Perhaps it is finished, he thought and lifted the battered old Terai
from his head. Perhaps we should admit that it is finished, and go in
to them. He wiped his face with his scarf and the cloth came away
discoloured with the grease of his sweat and the dust of the dry land.
He folded the scarf into the pocket of his coat and looked at the fire,
blackened ruins of the homestead on the bluff above the river.
The fire had spread into the gum trees and the leaves were sere and
yellow and dead.
'No,' he said aloud. 'It is not finished, not until we try for this
last time, ' and he moved, towards the nearest group of his men.
'Ja, Hennie. How goes it?' he asked.
'Not too bad, Oom Paul. ' The boy was very thin, but then all of them
were thin. He had spread his saddle blanket in the grass and lay upon
it.
'Good. ' Jan Paulus nodded and squatted beside him. He took out his
pipe and sucked on it. There was still the taste of tobacco from the
empty bowl.
, Will you take a fill, Oom Paul?' One of the others sat up and
proffered a pouch of springbok skin.
'Nee, dankie. ' He looked away from the pouch, shutting out the
temptation. 'Keep it for a smoke when we cross the Vaal.'
'Or when we ride into Cape Town, ' joked Hennie, and Jan Paulus smiled
at him. Cape Town was a thousand miles south of them, but that was
where they were going.
'Ja, keep it for Cape Town,' he agreed and the smile on his face turned
bitter. Bullets and disease had left him with six hundred ragged men
on horses half, dead with exhaustion to conquer a province the size of
France. But it was the last try. He started to speak then.
'Already Jannie Smuts is into the Cape, with a big commando.
Pretorius also has crossed the Orange, De la Rey and De Wet will
follow, and Zietsmann is waiting for us to join him on the Vaal
River.
This time the Cape burghers must rise with us. This time . . . ' He
spoke slowly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, a gaunt
giant of a man with his unkempt, ginger beard wiry with dust and
streaked about the mouth with yellowish grey. The cuffs of his sleeves
were stained with the discharge from the veld sores on his wrists. Men
came across from the other groups and squatted in a circle about him to
listen and take comfort.
'Hennie, bring my Bible from the saddle, bag. We will read a little
from the Book.'
The sun was setting when he closed the Book and looked around at them.
An hour had gone in prayer that might more profitably have been spent
in rest, but when he looked at their faces he knew the time had not
been wasted.
'Sleep now, Kerels. We will up saddle early tomorrow.' If they do not
come in the night, he qualified himself silently.
But he could not sleep. He sat propped against his saddle and for the
hundredth time re, read the letter from Henrietta. It was dated four
