The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington squire’s, and Copper found himself saying: “I ought to. I’ve ’elped burn some.”
“Yes, you’ll pay for that later. And he opened a store.”
“Ho! Shopkeeper was he?”
“The kind you call “Sir” and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik…. You see, in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father did. Then the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat them six times running. You know thatt—eh?”
“Isn’t what we’ve come ’ere for.”
“But my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the English. I suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated him—eh? Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country. So—you see—he was a little startled when he found himself handed over to the Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That’s what it came to, Tommy—a prisoner of war. You know what that is—eh? England was too honourable and too gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made for my father.”
“So ’e made ’em ’imself. Useful old bird.” Private Copper sliced up another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes, through which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike quiet Cuckmere.
The young man’s face darkened. “I think I shall sjambok you myself when I’ve quite done with you. No, my father (he was a fool) made no terms for eight years—ninety-six months—and for every day of them the Transvaal made his life hell for my father and—his people.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said the impenitent Copper.
“Are you? You can think of it when I’m taking the skin off your back—eh?… My father, he lost everything—everything down to his self-respect. You don’t know what thatt means—eh?”