by Fred Khumalo
Tlali snatched the letter from Pitso excitedly. He was in the process of running out the door when the latter stopped him. ‘Tell your father that if he needs my English writing services to respond to this letter, I am available anytime.’
Indeed, Tlali’s family invited Pitso to their huge household and watched him as he sat comfortably on a bench and wrote the letter. They were amazed at the ease with which he blackened a blank piece of paper with the ‘white man’s flies’, as they called the letters of the alphabet.
A few weeks later, a telegram arrived inviting Tlali’s father to come to Johannesburg to fetch his brother’s money and private belongings. Ever since then, ‘our light-complexioned boy’, as Tlali’s father called him, had been an important guest at all the family’s traditional feasts and gatherings. He was considered the bringer of luck. As a token of appreciation, Tlali’s father had given Pitso a horse, a young colt which they duly named Lion, after Pitso’s clan name.
Over the weeks that followed, Tlali had taken pleasure in teaching his friend how to ride. Pitso had his obligatory falls from his mount, but he soon proved to be a competent rider. The two of them could be seen galloping up the grassy knolls or hurtling down the various valleys of open country. They rode to the river where they washed their horses, swam together, picked wild berries. When they were not riding, Pitso would try to teach his friend basic woodworking skills, as he had been taught at the coloured children’s centre.
Because Tlali’s father was a hunter, he kept two old shotguns and a pellet gun. Thanks to his father, Tlali was a competent marksman, and Pitso was grateful when his friend started teaching him how to shoot. They ran after both small and big game. There were still large tracts of land that did not belong to anyone, on which ordinary folk could hunt. Amazing how the countryside had become peaceful once again, after the war.
Tlali and Pitso did have their differences now and then, as did hot-blooded young men, but they loved and respected each other like blood relatives. Tlali, who had never been to school, struggled to get into the mind of Pitso. His friend taught him the rudiments of reading and writing in his native Sesotho, but these basic skills did not equip him to fully understand what was going on in Pitso’s head.
At the Cape Town Depot where they had started undergoing their training, Tlali watched enviously as Pitso engaged in what seemed to be a cordial exchange of words with the white officer. They smiled, shook their heads, gesticulated as close buddies would do. Imagine a black, young man having a casual chat with a white army official.
‘One day I’ll be like you,’ Tlali said to his friend. ‘One day I’ll be able to read the Bible in English, and sing all those beautiful English hymns you’ve been teaching me. And I’ll sing those hymns to my beautiful white bride in Europe.’
CHAPTER 22
It was a glorious day, the sun massaging the men of the Fifth Battalion’s faces with its fingers of warmth as they stood at attention, in full uniform, at the Depot in Cape Town. It was 16 January 1917. A cool morning breeze blew from the sea and a group of seagulls hovered above the water, occasionally swooping to the ground below to fight over a morsel of food. There was very little talk among the men as they made their way towards the dock, laden with their kit. The boisterousness that had characterised their departure from their towns and villages, the loud mayhem they had caused on the train destined for Cape Town, the hearty singing that had accompanied many of their activities at the Depot, the naughty banter they had exchanged during their lunch breaks – all these things were behind them. The cheerful ribaldry had been replaced by a solemn resignation to the reality that lay ahead, waiting for them across the ocean.
Each man had good reason to wonder if this would be the last time he saw his country of birth, for he might die in combat, or the voracious sea might swallow him.
Before they left their homesteads, many of the men had slaughtered a beast – a cow, a goat, a sheep or even a chicken – to appease their ancestors. Having partaken of the blood of a freshly slaughtered animal, it was believed, the traveller would be protected by the ancestors, who would be at his side, acting as an invisible shield against all manner of danger. Some of the men had also burned heaps of the impepho herb as part of their farewell ceremony to the land. The impepho plant was considered sacred and many people made a point of burning a plateful of it before embarking on long journeys. But now that their journey was about to begin, the men’s long-suppressed fears had been rekindled. The sea had to be approached with fear and respect. It carried many secrets in its belly. It was a realm inhabited by monsters never before seen by man. A world haunted by the souls of those who had drowned in these treacherous waters, or those whose vessels had disappeared without trace.
This was Pitso’s final moment before he said goodbye to the land of his birth. He was clenching and unclenching his jaws, nervously trying to come to terms with what was happening, with the decision he had made. There was no turning back.
It was not often that Pitso found himself thinking about his mother, or mourning her. Now he was. Tantalising images of Christine, sweet Christine, also flashed in his mind’s eye. But he shoved them aside, focusing on his mother. He found himself thinking of the little sister he only briefly knew. Where was she? Was she in heaven somewhere, watching over him? Where was his father? Did he even think of the family he’d left behind? What had happened to him? Was he still alive?
Pitso wondered if he even believed in this war. His friends had laughed at him, saying he was being wilfully manipulated by cowardly white people who could fight their own wars but were always looking for darker folks to use as cannon fodder. Maybe his friends were right. How would he benefit from this war, assuming he came back alive? If he died, would it have been for a good cause?
Somebody started singing:
Ayanqikaza ayesaba amagwala,
athi kungcono sibuyele emuva.
The cowards are getting restless,
saying perhaps it’s time we went back home.
It started as a slow hum by a handful of men, Zulu men to be sure, for this was a famous Zulu war song. The song grew in volume and momentum as more men joined in. Those who couldn’t speak Zulu, and therefore didn’t know the lyrics, first dipped their toes into this untested river of music. And then they were ankle deep in it. Before long, they had been swallowed whole by the thunderous, roiling wave of the song which they picked up with gusto:
… qiniselani nani maqhawe,
sekuseduze lapho siya khona
… stand firm, oh ye heroes,
For our destination is nigh.
The song soared; it swung low and then it swung high; it churned the men’s emotions, swept them off their feet of self-doubt, landing them on the high clouds of certainty. Their voices rumbled and roared with a reborn sense of commitment, courage, hope; a joyous celebration of a new-found camaraderie.
Ayanqikaza, ayesaba amagwala
Athi kungcono sibuyele emuva.
Qiniselani nani maqhawe,
Sekuseduze lapho siya khona.
Some of the recruits secretly despised the fact that, even though the Zulus were in the minority, they were the most vocal, always imposing their opinions on others, always ready to usurp leadership opportunities. Pitso had read that, in the closing days of the recruitment drive, of the 25000 men who had enlisted in the Labour Contingent, the land of the Zulus had contributed only 1500. The final breakdown, by territory, would be as follows: Cape Province – 7 000; Transvaal – 13000; Orange Free State – 800; Bechuanaland – 600; Basutoland – 1500; Swaziland – 100.
Pitso wondered why the Zulu nation, historically a warlike people and numerically the biggest language group in the Union of South Africa, had not heeded the call to war with alacrity. After all, the Zulus liked fighting for the sake of fighting, or so it was said of them. Perhaps the reluctance of the Zulus to take part in the war stemmed from the fresh memories of their humiliation at the hands of the British at the Battle of Rorkes Drift in 18
79, which finally put paid to the mighty Kingdom of the Zulus.
In the wake of that battle, huge tracts of land, which were originally the domain of the Zulus, were taken over by the conquering British and parcelled out to black chiefs appointed by the British Empire to carry out the nefarious mandate of the colonialists. Some lands fell under the authority of white magistrates, official appendages of the British Crown. It would take the Children of Mageba a long time, if ever, to recover from this sense of humiliation, let alone to forget it. They were a proud people, the Zulus. When they tried once again to rise in 1906, the ill-fated Bhambatha Rebellion was suppressed before it could gain traction. The ringleaders at the forefront of the campaign were dealt with ferociously. Bhambatha kaMancinza Zondi, the heart and brains of the revolt, was brutally murdered, and the victorious British chopped off his head and paraded it to sceptical followers who did not believe that the great warrior had succumbed to the colonialists. Under these circumstances, even those Zulus who had turned to Christianity during the time of King Cetshwayo, prior to the decisive Rorkes Drift battle, were still ambivalent about the British. They had not recovered from the shock of the violence visited upon their fellow Zulus by the agents of the British Empire.
But the Zulus who had heeded the call to join up with the British troops in their effort against the Germans had done so with pride and dignity. They had vowed to fight to the death for their belief in the justness of the war against the Germans, even if it meant dying at the hands of their fellow Zulus, who had violently tried to dissuade them from joining the conflict. There had also been hope in their heart that, at the end of the war, the British would reward them by reconsidering the status of their king. They couldn’t wait to bask in the full glory of their monarch, once his powers had been fully restored by the British. The war in Europe was their hope for salvation and redemption. As the Zulu saying goes, ithemba kalibulali – hope never killed anyone.
The cowards are getting restless,
Saying perhaps it’s time we turned back.
Stand firm oh ye warriors,
For our destination is nigh.
When they finally reached the vessel they would be sailing on, the men were breathless with joy and impressed by the size of the ship. The name emblazoned in bold script on either side of the vessel read ‘SS Mendi’.
As they embarked, some men carried tattered bags and suitcases that contained their private clothes. Others carried small, decorative cowhide shields and fighting sticks. One man carried a concertina. An officer did the roll call, with each man climbing up the gangway as his name was shouted across the windy wharf: ‘Geelbooi Dinoka! William Ditshepo! Saucepan Maake, Whisky Mahlaba …’
Progress was slow, as many of the men had never been aboard a ship. There was a lot of laughter and nervous joshing – ‘Won’t this thing disintegrate right there in the middle of the water?’ and ‘Why did we sign up for these white wizards to play games with us?’
Once aboard the ship, the men proceeded to the holds below, which had been fitted as troop decks. The white leaders were ushered into cabins amidships, an area that could accommodate sixty people. Medical orderlies and interpreters were quartered near the hospital, which had its designated area in the second-class accommodation aft.
As the final provisions were being loaded onto the vessel – food, coal, clothing and so on – a rumour started circulating among the black recruits.
‘The white man has loaded a ton of gold into the ship,’ said one man in a conspiratorial tone.
‘Why?’ questioned another man, frowning.
‘If we lose the war, we can simply hand over the gold to the victorious Germans, say we are sorry, and then they will let us go home,’ the first man explained, proud to know more than his comrades.
‘The strange ways of the white man. But what if we win the war?’
‘Maybe the white man is going to chop the gold up into pieces, and we each get a piece.’
‘What the hell am I going to do with a piece of gold?’
‘Sell it and get money, or get money made out of it. You need money these days. Cattle are not enough. You need money to pay your taxes. Ah, there are so many kinds of taxes now. Hut tax, dog tax, poll tax. The gold is going to help us get money. That’s how white men get rich.’
‘Isn’t this gold so heavy it can sink our ship?’
‘Leave it to the white man, son. He’s extracted a lot of wealth from the bowels of our country already and sent it to his native country. And his ships never sank. Maybe some did sink, but the majority reached their destination safely.’
On and on the stories about gold did the rounds. In fact, newspaper reports of the time confirmed that, before the SS Mendi sailed, gold bullion to the value of five million pounds had indeed been taken on board the ship. The war was costing the British Crown a lot of money and, due to the extraordinary situation, sailing international waters was high risk. German U-boats, submarines and armed cruisers had been dispatched to all the seven seas, attacking Allied merchant boats to prevent supplies from reaching their troops in Europe. Even passenger liners were not safe from the Germans. In these conditions, the SS Mendi had to sail in convoy with the Kenilworth Castle, also carrying South African troops and gold. Escorted by the armoured cruiser HMS Cornwall, the other ships in the convoy were the Orient liner Orsova, the White Star Liner Medic, the Berrima and the Port Lyttelton, all of which were carrying Australian troops.
Standing on deck, looking at the receding hulk of Table Mountain and the mainland that they might be seeing for the last time, some troops wept.
‘Look at that,’ said Tlali to a group of men. ‘The land is becoming smaller and smaller. Soon it won’t exist. Isn’t that a miracle?’
Thankfully, the weather was kind to the passengers of SS Mendi and the rest of the convoy. They sailed smoothly, and after looking at the land of their birth disappear from view, they went to their assigned tasks.
The commander of the Mendi was Captain Henry Arthur Yardley, a tall, gangly man with a ready smile and a well-trimmed white beard. An expensive pipe was always dangling from the side of his mouth, like a permanent appendage. Captain Yardley was a veteran sailor who had been a master of a number of vessels since 1901. Aboard the vessel was a crew of eighty-nine, including the master and officers, mostly British. The South African Native Labour Contingent consisted of five white officers, seventeen non-commissioned officers and eight hundred and two black troops. There were also a small number of military passengers; officers returning to Europe after wounds or leave.
Soon enough – amazingly quickly, in fact – the men adopted the routine of life on a troopship. They cleaned troop decks and laid kit out for inspection. During the day, they were encouraged to spend as much time as possible on the open decks. Taking advantage of his size and physical strength, Pitso applied for a job as a stoker in the engine room. He joined a group of strong, well-built men down there, recognising one of them as Ngqavini, the Zulu-speaking man who always led them in song.
Ngqavini glared at Pitso when he walked into the engine room for the first time and picked up a shovel and started doing what the other men were doing – shovelling coal into the boiler.
‘Hheyi, msushwana ndini ufunani la?’ said Ngqavini. Hey, you little Sotho boy, what are you doing here? ‘You think this is your mother’s backyard garden? You will shit rocks and boulders here. Jesu-Maria-Josefa! We want men, not girls in pants!’
Pitso ignored the Zulu and continued shovelling the coal. The following day was the same, but Pitso sweated it out down there in the belly of the ship, Ngqavini’s taunts and insults bouncing off his broad shoulders. Working down there allowed him the solitude he needed, the precious opportunity to be by himself with his thoughts.
On the fifth day of his service in the boiler room, Pitso suddenly felt the ship trembling and rocking wildly, the first time it had done so since they left port, scaring him.
To calm his nerves, he started singing:
&
nbsp; When peace, like a river, attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul …
Ngqavini, his mouth agape, a spark of surprise, curiosity, joy in his eyes, rumbled, ‘Hey, so are you a Christian?’
Pitso continued singing, ignoring the other man.
‘Msushwana, are you listening to me? Are you a Christian?’
Exasperated, Pitso stopped singing and asked, ‘So what if I’m Christian?’
‘I was born into Christianity, but there were challenges …’
They stared at each other wordlessly for some time.
Ngqavini seemed to change his mind about engaging in conversation. He picked up his shovel and cried, ‘Back to work, msushwana. Jesu-Maria-Josefa! We came here to work, not to perepereza with our mouths like women.’
Frowning, Pitso picked up his shovel and went back to work. He broke into another song.
About an hour later, Pitso’s rhythm was broken when he heard Ngqavini shouting, ‘And what do you think you are doing here?’
Pitso, who was now used to Ngqavini’s outbursts, most of which were unnecessary, decided to ignore the man. He continued shovelling coal into the furnace.
‘Get the hell out of here, man. We have enough Basothos here as we speak. Get away from here!’
Enough, Pitso thought, dropping his shovel. When he looked up, he realised that Ngqavini was addressing Tlali, who had entered the engine room. Ngqavini moved like a dust devil towards Tlali, his fists clenched. ‘I said get out of here. No more Basotho girls. Out.’
By way of reply, Tlali connected a right to Ngqavini’s left cheek. A weaker man would have dropped like a bag of potatoes, but Ngqavini was a seasoned street fighter who’d done time at blood-spattered gold-mine compounds in Johannesburg. He merely shook his head, then threw a sledgehammer that caught Tlali on the jaw. Tlali was knocked back, slamming against a hot boiler. Screaming in agony, he shrank away from the burning metal.