The Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories

by Herman Charles Bosman

  “I can sense these kaffirs all around us,” Veldkornet Andries Joubert said to our seksie of about a dozen burghers when we had come to a halt in a clearing amid the tall withaaks. “I have been in so many kaffir wars that I can almost smell when there are kaffirs lying in wait for us with assegais. And yet all day long you never see a single Mtosa that you can put a lead bullet through.”

  He also said that if this war went on much longer we would forget altogether how to handle a gun. And what would we do then, when we again had to fight England?

  Young Fanie Louw, who liked saying funny things, threw back his head and pretended to be sniffing the air with discrimination. “I can smell a whole row of assegais with broad blades and short handles,” Fanie Louw said. “The stabbing assegai has got more of a selon’s rose sort of smell about it than a throwing spear. The selon’s rose that you come across in graveyards.”

  The veldkornet did not think Fanie Louw’s remark very funny, however. And he said we all knew that this was the first time Fanie Louw had ever been on commando. He also said that if a crowd of Mtosas were to leap out of the bush on to us suddenly, then you wouldn’t be able to smell Fanie Louw for dust. The veldkornet also said another thing that was even better.

  Our group of burghers laughed heartily. Maybe Veldkornet Joubert could not think out a lot of nonsense to say just on the spur of the moment, in the way that Fanie Louw could, but give our veldkornet a chance to reflect, first, and he would come out with the kind of remark that you just had to admire.

  Indeed, from the very next thing Veldkornet Joubert said, you could see how deep was his insight. And he did not have to think much, either, then.

  “Let us get out of here as quick as hell, men,” he said, speaking very distinctly. “Perhaps the kaffirs are hiding out in the open turf-lands, where there are no trees. And none of this long tamboekie grass, either.”

  When we emerged from that stretch of bush we were glad to discover that our veldkornet had been right, like always.

  For another group of Transvaal burghers had hit on the same strategy.

  “We were in the middle of the bush,” their leader, Combrinck, said to us, after we had exchanged greetings. “A very thick part of the bush, with withaaks standing up like skeletons. And we suddenly thought the Mtosas might have gone into hiding out here in the open.”

  You could see that Veldkornet Joubert was pleased to think that he had, on his own, worked out the same tactics as Com­brinck, who was known as a skilful kaffir-fighter. All the same, it seemed as though this was going to be a long war.

  It was then that, again speaking out of his turn, Fanie Louw said that all we needed now was for the kommandant himself to arrive there in the middle of the turf-lands with the main body of burghers. “Maybe we should even go back to Pretoria to see if the Mtosas aren’t perhaps hiding in the Volksraad,” he said. “Passing laws and things. You know how cheeky a Mtosa is.”

  “It can’t be worse than some of the laws that the Volksraad is al­ready passing now,” Combrinck said, gruffly. From that we could see that why he had not himself been appointed kommandant was because he had voted against the President in the last elections.

  By that time the sun was sitting not more than about two Cape feet above a tall koppie on the horizon. Accordingly, we started looking about for a place to camp. It was muddy in the turf-lands, and there was no firewood there, but we all said that we did not mind. We would not pamper ourselves by going to sleep in the thick bush, we told one another. It was war-time, and we were on commando, and the mud of the turf-lands was good enough for us, we said.

  It was then that an unusual thing happened.

  For we suddenly did see Mtosas. We saw them from a long way off. They came out of the bush and marched right out into the open. They made no attempt to hide. We saw in amazement that they were coming straight in our direction, advancing in single file. And we observed, even from that distance, that they were unarmed. Instead of assegais and shields they carried burdens on their heads. And almost in that same moment we realised, from the heavy look of those burdens, that the carriers must be women.

  For that reason we took our guns in our hands and stood waiting. Since it was women, we were naturally prepared for the lowest form of treachery.

  As the column drew nearer we saw that at the head of it was Ndambe, an old native whom we knew well. For years he had been Sijefu’s chief counsellor. Ndambe held up his hand. The line of women halted. Ndambe spoke. He declared that we white men were kings among kings and elephants among elephants. He also said that we were rinkhals snakes more poisonous and generally disgusting than any rinkhals snake in the country.

  We knew, of course, that Ndambe was only paying us compliments in his ignorant Mtosa fashion. And so we naturally felt highly gratified. I can still remember the way Jurie Bekker nudg­ed me in the ribs and said, “Did you hear that?”

  When Ndambe went on, however, to say that we were filthier than the spittle of a green tree-toad, several burghers grew restive. They felt that there was perhaps such a thing as carrying these tribal courtesies a bit too far.

  It was then that Veldkornet Joubert, slipping his finger inside the trigger guard of his gun, requested Ndambe to come to the point. By the expression on our veldkornet’s face, you could see that he had had enough of compliments for one day.

  They had come to offer peace, Ndambe told us then.

  What the women carried on their heads were presents.

  At a sign from Ndambe the column knelt in the mud of the turf-land. They brought lion and zebra skins and elephant tusks, and beads and brass bangles and, on a long grass mat, the whole haunch of a red Afrikaner ox, hide and hoof and all. And several pigs cut in half. And clay pots filled to the brim with white beer, and also – and this we prized most – witch-doctor medicines that protected you against goël spirits at night and the evil eye.

  Ndambe gave another signal. A woman with a clay pot on her head rose up from the kneeling column and advanced towards us. We saw then that what she had in the pot was black earth. It was wet and almost like turf-soil. We couldn’t understand what they wanted to bring us that for. As though we didn’t have enough of it, right there where we were standing, and sticking to our veldskoens, and all. And yet Ndambe acted as though that was the most precious part of the peace offerings that his chief, Sijefu, had sent us.

  It was when Ndambe spoke again that we saw how ignorant he and his chief and the whole Mtosa tribe were, really.

  He took a handful of soil out of the pot and pressed it together between his fingers. Then he told us how honoured the Mtosa tribe was because we were waging war against them. In the past they had only had flat-faced Mshangaans with spiked knobkerries to fight against, he said, but now it was different. Our veldkornet took half a step forward, then, in case Ndambe was going to start flattering us again. So Ndambe said, simply, that the Mtosas would be glad if we came and made war against them later on, when the harvests had been gathered in. But in the mean­time the tribe did not wish to continue fighting.

  It was the time for sowing.

  Ndambe let the soil run through his fingers, to show us how good it was. He also invited us to taste it. We declined.

  We accepted the presents and peace was made. And I can still remember how Veldkornet Joubert shook his head and said, “Can you beat the Mtosas for ignorance?”

  And I can still remember what Jurie Bekker said, also. That was when something made him examine the haunch of beef more closely, and he found his own brand mark on it.

  It was not long afterwards that the war came against England.

  By the end of the second year of the war the Boer forces were in a very bad way. But we would not make peace. Veldkornet Joubert was now promoted to kommandant. Combrinck fell in the battle before Dalmanutha. Jurie Bekker was still with us. And so was Fanie Louw. And it was strange how attached we had grown to Fanie Louw during the years of hardship that we went through together in the field. But up to the e
nd we had to admit that, while we had got used to his jokes, and we knew there was no harm in them, we would have preferred it that he should stop making them.

  He did stop, and for ever, in a skirmish near a blockhouse. We buried him in the shade of a thorn-tree. We got ready to fill in his grave, after which the kommandant would say a few words and we would bare our heads and sing a psalm. As you know, it was customary at a funeral for each mourner to take up a handful of earth and fling it in the grave.

  When Kommandant Joubert stooped down and picked up his handful of earth, a strange thing happened. And I remembered that other war, against the Mtosas. And we knew – although we would not say it – what was now that longing in the hearts of each of us. For Kommandant Joubert did not straightway drop the soil into Fanie Louw’s grave. Instead, he kneaded the damp ground between his fingers. It was as though he had forgotten that it was funeral earth. He seemed to be thinking not of death, then, but of life.

  We patterned after him, picking up handfuls of soil and pressing it together. We felt the deep loam in it, and saw how springy it was, and we let it trickle through our fingers. And we could remember only that it was the time for sowing.

  I understood then how, in an earlier war, the Mtosas had felt, they who were also farmers.

  The Missionary

  That kaffir carving on the wall of my voorkamer (Oom Schalk Lourens said), it’s been there for many years. It was found in the loft of the pastorie at Ramoutsa after the death of the Dutch Reformed missionary there, Reverend Keet.

  To look at, it’s just one of those figures that a kaffir wood-carver cuts out of soft wood, like mdubu or mesetla. But because I knew him quite well, I can still see a rough sort of resemblance to Reverend Keet in that carving, even though it is now discoloured with age and the white ants have eaten away parts of it. I first saw this figure in the study of the pastorie at Ramoutsa when I went to call on Reverend Keet. And when, after his death, the carving was found in the loft of the pastorie, I brought it here. I kept it in memory of a man who had strange ideas about what he was pleased to call Darkest Africa.

  Reverend Keet had not been at Ramoutsa very long. Before that he had worked at a mission station in the Cape. But, as he told us, ever since he had paid a visit to the Marico District, some years before, he had wanted to come to the Western Transvaal. He said he had obtained, in the Bushveld along the Molopo River, a feeling that here was the real Africa. He said there was a spirit of evil in these parts that he believed it was his mission to overcome.

  We who had lived in the Marico for the greater part of our lives wondered what we had done to him.

  On his previous visit here Reverend Keet had stayed long enough to meet Elsiba Grobler, the daughter of Thys Grobler of Drogedal. Afterwards he had sent for Elsiba to come down to the Cape to be his bride.

  And so we thought that the missionary had remembered with affection the scenes that were the setting for his courtship. And that was why he came back here. So you can imagine how disappointed we were in learning the truth.

  Nevertheless, I found it interesting to listen to him, just because he had such outlandish views. And so I called on him quite regularly when I passed the mission station on my way back from the Indian store at Ramoutsa.

  Reverend Keet and I used to sit in his study, where the curtains were half drawn, as they were in the whole pastorie. I supposed it was to keep out the bright sunshine that Darkest Africa is so full of.

  “Only yesterday a kaffir child hurt his leg falling out of a wit­haak tree,” Reverend Keet said to me on one occasion. “And the parents didn’t bring the child here so that Elsiba or I could bandage him up. Instead, they said there was a devil in the withaak. And so they got the witch-doctor to fasten a piece of crocodile skin to the child’s leg, to drive away the devil.”

  So I said that that just showed you how ignorant a kaffir was. They should have fastened the crocodile skin to the withaak, in­stead, like the old people used to do. That would drive the devil away quick enough, I said.

  Reverend Keet did not answer. He just shook his head and looked at me in a pitying sort of way, so that I felt sorry I had spoken.

  To change the subject I pointed to a kaffir wood-carving standing on a table in the corner of the study. That same wood-carving you see today hanging on the wall of my voorkamer.

  “Here’s now something that we want to encourage,” Reverend Keet said in answer to my question. “Through art we can perhaps bring enlightenment to these parts. The kaffirs here seem to have a natural talent for wood-carving. I have asked Willem Terre­blanche to write to the Education Department for a text-book on the subject. It will be another craft that we can teach to the children at the school.”

  Willem Terreblanche was the assistant teacher at the mission station.

  “Anyway, it will be more useful than that last text-book we got on how to make paper serviettes with tassels,” Reverend Keet went on, half to himself. Then it was as though an idea struck him. “Oh, by the way,” he asked, “would you perhaps like, say, a few dozen paper serviettes with tassels to take home with you?”

  I declined his offer in some haste.

  Reverend Keet started talking about that carving again.

  “You wouldn’t think it was meant for me, now, would you?” he asked.

  And because I am always polite, that way, I said no, certainly not.

  “I mean, just look at the top of my body,” he said. “It’s like a sack of potatoes. Does the top part of my body look like a sack of potatoes?”

  And once again I said no, oh no.

  Reverend Keet laughed, then – rather loudly I thought – at the idea of the wood-carver’s ignorance. I laughed quite loudly, also, to make it clear that I, too, thought that the kaffir wood-carver was very ignorant.

  “All the same, for a raw kaffir who has had no training,” the missionary continued, “it’s not bad. But take that self-satisfied sort of smile, now, that he put on my face. It only came out that way because the kaffir who made the carving lacks the skill to carve my features as they really are. He hasn’t got technique.”

  I thought, well, maybe that ignorant Bechuana didn’t know any more what technique was than I did. But I did think he had a pretty shrewd idea how to carve a wooden figure of Reverend Keet.

  “If a kaffir had the impudence to make a likeness like that of me, with such big ears and all,” I said to Reverend Keet, “I would kick him in the ribs. I would kick him for being so ignorant, I mean.”

  It was then that Elsiba brought us in our coffee. Although she was now the missionary’s wife, I still thought of her as Elsiba, a Bushveld girl whom I had seen grow up.

  “You’ve still got that thing there,” Elsiba said to her husband, after she had greeted me. “I won’t have you making a fool of yourself. Every visitor to the pastorie who sees this carving goes away laughing at you.”

  “They laugh at the kaffir who made it, Elsiba, because of his poor technique,” Reverend Keet said, drawing himself up in his chair.

  “Anyway, I’m taking it out of here,” Elsiba answered.

  I have since then often thought of that scene. Of the way Elsiba Keet walked from the room, with the carving standing upright on the tray that she had carried the coffee-cups on. Because of its big feet that wooden figure did not fall over when Elsiba flounced out with the tray. And in its stiff, wooden bearing the figure seemed to be expressing the same disdain of the kaffir wood-carver’s technique as what Reverend Keet had.

  I remained in the study a long time. And all the while the missionary talked of the spirit of evil that hung over the Marico like a heavy blanket. It was something brooding and oppressive, he said, and it did something to the souls of men. He asked me whether I hadn’t noticed it myself.

  So I told him that I had. I said that he had taken the very words out of my mouth. And I proceeded to tell him about the time Jurie Bekker had impounded some of my cattle that he claimed had strayed into his mealie-lands.

 
“You should have seen Jurie Bekker the morning that he drove off my cattle along the Government Road,” I said. “An evil blanket hung over him, all right. You could almost see it. A striped kaffir blanket.”

  I also told the missionary about the sinful way in which Ni­k­laas Prinsloo had filled in those compensation forms for losses which he had never suffered, even. And about the time Gert Haasbroek sold me what he said was a pedigree Afrikaner bull, and that was just an animal he had smuggled through from the Protectorate one night, with a whole herd of other beasts, and that died afterwards of grass-belly.

  I said that the whole of the Marico District was just bristling with evil, and I could give him many more examples, if he would care to listen.

  But Reverend Keet said that was not what he meant. He said he was talking of the unnatural influences that hovered over this part of the country. He had felt those things particularly at the swamps by the Molopo, he said, with the green bubbles coming up out of the mud and with those trees that were like shapes oppressing your mind when it is fevered. But it was like that everywhere in the Bushveld, he said. With the sun pouring down at midday, for instance, and the whole veld very still, it was yet as though there was a high black wind, somewhere, an old lost wind. And he felt a chill in all his bones, he said, and it was something unearthly.

  It was interesting for me to hear the Reverend Keet talk like that. I had heard the same sort of thing before from strangers. I wondered what he could take for it.

  “Even here in this study, where I am sitting talking to you,” he added, “I can sense a baleful influence. It is some form of – of something skulking, somehow.”

  I knew, of course, that Reverend Keet was not making any underhanded allusion to my being there in his study. He was too religious to do a thing like that. Nevertheless, I felt uncomfortable. Shortly afterwards I left.