To hell with Cronjé. Ingrid Winterbach
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“You can ask him anything,” Gert Smal repeats, pausing expectantly.
“Ask him if he has a soul,” Ben remarks softly, out of earshot.
Willem, overhearing, eyes Ben reprovingly. “He’s accepted the Lord as his Redeemer, Ben. He’s a Christian, like the rest of us.”
“Well?” Gert Smal urges impatiently.
“Can he describe the descent of President Steyn?”
Crouched in the shadows, Ezekiel throws back his head, his eyeballs gleaming in the dark. For a few moments his lips move in a wordless litany before he proceeds to recite.
When he is done, there is a deathly silence.
“Right?” Gert Smal inquires triumphantly.
“Sounds right enough to me,” replies Reitz, whose father was the old president’s second cousin.
“What did I tell you?” Gert Smal cries exultantly. “In the entire land there’s no Kaffir that’s his equal!”
Shortly afterwards Willem and young Abraham turn in as well. Later, when Reitz and Ben rise, Gert Smal is still holding forth, with no one but the silent Reuben and the sleeping Seun in attendance.
That night Reitz dreams of towering cliffs and of fire upon water.
*
The next day Gert Smal orders Ezekiel to help them build shelters – like those the rest of them have. He has instructions from the general, he says, that they are to stay here for the time being.
“Goodness,” says Ben softly, “when did he get those?”
“Oh Lord,” Reitz remarks quietly to Ben, “we may be here for a long time. This calls for deliberation. Long and serious deliberation.”
“It looks that way,” says Ben.
First Ezekiel builds a strong frame of lattice and matting. He cuts the switches from the stand of poplars. Then the structure is lightly covered with thatch-grass. Ezekiel works slowly, methodically and with precision. He loops and interlaces the young green switches. He thatches and rethatches. He knots and weaves. The framework stands firm, the covering is dense. Finally the inside is lined with dried shrubs, and other aromatic grasses are laid on the ground.
While he is working, Ezekiel sings hymns in a deep, pleasant voice.
Japie Stilgemoed approaches timidly and suggests that the opening of the shelter should face north, as the cold winds blow from the south.
The shelter is sturdy and virtually waterproof; together with the soft grass mattress on which they can spread their meagre blankets, it differs considerably from the wet blankets and leaking tents that have been their home during the past months, and which they left behind when they departed from Commandant Senekal’s laager. An admirable shelter in any kind of weather; the best protection they have ever had in all their months on commando.
“Do you have peace of mind, Ben?” says Reitz. “Or does this bed come with a price?”
“Peace?” asks Ben. “Who said anything about peace?”
Later that morning they ask Gert Smal’s permission to wash their clothes down at the river. He agrees, but not without an assortment of threats. After their visit to Oompie the day before, they have a great deal to discuss. They prefer to do it out of earshot of the others.
Although they are permitted to go unaccompanied, they remain conscious of the constant presence of Seun behind some boulders further up the slope.
From the camp they follow the same path to the river as the one used the previous day when they accompanied Gert Smal to visit Oompie.
They wash themselves, they wash their clothing. In spite of the fresh morning breeze they cavort in the water like otters – for when last did they have the opportunity to do just this? Afterwards they sit on a rocky ledge to dry off in the sun.
Their necks, faces and forearms have been darkened by the sun, but Reitz notices how delicately pale the rest of Ben’s body is. He is so thin that his ribs show, and his skin has a bluish pallor that contrasts sharply with his dark hair. Reitz’s own body, though ruddier, is also much gaunter than before.
A large variety of birds are nesting on the sheer cliff face that reaches up to the sky on the opposite side of the river. Ben immediately identifies the sandmartin, the speckled pigeon. The red kaffir finch and the kingfisher. From lower down the river the fizzing zt-zt-zt of the yellow weaver, the cry of the red bishop bird on the wing and the loud whistles of the sparrow weaver are clearly audible. In the distance they hear baboons barking. Down here it is paradisiacally lush.
There are definitely otters in the area, Ben declares, he has noticed the small piles of crushed snow-white crab and other shells that they excrete. The water mongoose will also be found around here, he thinks. There are insects in abundance: dragonflies, Ben says, moths and butterflies, beetles and bugs, wasps and caddis flies – a large variety of species. He is excited. This place is so different from the barren regions through which they have been travelling for the past months.
In the afternoon the cliff will cast a deep shadow over the river, but at the moment it is sunny, the only shade provided by the shadows of overhanging branches.
Reitz shows Ben the horizontal and vertical dolerite sills clearly visible between the successive sedimentary layers of khaki-coloured shales, clay-pellet conglomerates and siltstone. These dykes and sills intersect the sedimentary layers like plumbers’ pipes, he says, and through which the red-hot lava escaped upwards. He shows Ben how the lava bed scorched the surrounding sandstone in some places, indicating how hot it must have been.
And the bank of the river opposite the cliff face, rising higher further downriver, will also be an ideal place to look for fossils, Reitz imagines.
But it is not only the geological features of the area that he finds interesting – he senses that his attention is also engaged in a different, less definable manner.
“Ben,” Reitz inquires cautiously after a while, “who and what have we got here, do you think? Where have we landed?”
“Consider it a transit camp,” Ben says, “for those temporarily and permanently unfit for battle.”
“What are we?” Reitz asks, “temporarily unfit?”
“We are still of uncertain status,” Ben says. “Something between deserters and traitors. Spies, even.”
“Yes, well,” says Reitz, “there you have it. Senekal’s doing.”
“It will all become clearer in due course,” says Ben, “I’ve heard good reports of General Bergh. Apparently he’s an intelligent, reasonable man.”
“Unlike Senekal,” says Reitz.
“Unlike Senekal. In the meantime each of us will be assigned a task,” says Ben, “until our fate has been determined.”
“Darning socks,” says Reitz. “I couldn’t take it.”
“Weigh it up against Senekal’s lunacy,” Ben counsels.
“Each of our camp-fellows seems more frightened and bewildered than the next,” says Reitz. “Gert Smal can hardly be called a rational interlocutor. Kosie Rijpma has yet to say a single word. Poor Seun barely manages to utter a few incoherent sounds. Reuben appears to be a somewhat rough diamond and Japie scurries off if one even happens to look in his direction.”
“As timid as an aardvark,” Ben says.
“And Ezekiel doesn’t count,” says Reitz.
“No,” says Ben, and smiles, “he doesn’t count.”
Ben lifts a small plant from the water by its roots. “Let’s count our blessings for now, Reitz,” he says, “until in due course our fate is determined. Young Abraham seems