by Peter Rimmer
By the time Kimberley was relieved he was thirty-three, called himself Jack Slattery for safety when he remembered, never wrote to his family in Tonbridge and was rich and getting much richer. By the time he was forty he would have enough money to go home, shave off his beard, find his family, revert to Jack Slater and buy himself a nice country estate in the middle of Kent. The Jack Slater when he finished would appear from nowhere and become a country gentleman and ride to hounds. With his wealth he would then look for a rich wife, have a large family and forget Fran Cotton: he always thought of her as Fran Cotton, single, instead of Fran Shaw, married, to assuage the guilt of having an affair with a married woman that broke all the rules he had once so carefully lived by and had thought so essential.
The day Kei and three friends walked into Bulawayo trailed by a black dog he had decided the only rule that mattered in life was being rich.
Kei had wisely left the horses and tack in an abandoned Matabele village with the guns. Shaka had been left behind to look after the animals.
The first Matabele to be shown the head-ring ran away without saying a word. The second tried to grab at the ring and was hit hard in the face by Kei's right fist. A day later one of the horses went lame and had to be shot. Blackdog, sensing the animosity, took to whimpering at the sight of strangers. On the fourth day the Ndebele who had been asking the questions was found dead hanging from a tree. In the dark of the night, Kei, his three remaining friends and Blackdog left town making a trail pointing south and back to the raging war. Five miles from the nearest hut, Kei found a small stream that would serve his purpose. Leading the way in the light of a sickle moon he turned the horses north, the hanging and the dead horse convincing him even more of the existence of Lobengula's gold. Still in his pocket was Zwide's head-ring. The lust for gold was so strong he could see the yellow coins.
The Boer line was stretched seven miles along the Modder River. Karel Oosthuizen along with the brothers and father had individually dug themselves in along the high lip that looked across the open veld and confronted the British. In the protection of the riverbank and close to the water huddled the women and children and the bellowing oxen. At first the British had sent cavalry against the flank which had been shot down by the well-entrenched Boers. With the wagons in laager and clear targets for the British guns the bombardment began and Karel pulled his rifle down into the bottle-shaped hole he had dug for himself and backed himself into a bigger hole deep enough to withstand the British shells. In the dark and noise there was no way of knowing if anyone else was alive. For days the guns blasted the trapped Boers and every time the artillery fell silent and Karel put his head and rifle out of the hole to defend an infantry attack there were fewer and fewer burghers able to fight.
On the sixth day of the siege when the Boers’ laager had shrunk to two miles along the north ridge of the river, Billy Clifford watched the carnage through binoculars from a kopje half a mile on the south side of the swollen river and was sick to his stomach; if war was indeed an extension of politics he wanted nothing of either of them. After two days of frontal attacks that had decimated British ranks, Roberts had arrived to take command from Kitchener and the little man standing close to Billy on the kopje had surrounded the Boers and bombarded them day and night with everything from pom-poms to twelve pounders to 4.7 inch naval guns. Ammunition wagons exploded, towering mushrooms higher than trees rose from the exploding earth, green lyddite smoke drifted over the carnage and even though the rain had swollen the river and washed away the carcasses of oxen and men, the death stench was so strong Billy still wore a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Below the north ridge and hidden from Billy by the three hundred feet drop to the river bed were the Boer oxen, women and children among the trees that drank from the river and many of the shells fired at the Boer trenches on the high ridge had fallen short. For Billy the fearful bellowing of dumb animals was the worst of the horror as the seventh, eighth and ninth days continued in hell and then finally, the Boers had had enough and the white flag rose from the rubble of smashed wagons and earth and the guns fell silent.
On the tenth day with Cronjé riding in to the British lines to take breakfast with Lord Roberts and negotiate his conditions of surrender, Billy watched the confusion and was pleased to see some of the Boers slip away.
The battle of Paarderberg was over.
"Please God they give up now," said Billy to a correspondent from the Cape Argus who was standing next to him.
"Don't be silly. Roberts has won the big war but now comes the little one. Why do the British want our land when they have so much of their own? The British can have the rest of Africa for all we care."
"You are a Boer, sir?"
"A Cape Boer and for the moment a loyal subject of her Majesty the Queen. But when the hit-and-run guerrilla war starts I may be forced to change my mind."
"You think they'll go on fighting after the British enter Bloemfontein and Pretoria?"
"To the bitter end."
While Billy was writing his daily report to be cabled to the Irish Times, Karel found his pony hidden on a long tether in the hills north of the Modder River. At the end of the stretch of the leather thong was a small, mountain stream.
"Get up on the back," he said to Piers in Afrikaans.
"The horse will not carry both of us."
"He will for a while and then we will walk."
"Where are we going?"
"Away from the British. Come, young brother. We've both lost weight in the days of hell and my pony has been grazing good grass."
Neither of them mentioned their father nor their brothers.
The wide-brimmed hat cast shade over both Sarie Mostert's shoulders, the burning sun being directly over her head. Beyond and behind her the very earth of the farm was dead. Nothing moved: the tall blue-gums behind the buildings, the mango tree above the bench, the brown, sun-scorched grass, the dust in the farm yard, nothing moved and the wind was far away. Even the old lady had stopped watching her through the kitchen window. Her only hope, the badly tended stands of maize, had gone in a bush fire and she wondered who was still alive in the world to have started the fire to flush out the game. Behind the mango tree, the pig pens and chicken run were as silent as a tomb. In the dark shade of the mango tree on the wooden bench, the six-year-old twins were playing a secret game. For half an hour neither of them had torn their mother's heart by complaining they were hungry.
Picking up the heavy water buckets after her short rest, Sarie pushed open the gate to the kitchen garden and sloshed water on rows of vegetables, wilted and half dead, scorched by the summer sun, the pieces of old sacking she had propped over the rows unable to stop the deadly penetration of the sun. There was no doubt in Sarie's mind. They were all going to starve.
After the fire they had eaten for a day before the carcasses of burnt porcupine had rotted in the heat. Now the burnt black earth as far as she could see around the farm to the distant hills was empty and silent as the windless day. Even her dogs, who dug for the rats and moles, had given up the hunt. There was nothing to eat, not even grass or leaves from the trees. With empty buckets she crossed again to the well where she stopped and listened.
"You hear that noise, mummy?" asked Griet. "That's thunder. It's going to rain."
'Or guns', thought Sarie. "Before the sun goes down we will go to the river and look for frogs and river snails."
Even the birds had left the burnt and barren land. Two of the dogs watched her. They were skin and bone. For three days she had caught nothing in her traps. She ignored the distant rumbling, not daring to wish for rain and the new shoots that would spring so quickly from the blackened earth.
Karel and Piers looked over the burnt black earth that stretched to the patch of distant buildings, silent in the shimmering heat, the gum trees indistinguishable from the house and barns. The brothers were silent either side of the horse they had not ridden for the past three days.
"There's no one there," said P
iers after a long pause. "You think there's just you and me, Karel?"
"Ma will be there. And the blacks. They're inside away from the sun."
"There are no cows or horses. Nothing's moving."
"We'll get to the river and rest the horse."
"All that rain we had at Paarderberg and nothing here. God has strange ways."
The crack of thunder brought up the horse's head.
"Maybe not. God is always watching."
"You think we should pray."
"Not till we reach the river. Without water this horse will die before the sun goes down."
"You think Pa and Frikkie are really dead?" asked Piers
"Only God can be sure in all that carnage."
"And the half-brothers?"
"Only God."
"Pa said God would give us victory."
The lizard was five feet long from the tip of its tail and it had not eaten properly since the fire. Lying on a rock in the trees overlooking the river the reptile was quite invisible. The dappling of the brown burnt leaves blended perfectly with the mottled scaliness of the lizard. The round, bulging eyes swivelled and watched for the slightest sign of prey and the big pouched belly swelled and sank perceptibly but not enough to warn the twins. On the other side of the river all four dogs were digging furiously in the river bank. Further down-stream Sarie had found two small frogs the size of an English penny with red striped legs; the big frogs that made so much noise after the rains had gone. The only sign of life was a pied kingfisher that sat high on a tree looking hopefully into the barren water. Even the crickets were silent, oppressed by the heat.
With the patience of millions of years of ancestry the lizard waited, its claws gripping the rock. The mouth came open in expectation and the tail snapped once as the reptile launched itself at Griet's back bent over the water.
The dogs saw the movement as the lizard broke cover and yelping with excitement charged from rock to rock over the river warning the twins who jumped in the river as the pack hurled their bodies at the green and orange reptile. By the time Sarie ran up the river over the rocks all four dogs had locked their teeth into the scaly lizard. The twins looked back at the fight from a rock in the middle of the river and yelled their treble excitement to the noise of grunting dogs. In the hope of drowning the dogs, the lizard tried to run to the water, thrashing at the dogs with its tail. The children backed off and plunged into the river while the dogs strained to keep the lizard out of the water, the sand between rock and river slimy with blood, the dogs silent in their desperation to hold their prey. Going to battle with her knife Sarie plunged the blade into the lizard's neck, spurting blood over her arm. Sarie stalked three more times before the lizard gave up the fight for its life with the dogs' teeth locked in its side and the round eyes pleading with pain. Slowly, very slowly life went out of the reptile's eyes. Plonked on her bottom in the wet river sand Sarie looked at the bloody blade of her knife. Ten minutes later the fear had drained from her body and she got up to skin their prize. The dogs watched her patiently as she stroked the blade over a smooth rock. First she gutted the lizard, cut off the gall bladder and threw it in the river. The entrails she gave to her dogs, the heart, the liver and the kidneys, then she skinned the lizard. By the time the sun began to sink, the rumbling from the sky had gone away and the reptile’s flesh was hanging in strips from a thorn tree. Sarie walked down to the river naked. In her hand was a piece of lizard flesh. Looking across the fading light she smiled to herself and threw the meat. The pied kingfisher dropped like a stone and by the time Sarie was floating on her back she could see the bird high in the tree silhouetted by the violent red of the sunset, the piece of flesh clutched firmly in its claws.
At first Karel thought the flickering light of Sarie's camp fire was a trick of the sinking sun reflecting the red and orange from the surface of the river. He watched carefully until he was certain.
"Piers, that's a camp fire down river."
"Khaki," said Piers.
"Khaki would make noise. Leave the horse and come with me."
First the bitch brought its head up from its paws and listened, ears cocked, the bitch having the best hearing. Then the dogs rose half from the dry sand and turned their ears towards the sound Sarie could not hear. Looking into the eye of each dog in turn she made them sit. The twins were fast asleep between the dogs and the flickering firelight showed their sweet faces. They had made camp in the cup of a giant rock where sand had washed in a past flood. The sand and the underlying rock were still warm from the day's sun. Taking her knife Sarie crept out from the rocks and hid in the dark of the thorn thicket.
Ten minutes later she thought she heard a sound. The light had faded from the sky and the new moon was not up for three hours. The planets were visible but not the stars. A piece of log on the fire broke and fell into the flames sending sparks high into the black of the African night.
By the time Karel looked down on the curled and sleeping twins and the silent vicious eyes of the bitch and the three dogs, Sarie had the knife to Piers's throat. Then Karel laughed from ten yards away.
"It's not khaki, it's Frikkie's woman but she's not there. Those are her dogs and the girls."
Piers, with strong hard fingers on his windpipe and a knife to his throat made not a sound. Then the fingers slackened and the knife blade went away.
"I'm here," said Sarie and gave Piers a sharp shove towards his brother. She was poor white and trash and still kept her place.
"Why you are not at the farm?" asked Karel.
"No food. Your army took everything they could and a bush fire burnt the rest."
"Where's Ma and the blacks?"
"The blacks went. Your Ma's at the house."
"Alone."
"She's alone."
"Elijah went?"
"Kei first and then Elijah. He was frightened by your soldiers."
"Have the khaki been here?"
"No English."
The bitch and the dogs were standing high on their feet and only sank back when they recognised Piers and Karel by the light of the fire.
By the time Sarie had cooked the brothers' strips of meat over the fire the twins had still not woken from their dreams and Sarie was wondering how much worse her life could become. Her one protection, Frikkie, was dead. Then she shivered. With the sun down an hour, the temperature had plummeted. She got up and fed the fire with river flotsam to keep her children warm. Idly she softly stroked the head of the bitch while she stared into the fire.
"Now what am I going to do," she said to herself. The two men sat on the other side of the fire away from Sarie and the twins. The girls were still fast asleep curled up around the dogs.
Helena Oosthuizen was certain her family was dead and she did not care anymore. Death was better than being left alone on the farm and she had neither the will nor strength to go anywhere else. Even the girl had now gone with the twins and dogs and only the sound of thunder penetrated the house. The curtains in the bedroom where she had loved and born her children were closed. She had given up praying to her God weeks ago as all that her God had given her He had taken away. She had made her peace and was ready to die alone. She was tired and long past the stage of being hungry. Helena hoped to fall asleep and never wake in the mortal world. Smiling from the thought of distant memories she began to pray for the last time. When she slept the smile was still on her face.
Karel found her in the late afternoon and thought she was dead. Touching the back of his big, calloused hand gently to the side of her face his heart raced when the warmth of life flowed back to him. Then his mother opened her eyes and smiled.
"I knew I'd join you today," she said, "where are the others?"
"Piers is looking for you in the other rooms. Pa is dead and Frikkie."
"But I am dead so where are they?"
"No, Ma, you are alive. The khaki shelled us for nine days and Cronjé surrendered."
"Then let me die. I was dying. I went to sleep to die."
"No you didn't little mother." Gently, Karel picked his mother from the bed, a weight he barely felt. "You are still going to see your grandchildren."
"What is that smell."
"A stew of meat?"
"You bought me food."
"No Frikkie's woman."
"She went away."
"To find you food. A giant lizard. The strips are dry and will feed us until I can make a plan."
"The girl came back? Put me down. I can walk. If I am alive I can walk."
"Yes, Ma." He was smiling.
"Now don't burn the stew," was the first thing she said to Sarie. The twins gave her one look and ran back into the yard where the dogs were chasing each other.
The Boer foraging party had not taken the hay, and left alone in the barn the horse began to eat steadily. The soft brown eyes, met with happiness and brushed by large eyelashes, looked into Piers's eyes and they understood and welcomed their dependency.
That night the thunder broke overhead and lightning picked out the barren veld. When the rain broke on dry earth, the mingling scented the air with the smell of rich earth. The next day was overcast, the ground soaked with rain and Sarie's rows of scorched vegetables came to life.
On the third day Karel took the horse and went hunting up in the hills where the streams broke from the granite outcrops. At the end of a day's hunting across the back of the horse's rump came the carcass of a female kudu and together they butchered the animal into strips of biltong. On the seventh day when green shoots were springing from the veld and the sky was still overcast, the children and dogs had forgotten their hunger and the way of things had returned to normal, Sarie living in her hut like a servant, the men keeping their eyes from her body and Helena ruling them all with her tongue. Isolated on the farm, the war was far away. Piers dug and planted another kitchen garden and as the game came back to eat the new grass and legumes, food was plentiful and the store of dried meat hanging in the barn away from the dogs was enough to feed them for weeks; and all the time Sarie waited to be told to go on her way.