From Veldt Camp Fires

Chapter Five.

The Conquest of Christina De Klerk

The few hunters, traders, and Trek Boers who cross the dreaded Thirstland of the Northern Kalahari, and, upon their long and trying journey towards Lake Ngami, strike the Lake River (marked upon the maps Zouga or Botletli River), well know the pleasant outspan at Masinya’s Kraal. Masinya’s is a small village of Bakurutse natives, planted a mile or so from the southern bank of the Lake River. Between the kraal and the river, amid a thin grove of spreading giraffe-acacia trees, set upon a little islet of rising ground, lies the outspan where travellers bound to and from Ngami usually halt. On the right, a hundred and fifty yards from the tall, oak-like motjeerie tree, which every hunter knows, lies a deep depression, which, fed by the overflow of the Lake River, assumes the aspect of a handsome lagoon, at some seasons full and deep, at others a mere shallow vlei. Beyond the lagoon lie the hard, sun-baked alluvial flats which border the sluggish river. Upon the southern and western sides of the charming oasis of Masinya’s Kraal stretch the great open grass plains, flecked with springboks, and dotted here and there with a troop of larger game, which fifteen or twenty miles away are checked by the endless and waterless forest and bush of the Kalahari – that vast desert which, thanks to its lack of surface water, lies to this day dim, unknown, and mysterious to all races of mankind, save the wandering Bushmen and Vaalpens who inhabit it.

Upon the 28th of December, 1878, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, a great Cape waggon, conspicuous by its new white tilt and spick-and-span paint, toiled heavily across the flat towards Masinya’s Kraal. Presently, urged by the excited yells of the driver and the pistol-like cracks of his great whip, the eighteen stout oxen rose the slight sandy ascent, and a little further drew up their burden under the shade of a spreading acacia. A white woman, young, dark, and good-looking, her face shaded by a broad-brimmed straw hat, sat upon the box; and as the great waggon halted she descended with light foot to the dry, grassy soil, shook herself a little, adjusted her hat, and looked about her. The first thing her brown eyes lit upon was another waggon and encampment some hundred and fifty yards to her right.

Kate Marston was a colonial-born girl, and understood the ways and signs of the veldt well enough. Something about the look of the encampment, the old buck-sail stretched from the waggon to a couple of friendly tree stems (thus forming an apartment in itself), the travel-worn waggon, its tilt patched with raw hides, and a general air of untidiness, convinced her that it belonged to a Boer owner. The sight of a female figure sitting under the lee of the waggon in a squat chair, and her immense Dutch kapje, or sun-bonnet, at once settled that conviction.

But Kate Marston had plenty to do at present before troubling herself about a visit to her neighbour. Her husband, Fred Marston, was away in the veldt, hunting, and she wished to have her camp settled, her tent-sail fixed, some of her belongings got out of the waggon, the fires lighted, and the evening meal prepared against his return, which she expected towards sundown. In half an hour’s time, thanks to her brisk and energetic ways, things were settling themselves as she wished. The tent-sail was fastened down, the little folding camp-table – flanked by a couple of waggon chairs – in its place and covered with a clean table-cloth (even in the wilderness, Kate, with her English ways, loved to be neat), a fire of wood blazed cheerfully, the game stew was simmering in the big Kaffir pot. These things being attended to, Kate had washed her hands and face after the day of trekking, brushed her thick, dark hair; and now, in her thin light brown stuff dress, clean collar and cuffs, and broad sun-hat, looked as fresh, bright, and cheerful as if she had just issued from her bedroom in some well-found house, instead of from a mere rude travelling home in the wilderness. Kate Marston, the daughter of a well-to-do British settler in Griqualand West, had recently married, and was now, two months after her wedding, travelling in the hunting veldt with her husband – a trip she had looked forward to with the keenest anticipation for more than a year past. It was the dream of her life. Although very well-educated at the Cape, Kate, brought up on a colonial farm, loved the free, unfettered life of the veldt. She rode well, was a good shot with the fowling-piece, and, before settling down on a Transvaal farm in Marico, had persuaded her husband to take her with him on an expedition into the far interior. Rough though the journey had been through Bechuanaland, Khama’s country, and across the parched wastes of the Kalahari, Kate had loved it all. To her each day brought with it new delights – scenes and memories, of which, to the latest day of her existence, she could never be deprived. Fred Marston, her husband, a man of two-and-thirty, had done very well for years past as a trader and elephant hunter. He was about settling down for life in the Transvaal – now for a year past proclaimed a British possession; and before retiring from the wild life of the wilderness he was thus trekking with his wife, on a journey of pure pleasure and hunting, towards Lake Ngami.

A native boy had strolled across from the Boer camp, and from him Kate Marston had learned the name of the Dutch woman sitting over yonder. It was de Klerk. Her husband was an elephant hunter from the Northern Transvaal. They had a good load of ivory, gleaned during a year or two of adventure, and the wife, husband, and two children were now on their way down-country. Kate was not very sure of her reception if she went across. The Transvaal Dutch were, since the annexation of their country, not only disaffected towards the British Government, but rude and uncivil towards individual English folk. However, Kate understood the Dutch and their language exceedingly well, and her cheerful nature inclined her to be friendly. She had often before now thawed the stubborn reserve of a Boer huis-vrouw. She would go across and pay the Dutch camp a visit. A walk of less than two hundred yards, and she stood by the de Klerks’ waggon.

Now Vrouw de Klerk had heard from her native servant, sent casually across to pick up news, who and what the new arrivals were. She was not much comforted. She had hoped to see the faces of Dutch folk. Here were only English, whom she hated. However, she was not to be caught napping. She had washed her children’s faces and hands and her own, pinned a big bow of blue ribbon at her throat, and put on a clean kapje, and had even donned a nearly new black alpaca apron. She sat under the waggon sail, cutting up dried onions into a tin dish; but as Kate Marston approached she made no attempt to meet her. She was not a bad-looking woman, Christina de Klerk, as Boers – who are not noted for female beauty – go. She had plenty of light brown hair, drawn tightly back from her face and knotted under her great sun-bonnet; but the face was – as is so often the case with Afrikander Dutch women – broad, high boned, and absolutely lacking in colour; the blue eyes were somewhat pale and colourless; and although she was a young woman – little more than three-and-twenty – a dull, stolid, even hard expression was already settling itself for life upon her lineaments. Christina was a tall, big woman, but her figure was thick, heavy, and altogether devoid of grace; stiff and unyielding it was as her own nature.

Bred up in a remote back-country in Waterberg – scarcely educated at all – if reading with no great ease from the great family Bible can be called education, Christina had, like most of her fellows, a mind almost untouched by civilisation; a mind narrow, bigoted, and prejudiced to a degree almost inconceivable to denizens of modern Europe. But when all was said and done, allowances were to be made for Christina de Klerk. The grandchild of one of those Dutch families which had quitted the Cape and thrown off English rule in the Great Trek of 1836; the daughter of a frontiersman, who, after making himself a home in the wilds of the Northern Transvaal, had seen his beloved republic entered and possessed by the very British from whom he and his parents had trekked; she had from infancy been nurtured in a blind and unreasoning hatred against all English people. Just now, as Kate Marston advanced and stood before her tent, her naturally grave and impassive face had assumed a very sour and unpleasant look. Christina had surveyed with rapid sidelong glances the Englishwoman’s approach; she now took a full, steady, but by no means friendly look at her as Kate halted and spoke. In these glances and in that look she had time to observe that the Englishwoman was young, very good-looking, and – in a Boer woman’s eyes – well-dressed. All this tended little to lull her wrath. The woman, she felt, was her superior. She hated her for it. And as Kate spoke in a soft, clear English voice, with that lip speech which, to users of the rough, thick, guttural Dutch, seems mincing and super-refined, Christina detested her yet more. Her husband hated the English, her father and grandfather had hated them; now at this moment her spirit rose in a burning flame of resentment against the woman who had come to speak to her.

“Good evening, Vrouw de Klerk,” said Kate pleasantly.

“Good evening,” repeated Christina in a low, subacid voice, looking away into her bowl of sliced onions.

“We have just come up-country and I hear you are on your journey out I thought I should like just to step across and ask if there is anything we can do for you. We have plenty of stores on our waggon. You may be short of coffee, sugar, or other things? And I thought, too, perhaps, as you have been away in the veldt so long, you might like to have news from down-country.”

Christina no longer looked away, but now stared straight into the Englishwoman’s face. A faint flush had risen upon her dull cheeks; her anger, the pent-up hatred of years, was now at boiling point.

“I want to know and hear nothing,” she replied in a hard, set voice, with much energy. “The English have stolen our Transvaal country; we have nothing to say to them until we have got that country back. You took the Old Colony from us. You took Natal, which we won with our blood. Now you have taken the Transvaal. Ach! and yet you are surprised that we hate you. If I were dying I would not take one drop of cold water from an Englishwoman. We are enemies. You know it. And yet you must pursue us even here in the veldt. I want to have nothing to do with your people at all or at any time!”

Kate was a good deal staggered at this outburst, but she knew the Dutch and their uncouth ways; she knew that their bark is often far worse than their bite. In a perfectly calm tone, but with some spirit, she replied:

“Your welcome is surely a churlish one, Mevrouw de Klerk, and your accusations are very absurd. I am an Afrikander, like yourself, and I know of these things. I will grant that perhaps the Dutch in the Old Colony had some reason for their Great Trek. But that is a tale more than eighty years old, which should surely be forgotten. As for Natal, there were, as I happen to know – for my mother was a Natal colonist – English traders at Port Durban years before the Boers trekked into the country. And for the Transvaal, surely you must admit that your weakness and misgovernment was so great that the English Government had to step in to save your country and the rest of South Africa from Zulu and other native dangers.”

Vrouw de Klerk was preparing to answer vigorously. Kate Marston raised her hand. “Stop,” she said, “I won’t argue the matter further. I’ll just say Good evening and go back to my waggon. Perhaps when you come to think it over you will see that you have been rude and unreasonable to a stranger in the veldt – even an English Afrikander has feelings. If I can help you in any way, if you want anything, send over to our waggon and you can have it with pleasure. Your children there,” – looking at the two fat Dutch kinder, staring with blue eyes and moon faces at the dreadful Englishwoman – “may want something, perhaps.” So speaking, Kate turned on her heel and walked back to the camp.

Christina de Klerk sat glaring for a full minute at Kate’s back as she walked away. She was turning over in her dull, slow-moving mind some scathing retort upon her adversary’s statements. But Kate was now too far away. She rose with a snort of defiance, and, muttering angrily to herself, went off to the fire with her sliced onions. These she threw into a three-legged pot, adding to the meat already there a pinch or two of salt and pepper, and then bestirred herself towards the cookies of Boer meal baking among the embers.

Kate Marston, not a little vexed and put out at her unexpected reception, strolled back to her waggon, and then, moving fifty yards beyond, sat down with her back to a tree to enjoy the sunset and watch for the approach of her husband. She was upon the edge of the grove, and the great grass plains stretched away at her feet in illimitable monotones of green and yellow – green where the natives had fired the veldt, and the recent rain had induced fresh vegetation; yellow where belts and patches of last year’s grass, which had escaped the fire, yet remained. It was nearing sundown; the western sky was ablaze with colour; far up towards the zenith the gorgeous hues of crimson and orange faded off to amber, and yet higher the heavens were of a wondrous clear, pale sea-green. The plains were just now bathed in a rich warm glow. As Kate looked she could see droves of springbok dotted here and there, their white backs and under parts showing up curiously in the mellow light of evening. It was a wonderful hour, and amid that vast calm and the soothing glamour of the scene Kate’s ruffled feelings soon assumed their wonted peacefulness.

Her eyes, ranging over the vast expanse, presently lit upon something that arrested her attention. There were two figures far away in the sea of grass; surely one of them would be her husband? She watched, and presently made out that one of the objects was much taller than the other. What could it mean? A little while and the two figures rose clearer before her gaze. Now, at last, she understood what they meant Fred Marston had found a number of giraffe, and turned one out of the troop, and, aided by a masterly use of the wind, had succeeded in driving the tall creature in front of him right up to his own waggon. Skilled South African hunters can achieve this feat with the eland and giraffe, but the giraffe is usually far more difficult to ride into camp than the eland.

Closer came the strange group. The giraffe was tiring, and now, instead of galloping in its clumsy yet swift fashion, paced with giant, shuffling strides across the veldt, with something of the gait of a camel. A hundred yards from where Kate sat, quietly watching this singular spectacle, the great dappled giant stood. It had caught sight of the waggon and of figures moving among the trees, and would go no further. The tall quadruped, full seventeen feet in height, its rich, dark, chestnut-pied coat gleaming warmly beneath the flush of sunset, stood for a full minute absolutely motionless, as these animals will do. It looked like some strange figure of bronze, the creature of a vanished age. Thirty paces to the right Fred Marston had reined in his horse and stood expectant.

“There you are, Kate!” he shouted, cheerily, as his wife rose. “A real good giraffe cow, fat as butter, and in splendid coat. I’ve had the dickens’ own trouble with her, though. She was as obstinate as a mule.”

Kate clapped her hands together. “Oh, how wonderful!” she exclaimed. It was the first giraffe she had ever set eyes on.

The cow still stood, and Fred Marston rode nearer to his wife. He was a strong, good-looking, fair-bearded man, and, sitting there easily in his saddle, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his rifle butt resting on his right thigh, the dying light full on his sunburnt face and arms, he looked, as Kate thought, a true man of the veldt.

“How wonderful!” she repeated; “and what a height, and what a lovely colour. It seems a sin to shoot her!”

“My dear Kate,” answered her husband, “we want meat for the camp badly, and the Masarwa spoorers expect it. I can’t let her go.”

“Well,” responded Kate, “I won’t see her shot, poor thing,” and with one last look at the tall creature still standing there, an almost pathetic sight, with a half sigh she turned and went back to the waggon. As she moved, the giraffe swung round and shuffled off. But her time had come. Marston cantered a little wide and ahead of her. As she came past, his rifle went up, the report rang out, and a Martini-Henry bullet drove into the great cow’s heart. She staggered, tottered twenty paces, and then with a mighty crash fell to the earth dead.

Kate and her husband, after a cosy supper, sat long, chatting by the camp fire that evening. She told him of her reception at the Boer waggon. He related his adventures in the veldt that day. A little before ten, they turned into their waggon, in the forepart of which a comfortable kartel-bed was slung, closed the fore-clap (curtain), and their camp presently rested in a profound peace.

But at Christina de Klerk’s camp there was no peace that night. At ten o’clock her husband’s native after-rider, “September,” a Hottentot, who had before dawn on the previous morning ridden out with his master across the plains, walked up to the camp fire, leading his lame and foundered pony behind him. The man was himself far gone with fatigue. His mistress had long since retired to her waggon, but he had ill news, and he called her up. His news was this:

They had found a good troop of giraffe soon after they entered the forest; but in a long run up to the game Adriaan de Klerk had sustained a bad fall, pitching upon his head. He recovered in a couple of hours’ time, thanks to the Hottentot’s care; but after that, September said, he had behaved like a madman. The fall had turned his brain somehow. He insisted, against September’s entreaties, in pursuing the giraffes, which had now got far too great an advantage. But de Klerk said, angrily, he wanted “kameel” skins (Kameel, literally Camel, the Boer name for giraffes), he could get 2 pounds 10 shillings apiece for them in Marico, and he would ride till he came up with them. All through the hot afternoon they rode without off-saddling; the Baas had a terrible thirst, and drank up most of the water they carried. At nightfall, with jaded horses, they off-saddled in the bush and lay down to sleep. It was a bad night, said September. The Baas was very restless, and constantly moaned and talked in his sleep. Before dawn he was up again, and insisted upon going on. September begged and pleaded. He warned his master that with failing horses and no water they might easily be cast away and die of thirst. All Adriaan de Klerk could say was that he was going on till he came up with the giraffes. He told September to ride back to camp for water. The Hottentot said he would not go without his master. De Klerk was plainly beside himself. He raised his rifle and told the man if he did not turn his horse’s head and go he would shoot him. And so September had ridden home. His horse was lame and knocked up; there was not another in camp. What was he to do? If the Baas was not rescued within forty-eight hours he would die of thirst.

Christina had a stout heart, as have most of the Afrikander Dutch women-folk, but September’s story, and above all his manner, convinced her that her husband, alone, without water, his mind wandering, was in supreme danger. She rose from the kartel – like most up-country Boers she slept in her clothes – buttoned her bodice, and came to the fire. An inspection of September’s pony at once convinced her that the animal was unable to travel further. As it was, September had been compelled to walk by its side during most of that day’s journey home. It was dead lame and suffering from the effects of fatigue and two days’ thirst.

What was she to do? Christina stood there with the Hottentot by the fire-blaze, discussing every possible plan. They might carry water by the aid of natives. But that would involve waiting till the morning, and even then a journey of probably more than forty miles would have to be taken on foot. And then, as September pointed out, it was more than likely that Masinya’s people, who were not over fond of the Boers, would point-blank refuse to go. And all this time Adriaan de Klerk, his mind unhinged by his fall and set upon one impossible object, might be plunging yet further into that waterless and inhospitable wilderness. His image rose clear before her mind’s eye: the thirsting, haggard man, the sinking horse, and then the terrible end, and the vultures streaming down from the sky! She knew but too well the danger. What, oh God! what should she do? Leaving the tired Hottentot to squat over the fire, she paced frantically up and down near the waggon, turning over impossible projects in her agonised mind.

It was a glorious night. The moon, shining in unspeakable majesty, cast its silvery spell over the distant plain and upon bush and grass near at hand; its amazing light pierced the foliage of the acacias and wrought wondrous patterns beneath her feet. The clear army of the stars, the deep blue mysterious vault above, the ineffable calm of night; all these things availed nothing to the woman’s troubled soul. Her agony of mind increased. Suddenly her eyes fell upon the white waggon tilt of the Englishman’s camp. There, of course, was a way out of the difficulty. There were fresh horses, four or five of them. With these, help and water could be carried to her husband!

But then, upon the instant, her thoughts ran back to the afternoon, to her rough, unkindly reception of the Englishwoman. She knew in her inmost soul that she had not done the right thing, thus to meet a stranger in the veldt – even if that stranger were an Englishwoman. Was her trouble a judgment upon her? But here her stubborn Dutch pride came to her aid. Could she go across to that camp and ask help?

Never! Never!

The night slowly passed, and still Christina de Klerk paced up and down the grove, sometimes resting for a brief spell upon the disselboom of her waggon. In her agony of mind it seemed that the day would never dawn, the light in the east never pale the sky.

At seven o’clock next morning, as Kate Marston, fresh and beaming, was putting the finishing touches to her toilet under the waggon sail, which, flanked by canvas screens, served as her dressing-room, her husband called to her. She came forth, and there, wan and dishevelled, her eyes red with weeping, stood Christina de Klerk. She told her piteous tale. She acknowledged that she had been unpardonably rude the afternoon before. It was a judgment upon her. A judgment sent by the Heer God to humble her pride. And now would the Englishwoman and her husband forgive and help her? She could not live without her husband. She had children. They would take pity on her in her trouble. In all her life, never had Christina de Klerk known a bitterer moment, thus to humble herself before the detested English.

The tears sprang into Kate’s eyes at the poor woman’s story, her too evident distress. “Why, Me’Vrouw de Klerk,” she said cheerfully, “of course my husband will help you. Will you not, Fred? We should be a poor kind of English folk, indeed, if we could listen to a trouble like yours without doing all we could for you.”

“Wait ten minutes, Me’Vrouw de Klerk,” said Marston, taking her by the hand, “while I swallow some breakfast and get the nags saddled, and we’ll go at once with water on your husband’s spoor.” In fifteen minutes, taking a spare horse loaded up with two vatjes of water, and September, the Hottentot, on another fresh nag, to act as guide, he set forth.