Aletta: A Tale of the Boer Invasion

Escorted, as before, Colvin went; and as he went he reflected. The extreme gravity of his position became plain in all its peril. It occurred to him that somebody or other desired to be rid of him. Yet, why? He had no enemies in the camp that he knew of. True, he had somewhat wounded the Commandant’s self-esteem at first, but surely Schoeman’s vindictiveness would not be carried to such a length. Well, there was no telling. Either Frank Wenlock had been allowed to escape, in order that the charge of aiding and abetting might be fastened upon himself, or he had been quietly made away with – always with the same object. And looking at it in this light, Colvin realised the trap he was in, and that his own life was in very considerable danger.

Chapter Eleven.

To take his Place

It was a curious court-martial this before which he was now convened, thought Colvin, the ridiculous side of things striking him, as an hour later he stood once more before the Commandant’s tent, having washed and got some breakfast in the interim. This old Dutch farmer, clad in greasy moleskins, and crowned with a weather-worn, once white chimney-pot hat, was his judge, with absolute power of life and death, and looked moreover as solemn as though he thoroughly realised it. Those others too, squatting on the ground, smoking pipes, and very frequently spitting: on their good word depended to a very great extent his own life.

“Do you confess to having assisted the prisoner to escape?” asked the Commandant. “It will save trouble and lighten the guilt upon your soul if you do.”

“Certainly I do not, Mynheer,” returned Colvin. “How can I have assisted any prisoner to escape when I was a prisoner myself?”

“Maagtig! Said I not that all Englishmen were liars?” grunted the old burgher, for the benefit of those within the tent.

Morkel, too, Colvin had not failed to observe occupying the same seat as yesterday. But Morkel had turned on a wooden expression of countenance, and avoided catching his eye. Clearly Morkel believed in the maxim anent self-preservation. He had a wholesome fear of drawing suspicion upon himself.

“We will first hear the testimony of Adrian De la Rey,” said the Commandant.

Colvin managed to repress the astonishment he felt as Adrian came forward. The latter differed in outward trappings from the other burghers only in the fact that his get-up was smarter. He, too, avoided Colvin’s glance.

“Tell your story,” said the Commandant shortly. But before the other had said half a dozen words, Colvin interposed:

“Excuse me, Mynheer Commandant. But in taking evidence it is usual and indispensable to take it on oath – to swear the witness to tell the truth. Now this has not yet been done.”

It was just possible some advantage might be gained by this formula being observed, but Colvin did not reckon it would amount to much. Morkel, however, put in a word in favour of the suggestion, and accordingly Adrian was sworn after the usual Dutch method, with his right hand held up. Then he proceeded to tell his story.

As one of the field-captains of the burgher force it had been his duty to go the round of the sentries. Two mounted guard over the place wherein Frank Wenlock was confined, namely, the stable at the back of Gideon Roux’ house. The door was locked with a strong padlock, and there was one window, which was iron barred, and fairly strong. One sentry was stationed beneath this, and the other before the door. When he arrived at the stable he was surprised that the sentries gave him no recognition, but, on examining further into the matter, he found they were both asleep. Moreover, he could hardly wake them, and when he did, they excused themselves by saying that the Englishman in the camp – not the prisoner, but the other Englishman – had given them a soepje out of his flask. His first thought being for the security of the prisoner – the witness had ordered the door to be opened. But the key could not be found. It had been in the first sentry’s keeping. Then having called several times to the prisoner inside, and receiving no answer, the witness had caused the door to be broken open. The prisoner had vanished.

This had happened at about twelve o’clock. But half an hour earlier he had met Colvin Kershaw wandering through the camp, and they had stood chatting for a while. Kershaw had told him he had been at Gideon Roux’ house, and was returning to his tent. After his discovery of the escape he, Adrian, had thought of arresting the accused, but had placed his tent under guard until the morning.

“The accused man says it was under guard all night,” said the Commandant. “Do you know anything of such a guard?”

“Nothing whatever, Mynheer.”

Now, indeed, the whole mystery was clearing up, decided Colvin, but clearing in such wise as would be disastrous, if not fatal, for himself, Adrian De la Rey was the prime mover then in this matter. Adrian had every motive for destroying him, and now Adrian had concocted this plot for his destruction. He saw through it now, and his heart sank within him. Schoeman and his crew would be willing accomplices. He had no friends here in this camp, and he knew, all too well, that no chance would be allowed him of communicating with those he had elsewhere. Now he claimed his right of cross-examining witnesses. At first the “court” was not inclined to allow this. Of what use was it? It savoured of the blasphemous. God-fearing burghers, who had sworn to tell the truth, and had called God to witness, could not lie. But he pressed his point and, being supported by Morkel, carried it.

Not much good did it do him, however, with this witness. Not all his cross-examination could shake this tissue of amazing lies which Adrian reeled off with a glibness which imposed on his hearers up to the hilt. Everything he had said he stuck to; doing it, too, with a sorrowful and against-the-grain air. This Englishman with all his lawyer tricks could not shake that honest and simple testimony, decided these unsophisticated burghers, and all his efforts at doing so only served to deepen the adverse feeling.

The two sentries were then called, and their testimony exactly corresponded with that of Adrian! They were somewhat heavy-looking young men – brothers, named Hattingh. Asked what the drink consisted of, they thought it was whisky. It was not square-face or dop? No; they were sure it was whisky. All Englishmen drank whisky; therefore, decided the hearers, the man who gave them the drink must have been this Englishman.

Both brothers had the same tale to tell, and they told it so glibly, so naturally, as to puzzle even the accused himself. They were of the type that do not make good liars – that is, in the sense of ability to sustain a series of consistent and circumstantial lies; indeed, had he been an impartial auditor of their testimony, instead of one vitally concerned therewith, he was forced to own to himself that he would have believed it. Such being the case, it was hardly to be wondered at if those who heard it believed every word.

These witnesses knew this Englishman, but not very well. They had seen him sometimes about the camp, and when he came up and chatted to them, and offered them something to drink, they were only too glad, for the nights up here in the Wildschutsberg were chilly, and a drop of something warmed a man.

And here we will digress briefly to explain that what would have been a very serious offence for all concerned, in the British regular, or even irregular forces, constituted just no offence at all in a Boer commando. For a Boer commando represents a chronic state of “marching-at-ease,” and the fact of a couple of sentries having a chat with a comrade and a “nip” out of his flask was nothing.

Both these men Colvin cross-questioned, not at any length, and in a conciliatory tone, and his main points were as to how they could be sure of his identity in the dark, especially as they had owned to being personally unacquainted with him. But the questions seemed genuinely to surprise them. For one thing, it was not so dark. The stars were shining very brightly. A Boer was not an Englishman that he could not see out of doors by starlight.

Then followed Gideon Roux, who testified that Colvin had spent at least two hours at his house the evening before. He would have left about the time named by Adrian De la Rey, but he could not say for certain within half an hour or so.

What had the accused to go upon? One after another of these men came forward unhesitatingly to swear away his life, for that is what he fully realised this mock trial to have for its object. The net was winding itself more fatally about him, and by nothing short of a miracle now could he be extricated from its entangling meshes. In Gideon Roux’ malignant face a gleam of devilish exultation seemed to lurk, as though he recognised that this was a safer, surer method of disposing of an obnoxious and inconvenient person than shooting at him in the dusk from behind a rock. Those around listened in solemn and impressive silence. The groups of bystanders had been steadily augmenting, and now nearly the whole camp stood crowded around, in a strangely picturesque armed assembly.

After Gideon Roux followed that worthy’s vrouw, looking quite as slatternly and rather more frightened than on that occasion when Colvin had partaken of her somewhat grudging hospitality. She emphatically confirmed all that her husband had said. The course the accused took with her was to remind her as impressively as he was able of the oath she had taken, and to suggest that she had better think well over her testimony lest she should have been mistaken. Sheer waste of words.

Colvin realised that he was doomed, and that every man in that camp believed every word that had been stated with regard to him. So when Hermanus Delport, and one or two others, came forward to corroborate that he had spent the evening at Gideon Roux’ house, he simply refused to waste time or trouble asking any more questions. What he would ask, however, was that the man who had mounted guard over him should be put forward the man who had kept him a prisoner all night – that was, from just after sundown – by the Commandant’s orders.

“I gave no such orders, as I have said before,” said Commandant Schoeman. “Were any such orders given, Heeren, by any of yourselves?” turning towards the other occupants of the tent.

“Nee—nee,” came forth the reply, universal and emphatic. “We know of no guard being placed over the accused during the first part of the night.”

Colvin had thought they had now got more than ample testimony – false testimony – to afford them all the pretext they wanted. But he reckoned without Commandant Schoeman. Said the latter:

“Mynheer Morkel. Will you kindly stand where the others have stood, and tell what you know of this matter?”

Morkel fairly started, a great look of dismayed consternation overspreading his features.

“But I know nothing about it, Mynheer Commandant,” he protested. “I have not seen or spoken to Kershaw since I begged you to grant him an interview last night.”

“Just so, Mynheer Morkel. But we want to know what passed between you and the accused man before that. Stand up. The exigencies of the Republics imperatively require it.”

This was a command there was no disobeying, so Morkel stood up, and was duly sworn. He would willingly have perjured himself up to the scalp in such a cause, but he knew it would be useless. There might have been spies overhearing all that had passed between him and Kershaw relative to Frank’s condemnation, or even if not there would be no difficulty in putting forward sufficient witnesses to swear that they had overheard it, giving of course their own version.

Bidden by the Commandant to state exactly what passed between himself and the accused with regard to Frank Wenlock, Morkel said that he himself had brought Kershaw the news that the other was condemned to death. How had the accused received it? He had been very much shocked and distressed naturally, the other having been a great friend of his – Morkel left out “fellow-countryman” just in time. But even with all his Court experience he made the mistake of expatiating on what had led to that friendship, realising with dire dismay, when too late, that he had furnished an additional motive for Colvin to act as was alleged.

“Did he not ask what could be done for the condemned man?” inquired Schoeman.

“He did, Mynheer Commandant. But – ”

“He asked that question more than once?” interrupted the remorseless voice.

“Naturally, Mynheer. That was why he so urgently wished for an interview with yourself – to plead the cause of his friend.”

“And when he found that he could not obtain that interview, what then?”

“He was disappointed, naturally. But he said it would all come right. He could not believe that brave men – burghers fighting for their liberties and independence, civilised Christian men, could take the life of a man, especially a young man, by nature hot-headed and foolish, simply because he had made some rude and insulting remarks,” added Morkel, somewhat mendaciously, and indeed he seemed to have scored a strong point, for a murmur, not unsympathetic, went up from the audience. “The behaviour of Frank Wenlock was insulting and offensive, the accused had said, but surely not a crime worthy of death,” went on Morkel, waxing eloquent.

“That will do, Mynheer Morkel. You can now take your place again,” said the Commandant. Then to Colvin, “What have you to say? Now we have heard all the witnesses, what have you to say?”

“Very little, Mynheer. This is a plot. Adrian De la Rey has a grudge – a bitter grudge – against me, the reason of which does not matter. I believe he has manufactured the whole of this accusation. I believe he himself let Wenlock escape so as to fasten it on to me. Gideon Roux owes me money, and therefore would naturally turn against me. His vrouw looked frightened enough to satisfy even you that she was talking under compulsion. Hermanus Delport is a friend of and related to Gideon Roux. As for the two men who were on guard over Frank Wenlock, I believe they are under some extraordinary delusion and were speaking the truth as far as they knew. Morkel has stated the burden of our conversation quite correctly. But there is one witness we have not heard, and that is the man who turned me back into my tent last night.”

“There is no such man,” retorted Schoeman shortly. “It is all a fabrication. Well, then, that is enough. You came into our camp, and enjoyed our hospitality.”

“No, I was brought here by force,” interrupted Colvin.

“Still, still! Do not interrupt. You then took advantage of your position here to commit a hostile act – an act of hostility against the Republics, which have sheltered and shielded you – by aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner.”

“That is not true,” retorted Colvin. “Before God, in whose presence we stand, I know no more of Frank Wenlock’s escape, have had no more to do with it, than the President himself.”

“Do not add lying and blasphemy to your offence,” said Schoeman unctuously. “For the crime of which ample testimony has convicted you, you will take the escaped prisoner’s place. You will be shot at sundown.”