Red Dog

by Willem Anker

  Three weeks long we yomp around in Caffreland. Up and down and to and fro, the trackers notwithstanding. Maynier spends eight days looking for a drift over the Keiskamma River, but there is nowhere that an ox wagon can cross. We decide to leave the wagons on the west bank of the river. The horsemen wade across the river mouth, deeper into the wilderness. I ride at the back and keep my trap shut and look around me and listen to all the nothing being spouted around me. I stroke Glider’s belly under me. How soft animals’ bodies are, hardly more than bags of blood, only just held up by hollow bones. See, the man next to me sits blond and upright on his horse and he doesn’t even notice that the mosquito is sucking the blood from his neck.

  September is already unfurling its blossoms. The pen-pusher has now had enough of an outing and God knows it can’t carry on like this. I talk to the commando and once again my oration is mesmerising and persuasive. This time I use short sentences. Exclamations. Slogans and a joke or two. That’s all that’s necessary. By sunset there are more or less two hundred men standing in front of Maynier’s tent. I lift the flap and discover the chinless man inside, busy unlacing something like a corset. His little pallid belly, like something blind and unborn, wobbles over his belt. I say we want to speak to him. Maynier makes his appearance. The audience that he braves is furious and rebellious. A pace or two ahead of the rest I tower up above him insubordinately and grinningly and demand that he surrender command to Laurens de Jager of Swellendam. Maynier refuses and goes back into his tent and closes the flap. Oh, my mind’s eye bores through that tent: I can see him sitting on his cot, all night long, how he stares at the flap, how he expects every single moment that it will blow open and that I will stand there with something sharp and deadly.

  And in the course of the next weeks there are a few skirmishes and a number of stolen cattle are claimed back and I mark my gun till the butt is a criss-cross of notches. Then I sand the butt clean and oil it properly and polish the copper star of the hunting goddess on the cheek side and don’t make any more marks on it. Believe me, when you’ve shot enough people the day comes when you have to stop counting. The commando calls at Ndlambe’s kraal. The fat regent promises to round up the rest of the stolen cattle and return them to us. This comes to naught and we trek deeper into Caffreland. In mid-October we attack the Caffres from two sides and shoot a horde of them and catch a few and loot more than seven thousand cattle.

  Back on the Colony side of the Fish Maynier attempts to cleanse the Zuurveld anew of Caffres. Those who flee across the Fish run up against Ndlambe and he also slaughters among them. He murders Chaka and he captures Langa. Ndlambe offers Langa to Maynier as prisoner. The corseted clerk is disgusted at the suggestion that he accept a human being as a gift and reddens and declines the gesture emphatically. Ndlambe shrugs and Langa, the revered old chief with the sore back who still dreams every night of the soft belly of Nombini which he’ll never touch again, soon dies ignominiously in a cage.

  The commando can by no means drive all of the Caffres out of the Zuurveld. The burghers have horses and guns, but the Caffres have the undergrowth and the kloofs. In November Maynier disbands the commando and negotiates peace with the Heathen captains. The Christians are unhappy with the conditions of peace, but our complaints fall on the Cape wigs that keep ears warm and deaf. Before the Swellendam farmers are back on their farms, the Caffres are fleeing before Ndlambe and the farmers are back again on this side of the border plundering and pillaging and they have less food than ever and there is now no place on this earth that they can call home or hearth. We few farmers staying behind in the Zuurveld shoot at them all over again with the few lead pellets the authorities grudgingly grant us, angrier than ever because we’ve still not been compensated for our stolen cattle and burnt-out farms. Chungwa succeeds his father Chaka as chief of the Gqunukhwebe and Ngqeno succeeds his father Langa as chief of the Mbalu and both carry on fighting for survival. My band and I carry on whingeing that the Company must dispatch more commandos to go and claim back Christian cattle. As is our wont we threaten to take the law into our own hands, but Maynier is the supplier of lead and powder. And without the ammunition to back them up our threats are as hollow as our gun barrels.

  In February 1794 Maynier packs his trunks of newfangled outfits and absconds for the Cape.

  5

  My dear Maria and Nombini

  My dear Nombini and Maria

  My dear Maria & Nombini

  Geertruy taught me to write. She said the & – what’s the thing called? – is another way of writing ‘and’. When I see your two names next to each other like that, the ‘and’ drives the two of you further apart & places you behind each other. The & equalises the one to the left of it and the one to the right of it. The impossible gap between the two & the tying-up of the one to the other.

  Sometimes at night I look at the maps in the book that we picked up next to the road. Do you remember our first trek, Maria? The dotted lines of the madman’s routes run like the trails of snails, like those gnarled roots of ginger – twisting & knotting they wind their way from fast to slow over mountain & through valley & everywhere is road. Last night my finger tracked a dotted line & lo: a perfect &.

  Today I’m puzzling about the difference between the and-and-and of how we move & the is-is-is that everybody wants of us. Everywhere I go they ask my name, they ask: Who are you? You two are an &, & I too am an &. It’s a picture of how we live. Where does life lead you except to this place & this place & this place, this brush of the pen, the movement turning upon itself?

  I don’t know what I want to say. I want to be there with you & I want to be here. This letter is going nowhere.

  Tell Windvogel I

  I miss you both & the children.

  I am your husband & father.

  & looking at it now, even my signed name looks like an &.

  I put down the quill, smudge the wet ink with my hand, crumple up the letter and walk out into the searing dryness of the Graaffe Rijnet night.

  Note well: The Colony is in hock to a bankrupt and completely corrupt company. The dissolute Company is skulking between the dykes of a country that has long since lost its supremacy at sea and has been waging war against France with Britain since 1793. Or so we hear; all news is half a year old here. It is uncertain who is ruling us. Believe me, in this year 1795 prophets of doom and men of business and deserters are standing on the Cape shore peering at the horizon. They can only guess whose flag will be fluttering from the ship’s mast that will be the next to appear above the sea line.

  After a year and a half’s absence I ride back to my wives and children where they are still living with Jan One-hand’s people. One-hand Botha lives on Rautenbach’s frontier farm and my Maria and Nombini and their children live with Botha. Squatting with squatters. I ride up to the yard, then I rein in the horse and Glider lifts his hooves all the way up to his chin, the neck arched. In front of the stoep I yank the horse up onto his hind legs, the front hooves frozen in mid-air. A light flick on the flank and Glider neighs majestically, descends to all four feet and tripples up and down in front of the house as if the earth were made of glass. Elizabeth comes running out. She has grown tall, must be about ten by now. Her hair redder than ever, loose about her shoulders. She looks me in the eye, stops, turns on her heel, walks into the house and closes the door. I unsaddle. Nobody comes out. I walk Glider to cool him down. Nobody comes out. I tether the horse to a bray pole next to the house. Jan One-hand comes out.

  I sit and talk to One-hand and he gesticulates wildly at the distance with his stump and splutters when he talks. We exchange news and drink brandy. Nombini comes out onto the stoep with coffee and plonks the mugs down and doesn’t look at me and goes in again. Inside by the hearth I can hear Maria gabbling with One-hand’s wife, Martie. They vie to outdo each other in haranguing Nombini. Windvogel comes to greet me with his head on his chest and his foot scuffling the soil. He mumbles a few commonplaces and saunters off.

 
One-hand sounds off all sputtering and stuttering about the revolution of the French. He recites what he’s heard from the thin man with the heavy accent, one Jan Pieter Woyer, the new doctor in the district, and his shadow, the school teacher Campagne, who’s been peddling this new religion for months. One-hand attends all that is a meeting where Woyer or Campagne preach Equality and Fraternity, the Temple of Reason and suchlike dreck. I leave the coffee, sip at the jug full of spirits and gaze over the farm. Coenraad Wilhelm is four and Johannes is two and the brothers are playing in the sand in front of the stoep. I look and look and see nothing of myself in them. One-hand is blathering on about Jacobins and kings and guillotines and wonders whether he can build one himself for Maynier’s misbegotten head. I get to my feet when I hear Maynier’s name. In a few days I have to be in Graaffe Rijnet again. The much-esteemed landdrost has summonsed me on the allegation of a Hotnot that I supposedly hit him. Now the mongrel mutt is apparently living in the same house with the losel of a landdrost and scoffs his food and must probably service his wife as well because the Lord knows Maynier couldn’t do it. And I, Coenraad de Buys himself, must one of these days brave wind and weather to go and lend ear to the fatted Hotnot’s grievances. I smile at One-hand:

  Well there you go. You build your guillotine so long, I’m going to fire up the fellows in town a bit and see what happens. Perhaps we can also chop off a few heads. The devil take equality and fraternity. But liberty sounds like a good idea.

  Later that afternoon I go and track down Windvogel. We talk and yet don’t talk. What can I tell my friend about what I’ve been up to, and what can Windvogel tell me that will keep my attention? In due course we grease the silence with his brewed beer. We go and round up two wild asses and see who can race furthest on the creatures before coming a cropper. Soon we’re both lying in the grass and laughing like a lifetime ago. When the beer evaporates, Windvogel goes all surly again and disappears from the yard.

  The house falls quiet and the crickets take over. Maria wants to know what I’m doing here.

  I missed you. I’m coming to see how my most beloved wife is and my most beloved children.

  And the Caffre woman? Is she your second most beloved wife? Or your other most beloved wife?

  She does not wait for me to reply.

  And now you want to take off again.

  It’s not that I don’t want to stay, Maria. The landdrost is summonsing me because I chastise my labourers.

  Now why would you call here only now if you know you must push off again tomorrow? Where have you been?

  I suppose I can stay another day or two.

  Where have you been, Buys? Your children are growing up and they think One-hand is their father.

  You leave that man alone.

  Jissis, Buys, I swear …

  Nombini comes to stand in the door. She has grown older. Only now do I see how her dress strains across her stomach.

  Are you pregnant? I ask.

  She nods. I leap at her and hit her and she cries. Maria jumps on my back and hits me and screams. I throw her off and calm down.

  Buys! Shut your women up! One-hand shouts from the bedroom.

  Where were you, Buys? Maria asks as she leaves.

  I lie on the little cot in the front room until everyone is asleep. Then I go and crawl into bed with Maria where she’s lying next to Nombini in the back room. She lets me have my way, lies with her arms close to her body. Nombini is awake and turns to face the wall and doesn’t even pretend to be asleep. I spurt into Maria and get up and go and lie in the front room again. I lie on my back and by my sides my fingers clench and curl. Before sunrise I quietly go and wake Elizabeth. I want to lift her onto Glider, but she takes my hands off her and jumps onto the horse herself. We ride a while and go and sit on an anthill and watch the sun rising. I’m not allowed to hold her, but she tells me how Martie is teaching her to read. She tells me what she’s learning from the Hottentot children. She doesn’t tell me stories, she names the things she’s learnt. She counts aloud as far as she can. Four hundred and eighty-two. I say That’s far enough. When I drop her at the house, One-hand has left for the veldt and the women are bustling about in the yard outside. I hurriedly eat the leftovers from a bowl by the hearth. Elizabeth asks if she should call her mother to come and say good bye. I ask her how she knows I’m on my way. She goes out by the door and outside the sun catches her hair and for a moment I want to take her with me and never return. She walks up to Maria at the far end of the yard. Maria holds her close. They look in my direction, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I tie my belongings to the back of the saddle and snitch a few bullets. Nombini comes strolling into the house and when she catches sight of me she instantly turns on her heel and struts out. I leave One-hand a pile of money on the table and ride to Graaffe Rijnet. Hardly passed the farm’s beacon stone when the barking besets me.

  Just outside Graaffe Rijnet, across the river, fifty-odd farmers gather who want to get back their land and their cattle and want to get rid of Maynier. Somebody asks if we shouldn’t fetch Master Goossens. Hear what he has to say. Why? I ask. What’s a damned schoolteacher got to teach us about politics and revolutions and warfare?

  Mister Markus doesn’t get as worked up about the authorities as we do. He sometimes says things we don’t think of, says the windbag.

  Prinsloo snorts and says:

  The fellow thinks he’s better than us. He thinks he’s too high and mighty to get angry.

  He gets to his feet to make space for the outrage coursing through his whole body:

  Last time when we granted him a turn to speak, what did the little cock of the walk say? Don’t you remember? He said – and here Prinsloo pitches his voice high like a woman’s: We must be sick, brothers, and yet joyful, in need and yet blessed, dying and yet contented, in exile and yet at home, cast down in disgrace and yet cheerful of spirit.

  Prinsloo’s voice descends to its normal pitch:

  I say that miserable moper must bugger off!

  I wonder what that pious pedant-prick would have come to preach at us today. But I’m glad he’s not here. I don’t know the fellow from Adam, but the mere fact that he’s in the offing makes me jittery. People who keep their calm in the midst of this godalmighty jiggery-pokery and injustice, they wind me up even further than I am anyway.

  On 4 February we sign an accord, the Te Samenstemming, a memorandum of the rebels’ grievances against Maynier. I utter the right words in the right ears and for the rest I remain silent and smile. My eyes swivel and my fingers tingle against one another. The Triegard brothers and Van Jaarsveld, whose hair is sprouting more luxuriantly and glossily than ever, bear the document to the drostdy. They say they are speaking on behalf of De Volkstem, the voice of the nation, and demand a meeting with every single soul who’s employed in the service of the authorities. For two days we wait for a reply. The doors and windows of the drostdy remain sealed. It seems to me that everybody here, including the landdrost himself, has lost sight of the fact that quite a few of us are actually here to be arraigned for our methods of disciplining our staff. I’m not going to refresh their memories. The heat is pressing, the people sighing, the cattle dying. Everybody stinks. Martiens Prinsloo and I and a few other farmers with ants in our pants ride up and down along the hills outside the town. To and fro, two days in a row, swearing and cursing all the way. When at last at the appointed time we gather in front of the drostdy, the doors remain shut. Forty or so of us, with our forty horses and our forty guns. A few rebels take up position on the stoep and read out the Te Samenstemming as if it were a proclamation by a new landdrost. Maynier comes charging out and asks them what they think they’re doing. Immediately he is surrounded by a group of men in a strangulating circle. When the circle opens up, he walks out, pale but flushed, and takes refuge from them on the edge of the stoep and mutters something like And with that I resign. He goes inside again. Hannes Bezuidenhout charges after him and drags him out by his fancy collar. Hanne
s manhandles Maynier over to the men stationed on the stoep. A few Christians wander around the drostdy to the slave quarters behind the building. Believe me, in no time all hell is let loose: Nowadays, apparently, the Hottentots who wanted to testify against us live in those selfsame slave quarters. Maynier remains standing in a daze looking at the men in front of him. We shout and scream at him and Hannes chivvies the landdrost out in front of him as if dishing him up for the ravenous rebels. Nobody hears the cloth of his jacket and shirt tearing. The men return from the slave quarters with a dozen Hottentots at gunpoint. Hannes lets go of Maynier when he recognises one of the Hottentots.

  You! I know your filthy mug! Now watch what happens to a runaway Hotnot!

  He grabs the Hottentot and hits him. He turns to Maynier, who is still standing stock-still gazing at this lot.

  And what are you looking at, you prickless scumbag? This is not your house any longer. Scat!

  He charges onto the stoep and flings the landdrost from his last platform. The dishevelled dandy gets up slowly and dusts himself and makes his way between us with lowered head. It’s dead quiet, all you hear is the flapping of his torn silk jacket. As soon as he’s passed through the throng, the farmers erupt and clap hands and guffaw and gob and bellow.