Whitethorn

by Bryce Courtenay

  When everyone was asleep, I got out of my bed and knelt down beside it. Usually, if I wanted to say a prayer I just did it lying down in bed. I meant no disrespect to God, but kneeling down to say your prayers wasn’t what you did. We had evening prayers after prep, always the same prayer and read by the duty master pretty quick so as to get it over with as fast as possible. For a God’s-place school they weren’t very fussy, and Meneer Prinsloo would have left them in the dust for so-called godliness. The guys probably thought that was enough so you didn’t go on your knees later and say your prayers for everyone to see, you just did it lying down, hoping God didn’t mind. But now I asked God to keep Tinker’s heart from breaking into pieces before I got there to rescue her. I also asked Him to look after me tomorrow. ‘I know it’s asking two things, which is quite a lot at one time, God, but you must understand this is an emergency and I’ll make it up to you later in good deeds.’ If it was possible to feel a bit better after speaking to Him, then I did.

  I woke up with a start, and could see it was pitch-black outside, even more so than usual, so I knew it was earlier than five o’clock. Then shortly afterwards the clock on the school tower struck four. I got dressed very quietly, leaving my blazer and tie behind because they would be a way of identifying me, and crept downstairs and left the School House. Big Porridge was fast asleep at the front gate as I tippy-toed past him, not using the gravel path but walking on the lawn beside it. I crossed the cricket ground that was wet with dew and it wasn’t long before I found myself on the main road to Pretoria. The idea was to walk far enough to leave the suburban houses behind and find myself on the open road, how far this would be I really couldn’t say.

  I’d been walking for about twenty minutes, not bothering to glance back at the traffic or to use my thumb as I was still in a suburban area. Suddenly there was a screech of tyres and a military jeep stopped right beside me. Two soldiers sat in the front seat of the jeep, and the one on the passenger side called out, ‘Are you all right, son?’ I nodded, and he said, ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Pretoria,’ I answered.

  ‘Bit early to be on the road, hey?’

  ‘Ja, Sir, I was hoping to get a big truck, they always leave early in the morning.’

  ‘Is Pretoria where you live?’

  ‘No, Sir, I live in Duiwelskrans in the Northern Transvaal.’

  ‘That’s near Tzaneen,’ the driver called. ‘I myself come from Pietersburg.’

  ‘You’re a long way from home, man,’ the first soldier said.

  ‘Three hundred miles,’ the driver added. They had these white bands on their caps and on the arm of the one nearest me was a red armband and sewn on it were the words ‘Military Police’.

  ‘Ja, but I have to go home, it’s an emergency, Sir.’ I was suddenly very scared. I’d only been gone for about half an hour, and here I am caught by the police.

  The soldier must have seen me staring at his armband. ‘We’re military, don’t worry, we can’t arrest civilians.’ He jerked his head to indicate the back of the jeep. ‘Hop in the back, son, we’ll get you onto the open road.’

  I thanked him and jumped into a khaki canvas seat, and we moved away from the kerb. But at the very next cross street they turned left and drove about a hundred yards and stopped outside a house. The street was quiet and everyone was still asleep in the houses. A dog came to a gate and barked, then stopped.

  The soldier in the passenger seat turned around, resting his arm on the back of his canvas seat. ‘So what’s going on, hey? You running away from home or something?’

  ‘No, Sir, I’m . . . I’m only trying to get back to my home, it’s an emergency,’ I stammered.

  ‘School? You’re running away from school?’

  ‘Ja, but only for a bit, I have to go back.’

  ‘This emergency,’ the driver asked, ‘can you maybe tell us what it is about? Perhaps we can help?’

  ‘A dog,’ I answered.

  ‘Your dog?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about your dog?’ the soldier in the passenger seat asked.

  ‘She’s dying, Sir . . . of a broken heart. I have to go home to mend it.’ A smile appeared on both men’s faces and I began to despair. Grown-ups, especially men, wouldn’t see a dog’s broken heart as important. Animals are just supposed to live and die, and because they’ve not got souls and can’t go to heaven they’re not important enough for a boy to run away from school to the rescue. I felt sure they were deciding to take me back to school. Then I had a sudden inspiration, and took Doctor Van Heerden’s letter from my shirt pocket and handed it to the passenger soldier.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked, taking the envelope.

  ‘Will you read it, please, Sir?’

  He turned away from me and began to read, and when he had finished reading he handed it silently to the driver of the jeep, who did the same. The driver turned and handed it back to me, and looked at the other soldier and said, ‘We’re only going to Pretoria, but you’re welcome to come along.’ He turned back to me and stretched out his hand. ‘My name is Gert,’ he flicked his head in the direction of the passenger soldier. ‘This is David. Best not give any surnames, hey? And your name is?’

  ‘Tom Fit—’

  ‘No name, no pack drill, Tom!’ the passenger soldier cried, cutting me off mid-word.

  The driver, Gert, handed me back the letter. ‘Welcome aboard, it’s a pleasure to be able to help in such a worthy cause.’ With this he started the engine and did a U-turn, and in moments we were back on the Pretoria road heading north.

  As we approached Pretoria, David unfolded a map and spread it out on his lap, the wind snapping at its edges because the jeep didn’t have its top on. Then he folded it and spoke to Gert, who nodded and turned to me, shouting above the wind and noise of the engine. ‘We’re taking you on the ring-road so you’ll miss Pretoria and get on the road to Nylstroom and be on your way.’

  On the north highway on the other side of Pretoria we passed a military truck, a ten-tonner with a canvas top. ‘This could be your lucky day, Tom,’ Gert shouted and put his foot on the accelerator, tooting as we passed the truck. When we’d gone about a quarter of a mile, Gert pulled over to the side of the road, and David jumped out and I saw he was holding a torch, only it had a red light. As the truck approached David waved the torch, and with his free hand he signalled the truck driver to pull over.

  ‘Stay where you are, Tom,’ Gert said, jumping out of the jeep. I watched as they both approached the truck driver’s door and started talking to him. I couldn’t hear what they said. There was another soldier in the front of the truck. Then David walked over to the jeep. ‘It’s certainly your lucky day, Tom, they’re two army transport guys, Cape Coloureds. You’ll never guess, man! They’re going through to Pietersburg!’ My mouth must have fallen open, because David laughed. ‘Come, you better get going.’

  Talk about prayers being answered! God sure must get up early to go to work. I thanked Gert and David as profusely as I could manage.

  ‘Ag, it’s nothing, man, glad to help,’ Gert said. He glanced at his watch. ‘Here, we better be on our way.’

  David shook my hand. ‘We told the two transport guys no names, no pack drill, just first names. Don’t worry, they won’t talk. Good luck, Tom. If anyone can mend a dog’s broken heart I reckon you the man.’

  ‘Totsiens, ou maat,’ Gert called as I climbed into the front of the big truck and sat beside the other passenger. We waited until the jeep did a U-turn and sped off in the direction of Pretoria.

  ‘Fok, man! I thought for sure I’m going to have a heart attack on the fokken spot. Already the police have found us and we only gone a fokken hour,’ the driver exclaimed, switching on the ignition.

  The other man laughed, his laughter lost in the sudden roar of the engine. Then as it quietened he offered me his hand. ‘Stoffie.’

  ‘Tom,’ I replied, shaking his hand.

  ‘This is Dippie,’ Stoffie sa
id, jerking his head towards the driver.

  ‘Hello, man!’ Dippie said, turning the truck back into the road. ‘Those cops. Fok, I shit my trousers so much, if they wasn’t open at the bottom they would have filled up.’

  ‘They’re nice guys,’ I volunteered. His trousers were not open at the bottom and were held by gaiters around the top of his boots, but it was still a nice picture in my head.

  ‘You still young, man. When a cop is a nice guy, then Stoffie here is a fokken angel with fokken wings like a butterfly,’ Dippie laughed.

  Stoffie turned to me to explain. ‘You see this truck? It’s supposed to be in the depot getting a service, it needs an oil change and new brake linings, the drivers they ride the clutch all the time, no disrespect for Dippie here, who is an army driver. Me, I’m a mechanic and these guys who call themselves drivers are always riding the clutch. On a jeep the handbrake doesn’t last ten minutes, they forget to take it off. Downhill you use the gears to slow down, these guys use the brake.’

  ‘Fokken mechanics, always fokken complaining,’ Dippie laughed. ‘It takes lots of energy to change gears in these big fokken trucks, the foot is stronger than the arm!’

  ‘We’re boeties from Cape Town, District Six,’ Stoffie explained, ‘but we stationed in Pretoria where we also got an auntie. Our auntie has a husband who is a drunk, you understand, which for a Cape Coloured is not a hard thing to be, but now she’s sick and tired of being beaten black-and-blue, and she says, genoeg, finish and klaar! She’s got a sister who lives in Pietersburg and has a laundry for washing clothes, mostly sheets and towels from the hospital, and she needs some help, so my auntie calls me on the telephone at the mechanic shop in the camp.’ Stoffie held his hand up to his ear with his thumb and little finger extended to indicate a telephone receiver, and his voice went up high and shrieky. ‘“Stoffie, that you and you brother Dippie?”

  ‘“No, only me, Auntie. Dippie, I don’t know where he is at the moment.” ’

  ‘“Ja, well you’ll be glad to hear I’m leaving that good-for-nothing you can’t even call a husband, because how can you call a piece of shit a husband, hey?”

  ‘“It’s about time, Auntie,” I say, because she’s always, for the last twenty years, going to leave him.

  ‘She says to me, “No, it’s true, this time it’s for keeps, you hear! No more black-and-blue from you-know-who.” I wait, because I know this is not why she’s calling me. “Stoffie, I must have some help to take my furniture to my sister in Pietersburg.”

  ‘I tell her, “Auntie, we can’t! Dippie and me, we in the army now, military service, we’d like to help, but you understand, we can’t just do it.”

  ‘Of course Auntie answers back, “Ag, jong, never mind military service, what I want now is some auntie service! Stoffie, now you listen to me! I’m not asking, I’m telling. When you were a little baby and your mother got sick with I-can’t-tell-you-what because it’s not a nice thing for a woman to get from a sailor, who do you think gave you my own milk from my own breasts? I got your cousin Bokkie, who is now in gaol in Port Elizabeth and always never complained when I asked him to do something, on the left one and you I got on the right one, both pulling and sucking like you think maybe this is a big tug-o-war for babies! No wonder I now got razor strops!” ’

  Stoffie turned to me and grinned. ‘So we take this tenton Fargo I’m servicing, and Dippie here gets us a forged vehicle destination pick-up consignment from a coloured guy, who’s a second cousin twice removed like everyone else in District Six. Us coloured guys we got to stick together because we very far from home. We put some jerry cans of petrol in the back, and from another second cousin twice removed who works in the colonel’s office we get a forged forty-eight-hour leave pass. Only this morning, when it’s still dark, we leave the camp and go and get my auntie’s furniture. Her husband, who a person has to refuse to call uncle, is fast asleep and snoring, just lying there on the planks of the front stoep, with the moon shining on his bald head. He’s so drunk he can’t get his key in the lock so the keys are lying where he threw them away on the front path. My auntie opens the door and says, “Don’t step on him because you’ll get a mess on your boots that smells to the high heavens and you got to wash it off later under the tap!” Then we only half an hour out of Pretoria and we stopped by the military police! Can you see now how it’s no problem for a man to fill up his trousers with the creamy brown already digested, Tom?’

  ‘Fok! You can say that again, brother!’ Dippie cried from behind the steering wheel.

  During the course of the day I was to learn that Dippie did the swearing and Stoffie did all the explaining, although in the process taking great care not to use a single expletive.

  We stopped for breakfast just outside Nylstroom, pulling into a side road. ‘We got a primus in the back and we’ll make some coffee and have some breakfast, but first we got another surprise.’ Stoffie indicated that I should follow him to the back of the truck, and when he let down the tailgate there was the surprise. Sitting in this big old lounge chair was a very small lady. ‘Auntie, we stopping for some breakfast,’ Stoffie announced, adding, ‘This is Tom, he’s coming with us.’

  ‘Here, jong, just in time, I’m telling you! All this jogging and bouncing, and for the last hour I need to go to the lavatory! Hello, Tom. Quick, Stoffie, or we going to have a terrible accident in our bloomers, you hear.’ By this time Auntie had left the chair and was standing on the tailgate, and Stoffie picked her up and put her on the ground. ‘Some paper! Give me some paper!’ the tiny, dark-skinned woman yelled.

  Stoffie’s hands started to tap all over his khaki tunic, and then his back pockets, then back to the top pocket of his tunic and he came up with nothing. At that moment Dippie came around to the back of the truck. ‘Paper! Auntie has to do number two!’ Stoffie yelled.

  Dippie did the same with his hands, but almost immediately came up with a piece of paper that was snatched from his hands by the desperate auntie. ‘More! This is not big enough, Dippie!’ she cried. Dippie found another piece of paper and handed it to her, and she went scuttling off like a small rodent into the nearby bushes.

  Then Dippie started frantically patting his pockets again. ‘Fok!’ he yelled.

  This particular ‘fok’ had a definitely desperate sound.

  ‘What now, man?’ Stoffie asked.

  ‘Auntie’s wiping her arse on the forty-eight-hour leave passes and the vehicle destination pick-up consignment!’

  I couldn’t help myself and I started to giggle, then it was on for one and all, talk about laugh! Stoffie was thumping the side of the truck, and Dippie was bent over double and we’re all howling with laughter when Auntie comes out of the bushes and asks, ‘What’s the lekker joke, boys?’

  So we try to stop laughing and Stoffie, who is the serious brother, says, ‘Auntie, come show me where you did your business, we got to get back the paper!’ And now Dippie fell on the ground holding his stomach, rolling around, and I’ve got tears running down my face and my tummy is hurting from laughing. Stoffie had his forehead pressed against the side of the truck again, and his back was shaking, and he was beating the side of it with his flat hand – bang, bang, bang. ‘Oh, ahh, oow, ha, ha, ha, ha, haw, haw, haw! Oh, shit! Ha, ha, ha, haw, haw, haw!’ It was the only time he said a swear word all day.

  After Stoffie and Auntie came back, Stoffie explained it wasn’t too bad. They’d found a small stream and the ‘you know what’ was all gone, but the ink with their names and forged signatures on the official forms were washed away as well. But the papers would dry on the dashboard on the way to Pietersburg, and if you looked carefully you could maybe see where the writing originally was. When the paper dried it could be better. I was beginning to wonder what it was in my life that made shit paper play such a big part in it.

  Then Auntie lit the primus stove and she brought out a big basket and we had eggs and sausage and bread and butter and she made coffee with Nestlé condensed milk in it and the wh
ole thing was simply delicious, the best there could be. We stopped again for lunch. This time it was cold meat and bread and hard-boiled eggs and cold roast potato and milk tart and koeksisters and more coffee with condensed milk, all stuff from Auntie’s big basket.

  After lunch we were riding along, and so far Stoffie and Dippie hadn’t asked me any questions about why I was going home. I mean, it’s not every day you see an eleven, almost twelve-year-old boy hitchhiking all over the place, yet they’d kept their curiosity to themselves. I decided that while I would have liked to keep the reason to myself, they had shared everything about themselves and it was only fair that they also knew something about me.

  ‘Stoffie, you and Dippie haven’t asked why I’m going home all the way from Johannesburg?’

  Stoffie seemed to be thinking for a moment. ‘Ja, in life everybody has a story but they don’t always want to tell it. It’s you business, Tom, you don’t have to tell it.’

  I reached into my shirt pocket and fished out Doctor Van Heerden’s letter and held it out to Stoffie. ‘The reason is in there,’ I announced.

  ‘What’s this?’ Stoffie asked, drawing back slightly, but not taking the envelope I held out to him.

  ‘A letter, it says why I’m going home, will you read it?’

  Stoffie hesitated. ‘Letters are very private things, Tom.’

  ‘Ja, but I’d like you to read it,’ I insisted.

  ‘Fok, we can’t read, man,’ Dippie suddenly said. ‘Until the army, we both fokken juvenile delinquents!’