The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  So as they approached the encampment, De Groot touched those nearest him, saying nothing but indicating that he expected them to perform their tasks. Some of the men brushed his hand with theirs; others simply nodded in the darkness. When they were within ten yards of the horse corral, he leaped forward boldly and his men followed.

  Three of them knocked down barriers and turned hundreds of horses loose. Others grabbed the bridles of seven big horses saddled for emergencies and led them outside. General de Groot and Jakob moved methodically to the line where the officers’ choice mounts were kept and shot them methodically, one after another, killing them in most cases, immobilizing them permanently in others.

  There was no panic, no hurry when bugles began to sound, only the piling of inflammables and the striking of matches. Before any English cavalryman could get to the stores, they were ablaze and dark figures were riding away. What infuriated the Englishmen as they rushed onto the scene, powerless to retaliate, for their horses were gone, was that in the light from leaping flames they could see Boers on horseback, galloping among the free horses and shooting them down.

  ‘M’ God!’ one young officer cried. ‘They’re shooting the horses!’ In rage he began firing at the retreating Boers, and although everyone knew that the invaders could not be reached, the entire cavalry contingent blazed away at them, firing and cursing as they watched their great steeds go down. When dawn came, both the Englishmen and the Boers realized that the remainder of this war was going to be excessively ugly.

  ‘An inhuman act,’ General Kitchener cried when he saw the dead horses. ‘No civilized man would do such a thing.’

  He had no right to be sensitive about what civilized men would do or not do; in the fiery battle that had led to the surrender of General Cronje and his four thousand Boers, a critical moment had come when the English line seemed to be wavering. It could be stabilized only by some drastic action which would command the attention and respect of all. Kitchener had seen the solution.

  ‘Cavalry, charge up the center, and even if you do not reach the Boer laager, blaze away at them.’

  ‘Sir,’ the Scottish commander of the horsemen protested, ‘that would be suicidal.’

  Kitchener stiffened. He knew that by ordinary standards the order was insane, but this vast battle was not ordinary. ‘I command you to charge the laager.’

  The Scotsman saluted briskly. ‘Very well, sir.’ He realized that if he disobeyed, he would be court-martialed and perhaps shot, but he also knew that if he obeyed, two hundred of his best men would be slain. He solved the problem in a heroic way. Turning to the brigade, he said, ‘Retire twenty paces and regroup.’ To his four officers he said, ‘Return to camp and fetch us more ammunition.’ When all were safely behind him, he turned to face the distant enemy and started riding slowly toward the laager, as ordered.

  On and on he came, far ahead of his men, riding on a tall white horse that stepped forward with stately caution. Suddenly he spurred his horse and ranged forward, closing upon the enemy guns, well hidden behind bulwarks, and it became apparent to both the English and the Boers what he was doing. He was obeying orders. He had been told to charge, and he was about to charge, but his obedience did not mean that he had to carry his men to their death. There was a hush, and then he whipped out his sword, tilting it at the proper angle, and as his handsome animal leaped forward he bellowed, ‘Charge!’

  Boers, watching him gallop into the muzzle of their guns, could not bring themselves to fire, but one burgher who had read Sir Walter Scott understood the traditions of chivalry and knew that from such a charge there would be no retreat, nor any place in English life after such insubordination. ‘Fire!’ this man shouted, but no one responded. ‘Fire,’ he cried again, ‘we must help him,’ but once more there was awed silence. But when the rider was almost to the guns, the burghers opened fire at him, and he fell dead.

  For General Kitchener to order a Scottish officer and his men to certain death was warfare, and as a consequence of such discipline, he had been enabled to destroy General Cronje; but for Paulus de Groot to kill two hundred Argentine horses was, in Kitchener’s words: ‘A show of barbarism, an inhuman act of madness outside the rules of civilized warfare.’

  From now on, the war would be marked by many inhuman acts, but it would depend upon which side was speaking as to where the inhumanity lay. The English attitude was well summarized by General Kitchener: ‘Damnit all, stands to reason, what I mean. Why don’t they dress in khaki, like a proper army, so you can see them, and get down off those damned ponies and fight like men? What’s all this hitting a man and then running away—are they cowards, or what? The damned Wogs fought better than these fellows. The lot of them need a proper hiding.’

  General Roberts, a more temperate man, objected to three things about the Boers: ‘They don’t obey their commanders, so it’s impossible to make a truce with them. They lack discipline, so you never know what they’re apt to do next. And I don’t like to bring this up, but they are careless, very careless indeed about the use of the white flag.’ When asked by a correspondent from a Paris newspaper what he meant by this, he sought to avoid controversy and remained silent, but when others pressed him, with their pencils ready, he said bluntly, ‘They approach you with the flag. Lull you. Then drop it and are back in the battle.’

  ‘Certainly not, sir.’

  ‘I saw it with my own eyes. I’ve had various reports. Couldn’t believe them. After all, these are decent human beings. But at the Battle of Driefontein, I watched as they did it.’

  What Kitchener objected to, and most strenuously, was the Boer habit of ransacking the bodies of dead English soldiers and appropriating articles of needed clothing: ‘The ghouls appear in our khaki. At fifty paces can’t tell they’re enemy. That’s breaking the rules of civilized warfare.’

  The English leaders made a great fuss over these rules of civilized warfare; they felt that an enemy should behave much like the barefoot Indians and Egyptians: stand in line with their rusty guns; wait as the phalanx of red-coated battalions marched at them; fire; run when the cavalry charged; surrender and go back to their land when the war was declared over. It was disturbing to think that men of European heritage would fight the way the Boers did, with trickery, speed, and the nasty habit of dissolving back into the landscape instead of surrendering. And the fact that these Boers were well supplied with the best German Mausers and French Martini-Henri rifles was distressing.

  But the Boers, too, had their grievances. Like General de Groot, they felt it to be inhuman and far beyond the principles of civilized warfare for men to sit astride big horses—like those from the farms of America and the Argentine—and to ride them in among the commandos, cutting and slashing as they came. Hundreds of Boers, who started with no more than sullen resentment against the English, grew to detest them because of the cavalry charges, and when De Groot and his men destroyed the Argentine horses they applauded.

  Even worse they deplored the English habit of firing their guns at two hundred yards, and then a hundred, and then fifty, and finally charging in with bayonets, a weapon the Boers never used. ‘To come at a man with cold steel,’ De Groot said, ‘that’s inhuman.’ Many an Englishman who should have been captured and led away to safe imprisonment lost his life because he fought with a bayonet, for Christian men did not do that.

  Between the combatants a kind of chivalry did exist, based on real respect: the English were redoubtable foes, willing to absorb tremendous losses; the Boers were often willing to go up against unbelievable odds, and many of the most unusual gestures of courtesy were extended by these rude farmers. But on two points of difference they were adamant, and when the English refused to concede on these, a deep bitterness was engendered, with each side actually flogging and shooting prisoners captured from the other.

  The deepest difference, perhaps, concerned black troops; each side used African scouts, but increasingly those with the English turned up with arms, whereupon word wo
uld flash through the countryside: ‘The English are arming the Kaffirs.’ This was intolerable, for no matter how desperately the two white armies fought each other, in the backs of their minds the real enemy was the black man watching from the side.

  English commanders were aware of Boer feelings on this point, but that did not prevent them from enlisting and arming Coloured units from the Cape, and for this the Boers would never forgive them.

  Besides, for the English to use these Coloureds only deepened the Boers’ resentment of the fact that so few Afrikaners from the Cape volunteered to help. Many still hoped for a massive rebellion against the English in the two colonies, Cape and Natal, but no more than thirteen thousand crossed over. What was especially galling, thousands of Cape citizens of Dutch ancestry joined men of English descent in colonial regiments which fought in British armies against the Boers. Many in the north would die hating their brothers in the south for this treachery.

  The other Boer grievance was less complex. Because of their stern religiosity, they tried to avoid any activity on Sundays, and once during a protracted engagement, when General De Groot had his men at Sunday prayer, their guns silent, one of the Venloo men rushed into the service, shouting, ‘They’re playing cricket!’

  De Groot stalked to a vantage point and looked through his glass at the green field upon which the English officers were having a merry game. He was appalled at this sacrilege and ordered a heliographer to send a message commanding the game to halt, this being the Sabbath. When the English signaled back the score, ‘Eighty-seven for three wickets,’ he fell into a dark fury and ran breathlessly to a large gun.

  ‘Fire on them!’ When the Creusot monster was loaded and aimed he cautioned: ‘But not too close.’ The shell landed well off the cricket field and killed no one. Phlegmatically the officers continued their game, so a second shell had to be launched, and this came so close that the young men flew helter-skelter. When white-flagged emissaries came to protest the breaking of a tacit truce, De Groot replied, ‘On Sundays you are to pray like us, not play at cricket like heathens.’

  This matter of religion always perplexed De Groot and Van Doorn. They knew they were men dedicated to God and were convinced that He looked after them with special regard; they also knew that since the English were indifferent to the Bible, God must despise them, yet there were contradictions, as De Groot pointed out in a report to the council:

  I cannot understand it. The English have what they call a chaplain attached to every unit, and braver men I have never seen. To aid a fallen comrade or give last prayers to a dying man, they will cross open areas of gunfire with such fortitude that our men sometimes cheer them in admiration. But we Boers, who live and die under a special covenant with God, have some predikants who jump if even a pistol shot goes off. Our spiritual welfare was being looked after by Predikants Nel and Maartins, but not for long. As soon as the first gun fired, both these dominees quickly found that commando life was not for them. No member of my commando felt their loss, as we provide our own prayers.

  One bitter point was never discussed in public; it appeared in no news dispatches from the front, but it caused the harshest animosities, as General de Groot learned one morning when his commando captured six Englishmen. The young officer, a blond lad from Oriel College with his first commission, protested grievously: ‘Sir, why do you Boers stoop so low as to use dumdum bullets?’

  De Groot did not change his expression. ‘Did we use them?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ the young man cried in near-hysteria. ‘Chalmers was struck in the jaw. Should have been merely a nasty wound. Dumdum expands, makes a mess of his head. Atkins hit in the abdomen. Normally might pull through. Dumdum opens up his whole belly.’ When De Groot made no response, the young fellow shouted, ‘It’s monstrous, Meneer.’

  Quietly De Groot nodded to Van Doorn: ‘Hand him three.’ And from a special pouch Jakob produced three dumdum bullets, tossing them into the young man’s lap. The Englishman studied them and blanched. In consternation he looked at De Groot and asked, ‘Is this correct, Meneer? Our own Woolwich Arsenal?’

  ‘Tell him where we got them,’ De Groot said, and Van Doorn said, ‘You heard about our raid against the cavalry? The seven big horses we kept? Those bullets you hold came from this pouch, found attached to one of the saddles.’

  The young man apologized: ‘They were intended for the Afghan frontier. Not for civilized warfare.’

  In the autumn of 1900 such incidents receded in importance, for the massive strength of the English began to tell. They now had about two hundred fifty thousand men in the field against a maximum of sixty-three thousand Boers, and there was no way that the few, however gallant, could continue to hold off the many. With bold yet carefully prepared strikes, Generals Roberts and Kitchener rolled their choicest troops across the veld to Johannesburg and Pretoria. Town after town fell to the Tommies, and on the seventeenth of May even the tiny settlement at Mafeking was relieved at the end of a siege which had lasted interminably. General Robert Baden-Powell, who had used his scouting tactics to keep the town alive, was hailed throughout the world as a proper hero, and his manly deportment gave the English troops added courage as they headed for Johannesburg, which they captured on 31 May 1900.

  Now came that most popular of all war songs, and in many ways the best, ‘We’re Marching to Pretoria.’ Thousands of men chanted this as they closed in upon the Boer capital, and their triumphant voices could be heard as a last railway train left Pretoria on its solemn way down the line that led to Lourenço Marques in Moçambique. This was the only line the Boers still controlled, and in Car 17 that gloomy day rode Oom Paul Kruger in desperate flight.

  It took the English only five days to capture Pretoria; it fell on 5 June 1900, and the great Anglo-Boer War was almost over. There was such joy in England that the police feared rioting, and families which still had sons in Africa—and there were many of them—wept openly to know that their boys would now be coming home.

  There was a little mopping up to be done. General Roberts did not want to leave for London until the last railway line was in his hands, for that would mean that any further resistance, even from guerilla units like Paulus de Groot’s dwindling commando, would be impossible. Like the good soldier he was, the little one-eyed genius refrained from announcing victory until President Kruger was driven completely out of South Africa, and to achieve this, he proposed that he and Kitchener march east along the railway while General Buller came up from the south to close the final pincers.

  There are in existence some fifty telegrams in which Roberts from the north begged Buller in the south to speed up his approach, and to each the Ferryman of the Tugela replied with faultless logic, explaining why he could not move a whit faster. When Roberts sent an English colonel to find out what in the world was restraining this warrior, it fell to Major Saltwood to escort him, and as the two officers inspected General Buller’s operations, Frank became even more aware of the considerable change that had taken place in his estimate of Buller.

  For example, the visitor exploded at the number of wagons in the train, saying, ‘My God! We’re in the closing stages of a war. He ought to abandon four-fifths of these and gallop north to help us.’

  ‘Now wait!’ Saltwood replied defensively. ‘Buller moves slowly, but I’ve observed that he accomplishes his missions with minimal losses of men. No general protects his troops the way this old man does.’

  ‘But at what cost? He refuses to take chances.’

  ‘I used to think so, too. But watching him in action—’

  ‘What action? Know what they’re calling him at headquarters? Sitting Bull.’ The colonel laughed heartily at the mess-room joke.

  Saltwood stiffened. ‘Sir, we have a dozen funny names for the old fellow. But do you know what his men call him? John Bull.’

  The colonel was not impressed, but when he challenged Buller about his excessive wagons, all he got was a harrumph: ‘Damn me, man, troops can’t march forward w
ith empty bellies.’

  ‘General Roberts says you think too much about your men.’

  ‘No general ever lost a battle because he defended his men.’

  ‘When you began this campaign,’ the colonel pointed out ungraciously, ‘you promised it would be over by Christmas. That was last Christmas, sir.’

  Buller showed no resentment. Squinting his tight little eyes beneath the brooding visor, he said simply, ‘Damnfool statement. Made it before I’d met the Boers in battle. They’re formidable, sir, and if Roberts thinks …’ The rest of his rebuttal was lost in his monstrous mustache.

  The formal meeting accomplished nothing, but when Buller withdrew, mumbling to himself, Saltwood remained with the colonel. ‘In our march north I’ve seen a remarkable man at work. Victory after victory, with almost no casualties. He seems to have an uncanny sense of what his men can do, where they should strike.’

  ‘At Spion Kop he was a disaster.’

  ‘At Spion Kop he relied upon General Warren. Now he relies on himself.’

  ‘Are you defending Sir Reverse?’

  ‘I am. He’s no Roberts, flying off all over the place. He’s no Kitchener, blustering into cannon fire. He’s an elderly general with a smart sense of warfare and a devotion to his men.’

  Buller proved this in an embarrassing way, for in the hearing of the visiting colonel he said, ‘Saltwood, we’re facing the final push. Go down to Trianon and fetch me five hundred of their best sparkling. It may not be champagne, but it does taste good at the end of a long march. And fetch some beer for the men.’

  When the two junior officers were alone, the visitor said, ‘He never took a long march in his life.’

  ‘I can assure you of one thing,’ Saltwood said. ‘On the day of victory, Old Buller will be the one marching in. Not fast, mind you. But very steady.’ And when the sneering colonel had departed, Frank realized to his amazement that he had grown to love the Ferryman of the Tugela, for Redvers Buller, with his squinting eyes and eggplant head and telescope between his toes, knew what was war, how it should be fought, and how it could be won.