The Covenant (135 page)

At midnight they approached the blockhouses, each with seven soldiers, two ordinary posts among the eight thousand. At twelve-thirty no armed patrols had appeared, and at twelve thirty-five the Boers rushed forward. The wire cutters went to work, and the men reached the corrugated-iron silos before those inside could fire. All fourteen were slain before they could signal the next blockhouse in line.

But soldiers in the distant houses had detected that something was wrong, and they telephoned for help. An armed patrol in the district asked for directions and began galloping across the veld, but as they reached the threatened area, they saw only the flanks of many ponies thrashing through the dark waters. There was firing, but not to much account—and in Pretoria, Lord Kitchener was awakened with the news that General de Groot had broken loose once more.

“Do the correspondents know?”

“Everyone knows.” As Lord Kitchener had said several times, “I’d like to shoot every damned newsman. They make these damned Boer banditti the darlings of Fleet Street.”

It was a gallop for two days, then a canter for seven through the loveliest parts of the Orange Free State. They bivouacked for some time near Thaba Nchu and listened to De Groot tell about his first great battle, when Mzilikazi’s men killed his entire family: “I was a coward hiding in the wagons of this man’s father.” And he slapped Van Doorn.

They rode in a kind of dream world, with the veld stretching in all directions, never a tree in sight, only the sweeping valleys, the lovely flat-topped hills, with now and then a herd of antelope moving against the slow motion of the horsemen. Thousands of skilled soldiers were hunting for this little group, but still they rode in comparative safety, the distances were so vast. When the meerkats spied on them, De Groot called down from his pony, “Hurry and tell Lord Kitchener you saw us. And demand more pay.” Only the sky, and the distant hills, and the gentle sweep of the barren land. “This is earth we must keep,” De Groot told his men as they rode easily, one foot in
the stirrup. “We could ride like this forever,” Jakob said quietly to a friend. There was no war, no chase, no sudden death.

The crossing of the Orange was not especially difficult because no one dreamed that a Boer commando would try anything so preposterous as an invasion of the Cape, but when the news flashed that Paulus de Groot had forded the river between Philippolis and Colesburg, the world came to attention, and diverse reactions were voiced. Those who wished England well were disgusted that the Avenger of the Veld had been allowed to run loose yet again, while those who hoped to see England humiliated, the greater part, reveled in his escapade. It was predicted that he would head west to pick off some town like Swellendam, but instead he turned sharply east to avoid Graaff-Reinet, which would be well defended; he came at last upon his original De Groot homestead, now owned by an English family.

“Each of you, select two horses,” he told the Englishman.

“What are you going to do?”

“Take two horses and anything you especially prize. Ride to Grahamstown.”

“What are you going to do?”

“This was my farm. My family’s farm. And I’m going to burn it to the ground.”

“That’s insanity.”

“I’ll give you thirty minutes to pick the things you want. You women, gather your personal possessions.” When the Englishman protested, he said quietly, “That’s more than your Lord Kitchener gave my wife.”

When the people were herded away, he set fire to everything, adding to the combustibles when the flames threatened to go out. When the farm was reduced to ashes, he rode to the next one and then the next. At last he told Van Doorn, “Over that hill, if I remember. I was only a child then, and maybe I don’t remember. But over that hill …” When they reached the top there was nothing, and De Groot said, “I was afraid. But aren’t those tracks? It’ll be the next hill, maybe.”

At the top of the fourth hill Jakob van Doorn saw, for the first time in his life, the splendid farm put together by his ancestors: “I think Mal Adriaan must have started the place. The house was built by Lodevicus the Hammer. Those additions were Tjaart’s, God bless that fighting man. He’d understand.”

“When this one goes up,” De Groot said with soaring enthusiasm, “all the Cape Boers will rally to us. It’ll be a whole new war.”

“All who intend to are already riding with our commandos,” Jakob warned. “There’ll be no more.”

“Of course there will. They’re patriotic …”

“They have money, Paulus, not patriotism. I was here, remember?”

“At this farm?”

“No, but at the Cape. They talk politics, not war.”

As the commando came down the hill, the men began to shout, and from the farm buildings numerous people appeared. “Get ready to leave!” the Venloo men cried as they began to light their torches, but before General de Groot could give the signal, a woman in a gray linsey-woolsey dress appeared at the door of the principal house.

“What do you want?” she asked as the men approached.

“I am General de Groot, of the Venloo Commando, and we are going to burn your farm.”

“I saw your wife at Chrissie Meer,” the woman said quietly. “And aren’t you Van Doorn? I saw your son and daughter.”

There was a long silence as the two men looked at this fearless woman, and finally De Groot asked, “Are you the woman of the camps?”

“I am Maud Turner Saltwood.”

Both of the Boers spoke at once: “The traitor?”

“The man who quit Lord Kitchener because he could not tolerate the camps.”

“You are that lady?” De Groot asked again. When she nodded, he hesitated, then wheeled his horse about and led his men, still with their flaming brands, away from the farm. He rode farther south for two days, but during that time he began to realize the futility of attempting to reach the Indian Ocean; from three directions young Boer scouts reported the presence of enemy troops, and Micah Nxumalo, who had gone in the direction of Grahamstown, said that a force of English and Cape colonials were massing there. At dawn on the third day De Groot told his commando, “We could never get to Port Elizabeth. Let’s go home.”

They left behind them a flame of glory and wonder, the commando that almost reached the sea, the men from the tiny town of Venloo who rode through the heartland of the conqueror and then turned back, untouched by the four hundred thousand who searched for them.

•  •  •

When Maud Saltwood returned to Chrissie Meer to complete her documentation on the concentration camps, she wanted to examine, as dispassionately as possible, the actual conditions, and she sought out Sybilla de Groot, knowing her to be a sensible woman. But she found her so emaciated from dysentery that she wondered how she could stand, let alone converse intelligently.

“Was Frank Saltwood a spy?” the old woman asked.

“We’ve never discussed it.”

“We know that Lord Kitchener’s a monster.”

“He’s not a monster. He’s a foolish, bullheaded man who has no heart. Now we must get you some medicine.”

“There is none,” the old woman said, and she was right. The English could bring into this tight area four hundred and forty-eight thousand soldiers, but they could not find space in their ships for the extra medicines and food needed to save emaciated women and children. They could import a hundred thousand horses for their cavalry, but not three cows for their concentration camps. Guns bigger than houses they could haul in, but no hospital equipment. It was insane; it was horrifying; and in her news reports Maud Saltwood said so.

“That woman should be shot” was Lord Kitchener’s sober evaluation of the affair. Many members of Parliament felt the same way, and her husband’s cousin, Sir Victor, kept a low profile, for she had besmirched his name. But on she went, one woman exposing to the world the monstrous wrong of these camps. In Cape Town many English families stopped speaking to her husband, while others commiserated with him over his wife’s misconduct, not realizing that he supported her enthusiastically. His income, which she spent lavishly, kept alive some three hundred women who would otherwise have perished, and for this he would be forever grateful to his vigorous wife.

While Kitchener raged, Maud quietly continued interrogating women at Chrissie Meer, spending much time in the associated camp where blacks were being held. There she talked with women of Micah Nxumalo’s family, and they were suffering as sorely as the whites.

“Why we here?” one woman asked plaintively, showing her thin arms.

“Isn’t your father fighting with the Boers?” Maud asked.

“Your husband fight with English. They throw you in jail?”

Her most fruitful discussions were with Sybilla de Groot, for the old woman sensed that she would soon die and was eager to have her views spread before the world: “Like many wrong things, it was all wrong. There should have been no camps.”

“Some say,” Maud argued, “that the camps were good for you women. They gave you security.”

If Sybilla had been strong, she would have raged and stomped about the little bell tent; she was so weak she had to remain seated, but she did point to the entrance: “Through there we have carried eight dead. Detlev counts them for me. What kind of security is that?”

But when Maud asked about sanitary conditions, the old woman did make certain concessions: “We were farm families, far from towns. We didn’t have privies like they say we must. We didn’t have these new medicines. In the free veld we were never sick. In these tents, these dirty barracks, we die. Eight of us, and soon me.” She rocked back and forth, tears streaming from her eyes. “That’s why I say it was wrong from the beginning. It was all wrong.”

“Did you get enough to eat?” Maud asked.

Sybilla held out her arms for inspection. “You don’t get enough. You grow weak. So you get sick. Then, no matter how much you eat, it does no good.” She pointed to the field not far from her tent where women and children, driven mad by dysentery, were squatting and wrenching their insides. “It’s all wrong,” she said.

Desperately Maud wanted to keep this great woman alive, as a symbol of the fact that English women, at least, would do everything in their power to save a Boer woman, even though she was the wife of their country’s principal aggravator. She failed.

In April 1902, when the imperial armies were at last closing in upon Paulus de Groot, pinning him against the barbed-wired fences but never catching him, Detlev woke early one morning to find his Tant Sybilla gasping. Since it was a clear autumn day, with the air somewhat fresher than usual, he knew the old woman was in distress, and he wanted to awaken Johanna, but his sister was deep in sleep, exhausted in the cool morning air, so he went to Sybilla’s cot alone.

“Are you awake?”

“I hoped you’d come.” She turned her head weakly, and when he looked at her arms, thin as the reeds beside their lake, he realized that she was powerless to move. “Fetch Johanna.”

“She’s still asleep.”

“Let her rest.”

“Are you all right, Tannie?”

“I’m resting, too.”

“Shall I sit with you?”

“Oh, I would like that.” She lay quietly, his hand in hers. Then she showed renewed vitality and clutched him tighter. “They say the war’s almost over, Detlev. For you it’s just beginning. Never forget these days. Never forget that it was the English who did these things. You must fight, fight.”

He wanted to say that he had no horse, but she continued: “Detlev, you may never see the general again. Remember, he did not surrender. Even when they came at him from all sides …”

She seemed to fall asleep, then awakened with a start. “Whether she’s sleeping or not, I must speak to Johanna.” When he roused his sister, the old woman said brusquely, “Now you go out and play.” He walked slowly from the tent, but there was no play. There were more than seventy young children in the camp that morning, but there was no play. They sat in the sun and breathed deeply, as if they had strength only for that.

On her deathbed Sybilla admonished Johanna: “If I die before noon, tell no one. That way you can get my ration for today. And, Johanna, it’s now up to you to see that Detlev survives. Women are stronger than men. You must keep him alive so he can carry on the fight. Even if you must starve yourself, keep him alive. Never surrender.”

This effort exhausted her, and she was near death, but suddenly her entire face became animated, not only her eyes. Clutching at Johanna, she gasped, “And if they bring ‘hands-uppers’ into this camp, kill them. Find long needles and kill them. In this camp heroes lived, not ‘hands-uppers.’ ”

She was dead. Johanna called Detlev because she knew her brother loved this old woman, and he understood when she pledged him to secrecy. They sat all morning on her bed, talking to her, and got her ration, and when the attendants finally came to take her away, Detlev did not cry; many children in this camp never cried. But toward evening, when Johanna was apportioning the stolen ration, something happened that he would never forget: years later, generations later, he would remember that instant. Johanna broke the food into two equal pieces, weighed them in her two frail hands, then took from one and added to the other, making it much bigger. “This is yours,” she said, and she handed him the larger share.

•  •  •

When the remaining Boer generals met to consider what they must do in the face of the overwhelming pressure brought against them by Lord Kitchener, they realized that in order to have an orderly discussion they must somehow muzzle Paulus de Groot. They knew that he would bellow “No surrender,” and they were willing to have him say this once, to clear his conscience, but they did not want him repeating it every ten minutes to the detriment of sensible evaluations.

“We are not defeated,” one of the younger men said. “The English have lost six thousand men killed. Sixteen thousand more dead in their hospitals. Twenty-three thousand more or less seriously wounded.”

“What have our losses been?” an older man asked.

“Maybe five thousand killed, but they were our finest.”

“How many children have died in the camps?” the old man asked.

“Twenty thousand.” From the rear of the room a man sighed. It was Jakob van Doorn, there to support his general.