South Africa at the time of the Boer War, 1899

       (Modern names of provinces/countries are underlined)

PROLOGUE

      The gallows stood ready, silhouetted. These hard, rolling hills of the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony were soaked in the blood of the Kaffir Wars, and today more blood was to be spilt at the execution of the five ringleader Boers of the Slagter’s Nek rebellion – at the very place where they had taken the oath to drive the British into the sea.

      The hangman, who had journeyed up from the coast, had brought only enough rope to hang one man at a time, so the magistrate had acquired more, but unbeknownst to everybody it was rotten. Now five nooses dangled, and gathered around were the relatives of the condemned, the other rebels who had been sentenced to imprisonment and the Dutch farmers from miles around who had been ordered to attend to witness how seriously the British took rebellion. And now, from the direction of the military post, came the beat of drums, and the wagon bearing the condemned.

      The drummers slow-marched. Slowly they advanced up the rise to the gallows. The condemned men climbed down off the wagon and mounted the scaffold. One after the other, the hangman tied their ankles, slipped the nooses over their necks. When all was ready, the Reverend Harold led the assembly in prayer. The magistrate ordered the drums to roll: softly, then louder and louder. The plank was kicked away, the men plunged into their death-fall, there came the dreadful wrench on their necks, and four of the ropes snapped.

      The condemned men lay writhing in the dust, choking, as pandemonium broke out all around them: the shrieks of joy that the hand of God had intervened, people rushing to the struggling men, wrenching loose the nooses, the priest in the midst of them gabbling his prayers. Then the magistrate bellowed above the uproar: ‘Bring more ropes!

      The uproar redoubled, the priest in the forefront – ‘God Himself has intervened!’ The magistrate had to shout at the top of his voice that it was not within his power to grant pardons.

      By the time the horseman came galloping back with more ropes order had been restored. The condemned were clustered under the gallows in the arms of their wives and friends,