Aletta: A Tale of the Boer Invasion

“Not an atom of use,” said Morkel decidedly. “You are in fairly bad odour yourself, you see, Kershaw.”

“It’s ghastly. I can’t believe they really intend to shoot the poor chap. But, by-the-by, Morkel, how is it you are up here among them? I thought you were so rigidly – er – Imperialist?”

Morkel looked embarrassed.

“So I am – er – was, I mean,” he answered, speaking low. “But it’s all Jelf’s fault. He took on a fad to collect the state of feeling among the farmers, and was always wanting me to go round and find it out. I went once too often; for when Olivier and Schoeman crossed from the Free State, and the whole of the Wildschutsberg and the Rooi-Ruggensberg rose as one man, why they simply commandeered me.”

“But as a Government servant – ”

“Ja– a fat lot they cared about the Government servant part of it. A man of my name could not be on the English side, they said. So they just gave me my choice – to join them or be shot as a spy. I was a spy, of course, they swore. They knew I had been sent out by the Civil Commissioner to find out things. So there it was.”

“But it’ll come rather awkward for you when all this is over, Morkel?”

“I’ll have to chance that. It, at any rate, is a chance, but the other was a dead cert. Maagtig! Kershaw, when you see half a dozen fellows with rifles step out, all ready to let daylight through you in ten minutes’ time, why you prefer the chances of the remote future to the certainty of the immediate present. If you don’t think so – why, you just find yourself in my shoes, and see.”

This was undeniable – and then the ci-devant Civil Commissioner’s clerk went on to explain that he was by no means certain that things were going to turn out so favourably for the English as had at first seemed probable. The Republics might get the better of it practically, in which event he would likely drop in for something worth having – anyway, he couldn’t help himself. Besides, it would have happened in any case, for the burghers had jumped Schalkburg and commandeered every man there who bore a Dutch name, as well as all the stores. But with regard to the De la Rey household Morkel could give no reliable information. He had heard that Stephanus and his wife were away in the Free State, but even that he did not know for certain, nor whether the girls were at home or not.

“But how did Frank manage to get captured, Morkel? Was he fighting?”

“No. They went to his place, and started in to commandeer all his stuff. You know what a violent beggar he is when his monkey is up – and he started punching heads by the half-dozen. What could he do against a crowd? The wonder to me is they didn’t shoot him then and there. But they broke up everything in the house, and turned the old lady out of doors and locked her own doors on her. Good job that pretty sister of his was away from home, for they were the lowest down type of Boer – of the Mani Delport sample.”

Both men puffed gloomily at their pipes for some minutes in silence. Then Colvin said:

“Look here, Morkel. I am going to have another try at old Schoeman. You must persuade him to see me. So cut along, old chap, and do so. By the way, if the worst comes to the worst, he must let me see Frank.”

“I’ll try, Kershaw,” said Morkel. “I’ll try my darnedest, but I’m not over sanguine.”

Nor was Colvin, and his despondency was fully justified when, after nearly an hour, Morkel returned. Commandant Schoeman flatly refused to see him that night, nor would he authorise him to hold an interview with the prisoner, or any communication whatever, on peril of the utmost penalty.

“The infernal old brute!” was the only comment Colvin could make.

“Yes, he is,” rejoined Morkel gloomily. “And now I must clear out – for he has a lot of ‘secretarial’ work for me to-night, he says. Well, we have done all we could, and if we can’t help the poor chap we can’t. It’s the fortune of war. Good-night.”

Left to himself Colvin sat for a while thinking hard, and as he did so his despondency deepened. Poor Frank! Was there no way out of it? His memory went back over the period of their acquaintance – over the old days when they had campaigned together as comrades – over the times they had spent together since, under more peaceful auspices – by what a mere chance it had come about that they were not much more nearly related. With all his weaknesses, Frank was far too good a fellow to come to such pitiable grief as this. What could be done? And still the inexorable answer – Nothing.

Rising in the sheer restlessness of desperation, he went outside the tent. It was nearly dark now, and the cooking fires of the camp were ablaze in all directions, and the deep-toned voices of the burghers buzzed forth on all sides. As he stepped outside, a figure looming out of the dusk barred his way.

“Stand! Go no further.”

“What is the meaning of this? You hardly seem to know me,” said Colvin.

“I know you, Mynheer Kershaw,” was the reply. “But the Commandant’s orders are that you do not wander about the camp to-night.”

“The Commandant’s orders?”

“Ja, the Commandant’s orders,” repeated the Boer. “Go in again, if you please.”

There was nothing for it but compliance. As he re-entered the tent, Colvin realised that he was indeed a prisoner, and guarded by an armed sentry. What did it mean? Why, simply that for any power he might have to help Frank Wenlock that night – by fair means or foul – he might as well have been in Patagonia or Pekin. More, a very uneasy feeling had come over him that he might ere long stand sorely in need of aid himself.

These precautions seemed to point that way too. Here he was as much a prisoner as the man to whom death would come with the morning light. It struck him in a passing way as singular that the men who shared this tent with him were not here to-night, and he was alone. Hour after hour wore on, and still he racked his brains. Once before he had saved Frank Wenlock’s life in the heat and excitement of warfare. He could not save it now. That wily old fox Schoeman had seen to that.

Colvin was very tired. The strain of the previous day had told upon him – the strain of those long night hours too. He could not have told approximately at what hour his eyes had closed, and a whirling round of confused dreams were chasing each other through his slumbering brain. Now he was back again in peace and quietness at Piet Plessis’ with Aletta, radiant and happy. Now he was at Ratels Hoek, but Aletta was not there. A cold blank void seemed to take her place, and then into it floated the form of May Wenlock, her face turned from him in horror and loathing, as though requiring her brother’s blood at his hands. Then he awoke with a cold start, wondering confusedly whether all that had happened the day before were but a dream – awoke to the light of another day, with the beams of a newly risen sun pouring into the tent – awoke to behold three armed burghers standing over him. Even then he noticed that the expression of their faces was grim and ominous, and that they replied to his morning salutation as curtly as possible.

“So! You are awake at last,” said one. “We were about to awaken you. You must come before the Commandant at once.”

“Before the Commandant?” echoed Colvin, still hardly awake. “By the way – the prisoner? What about the prisoner? The Commandant has pardoned him, has he?”

The men exchanged a very strange look with each other at the words.

“It is about the prisoner that the Commandant needs you, Mynheer,” said the spokesman. And Colvin’s heart sank. He was wanted to receive the doomed man’s last wishes, he supposed, being the latter’s fellow-countryman. Poor Frank – poor Frank!

“I am ready,” he said, springing up. “But – tell me. Are they really going to shoot him after all? Surely – surely not!”

The men looked more strangely than ever.

“You ought to know best whether that can now be done or not, Mynheer,” was the enigmatical reply. “Come!”

Colvin went forth with his guards – one of whom walked on each side of him, and the third behind. This was being under arrest with a vengeance, he thought. As they passed through the camp he noticed that the burghers were gathered in groups, conversing in very subdued tones, which at sight of him would become suddenly hushed. There was something solemn and cold-blooded about these preliminaries to the execution he was about to witness that got upon his nerves. As we have pointed out, he had witnessed many a ghastly and horrifying sight during the last few weeks. But this, he felt, was going to be more trying than any.

Commandant Schoeman was seated in his tent, surrounded by his handful of subordinate officers, exactly the same as on the day before. To-day, however, in addition, a few burghers were grouped outside the tent, the butts of their rifles grounded, as they watched the proceedings. But where was the prisoner? Where was Frank Wenlock?

A dire sinking gripped Colvin’s mind. Had they done it already? Surely the volley would have awakened him, or had he slept too soundly? Involuntarily he gazed from side to side.

“Stand there,” said his guard, halting him in front of the Commandant’s table.

The latter looked up at Colvin’s greeting, barely returning it; then he said:

“What have you to say?” Colvin looked fairly puzzled.

“To say?” he echoed. “I do not understand, Mynheer Commandant.”

“The prisoner Wenlock has escaped.”

Colvin started, and his whole face lit up with satisfaction.

“Escaped, has he? Well then, Mynheer, all I can say is, I think you are well rid of him. Frank is a good fellow ordinarily, but he can make himself most infernally objectionable at times – as yesterday, for instance.”

He thought it politic to make no allusion to the death sentence. But at heart he was overjoyed.

“You it was who helped him to escape,” said Schoeman, and the tone, and the look of fell menace on his face, suddenly revealed to Colvin that he was standing on the brink of a yawning abyss. It behoved him to keep his head.

“Look now, Mynheer,” he said, “I would ask how I could have helped him to escape when I never left my tent the whole night.”

“That we shall see,” rejoined Schoeman.

“But how could I have left it, when I was kept in it by an armed guard placed there by your own orders?” retorted Colvin.

“I know nothing of such a guard, and I gave no such orders. It is now time for prayers, also for breakfast. There are those here who are ready to prove that you helped the prisoner to escape. In an hour’s time I shall require you here again. I warn you, Mynheer, that unless you can disprove the statements of these, things will be very serious for you. Retire now to your tent.”