Echoes from the Past (The Brigandshaw Chronicles Book 1)

by Peter Rimmer

  General Gore-Bilham was trussed into a red monkey-jacket and below the short jacket that only came to his waist he wore dark blue trousers that accentuated his large behind. The thought of the man in his white long-johns after being stripped by Tinus Oosthuizen brought a smile to James's face as he waited his turn to wish the general good evening.

  Interpreting the smile as a sign of pleasure at being in the presence of his general, Gore-Bilham broke off the stilted conversation of a junior officer trying to ingratiate himself and turned to the young colonel who was now a baronet the title inherited from his father.

  "Ah, Sir James," began Gore-Bilham forcing James to control a wince. "Colonel Hickman tells me you have to return to England and run the family estate. With privilege comes responsibility. Can't get away from it. Those of us who came from old families have to shoulder the yoke, so to speak. One day I must return to civilian life like yourself, Sir James. I should be grateful if you would take the chair on my right at dinner tonight. The war is going well. Smuts has sent another message enquiring our terms if he surrenders. Unconditional of course. Silly man. What else would he expect from the British?"

  Before James could mentally vomit, Hickman took him away by the elbow.

  "He's a pompous, patronising ass," said James quietly. "Never took much notice of me before the title. Doesn't he know my father bought his title and could barely speak the King's English? Father was a bloody pirate who made money, gave money to the Tory Party in exchange for a hereditary title. My father was obsessed by creating a dynasty as was our general's grandfather. Both our families are as common as dirt. I admired my father when he was a sailor, a damn good sailor, but all this business of trying to make us Brigandshaw's old family is a lot of cock and bull. Why are people so impressed with a title or a lot of money?"

  "Because they don't have it themselves. They either despise or fawn. Our general fawns. Hope you enjoy your food. He'll tell you all about his own estate in detail while you try and eat. Fact the money to pay for it was made by working the poor twelve hours a day, six days a week doesn't bother him. Just don't remind him his grandfather was in trade and that you, by the sound of your father's will, are going to be in trade yourself very soon."

  "He's a snob."

  "Funnily enough, we all are snobs in one way or the other. The poor who wallow in their poverty and hate the rich, take great pride in what they are, are also snobs. That one's called inverted snobbery."

  "Tell that to the poor. My mother knew what it was like to be poor. Hungry and cold and worked to a standstill. It's not very nice she assures me."

  "Man in all his manifestations. And you are right, James. I have never been poor."

  "Why do people have to be poor?"

  "That is the question sensible people have been asking since man was settled down in mutual groups of protection, giving up the precarious life of hunting and gathering thirty odd thousand years ago according to Darwin. You see, in a group there has to be a leader and leaders exact their price once they are in power however small their little band of men. One of the laws of nature. The strong or the rich eat first at the table. Many of the weaker tribes in Africa have asked for British protection so they can grow crops and get to eat them before the stronger tribes kill them for the food. In the end they must pay for that protection and stability. Someone has to pay the army. The British are not a charitable organisation. Frankly I think Africa will cost us far more than we get out of it. Look at the cost of this war in life and treasure balanced against the diamonds and gold. Rhodes led us in by the nose. Taking on responsibility for other people can often be more trouble than it's worth. I hope you don't find that yourself James. Being chairman of a major shipping company will have its problems. And when you are at the top of the chain you can't pass along the problem as so many of us are so fond of doing in the army. Huge responsibility can be a big a problem as being poor but only those who have had huge responsibility know what I'm talking about. I wonder if our general sleeps so well at night having hung General Oosthuizen. You see, under all that pomposity the man just might be human. Come on. It's seven-thirty. Everyone is going into the dining room. You are lucky tonight, James. You won't have to search for your name-place…Enjoy your dinner, Sir James Brigandshaw, Bart."

  Like a buck caught in a bushfire, Magnus du Plessis rushed the fence twice and each time recoiled from the intense heat of British retaliation. He was down to twenty-three men and the noose was tightening round his neck. With the fence and blockhouses the space that had been the Boers’ best friend had gone. Instead of breaking through the British lines into relative safety they found the British circling round their back again while filling in the space in front. Turning and twisting, the remnants of Tinus Oosthuizen's commando fought for their lives like rats in a tight corner. With the constant movement forced on them by the British, the ponies were losing condition. The dried meat in their saddlebags was dwindling and there was never enough time to shoot and dry a fresh supply of game. There wasn't even time to pray or think of their wives and families. After two years for some of them, less for Magnus du Plessis, they had come to the end of their tether. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

  "They'll shoot us down like dogs," he told them. "We must die like men for God and country."

  "What country?" asked one of the men. "Die yes, but not for our country. Maybe we Boer never had a country. Maybe we never will."

  "Let us pray," said Magnus du Plessis, stopping his pony.

  Still in the saddle, everyone removed their hats and bent their heads and prayed to God for their salvation.

  "What are they doing?" asked Lieutenant Green.

  "I rather think they are praying," said James.

  "Do we fire?"

  "Not when a man has his hat in hand and is praying to his God. Dismount and find cover. Those men are very dangerous, Mr Green. Ah, there is Philby's signal. We have them neatly bottled up in this nice little valley…Mr du Plessis," shouted James. "I know you speak English.

  "My name is James Brigandshaw. My brother is Sebastian, partner of the late Tinus Oosthuizen for which I personally apologise as an officer and a gentleman. Your war is over. Fact is the whole war is over. General Smuts has again enquired about terms for cessation of war. Please drop your rifles to the ground and put your hats back on your heads. You will be treated as prisoners-of-war."

  "And hung as a traitor?" shouted back Magnus du Plessis. Then he charged.

  "He's coming sir."

  "I rather think you are right. Mr Green, please shoot that man's horse. Not the man, the horse."

  "I would rather shoot the man."

  "I would rather not shoot either of them. Amazing how fast these ponies can gallop. Shoot the horse, Mr Green!"

  "Yes, sir. The rest of the commando has thrown down their guns."

  The stumble of the dead horse threw Magnus du Plessis over the animal's head into loose rock that strew the valley floor. By the time James got down from his horse and knelt next to the man he was quite dead. In one hand he clutched a mauser rifle and in the other a small book of prayer.

  'The things men do to men,' James said to himself. 'And in the end it does not make the slightest bit of difference. What is so important today is tomorrow's history.' He was shaking his head.

  "Have a detail dig a grave for this man. There we will bury him with honour. In different circumstances I rather think we would have been friends. Seb and I, Seb and Magnus du Plessis. Myself and Tinus Oosthuizen. What a waste of life."

  "What do we do with the men who have surrendered?"

  "Give them a good meal by the look of them. After the burial, I shall be leaving, Mr Green."

  "Where are you going, sir?"

  "To England. Back to England. Let some other poor sods sort out the mess. We've made an unnecessary enemy of these people that will last a hundred years."

  Epilogue

  Peace

  The eight-year-old twins, Klara and Griet, stared a
t the man on the other side of the railway carriage as it clattered through the dry bush veld of Bechuanaland. First, Klara thought, there had been Uncle Frikkie but he had gone to the war and never came back. Then after the prison camp they had gone home with the old lady to Majuba when Karel and Piers had come home with the dogs. The old lady had gone back to treating their mother like a servant but the one roomed hut that not been burned down by the British was all to themselves and their lives back to normal were marvellous.

  They had run with the dogs up to the mountains, a slow loping run taught them by Elijah who had come back with the remnants of his family from somewhere called the Transkei where there was so much water no one could see the end. There was still no sign of Kei or Blackdog and Piers had said he wasn't coming home. She had shot a small buck with the rifle lent her by Uncle Karel and Griet had thrown a tantrum as she had wanted to be the first. Even the new house everyone was building for the old lady would be finished before the rains. With something called ‘reparations from the British’ Uncle Piers had gone off and come back with a herd of cows. Now she could drink as much milk as she ever could want. Life for Klara was perfectly marvellous and then the man she was staring at had come into her life for the second time.

  They hated him. Both of them. Shoes were put on their feet for the first time and made them sore. They were constantly dumped into tubs of hot water and scrubbed so the nice dirt brown of their skins turned red and burned in the sun. The dogs were kicked out of the hut. Their mother appeared in clothes Klara had never seen before. Next to the wooden bench under the mango tree, Piers built the man a table where he sat all day doing something they were told was writing. And to add insult to injury the man could only speak the language of the hated English, something he was now teaching to their mother who had lost all interest in her and Griet. Even now in the railway carriage as it ground to a halt Klara watched her mother smiling at the man with eyes so soft they were melting.

  Outside, black men were running up and down the carriages offering the passengers carved wooden animals. The window being down in the cool of the morning a black hand came into the carriage with a wooden tortoise on the pink palm. She could not see the black man's face, only the hand and the carving on the pink palm.

  "Tiny tortoise," said the man, first in Afrikaans and then in what Klara now understood to be English.

  The man their mother had said was their father, which she knew to be a lot of nonsense, took the tiny carving from the pink palm and left in its stead a silver sixpence. The black hand closed over the coin quickly as the three dogs and the bitch, asleep on the carriage floor, woke up to the possibilities. When the twins stood up to look down through the open window the black man was disappearing into the bush with his prize. The bitch was all for following when the man grabbed the bitch by its collar and pushed up the window. Then once again he forgot everything except their mother.

  "This tiny tortoise," said Billy Clifford in the English Klara could not understand, "will be a keepsake for the rest of our lives." Then he kissed Sarie softly on the lips.

  For Klara that was the last straw so she dug Griet hard in the ribs which started a fight. The dogs and the bitch jumped up on the seat which was right against the new rules. Two of the dogs, joining in the fun, began fighting with each other. The train lurched forward and threw the dogs back on the floor between the seats. Then it stopped again with a terrible clang and threw Klara back against the seat so Griet was able to get in a punch. The man they hated was shouting which spurred them on. When the train lurched forward again the man was thrown onto the floor on top of the dogs. Klara's mother began to laugh which made the twins get the giggles.

  "This is going to be quite some family," said Billy picking himself up.

  "I rather think it is," said Sarie in Afrikaans. She found it easier to get the gist of the English rather than speaking it.

  The train that had left Cape Town four and half days earlier clanked into the railway station at Fort Salisbury that people were now calling Salisbury, the military origin having been swamped by private enterprise and the bustle of commerce. With the war down south over the boom was just beginning in the new colony. British immigrants, many soldiers who had fought against the Boers, stepped off the train as soon as it stopped. The two railway engines, one at the back and one at the front, were letting off clouds of steam and noise. Black porters grabbed at the luggage of the bewildered passengers. Women in long dresses picked up the hems of their skirts above the loose gravel and the dust. No one even saw the incongruity of hatboxes and leather trunks, men and women dressed in fashion right into the middle of nowhere.

  Sebastian Brigandshaw, no longer even using a stick, but with a wry smile that understood the madness, searched the faces of the passengers. He was not quite sure if he would recognise the Irish journalist who had tried so hard to help Tinus Oosthuizen but the wedding invitation had gone out just the same, more as a gesture of thanks than an expectation of the man's arrival, let alone his newly found family that had somehow survived the concentration camp. The man had written by what could only have been return of post saying how much he was looking forward to the wedding, and could he bring the mother of his children. Emily, who understood better than most the delicate way the man had referred to the woman, was sure that if the woman arrived so would her children; with Alison, Barend, Tinka and Christo back at the farm there were so many children a few more would make no difference. The man had gone on to write that he had taken a year's sabbatical from the Irish Times to write a book on the war that had at last come to an end and which he had been following from the beginning. Just the place to write would be on a farm miles from anywhere and with no distractions where he could walk for long periods and let the plot run freely through his mind. So while they were attending the wedding they would be looking for a small cottage to live in and if anyone could find him such accommodation he, and hopefully, the reading public, would be eternally grateful as not only had he found a title for his story, all of which was based on fact, he had found a publisher who had given him enough money to finance the writing of the book. And since he was writing he asked Sebastian what he thought of the title 'Seeds of Hatred', as the war had not only set English against Dutch but with Milner looking ahead to a new British dominion made up of the two Boer republics and the British colonies at the Cape and Natal, he rather thought the blacks would be left out of the political picture creating the far worse spectre of a black-white hatred.

  Sir Henry Manderville had read the letter and made the decision.

  "Build him a house, Seb. A man of letters. Should be fun. I liked him. I can even put in one of Mr Crapper’s inventions so he won't go bush happy. He will want to check from you about the animals from a hunter’s point of view. We can all help. Something to do. One of the problems I find out here is having too much time on my hands. Send him a wire inviting him to the farm for a year. How old are the children?"

  "I have not the first idea."

  "The other children will enjoy the company."

  Down the end of the train a carriage door opened and four mongrel dogs leaped out onto the gravel, the dogs cocking their legs against the train and the bitch dropping her bottom to the gravel and dirt. A young girl got onto the second step down when another gave her a push from behind. Nimbly, both of them jumped down on the mix of dirt and gravel. Both of them took off their shoes and called the dogs. The dogs ran back and sat down on their rumps next to the girls. Some of the ex-soldiers were looking at the girls in their bare feet. Behind the girls stepped down a young woman in a blue dress with a large blue bonnet who seemed among the noise to be telling the identical girls to put the shoes back on their feet. Even from fifty yards, Seb caught some of the words which were not in English. Then he saw Billy follow down the steps.

  "She's Afrikaans," he said to Henry Manderville.

  "Well, there's the mother of the children. And the children. And the dogs. Bet you a guinea, Seb those kids can't speak Eng
lish. Now that will please young Barend. You know that boy really hates the English."

  "After what we did to his father, I'm not surprised. I wonder what the ridgebacks and the fox terriers are going to say to those dogs. I'm beginning to wonder if my mother's idea of a big wedding was such a good idea after all. Pity about James. I was rather beginning to like my brother James towards the end of his stay in Africa."

  "You think he'll be able to run Colonial Shipping?"

  "Of course. He's taken on Eddie Doyle as General Manager."

  "And whose idea was that?"

  "Mine…She's very pretty."

  "Yes she is. And so is Alison."

  "And what is that meant to mean?"

  "I may be the grandfather of your children but I have only just turned fifty. Even at fifty you recognise a handsome woman…Mr Clifford!" he shouted. "We're over here. Do you have any luggage in the luggage van?"

  "Hello! Afraid so. Three trunks. Hope you don't mind the dogs."

  "Not at all," said Seb as they shook hands.

  "This is Sarie Mostert and these are my twin daughters. Klara and Griet. It's rather a long story."

  "Hope you'll put it in the book," said Henry shaking his hand.

  "Rather think I will."

  Down on his knees, Seb was talking to the girls in Afrikaans.

  "That's a relief," said Billy. "They can't speak any English. Where did he learn Afrikaans?"

  "From his partner, Tinus Oosthuizen."

  "Yes, of course. The man who links us all together."

  Being treated like a lady was a new experience for Sarie Mostert. The man with the blue eyes and yellow white hair bleached by years in the sun, had removed his wide-brimmed hat when introduced.