The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  There was a fourth man on Spion Kop that day, or rather that night, but no one paid him any attention, and he did not rise in later years to lead his nation, but on this encrusted battlefield he did learn the first and only of his great lessons. When General de Groot, at two-thirty in the morning of the day following the battle, climbed back up Spion Kop, there were two men with him, the young fellow who alerted the move and Jakob van Doorn, his constant companion. There was a fourth man, but since he was black he didn’t count. He was Micah Nxumalo, who would never be far from the old general in the days of this war. He did not have to participate, and he had no gun to defend himself; he merely tagged along because he loved the old general and had served him in various capacities. He could tend horses, scavenge for food, help the women, serve as scout when conditions grew tense, and tend the sick commandos. On Spion Kop, Micah Nxumalo began to develop a great truth which he would later quietly pass along to his people. As he moved through that fiery day, seeing the troops who seemed so numerous, he noticed that taken altogether, they numbered far fewer than his Zulu tribe, or the Xhosa, or the Swazi, or the Basuto, or the Bechuana, or the Matabele. He saw that the English and the Boers were playing tremendous games, but that when the battles were finished they would be brothers, a few white men set down amidst a vast congregation of blacks: When the games are ended and the mighty guns are silenced, the real struggle will begin, and it will not be Englishman against Boer. It will be white man against black, and in the end we shall triumph.

  For the duration of the present episode Nxumalo would continue with the Boers; they were his proven friends; and he hoped they would win this time. But he was struck by the fact that an equal number of blacks served with the English, hoping, no doubt, that they would win.

  When the disaster of Spion Kop was ended, with the land-armada once again south of the Tugela, and the fifteen thousand trek-oxen pulling the massive wagons back to where they started, Frank Saltwood had to evaluate the performance, which he had witnessed mainly at Buller’s elbow: He had rotten luck. Having that Warren thrust upon him. What a dunderhead! The battle could have been won four different ways, and he rejected them all. But then the question arose: I wonder why Buller didn’t discharge him? Buller was in command.

  The more he thought about this the more he realized that as a South African not reared in the English military tradition, he could not appreciate the reticence one general would have in ever bringing criticism upon another: They’re a fraternity of aging warriors, each supporting the other, each attentive to the traditions of the service. Losing a battle is far less important than losing relative position in the hierarchy.

  But even Saltwood had to admit that not all the blame could be thrown on Warren; Buller, too, had participated in the gross errors: He gave Warren command, then intervened a score of times. After all, it was my man Buller who heckled the commander of the King’s Royal Rifles until those brave men were ordered to retreat.

  When he had lined up in his mind all the pros and cons, one fact persisted: Buller’s foot soldiers consider him the best general they ever served under. I’ve asked a score of them. Always the same answer: ‘I’d go anywhere with Old Buller. He looks after his men.’ And now Saltwood realized that many of the horrendous decisions he saw Buller make were done to preserve lives. He might drink too much Trianon sparkling, and as one correspondent wrote, he did eat gargantuan meals; but where human life was concerned, he was Spartan. ‘Train them hard,’ he had told Saltwood. ‘Drive them hard. But bring them back in good order.’ When Frank asked about this, the old man said, ‘Most important fact of war? Keep your army in existence. Lose the battle, but keep your eye on winning the war.’

  But everyone in Buller’s command had to be aware of the attacks being made upon their general by the experts in Europe. London newspapers began calling him ‘The Ferryman of the Tugela.’ In Parliament he was known as ‘Sir Reverse Buller.’ After the last debacle he humphed and mumbled, ‘By gad, they’re splendid troops. Retreated without losing one gun carriage.’ To which Saltwood said, ‘They should do it well, sir. They’ve had plenty of rehearsal.’ General Buller looked at him with his tiny pinched eyes and laughed. ‘Yes, yes. What I mean, yes. They are great troops.’

  He sent another smashing heliogram to the besieged heroes at Ladysmith, assuring them that he would rescue them within five days, and with fortitude he crossed the Tugela yet again, only to get a shocking bloody nose which sent him reeling back across that pitiful stream once more. In Ladysmith the rations were diminishing, and at the end of twelve weeks Buller was no closer to the town than when he started. Still he had the gall to heliograph yet again that he would succor the town at any moment now.

  In view of the growing criticism, Saltwood sometimes wondered why the British authorities allowed him to retain command. There was one reason, tragic and accidental. In Buller’s first attempt to cross the Tugela, that masterpiece of ineptitude, a gallant young officer volunteered to rescue some heavy guns that were about to be lost to the Boers. He was killed, and he happened to be the son of Lord Roberts, who would shortly become Buller’s superior. Now, lest Roberts appear vengeful over a death for which Buller was in no way responsible, he remained silent, when otherwise he would have recommended his removal.

  A more subtle explanation was given to some French and German observers one night by a young English officer: ‘The War Office wants generals like Buller. They’re never comfortable with uncertain types like Kitchener and Allenby. Buller is steady, which they like, and not too clever, which they prefer. As a young man he obeyed orders and plunged ahead. You should have seen him, they tell me, wading into Egyptians. Very forceful. They like it that he can’t speak clearly, that he harrumphs all over the place. That’s how a proper general should behave. Look at Raglan and Cardigan at Balaklava.’

  ‘But why in God’s name don’t they dismiss him when his deficiencies become known?’ the German asked.

  ‘Ah! That’s why we’re English. That’s why you’ll never understand us. Who appointed Buller? The establishment. The older generals. The older politicians. Probably some of the archbishops had a hand, if the truth were known. They like him. They trust him. He’s one of them. Good family, you know.’

  ‘But he’s destroying the army,’ the Frenchman protested.

  ‘The army! What’s the army? The important thing is that men like Buller be protected. He is England, not some damn-fool lieutenant who got his legs blown off.’

  ‘In Germany he wouldn’t last a week.’

  ‘In England he’ll last forever.’

  ‘You speak as if you love the old fool.’

  ‘I do,’ the young man confessed. ‘He’s a doddering ass, and I love him. Because most of the people at home I love are just like him, and somehow they always do the right thing. You watch, when the decisive battle of this war is fought, Buller will be there, pushing his way ahead, just as he did with the Egyptians.’

  ‘I wish to God he were forty years younger,’ the German said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because when our war against England comes, and it will, I would like him to be in command.’

  ‘He will be,’ the young man said. ‘Under a different name. And beware of him.’

  As he spoke, he tacked onto the bulletin board a notice from Lord Roberts on the other front; it referred to some of his associate officers in the South African war: Douglas Haig, John French, Julian Byng, Edmund Allenby, Ian Hamilton. They would be the General Bullers whom the Germans would have to face.

  With these confused judgments rattling in his head, Major Saltwood watched with pride as General Buller finally figured a way to cross the Tugela, and that night he wrote to Maud, who was busy organizing charities for the wives of Cape men serving with the English forces:

  It was damned brilliant, really. Old Buller moved his heavy guns, we get them from the navy, you know, put them on his flank and laid down a hellish barrage, right ahead of our advancing troops. Like a fi
ery broom he swept away the Boers. So at least we’re across this damned river, but I cannot bring my pen to say, ‘We’ll lift the siege of Ladysmith in five days.’ We’ve said that too many times before. But soon we shall be there.

  On 28 February 1900, ninety-five days after he assigned himself the task of relieving Ladysmith, the siege was lifted. Three memorable incidents marked the stirring occasion.

  Lord Dundonald, always eager for acclaim, dispatched a unit of his cavalry to be first into town. He followed, and in his company was Winston Churchill, almost a full day ahead of General Buller.

  Later, when the general’s more pompous entrance was made, he got his maps mixed up and marched to the wrong gate; the heroic defenders, military and civil, were waiting on the opposite side of town, and when it was pointed out to him that since he and his men were fresh, and on well-rested horses, it might be gracious if he rode to the other side, he said, ‘I enter here,’ and the multitude had to hurry across town to greet him.

  And finally, when the defeated Boers were in retreat, some of the cavalrymen saw a chance to chase and destroy. When they started from the town, some of the men who had withstood the siege wanted to join, but could not: ‘We have no horses. We ate them.’

  ‘Where are those cavalrymen going?’ Buller asked Saltwood.

  ‘Pursuing the enemy.’

  ‘Pursue an enemy who’s been honorably defeated? Good God, call our men back. Give the poor devils decent time to lick their wounds.’

  ‘Sir, we’ve been chasing those damned Boers for months. This is our chance to eliminate them.’

  From beneath his tight little hat General Buller stared at his South African aide. ‘Sir, you have none of the instincts of a gentleman.’ When Frank tried to protest, Buller put his heavy arm about his shoulder. ‘Son, if we lose honor in warfare, we lose everything.’ And he canceled the pursuit.

  General de Groot was bewildered. For more than four months his commando had been abused and misused, and he could do nothing about it. Instead of riding hard and fast in a strike-and-hide tactic, at which his horsemen would have excelled, he had been held in rein and used in assault efforts. It occurred to him, as he sat with Sybilla after the defeat at Ladysmith, that almost never in these four months had his pony been at a gallop, and rarely a trot.

  ‘You know, Sybilla, we’re losing men all the time. Our burghers won’t tolerate this sort of thing.’

  ‘They’ll come back, when your kind of fighting begins.’

  ‘You can’t have a commando with nine men.’

  Then shocking news from the western front reminded them of the harsh possibilities of this war: General Cronje, an obstinate man who believed that the best defense against English arms was a laager, had surrendered.

  ‘What could he have been thinking of?’ De Groot asked Jakob. ‘With four thousand men, you and I could take Durban.’

  ‘It’s a different war over there. General Roberts is in a hurry. He’s no Buller.’

  This doleful news, coinciding with Ladysmith, generated a vast depression among the retreating Boers, so that the Venloo Commando was reduced to one hundred and twenty, and when the time came to hand out assignments, those in charge looked at De Groot with pained tolerance: ‘What can you do, Paulus, with so few?’

  ‘We can attack the cavalry installation,’ he replied with that bitter animosity he held for the English lancers.

  ‘They’d slaughter you!’

  ‘We wouldn’t take them head-on.’ He was so persuasive that permission was granted for what could only be a suicide attempt, except that he had no intention of allowing it to become so.

  He would take his men, including, of course, Van Doorn, and they would move quietly across the Orange Free State to where Generals Roberts and Kitchener held their troops after their big victory over Cronje, and they would ride daringly close to the cavalry cantonment, trusting the natural confusion of a large assembly of horses to mask their approach. They would then dismount, wait till three in the morning, when attention was always at a minimum, sweep in, disrupt the horses, and fight any personnel that might be afoot. In the confusion they would run to their ponies and be off due north, in a direction which the English would not anticipate, because such a move would carry them directly into English lines. De Groot had a plan for what would follow.

  ‘Sounds possible,’ Van Doorn said.

  ‘You wouldn’t want a force much bigger than ours,’ De Groot said enthusiastically.

  ‘We’ll need expert scouting.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that. We’ve got to know exactly where the English troops are. That’s where Micah comes in.’

  Micah proved himself a good scout, always moving with caution. One morning he haltered his pony far beyond English lines while he slipped around sentries, entering boldly the small town upon which the British were centered. Moving freely, he estimated the size and character of the forces, making shrewd guesses as to the length of time they expected to remain in this favorable location.

  He stayed in town two days, losing himself within the black population, several of whom guessed his identity; they did not betray him because they were indifferent as to which side won, and if he was to be well rewarded for his mission, they were pleased.

  When he regained his pony, satisfied that he knew fairly well the disposition of the army men, he rode south and toward the west to where the cavalry were billeted, and now he faced a much more difficult problem. Again tying his pony at a distant spot, he set out on foot to approach the camp, but this time there was no small town into which he could infiltrate, masking himself among the blacks. He had to move from hillock to hillock, running always the risk that a sortie from the barracks would sweep out across the veld on some practice mission and find him spying upon them.

  So he moved with extreme caution until he came within some two hundred yards of the lines where the mounts, big Argentinian horses, were tied. There were more than he had ever seen before, a massive command. The Boers are in trouble, he thought as he studied the fall of the ground, but General de Groot knows what he’s doing.

  He had doubts about his own wisdom when a contingent of young men left their tents, sauntered over to their horses, and casually mounted. After tightening straps, they waited for the arrival of their officer, who came at last on a striking red horse much larger than the others. What a fine animal, Micah thought as he watched what had to be a development of considerable danger.

  ‘Heh!’ he heard the young officer cry, and the forty-six troops lined up behind him. Using his bare right hand instead of the saber which he kept at his side, he indicated the direction his sortie was to make, and Micah saw with dismay that it would be headed in his general direction. He flattened himself between two rocks that provided some cover.

  A bugle sounded and the men came forth. They rode to within thirty yards of where he hid, not one of them looking right or left; since this was a practice session, they felt no need to stay alert, but suddenly they stopped, looked in his direction, and burst into laughter. For one awful moment he thought they were preparing to lance him as a fixed target, but then he heard at some distance a slight scratching sound. Three little meerkats had come out of their burrows to look at the horsemen, and when one of the men made a lunge at them, they scampered. One of the men shouted, ‘Bravo, Simmons. Stick three little Boers like that and there’ll be a medal in it for you.’

  When they continued their canter they headed right into the area where Micah had left his pony, and he expected at any moment to hear a ‘Halloo!’ There was no cry, and after a long while they galloped back to their camp. He breathed deeply when he saw that they had no pony with them.

  Because of his careful scouting he was able to inform General de Groot precisely as to the nature of the two bodies of men: ‘The soldiers will be there for many days. The cavalry horses stand at the edge of the veld, the men’s tents behind them. They expect an attack from the other side, where the Boers are supposed to be.’

&n
bsp; The Venloo Commando did not form a line as they set out on their mission; they straggled over the veld in positions from which each man could dash forward or retreat according to his own judgment. They were engaged in a perilous effort and knew that maximum mobility would be essential. Slowly they covered the neutral ground, then tensed as they approached the land that held the two English contingents. Finally they reached a spot some six hundred yards from the cavalry camp, and here they dismounted.

  ‘Guard the horses,’ General de Groot told his blacks, and they were left behind; that is, all stayed with the horses except Micah Nxumalo, who crept forward with the commando to guide his general to where the enemy horses rested.

  It was now dusk. Keeping low, they stooped and scurried from rock to rock across the veld, zigzagging their way till they were close upon the English encampment. They would hold these positions for at least six hours during this fine summer night, during which they must not talk or smoke. Insects attacked and there was a good deal of scratching, but in general the men remained silent.

  Stars appeared, and the moon, and in the distance a hyena grumbled, then laughed. Familiar constellations climbed to their apex and began their leisurely descent, and over the camp silence reigned. At midnight some cavalrymen came out of a mess tent, stood talking for a while, and bade each other a good rest as they separated.

  ‘Sssst,’ De Groot signaled, and his six followers crept forward. They were on a mission which disturbed some of them, for the butchery they contemplated went against the grain of farmers, but a chain of recent defeats had impressed upon them that they were engaged in a struggle which would not end in truce; one side or the other was going to be totally defeated, and it had better not be the Boers, for the penalties they would pay in lost freedom and even the loss of their republics would be terrifying. They must do what had to be done.