Half of One Thing Read online

  He’s supposed to love war? Gideon thought about it. Yes, in a way, but how did this man know? Anyway, he wasn’t ready to admit to it. ‘War is terrible, Sir.’

  ‘That’s what they say. I wonder, if it was really so unpopular, why is it happening all the time? … Before you say necessary evil, you’re going to have a hard time convincing me of either aspect of that expression. It was just a rhetorical question anyway.’ Bryce dipped his forefinger in a drop of syrup that had stayed behind on the paper square, dabbed it on his tongue, letting silence settle in the room. ‘Do you believe our enemy is terrible too?’ He tilted his head back, peering at the young soldier through hooded lids.

  Flies traversed the semi-darkness of the room, tacking and jibing.

  It was hard to know what the right answer was, or if that was what the officer expected. ‘Is this about that business with the Boer prisoner, Sir?’

  ‘Forget about that, we’re talking in general here.’

  Gideon didn’t believe that, but had no choice but to play along. ‘They cannot foot it with us in battle.’

  ‘That depends on the battle. But it’s irrelevant anyway. At a strategic level, war is not about fighting, it’s about the will to fight. For instance: you’ve seen that nothing we’ve done so far has made the Boers give up. We’ve captured both their capital cities and chased them up and down the country. They hardly have an army left. We can beat them in any battle we choose … The problem is they tend to be the ones who choose when and where to fight. Their commandos attack us whenever they spot a target that’s weak enough, and, as you know, we’re often weak away from railway lines. Our army needs supplies while they live off the land. We have to break their will to wage war. The Boers are not going to stop, unless … We have to do something unusual and we need unusual people for that – men, dare I say, like you and me. It’s our job to end the war, I cannot spare you that. But I can help you enjoy it in ways you had never dreamt of.’

  Gideon was interested, but disbelieving. ‘By drawing maps, Sir?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. The only map that’s worth a damn is a map of the human heart, and I’ve never found one I trusted.’ Bryce shifted his weight on the chair, his heavy shoulders heaving from side to side. ‘I know a couple of things though, about the hearts of our adversaries. They take great inspiration from a handful of leaders. If we could capture men like Christiaan de Wet and Koos de la Rey, the generals whose successes fuel their resistance, they may do the sensible thing and surrender.’

  Over the course of the next half hour, Bryce revealed to Gideon that he had a spy in De Wet’s commando, but the general was not in the habit of telling the rank and file where he wanted to go until it was time to saddle up. Possibly he suspected there may be traitors. However, it was known that he sometimes linked up with other commandos for larger operations. It would therefore make sense to have someone in one of those commandos, because they would need to know beforehand when and where they were to meet the general. If Bryce heard about the meeting in time, British forces could intercept De Wet. Bryce had learned from his man that De Wet was developing particular respect for a Commandant Jacob Eksteen, who commanded the scattered remnants of a few eastern Free State commandos. ‘Someone from our side needs to infiltrate Eksteen’s commando. I need a man I can trust, preferably one who speaks Dutch …’

  A fly buzzed against the window, trying to get out.

  ‘My unit is returning home in a few weeks.’

  ‘You don’t have to go with them.’ Bryce took the paper the koeksisters had been on, folding it in half and in half again, forming a neat packet.

  All his life, Gideon had believed that his was a special destiny, above and beyond that of ordinary men. He lived as if his life were a secret mission, a series of personal challenges. What Major Bryce was asking wasn’t that foreign to his nature. The decision settled like a cloak on his shoulders. He felt its weight and it was comfortable. ‘What is it I have to do?’

  14 September 1901

  Sandstone-tipped kopjes under a deep-blue morning sky, yellow grass and sparse trees. A breath of wind and the sound of cicadas. Winding through the veldt, a narrow road, and on it a lone rider walking a large white horse. He wore a slouch hat, grey jacket, bone-white shirt and light olive-green trousers – civilian clothes. The smell of wood smoke that clung to him mingled with those of grass and dust. His beard was short, neatly trimmed, squared at the chin.

  Gideon had been travelling like this for days, not going anywhere, but hoping to be found. You couldn’t just ride up to a Boer commando, you couldn’t find them. They were constantly on the move to evade the British forces. Major Bryce had given Gideon a clear picture of where the major Empire forces were likely to be in the coming weeks, but there would be smaller units moving about. With his new identity, the last thing he wanted was to be captured by his own side. An armed man of fighting age was bound to be taken for a Boer combatant. He travelled in the area where Commandant Jacob Eksteen’s commando was believed to operate, visiting farms where women, torn between suspicion and Christian hospitality, hosted him. Their men were at war, dead or captured. Some of the families had daughters of marrying age for whom there were no men. Once or twice he became aware of tensions over this. While not all of the farm girls were plain, none were as beautiful as the girl he had seen that day with Major Bryce, the one selling the confections, and even her beauty hadn’t touched him. He just couldn’t get involved with these people, not beyond the requirements of his mission.

  The women on the farms knew where to find the men; that was all they could be to him, a means to an end. The Boer war machine consisted not just of fighting men, but of the women on the farms who gave them supplies, sometimes information or even medical care. To counter this, Kitchener had made the sensible decision to intern the women and burn the farms. They hadn’t come to raze this part of the country yet. Gideon had found one burnt farmhouse, but that fire had obviously taken place years before.

  Major Bryce had told him that it could take a while before one of the women would get a message to the commando and he could expect to be accosted by Boers. Meanwhile he had to hone his Dutch, become familiar with the version of it spoken by the Boers and pick up useful local knowledge, anything to help him assimilate into the commando. As a soldier, he had met a handful of Boer civilians who were civil enough, but mostly the people he had spoken to were prisoners of war, angry and resentful. He hoped he’d cope among the Boers, that as free men they weren’t all unspeakably rough and tough.

  He had come to enjoy this time of solitude, wandering about the veldt on his own for the first time, without anyone telling him what to do or comrades looking for commonality, picking out the commonplace in all this magnificence. Sometimes he encountered black people on the road, Sothos who lived and worked on the Boer farms. They were servile, greeting him in muted Dutch and going on their way, animatedly speaking in their own language again. It was all rather exotic and wonderful. He was a stranger in a strange land.

  Some nights he slept in boarding houses; sometimes he stayed with Boer families. Two nights before, he boarded with a talkative old lady in Fouriesburg. Last night, he slept under the stars – Miss Starlight’s Boarding House, his comrades used to call it. That morning, he found tracks in the cold ashes of his fire, cat-like paw prints of something large enough to hurt him. It would make quite a story to tell at home – him alone at night on the African veldt, being sniffed at by a predator.

  A movement on the hillside above him roused him from his daydreams. There, half hidden in the grass, a caracal with its telltale ear tufts, maybe twenty yards away. The animal from the night before? The big cat glowered at him. Gideon reached for the rifle in a scabbard by his saddle. Before he could get the weapon out, the animal bounded up a seemingly sheer cliff side, with lithe leaps that defied gravity, and then it was gone. It was a moment of unmitigated wonder. Gideon pulled up his horse and sat there, his skin cooling after a sudden sweat. Then he prodded the
horse again. He wondered if he should stop to eat or push on to find the next farm that had not been abandoned.

  He heard a scrape of rock and there was the caracal again, heading back this way, running this time. The horse shied and Gideon had to take a tight grip on the reins. The big cat leapt down onto the road and ran at him, a red blur in the dust. The horse jumped sideways and Gideon lost his balance. As he fell, he grabbed for the pistol he carried in a holster on his hip. He managed to get the flap open and his hand on the pistol grip when the caracal shot right past him. He could feel the wind of its movement on his skin, and then the animal was gone. Gideon watched the grass it had disappeared into, saw another flash of movement much further away, and lay his head back on the road, closing his eyes. His heart was at full gallop. He had managed to land on one foot first, taking most of the impact that way, and only felt mildly hurt on his buttocks and back. He’d be fine to ride on. He sat up, picked up his hat and dusted it.

  There was a rider in the road. Where had he come from? A Boer boy on a Basotho pony, holding the reins to Gideon’s horse. ‘Are you hurt, Oom?’

  Gideon had learned that young Boers addressed any adult male as oom, uncle, and women as tannie, auntie. The term of respect was a good sign, he decided. He got up and dusted his clothes. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  The boy held his rifle in one hand, resting it across the pommel, ready to shoot in a second. ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘I’m looking for someone … He’s on commando.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘I don’t know him, actually. The name I’ve been given is Jacob Eksteen.’

  The boy looked past Gideon, up towards the hill. Two men appeared over the edge of the ridge, rifles aimed at Gideon. One of them scampered down the slope.

  ‘Raise your hands and stand still,’ said the boy.

  The man approached Gideon from behind and took Gideon’s pistol. ‘Never seen one like this.’

  ‘It’s a Mauser, the latest thing.’

  ‘We’ll take your rifle too.’

  It was time for his next move, Gideon realised. ‘You can have more than my weapons, you know.’

  The man stepped around to face Gideon. Blond, about forty years old and earnest. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You can have me, one more fighting man. I want to join the commando.’

  ‘We’ll take you to see the commandant. Did you think we were robbing you?’

  ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘Taking your weapons is just a safety measure. Come, get on your horse.’

  The other man had also come down the hillside and a third appeared behind the boy, leading two extra horses. When everyone was on horseback and able to look each other in the eye, Gideon introduced himself, using his mother’s maiden name. ‘I’m Gideon Doncker.’ Pronouncing his first name the way the Boers did, with a rough grinding rather than an explosive G.

  They followed suit: Field Cornet Liebenberg, the blond man who had come down the hill and who was clearly the man in charge; Joshua Triegaardt, the other one on the hill; the boy, Wilhelm Steyn; and Mr Matzdorff, the squat fellow who came with the horses. His accent betrayed that he wasn’t a Boer by birth, and the formal way the others referred to him suggested he still wasn’t considered one.

  ‘We’ll have to blindfold you,’ said Liebenberg.

  ‘I understand.’

  Liebenberg gave him a strip of cloth that may have been part of a pair of pants at one time. Gideon tied it around his head, covering his eyes. He could catch a glow from underneath, where light leaked in next to his nose, but nothing else. ‘I can’t ride like this.’

  ‘We’ll lead your horse, you just hold on.’

  There wasn’t much talk after that, only the odd remark about something to watch out for, and noises made for the benefit of their mounts. They turned off the road and climbed a steep incline, turned this way and that. Gideon tried to keep track of where the heat of the sun hit him, but he soon lost all sense of direction. He was at the mercy of the Boers, the people he had come to conquer. This was what he and Major Bryce had hoped would happen, but the knot in his stomach wasn’t just of hunger.

  In the shade of the only tent in the camp, Commandant Jacob Eksteen put down his book and adjusted his eye patch. Someone on horseback was trying to attract his attention, waving from a distance. Jacob sighed. He preferred books to the company of men. Despite his biblical black beard and air of moral righteousness, his book of choice wasn’t religious. He had been brought up in a society where everyone was expected to have certain beliefs, but he had none except that one ought to have beliefs. He read poetry whenever he could, always hoping that one day it would again quicken his heart like it used to. Experiencing the poetic reminded him of the possibility of a world where beauty, truth and justice were possible and love was not about gratification. He couldn’t claim to understand poetry, but maybe because of it there had been a time when reading a poem made him believe in a different world, one that sparkled from within the trappings of the everyday. He had become fascinated by the possibility of an ideal reality; he yearned for it. The most significant things he did were aimed at giving substance to this desire. Failure did not deter him; it would’ve been even worse not to try, not to hope.

  ‘Commandant!’ The Steyn boy. The men had started calling him Klein Steyn, Little Steyn, when the big Steyns were still about, and the name stuck even though his father and brother were now gone. He was sixteen, with a downy moustache, his dull-brown hair pushed back and cut in line with the frayed collar of his shirt. His face was tanned to the point where his hair and skin were the same colour. ‘We found the man Tannie Klara sent the message about, the foreigner who says he wants to join up.’

  Jacob could see the riders behind the boy, confirming what he had been told. ‘I can see. You only need one eye.’ Jacob liked the boy; you could always rely on his loyalty. But he adopted a gruff manner. He resented any suggestion that he needed help to notice the obvious because he had only one eye.

  The new man sat on a horse led by Matzdorff, with Triegaardt and Liebenberg riding behind. ‘Leave the blindfold on and take him into the tent.’ That way, if the man was a spy, he wouldn’t be able to see where they were or how many.

  A new volunteer would be welcome. The commando’s numbers had been dwindling, not only as a result of losses in combat, but also men who had started to desert. Some went back home and may rejoin later; some surrendered, and he had heard that the Duvenage boys had joined the Orange River Volunteers, fighting for the British now. While he could understand that people got tired of this losing struggle, the constant hardships, small victories and big defeats, that kind of betrayal went beyond his comprehension. How could anyone take up arms against his own country? Seeing a foreigner join their cause may strengthen the resolve of the other men.

  Jacob went to inspect the man’s belongings. The horse was the kind of animal that would’ve been prized before the war, but now you needed hardier stock. The white gelding would do reasonably during the upcoming summer while grass was plentiful, but its condition would deteriorate next winter. The saddle was good, not more than a few weeks old. There was a bedroll, canteen, small cooking pot, saddlebags with personal belongings. The bags seemed expensive, with lots of little pockets. Jacob looked through them quickly. Extra clothes, a tin of biscuits, corned beef, toothpaste – what you’d expect. Jacob himself hadn’t seen toothpaste for over a year. The rifle scabbard was empty. ‘What did he have in here?’

  Triegaardt handed the rifle to the commandant, who inspected it briefly. It was a Lebel, rare in this war. Just the sort of weapon someone would bring if he didn’t know the first thing about the realities of this war. ‘This is going to be rather useless. I wonder how much ammunition he brought.’

  ‘He has cartridge pouches on his belt, I think. He also had this.’ Triegaardt held out the Mauser pistol. It was an unusual-looking weapon, with the magazine in front of the trigger guard and a thin rounded handle. It
looked strange and scary. When Jacob held it, he found it remarkably comfortable. He took aim at a nearby bush, made a popping sound with his lips. He wouldn’t mind trying it out for real. Oh well, to the tent. ‘I’ll take these with me.’

  As Liebenberg shepherded Gideon into the tent, he put his hand on the newcomer’s head. ‘Mind your head … Okay, now just sit down. There’s a small stool.’ Liebenberg sat on the ground himself.

  So they waited. Gideon picked up the smell of tobacco, dirty bedding and something he found familiar but couldn’t place. It reminded him of the drawing room at home. Could it be books?

  He could hear voices outside, caught a few phrases, but not enough to follow the conversation. Then footsteps and the swish of the tent flap opening. ‘You can take the blindfold off now.’ Presumably the commandant.

  Gideon did so and removed his hat as well, blinking to get used to the light. There was the commandant on a folding stool too. Swarthy and bony, thinning hair plastered to his head, black beard and an eye patch. Behind his head, sunlight made a halo on the white canvas.

  ‘Jacob Eksteen,’ he introduced himself. ‘I hear you were looking for me.’

  ‘Gideon Doncker.’

  They shook hands.

  ‘You want to fight with us?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ Gideon didn’t know how he should address the man and reverted to the military discipline he knew. It was something he should watch, he decided.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘The Dutch East Indies. Java.’

  ‘We have Dutchmen on our side; we had a whole unit of them early in the war. But I can’t recall one from the East Indies.’

  Precisely why Major Bryce had suggested that cover story. Gideon’s assumed identity had to be hard to disprove.

  ‘What … Did you leave a girl in scandalous circumstances? Can’t pay your debts?’