I was right about the sjambok, which was not mentioned on our return. I spent the remainder of the afternoon putting more stones on Granpa Chook’s grave and making a border around the pile of rocks with white pebbles which took ages to collect from all around the place. I must say, the toughest damn chicken in the whole world had a very impressive grave, a stone cairn which would probably last forever, hidden by successive generations of khaki weed and black jack.
The cook boy had packed me a big brown paper bag of sandwiches for the train journey. We left the hostel about five o’clock to catch the seven o’clock train. My suitcase, though large, contained very few things. Two shirts, two pairs of khaki shorts, my pyjamas, the four suckers which I’d hidden in a pair of shorts and my new tackies with the paper boats in them. There was plenty of room for the sandwiches. While the suitcase banged against my knees, it wasn’t really heavy and besides, with all the iron bar torture sessions, my muscles were pretty big. Mevrou was completely puffed out from making two trips into town in one day, and with the suitcase banging against my knees it took us almost an hour to get to the station.
The station turned out to be a raised platform about thirty yards long upon which sat a building with two doors facing the railway line. On one door Station Master was written and to the right of this door was a window. Above the window it read Tickets. On the remaining door it said Waiting Room. Outside the station master’s office there were three truck tyres painted white and in the middle of these grew red cannas, their long, flat leaves dusty and shredded, with the blooms equally torn and bedraggled looking. Mevrou seemed to know the station master. He opened the locked waiting room for us and brought her a cup of coffee in a big white cup with SAR monogrammed on it.
‘Don’t worry, Hoppie Groenewald is the guard on this train, he will take good care of the boy.’ He turned to acknowledge me for the first time. ‘He is champion of the railways, you know. That Hoppie,’ the station master grinned at the thought, ‘he laughs all the time, but if you get into a fight, I’m telling you, man, you better pray he’s on your side!’
I wondered what a champion of the railways was, but I clearly understood, and greatly liked, the idea of having someone on my side who was good in a fight. My life seemed to be made for trouble and it would make a nice change to have a champion of the railways beside me when the next lot hit, as was bound to happen.
Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swivelled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark. Hoppie Groenewald was to prove to be a passing mentor who would set the next seventeen years of my life on an irrevocable course. He would do so in little more than a day and a night.
‘The boy is a Rooinek and also too small to fight yet,’ Mevrou said, as though it were only a matter of time before my bad English blood would turn nasty. She produced a ticket from an envelope and inserted a large safety pin into the hole at one end. ‘Come here, child.’ She pinned the ticket to my shirt pocket. ‘Listen carefully to me now, man, this ticket will take you to Barberton but your oupa only sent enough money for one breakfast and one lunch and one supper on the train. Tonight you eat only one sandwich, you hear?’ I nodded. ‘Tomorrow for breakfast another one and for lunch the last one. Then you can eat on the train. Do you understand now?’
‘Ja, Mevrou, for the next three meals I eat the sandwiches.’
‘No, man! That’s not what I said. For tonight and for breakfast tomorrow and lunch tomorrow. And also eat the meat first because the jam will keep the bread soft for tomorrow. Do you hear?’
‘Ja, Mevrou.’
She took out a small square of white cloth about the size of a lady’s hanky and placed it on her lap. In the centre she placed a shilling.
‘Watch carefully now, Pisskop. I am putting this shilling in here and tying it so.’ She brought the two opposite corners together and tied them over the shilling and then did the same with the remaining two. She took a second large safety pin from her handbag, then, pushing the doek with the shilling into the pocket of my khaki shorts, she pinned it to the lining.
‘Now listen good. It is for an emergency. Only if you have to can you use some of it. But you must tie up the change like I just showed you and put it back in your pocket with the safety pin. If you don’t need it you must give it to your oupa, it is his change.’
The station master entered and told us that the train was on time and we had five minutes.
‘Quick, man, get your tackies,’ Mevrou said, giving me a push towards the suitcase.
I was seized by a sudden panic. What if I opened my suitcase and she saw my suckers? I placed the case flat on the floor and opened it so the lid was between Mevrou and me, preventing her from seeing inside. Just as well, a green sucker had worked out of its hiding place in my shorts and my heart went thump. Phew! I removed the tackies and quickly snapped the case shut. I slipped each foot carefully into a paper boat and Mevrou tied the laces. I tried desperately to memorise how she did this but wasn’t sure I had the idea.
‘Please, Mevrou, will you teach me how to tie the laces so I can take my tackies off in the train?’
Mevrou looked up, alarmed. ‘You must not take your tackies off until you get to Barberton. If you lose them your oupa will think I stole the money he sent. You keep them on, do you hear me now?’
The train could be heard a long way off and we left the waiting room to watch it coming in. Real walking in my tackies was difficult and very different from the three or four tentative steps I had taken in Harry Crown’s shop. I stumbled several times as I went phlifft-floft, phlifft-floft from the waiting room to the edge of the platform. Bits of newspaper crept up past my ankles and I had to stop and press them back in.
With a deafening choof of steam, immediately followed by two short sharp hisses and a screeching sound of metal rubbing on metal, the huge train pulled into the station, and carriage after carriage of black people went by. They were laughing and sticking their heads out of windows and having themselves a proper good time. Finally the last two carriages and the goods van came to a halt neatly lined up with the platform The two end carriages read South African Railways First Class and Second Class respectively. I had seen pictures of trains of course, and sometimes at night as I lay in the small kids’ dormitory I had heard a train whistle carried in the wind, the beautiful sound of going to faraway places away from the hostel, Mevrou, the Judge and his Nazi stormtroopers. But I must say I wasn’t prepared for anything quite as big and black and blustering with steam, smoke, fire, brass pipes and hissing pistons.
Africans appeared as if from nowhere. They carried bundles on their heads which they handed up through the third-class carriage windows to the passengers inside and then climbed aboard laughing with the excitement of it all. From inside the carriages came song and more laughter and a great deal of shouting and good-natured banter. I knew at once that I would like trains.
The guard leapt down onto the platform carrying a canvas bag with Mail stamped on the outside. He handed it to the station master who gave him an identical bag in return.
The station master introduced the guard to Mevrou. ‘This is Hoppie Groenewald, he is guard and conductor until you get to Gravelotte. He will look after the boy.’
Hoppie Groenewald grinned down at me and tipped his navy blue guard’s cap to Mevrou. ‘No worries, Mevrou, I will look after him until Gravelotte. Then I will hand him over to Pik Botha who will take him through to Kaapmuiden.’ He opened the door of the second-class carriage and put my suitcase into the train and indicated that I should enter. The three steps up into the carriage were fairly high and I put my tackied foot on the bottom step. As I put my weight on the step the toe of the tackie buckled and I fell on my bum on the platform. Wearing shoes was a much trickier business than I had first supposed. A bit distressed, I wondered how adults seemed to manage so easily. I tried to get up but the tackies were too big and I couldn’t get a proper grip on the loose gravel which covered the platform.
‘Get up, man!’ Mevrou said, visibly annoyed. She shook her head, ‘For God’s sake! Even now you make trouble for me.’
Hoppie Groenewald put the canvas mail bag on the platform, and bending down he grabbed me under the armpits and hoisted me high into the air and through the door to land inside the carriage.
‘No worries, little brother, I too have fallen up those
He retrieved the mail bag and put it next to my suitcase. Then he hopped up the steps without even looking and unhooked a neatly rolled green flag from above the door of the carriage. He unfurled the flag and absently pulled at a chain attached to a button on his navy serge waistcoat and withdrew a large silver whistle from his fob pocket.
‘Watch the Kaffirs get a fright,’ he said with a grin. He showed me how to hold onto the handrail inside the
