick. But instead she looks at the map of triangles in her hand. Some of the triangles are marked in red. The bell tents have not been numbered, the streets have not been named. Today’s visit will be harder because of the heavy downpour last night. Now the ground beneath the tents will be quagmires in which whole families have been obliged to sleep overnight. Rain water had rushed through her own tent which she now has entirely to herself, but at least her mattress lies upon a raised bedstead, and the canvas is lined. The camp bakes in the early morning sun, releasing vapours that smell of human excrement and unwashed bodies. Sarah treads carefully among the busy flies.

  ‘Goeden morgen, Mevrouw de Klerk.’ Sarah’s Dutch has progressed over the past month, though it is not quite the Dutch she had learnt in the Netherlands. Sometimes her throat feels quite ragged with all the guttural aspirations the language demands, and she can never hope to achieve the volume of delivery apparently essential for communication among Boer families. Nevertheless, the women applaud her efforts; at least she is able to understand their complaints and discuss the symptoms of illness, even if her own pronunciations raise a titter among some.

  Mrs de Klerk is grinding what smells like roasted acorns and chicory outside her tent, while the little kaffir girl, Katie, who wears a mere scrap of cloth around her hips, tries to get a fire going in the mud. Blankets and underwear hang out to dry on a makeshift line. The single mattress, occupied by five sick children on one end and a grandfather with a long white beard on the other end, is soaked through. Mrs de Klerk and Katie had slept directly on the ground, with the result that both are caked with the red mud that squelches beneath Sarah’s feet.

  ‘Goeden morgen, my dear, my goodness but your accent is improving! Will you have a cup of coffee with us perhaps?’

  ‘Nie dankie, Mevrouw, I’ve just had some.’ Sarah tries not to stare at the trousers which Mrs de Klerk is wearing. In London, such attire would suggest an allegiance with the Bohemian underworld in which women smoke cigars and drink absinthe at all hours of the day, but Sarah recognises the trousers as belonging to Oupa de Klerk who has no use for them now, having taken to his end of the mattress with an air of finality. ‘And how are the children today?’ She braces herself for the reply.

  The Boer woman throws up her hands. ‘Ah, never did I think a civilised nation like England could treat women and children so! Many a time have I cried Ah! Why must we mothers suffer more than the men, for here we sit helpless with our handfuls of children who we have to clothe; and when they are a-hungered they cry to us; and if the little things are barefooted, where are we to get shoes? Must we then entrust all our little ones to earth? What will the future bring us? How shall we struggle through the dark nights of watching and fear? Surely against me is the Lord turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.’

  Sarah pauses. The first time she heard this lamentation she had been moved to tears; but just as one’s patience eventually wears thin with friends who passionately tell and retell the same tragic tale, each time as if for the first time, so Sarah has learnt to disengage herself from this recital of woe. For Mrs de Klerk has elevated the act of complaining to a work of art. Her tirade has become a magnificent edifice which must remain intact, any practical appeasement serving only to undermine the mighty monolith by now cast in metaphorical stone. On the other hand, Mrs de Klerk is no hands-upper: she will support her husband through to the bitter end.

  ‘May I take the children’s temperatures? I have brought some milk for them – the real thing, not condensed milk or water.’

  The bottom flaps of the tent have been drawn up to allow a little circulation of air, but the heat in the tent is almost solid. For a moment Sarah fancies it radiates from the flushed little bodies that lie under the blanket of the sole mattress. The children snort and wheeze as if some terrible obstruction has entered their breathing passages.

  ‘They all have the fever now,’ she murmurs. More than the fever, she suspects. Gently pressing on the lower lip of one of the children so that the mouth swings open, she peers into the child’s throat, covered, as she expected, in a leathery film.

  ‘This little one has diptheria, Mevrouw de Klerk. Her life can only be saved if she goes to the hospital.’ Sarah has learnt to be blunt. ‘In the hospital they have anti-toxins which will kill off the diptheria poison in the first few days. If you leave it longer it will be too late.’

  ‘Oh my dear father in heaven!’ wails Mrs de Klerk, ‘is it not true that our children go alive into the camp hospital and come out in a coffin? In the camp hospital will they lie and take condensed milk every two hours instead of the fresh milk and raw carrot juice which we their mothers would give them? Then will they surely die straight away. Ah, the Lord hath set us in dark places; he hath made my chain heavy.’

  ‘There is very little fresh milk a
nd no raw carrot juice,’ begins Sarah. ‘And your—’

  ‘Ah, but General Liebenberg did ask leave of the British to send in here a number of wagons loaded with vegetables and fruit and meat for the women and children, but the major only swore at him and so it did not come to pass.’

  ‘Mrs de Klerk, I have fifty tents to visit this morning. If you take your little girl to the hospital now, she will live. Now I must look at the other children.’ It is difficult not to sound impatient.

  ‘But Sister, my Huis Apothek has always cured us of our illness. On the farm if my child or my husband or my servant has a chill or a sore throat then there are infusions from Katte krui or Wijnruit or Wilde als sweetened with a little sugar which banish the illness within hours. Why now can I not use the remedies of my forefathers, Sister?’

  ‘Because you no longer live miles apart from your neighbour, Mevrouw. Now your children are catching illnesses which your home remedies cannot cure. They are not immune, like city children who mix together all the time.’ She removes her thermometer from under the tongue of one of the flushed little bodies. ‘Still no soap?’

  ‘No soap and no water! The Tommies think we can wash in mud. And when I think of my sparkling kitchen floor and the scrubbed faces of my children … Oh, the Lord is harsh in his ways. He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow! He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath—’

  ‘Mrs de Klerk, all your children have high temperatures. I am going to have to report the diptheria to the hospital. It will spread to the children in the surrounding tents.’ Sarah sways.

  ‘Poor little nursie. Shame, you are so pale, so thin. Katie, pour the nursie some coffee, it will help you, my dear. Shame, poor girlie’ And the mother forces a tin mug of the evil-smelling potion into Sarah’s hand.

  ‘I am exhausted already,’ thinks Sarah. ‘How will I manage another forty-nine tents?’ But the sweet drink gives her a sudden lurch of energy and, thanking Mrs de Klerk, she moves on to the next tent on her diagram.

  She wipes her feet on the tin cans wedged deep into the ground to be used as foot scrapers before the tent opening. Here, a woman is panting in the heat, just sickening for her confinement. Her nightdress is stained with mud; there are no gowns for her baby. She sips unclean looking water from a tin. Her mother stands by, grim-faced, accusing. Sarah feels the woman’s swollen belly and notes that the head of the baby has dropped into place. ‘Has your husband received your letter yet?’ she asks as her fingers explore the outline of the baby.

  ‘His ship has not yet reached Bermuda,’ gasps the woman.

  The mother speaks. ‘That a father should be separated from his child in this way. That a Boer should be torn from his land and sent on a ship to a faraway country in the East. The Lord will take revenge.’ Her voice is a growl. Sarah has no reply. She moves on between the cluttered lanes. Many of the children have contracted measles and cry out in the heat of their tents. With the correct diet and hygienic living conditions they would recover normally, but here the disease blossoms into pneumonia and the children die in their hundreds. Sarah remembers enduring measles as a child and is thankful that she is now immune to the disease.

  Someone is running behind her. A young girl from one of the tents hurries up to her. ‘Sister! Sister!’ she calls out in Dutch. She has an open, pretty face shaded by her white kappie, covered in frills which shiver in the breeze she has caused.

  Sarah stops. Has she left something behind? ‘Yes, my dear?’ ‘I would like to be a nurse, Sister.’

  Sarah smiles patiently. ‘You’ll have to wait for the war to end, my dear. Then you can go to a nurse’s training hospital.’

  ‘No, Sister. I want to help in the camp hospital. It will make the mothers feel better to see one of their kind looking after the children in the wards. I can learn on the ward. I would ask not for payment.’

  Sarah thinks quickly. The refugee nurses who work in the children’s hospital were forced to flee from Johannesburg and are full of loathing for all Boers. ‘What is your name, my child?’

  ‘Poppie Naudé, sister.’

  ‘And what does your mother think?’

  ‘That is not my mother in the tent. I know not where my mother is. When our house was burnt down we were put in the trucks. They would not let me go with my mother.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘My father is a sick man. He is in another camp, in Norval’s Pont. He wrote me a letter.’

  Poppie looks sad. But Sarah can see that this young woman is strong and energetic. The children on her own ward would love her toothy smile and lively nature.

  ‘I work on the wards in the afternoons,’ she says. ‘I’ll speak to the deputy matron and see what she thinks. Meet me outside the children’s ward tomorrow. I see you have your own apron. Bring it with you. We have nothing to spare on the ward.’

  ‘I am so happy,’ says the girl simply. ‘My people need me and I can do something to help – if your matron says yes. Thank you, Sister.’ Poppie gives a little curtsey.

  Sarah moves on, feeling briefly cheered by this encounter. But as she takes temperatures, makes notes of the sick, applies remedies, she grows more aware of the hopelessness of it all, grows more tired until she herself feels not unlike the apathetic, fatigued children whose limbs seem weighted with stones. She has not heard from Patch for so long that she has stopped thinking about him. It saddens her that Louise has still not written for weeks from Cape Town – how she would enjoy a lively letter filled with gossip and confessions, making her laugh at her acid observations. Why has Louise fallen silent? Surely their long friendship cannot be over?

  In the meantime she has one solace. She has found a Catholic priest in Bloemfontein and is receiving instruction. She plans to convert. It is a comfort to say the rosary every night, even though, as she is still only an Anglican, perhaps Our Lady does not listen.

  Sophie writes to say Miss Hobhouse has formed a Distress Fund, and will visit South Africa soon. Perhaps they can meet? Sarah is too exhausted to write back. At the end of the day she washes in her sail-cloth bath with her tiny sliver of soap, and falls asleep immediately.

  Army Circular

  The General-Commander-in-Chief is desirous that all possible means shall be taken to stop the present guerrilla warfare. Of the various measures suggested for the accomplishment of this object, one which has been strongly recommended, and has lately been successfully tried on a small scale, is the removal of all men, women and children and natives from the districts which the enemy’s bands persistently occupy.

  This course has been pointed out by surrendered burghers, who are anxious to finish the war, as the most effective method of limiting the endurance of the guerrillas, as the men and women left on the farms, if disloyal, willingly supply burghers; if loyal, dare not refuse to do so.

  The women and children brought in should be camped near the railway for supply purposes, and should be divided into two categories: 1st: Refugees, and the families of neutrals, non-combatants and surrendered burghers. 2nd: Those whose husbands, fathers and sons are on commando. The preference in accommodation etc should of course be given to the first class.

  Kitchener

  21 December 1900

  Orange River Colony, November 1900

  While he is recovering from his thigh wound at the field hospital in a remote part of the newly christened colony, Patch once again feels the familiar icy cloak of despair drop round his heart. This time there is an air of finality about it. He can’t very well make another novena asking the Blessed Virgin to intercede for dead but disqualified people: in any case would Bill, so proudly Protestant, want to spend eternity with millions of Catholics all milling about in clouds of incense and singing hymns to Our Lady? Wouldn’t Cartwright the atheist be mortified to find himself welcomed at the gates of Paradise by a smug archangel? Perhaps he should just pray for his own poor soul. I’m a Papist! he spits at the Anglican curate who wants to convert him to that wishy-washy
version of Catholicism.

  He spends a lot of time staring at the blank, yellow face of the veldt. The flatness of it all adds to his self-pity. If only there was a hillock or a little mountain to break the perfectly circular rim of the horizon – if you are born among mountains the absence of them is like losing a limb you didn’t know you had. His eyes long to look upwards at the earth’s struggle to caress the sky, or pierce it; for the rugged crags and rearing cliffs, or even the smooth swell of rounded hills, can lift the spirit as well. As for that fine flush of revenge he had experienced after Cartwright’s death – where is that now? How can you track down snipers and act the daredevil when your leg is massively bandaged and a bunch of orderlies won’t let you out of bed? If he is honest, his desire to kill a Boer has evaporated. Instead, he continues to gaze through the open tent-flap at – nothing.

  The field surgeon who removed the bullet is delighted with the healing of the wound. ‘Nothing goes septic here!’ he exclaims every time he visits Patch’s bedside. ‘It’s this wonderful dry air that does our work for us. Aren’t you a lucky fellow to have been shot in Africa ha-ha-ha?’

  ‘Very lucky,’ says Patch sourly, as is part of the routine.

  ‘You know what your problem is?’ says the surgeon looking at the vacant eyes of the young trooper. ‘You’re bored. Haven’t you got letters to write like everyone else – or a book to read?’

  At the mention of letters Patch flinches (Fancy and Johan have gone silent, thank heaven) but the word book suddenly flicks open a memory that had been long closed. That heavy load, wrapped in brown paper, right at the bottom of his rucksack, which Dr Simmonds had given him as a parting present and which he had so nearly discarded while trying to lighten poor Olga’s load … ‘David Copperfield!’ he exclaims in surprise.