Tales from the Veld

“The war smoke!”

“Ay, bossie; the heaven-high columns of smoke going up blue and round in the still air, as a sign to the Kaffirs waiting silently in the bush and the kloofs. At the sign out they came, slipping from the bush paths stealthy as leopards on the trail, and one morning the hill-sides yonder were red, as though the aloes had blossomed.”

“What – with fire?”

“Neh! karel with red clay smeared thick over the black faces, and with the red blankets carried by the bearers. Then there was in-spanning of horses, hurrying of women after their children, and the trail of dust about each flying cart. The red Kaffirs! Ay, lad! many a mother an’ wife has gone white at times of peace at the sight of a Kaffir in his paint – squatting, maybe, like a tame dog at the back door, waiting for his women-folk in the kitchen to hand him out a bone – for in the smouldering eyes of him she can see the leaping flames of a burning homestead and assegais runnin’ red, and if it’s so in peace what must she feel when her roving eye, searching the veld for the little ones to bid them to breakfast, lights on the far-off streak on the border hills, and when her ear catches a murmur that is not from the sea – the murmur of fighting-men singing of death? The sun was level when it shone upon the red Kaffirs, and when the shadder was close up to my heels in the mid-day the country was empty of whites, except maybe a solitary cuss like me, hating to leave his home, and lurking in the bush close to his belongings.”

“And the cattle?”

“It’s the horned beasts that you think of – well, why not? they’re meat and drink and a roof over your head. A few there were who saved their herds, but the bulk were swept in the net of the robbers. There was not a many human fish caught in that net that time, ’cept old Dave Harkins, an’ his five sons who fell all in one spot by Palmiet Fontein fighting to the last grain o’ powder, and ole Sam Parkes. Poor ole Sam. He found religion, did ole Sam, and many the day I’ve a-harkened to him holdin’ forth on his stoep, where he would sit for the rheumatism kep’ him from moving. Well, ole Sam, when they told him that he must fly, he said, ‘Lift my chair to the stoep. The Kaffirs will not harm me.’ They placed him there with his face to the east, and there the Kaffirs found him. I passed the house the next day, and he was leanin’ back lookin’ so peaceful that I hailed him. But he were dead, sonny, with a gash in his heart. Ay, they struck him as he sat, but they left the house standing and when I peeped in at the window there was the table set with all the chiney in the house. The Kaffirs did that One on ’em had been about a white man’s house, and he showed his friends how the white man prepared his table. A little one’s vanity and the blood dropping from the assegai.”

“What were you doing all this time, Uncle Abe?”

“Shiverin’ and hidin’, sonny; for a party on ’em swooped down on my place led by a thunderin’ ole thief I had once lammed with a sjambok for stealin’ my sugar. There was a fine bedstead in the house and a whole shelf o’ crockery, for I had some idees then of marryin’, and, blow me, if they didn’t smash the lot, besides breaking all the winders and burning the thatched roof. Then they killed an ox, a fine rooi bonte, roasted him whole, and ate him – by gosh. After that they slept with their bellies full! Yes, they did that; slep’ with me a watching ’em from an ant bear hole. I nearly spiflicated ’em, but somehow I didn’t. Then they moved off all but three, including that ole thief, which gathered my cows an heifers an’ calves an’ oxen together, and druv ’em off. ’Twas like partin’ with my heart strings, and I followed ’em up. That evenin’ I druv the lot inter the big kloof.”

“You recaptured them?”

“I s’pose so, sonny!”

“And the three Kaffirs?”

“I speck they ate too much beef, sonny, I speck they did. Any way they died. They did so – and after I had druv the cattle into the kloof I sot off for Grahamstown, passing ole Sam Parkes on the way. I came pretty nigh close to parties o’ Kaffirs, but ’twas when I came to Blaauw krantz that I got the shivers. I were goin’ along mighty keerful, I tell you jes’ ’sif I were ‘still huntin’’ but ne’r a sound o’ a Kaffir I could hear. Well you know one side the road there’s a yellow bank with a bush on the top. I had turned a corner on the listen, with my eyes every way, when I caught the move of a insect, or something like that, on the left. Blow me, sonny, there was a big Kaffir standing agin’ the bank, all naked, but red with clay. What caught my eye was the roll of his eyes, for he were jes’ like a part of the wall. He’d been walking down the road when he must a’ yeard me comin’ for all I went so soft. My! I jes’ give a jerk o’ my head as he launched out with his assegai. Then I gave him a charge o’ buck-shot in the stummick and jumped back inter the bush on the lower side. I yeard a shout from other Kaffirs, and, you b’lieve me, I dodged through the bush like a blue-bok until I got right under the big krantz, where I crep’ inter a cave. I seed then the blood running down, and like a streak I were out o’ that cave inter a pool o’ water until I got under a thick ‘dry-my-throat’ bush where I hid. The Kaffirs they followed on the blood-spoor right up to the cave, but they missed me where I lay in the dark o’ the pool, an’ next evenin’ I were in Grahamstown, where the doctor stitched up the wound.”

“A very close call, Uncle.”

“Oh, I’ve been in many tight places, sonny – a many, an’ maybe I’ll tell you about ’em.”

Chapter Nineteen

A Black Christmas

“How is it you never married?” I asked of Abe on an evening after the mealie cobs had been shelled, and we were too dead tired to brush the husks from our hair.

“Me! Well, you see this yer cob. It’s worth nothin’, ’cos all the mealies been shelled off. That’s me – I’m a shelled cob, and wimmen folk isn’t got any use for that sort of bargain.”

“But you told me the other day that you were thinking of marriage once. That time, you know, when the Kaffirs smashed your furniture.”

“Jes’ so – the critturs. They broke a fine four-posted bed and a hull lot o’ chiney.”

“And the lady.”

“You see, bossie, she was gone on that four-poster and the chiney. ’Twasn’t me she was thinkin’ of nohow.”

“Nonsense, Abe; you’re too modest.”

“Well, she forgot me, an’ took up with a armchair an’ a copper kettle which belonged to young Buck Wittal, son to ole Bob. A armchair an’ a shiney kettle, that’s what cut me out, sonny; but Buck went up the gum ’cos she would have a swing lookin’-glass. That’s so! Wimmen is mighty keen on the look o’ things, an’ that kettle fetched her. Them was times!”

“Courting times?”

“Fighting times, sonny; all up an’ down the country, in an’ out the kloofs, an’ over the mountains, by gum. I tole you about that chief – how I spoored him a full forty mile from the Chumie after Black ’Xmas?”

“Black ’Xmas!”

“You mean by that raising o’ the voice you never yeard o’ Black Xmas! Well, well, the ignorance an’ the vanity o’ learnin’ which takes no account of the great happenings in your own country, and you come swaggerin’ about with your Greek turnips.”

“I assure you I never heard of Black ’Xmas.”

“Never yeard of the soldier settlers away up by the Chumie – them as were planted there by Sir Harry Smith – of their wives and children, making merry on Christmas Day, 1850 – making merry with the old custom, and the sounds of the laughing going out into the dark kloof, where the Kaffirs crouched, eyeing them as they fingered their assegais. Lor’ love you, lad: when the poor little children were running at their games, and the women were talking over their washing up, and the men at their pipes in the quiet of the afternoon, the war shout broke suddenly from the wood. There was stabbing, and a blaze, a great gasp, and the life went out of them all that Christmas Day. That was Black Xmas – men, and women, and children, and dogs, and every crawlin’ crittur given to the assegai. I were on my way there after stray cattle, and I yeard the cry of a little child, sonny, and the sand went out o’ young Abe Pike that day. I seed it all – yes – lad, and I see it now in the nights, the stabbing of the women and little ones.”

“And what did you do, old man?”

“What did I do? I dunno, sonny – I dunno! I must a walked an’ walked all through the night, for the nex’ morning I were away beyond the Chumie in a deep kloof, without knowing how I came there. Then the cry of the little one went out o’ my ears and out of my eyes with the sight of them leapin’ devils about the burnin’ houses, an’ I saw the rifle in my hand – for ther’ came boomin’ through the trees the sound of a Kaffir singing from his chest. I found him in a clearin’, stampin’ with his feet and swingin’ his kerrie before the chief and his headmen seated all aroun’ against the trees, with their long pipes all agoin’. The blood was still caked on his arms, an’ I plunked him in the breast.”

“You shot him? Good old Abe!”

“It were a ole muzzle-loader – one smooth, one rifle – and I shifted, but it weren’t long afor’ they picked up my spoor, and in the fust rush I could hear the rattle of assegais as they follered. Then it was quiet in the kloof, an’ I knew what a animile must feel when the hunter’s after him, or the tiger’s tracking him down. Bymby I yeard the call of the bush-dove every side, and I gave the call too at a venture, keepin’ my eye on a dark spot where the last cry came from. Sure enough I seed the leaves tremble, and there was a show of red paint where the Kaffir stood. That were the bush-dove, and he called again; then he came steppin’ along to the fern chump where I were hid, movin’ like a shadder with the whites of his eyes showin’ as he glanced around. By gum, lad, I thought it was all over, but another dove called an’ he moved off. I yeard the calls growin’ softer an’ softer, and I made a move to slip away; but there’s no gettin’ to the bottom of a red Kaffir’s cuteness.”

“How is that?”

“Why, sonny; that chap never went off when he made as if he would. He jes’ slipped behind a tree, and when I ris my head out of them ferns he druv his assegai at me, and it clean pinned my left arm to my side. See, here’s the scar;” and the old man rolled back the sleeve of his worn shirt until a white scar was revealed on the fleshy part of the upper arm.

“I fetched a groan, and he sprang out to belt me over the head, but I kep’ my senses, an’ knocked the wind clear outer him with a straight thrust of the muzzle. As he stood gasping, I give him back his own assegai.”

“You killed him?”

“Maybe he died; but Kaffirs is tough, and at the thrust he gave his cry, standin’ there with his legs wide apart, afore he sank among the ferns. I turned an’ ran, keeping down the little stream till I come to a krantz, with the water slidin’ down, an’ I swung over, holdin’ fast to a monkey tow. I slid down fifty feet, and then let go, holdin’ the rifle high over head, and fell feet first inter a little round pool at the bottom. It was a chance, sonny, but I kep’ my bones sound and the powder dry. I did that. I tell you young Abe Pike was some pumpkins. Then I pushed on an’ on till I went over a ridge into another kloof, an’ through that to another kop, standing up above the wood in a mass of stone. I sat down in a cleft, and the weakness came on me from the loss of blood and the want of food. Well, I tell you, sonny, I fit ag’inst the weakness, an’ with a spread of shirt, holdin’ one end in my teeth, I bound up the wound after plugging it with dirt. Right away I looked over the country, an’ I see’d to the right the smoke rising and across a stretch of veld I seed a black patch movin’. ’Twere Kaffirs on the march, an’ following the directshun they were taking, I seed a white speck to the left; a farmhouse, sonny, with a thin trail of smoke going up from the one chimney.”

“The Kaffirs were on their way to sack the place.”

“They were that, and I set off to beat ’em. But look here, I said when I started talking, I was going to tell you how I trekked the Kosa chief, and here I been a’ spinnin’ on about another thing.”

“Did you get to the house first?”

“What – me! I did that, sonny. I got there fust, an’ there was nobody in – not a one though the pot was on the fire. I went off with the pot into a patch of mealies, and when the Kaffirs came up an’ smashed things I were eatin’ pap outer the pot, yes, that’s so.”

“And did they find you?” I ventured after a long pause.

“That pap were good, but it wanted salt – it did that. So long, sonny, so long,” and the old man moved off to bed.

Chapter Twenty

Tracking the Kosa Chief

“I tole you all about it, and, what’s more, I ain’t got no time to jaw along when that shed o’ mine wants mendin’,” and Abe resolutely re-filled his pipe, unheeding my request for the completion of his last yarn.

“Leave the shed alone. It will keep – besides, this is resting weather.”

“Sonny, listen to me. Restin’ weather’s been the ruin of this yer country. That so. When a man should span in and plough, when he should take the hoe and skoffel the lands, what does he do? Why up and say at the first touch of the warm wind, that it’s restin’ weather. I can’t stand such laziness, and I ast you, sonny, where’d I been to-day, if I’d taken notice of the weather?”

I glanced round at the neglected lands, at the solitary gum tree, at the old water barrel on its tree sledge, at the tumble-down shed, and shook my head, for there really was nothing to say.

Old Abe followed my look, and then shoved himself back with his heels into a breadth of shade.

“That’s it, my lad,” he said with a queer smile, “cast your eyes round and see what can be done by one man if his heart’s in his work. Forty years agone this yer land were wilderness, and now look at it, with that there shed, them pumpkin lands, and this yer tree standin’ up like the steeple of a church as a token of honest labour.”

“Wonderful!” I said.

“That it are. I watched that old gum grow since it were no higher than my knee. I watered it an’ tended it, an’ measured it by the buttons on my shirt till it topped my head, and now, blow me, you could send a hull regiment with the band in the shadder of it.”

“I suppose you have seen regiments on the march?”

“What, me? Well, now, I was tellin’ you of that time I give the slip to the Kaffirs beyond Chumie and took hiding in the mealie field. Well, that time I came on a regiment in Pluto’s Vale, when a Kaffir poked his assegai in the big drum, and the Colonel he give me a big knife for what I did.”

I said nothing about the shed or the resting weather, and Uncle Abe, sprawling in the shade, went on with his story.

“Yes, sonny, there I were in the mealies, and there were the Kaffirs about the house banging at the windows because there was nobody at home for ’em to kill. They were mostly young bucks, and they all jawed together, ’cept two or three who started singin’ about what big potatoes they was. Well, after knocking around an’ smashin’ things, they set off in a cluster anyhow, on the back trail. And as I watched ’em go, blow me ef one of them in the rear didn’t drop his assegai on puppose. On they went out o’ sight behind the bush, but Abe Pike he jest kep’ where he were. I tell you, Kaffirs is mighty stuck on their assegais, and bymby, sure enough, back came that chap lopin’ along. When he reached the house he shouted out to his friends that it was all right and he’d foller. Well, they gave him the answer back, saying they would go on. He were a young chief this, with an ivory ring round his wrist, and a feather sticking out behind his ear, and as springy on his feet as a young ram. I spotted him well, for I were wondering what his game were, and marked the look in his eyes, and the smooth sweep of his jaws. He picked up his wepin and then he giv’ a sharp look all roun’, and nex’ he went steppin’ roun’ the house with his head bent. I saw it then, sonny. He were lookin’ for spoor, and, by gum, he found it sooner you could snap your fingers. I yeard him give a grunt, and nex’ thing I see him sailin’ along over the veld with his head down on a trail quite away from that taken by his friends.”

“He was spooring the people who had escaped from the house?”

“Don’t jump over a gate when you can open it, bossie. I crep’ out of the mealies and cast round the house; but for all I’d seen where that young Kaffir went it were many minutes afore I saw the spoor – then it were as slight as a brush of a hare’s tail. But there it were – the spoor of a man in veldschoens. You know, there’s no heel to a veldschoen, and it leaves little sign; but this yer chap had a habit of stickin’ his toes into the ground, and here and there he had kicked up a tuft o’ grass. Well, I laid down to that spoor, marking the direction the Kaffir had taken, and went at a trot, thinking all the time it were mighty queer for one Kaffir to leave his friends. When I reached the wood it was easier going, for in the bush path the naked spoor of the chief was plain enough in the dust. The spoor led deeper into the wood, crossed a stream where the white man had drunk, for there was the print of his corduroys where he had knelt, and then climbed a hill, when I went slow. The darkness was coming on, and I reckoned that the chief couldn’t be but a mile ahead. Neither he nor me could spoor in the dark, so I guessed he would pull up, an’ I didn’t want to run in on his assegai. Turnin’ away from the trail I pegged out under a rock until the spreuws whistled before sun-up, when I crept once more on the trail. ’Twere very faint now, but bymby I come on fresh spoor – so fresh I jest squatted behind a tree. Then, after a time, I marked where this new sign entered the path, and follering it back came on the spot where the chief had slept. The beggar had turned back on his trail a matter o’ fifty paces, and if so be I’d follered him in the evening he’d a’ had me sure.”

“He was up to his work!”

“Him – I guess so, lad. He were a caution for cunnin’ and bush learnin’, were the chief.”

“What chief was he?”

“This ain’t the place to bring in his name, for I didn’t know him then. I tell you it was smart work tracking him through the woods, over the hills, inter the kloofs, but Abe Pike did it sure enough, and he tracked the white man, though he were half starved and lamed in the arm, by gosh. Many a time that day, when my back ached from the bending of it, and my stummick was jammed together for want of something to eat, many a time I thought of the three of us strung out in the dark woods like tigers on the scent. Hungry, by gum! I jest chewed leaves as I went along; and sore – thunder – I kin feel now the throbbing of the wound in my arm. But I kep’ on. I tell you, young Abe Pike was tough as foreslag, and he wern’t going to cave in while that red Kaffir boy was keepin’ up. The chap in the lead, the man in veldschoens who was escaping, must a been made o’ iron too, I reckon, for he only stopped once the second day, when he ate some bread. There was some crumbs on the yearth among the grass, with the ants over ’em where he’d sat and ate, and the dry skin from a piece o’ biltong. I took a chew o’ elephant leaves, and bymby in the afternoon I seed little balls of pith, which showed the Kaffir had cut off a insengi root to chew. The white man kep’ on for twenty miles, keeping to the woods all the time where he could, and the Kaffir kep’ on arter him, and Abe Pike he kep’ on arter the Kaffir. If it hadn’t a been for that insengi root I’d a lost the spoor clean, for there were a big stretch of rock veld where they passed over, and all I could follow was white balls of chewed root. I dunno how the Kaffir picked up the trail on that stretch. He must ha’ smelt it. There were a bit o’ hill to climb, and when I reached the top my head swam, an’ I pitched down like a log. When I opened my eyes it were dark, and my bad arm was doubled up.”

“You gave up?”

“Sonny; you didn’t know young Abe – no, you didn’t. But I did. And I tell you, for all his emptiness, he jes’ kep’ on. Yes, sir – he did that I said the darkness were down, but when I looked aroun’ I seed the glimmer o’ a spark down below, an’ I kep’ my eyes on it whiles I crawled down the steep of the hill to the kloof below. Things happen sometimes, sonny, in a way that makes you very quiet an’ thoughtful. A bird flew up – a grey-wing partridge, I guess, from the whirr – and, searchin’ around, I found its eggs. They put life into me, and I steadied up – but what’s all this I’m telling you about? There’s work to be done, and if you don’t stir ’twill be sun-down and too dark. As for me, I’m going to boil the kettle.”

“But you’ve not finished telling about the spooring.”

“Ah, well, it can wait, sonny; but it’s time the kettle were put on and the mealies roasted.”

Chapter Twenty One

The Boom of the Drum

“Oh, ghoisters!” said Abe, “there’s the blamed bung come outer the vaitje and not a drop of Dop left, and all the buchu collected for the soaking.”

“Do you soak the buchu in brandy?”

“The brandy brings out the goodness from the yerb, and I tell you a dose of it gets home every time. But what’s the good – the brandy’s gone, there’s not a tickey in the stocking, and not a man in the country would offer ole Abe Pike so much as half-a-pint – not a one. The old people’s gone and the new ones, blow me – the new ones drink cold tea.”

“What about the Kaffir chief you were following Abe?”

“I ain’t follering no Kaffir chief, not me – and look here sonny, you get along home, see, ’fore it gets dark.”

“I think I could spare a gallon of brown Cango, Abe, if you come over in the morning.”

“Cango, eh! Stay right here, sonny – I’ve marked down a fine porkipine – and we’ll hunt him to-night. In the morning I’ll go over with you, arter showing you something as’ll surprise you, I bet.”

“What’s that?”

“A horn-bill sitting on her nest in a hollow tree, and the entrance built up with mud, so she can’t get out, and the cats can’t git in, by gum, an’ the ole chap a feeding her. Lor’ love yer, there’s no matchin’ animiles an’ birds for cunnin’.”

“Yet I remember you saying that young chief was very cunning.”

“So he were; lad, he were born smart; an’ them gleamin’ eyes of his’n could read the writin’ on the ground, the signs of weather, and the ways of fightin’ men better’n you could read a big print book. That’s so. I tole you how I follered him, and how he follered a chap in veldschoens all the way from the Chumie. Well, in the dark of the second evenin’ I seed a red light, and were blunderin’ on towards it, being pretty well dazed from the hunger and weakness and pain o’ my bad arm, when somethin’ in the steady glow of it brought me up with a jerk. Says I, that fire’s been long lit, there’s nothin’ but coals blazing, and whoever lit it must feel safe. Says I, who can feel safe in this yer place? Why, a Kaffir. So I slowed down to a crawl, and blow me, when I got within hearin’ distance, I seed a man by the fire. Sonny, he were the man in veldschoens.”

“The white man the chief was after.”

“’Twas a blanged half-caste, lad, that’s what he were. I saw that in the fust look by the red dook he wore roun’ his greasy head, and by the spread of his flat nose, and the sight of him kept me still, I tell you. Half-castes is mean. And to think I’d been goin’ hungry to save a thing like that, and him a sitting there with his mouth all smeared with black coal from the bried meat he were eatin’. The smell of it came to me where I lay in the shadder, an’ I tell you it made me sick with longing for a bite, but I jes’ kept there sniffin’ till the faintness left me. Well, all ov a sudden I seed his jaws stop, and his eyes had that sort o’ fixed look which they has when a man’s listenin’. Then, without movin’ his body, he reached out for his gun. Yes, sonny, he reached out for his gun with his eyes starin’ straight for me, and I kivered him. While I was gettin’ ready to shoot, outer the darkness behin’ him there come a voice callin’ in greetin’, ‘Gumela vietu!’ I giv’ a start, but that ere half-caste he never stirred. The hand that was reachin’ out for his gun stopped, his jaws began to move, but his voice were a bit shaky when he said ‘Gumela inkose!’ and there was a sort o’ hunchin’ of his shoulders as tho’ he felt the assegai going in. For a spell there was silence, then from the wall o’ blackness there stepped to the fire the young chief hisself. I see the gleam o’ his ivory bracelet. With his toe he moved the gun away. Then he reached down, took up a length of roasting flesh, caught hold of a mouthful and saw off the chunk with the blade of his assegai ’twixt his hand and his lips. He jes’ ate and ate, an’ the smell o’ the meat made my stummick heave an’ grumble most horrible.”