Mafeking Road

When I see the rain beating white on the thorn-trees, as it does now (Oom Schalk Lourens said), I remember another time when it rained. And there was a girl in an ox-wagon who dreamed. And in answer to her dreaming a lover came, galloping to her side from out of the veld. But he tarried only a short while, this lover who had come to her from the mist of the rain and the warmth of her dreams.

And yet when he had gone there was a slow look in her eyes that must have puzzled her lover very much, for it was a look of satisfaction, almost.

There had been rain all the way up from Sephton’s Nek, that time. And the five ox-wagons on the road to the north rolled heavily through the mud. We had been to Zeerust for the Nagmaal church service, which we attended once a year.

The Lord spreads these festivities over so many days that you have not only got time to go to church, but you also get a chance of going to the bioscope. Sometimes you even get a chance of going to the bar. But then you must go in the back way, through the dark passage next to the draper’s shop.

Because Zeerust is a small place, and if you are seen going into the bar during Nagmaal people are liable to talk. I can still remember how surprised I was one morning when I went into that dark passage next to the draper’s shop and found the predikant there, wiping his mouth. The predikant looked at me and shook his head solemnly, and I felt very guilty.

The house was very crowded. I couldn’t follow much of the picture at the beginning, but afterwards a little boy who sat next to me and understood English explained to me what it was all about.

There was a young man who had the job of what he called taking people for a ride. Afterwards he got into trouble with the police. But he was a good-looking young man, and his sweetheart was very sorry for him when they took him into a small room and fastened him down on to a sort of chair.

I can’t tell what they did that for. All I know is that I have been a Boer War prisoner at St. Helena, and they never gave me a chair to sit on. Only a long wooden bench that I had to scrub once a week.

Anyway, I don’t know what happened to the young man after that, because he was still sitting in that chair when the band started playing an English hymn about King George, and everybody stood up.

And a few days later five ox-wagons, full of people who had been to the Zeerust Nagmaal, were trekking along the road that led back to the Groot Marico. Inside the wagon-tents sat the women and children, listening to the rain pelting against the canvas. By the side of the oxen the drivers walked, cracking their long whips while the rain beat in their faces.

After I had walked in this manner for some time, I began to get lonely. So I handed my whip to the kaffir voorloper and went on ahead to Adriaan Brand’s wagon. For some distance I walked in silence beside Adriaan, who had his trousers rolled up to his knees, and had much trouble to brandish his whip and at the same time keep the rain out of his pipe.

“It’s Minnie,” Adriaan Brand said suddenly, referring to his nineteen-year-old daughter. “There is one place in Zeerust that Minnie should not go to. And every Nagmaal, to my sorrow, I find she has been there. And it all goes to her head.”

All the same, I was somewhat startled at Adriaan’s remarks. Minnie didn’t strike me as the sort of girl who would go and spend her father’s money drinking peach brandy in the bar. I started wondering if she had seen me in that draper’s passage. Then Adriaan went on talking and I felt more at ease.

“The place where they show those moving pictures,” he explained. “Every time Minnie goes there, she comes back with ideas that are useless for a farmer’s daughter. But this last time has made her quite impossible. For one thing, she says she won’t marry Frans du Toit any more. She says Frans is too honest.”

“Well, that needn’t be a difficulty, Adriaan,” I said. “You can teach Frans du Toit a few of the things you have done. That will make him dishonest enough. Like the way you put your brand on those oxen that strayed into your kraal. Or the way you altered the figures on the compensation forms after the rinderpest. Or the way – ”

“It isn’t that,” he interrupted me, while I was still trying to call to mind a lot of the things that he was able to teach Frans du Toit, “Minnie wants a mysterious sort of man. She wants a man who is dishonest, but who has got foreign manners and a good heart. She saw a man like that at the picture place she went to, and since then – ”

Through the mist of the white rain a horseman came galloping up towards our wagons. He rode fast. Adriaan Brand and I stood and watched him.

The horseman came thundering along at full gallop until he was abreast of us. Then he pulled up sharply, jerking the horse on to his hind legs.

The stranger told us that his name was Koos Fichardt and that he was on his way to the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Adriaan Brand and I introduced ourselves, and shortly afterwards Fichardt accepted our invitation to spend the night with us.

We outspanned a mile or so farther on, drawing the five wagons up close together and getting what shelter we could by spreading bucksails.

Next morning there was no more rain. By that time Koos Fichardt had seen Adriaan Brand’s daughter Minnie. So he decided to stay with us longer.

We trekked on again, and from where I walked beside my oxen I could see Koos Fichardt and Minnie. They sat at the back of Adriaan Brand’s wagon, hatless, with their legs hanging down and the morning breeze blowing through their hair, and it was evident that Minnie was fascinated by the stranger. Also, he seemed to be very much interested in her.

You do get like that, when there is suddenly a bright morning after long rains, and a low wind stirs the wet grass, and you feel, for a little while, that you know the same things that the veld knows, and in your heart are whisperings.

Most of the time they sat holding hands, Fichardt talking a great deal and Minnie nodding her pretty head at intervals and encouraging him to continue. And they were all lies he told her, I suppose, as only a young man in love really can tell lies.

I remembered what Adriaan had told me about the ideas Minnie had got after she had been to the bioscope. And when I looked carefully at Fichardt I perceived that in many respects he was like that man I saw in the picture who was being fastened on to a chair.

Fichardt was tall and dark and well dressed. He walked with a swagger. He had easy and engaging manners, and we all liked him.

But I noticed one or two peculiar things about Koos Fichardt. For instance, shortly after our wagons had entered a clump of tall camel-thorn trees, we heard horses galloping towards us. It turned out that the riders were a couple of farmers living in the neighbourhood. But as soon as he heard the hoof-beats, Koos Fichardt let go of Minnie’s hand and crept under a bucksail.

I said to myself that Fichardt’s action might have no meaning, of course. After all, it is quite permissible for a man to feel that he would suddenly like to take a look at what is underneath the bucksail he is sitting on. Also, if he wants to, there is no harm in his spending quite a while on this task. And it is only natural, after he has had a bucksail on top of him, that he should come out with his hair rather ruffled, and that his face should be pale.

That night, when we outspanned next to the Groen River, it was very pleasant. We all gathered round the camp-fire and roasted meat and cooked crushed mealies. We sang songs and told ghost stories. And I wondered what Frans du Toit – the honest youth whom Minnie had discarded in Zeerust – would have thought if he could see Minnie Brand and Koos Fichardt, sitting unashamedly in each other’s arms, for all the world to see their love, while the light of the camp-fire cast a rich glow over the thrill that was on their faces.

And although I knew how wonderful were the passing moments for those two, yet somehow, somehow, because I had seen so much of the world, I also felt sorry for them.

The Groen River was in flood from the heavy rains, and Oupa van Tonder, who had lived a long time in the Cape and was well versed in the ways of rivers, and knew how to swim, even, told us that it would not be safe to cross the drift for another twenty-four hours. Accordingly, we decided to remain camped out where we were until next morning.

At first Koos Fichardt was much disturbed by this news, explaining how necessary it was for him to get into the Bechuanaland Protectorate by a certain day. After a while, however, he seemed to grow more reconciled to the necessity of waiting until the river had gone down.

But I noticed that he frequently gazed out over the veld in the direction from which we had come. He gazed out rather anxiously, I thought.

Some of the men went shooting. Others remained at their wagons, doing odd jobs to the yokes or the trek-chains. Koos Fichardt made himself useful in various little ways, amongst other things, helping Minnie with the cooking. They laughed and romped a good deal.

Night came, and the occupants of the five wagons again gathered round the blazing fire. In some ways, that night was even grander than the one before. The songs we sang were more rousing. The stories we told seemed to have more power in them.

There was much excitement the following morning by the time the wagons were ready to go through the drift. And the excitement did not lie only in the bustle of inspanning the oxen.

The wagons creaked and splashed into the water, and we saw Koos Fichardt for the last time, sitting on his horse, with a horseman in uniform on each side of him. And when he took off his hat in farewell he had to use both hands, because of the cuffs that held his wrists together.

But always what I will remember is that slow look in Minnie’s eyes. It was a kind of satisfaction, almost, at the thought that all the things that came to the girl she saw in the picture had now come to her, too.