by Peter Rimmer
Even through the trees he heard the gate being pushed open in the stockade. Dogs barked and the two ridgebacks raised their heads for a brief moment, recognised the fox terriers and went back to dolefully contemplating the flowing river. A late owl dropped from a tree on the riverbank and glided across the river.
"Brought you some tea, dad," said Harry sitting down next to his father on the fallen tree trunk. Sebastian turned and smiled at his oldest son, the one true cause of both of them looking at the African river. The dogs went off together in their endless pursuit. The tea from the flask tasted good with just the right amounts of milk and sugar.
"You mind if I have some?" asked Harry. "Mother's still asleep."
"Happy Christmas."
"Happy Christmas. I didn't get a stocking again this year."
"Of course not. Your mother should have stopped when you were six."
"It's not so much fun growing up…Dad, when are you going to the war?"
"I'm not Harry."
"But why? Uncle James and grandfather have gone and mother says he's too old but he went."
"Because of Uncle Tinus."
"But I told you, Uncle Tinus is not going to fight for the Boers."
"I hope not but when people start killing each other's families they take sides."
"But you don't want to take sides."
"Oh, I'm on the English side because I'm English. Same way Tinus will be on the Boer side because he's Boer. But we don't want to fight."
"Where's Aunty Fran?"
"I'm not quite sure. Salisbury. Meikles Hotel, probably."
"I like Uncle Greg but I don't like Aunty Fran."
"You mustn't say things like that, Harry. It's rude."
"Are you a coward, Dad?"
"I hope not son, I really do." Sebastian tried to put his arm round his son's shoulders but the boy moved away.
Without another word between them they waited for the dogs and then walked up to the house for a breakfast of cold meats so that the house servants would only have to come to work for the big Christmas lunch at three o'clock in the afternoon.
"This one's not going to be easy, Tinus," he said to himself as he went through the gate.
The rest of his children were running across the lawn towards him shouting happy Christmas and Em was waiting for him on the veranda with a smile.
"Happy Christmas, my darling."
"When are we going to open the presents?" demanded Madge.
"When Uncle Nat and Aunty Bess arrive with the children."
"I wish they'd hurry up," piped up George.
When away from the children, Sebastian told her what had happened down by the river. Emily shuddered.
"I'm not going to war," he promised her again.
"It's not only you I worry about. There's Alison and Tinus. Tinus, he's the one to worry about. Hasn't he got a pack of nephews in the Transvaal?"
"I rather think he has."
"Harry's the least of our worries."
"He thinks his father is a coward."
"Well, you're not."
By eleven o'clock on Christmas morning Ezekiel Oosthuizen, the father of the seven sons, was in a spiritual trance. The Boer army under General Cronjé had been slowly moving south to confront the British. Ezekiel, dressed in a black frock coat and top hat harangued his congregation from a rise, the great red beard, the colour inherited from his Scottish mother, covering his chest, the old, blackened teeth feeding the spittle of his words. Not a man in the crowd seated down the slope from his feet took their eyes from the preacher, the light of the sun making the man larger even than life.
"God has chosen us," he thundered. "God has chosen us to give light to the dark, to bring His word to the wilderness and God shall not be wrong. We are the chosen people, chosen by God to bring the light to Africa and if we trust in God the English will go back over the sea. Fear not the English. Fear God. Trust in God my people and God will deliver us. Let us pray of our redemption and may God bring the plagues upon our enemies."
Ezekiel fell to his knees on the hard stones that littered the rise that made his pulpit, the Bible clutched in his right hand and with all his might and soul prayed to his God for the deliverance of his people. Head bowed on his chest and feeling nothing from the stones, he kept them on their knees for half an hour and only then did he rise, renewed in spirit, mind and body. The crowd awed by their own renewal with God silently went their ways and with them all seven sons of Ezekiel. All that was his life and the future of his life were moving mile by mile towards their destiny.
When the euphoria of his religion had drained from his mind, the pain the stones had inflicted on his knees was excruciating and once again he was a burgher with a gun.
There had been no sight of the British for two weeks and the cooking fires had been burning from before dawn, the oxen roasting in the sun, the smell rich on the gentle breeze. The women who followed their husbands and sons tended the cooking and with church over for the day the men gathered in families and friends. Leaving his sons, Ezekiel walked away on his own to think and worry about his wife left alone on the farm; old Elijah would be loyal to him but he was not sure of Elijah's sons. From a distance he watched his boys, four from the wife who had died giving birth to his only daughter who had died with her mother, and the three from his little wife who ruled them all with her tongue. Ezekiel smiled with pleasure.
He had left Graaff Reinet at the age of nineteen, the year Tinus was born, to seek his fortune to the north and the two brothers had never met. For years the family had thought him dead, killed by the natives and never once had he been able to leave his new farm and make the trek south into the Cape.
For a long while Karel looked across at his father.
"You think he's alright?" asked Piers, the youngest in the family.
"He's old, Piers. Probably too old for a campaign like this. He has a lot of memories. I think he's going through some of them up there."
"He's probably missing our mother," said Piers.
"Are you?" asked Karel gently.
"Just a little."
"We'll look after you."
"I'm glad you're back with us, Karel."
"So am I. Now go and take your father some coffee. Take one for yourself."
As the battle drew closer and Tinus's brother contemplated his own mortality, Billy Clifford, on board the Dunnottar Castle was wearing a yellow paper hat at the journalists' table while he ate his roast turkey and chestnut stuffing, the bird as dry as a bone.
"Put some more gravy on it," said the man next to him. Everyone was listening to a journalist relate the story of Winston Churchill in the cavalry charge at the battle of Omdurman that had taken place two years earlier in the Sudan after his capture defending an armoured train, Churchill was the war correspondent's hero. "He wrote a book on it called the River War," said the journalist. "Man can write no doubt about it. Best family connections in the world can't teach you how to write."
"Want some more claret, Clifford?" said the man next to Billy. "Helps wash down the bird. Why we British subject ourselves to dry old turkey every year instead of roast beef of old England beats me. Tradition, I suppose. There's a lot be said for tradition. Lets you know what to expect. Don’t like surprises myself."
"He's a splendid talker."
"Who?"
"Man talking about Churchill. You know this will be the first war where we journalists can have today's news at tomorrow's breakfast table. Communication like that is going to change the world. Brings everyone closer. Gives us a lot of power. We can change a war while it's in progress by reporting the facts. Before, the war in the colonies was over before the British people heard anything about it. Public opinion. We control public opinion, mark my word. And the men who control the opinions of the public will in future control the world."
With the last words the Dunnottar Castle, sailing in winter weather off the north coast of Africa began a slow corkscrew roll and Billy's lunch companion lost interest i
n the conversation. Only the raconteur failed to miss the beat in his story while around the dining room some of the diners were getting up from the tables and leaving the room before they made a bigger exhibition of themselves. Billy thanked his sailing days at Trinity College and persevered with the leg of the turkey. When he looked up again from his plate the man next to him had gone and the raconteur sensing there was something bigger than Winston Churchill at play, brought his story to a conclusion while the steward put down another balloon glass of brandy next to his cleaned plate.
"Where's the plum pudding?" called the raconteur looking around with happy expectation, causing another man to get up and leave the table.
Billy, happy with the thought of being two days nearer to Sarie, raised his glass to no one and everyone and drank down his glass of claret. He too was ready for the plum pudding.
At the end of his two-hour sermon, attended by his family and seventeen blacks who had not understood one word, the Reverend Nathanial Brigandshaw made them all kneel down and once again pray to God, for a victory of British arms over the people who had deigned to give the Empire a military ultimatum. His son with the uncanny resemblance to his grandfather, The Captain, had been fast asleep for an hour of the sermon and Bess had had to wake him up to get him down on his knees. The two girls had developed a way of blanking their minds while still staying awake with a look of absorbed concentration and were their father's favourites. Bess, seated between her daughters, always used her husband's sermons to plan the coming week and hoped he would talk as long as possible; it was one of the few periods in her life that she had to her own as no one was allowed to talk to her. The clever part of her long revere was to subconsciously pick up some of her husband's keywords so she could answer his questions afterwards. The reality was a new church in the middle of the bush that allowed words to bounce off its walls without the slightest human comprehension.
The seventeen faithful blacks having sat comfortably through the ceremony were led off by Amos, now fourteen, to partake of what the whole thing was about so far as they were concerned. After giving the faithful their Christmas lunch, the Reverend left the mission with his family for the drive in the trap to Elephant Walk and Christmas dinner with his wayward brother complaining all the way how much he did for his family. By the time he drove through the open gate in the stockade he was righteously indignant.
Harry watching them arrive from the safety of the river wondered why his father put up with it all. Uncle Nat was the biggest bore in the world.
"Poor Aunty Bess," he said loudly as he began the walk up to the house.
The good news this year was the relations came alone. Harry's next surprise was Aunty Fran going out first to meet the visitors having only herself arrived back on the farm an hour earlier. 'The world of grown-ups,' Harry told himself 'works in strange ways'. His stomach rumbled halfway to the house and when he smelt the roast, water rose up in his mouth. By the time he greeted his cousins he was actually whistling.
Harry's paternal grandfather, six thousand miles away lording it over the estate of Harry's maternal grandfather, was wearing a smirk and had been for the last two days. The Christmas lunch was being served in the old dining hall at Hastings Court where for centuries Harry's ancestors had eaten their dinner. The old oak table, pitted with circular lines of age where the grain of the wood had worn away had been in the family longer than the room and was pitch black in colour. Three places were set, one at each end of the long table for The Captain and his wife and one in the middle for Arthur, the heir apparent.
Arthur, at forty-two, had grown fat from idleness and debauchery but still kept his eyes on the main chance of his inheriting his father's fortune: the boredom of three days with his parents would one day (and for Arthur, the sooner the better) have its compensation. There had been no conversation at the table as none of them had anything to say to each other. If Arthur's mother opened her mouth she was contradicted by his father and when Arthur wanted to say something to his father it was always rude. Mother and son had learned to keep their mouths shut. Somewhere earlier in the morning they had somehow wished each other a happy Christmas before going off to church where Arthur had fallen asleep, gently and quietly. All through his sleep Mathilda had been in two minds as to leave him be or wake him up, not sure which was most likely to bring the disgrace to The Captain's attention. Seated in the front in the Manderville family pew they were conspicuous. Mathilda had looked around, found more of the local gentry asleep than awake and left Arthur alone, the other principle of her troubled life coming to the fore: when in doubt do nothing. She had seen the smirk on her husband's face, a self-satisfied smirk, and feared a deep displeasure. To stop the turmoil in her mind, Mathilda thought of her arbour by the artificial lake, the ducks on the water and the birds in the trees while trying to think of something nice that had happened in her life.
The silence at lunch grew intense while Arthur stuffed food in his mouth and drank everything put in his glass by the servants, always pointing to the emptiness of his glass. Mathilda had never drunk alcohol, always needing her wits about her to survive.
Even with fires burning at either end of the dining hall the great room with its raftered ceiling and walls festooned with swords and battle axe was as cold as charity. The hall, a place designed for feasts was not a place for solitary eating and high up in the corners darkened by centuries of wood fires the click and clack of knife and fork threw down echoes from the past. Against the tall, leaden windows, some plain, some coloured, a cold sleet beat on the small and ancient panes and the wind howled. Somewhere further in the old house a door slammed making Mathilda shiver. And still The Captain smirked.
Arthur, well drunk by now and muffled in his overcoat despite his father's ridicule, the east wind biting at his back from under the old oak door, his long sleeves soaked in gravy, wondered when his father, dressed for an August climate, would tell them his news. Again he pointed to his claret glass and inwardly laughed at the stupidity of life. He knew, he knew, he always knew.
The Captain, with a cold and lifeless hand tried to tap his wine glass and dropped the spoon, the silver clattering to the stone cold floor. The sound brought echoes from the corners of the roof and the sleet pelted harder on the coloured panes, held in small triangles by ancient lead.
"I have an announcement," said the old sea captain in the moment of his triumph. "The Queen, God bless her, has seen fit to bestow upon me a baronetcy in her New Year's list of honours. As from the 1st January in the year of Our Lord 1900 I will become Sir Archibald Brigandshaw, Bart. I give you the toast. 'The Queen. God bless her'. Lady and gentleman, you may now retire to the fire."
Like a gust of foul air, Arthur's containment finally burst and he laughed so loud echoes fought with echoes in the roof: his father was finally trapped; he could leave the money where he wished but the title would always be his.
"You're drunk, Arthur. You may leave us," said The Captain.
Throwing back his chair, the overcoat caught in the high back of the chair and sent it crashing to the floor. Arthur reached the panelled door and with great control turned back to his mother and father.
"Congratulations father. It was what you always wanted. My mother, the future Lady Brigandshaw…It is a great day for our family. I am so proud."
For a long while the parents listened to the sound of their son's feet on the stone of the old passageway. Finally, they were left with the sleet and the wind. Somewhere far back in the time of man, someone was laughing at them. Then they looked into each other's empty eyes.
Up in his room with a fire roaring up the old chimney, Arthur fell back on his bed and he was smiling: everything in life was for sale, even a baronetcy. With the newspapers screaming patriotic twaddle after early British setbacks, with the sieges of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking a personal affront to every Briton, The Captain had offered free cargo space on his entire fleet of ships to carry war materials to South Africa. In fervour of gratitude a gra
teful government, about to lose its power unless it did something quickly and grasping for straws accepted so generous a gesture of solidarity from a member of the public. What Arthur wanted to know as he poured himself a cognac from his secret supply was the new shipping rates after the one free load.
"To the Pirate," he said, raising his glass to the ceiling, remembering his one-time father-in-law's epithet for The Captain. "May you steal forever more and leave it all to me." Then he fell back on the bed and began to snore, the empty brandy glass falling to the carpet.
Chapter 4: January 1900
Billy Clifford spent the first morning wandering the streets of Cape Town looking at every woman hoping to see the face of Sarie. Dunnottar Castle had come into Cape Town harbour with the dawn in a calm sea with Lord Roberts met at the docks by Milner, the British High Commissioner for South Africa. Billy, knowing Sarie was a thousand miles to the north living on the streets of Pretoria with her dogs told his hopes and dreams to calm down and wait.
He walked along the foreshore to the docks and showed his press pass to the guard at the gate. Every wharf was unloading equipment and men while ships waited their turn to come into harbour.
Billy walked up the gangplank of the Dunnottar to his cabin to pack in peace and finished the job as slowly as possible. He gave the cabin steward a shilling to carry his two bags and sea chest on shore and took a walk along the silent deck for the last time. Next to the Dunnottar, a new vessel was unloading war materials from the bowels of its holds, the fore and aft deck hatches open to the Cape sun, two cranes diligently working hooking up the netted cargo and swinging the crates onto the wharf and the waiting goods train. Billy, leaning over the wide wooden rail idly watched the sergeant-major in charge of loading the railway wagons that by nightfall would be headed for the front. The new vessel showed two tall funnels, raked to let the soot from the burnt coal pour over the vessel without reaching the iron decks. There were wisps of smoke from the funnels. Billy read the name: Indian Queen, London. Then he turned his attention to the vessel across from him unloading with the same urgency. Between the ship's funnels hung a banner 'cargo delivered free.' All down the side of the ship was the name Colonial Shipping.