Aletta: A Tale of the Boer Invasion

Higher and higher mounts the sun, more blistering and scorching his rays, giving forth from the ironstone of the kopje as though reflected from an oven. A strange mirage, watery, crystallised, hangs over the brown expanse of veldt, going off into limpid blue on the far horizon, where the distant flat-topped hills seem to be suspended in mid-air. Whether it is that this lake-like liquid tranquillity emphasises the torrid heat or not, those on the kopje feel what the burning of thirst means. They have water-bottles from which they refresh, but sparingly. Those in the trenches feel it too, but their attention is on the dire, stern business of the day. No time have they to dwell upon mere corporeal cravings.

Whigge! Crash! Shell after shell is breaking within their lines. Men writhe, shattered, screaming, where the hideous dismemberment of the human frame is beyond all human endurance, however willing the spirit, the dogged, stern, manly, patriotic spirit – proof against mere ordinary pain – agony even. One of the group round Andries Botma sinks to the earth as a Nordenfelt missile, crashing and splintering among the stones which form his cover, buries a great fragment of jagged iron deep in his thigh. All run to him, foremost among them the Commandant, reckless of the perfect hailstorm of bullets which already, although at long-range, is beginning to spray the kopje, while some signal wildly to the ambulance waggons away and below in the rear. But Field-cornet Theunis Van Wyk has got his death-blow, and his wife and children – he has three sons fighting below in the trenches – and grandchildren will see him at home smoking the pipe of peace no more. The flow of blood is already rendering him faint, and with a hasty jerked-out message delivered to his old friend and Commandant to carry to them, and a quavering attempt at singing a Dutch hymn upon his lips, he passes out like a brave man, without complaint or rancour, as many and many a one has done and will do before this day of striving and of carnage is over.

And as the advancing host draws nearer, now in quick intrepid rushes over open ground where the leaden hail sweeps in its remorseless shower, now prone and in skirmishing formation, the roar of battle waxes louder and louder. On both sides the crackling din of volleys is well-nigh incessant – as the rifles speak from trench or temporary cover, with dire effect. But there is very little smoke, although the plain on either side is simply spurting puffs of dust where each bullet finds its mark – save where such mark is not mother earth. In the background the ambulances hover, their heroic attendants darting in now and again, and rescuing the maimed victims under the leaden shower itself. And above the ceaseless crackle of small arms, the heavier boom of artillery rolls out more continuous, more unbroken than ever.

Colvin has got over his first shrinking of nerves. He hears the humming of missiles overhead and around with something of equanimity, he sees the splash of lead against rock – or the dust-cloud leaping out of the ground as the bursting iron of shell tears up the surface. Two more of those upon the kopje fall, one stone dead, the other dying. It may be his turn next. And then, as even the excitement of the day-long battle begins to wane and go flat, his thoughts refer to that last parting with Aletta. What a parting that had been – as though he had been going to his death, to his execution! He realises the burden of it now, as he looks on the sad havoc of human life below and around him – the swift sudden fate leaping out of nowhere – the mangled, the mutilated, moaning for the boon of death – of being put out of their sufferings; the lifeless – a moment ago rejoicing in their youth and strength with all their years before them. Ah yes – and this is war – glorious war! – and at this very moment there are tens of thousands in the vigour of their youth and strength now panting and longing for the opportunity to become such as these.

“Oh, Kershaw. Guess the British’ll bust our centre right now. They’re coming right through the river.”

It was the voice of the American. Chewing a cigar in the corner of his mouth, he was calmly and unconcernedly taking his notes, while keenly watching each new development of the day. Colvin, following his glance, could make out a crowd of forms in the river bed some distance down. Then the rattle of rifle-fire became one long deafening roll, as all the energies of the Republican forces, anywhere within reasonable range, became concentrated on this new attempt. But the result he could not determine. The whole thing had more than begun to bewilder him. His ears were deafened by the unintermittent roll and crackle, his eyes dim and dizzy with watching, or trying to watch, the movements of both lines of striving combatants. He heard Andries Botma give orders, and then saw a great mass of mounted Boers, stealthily keeping cover as far as possible, dash forth and pour volley after volley into the waggons and trek-animals of the opposing force; hanging on the outskirts of the latter, with the result of throwing it for the while into hideous confusion. He saw frightful sights of dying men, mangled and shell-ripped; but by then his susceptibilities were blunted, the whole world seemed changed into a hell. The voice of his American friend again aroused him.

“Mind me, Kershaw. Next time you come to view this sample of scrimmage, you get something to do. You got nothing to report for, and of course you can’t shoot at other English, so it’s bound to get on your nerves.”

“There’s something in what you say, Acton,” replied Colvin. “There’s a sort of passive helpless feeling about it all to me. I seem to realise what the ambulance people’s work is like; but even they have work. Now I have nothing but to sit and look on.”

“Pity,” said the other. “But we haven’t got the best ground. Too much near the end of the line. Well, it’s no great matter. I’ll make it all read beautiful,” glancing with pride down his columns of notes. “You have a cigar?”

“Thanks,” lighting up the weed. “But – what’s on now?”

They were, as the American had said, near the end of the line. Now they could see, confusedly, and in the distance, that the British were in and through the river, forcing the centre of the opposing line. And the wild cheers of the soldiers reached them through the incessant din and roar of fire. At the same time those in the trenches on the further side of the river had abandoned their position and retired across.

The sun was sinking now. It was hard to realise that a whole day had been passed in the turmoil of this unending rattle and noise. Yet to Colvin the effect was almost as though he had spent his whole life in it. His mind represented but a confused notion of what he had witnessed, of what he had been through; and when at nightfall the word was silently passed to retire, to evacuate the position, and take up another, some miles in the rear, where everything was more favourable to meet and again withstand a sorely tried but valorous and persistent foe, he seemed to regard it as no more of an out-of-the-way circumstance than the order to inspan a waggon or two. Yet he had spent that day witnessing one of the fiercest and most stubbornly contested battles in which his country’s arms had been engaged within the current century.

Chapter Seven.

Ocular Evidence

Not until Colvin had gone did Aletta actually realise all that that parting meant.

Why had she let him go? she asked herself, a score of times a day. She could have restrained him had she put forth all her influence. Why were men so restless? Why could not this one have sat still and made the most of the happiness that was his – that was theirs? Ah, and now those happy times – and they had been happy times – were in the past. Never to come again, perhaps – her heart added with a sinking chill.

If the English would but make peace; and then she remembered, with sad amusement, her patriotic enthusiasms in the old days at Ratels Hoek, and how condescendingly she had been willing that her countrymen should allow a few English to remain, during her discussions with Adrian – yes, and even with Colvin himself. What now was the patriotic cause to her? She was only conscious of an empty, aching, and utterly desolate heart.

“Aletta is fretting, Piet,” said the latter’s consort one day – the subject of the remark not being present. “She is fretting terribly. I can see it, although she is very brave, and tries not to show it. I did not think she had it in her to allow herself to be so entirely wrapped up in one man, and that an Englishman. What can we do to cheer her up?”

“Get the ‘one man’ back, I suppose,” rejoined the practical official. “Maagtig, Anna – if ever any man had reason to sit still and be thankful, that man was Colvin. But, no. Off he must go, not because he’s wanted for fighting purposes, but just to see the fun – as he calls it. Well, he’ll see a great deal that he won’t find fun at all. But these English are all alike, fussy, restless – must have a finger in everything that goes on – in a fight most of all.”

Yes, Aletta was fretting, if a pale and careworn look upon her face was any index to the mind within. Now, with a rush, all came back – all that this man was to her. She recalled the hours they had spent together – every tone and every look – all that he had ever said, and how time had fled like a streak of sunbeam when she was in his presence – how, too, her first thought on awaking to another day, again and again, had been one of half-incredulous, blissful gratitude that in this way she was to go through life. And now he was gone, and at any moment, for all she knew, he might be lying dead and still for ever upon the veldt. Oh, it would not bear thinking on! She had not known what love was before, she told herself. She knew now, and when he returned to her he should know too. This separation had taught her. Surely, too, it had taught him.

Among those who frequently visited at Piet Plessis’ to try to cheer her up was, somewhat to her surprise, her cousin Adrian; remembering how badly he had taken her refusal in the first instance, and the dire threats he had used towards whosoever should usurp what he chose to imagine was his place. Then she reflected that, after all, he had justified the good opinion she had always held of him, in that he had accepted the inevitable in a sensible and manly way. True, once or twice it occurred to her uneasily that he might be taking the opportunity of ingratiating himself once more in view of possible accidents; but she put the thought from her Another source of surprise was the way in which she found herself talking to Adrian about the absent one. At first she had shrunk from so doing, deeming the topic an unpalatable one to him. But he had not seemed to regard it as such, and she soon lost her constraint on that head. Then Adrian’s visits became of daily occurrence, and Piet and his wife, seeing they seemed to brighten Aletta up, encouraged them.

One day she asked him how it was he still remained in Pretoria. Now that the war was an accomplished fact, his place, she should have thought, would be at the front. News kept coming in – together with more prisoners – news of brilliant engagements, and successful stands made against the foes of the Republic – yet Adrian, who had always been so energetic in his advocacy of an appeal to arms, dallied here, instead of marching with those who were fighting for the patriot cause. To this he had replied that there was time enough before him. The struggle was young yet; long before it reached its culminating point, he would be in the midst of it – yes, and would have made his mark too. Thus he told her.

The while, however, he was playing his own game, and that necessitated more than one trip over to Johannesburg, more than one conference with that other Kershaw. The plot concocted by these worthies was nearly mature.

The time had now come for playing a new card. When Aletta waxed eloquent over her absent lover, Adrian, hitherto kindly and considerately responsive, now preserved silence; indeed he lapsed into silence with just sufficient markedness as to move her to notice it. This he did some few times, until one day she asked him the reason, point-blank.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Aletta,” he answered. And then he abruptly took his leave.

But at the very next of his visits she returned to the subject, as he knew she would, and intended she should.

Why had he become so markedly constrained? she asked, a sudden deadly fear blanching her face. Had he heard anything – any bad news?

“From the front, you mean? No, no; nothing of that sort,” quailing involuntarily before the set, stony look of anguish, and half wavering in his plan. Then, recovering himself, “Well then, Aletta, it’s of no use keeping it to oneself any longer; besides, you ought to know. Are you sure there is anyone at the front in whom you have any interest at all?”

“Why, of course! Why, what do you mean, Adrian? Is not Colvin at the front?” she said, bringing out her words with a kind of gasp.

“At the front? Well, I don’t think he is, considering I saw him only this morning at Johannesburg.”

“Oh, then, he is on his way back,” cried Aletta, her face lighting up with such a radiancy of joy as confirmed the other more than ever in his purpose.

“I think not,” he said; “for to-day is not the only time I have seen him there. I saw him the day before yesterday, and one day last week.”

“Adrian, think what you are saying. It is impossible.” But as she stood looking him in the face as though her gaze would pierce and lay bare every secret of his brain, a cold and terrible misgiving smote her. She remembered the positive assertion made by Adrian before on this head, and in Colvin’s own presence. Dr Da Costa’s remark, too, she remembered; likewise her own misgiving, which act of distrust she had since lamented to herself with bitter and remorseful tears. What if this thing should be too true?

“But I have letters from him,” she went on. “I have heard from him twice – from Bloemfontein before he joined Commandant Botma. You must have seen that extraordinary ‘double’ of his, Adrian.”

But Adrian was armed at this point too.

“See you now, Aletta?” he said. “It is very easy to get anything posted in Bloemfontein. Plenty of people travel down there from Johannesburg. As for that ‘double’ idea, I thought at the time that the story was too weak altogether. But now, I ask, does his ‘double’ also know Miss Wenlock? Anyhow, she seemed to be bidding him a very lingering farewell on the stoep of a house.”

This seemed improbable. Still, grasping at the chance, Aletta flatly refused to believe the statement. And then she rounded upon her cousin, and for a space that estimable youth had a very bad time indeed. He had invented this scandalous falsehood, she declared, had invented it out of malice. She remembered his threats that day at Ratels Hoek; but such, at any rate, had pointed to a more manly course than this traducing of the absent. No, she did not and would not believe one word of the story. Adrian could get away out of her sight and never look upon her face again.

But she did believe it partly, and Adrian knew she did. He felt quite secure now.

“Very well, Aletta,” he answered, with a quiet dignity, “I will do as you wish, and you need not be troubled with me any more. That is the treatment I might have expected for opening your eyes to the – well, trick that has been played upon you. Yet I don’t see why you should think me a liar; so it is only fair to give me the chance of proving my words.”

“But how are you going to prove them?” she asked, speaking quickly.

“In the best possible way. Will the evidence of your own eyes satisfy you, Aletta?”

“I cannot refuse to believe my own eyes,” she answered slowly. “That is, in broad daylight,” she added.

“Yes, of course. If you will go over to Johannesburg with me to-morrow you shall be amply convinced. Will you come?”

“Yes. And mind this, Adrian. If you fail to prove this lie – I mean this charge of yours – by the evidence of my own eyes, you shall never receive a word from me again – from any of us, indeed. Never.”

“Oh, I am not uneasy about that. And now I must go. So long. To-morrow, mind.”

The road in which stood Jim Dixon’s abode was well-nigh as deserted at midday as in the dusk of the evening when Adrian had first come into contact with Kenneth Kershaw. Now as he walked slowly along, with Aletta beside him, he could hardly answer her save at random. What if the plan failed? A miscalculation of time on the part of one or both confederates and such might easily be the case. His first idea, which indeed would have been a safer one, was to take up a position in, or concealed by, one of the deserted houses opposite, of which there was a whole row, and watch; but even if he could have got Aletta to consent to this plan, one very important move in the game – the most checkmating move of all, as we shall see – must of necessity be omitted.

The girl was looking pale and worn, for she had had but little sleep. Her determination and spirit, the very vitality of the matter at stake, had kept her up. There were times, too, when she said to herself that this thing could not be, that she was about to discover what a mistake Adrian had made; and in the gladness of the thought she was going to be forgiving to Adrian in that event, not, however, until she had most severely lectured him.

He for his part had affected a demeanour that was gravely compassionate. If he seemed now and then ill at ease, why that struck Aletta as natural – having regard to the delicate nature of the errand on which they were bound. And he had some reason for his uneasiness, for they would soon be right opposite Dixon’s house, and he did not desire to be seen by, at any rate, one of its inmates. What was that cursed fool about, he said to himself, not to show? It was past the time, and they could not patrol up and down for ever.

“Look now, Aletta!” he said, suddenly. “Look! Was I mistaken?”

The front door of a house about a hundred yards further down on the other side of the road had opened, and two figures came out on to the stoep. Aletta recognised them instantly. One was that of May Wenlock, but the other —