The Covenant

by James A. Michener

  Two members of a black tribe suppressed by Mzilikazi crept down with reports that the Matabele were assembling a mighty army that would overwhelm the Boers, with a superiority of one hundred and fifty blacks to one Voortrekker.

  The English government chose this moment of dread to deliver, by means of late arrivals at the camp, its latest proclamation against the Voortrekkers; it stated that even though the fugitives had fled English soil, they must not think that they had escaped English law, because any wrongdoing committed south of the twenty-fifth parallel would be construed as having taken place within English jurisdiction and would be punished accordingly. Since the Vaal River lay well south of that parallel, the battle in which the Van Doorns had defended themselves could be interpreted as an unwarranted aggression, and Tjaart could be hanged.

  The document was of course printed in English, but after it had been translated to the astonished Voortrekkers, Tjaart asked to see it. Even though his English was sparse, he could pick out some of the insulting words, and as his lips framed them they created in him a violent bitterness, for he could still envision the mutilated bodies of Lukas de Groot and his people.

  It was typical of Tjaart’s slow, stubborn awakening to any problem that for two days he said nothing, just carried the proclamation with him, pausing occasionally to reread the offensive lines, but on the third day he assembled all members of his party, and such others as he could reach, to deliver his judgment:

  ‘We know from the Book of Joshua that we are doing God’s work, in obedience to His commands. But at every turn we are opposed by the English. My father, whom you knew, Lodevicus the Hammer, he was dragged before the Black Circuit and accused by English missionaries of murder. Bezuidenhout here, his people were hanged at Slagter’s Nek after God Himself broke their ropes and granted them reprieve. The English have stolen our language, the pulpits in our churches, our slaves. And now they send these laws after us to warn us that we can never escape them.

  ‘I say “To hell with all the English.” I say to my son Paulus, “Remember this day when the Voortrekkers, facing death at the hands of Mzilikazi, swore an oath to be free men.” ’

  Somberly the members of the party whispered, ‘I swear!’ And all knew that any further compromise with any Englishman had become impossible. From that day, the break must be total.

  But on the very next day a smous arrived from Thaba Nchu, and Tjaart was thrown into sad confusion. The peddler brought not only supplies, but also small packets addressed to Tjaart van Doorn and Lukas de Groot.

  ‘Major Saltwood in Grahamstown asked me to deliver these,’ the nervous little trader said.

  ‘De Groot’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ The smous was terrified. ‘Mzilikazi?’

  ‘Yes. What shall we do with this?’

  ‘Did any of his family survive?’

  ‘His boy, Paulus.’

  ‘Then we’d better give it to him. Because I made a solemn promise to deliver …’

  They called Paulus and handed him the last message ever sent to his father, and when the boy opened the wrapping, there lay a pile of crisp English pounds. Every penny owed for the De Groot slaves had been paid in full, with no commission subtracted.

  When Tjaart opened his packet he found the same. He was perplexed. His English friends had proved their trustworthiness, yet he had sworn open enmity toward them, and he did not know what to say, but after he gave Jakoba the two bundles of money for safekeeping he walked for long hours alone, then sought out the smous and asked, ‘Did Major Saltwood pay you for bringing me the money?’ And the peddler said, ‘Yes, two pounds.’ Awkwardly Tjaart translated this into rix-dollars, and he was amazed that Saltwood had spent so much of his own money to forward the funds.

  He was confused on other matters, too, for in these days of anxiety when no one knew how soon Mzilikazi would strike again, he learned to his disgust that Ryk Naudé had not crossed the Drakensberg but had encamped some miles away. On several nights Tjaart had ridden over to seek Minna, and again spied on their love-making and he was bewildered: Why would a man with a wonderful wife like Aletta bother to plow the furrow with someone like Minna? He loved his daughter and had worked diligently to find her a husband, but he could never delude himself into thinking that she was in any way the equal of Aletta. Yet here was this young no-good imperiling his marriage by sneaking out at night to make love to a plain and married woman.

  Tjaart became so disturbed by his daughter’s misbehavior, relating it always to his own renewed infatuation for Aletta, that one day he resolutely confronted Ryk to upbraid him for his adultery: ‘Ryk, we’re about to engage Mzilikazi in a battle where we might all die. If God turns against us for our sins, we might perish. Don’t you feel any responsibility?’

  ‘I feel love for your daughter.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Yes, I should have married her, as she said.’

  ‘But you have a beautiful wife …’

  ‘Old man, tend to your battle. Guns will win it, not commandments.’

  This was so blasphemous that Tjaart could not decide how to respond, but Ryk saved him: ‘In two days we march north—to face Mzilikazi. We may all be killed, but I’ll be happy knowing that Minna …’ He did not finish this extraordinary statement, just walked off to prepare his horses.

  Tjaart was angered by the young man’s insolence, and surprised, too, for he had not thought of Ryk as brave enough to oppose an elder. More tantalizing were some of the deductions that could be made from what the young husband had said: if Ryk did not think much of his wife, if he did not want her, what wrong could there be if someone else approached her? None, he concluded, and as to the adultery he would be committing, he avoided any consideration of this by simply erasing Jakoba from his mind.

  So he resumed his old habit of placing himself in Aletta’s path, a foolish, dumpy man in belt and suspenders offering himself to the most beautiful young woman among the trekkers. He was ridiculous, and he knew it, but he was powerless to stop. One afternoon he waited till she was apart from the others, then grabbed her, pulled her behind some wagons, and started kissing her furiously.

  To his surprise, she did not resist, nor did she participate. She simply leaned against him, even lovelier than in his dreams, smiling between the kisses and whispering at the end, ‘You’re not such a silly old man, after all.’ And with that she walked slowly away, completely untouched by his embraces.

  The encounter was an agony for Tjaart. During one spell he railed silently against his son-in-law: Why doesn’t that damned fool Theunis manage his wife? Where in God’s hell did I find such a man to bring into my family? And for more than an hour he mentally reviled the little sick-comforter as the cause of his own malaise.

  Then he envisioned the forthcoming battle against Mzilikazi, and when he recalled the fearlessness with which those first Matabele had kept storming the laager, he grew frightened: If twice that many, three times that many, come at us, what shall we do? Then he recalled the mutilated bodies of De Groot’s people, and a sickening rage overcame him: We must slay them, slay them! No Voortrekker ever raised a finger against Mzilikazi, and he did that to us. We must destroy him.

  And then he paused, and like all Boers, reflected on the fact that even self-protection, let alone victory, would be impossible without God’s help, and became totally contrite, taking upon himself the burden of sin that he had tried to throw upon the adulterous Ryk Naudé. Lighting an oil lamp, he took down his Bible and looked through Proverbs till he came upon the passage which spoke definitively of his transgression:

  For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: to keep thee from … the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids … Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth h
er shall not be innocent.

  He was about to close the book when he realized that he required much more help than he could find by himself, and he sought out Theunis Nel, sleeping alone, for his wife was away committing sin, and he said to the sick-comforter, ‘Come read the Bible with me and instruct me.’

  Always prepared for such calls, Theunis rose, wrapped himself in a blanket, and accompanied Tjaart to where the Bible stood open under the lamp, and he grasped at once the significance of Tjaart’s having been reading Proverbs Six. But he said nothing of adultery or lusting in one’s heart.

  ‘Theunis, this time we face terrible odds.’

  ‘We did last time.’

  ‘But then we didn’t know. Now, with the De Groots dead, we do.’

  ‘God rides with us.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  The little man quickly turned the pages from Proverbs and closed the book, then placed his hands upon it and said, ‘I know that God intends our people to establish a new nation in His image. If He sends us on this mission, surely He will protect us.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he send his predikants to accompany us? To give us guidance in His word?’

  ‘I’ve wondered about that, Tjaart. I think He sent common folk like you and me because He wanted His word to work up slowly from the ground. Not thundering down in sermons written by learned Scottish predikants.’

  ‘Is that a possibility?’

  In the flickering shadows the sick-comforter said, ‘If we had with us a learned dominee, we’d put all the burdens on him, let him tell us what God intended. This way, it’s simple people like you and me. And when we work out our solutions, they will come from the heart of the Voortrekker, not from outside.’ Rising and striding about the tent, if a man so slight could be said to stride, he told Tjaart, ‘You will gain victory. You will slay the Canaanites. You will lead us across Jordan into our inheritance.’

  And these two unhappy men—the stronger torn apart by sin and confusion, the weaker desolated by the misconduct of his wife—knelt and prayed.

  In these years, Mzilikazi commanded fifty-six regiments of highly trained infantry, so that had he wished, he might have sent twenty thousand men against the Voortrekkers, but despite his losses at the Van Doorn laager, he still could not believe that white men with guns and horses and interlocked wagons could prevail against his power. So he sent south only some six thousand men, not all of whom would be in position to attack the main laager when the battle joined.

  A resolute body of Voortrekkers, consisting of some forty men, an equal number of women, about sixty-five children and the normal proportion of Coloureds, had moved to institute a massive laager of fifty-one wagons securely tied together and protected by solid interweavings of heavy thorn. Peculiar to this laager, where all participants knew that they must triumph or they would perish in hideous mutilation, was a block of four wagons kept at the center and covered with boards and heavy canvas: in these the women and children would take refuge during the battle, but it was foreseen that steadfast women like Jakoba van Doorn and Minna Nel would stay outside to help in the fighting, while many boys like Paulus de Groot would be at the barricades, firing guns at times and running powder to their mothers.

  The leaders had chosen a flattish area at the base of a small hill, which meant that Mzilikazi’s regiments would have to attack up a slight slope or down a steep one; at either point they would be at a disadvantage. To the surprise of the Voortrekkers, the enemy chose the steep southwest slope, and there they established an enormous camp, preparing methodically for the assault that must destroy the laager and all within it.

  For two days the regiments sharpened their assegais and perfected their signals for the big thrust. During this time the Voortrekkers could see the enemy and hear him attending his duties; at night the Matabele campfires flared, and men wondered: Will the attack come at dawn?

  On 16 October 1836 the Matabele were ready, and started slowly toward a position opposite the laager, whereupon Tjaart asked Theunis to lead the defenders in prayer, but once again Balthazar Bronk objected on the grounds that the defense might be imperiled if an improper clergyman was allowed to utter his own prayers. To this Tjaart responded, ‘The enemy is ten minutes from us and we need God’s help,’ but Bronk was insistent: ‘God is perfect. His church is perfect. Neither can tolerate a blemished man.’ So Theunis was silenced, but Tjaart himself was encouraged to lead a prayer, which was short, impassioned, and a mighty solace to those who kept one eye open to watch the remorseless approach of some six thousand battle-hardened Matebele.

  The leaders resolved to approach the Matabele in a startling way. A fearless patriarch named Hendrik Potgieter, famed for having had five wives in rapid succession, proposed that a sortie of twenty to thirty men—more than half the entire force—ride out into the middle of the black commanders and try to reason with them. It was this kind of action only an idiot would devise, or a man who felt the touch of God upon his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll go!’ Tjaart said.

  ‘I’ll go!’ Theunis Nel echoed.

  Soon Potgieter had twenty-four volunteers besides himself, and then a twenty-fifth. It was Balthazar Bronk, whom Jakoba had shamed into joining: ‘Are you afraid to die?’ Reluctantly accepting the gun she thrust at him, he joined the suicide patrol.

  On signal from Potgieter, these daring men left the safety of their laager, spurred their horses, and rode at breakneck speed directly at the heart of the enemy. One of the Coloureds in the laager had served with a hunter in Matabele lands, and through him, Potgieter addressed the warriors: ‘Why do you wish to attack us? We come in friendship.’

  ‘You come to steal our lands,’ a commander shouted.

  ‘No! We come to live in peace.’

  ‘Mzilikazi, the Great Bull Elephant, is angry. His word is that you must die.’ One commander raised his assegai and shouted the war cry ‘Mzilikazi!’

  At this signal the regiments started running toward the Voortrekkers, who sped back to the safety of their laager. That they made it could only be attributed to God’s providence, for the odds against them were crushing. But they succeeded, firing from the saddle at the advancing Matabele.

  Not all entered the laager. Five men, totally demoralized by the hordes of black warriors and withered by fear as assegais flew about them, reached the entrance with the others, but then ahead of them they saw an escape route which would carry them all the way to Thaba Nchu and safety. Without consciously intending to be cowards, they accepted this invitation so enticingly put before them. They took flight.

  Young Paulus de Groot, standing by the entrance to welcome the returning Voortrekkers, saw with amazement that they were quitting the fight, and cried, ‘They’re running away.’ And these five became known in Voortrekker history as the Fear Commando. In their lead as they fled was Balthazar Bronk, his face ashen with awful dread.

  ‘May God have mercy upon our children,’ Jakoba muttered, and then no further prayers were said, for with a single, terrifying scream the black soldiers fell upon the laager.

  At every moment for more than a hour it seemed that the chain of wagons must crumble, and so many assegais fell upon the four wagons in the middle that Paulus ran out and collected more than twenty. Selecting the one that seemed strongest, he took position at a point where the wagons seemed most likely to collapse and stabbed at any Matabele who tried to penetrate.

  The laager held. The barrels of the guns were burning hot from overfiring, but those courageous women who were helping in the fight kept on—exhausted, sweating, fearful. And the wagons held. One group of six was pushed back two feet, so powerful were the attacking Matabele, but in the end even those wagons held, their disselbooms shattered, their sides peppered with assegais, their canvas torn.

  Veg Kop, they called this fight, Battle Hill, where less than fifty determined Voortrekkers, aided by their remarkable women and their loyal Coloured servants, defeated more than six thousand attackers. When Tjaart rode over th
e battlefield he counted four hundred and thirty-one dead Matabele, and he knew that only two Voortrekkers had been killed. But he also knew that there was hardly a member of the laager that did not have some wound to show. Paulus de Groot had been cut twice by flashing assegais, and he was proud of this, but he had to agree when a girl pointed out that he had given himself one of the wounds by his awkward handling of an enemy spear which he was trying to wrench free from the wagon it had pierced.

  Jakoba had a painful cut in the left hand, but this had not impeded her handling of ammunition, and Minna had a gash in her leg which required bandaging. Tjaart was untouched, but he found to his dismay that during the attack Theunis Nel had taken two serious stabs. The man who comforted the sick was himself put to bed, and during the waiting period, when the Matabele had quit the fight but not the battlefield, he was visited by many who told him that as a man of courage and devotion he ought to be proclaimed the Voortrekkers’ dominee; but there were just as many, and more obstinate, who refused to countenance such a move, for as they repeated: ‘God Himself forbade such an ordination.’

  The Voortrekkers had won the Battle of Veg Kop, but when the cost was counted, they found that the Matabele had slain every Coloured herdsman and had driven off every animal they possessed. For eighteen hungry days they were unable to move from their laager, and their plight might have grown even more perilous had not help arrived from an unexpected quarter: the black chief at Thaba Nchu, hearing of their predicament, decided that he must help the brave people who had smitten his enemy. He sent trek oxen north with food for the Boers, oxen for their wagons, and an invitation to return to the safety of Thaba Nchu, which they accepted.

  Despite the loss of their livestock, they felt such joyousness of spirit that there was celebration for many days, with the somberness that marked the aftermath of battle giving way to drinking and raucous singing. When Tjaart growled, ‘What I want is to find Balthazar Bronk and those others who fled,’ he was told to forget them: ‘They galloped in here telling us what heroes they had been. Then scuttled across the mountains, where they can still be heroes.’ The smous, relieved that he had escaped the Matabele, produced a French accordion, which he hoped to sell to some wandering family, and on it played a series of old Cape ballads, and while the others danced, Tjaart took from the peddler’s wagon a random supply of sugar, raisins, dried fruits and spices, to which he added such odds and ends as Jakoba could supply. In his brown-gold pot he baked a bread pudding which, with some pride, he contributed to the festivities.