Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  Well, that’s what the Dominee said in church the very next Sunday after the fire. But he said, ‘Last Saturday at The Boys Farm there was another burning bush incident that just goes to show God’s gospel is alive among the volk. Some English books were hidden under a great rock and, all of a sudden, there was a fire that destroyed them. Now I’m not trying to say this is a miracle because it isn’t. But just like Joseph Goebbels could find an evil book in a whole library, some boys, who are present in this congregation and about whom Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto me”, found these devil books buried under a big rock and burned them. You see, even in this modern age, when we have aeroplanes that can fly around the world, the God of Elijah the prophet and the God of small children and the God of the Afrikaner volk is not mocked. The miracle of the burning bush is still here for all of us to learn to obey God’s word!’

  During all of this, the beetle had practically chewed up all the beard grass and you should have seen his ears. Talk about red! Sitting right in the front row with all the high-ups was Meneer Van Niekerk. All of a sudden he stood up and turned to the congregation. ‘This is a disgrace!’ he shouted. Then he turned back to the Dominee. ‘This God you talk about is not my God! The fire that destroyed a young boy’s precious book collection was deliberately lit by someone who is ignorant enough to have listened to your wicked propaganda sermon! I blame this crime on you, Dominee!’ Then he turned and walked out and his wife, Mevrou Van Niekerk, got up and followed him. I wished I’d had the courage to walk out, but I didn’t. When he’d almost reached the church door at the back, the Dominee shouted, ‘I will carry this crime with pride in Jesus’ precious name, Brother Van Niekerk!’

  But then something even worse happened. Meneer Prinsloo stood up and turned to the congregation and said, ‘As God is my witness, and as the Government-appointed supervisor of The Boys Farm for twelve years already, let me tell you, what the Dominee said is God’s truth!’ And then some of the congregation clapped. So you can see, Gawie had no chance of being a regte Boer ever again. He was sitting in the row in front of me and someone said in a loud whisper, ‘Surrogaat!’

  It was an all-over bad time. Gawie not being my friend any more was one bad thing. But what was another almost as bad was that there were no more shit-paper reports coming my way. It turned into 1944 and I was now ten, nearly eleven, and I didn’t know what was going on in the war. Except you could tell England was winning because people didn’t brag how good the Germans were any more. You practically never heard Adolf Hitler’s name mentioned and, at long last, Adolf Hitler, the rooster, was ready for the Rand Easter Show. I’ve got to admit, he was even better than Piet Retief, his tail feathers were black as coal with blue and purple and green showing through and shiny as anything, and reaching up and touching the sky, and his new name for going into the show was Winston Churchill.And then a big thing in my life happened.

  Dear Tom,

  I have entered your name in the Bishop’s College Scholarship. This is a private Anglican school in Johannesburg and considered the most prestigious in the Transvaal. The application says that last year 2000 candidates sat the examination for only three places. The suggestion is that this year there will be even more. It is for a boarder at St John’s House with all fees paid.

  Now, I don’t expect you to win it this year, after all, you are only ten at the moment, and the average age for Form One is thirteen. But I would like you to study for it and to sit the examination. It will be excellent practice for next year. You know what I’ve always said, ‘Practice makes perfect!’

  Don’t worry if it seems too hard. I will always be there with you. I have written to Meneer Van Niekerk to ask his permission, and he has agreed that you take the examination.

  By the way, he has explained to me why Gawie is no longer doing the exercises in English. What a great pity! He is such a clever boy. I have suggested to Meneer Van Niekerk that Gawie sit for the Jan Hofmeyer Scholarship to Pretoria Afrikaans Boys High School and I am sending him the necessary application forms.

  With love,

  Janneke Phillips (Miss)

  That letter was the one-hundredth With love I’d received in four years from Miss Phillips.

  So now I was studying for a scholarship that I wasn’t going to win. I didn’t think I could win it anyway, even if I wasn’t too young. In my opinion, high-up people don’t go around giving out scholarships to posh schools in Johannesburg to boys who are owned by the Government and are the lowest you can get, except for kaffirs. I’d heard somewhere that at schools like that you have to wear underpants and I’d never even seen what they looked like. Gawie once said they were like bloomers for men because once when he was tearing his shit-paper squares there was this guy in an advertisment who was wearing some. ‘Only people who ride horses at the races wear them so their balls don’t get squashed,’ he explained. ‘They called Jockey shorts.’ There was also another very good reason why I wasn’t going to win. That reason was Tinker. I didn’t suppose they’d let a person take his dog to a posh school like that even if you told them she’d never come into the classroom or eat somebody’s sandwiches without first hearing the password.

  But I must say I really liked the idea of doing the studying because now with no friend I had plenty of time on my hands down at the library rock. Studying takes a person’s mind off stuff and you can’t worry as much because there’s other things to worry about, like who discovered America – it was Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator, born 1454, died 1512.

  When the time came to write the examination, because it was too far for me to go to Johannesburg to sit for them, the Bishop’s College made these special rules. They wouldn’t even let Meneer Van Niekerk get the exam papers because he might have a vested interest, Miss Phillips explained in one of her letters. Instead, the sealed envelope went to Doctor Van Heerden, because a town’s doctor is not only a naturally high-up person, but can always be absolutely trusted. He agreed to open my exam papers on the mornings of the three-day examination. Then the doctor had to appoint someone who was totally trustworthy to sit outside the door of the room to see that nobody entered. I was allowed only three breaks, mid-morning, lunch and in the middle of the afternoon. This had to happen for three days until four o’clock. It seemed like a lot of fuss over someone who wasn’t going to win, but rules are rules and we must obey them, Meneer Van Niekerk said.

  You’d have thought he’d be angry because the Bishop’s College didn’t trust a high-up person like him with the exam papers, but he wasn’t at all and said he was very proud of me. He was going through a hard time because lots of the parents tried to have him removed from the school because of what he’d done in church that Sunday. But lots of others secretly supported him. The Transvaal Department of Education had a hearing and they said it was not a matter for them, and as far as they were concerned Meneer de Wet van Niekerk was an exemplary headmaster and that was that. Now he had a lot of enemies, including the Dominee.

  Guess who Doctor Van Heerden asked to sit outside the classroom? Marie Booysens, who was now a full-time certificate nurse at the local hospital. And guess what again? This is really, really good news, Doctor Van Heerden, whose wife died ten years ago, was going to marry Mevrou Booysens. I think it must be because she was so brave when he took out her gallbladder.

  Marie arrived on the first examination day and she had this big basket with lots of things for me to eat on my compulsory breaks. Also she had a thermos with coffee, and another thermos that she’d put in this big fridge that wasn’t an icebox and didn’t run on electricity, in it was a strawberry milkshake. Even if I didn’t win the scholarship, it was still the best examination I would ever sit for and what Marie brought in that basket was nearly as good as a mixed grill that I hadn’t yet had. Marie said if I did well in the examination I could have one and she’d cook it for me herself.

  Doctor Van Heerden arrived at the school and Meneer Van Niekerk met him, and we were taken to a classroom that
had especially been emptied for me. He broke the seal on a large envelope and removed smaller envelopes and a letter which he read. He looked up.

  ‘I have three envelopes, Tom, one for each day of your exams and I am going to break the seal of the first one and hand it to you. Meneer Van Niekerk tells me that paper, pen and ink have been set out for you and Marie will bring you anything else you need and tell you when to take your breaks. Remember, you can’t ask her anything and the only time you will be out of her sight is if you want to go to the lavatory when you will be accompanied by another boy.’

  I can’t say the exams were easy, because they weren’t, but then again they were not that difficult either. I didn’t have to go to the lavatory. We had to wait two months for the results but I wasn’t anxious because I already knew I wouldn’t get it. What I did know was that the next time I sat, if there was a next time, then watch me, man! I’d be old enough and I was going to really try my hardest.

  My sitting for the examination was not such big news at The Boys Farm because Meneer Prinsloo was the enemy of Meneer Van Niekerk. Meneer Prinsloo was already an old enemy of Sergeant Van Niekerk because of Fonnie du Preez, who was now in the reformatory in Pretoria, and, of course, the fire. So anything to do with the school wasn’t mentioned except if one of The Boys Farm kids in the school rugby first team scored a try.

  Gawie also sat the examination for Pretoria Afrikaans Boys High School. If he hadn’t been a surrogaat, now turned into a proper noun that didn’t need Engelsman attached to it, they would have made a big fuss of such a clever Afrikaner. It wasn’t every day a boy from The Boys Farm got as far as matric and there had only ever been one, and he’d been before Meneer Prinsloo’s time. There had never been anyone who had won a scholarship and now the two boys that everyone hated the most might be the ones who did it.

  Now, I don’t want you to think I’m being a nice guy when I say this, but I really wanted Gawie, who still wouldn’t have anything to do with me, to win his scholarship. Ever since the surrogaat business he had been miserable. At thirteen he wasn’t in the small boys dormitory anymore so he wasn’t around as much. When we walked to school or worked in the vegetable garden or watered the oranges, he was always on his own. It was okay for me, because I was accustomed to loneliness, besides, I had Tinker. Gawie wasn’t used to being on his own, he had always been accepted as, okay, a bit of a drip, but a brainy person as well. The other kids would ask him things they didn’t know and he did, and he liked that, to be the brains around the place. Now no-one asked the surrogaat anything.

  I would have been his friend again in a flash, but several times when I’d approached him he turned on me and shouted, ‘Voetsek!’, which wasn’t him calling me by my nickname. When you say it as an adjective, it’s what you say to a mongrel dog before you kick it. So I didn’t go near him any longer. If he won the scholarship he’d be out of The Boys Farm forever and that would be a good thing because in his heart of hearts Gawie didn’t have a bad bone in his whole body. It was just that he was a stubborn Afrikaner, and when they stubborn you can forget it. You can’t get blood out of a stone!

  Something else definitely was big news around the place. Adolf Hitler, alias Winston Churchill, won third place at the Rand Easter Show. You have never seen such a gerfuffle! That night at supper, such was his excitement, Meneer Prinsloo made his speech before dinner. He was wearing the usual braces over his white, open-neck shirt but the third-place rooster ribbon was draped over his right shoulder and across his huge body like a sash worn by the leader of a marching band. As he stood there smiling, with his chest out nearly as far as his stomach, you knew already it was going to be cold soup tonight.

  First, he turned to the top table and smiled his fat smile. ‘Dames en Here en Jongetjies. Ladies and Gentlemen and Boys, tonight is a truly great night in the history of The Boys Farm. We, and I include you all, because of the bread crusts you have left on the table, have won the top rooster in all of South Africa, except for a Leghorn and a Rhode Island Red. I speak, of course, of Adolf Hitler, the grand champion of roosters, except for the two other birds my informants tell me had definite connections with the judges.’ He tapped his nose with his forefinger. ‘Never you mind how I know this. Us Afrikaners have our ways and means and people who clean out cages, change the water and feed the chickens at these shows are not stupid, you hear. God gave them ears to listen and mouths to report the politics going on to their fellow Afrikaners who are trying to compete by playing fair and square.

  ‘But politics are always around and a Boer from the Northern Transvaal who is the superintendent of a Boys Farm cannot compete with the big-time politicians of Chickendom! But we volk from the North who those people in Johannesburg always call Japies are also not stupid, hey!’ He paused to let this point sink in. ‘With chickens it’s always Englishmen all over the place as judges. I must remind you the Rand Easter Show is situated in a place where the British and the Jews live. So, “ ‘n Man het ‘n plan”, a man has a plan. In order to have a good chance I was regrettably forced to take that noble rooster with his tail feathers that touch the sky and give him a false identity. Now we all know this great, now nearly grand champion rooster’s birth name, but for purposes of politics and disguise, we entered him as Winston Churchill.’ He looked around and beamed at us all. ‘What a clever joke, eh, boys? All of a sudden Adolf Hitler becomes Winston Churchill!’

  Meneer Prinsloo brought his arms around his great girth, but his fingers were unable to touch by about twelve inches. He began to chuckle and then to shake with silent laughter, his belly wobbling like a plate of Christmas jelly, so we all laughed too. Then we clapped at this incredible piece of cunning designed by a master chicken strategist.

  At the sound of the applause he calmed down and held up his hand, still half-laughing. ‘Wait, there is more, boys!’ he said, delighted with himself. ‘There is also the chief judge’s medal that he gives at his own discretion and not always to the grand champion, that imposter Leghorn. This chief judge of chickens, his name is Colonel Ted Emery and he has a big ginger moustache.’ Meneer Prinsloo was taken up again with another sudden fit of giggling, but we kept clapping and laughing because his great jelly stomach was wobbling so much.

  Finally, he managed to stop giggling long enough to say, ‘When this medal is announced the chief judge says, “I award my medal to the third placegetter in the Best Rooster Under Two Years Category. A fine bird indeed, but this is not my reason for making this award. The breeder comes from the Northern Transvaal, from a small town called Duiwelskrans. You may recall the notorious Faceless Man, who attempted to blow up a troop train, came from this particular town. It is known as a veritable hotbed of political dissension openly masterminded by the Ossewabrandwag! To my mind, the courage this particular man has shown in naming the third placegetter after Sir Winston Churchill shows great character and loyalty to His Majesty the King and deserves the highest commendation. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I award Meneer Pietrus Prinsloo the Chief Judge’s medallion!” ’

  Mevrou and old Mevrou Pienaar, who by now was almost totally deaf, and the two wardens who looked after the senior boys, Koos van de Merwe and Jakob Fourie, stood up on the platform table. Mevrou must have remembered the occasion when Frikkie Botha did the same to applaud the great Adolf Hitler speech when we all did the Nazi salute. The five staff started to applaud. I don’t suppose you can do a Nazi salute for a rooster, so we all stood up and clapped like mad, mainly because we hoped it was about to end because by now our soup was stone cold.

  ‘No! No!’ Meneer Prinsloo shouted, his arms flailing through the air, braces stretched to capacity. ‘Stop at once! Stop, you fools!’ he thundered. We stopped and sat down again, a bit puzzled. Meneer Prinsloo, now very angry, shouted, ‘If it were true what that verdomde rooinek chief judge of chickens Colonel Ted Emery said it would be a terrible disgrace on my good name! I am a loyal member of the Ossewabrandwag, as everyone knows very well! The Broederbond also! Winsto
n Churchill is the imperialist dog that barks for the degenerate British King Georgie! Can’t you stupid people see I was making only a nice joke against the Britisher chief judge of chickens!’

  There was dead silence in the dining room. Old Mevrou Pienaar, who was always a bit confused, turned and leaned towards Mevrou. In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, she said, ‘What is all this about? Is it that stupid chicken? I only wish somebody would pull out its tail feathers again!’ Nobody dared to laugh, but I’m telling you, I had to put my hand over my mouth and look down into my lap, quick smart.

  My old books, now all brand-new editions, began to come in dribs and drabs from the CNA in Pietersburg. Each time a parcel arrived on the train, Meneer Van Niekerk would call me to his office and make a small presentation. As he handed me the brown-paper parcel tied with white string that had a piece of red sealing wax melted on the knot, he always said the same thing. ‘For your personal use, Tom. Remember always, the truth shall set you free.’ Each time I opened a parcel it was like meeting an old friend wearing a clean shirt. Books are like that, you know. When you haven’t got a friend they can be your best friends and one thing is for sure, they’ll never let you down or leave you in the lurch.