Jacob liked seeing the men so happy. It had been a while since they’ve had a windfall like this. Shows you what can be achieved if everyone works together and there are no traitors to bedevil your efforts. ‘Another hour here, then we move out. Don’t overload your mounts.’
They set alight everything they left behind, standing some way off and staring at the flames, how they crackled and shot sparks up into the sky. A wagon sighed and collapsed as its axle broke, sending up a spray of sparks. An unpleasant smoke, not from wood, filled the air. It was time to go. They left the wounded to be found by their comrades.
Just as they rode across the ridge and out of sight of the fires, one man started to sing, a strong baritone that carried across the veldt. Gideon recognised the tune, but not the words. The sun was sinking. The men on their horses cast long shadows that stretched and faded to nothingness; the evening star came out and everyone fell silent, happy to be alive, bouncing along with their own thoughts. They kept moving. Gideon stayed near the middle of the commando, which was stretched out in a thin line never more than three or four riders wide. He had little idea where they were geographically, but trusted that the men in front did. Many of them had farmed around here. This very spot may be where one of them used to corral their sheep. Unlike at the start of the war, this commando did not represent one specific district. It was a hotchpotch of men left over from commandos that had surrendered with Cronjé at Paardeberg the year before, aggregated around a core of men from around these parts – Ficksburg, Senekal, Bethlehem and Harrismith. The column moved eastward for a while, then swung south-east.
No more than an hour after midnight they ducked into a valley and there were the fires of those who had stayed behind through illness or horse trouble, Klein Steyn and Matzdorff, six able-bodied sentries and one man whose wife had come to see him and no longer had a home or children to go back to. The riders held up some of their loot to the admiration of those who had stayed behind. No victory parade was ever prouder. You’d swear these buggers had just sacked London, thought Gideon. They passed through firelight with cuts of meat and sacks of tinned goods held aloft. The commandant called halt. The message was passed down the line that they’d be staying at this spot for a few days at least, so everyone could devote some time to rest and repairs.
Gideon thought about going to find the boy, Steyn, to hear how Esther had responded to his letter. But after he had unsaddled and tended to his horse, he was bone tired and couldn’t resist sitting down on his bedroll, elbows on knees, head in hands, just to close his eyes for a few minutes.
That night a wind came up from the plains, smelling of earth, rain and fire.
27 November 1901 (1)
Gideon woke up early the next morning, cold and stiff from having slept on top of his bedding. He found the boy and Matzdorff asleep near a few glowing coals. He poked in the coals of their fire to get it going again. He had brought some rolled oats from the previous day’s haul to surprise them. The porridge was bubbling away when Steyn finally opened his eyes.
Matzdorff woke up when he heard their voices, but he closed his eyes again and did not stir. He wasn’t ready for this. In his mind, he had taken leave of this way of life and these people. Being among them now was incongruous, a bad dream he couldn’t shake off.
Gideon cast a glance at the sleeping man before asking Steyn: ‘Did you get the chance to deliver my note?’
‘She read it.’
Gideon had hoped for something more dramatic, a description of laughter or tears at least. ‘Did she say anything?’
Steyn suddenly remembered. ‘Oh, she gave me a letter for you too.’ He felt in his shirt and pulled out a creased note.
People were waking up all around.
Gideon folded open the paper, which looked unbelievably worn. It must’ve got wet, because the ink had run.
Steyn noticed it too. Damn it! He forgot all about the letter and walked miles, sweating like a pig with the paper against his skin. Then he slept on it too.
God, this was frustrating. Gideon looked at Esther’s words, or the blotches left by them. He caught some words and bits of others, but the sense eluded him. He looked for love or something like it. There it was, at the end of one line, my geliefde. My beloved. But beloved what – mother or country, horse or lover? He stared at the bluish patch of ink on the next line, but he may as well have been trying to read a lavender flower. He held the paper to his nose, but any smell of her had long since been masked by Steyn’s sweat, by dust and smoke.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ The circumstances were not conducive to conducting love affairs.
The boy stared into the pot. ‘What is that?’
‘I got some oats yesterday, and salt too.’
He dished up for the boy, then for Matzdorff. He poked the figure under the blanket. ‘Here.’
Matzdorff opened his eyes, wriggled onto his elbow and poked two hands out from under the covers. His wrists were bound by ties of rawhide, biting into the flesh, his fingers purple and swollen.
Gideon was perplexed. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Ask the boy.’
Steyn was sitting cross-legged by now, eating with a spoon he had fashioned from wood. ‘It’s his fault, he tried to desert. It’s a matter for the commandant.’
Gideon scraped half-burnt porridge from the bottom of the pot. ‘Is that really necessary? I mean, he’s with us now.’
‘He put a gun on me and stole my horse. Everyone thinks because I’m young I don’t matter. Mr Matzdorff has done me wrong and he tried to betray our people.’
‘Are you sure? About the betrayal, I mean.’
‘If he’s not for us, he’s against us. The commandant said so himself.’
‘The commandant is not necessarily always right, you know.’
Steyn stared at the Dutchman. What does this man think, who must I listen to then? My father is dead, I don’t know what happened to my mother. I haven’t seen a teacher in years or a church minister in months. ‘The commandant is in charge.’
Gideon ate his porridge, with little enjoyment.
Matzdorff worried about having to ride the hide again, being tossed around naked, the discomfort and embarrassment of it all.
‘What if the commandant wants to shoot him, like he did with Tromp?’
‘What do you mean, shoot?’ Matzdorff had stopped eating, the spoon in his two hands, halfway to his mouth.
‘He shot a traitor the other day.’ Gideon decided not to elaborate.
Steyn did. ‘It was just something that happened once. The man was a spy. It’s not the same.’
‘It depends on how widely the commandant interprets treachery,’ said Gideon. ‘All I’m saying is perhaps we can let Mr Matzdorff be.’
‘Are you on his side now?’
‘I’m not on anyone’s side. Or perhaps on everyone’s. I just don’t want things to happen that are unnecessary, that you’ll regret later.’
‘Whatever the commandant decides to do, it’s his decision, not mine.’ Steyn got up. ‘I must go wash this. Please see he doesn’t get away.’
When the boy was out of earshot, Matzdorff spoke with urgency. ‘Can I really get shot for this?’
Two days ago Gideon may have set the man’s mind at ease with a clean conscience. Not now, not after what he had witnessed at Retief’s Nek the day before. The commandant had shot his own uncle and cousin in cold blood. Gideon had to remind himself that there were greater things at stake than this man’s future. ‘I was just trying to scare the boy into letting you go.’ He lied with a smile. ‘I’ll adjust those ties so your hands get some blood flowing again.’ And while he was unravelling the knot: ‘How were things at the Lost Lamb after I left?’
‘What is there to say? There are kids playing pranks and weather that changes. Everything else is just waiting.’
‘Miss Calitz okay?’
‘She’s restless, that one. I think she wants to be somewhere els
e. We have that in common.’
‘If you wanted to leave here, you should’ve made sure you got away clean.’
‘How could I know the horse would die on me? … Will you help me?’
‘I couldn’t do that and stay here myself.’
‘I just need a horse and a few hours’ head start. You’ll never see me again.’
‘They’re bound to figure out who helped you. I can’t let that happen.’
‘Why is it so important to you to be liked by these people? They’ll never do it, you know. You and I, we’re not part of the people, their blessed volk. You have to be born into it. Nothing we can do to change that … It’s like you’re obsessed with some stupid idea. I sometimes think you’re not at all who you pretend to be.’
‘What else would I be?’ Gideon tried to keep his reaction light, with a hint of surprise in his voice. ‘Besides, I don’t want to be liked by all of them, only the ones that count.’
‘Like Miss Calitz and who else? Believe me, I’ve tried to be liked by only one of them and I don’t know if I’ve even managed that. Last time I was home my wife seemed … distant. I have to go there.’
Gideon saw the kid coming back, carrying the still-dripping bowls, and he got up to go. ‘I cannot save you, not this time, believe me.’
Watching the Dutchman go, Matzdorff wondered what suffering lay ahead and if this was a particularly Jewish fate, along with believing things that were incomprehensible. Acceptance and endurance seemed to be the only options available to him, mere survival a victory of sorts. He realised that the current Boer struggle was something like this. They had that in common. The Jews and Boers both claimed to be God’s chosen people, but chosen for what? Not victory or joy, that’s for sure. Thinking about his former comrades and now captors as a group filled him with dread. Maybe the Boers’ piety suppressed their good human instincts along with the bad … If only he wasn’t so afraid.
‘We need to go to the commandant.’
‘I have to go …’ Matzdorff pointed to the bushes at the far end of the camp where one or two men were relieving themselves.
‘Let’s go then. But no funny stuff.’
No, no funny stuff, thought Matzdorff, unless you want to laugh at a circumcised dick wagging in the wind.
A man who walked by behind them said, ‘Put away those puff adders, chaps, before Mouton comes and clubs them too!’
The mood in the camp was almost festive still. The sounds of cooking and laughter bubbled from down the hollow and the smells of real coffee and tobacco drifted across the veldt. A hoopoe landed on a branch near Matzdorff and whooped. The bird gave him the beady eye, and winked.
On the other side of the camp, Gideon rummaged through his goods and his conscience, marvelling at what he had become – this bedraggled man crouched under the African sun, trying to hang on to his honour despite shameful acts of omission and commission. He wasn’t naïve enough ever to expect war to be a glorious enterprise, but the sordidness of his role ate at him.
Klein Steyn had no such qualms. He was doing the right thing for himself and for his people. He had Matzdorff in front of Commandant Eksteen and was telling his story before the sun had time to heat the stones.
Jacob Eksteen was sitting on his usual folding stool. It raised his posterior a mere foot off the ground, but it did signify superior status. Behind him was his tent, small and faded, but still a symbol of legitimacy and authority, the closest thing to a palace of justice out here. Steyn and Matzdorff stood, with Field Cornet Liebenberg seated on a stone next to the commandant. Jacob wondered if he should’ve paid more heed to his earlier suspicions about the Jew. He never trusted the man and it turned out he had been right not to. ‘So he stole your horse?’
Steyn wanted to say yes and leave it at that, but it would make the rest of the events hard to explain. ‘He said he would leave it for me at Miss Calitz’s house.’
‘He had his rifle pointed at you at this time?’
Steyn nodded.
‘And did he explain his actions to you?’
‘He said something like he was done with this war and our cause is hopeless.’
‘Did he mention working for the English?’
‘Uhm … not that I recall.’
Matzdorff interjected. ‘I want nothing to do with any side in this war.’
‘But you did plan to go to British-held territory?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘Where it would be expected of you to sign the oath of allegiance to the enemy.’
It was the truth and yet not the truth. This consideration had played no part in his thinking. Matzdorff could not contain his anger any longer. ‘Why are you people still fighting? Surely you can’t have any hope of winning this war.’
Naturally, Jacob had hoped, but he had never thought the Boers had much chance of winning. Some did, but he didn’t. Anyone with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics could see which side would have to win; the numbers just didn’t stack up for the Boer republics. ‘For our side, this war is not about winning; it is about fighting for what is right. To fight and not give up, that’s the whole point.’ Even as he said it, Jacob knew he was wasting his breath. Matzdorff did not have poetry in his soul. So few of the men did. And without that, how could they understand what drove him?
There were men who, when captured by the British, immediately offered to switch sides, to fight for their captors. He understood that the fear of being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in a faraway place was a factor, but not that anyone could let that override their convictions. The men needed moral guidance, a leader who left them in no doubt about the right course of action. Therefore he had to act in unambiguous terms, keep everything simple, black and white. What Matzdorff had done might not be what one would normally equate to treason, but the man did want to forsake his comrades, was prepared to swear allegiance to the enemy, and he did point a firearm at a Boer combatant …
‘What you did amounts to treason. But it’s your lucky day. We had a good haul yesterday and the men deserve to enjoy the rewards, so there won’t be any punishment today.’
Matzdorff dropped his head, saying a quick prayer of thanks.
Jacob got to his feet. ‘You’ll be executed at dawn tomorrow.’
He retreated to his tent, leaving disbelief in his wake.
Liebenberg peeped into the tent a few minutes later. ‘I’ve organised for Matzdorff to be kept under guard.’
‘Good. Make sure the boy gets some of yesterday’s spoils. He did well.’
Liebenberg nodded, but did not leave. He considered himself a good Boer and a good Christian, respectful of the authorities appointed over him. What was he to do if one of these authorities demanded something the other wouldn’t approve? Killing Tromp had been bad enough, inhuman, but this seemed immoral. All his life, he’d heard the story about the Jew who was crucified. Matzdorff, whatever you thought of him as a man, was one of God’s chosen people. If you condemned him to death, whose sins would he be dying for? Liebenberg was terribly unsure of the righteousness of what the commandant wanted. He felt he had to speak up.
‘What?’
‘Commandant … We’re going to struggle to get a firing squad together. The men don’t like this kind of thing.’
‘An enemy is no less of an enemy just because you know his name.’
‘But he’s more of a man.’
Jacob never expected the ever-obedient Liebenberg to cause difficulties. He sighed. ‘Then it will just have to be me again.’
After the men had taken Matzdorff away, Steyn found himself running. His feet were still sore from the long walk the day before. He had wound torn strips of one of his father’s old shirts around his feet, but the left one had slipped off and bundled in the toe of his boot. Running wasn’t easy. So why was he doing it? He slowed down to a walk. He wanted to share the news with someone, but the first people who came to mind were all dead, the next ones all far away. The Dutchman, then. It was the closest thing to
a friend he had.
Gideon was working on his horse’s hooves with a hoof-pick when Steyn found him. Keeping their mounts healthy was a constant concern.
‘They’re going to kill him.’ The boy stood a few feet from Gideon, panting. ‘The commandant said they’ll shoot Matzdorff in the morning.’
Gideon shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was still shocking. His fears after what he had seen at the rock fall the day before were confirmed. Jacob Eksteen had embarked on a route that led further away from measured rational behaviour; the man had found a way to vent his frustration at the course of the war or whatever else it was that disturbed him so.
‘What must we do?’ The boy’s voice chose that moment to break into a high-pitched whoop.
‘I don’t know that we must do anything.’ Gideon did not want to add that they could’ve done something that morning, that he had tried to tell Steyn. Now there was a different situation that called for a different response.
‘I’ve done the right thing … right?’
‘As a soldier, yes.’
Steyn thought about that. Should he tell the Dutchman that he didn’t think like a soldier all the time, that in his head he was still someone else, Wilhelm Steyn, his mother’s son, friend to Klonkie Mokoena, scourge of birds with his catapult, admired builder of clay oxen? That lately he had begun to have sinful thoughts about Esther Calitz or someone similar, a girl who beckoned as if she were his destiny or something close to it? He was a soldier, yes, but not only that. There was another part, and that one was harder to define. ‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled.
Gideon could sympathise. Not too long ago he had also brought someone in front of Commandant Eksteen and had thus been instrumental in the man’s death. It must be doubly hard for the boy, being younger and knowing Matzdorff better than either of them had known Tromp. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s war. We can’t expect it to leave our hearts at peace.’ As he said this, Gideon wished that he had someone who could say the same to him, someone whose opinion he respected.
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