To hell with Cronjé. Ingrid Winterbach
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interesting around here, I agree,” says Reitz, “but I feel uneasy. There’s something in the air that makes my hair stand on end.”
Ben looks at him with interest.
“It’s not after our visit to Oompie, is it?” he asks.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Reitz says evasively. He runs his hand across his face.
“Does it have anything to do with what Oompie said?” Ben persists cautiously.
“With that too, yes,” Reitz replies “but it’s also this place. Down here as well as back at camp.”
Ben still observes him keenly. “It’s bound to become clearer later,” he says after a while.
It is noon. The sun is directly overhead. The heat makes them drowsy. Their clothes are draped over rocks to dry. Lizards bask on the rocky ledges. Under the flat rocks are large river crabs. Damselflies hover motionlessly above the surface of the water.
After a while Reitz wonders aloud why Gert Smal took them along to visit Oompie. He thinks there has to be a reason. Could it have been to intimidate them, Reitz speculates. Could he have hoped the old man would say something to make them watch their step?
“Quite possible,” Ben says, “with a man like Gert Smal.”
“The old fellow made a few accurate observations,” Reitz says carefully.
Ben nods. He thinks Gert Smal might also have taken them along to learn something about them from Oompie’s observations – something about their plans and intentions. “But,” says Ben, “it’s important, Reitz, not to start imagining things at a time like this.”
He speaks while scrutinising an interesting sheathlike cocoon on a twig. “Gert Smal is obviously a restless and disagreeable soul, and for all we know Oompie really does have exceptional powers. Each of our camp-fellows has clearly been injured in his own particular way and is no longer suitable for active combat – but let’s keep the issues separate and hope that the general is a reasonable man.”
Reitz cannot but agree. He resolves to keep the issues separate and not to become unnecessarily agitated.
Ben explains that the little cocoon in his hand is the permanently inhabited grass house of a caterpillar. “The wingless, worm-shaped female moth lives inside,” he says. “It’s also called the bagworm or caseworm.”
For a while they lie on the rocks in the shade of the overhanging branches without speaking.
“Those guilt feelings, Reitz,” Ben inquires carefully after a while, “that Oompie referred to yesterday – are they for your account?”
Reitz hesitates for a while before nodding affirmatively.
During the time they spent together on commando neither of them ever spoke at length about the life they had left behind.
When their clothes are dry, they put them on and return to camp, where a surly Gert Smal awaits them. Why did they take so long? he asks. Cooking up some or other defection, he says. But don’t try anything, he warns, the general isn’t someone you’d want as an opponent.
*
On the third evening after their arrival at the camp, the day after their trip up the kloof with Gert Smal, Japie Stilgemoed suddenly breaks his silence after the evening devotions. At twilight Ezekiel turned up at camp with some potatoes. Potatoes he seems to have grown himself. They must have been here for a long time then, Ben remarks to Reitz.
Japie Stilgemoed speaks of the time at the camp where he was before when they went to fetch sweet potatoes. Everything around them had been burned down by the Khakis – except for the sweet potatoes. They dug them up and stacked them in piles. Then they put them into bags and loaded them onto a wagon. The moon was full. He will never forget it – they passed the place where General De la Rey had destroyed one hundred and sixty British wagons the year before. The wreckage still lay scattered in the moonlight.
Japie Stilgemoed stares into the fire for a long time.
“It was July of 1901 if my memory serves me right,” he says. “The sweet potatoes were a welcome respite from our daily fare of porridge without meat.”
“Cronjé had De la Rey to thank for his victory at Magersfontein,” Gert Smal says. “Without his advice the old sod would’ve been buggered.”
“That was when I began to realise that times of tribulation teach us about our own strengths and weaknesses,” says Japie Stilgemoed. He throws another log onto the fire. His gaze is intent, his hair stands on end, his domed forehead is smooth in the firelight.
Gert Smal is silent; Ben nods slowly, absorbed. They wait for Japie to continue.
Kosie Rijpma sits hunched forward with his blanket around his shoulders. He stares into the fire with close attention. His face is austere, his eyes deep in their sockets.
“So,” Japie Stilgemoed continues, “from February to May 1901 we trekked with General Kemp’s wagon laagers from Roodewal, across the Skeerpoort River, past Hekpoort on the Witwatersberg, through Hartley’s Poort, past Grobler’s Nek on the Magaliesberg, past Vlakfontein and Dwarsfontein and Leliefontein, across Vlakvarkpan, Tafelkop and Rietpan in the Lichtenburg district. Through Kwaggashoek, Syferfontein and Bokkraal. At Grootfontein we swung sharp north in the direction of Groot Marico and Koedoesfontein, then southeast again, back to Kwaggashoek, and through Swartruggens until we reached Waterval.”
Gert Smal chews on a twig, his attention elsewhere.
“I thank the Lord,” says Japie Stilgemoed, “that there were times when I could remove myself from the day’s tribulations by reading. To this day books have been my salvation. What I would have done without them, I don’t know. Whenever we came upon books left behind by the English, or in deserted houses and shops along the way, I found something to provide solace, to support me further along the way.”
Reitz thinks of their journals. Without them these past months would also have been much harder to bear.
“Fortunately we had fruit in abundance at the time,” Japie Stilgemoed continues. “Our clothes were in rags by then – the men were beginning to make clothes out of blankets. In February we celebrated the victory at Majuba. But at the same time there was Cronjé’s defeat at Paardeberg to commemorate.”
“My arse!” Gert Smal shouts. “Commemorate, my arse! Cronjé can go to hell! The hero of Paardeberg!” he says scornfully, and spits out the twig he has been chewing so forcefully that the sleeping dog wakes and leaps to its feet.
“Fooking! Fooking!” young Abraham cries, alarmed, and Willem has trouble calming him down.
“Not to mention the hero of Droogleegte,” Reitz says to Ben in an undertone.
Japie Stilgemoed, hard of hearing, appears to pay little heed to these interruptions. He seems completely absorbed in his reminiscence.
“Yes,” he says, “there was fruit in abundance in those days. We picked a bag of oranges every day. We bathed in the Crocodile River. But even more important than the fruit were the books we found along the way. It was like coming upon a treasure! More precious to me than food – more precious than gold!”
After a while Willem rises to put young Abraham to bed in his shelter. The dog with the yellow eyes has dozed off peacefully again at Gert Smal’s feet. Beyond the circle of the firelight night sounds are audible. The noiseless zigzag flitting of bats, the call of the owl and sometimes the cry of a bird somewhere near the river. Overhead the dense teeming of stars. The nights are getting colder. The cold laps at their backs and kidneys.
Reitz and Ben have noticed that nobody is expected to stand guard. Unless it is another of Ezekiel’s numerous tasks – assisted during the night by the dog. (It would be futile to ask Gert Smal, for he makes a point of not answering questions.) Would Gert Smal and the others be under the impression that they can depend on the general’s protection