Half of One Thing

by Zirk van den Berg

  17 November 1901

  Stone-cold air still hung over veldt. A vaguely man-sized cloud of insects drifted across Gideon’s field of vision, specks of black and little light flashes swirling about. A superstitious person might have seen them as a ghost, but they were simply gnats or something, bound together by familial bonds or pure expedience. Gideon was rubbing a paste of kneaded beeswax onto a spot on the back of his horse. The large New Zealand horse had gained condition in the weeks of not being ridden, but had somehow picked up a saddle sore over the last few days. Gideon hoped that the protective layer of wax and the curing qualities of residual honey would help. He also had to look at his saddle, suspecting that the cause of the problem might lie there.

  He kneaded more honeyed wax between his thumb and forefinger and plastered it on the sore. Then he patted the horse and turned to go have a look at the saddle. This, together with his other belongings, came back with the horse after the attack on the British. He knelt and flipped the saddle over, felt along the lining with his palm. The protrusion wasn’t obvious, but there was a definite point where the horse would bear more pressure. The surface still looked good, but applying pressure on the seat it was clear the tree had cracked or broken inside. When he was sitting on the horse, the effect would be even worse. Where in the world was he going to find a new saddle?

  Jacob Eksteen saw all this from a distance. The Dutchman had begun to intrigue him. First the man had performed what appeared to be a heroic rescue, bringing Matzdorff back. Whatever the unknown details of the matter, the evidence pointed to something remarkable. Then he had captured a traitor. These were hard things to ignore. On top of this, the man had had opportunity to get to know Esther Calitz. Jacob didn’t know how much the latter contributed to his new interest in Gideon Doncker, foreign volunteer. He approached, not looking where he put his feet, stumbling a bit every time a stone impeded his progress. Near Gideon, he stopped and stood, quietly. He had never acquired the gift of small talk and had no trouble with silences. He knew the pressure of his presence would induce talk eventually.

  ‘My saddle’s broken.’

  ‘Why don’t you take Tromp’s? I don’t think anyone has claimed it yet. Ask Liebenberg what’s happened to it. I’m sure it wasn’t just left behind.’

  The idea of using the dead man’s saddle was practical, but strangely abhorrent to Gideon. He had brought that man to his death. He did not pull the trigger, but he put Tromp in front of that pistol, one that he had given to the commandant in the first place. He had seen many dead men and glimpses of men dying, the outflung arm, the red medal on the chest – the highest and least desired honour in any war. He had seen limp limbs and torn torsos, heads with holes, even one poor man whose teeth had no lower jaw to bite onto, but he had never watched as a man was killed. He had never before seen the tensing of the finger on the trigger, the jump of the barrel, the jerk of the head, the black mouth of a pencil-thin tunnel into the pale mush where thoughts had jiggled, the dropping of the head and the loosening of bowels as the spirit departed. That was all new to him.

  He wished he could ignore the reason he was with the commando and just talk to Eksteen, man to man. Ask him outright why he shot someone like that, how he could do it, what it felt like. Of course, he dared not do it directly. ‘I’ve never imagined that pistol being used in that way.’

  Jacob wasn’t surprised by the remark. The execution had made an impression on the whole commando. There was lots of talk about a puff adder a man named Mouton had killed, a monster nearly as thick as a man’s leg, but he knew their heads were filled with thoughts of another killing. Jacob took the pistol out of the holster, rocked it in his hand. It was Death, captured in steel and oil. ‘It was a bit strange at first, but I’ve come to like it. It’s very …’ Jacob struggled for the word. ‘Purposeful.’ He slipped the weapon back into the holster. He liked the feel of it on his hip, a constant reminder that its power was at his disposal. He could reach out his hand and take hold of an authority that superseded the law. It was the final judgement. The dead have no right of appeal, leaving the living at the mercy of the living. ‘It’s like poetry,’ he said aloud, voicing his thoughts rather than trying to converse. Then he walked away, without a further word.

  Gideon watched the man go. Something about the situation reminded him of when that caracal ran past him, a brush with something untamed, inexplicable. When Gideon was growing up, there was a neighbour a few doors down towards Herne Bay who everyone said went a bit dilly. The old lady had taken to carrying pruning shears wherever she went, ‘in case there were roses to pick’. It made perfect sense to her and she only bothered to explain herself when asked directly, always with a hint of irritation that others couldn’t see something so logical and obvious. Why else would one carry pruning shears? Changing seasons and months without roses did not discourage her. Once, Gideon had seen her rushing homeward, carrying a white rose like a candle.

  Jacob Eksteen’s fervour was something like that. Gideon had always found craziness charming. Of course, it could be scary, but mostly it was interesting. He showed little interest in people otherwise. While he had many acquaintances and enjoyed their passing interactions, he almost invariably found the effort of getting to know people tedious and thankless. Esther Calitz was a shining exception. And now, here was another candidate. While Esther’s allure was beautiful and bountiful as summer clouds, Jacob Eksteen’s was altogether darker and heavier. It was cracked granite, formed in molten depths, eroded by the elements. Besides, the Boer, too, had been exposed to the presence of that amazing woman, and for longer than he had. There had been something between those two, perhaps there still was. But jealousy had no place here. There was a job to be done and then there was his own private dream life. The two had to be kept apart if he was to have any hope of success with either.

  Gideon followed the commandant’s suggestion and found Tromp’s saddle, which Boshoff had been lugging about. The man gave him a surly look, said he supposed it was fine for Gideon to take the saddle if that’s what the commandant had ordered. Boshoff had claimed the rest of Tromp’s belongings himself. Gideon stumbled under the burden of the dead man’s involuntary bequest. The saddle smelled of horse. He carried it on his shoulders and the back of his head, keeping the weight balanced with his hands. His pose suggested surrender and subservience, but his mind had another agenda. He had to use his current contact with Jacob Eksteen to get closer to the man, so close that he would be an obvious companion for any potential meeting with De Wet. He hadn’t decided on an exact course of action yet, should the meeting materialise. He had a knife, brief training in unarmed combat and, of course, Tromp’s rifle. He also had two sticks of dynamite that he kept under a false bottom in his saddlebag. These he now decided to use, though not as he or Major Bryce had anticipated.

  Late that afternoon, Gideon went to the commandant’s tent. The tall man was sitting cross-legged, reading a book in his lap, sweat trickling down his temples.

  ‘Commandant?’

  ‘What?’

  Gideon ducked into the tent. It was hotter than a bathhouse inside. ‘I found these in Tromp’s saddlebag and thought they could be of use.’ He presented the two dynamite sticks. Eksteen put his book down and Gideon caught the title. ‘Is that English? I thought you hated them.’

  ‘Not when they’re in their own country.’ Eksteen took the two sticks of dynamite, one in each hand, held them like torches. ‘Now where would he have got these?’

  Gideon was prepared for the question. ‘Wasn’t he on the mines?’

  ‘Possibly … Thank you, we’ll find a use for these.’

  ‘I know a bit about explosives if you need someone … We used it on the plantation back home to clear away boulders and such.’ Gideon only had rudimentary training with Major Bryce, but there didn’t seem to be that much to it anyhow.

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  18 November 1901

  Major Bryce hummed softly as he scraped the razor
across his lathered cheeks. He was thinking, when had he become so jowly? Why wasn’t he a general or at least a brigadier by now? Which war and which country would he find outside? By his calculation, he had spent more nights in tents than in buildings. He had carried out this daily routine in surroundings exactly like these – the same enamel basin, the same steel locker, the same framed mirror – for over half his life. The heat and dust could be that of Egypt, the Sudan or the veldt, the year anything after 1880. He could be at home anywhere in the world, but there was nowhere he could call home. He put on his boots and tunic, hitched his Sam Browne over his shoulder. Then he called for his batman.

  Some of his fellow officers had the batman all but dress them. He allowed himself only a small indulgence – the man had to shine his boots while he had them on. There was something strangely satisfying about sitting on the edge of the camp bed while the young man knelt on the ground and polished his boots. Except at the hard toecaps, he could feel the movement of the brush through the leather. He remembered his mother doing this for him when he was a child. Tending someone else’s feet is an act of such subservience, just seeing it softens up the heart. When he expressed his gratitude afterwards, it was far more heartfelt than the batman could’ve known. Bryce stamped his feet to settle them into the boots. Now let’s go outside and see which war awaits.

  He wasn’t particular. He believed war is like the sky or farming or Sunday lunch – not good or bad in itself. Love … Love is what finishes us off, he thought. When we love, there are things we want to get or keep, things war can take away from us. This is when war becomes terrible. If we didn’t love, war wouldn’t be able to do anything to us. Without love, war is nothing but an adventure.

  This one was set in … (he opened the tent flap and stepped outside) … southern Africa. The officers’ tents were on the side of a kopje, giving him a view over both the vast tent town and the much smaller one of brick and mortar. Both were surrounded by seemingly endless veldt, just plains dotted with kopjes here and there. He smiled at himself. Of course, he wasn’t really surprised by any of this. Guess Which War is just a game he started playing with himself. It set the tone for his daily activities – do your best, but don’t fret if things don’t work out, just as if it were a game.

  Lately, this had become harder than it used to be, and all because of this chap Farrell … No, he reminded himself, this was the work of people behind the lieutenant, Field Marshal Kitchener himself or someone on his staff. Bryce’s honeymoon of working alone was at an end. One afternoon, a few weeks ago, he looked up and there in the door frame stood a lanky young officer with ruddy cheeks, turquoise eyes and an order to join the cartography unit, signed by Kitchener’s office. The order stated Farrell was to render assistance as required. Bryce took it to mean that the man was meant to keep tabs on his activities and report back to general staff. The spymaster was being spied upon, policed. It didn’t bode well. Saturday night, when they shared a whisky at the officers’ club, Farrell let slip that there may be concerns higher up that Bryce had not delivered tangible results to warrant his continued assignment.

  How many times had he explained to Kitchener that spying was like fishing, not hunting? It wasn’t like shooting something, where you immediately knew whether you scored a kill or not. With spying, you threw in the bait and waited. Sometimes you got a bite and sometimes not. When you did, however, it could be the easiest meal ever, worth all the waiting. The decision to pull in your lines is not all that simple, because you might be doing it a minute before the bite would come. He believed that recalling his men in the field would be short-sighted. He had people attached to almost all the major Boer fighting units. The part he hadn’t got right was to find a way for these men to communicate with him quickly and stealthily. Maybe one day there’d be portable telegraph machines you could disguise as some innocuous object, or a team of stealthy cyclists racing through the night to carry messages. That’s what the Boers used in the early part of the war, scouts on bicycles. Except on rough terrain, a man on a bike outrode a horse.

  He used a bicycle to get to his office every day. It looked less impressive than going on horseback, less dignified than walking, but he covered ground quietly and quickly. He loved moving so fast under his own steam, legs pumping, chest heaving, the wind whistling past his ears, his moustache tickling his chin. By the time he got to his office, he was flushed, panting and exhilarated.

  The office, once a room in a boarding house, was cool, kept that way throughout the day by the thick sandstone walls, the small windows and the towering flat-topped thorn tree outside. His footsteps echoed on the yellowwood floor. Farrell wasn’t there yet. Bryce brewed some tea and nibbled on biscuits. He treasured the time on his own. Farrell’s presence disturbed him. Not that there was anything wrong with Farrell. That was the problem. The lieutenant was the most likable fellow you could ever hope to meet. He had an easy smile, tended to blush and then got embarrassed by his red cheeks and blushed even more. Once he got over his shyness, he proved to have a sharp sense of humour. His eyes shone like church windows. Once, in response to an oblique enquiry from Bryce, he said, ‘I don’t miss women much.’ What did that mean? Bryce’s mouth had gone so dry that he couldn’t pursue the conversation before it had time to become awkward. Did Kitchener see the potential this man would have to unsettle someone like Bryce, seeing that he himself had a soft spot for certain young officers? Was the choice deliberate?

  Bryce wished he could hate the sidekick foisted on him, or just ignore him even. He wished he could set his mind to run on rails, to shut the man out, to be tough and professional. Then Farrell would walk in and his mind would act more like a grazing donkey than a train. It wandered to the green grass on the far side of the fence. The reason he couldn’t stop those ideas was that he enjoyed them so much. The opportunity he had seemed so ideal. Here was a man, a soldier, who could understand the kind of life he led, who could share it even. Someone who could also be a friend. Dare he put self-preservation above the chance to experience such happiness? The cocoon of mutual admiration enveloping two people is the closest to heaven that life allows.

  He was thinking like a teenager. One should not become excited over other people. What did Uncle Vernon say about people? ‘A mouth, an arsehole, a complication in between.’ He had to remember that.

  There were footsteps at the door, then Farrell was saluting smartly. ‘Morning, Major!’

  ‘Lieutenant.’

  ‘Feeling fine this morning?’

  Bryce nodded, having stuffed his mouth with biscuit.

  ‘I followed up on that thing about the New Zealanders for you.’ Farrell hung his cap on the hatstand, went across to his desk and flicked through a two-page report. ‘I had to tell them a lie about my interest in the matter, saying we’re tracking Dominion subjects who sympathise with the enemy.’

  ‘This is that business we heard about the stolen horse?’

  ‘That one spread so fast, those two guards must be kicking themselves for not finding another excuse to explain the missing horse. Apparently this man in underwear comes up to them while they were fully armed, on guard duty. He pretends to be one of them, a New Zealander, then he borrows a knife, uses it to threaten them and steal a horse, riding away into the night. Quite a damn story.’

  When Bryce first heard about this, he thought of Lancaster. Hearing that the man could convince New Zealanders that he was one of them, he was sure. He had nobody else from that small nation on his team. ‘Let me see that.’

  He read the report, which wasn’t quite the one he wanted from Lancaster, but at least it confirmed the man was still alive and with the Boers, or had been a few weeks ago. He wrote the date of the incident, 28 October, on a square of paper and stuck it to a map on his wall, next to the name of the farm where it happened. The map was slowly filling up with farm names, to identify locations in the absence of towns.

  Farrell came over and stood next to Bryce. ‘Is he the one who’ll give us De We
t?’

  Bryce caught a glimpse of the young man’s face. His lips were the colour of Beaujolais.

  26 November 1901

  The kid, Klein Steyn, arrived at the Lost Lamb just in time for lunch. He brought a horse to take the Jew back to the commando. They had moved camp a few times since Matzdorff got injured and the man would need a guide to find his comrades again.

  It was a day Esther had dreaded. What would she do if she didn’t have a patient to care for, just stay here and deal with the niggles and squabbles between stressed families? It was bad enough when Gideon left, but at least looking after Mr Matzdorff had kept her occupied. Besides, he provided a living link to Gideon, the commando and the cause of her nation. With her only remaining patient gone, what would she do all day?

  After they had eaten, while Matzdorff was doing the rounds to say his goodbyes, Steyn asked Esther if he could again see the clock that stood wrapped under the willow tree. He wanted to be alone with the girl. It was a scene he had often played out in his mind, though never with the agenda he had now.

  She knelt and undid the knot that held the oil cloth around the clock. ‘My mom loves this thing,’ she said. ‘Grandma can’t stand it.’ She unveiled it, lifting the cloth off the front and folding it over towards the back. The clock was made of dark wood, with a window showing a copper pendulum. The face was copper too. Esther opened the glass-panelled door on the front and took a key from a hook inside the cabinet. She then opened the glass face of the clock and proceeded to wind up the clock through three separate holes. The gears and ratchets creaked. Then she gave the pendulum a nudge and it started to swing. The clock began to tick.

  Steyn watched and listened for a bit. Then he took a rumpled envelope from inside his shirt. ‘He asked me to give you this.’