To hell with Cronjé. Ingrid Winterbach
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the orchard. Everything is suddenly so cool and aromatic, so fruitfully rotten, so shady, so sweet, so inexpressible, after the harsh, barren, unbounded landscape which they have traversed during the past days.
The kraal at a distance from the house is also deserted.
There is no sound in the yard. A sombre mood engulfs them – a desolation that grips and holds on to the heart.
“Where could the inhabitants have gone?” asks Reitz.
“Who knows,” says Ben, “who knows what calamity befell them here?”
“Khakis in pursuit of rebels,” Willem declares with conviction.
“It’s entirely possible,” says Reitz, “that the occupants have gone into hiding somewhere in the ridges.”
Entirely possible indeed, for the rocky ridges would afford excellent shelter. In the half-light they stand surveying the surrounding landscape, but not much is visible in the gloom.
They sit on the stoep at the south side of the house, at a loss as to what to do, overcome by fatigue and dejection, thoroughly disheartened.
“I have a feeling,” says Willem, and he holds up his hand, as if listening for voices, “that there are people close by.”
Reitz groans under his breath.
“Goodness, Willem,” Ben inquires, “friend or foe?”
“Friend,” Willem counters without hesitation.
The moon rises, almost in her first quarter. The cold sets in, and reluctantly they build their fire beside the orchard, away from the house.
“Patience,” says Willem. “We must keep good faith.”
“What faith is he talking about, Reitz?” Ben asks softly.
They sit close to the fire, warming their hands.
“Now that we’re in the vicinity of people,” Reitz says, “I’m suddenly nervous.”
“The true believer has nothing to fear,” Ben teases.
Willem gives him a reproachful look.
They cook a meagre pot of porridge. Though the heat gives some comfort, the quantity is hopelessly inadequate. Willem reads from the Bible. He reads from the book of Daniel, chapters three and four: Daniel’s friends in the fiery furnace; Nebuchadnezzar’s madness. In his prayer he thanks God for keeping them under His protection, so that they have nothing to fear. (Reitz shoots a sidelong glance at Ben.)
During the prayer they become aware of movement near the kraal. Ben and Reitz instantly reach for their rifles. Careful, Willem warns, as two persons step out of the darkness into the glow of the fire. A white man and a black man. Both have their rifles trained on them.
“What are you men doing here?” the white man demands brusquely. He looks at them mistrustfully. He is short. Sturdy. A broad face, wide across the cheekbones. Curly hair. The face of a thug: head thrust forward challengingly – belligerent, brutal. His frayed jacket is fastened at the front with spike-thorns.
Willem explains why they are there.
“Aha!” says the man. He is swaying slightly and his speech is somewhat slurred. “On some or other mission. You want to see the general. You look like deserters to me.”
“A touch inebriated?” Reitz murmurs to Ben.
The black man hovers in the shadows behind the white man. He is tall, strongly built, with a well-shaped head, broad cheekbones and a dark, prominently arched mouth.
Kaffir hangman, Reitz thinks involuntarily.
The man turns suddenly to the black man behind him.
“Ezekiel,” he says, with a sweeping gesture, “is a Kaffir to be reckoned with. You can ask him anything. Ask him something!”
They stare, dumbfounded.
“Go on!” the man urges impatiently. “Ask him something from the Bible!” With the butt of his rifle he strikes the ground impatiently. “Or don’t you deserters have any questions?”
Ben and Reitz glance at Willem, the only one with a sound knowledge of the Bible. Willem is offended, does not like the insinuation, colours slightly.
“Who,” Willem asks solemnly, after a moment’s thought, “who were the twin sons of Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah?”
The black man raises his head. He takes a step forward. The whites of his eyes gleam for a few moments in the glow of the flames.
“The sons of Tamar,” says Ezekiel, “were Pharez and Zarah.”
“Right?” the white man cries.
“Right,” Willem declares solemnly.
“What did I tell you!” the man cries and stamps triumphantly on the ground with his rifle butt.
“Something else,” he says. “Ask him something else. Ask something from history. Our own history. Not Kaffir history or Khaki history.”
“Who was the commander of the Boers,” Ben asks, “at the battle of Nooitgedacht in the Transvaal?”
Willem looks at him reproachfully, as if he has gone too far.
Is Ben being wilful? Reitz wonders.
Again the man steps forward, rolls his eyes so that the whites gleam in the firelight, and thinks for a moment.
“The Boers,” he says, “were under the command of General De la Rey, General Smuts and General Beyers.”
“Right?” the white man insists.
“Right,” says Ben.
“What the hell did I tell you!” cries the man.
The minute Ezekiel has given his answer, he steps back into the shadows and his face becomes expressionless again.
“Come,” says the man suddenly. “My name is Gert Smal. I’ve no time to waste. Get your things. Bring the horses. Come along.”
They walk along a footpath that leads past the kraal, through a hollow and up a fair-sized koppie, following in the footsteps of Gert Smal, with Ezekiel, the clever Kaffir, bringing up the rear.
Chapter 3
Gert Smal leads them to a camp behind a large koppie strewn with loose boulders. Near the crest there is a cave with a deep overhang, flanked by a solid rock wall. In front of the cave is a large, open space with a fireplace. Among the large boulders are a number of shelters. The loose rocks and dense shrubbery appear to afford ample shelter. (Better than they have seen in a long time.) The farmhouse is clearly visible in the slight hollow below.
By the time they arrive, it is dark. The men sitting around the fire are eating. There is the intoxicating smell of meat and porridge.
Gert Smal shows them where they can make their beds. They can use grasses and dried shrubs as mattresses. Ezekiel will build them shelters tomorrow, he says; no one can build a shelter like that Kaffir.
Ezekiel is ordered to tend to their horses, which have been left with the others lower down the slope.
Gratefully they join the company around the fire. Apart from thug-faced Gert Smal there is also Japie Stilgemoed – a thin, wiry man with a sharp, intense face and wild hair that springs energetically from his high forehead. He is clean-shaven, except for a moustache. There is Kosie Rijpma – a small, delicately-built man, with a fine head of dark, curly hair, a short, neatly-trimmed dark beard and dark, soulful eyes – who sits hunched up, avoiding all eye contact. There is Reuben Wessels – a big man with a lively but weathered face, a bushy beard and hair, large hands and one leg ending at the knee. There is Seun – a scrawny youth, younger than Abraham – not much more than fourteen or fifteen years of age – with a shaven head and a harelip. There is Gert