by Ann Harries
To which Colonel Williamson replied coldly, ‘I am not here to argue. I cannot listen. I will touch you on the shoulder – that will be sufficient for the purpose. Will you yield of your own free will? Otherwise I have soldiers ready.’ But already he sounded uneasy.
At this Patch darted a look in the direction of the sofa, expecting at the very least to see a plume of smoke rise from it.
‘I will not go one step voluntarily towards the Roslin Castle. I am ill and need rest. I beg you to leave me.’ This request was uttered in tones that were either haughty or filled with pathos, Patch could not decide which.
‘Madam,’ beseeched the Colonel, ‘surely you do not wish to be taken like a lunatic?’ The word burst from his mouth as if it had been hiding there for years and had finally escaped.
‘Sir,’ replied she, ready for this, ‘the lunacy is on your side and with those who obey.’ Her voice became infused with poisonous mockery. ‘If, in addition to being an officer you also happen to be a gentleman, you will go and leave me alone.’
Colonel Williamson’s voice turned cold as steel. ‘Madam,’ he intoned, ‘I therefore have no option but to call over the soldiers.’
At a signal Patch and Perkins moved over to the sofa upon which Miss Hobhouse was draped, a shawl covering her lower half. Although she was no more than a pale invalid whose exhaustion threatened to seep into his own young limbs, Patch felt a stir of recognition – almost as if he had once experienced some form of intimacy with her. It was hard to believe she had once radiated fearsome energy and efficiency in the Orange River Colony camps; she looked as if she couldn’t harm a fly right now!
The two orderlies stood uncertainly over her, awaiting a further signal from the Colonel. Patch had been reading a book about a convict and a small boy who met an old lady in an ancient wedding dress all covered in cobwebs, and there was something of that Miss Someone in the wraith-like Miss Hobhouse.
‘Take her,’ said the Colonel wearily.
The men bent over. Miss Hobhouse’s body electrified with screams. ‘You will not do this thing! You would not treat your mothers or wives or sisters so! There is a Higher Law – you cannot, you dare not, obey these orders!’
We dare not not obey, thought Patch grimly, though it was true he would not have treated his mother so (now that he had a mother) but now they were lifting her in her shawl from her resting place. Her screams turned to shrieks.
‘You are disgracing your uniform by obeying such an order! A Higher Law forbids you! The laws of God and Humanity forbid you! Colonel Williamson, you will rue this to your dying day, you will all rue it … you brutes, you dare touch me!’
The invalid had surprising strength as they lifted her, and almost immediately struggled out of their grasp and planted her feet on the cabin floor. But they were prepared for this and, grabbing her shawl, wound it about her arms so that she could not struggle. ‘Be careful, be careful, don’t hurt the lady!’ called the Colonel, sounding anxious, but he came to help them lift her off her feet until she lay all her length like a swaddled baby, helpless in their arms.
At this humiliation she gave out a terrible cry, quite unlike her previous screams. Christ on the cross, thought Patch, his heart contracting. Father, oh Father, why hast thou forsaken me? Now they placed her, still struggling and sobbing, into a Madeira chair on the deck and carried her, straitjacketed in her own shawl, down the steps into the waiting launch.
Emily Hobhouse stopped screaming. As if awakening from a nightmare, she sat suddenly upright in her chair and stared ahead in silence, the panic in her eyes gradually metamorphosing into dull sorrow. The launch wove its way in silence among the waiting boats. Wavelets threatened to explode on its deck. There was nothing for anyone to say – they could have been strangers bobbing in the middle of the ocean, each numbed by the aftermath of panic.
Low growls greeted them as they disembarked, for a crowd of rough-looking men had gathered to enjoy the spectacle. Patch and Perkins carried their load through hooting and hissing men all the way to the carriage which awaited them. ‘Canting old hypocrite! Serves her right! Sousing in salt water would do her good!’ Miss Hobhouse seemed to have entered another world. She was beginning to collapse, Patch could see that, her head lolling to one side, her face empty of any expression.
Two colonial nurses stood ready at the carriage door, their faces contorted with disgust. Without greeting the men, whom they clearly held responsible for this maltreatment, they bundled Miss Hobhouse in to the vehicle, murmuring in sympathy as they tried to undo the knot in her shawl, but it was too tightly tied. Patch curved the top part of his long body into the carriage interior and gently unwound the shawl. Once again he had that curious sense of intimacy, as if he was actually undressing this trembling old spinster. Miss Hobhouse’s impassive gaze passed across his young face. Then returned to hover. From a great distance a light began to burn in the dullness of her eyes.
‘You – I – we …’ She seemed to have forgotten how to speak.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘You – you have grown a moustache,’ she whispered. The astonished words toppled out of her mouth.
Patch’s finger flew to the new growth above his lip. He frowned uncertainly.
‘You know the lady then?’ snapped one of the nurses.
‘Mind your own business,’ he snapped back. Miss Hobhouse was staring at him as if he was her long lost someone.
‘What are you doing here?’ The chain of words was so faint he had to bend his ear right over her mouth.
A thousand replies, not all of them courteous, swam into Patch’s head. From the range of possibilities he picked out the one which might most interest her. ‘I am about to get married, ma’am.’ It was like speaking to someone on their deathbed.
‘Ah!’ She smiled timidly. ‘Is she – is she someone I know?’
‘Miss Sarah Palmer, ma’am. Formerly Sister Palmer,’ he added sternly, to let her know.
Miss Hobhouse closed her eyes. Her face grew soft. ‘This is wonderful news,’ she murmured. Her voice was suddenly melodious. ‘Dear Sister Palmer. I had so hoped to see her now.’ A long pause followed as she constructed a new sentence in her swimming head. Then: ‘Will you give her a message from me?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Where was Colonel Williamson? He’d get into trouble if he was caught taking messages from a prisoner.
‘Tell her I shall be back. When this dreadful war has ended.’ She fell silent as the image of Lizzie loomed. With a sudden burst of energy she added, ‘There will be so much to do when the women return to their burnt-out homes.’
‘That’s enough now, Miss Hobhouse,’ exclaimed one of the nurses, who had no sympathy with burnt-out homes. ‘We have to go now. The Roslin will be leaving any minute and we’re all going with her.’
Patch ignored this outburst. His lips were still near the ear of Miss Hobhouse, a pretty ear, untouched by age. ‘I will give her your message,’ he said. He almost wanted to apologise for the improvised straitjacket.
Footsteps ran up to the carriage. ‘What, still here?’ Colonel Williamson’s voice cried out. ‘You’ll miss the boat, the launch won’t wait any longer! Get out of the carriage, Orderly Donnelly.’
‘Goodbye,’ mouthed Miss Hobhouse as Patch slid away. The driver cracked his whip. And as the nurses slammed the carriage doors, it seemed as if the phantom of that waiting woman was drifting upwards, her crumbling wedding cake and cobwebbed marriage robes melting and diminishing into the darkness of the night.
‘What was that all about?’ sniggered Perkins. ‘Got the hots for her, have you, Patch? Saw her frillies, did you?’
‘Shut your mouth!’ Patch flushed. ‘The woman’s a lady, not that you’d know one if she spoke to you.’
Miss Hobhouse’s perfume had settled in his nostrils. Its musky fragrance smelt of foreign lands, and remained with him for some time.
Bloemfontein Concentration Camp, November 1901
Dr Phillips whistles his minst
rel melody more penetratingly than usual as he rides through the Bloemfontein concentration camp, or internment camp, as some would now have it. He is experiencing the pleasant sensation of double-revenge. Both revenges concern toffee-nosed women who thought they knew better than he about Lizzie van Zyl.
He has heard of the disgrace of Miss Hobhouse’s deportation and he rejoices. That’ll show her, that do-gooding, pro-Boer busybody, speaking to him as if he were no more than her lackey. He chuckles as he remembers the furore over Lizzie when the child eventually died in May. The scandal had even reached the British House of Commons and Mr Chamberlain had made a speech denying that the child was emaciated as a result of life in the camp: she had looked emaciated when she’d arrived from the farm! Chamberlain had also claimed that a British doctor had taken the photograph as evidence in the criminal trial of the child’s mother, and Conan Doyle had supported this view in a leaflet he’d written about it all. That’ll teach Miss Emily Hobhouse to go round showing photographs of dying children to the British Public in the hope of stirring up pro-Boer feelings! And now, glory of glories, she’d been dragged kicking and screaming from one boat and taken by force on to another, so unwanted was she in the Cape. Dr Phillips briefly relives the shiver that Miss Hoity-Toity had caused to ripple through his flesh with her disdainful dismissal of his opinions. Never mind that she is idolised by the Boer women, she’s got what she deserves now – ignominy!
As for that other woman, that high and mighty nurse who shrunk away when he came near her, she got what was coming to her as well – accusing him of libel in that well-bred voice. He’d kept his ears and eyes open since that day outside the Van Zyl tent, and during the course of his wanderings over the next few weeks he’d seen the wench in blushing conversation with that tall, green-eyed, limping trooper and sent his spies out. His industry had been rewarded. On the same night that the Hobhouse hag had left Bloemfontein, he’d received word from an orderly that something was going on; something worth following up …
Dr Phillips does not whistle his minstrel song as he harnesses his horse some distance away and creeps to the golden glow of the tent. And sure enough, on application of his eye to one of the holes in the canvas, raw licentiousness is revealed! Dr Phillips’ eye stays longer at the canvas hole than is necessary for mere identification; it is with reluctance that he withdraws and makes his way to Colonel Goold-Adams. Together they return to the tent, where the couple are discovered in the fullness of flagrante, just as he’d reported. To his disappointment Goold-Adams decides not to disturb them then and there, but the following morning both are summoned to his office and expelled from the camp.
Goold-Adams is flustered about the affair, specially when he realises the pretty nurse is a favourite of Miss Hobhouse. How extraordinary that this demure young woman, the model of propriety – even saintliness, given the demanding nature of her work – should descend to the behaviour of a prostitute. Miss Hobhouse need never know. It is not the sort of thing one discusses with women, in any case. But he has no doubt she would agree with him that, at all costs, immorality must be rooted out of a concentration camp designed to protect women and children.
Mrs Mopeli is waiting outside the children’s ward in the centre of the white people’s camp. Strapped to her back is her little niece, Nyanga; in her hand she has a gift for Sister Palmer, a bangle of beadwork made by the child’s mother, her sister.
She waits, but Sarah does not emerge from the hot pounding ward. Mrs Mopeli hums. She is used to waiting.
The child on her back whimpers. She begins to chant a husky lullaby, then turns away and strolls back to her camp, still crooning softly.
Epilogue
Lord Milner to Mr Chamberlain, 7 December 1901
… The black spot – the one very black spot – in the picture is the frightful mortality in the Concentration Camps. I entirely agree with you in thinking that while a hundred explanations may be offered and a hundred excuses made, they do not really amount to an adequate defence. I should much prefer to say at once, as far as the Civil authorities are concerned, that we were suddenly confronted with a problem not of our making, with which it was beyond our power properly to grapple. And no doubt its vastness was not realised soon enough … The whole thing, I think now, has been a mistake.
Afterword
448,435 white soldiers and 30,000 blacks fought on the side of the British
75,000 men fought on the side of the Boers
27,927 white men, women and children died in the concentration camps
22,074 were children under the age of 16
4,177 were women over the age of 16
Probably 20,000 blacks died in the concentration camps, of whom 81 percent were children
Ten percent of the Boer population of the two republics died during the war
Author’s Note
Not being very fond of novels about war, I was surprised to find myself writing one. I blame this aberration on my last novel, Manly Pursuits, for which I researched into the Jameson Raid and grew increasingly fascinated by the chaos created by army discipline during wartime. This was most terrifyingly realised in the contradictory behaviour of General Lord Horatio Kitchener, also known as K of Chaos. When it became apparent to me that the racist system of apartheid in South Africa was to a large extent founded on the outcomes of the Anglo-Boer War, I took up residence in various war museums in order to find out more.
To work in these spaces dedicated to instruments of death turned into an unlikely pleasure – mainly because of the friendly, helpful librarians, too numerous to mention by name, who often made inspired contributions to my research. I would like to record my heartfelt thanks to all of them, in particular the staff of the South African Museum of Military History in Johannesburg; the Anglo-Boer War Museum in Bloemfontein; and the National Army Museum in Chelsea for their interest and encouragement. Equally, my eyes were opened by vivid tours of battlefields and black and Boer concentration camps given by Elria Wessels in the Bloemfontein and Paardeberg areas, and further north round Pretoria and Belfast by Rykie Pretorius.
Among the many histories of the Boer War which I read, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s account was particularly riveting, as was, of course, Thomas Pakenham’s. But the book I found most revealing was the collection of Emily Hobhouse’s letters, immaculately edited by Rykie van Reenen, which inspired the evolution of a central theme of the novel. A visit to the Wellcome Trust library in London provided me with information about lepers on Robben Island at the turn of the nineteenth century, and I found interesting details about the regulations for the Army Nursing Service Reserve in the Red Cross archives, again with the help of staff.
Extracts from the telegrams and correspondence of Milner, Roberts, Kitchener, Chamberlain, and other non-fictional figures, are taken from the archives. All the Hobhouse letters are actual transcripts from Rykie van Reenen’s Boer War Letters of Emily Hobhouse (Human & Rousseau, 1984).
I owe a special debt of gratitude to my loyal and inspired editors, Rosemary Davidson and Marion McCarthy, and to my ever-patient agent, Maggie Noach. I am also forever grateful to the eagle eyes and discerning taste of my well-informed copy editor, Robyn Karney.
Thanks also to the many academics who promptly answered sudden e-mailed queries, and even sent me extremely interesting and often unpublished material. Their interest and enthusiasm was invaluable, as was that of friends and family who lent me useful books and introduced me to knowledgeable people.
I gratefully acknowledge financial support from Southern Arts, and the Society of Authors in London.
Finally, a note of apology for the repeated use of ‘kaffir’. This now derogatory and racist word was in commonly accepted usage during the period of the novel’s events, and for purposes of historical authenticity I could not avoid using it.
Ann Harries
Overberg, South Africa
March 2005
A Note on the Author
Ann Harries was born and educated in
Cape Town, where she worked in township schools and community centres. On moving to England she became active in the anti-apartheid movement. The author of the acclaimed Manly Pursuits, she divides her time between the Cotswolds and South Africa.
By the Same Author
The Sound of the Gora
Manly Pursuits
Also Available by Ann Harries
Manly Pursuits
‘Outstanding … Funny, well observed and beautifully written’ Sunday Times
Cape Town, 1899. Diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes believes that he has only months to live, and that the only thing that can save him is the sound of English birdsong. He recruits Francis Wills to transport 200 birds to Cape Town, but on arrival the birds refuse to sing. This is but the first obstacle for Wills, who finds himself irresistibly drawn to intrigue, in a country on the brink of war.
‘History is ingeniously rewritten in this witty and engaging novel’ J. M. Coetzee
‘I haven’t turned any pages faster this year than I turned these’ Spectator
‘Both an entertaining read and a richly evocative portrait of an era’ Observer
Buy this book at www.bloomsbury.com/annharries
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com/annharries
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2005 by Ann Harries
The moral right of the author has been asserted