Chapter Thirty Four.
There was a thoughtful look in Honor’s eyes when, leaving Butter Tom to the unaccustomed task of valeting the wounded baas, she stepped forth into the sunshine and walked with a certain weary reluctance towards the homestead. She was tired with her overnight vigil, and the emotional scene in the rondavel was succeeded by a feeling of exhaustion and nervous reaction. For the first time within her knowledge the thought of her cause failed to sustain her; and more than once the question formed itself in her mind whether after all this sacrifice of life were justified even in the securing of national independence? She had never doubted before. She had been as positive of the right and the urgency of their cause as she had felt certain of its ultimate success. Despite Herman Nel’s opposition, she had believed, until results proved the error of her hopes, in the whole-hearted co-operation of the entire Dutch community. Heinrich had assured her that the Boers would rise to a man. The treaty of Vereeniging was but another scrap of paper which the Teutonic mind lightly disregarded. Honor had disregarded it also, as a contract signed under compulsion by the leaders against the will of the majority; she felt that it was in no sense binding on the Dutch as a whole. Matheson’s statement that they were a people who had never known discipline stuck in her mind. Broadly it was true. The Boer does not submit readily to being governed, even by his own leaders. It is a nation in the making, without any of the traditions of an older race to guide it, but with sufficiently fine ideals from which to evolve traditions of its own. Clear-sighted men, like Nel, realised that there was nothing to be gained by fighting; the peaceful development of the country would best serve their interests.
That morning, in a state of physical and mental fatigue, Honor allowed her thoughts to dwell for the first time on the possibility of failure. Matheson had shaken her confidence; and in reminding her that her own brother’s life might be sacrificed to the cause she so ardently espoused, he had caused her enthusiasm a rude check. She had not considered the toll in human life that would be exacted: the grim ugliness of war had been lost sight of in the dazzling prospect of victory. It did not seem to her possible that Andreas could be killed. If that should happen, the triumph of their cause would prove a hollow mockery, and her mother’s tragic life would end in added sadness. It was too big a price, Honor felt in her overwrought and dispirited mood—too big a price to pay even for victory.
As she neared the homestead, coming towards her, she recognised her husband. She was unprepared to meet him there at that hour. He had ridden over from Benfontein. She wondered a little impatiently what brought him. His presence there so early in the morning disconcerted her. Although he was aware that she was sharing with her mother the care of the sick man, and had given her permission to dress Matheson’s wound and aid Mrs Krige with her professional knowledge, his acquiescence had not included sitting up with the patient at night: he had supposed she would sleep beneath Leentje Nel’s roof. It never occurred to him that Matheson’s case called for particular care. The wound was not serious—a flesh wound only; he saw no reason why the women should make a fuss over a mere scratch. In his opinion his own hurt called for greater consideration. His throat was sore and swollen; he had difficulty in swallowing. But Honor had expressed little sympathy with him. She had left him alone all night to care for the man who had injured him. He felt resentful; and he was angry with her because of her concern for the Englishman. What was this cursed Englishman to her that she should feel it her duty to tend him?
“You are over early,” she said, when she came up with him. “I didn’t expect you.”
“So I supposed,” he answered roughly, and turned and walked back beside her. “I’ve been to the farm. Leentje told me you were at the rondavel. I was going to fetch you. What were you doing there? I don’t choose that my wife should spend the night with any man, sick or well.”
She flushed warmly.
“Some one had to watch beside him,” she said with immense restraint. “There was no one else to do it.”
“Absurd!” he replied angrily. “The nigger is good enough to wait on him. There was no one to look after me.”
“You were not so badly hurt,” she returned, in a voice which despite its quiet tones should have warned him of her rising anger. She did not look at him; her eyes searched the landscape ahead of her, and rested with tired satisfaction on the dew-drenched sparse vegetation, cobwebbed with silver threads.
“I feel sick enough,” he said savagely. “But that’s nothing to you. Leentje Nel wouldn’t nurse her husband’s murderer.”
Honor smiled briefly.
“You are very aggressively alive for a murdered man,” she said. She touched his sleeve diffidently. “Don’t be cross, Heinrich. I’m tired—so very tired. And this morning I am racked with anxious fears—fears for Andreas—fears for the cause. The country is not with us.”
Holman made an angry gesture and spat upon the ground.
“White-livered curs!” he muttered. “Everything was in our hands. They’ve sold us—these pitiful Boers. They’re afraid for their blessed skins.”
Her anger flamed forth at this unjustifiable aspersion on the part of a man who was taking only an inactive share in the war. At no period in their history had the Boers earned that reproach—the people who had paid in blood for their right to a place in the dark continent.
“That comes ill from you,” she said. “At least, we don’t shirk the fighting. Men who fear for their skins don’t take up arms against one another. There is evidence enough in this district alone to refute your accusation of cowardice. There isn’t a farm within miles of us but some of its men have joined the fighting.”
“But they don’t hang together,” he persisted sullenly.
“They don’t all think alike,” she allowed; “but they possess the courage of their different convictions, and the courage to fight for them.”
“I spoke in the heat of the moment,” he conceded ungraciously. “It makes me sick to see this great opportunity wasted. You have your chance now to secure independence; it may never come again. And men like Botha and Smuts are simply tying your hands. Leentje has received a message from Cornelius; it came through this morning. Colonel Brand has sent an insulting letter to de Wet. Everywhere Botha’s following is superior to our forces. Our commandoes are simply giving way and fleeing before them. It’s a rout, unless they combine and stand firm; but they give way before the opposition they didn’t anticipate. They aren’t putting up anything of a fight.”
“Cornelius and Andreas won’t give way,” she said proudly.
“Cornelius and Andreas are but two men,” he answered bitterly; “and the voices of two men in a commando are apt to be drowned by the rest.”
Honor walked on without speaking; and in her thoughts the phrase beat insistently: “What will it benefit you to hoist your flag over the body of your brother?” Hot tears welled in her tired eyes, her steps dragged wearily. It did not seem to her at the moment to matter much which side won if only Andreas came through.
“Oh, this war!” she said sadly... “This war! it tears at the heart-strings. Nothing can make good to a woman for the lives of the men she loves.”
“Oh, that!” he returned indifferently. “I didn’t expect to hear such talk from you. That’s the view of the sentimentalist. One doesn’t reckon lives with so much at stake.”
So much at stake! What stake could be greater than the flower of the nations’ manhood which was being sacrificed?
In the farmhouse when they reached it commotion reigned. Leentje Nel was talking in loud excited tones, and two of the children, who were frightened by the noise and whom their mother had slapped soundly in her anger, added their cries to the uproar which greeted Honor’s arrival. Mrs Krige was doing her utmost to restore peace. When Honor entered she found her mother with one wailing child in her arms and another clinging to her skirt, soothing them as best she could, while Leentje held forth bitterly on the pestilential English—the English who had promised to protect them, and who instead had set English magistrates over them to harass them with fines, and make life intolerable, so that they couldn’t flog a native even without having to pay for it in hard cash. Such a state of things could not be endured. The South African Dutch would not submit to being ruled any longer by the pestilential English. The English would be beaten by the Germans, and then South Africa would belong to the Boers.
It struck Honor while she listened as a wholly inadequate and very paltry reason for which to risk valuable lives. It was not any reason at all; it partook rather of the nature of a long-cherished revenge for past wrongs which later events had ceased to justify. Matheson had summed up the situation correctly: the country was governed for the benefit of the white races impartially and for the good of the native community. That state of affairs could not in any event be improved upon.
Leentje turned eagerly as Honor entered, followed by her husband, and, confident of her audience, broke forth anew.
“Here’s a pretty letter from Cornelius,” she cried, and flourished the paper in Honor’s face. “His commando is retreating. They run like buck before the hunter. Naturally they expected the South African Dutch to stand as one man to crush this unholy scandal. When they find through the ungodly policy of Botha that they are opposed to their own people they give way. The men are surrendering, Cornelius says, individually and in small parties. Pah! May the Almighty desert these cowards in their hour of need. May they die and rot and be prey for the jackals. And those Dutch who won’t give up their horses to them, and everything else they possess, may they rot likewise and die miserably. Our men are short of mounts, short of ammunition, short of everything.” Her voice rose to a shrill scream. “For years we have been planning this, and when the hour strikes nothing is ready. Every horse on this farm is commandeered. There is only the miserable horse the cursed Englishman brought with him. That must be taken. If you had the courage of Jael, Honor, the Englishman would never leave the rondavel to fight against us.”
Swiftly, on an impulse, she turned towards Holman, the fire of inextinguishable hate in her eyes.
“Why don’t you shoot this English dog for us? We are only women; but if you won’t do this thing, I will.”
Holman shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“You will have the English magistrates after you, Leentje,” was all he said, purposely goading her.
She smiled grimly.
“The English magistrates won’t frighten me,” she said. “They are set over the districts to cow the men.”
She folded the letter in her hand and thrust it savagely in her bosom, and stared meaningly at Honor.
“‘She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer,’” she quoted softly. “‘Blessed shall she be above women in the tent... The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice. Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?’ ... There is work here worthy of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.”
Slowly, without speaking, Honor left the room. She passed through into the kitchen, and from the kitchen went out into the hot unshaded yard. For a minute or so she waited, as one who expects to be followed, then, with steps as light and fleet as a fawn’s, she sped away in the direction of the rondavel.