Half of One Thing Read online

  ‘All right!’ he bellowed, rubbing his hands together. Then he dropped them to take hold of the middle stool. Straining, he lifted his buttocks, keeping his body straight from head to heels. He slid the middle stool out from under him. Damn, this was getting harder every time. He had always been barrel-chested, but now his girth was even wider than his chest. The extra weight put nigh-impossible strain on his neck and he realised he wouldn’t be able to do this feat forever. His complexion turned even ruddier than usual as he passed the bar stool over his quivering stomach and pushed it back into place from the other side. Done! He sat up and lifted his arms in triumph, accepted the applause.

  ‘What are you having?’ a nearby stranger asked. ‘This one’s on me.’

  Bryce accepted, not because he felt like a drink, but because he needed friends, preferably influential ones. He was well set at the moment, but you never know when the powers that be might want to reassign him to some soul-destroying duties instead. He took his place at the bar counter and ordered a glass of claret to warm him up. Free State nights could be damn cold in winter. Behind him, younger men tried to repeat his feat – invariably failing, sometimes falling. You needed a bull neck and iron discipline. The noise level in the room rose. The officers were a confident bunch, and the ones who came to this club tended to like the sound of their own voices. The talk touched on a few military matters – where De Wet’s Boers might strike next, and a concentration of British forces in the northern Cape, which suggested another drive to mop up Boer resistance. Mostly, though, it was small talk and talking big. Nothing worth paying attention to.

  Some time later, a fellow two places from Bryce piped up, ‘Did you hear about that idiot who went to save the wrong man?’ He didn’t wait for a response before launching into his story. ‘An Australian or something. Apparently they were out to bring in some Boer prisoners. I don’t know why, but this guy understands Dutch and he overheard the Boers talk about having shot one of our men. So he disregards orders and sets out on his own to go save this wounded man. Risking his bloody life and all, trekking through the night by himself. Now listen to this: he gets the guy back alive, but it turns out it’s not one of ours at all … It’s a Boer prisoner who had stolen one of our uniforms to help his escape! And instead of a medal, our would-be hero gets a right royal bollocking.’

  Bryce chuckled with the others, but his thoughts had taken their own course. It was easy enough to find a Dutch speaker among the Cape Colony and Natal men, but he couldn’t use them for his purposes. Southern Africa is sparsely populated and people had relatives and acquaintances all over the place. If one of the South Africans infiltrated a Boer commando, they ran the risk of being found out. Someone from a far-off colony though, one who could speak Dutch and had shown himself capable of initiative … That was an interesting prospect.

  1 September 1901

  Sunday morning. The chaplain read the soldiers a sermon about Jesus and left them to their own vices. The New Zealanders were on a short layover in Bloemfontein, giving themselves and their horses a break after weeks of chasing bands of Boers across the plains. The morning sun was a relief, after a night that froze the water in their canteens. The yellow light warmed their clothes and then their skins. In the absence of anything else, many of them were waiting for a baboon to do something amusing. The animal sat atop a twelve-foot pole, high against the pale-blue morning sky. If it weren’t for the chain around his neck, you’d think he lorded over the khaki-clad men around him.

  One of the men got the idea to tempt the baboon into action with an apple. The man was a stone mason by trade and had come into the army with calluses on his palms. He bit off a piece of apple and tossed it towards the pole. The baboon slid down, ate it and eyed the rest of the red fruit in the man’s hand. The soldier placed the apple a few feet from the edge of the scoured circle where the baboon’s chain had swept the earth. ‘Watch now! Watch now!’ His mouth hung open in gleeful anticipation.

  The baboon advanced to the extent allowed by its chain and stood on its hind legs, looking at the apple. Gideon marvelled at how human it appeared. The animal had probably been brought here by their predecessors. Perhaps soldiers enjoyed having the captured animal there, to throw their own humanity and relative freedom into relief. Gideon had considered setting the baboon free; he even had the whole plan worked out. Some chloroform from the field hospital to knock the animal out, a sack to carry it in and a dark night was all he needed. He’d walk out into the veldt and set the baboon free. But it wasn’t really going to happen. He had learned his lesson about trying to rescue lost souls. It didn’t always turn out the way you wanted. He very nearly got court-martialled for disobeying Corporal Stewart’s order, riding off meaning to save one of their own. If the man had turned out to be some general’s son or something, things could’ve been dandy. But then the man he had thought of as Coomey turned out to be just an escaped prisoner of war who, everyone seemed to think, deserved to succumb out in the veldt, having been mistakenly shot by his own people.

  The baboon reached for the apple with his hand, half-heartedly, as if it knew the attempt would be futile. Then it turned around and stretched out its hind leg, getting closer, once actually touching the apple with his little toe.

  ‘Lancaster!’ Someone was calling from the side. ‘Is Lancaster here?’

  Gideon raised his arm. ‘Here.’

  ‘Someone for you at HQ. Rattle your dags and get over there.’

  The baboon watched Gideon shuffle by in front of the circle of soldiers. Their eyes met. As Gideon edged between the men and the baboon, he toed the apple towards the animal. The apple rolled in a lopsided way, curving like a bowling ball, but the baboon judged its trajectory well and snapped up the fruit.

  A commotion broke out. ‘C’mon, Lancaster, what the hell have you gone and done?’

  ‘Anyone else have an apple?’

  ‘Not on your life, I’m eating mine myself.’

  Gideon walked away from the yapping.

  The sprawling tent town that had sprung up on the outskirts of Bloemfontein since the Empire forces had conquered the capital early the previous year was much bigger than the town of stone. You could get lost among all those tents if you didn’t know how to navigate by the flagpoles. Whitewashed rocks indicated paths among the tents, but the ground was bare and baked everywhere and there was little reason to stick to the official routes. Gideon cut straight across to where a limp Union Jack and regimental flag marked the tent that served as temporary headquarters.

  He saluted the duty officer, Lieutenant Mitchell.

  ‘You’re to go with this man.’ The officer pointed to a gawky young man in Highlander uniform who was hovering by a Cape cart. He handed Gideon a signed pass for the excursion. ‘Go with him. A Major Some-or-other wants to see you.’

  Did this mean this business with the escaped Boer was still not behind him? Mitchell was one of the more reasonable officers. Gideon didn’t mind him and felt at liberty to ask: ‘Why, what’s this about? … Sir.’

  Lieutenant Mitchell turned to an adjutant who was pouring tea into bone china that looked out of place in the tent. ‘Did I not tell you that Lancaster was going to want to argue about this?’ Then to Gideon: ‘Did you not read your Tennyson, ours is but to do and die?’

  ‘It actually says theirs not to reason why, not ours.’

  Mitchell eyed him levelly. ‘You are they, soldier. Off you go.’

  Gideon had never ridden on a Cape cart before, an open buggy with one axle but two bench seats, one behind the other. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go in the back or slide in next to the driver on the front seat. He opted for the latter. The Highlander introduced himself as Alistair Aitken, revealing two rows of spaced-out yellow teeth. He flicked the reins to spur the horses into motion, two chestnut geldings that had seen better days.

  When they had left the tent town behind, Gideon had to ask. ‘Any idea what this is about, this major who wants to see me?’

&nbs
p; ‘His name is Major Bryce.’ Aitken rolled the R, making the name sound dangerous and exotic.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Can’t say I know. I was just asked to come fetch you.’

  ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘He’s a strong fellow, he is.’ Aitken flicked the whip. ‘Story goes he can bend a coin into a Z-shape, bites the one end and bends the other with his fingers, like this.’ He demonstrated, bending an imaginary coin with his thumb and forefinger.

  Gideon couldn’t tell from the Scotsman’s expression if he was having him on or not. ‘I can scarcely believe that.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen him do it, but I saw one of the coins, a half-crown. It was bent good if you looked at it side-on, in two places – first this way, then that.’

  Either there was some trickery or this Major Bryce was a freak. ‘Apart from being a circus strongman, what unit is he with?’

  ‘Something with maps, I think. At the rate we’re going, they keep having to be redrawn. The whole of Africa will be pink soon.’

  Gideon thought about that. The Empire forces had conquered the Orange Free State and most of the Transvaal. The map may be pink, but he knew if you were out there in the veldt it was still Africa, as it had been since creation. The kopjes and drifts, the rocks and grass didn’t know the colour of the map they were on.

  The houses they drove past were mostly built of stone and were set on large plots of land, but otherwise they were rather like the Victorian house where Gideon had grown up – the same bay windows, the bull-nose shape of the roofs over the verandas, and the iron lacework. The buildings in the town centre wouldn’t have looked out of place in Auckland either – weighty two- and three-storey stone structures with columns marking the entrance. However, like the surrounding landscape, everything appeared to be stretched too wide. People looked small here. Most of them were in uniform, which was not surprising, as the soldiers stationed around the city far outnumbered the local population. An infantry company marched down Maitland Street, heading towards the station, dressed in khaki. It was a uniform that united soldiers from all over the British Empire, with minor national or regimental variations. Apart from the marching company, most of the soldiers Gideon saw in Bloemfontein that morning were either horsemen or groups of two or three walking in step. An African in European clothes pushed a handcart piled with laundry. Wagons rolled by, pulled by plodding red oxen, their swaying horns stabbing at nothing but the morning air. A whip cracked. Drivers shouted. Two black boys in big shirts darted across the road. A civilian in a suit and bowler hat walked under the greyish, small-leafed trees that lined the street, carrying a Bible.

  Up on the swaying cart, Gideon glided through the scenery, which still seemed to him to hold the promise of adventure. He had now been in Africa for more than a year and had seen new places and races, some wildlife and plenty of action, but he had not yet found what he was looking for. Compared to the expectations he had had as a child, life – or at least his experience of it – seemed to lack substance. Apart from being in battle and that time when his brother drowned, everything that happened struck him as fleeting, with no more weight than the moving pictures you see in a zoetrope. He felt there was another reality beyond this, one more complete and durable. Only when these dual worlds collapsed into one did life seem to matter; only then did he experience a complete immersion in the moment. His dream was to achieve that state of oneness more permanently, to experience life wholeheartedly. The prospect of achieving that back in Auckland seemed about as good as that baboon finding something worth living for in the circle of dust its chain would let it reach. That’s why Gideon had put in a request to stay behind again when the rest of the contingent went home in a few weeks. He had already stayed behind when his original contingent left. Now the next ones were going back to New Zealand too, but he wasn’t ready. He hoped this business about disobeying Corporal Stewart’s orders that day wouldn’t bedevil his chances.

  They pulled up under a massive flat-topped thorn tree. In its shadow was a squat stone structure, just a few doors leading from a long veranda that was painted the same red as the roof, a colour Gideon associated with Maori meeting houses.

  ‘Nobody said anything about me picking you up again.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll make a plan.’ Gideon shook the man’s hand.

  ‘Cheerio and good luck with … whatever.’ Aitken made a vague gesture and shouted for the horses to move.

  The morning air was heavy and still, peppered with dust. Gideon couldn’t feel the wind, but the leaves above his head rustled. He looked up and saw that the branches were thick with sparrows. They didn’t fly up when he stamped his feet on the stairs, trying to shake off the dust. A painted sign above the only open door said Cartography, in an almost-feminine curlicue hand. He felt uneasy, not knowing what to expect. Officers had power and were therefore dangerous. He checked that his buttons were all done up, reset his cap and made a halt at the open door, saluting. ‘Trooper Lancaster reporting, Sir.’

  Major Bryce returned Lancaster’s salute with little regard for form and motioned for the soldier to come in. His office walls were covered in maps, with a few spread over the three randomly placed desks, apparently left just where the movers had put them down. The officer was alone in there.

  ‘Come, sit down.’ Bryce’s complexion was that of a baked tomato. A massive red moustache formed a curtain over his mouth. ‘You speak the Boer language.’

  ‘My mother is Dutch … Sir.’

  ‘Can you explain to me how come you’ve been serving here all this time and nobody has tried to make use of this ability of yours?’

  Could he tell the officer that he simply didn’t like to attract attention? It was true, not that he could always avoid it. The first time he saw action, they ended up storming the Boer position. The man in front roared like a beast. Afterwards, Gideon didn’t understand why his throat felt so raw. When he worked out the reason, he took a vow to watch himself, so he wouldn’t get noticed. ‘I’m a soldier, Sir. I do not get to choose how I get used.’

  Bryce moved about some papers on his desk, wondering if he should take the young man into his confidence. The fellow sat there with his cap on his knee, his narrow, coffin-shaped face impassive, quite in control of himself when Bryce knew the fear the difference between their ranks can inspire. It took a fair bit of research to find out that the soldier who had disobeyed orders to rescue the wrong man wasn’t Australian, but a New Zealander named Lancaster. He set about finding out as much as possible about Lancaster, but apart from this incident, there wasn’t much on file at all. Lancaster had managed to serve almost anonymously, only stepping forward by applying to stay behind when the rest of his unit had finished their stint. Twice. The less Bryce’s enquiries yielded, the more the young man intrigued him. Lancaster was either the blandest of men or very adept at not getting noticed. The requests to remain in Africa and the attempted rescue of a comrade suggested the latter, as the young man clearly had some character. Bryce wondered how Lancaster managed it. Not everyone who hides in plain sight uses the same techniques.

  There was a knock at the door. ‘I have some of those koeksisters you like …’ It was a young girl who spoke English with a heavy Boer accent.

  Bryce smiled at her and threw up his hands in mock surrender. ‘You know I can’t say no.’

  Gideon watched her come in, a tall girl who carried herself well, wearing a grey chintz dress in the daytime. Judging by the banter among the men in his platoon, Gideon came to think he may be unusual for not always looking at women with mating in mind. He had felt attraction at times and there were two young ladies at home who wrote him letters that were, much like Imogene and Florence themselves, more dutiful than beautiful. He found he had run out of things he could tell them even before he lost interest in what they had to say about a world where everything was stable except the weather and their emotions. The Boer girl laid a square of wax paper on the desk and placed one of the
confections on it, two twisted strands of golden dough, licking the stickiness from her fingers afterwards.

  ‘And for you?’ She looked at the angular young soldier, self-consciousness tingeing her cheeks.

  Gideon shook his head, no. He wasn’t an adventurous eater. The Boers and their ways held no attraction. He was here for war.

  ‘Get him one, here.’ Bryce paid. When the girl had left, the officer picked up one of the koeksisters, holding it daintily between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Amazing to think it’s just dough deep-fried in a syrup. Bit of cinnamon too.’ Bryce popped it in his mouth, bit off half of it and chewed with his eyes closed. ‘You really should try it, it’s sweet as hell.’

  Gideon didn’t feel he had a choice. When he bit through the crust, the koeksister burst with oily syrup, slightly spicy, followed by a surprising whiff of orange zest. The officer hadn’t lied about the taste.

  Bryce had finished his koeksister, making appreciative noises in his throat. He licked and wiped syrup from his lips and moustache. ‘We are here to destroy the thing we love,’ he said through his fingers.

  It was as if Gideon heard the statement in discrete bits that had to be reassembled. When he finally established the sense of it, its apparent lack of relevance, he suspected he was in deep trouble. He chewed and kept quiet, waiting for the stocky man behind the desk to say more.

  ‘You’ve heard it said that doctors have the only profession that tries to destroy the reason for its existence.’ Bryce looked straight at the New Zealander. ‘But you and I know better, because we’re in the same position. We love war, and yet we have to fight every day for the victory that will end it … Don’t look at me like that, how can you not love this war? It has everything from cavalry charges, machine guns and trenches, aerial reconnaissance, and now full-scale guerrilla fighting. I tell you, it’s the best war I’ve seen.’