Whitethorn (27 page)

Later someone told Mevrou I hadn't stood up and clapped and done the salute after Meneer Prinsloo's magnificent speech, so then I got seven of the best. ‘Tonight you getting three for the British —'
Whack! Whack! Whack!
‘
and three for the Jews,
Voetsek
.'
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Whack!
‘That's a
bansella
from me, Mevrou Van Schalkwyk!'

So there was more Chinese writing on my bum. I'd never met a Jew and already I was being punished because of them, which just goes to show you can't be careful enough with Jewish imperialists all over the place.

The next night Meneer Prinsloo stood up and said he was very pleased with what happened the night before. He announced that he'd bought a new young Black Orpington rooster from a breeder in Acorn Hoek, which was a little
dorp
that you wouldn't ever think would have pedigree anythings, let alone roosters. He said again how Piet Retief had been sabotaged by some criminal person and all his hopes had been dashed. General Botha, his other rooster, wasn't good enough for the big-time shows, so now we could all learn a lesson of hope snatched from the jaws of disaster. ‘
Man het 'n plan
, a man has a plan,' he said. ‘In life you've got to take the hard bumps as well as the tender kisses. Last night I had a dream, more like a vision, because the spirit of the Lord was definitely with me and I knew that the hand of God was guiding me. I am going to start from scratch with a new rooster who will be called Adolf Hitler after the great and glorious leader who has been through hard times but now is a world-champion leader.' He concluded by saying, ‘If Adolf Hitler had tail feathers they would shine like the sun and scrape the very roof of the sky!'

We all clapped but Meneer Prinsloo held his hand up for silence. ‘Now, one thing more,' he said. ‘We don't know who the criminal mind was who sabotaged Piet Retief, but if anyone sees a certain vet when he comes to pull out your teeth and is afterwards hanging around the Black Orpingtons they must come and tell me immediately. This is an order!' He let this point sink in before explaining further. ‘The Great Piet Retief, who is to become chicken soup, would have entered the Potgietersrus Agricultural Show as the preliminary to qualify for the Rand Easter Show, and everybody knows it was a foregone conclusion he would have won. But now Scarlet Pimpernel, the Rhode Island Red who is owned by a certain vet, has just won Best Rooster at Show!' He looked around darkly. ‘I'm not saying any more, you hear? Except maybe this, everybody who knows a chicken knows that a certain vet's Scarlet Pimpernel wasn't a patch on Piet Retief whose tail feathers left that imposter champion's sprawling in the dust!'

Meneer Prinsloo asked us to leave lots of crusts on the table because he felt in his water that in Adolf Hitler he had a potential grand champion. ‘
Magtig
! Already he is only a cockerel and you can see how proud he walks!'

We all clapped again because when Meneer Prinsloo made a speech clapping was compulsory. I remembered Sergeant Van Niekerk's warning to me not to return to the scene of the Great Shiny-Feather Robbery. On the other hand, Doctor Dyke's big Alsatian had come sniffing around and tried to mount Tinker, and already there were three of my teeth missing because of the dreaded horse pliers. Maybe this year Miss Phillips could wear a handful of magnificent red feathers in her Easter bonnet from a champion Rhode Island Red, but then I remembered it would be a crime if it happened outside The Boys Farm and would count against me with God and also Sergeant Van Niekerk.

Here's a funny thing that happened. Even at Christmas we didn't get roast chicken because you had to be a proper family to get chicken at Christmas. I'd never tasted chicken and it would be some time before I did. Piet Retief was too tough to be a roast chicken, him being a rooster and all. But don't think we got to taste the soup old Mevrou Pienaar made from him because one chicken, even a champion rooster, couldn't get tasted in soup by sixty kids. The soup got served to the staff at the platform table. If you watched carefully everyone drank their soup slowly, holding their spoons just so and sipping with a great politeness. This was because they were aware that this was a dark moment in chickendom, that they were drinking the soup of somebody who could have been a grand champion at the Rand Easter Show. Meneer Prinsloo was the last to finish. He put his spoon back down on the plate slowly and precisely, then he took his serviette and wiped his eyes. Everybody was silent for a while after. Guess what happened to the chicken bones? Tinker got them in his scoff bowl that night. Tinker, who was, technically speaking, also a criminal, got to taste chicken before any kid at The Boys Farm.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

Maybe you've had enough of the war already, but I have to tell you about Frikkie Botha and how he went to blow up a bridge and blew himself up by mistake, which turned out to be no joke, I can tell you that for sure.
Frikkie was a member of the
Ossewabrandwag
, the Ox-Wagon Fireguard, which was known to everyone as the OB, but he was also a member of
Die Stormjaer Van Afrikanderdom,
the storm-troopers of the Afrikaner Nation. They were sort of soldiers of the OB and had lots of duties that I don't think they were supposed to have, like blowing up bridges, post offices and telegraph poles, and fighting the soldiers going to the war and who in their spare time tried to break up the political meetings that were against the Government and, of course, beating up
kaffirs
for practice. You weren't supposed to ever talk about them but it seemed to me that everyone around the place was one. Maybe not Doctor Van Heerden, Sergeant Van Niekerk or Meneer Van Niekerk the headmaster because they never said and didn't go to the meetings.

But Frikkie Botha, the storm-trooper, was now in his element. His hour of glory had come and all his free time was spent training to fight with broomsticks, clubs and flickknives. He'd stand there and you'd think he had nothing in his hand, then all of a sudden there's this pocketknife that flicks open and the blade is staring at you, inches from your stomach. Frikkie was now my enemy, not because of him becoming an OB, but because of the flag incident when Gawie stuck the pound note up his bum. Thank goodness this didn't apply to Tinker, who was still Frikkie's little rat trap and his all-time favourite dog.

On Saturday, when we worked in the vegetable gardens and the orange grove, Frikkie Botha had taken to wearing his
Stormjaer
uniform and copying Meneer Prinsloo by giving us lectures. He listened to a radio in the staff quarters and he'd give us regular updates on what was happening in the war. Of course, he only reported the German victories. Here is a ‘for example' of one of them.

‘Now they, the Germans, they in Poland, man, running all over the place. The Poles they came charging on horses with swords, like it's the Boer War all over again, but there's German tanks coming at them across the border and all of a sudden there's mincemeat everywhere, pieces of horses flying up in the air, and suddenly no more Poland! Next it's going to be the British, you wait and see, man! The British, they bayonet charging, while somebody plays the bagpipes, and what do they find? Only a wall of steel.
Pow
!
Pow
!
Pow
! Finish and
klaar
! All the British lying dead in their skirts with nothing underneath.'

I could see that everyone was a bit puzzled. ‘Why are the British soldiers wearing skirts, and someone is playing with a pipe in a bag?' Kaag Wolmarans asked.

‘
Ag
, man, they just do it,' Frikkie said. But still no one was any the wiser.

Then Gawie said, ‘They're from Scotland and they're Scotch. What they wear is kilts that is like a skirt that men wear and the bagpipes is a musical wind thing they play when they go to fight.'

‘
Ja
, that also,' Frikkie said, pretending to know all the time and giving Gawie a nice look.

Gawie and I had recently read Sir Walter Scott's
Rob Roy
and we'd learned all about kilts and bagpipes.

‘Is England next to Poland, Meneer?' Matai Marais asked.

‘
Ja
, I think it's right next door, just you watch, their turn is coming any day now,' Frikkie said darkly.

‘But first they got to cross the English Channel,' Gawie piped up cheekily.

‘
Ag
, man, no problems,' Frikkie Botha replied. ‘Those German tanks, they can go anywhere. Before you know it they there. A channel is nothing for a tank, they are over it and up the other side like lightning. They can dig a channel as deep as they like, for a German tank it's no problem, in and out and the next thing you know the British are all lying dead.'

Gawie didn't dare point out that the English Channel was filled with water and was thirty miles wide and nobody knows how deep. And for once in my life I wasn't stupid enough to say so either or to point out that Poland wasn't anywhere near England.

‘Haven't the British got tanks?' someone asked.

Frikkie Botha thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘
Ja
, but it's hopeless for them. Let me tell you a story of how clever the Germans are.' Frikkie took a deep breath while trying to contain his amusement. ‘In this one factory they build tanks and in another they make anti-tank weapons. Got it?' We all nodded. ‘So now the general in charge of the tanks says to his factory, “Here's a piece of steel that our tanks are made from and see this, it's got a hole right through the middle. That's where a bullet went right through from the anti-tank weapon factory next door.
Magtig
! Now I want you to make a tank so the anti-tank bullet can't get through it, okay?” So that's their next big problem.' Frikkie chuckled to himself. ‘But then the general in charge of the anti-tank weapons says to his factory, “Hey, man, look at this!” and he shows them this piece of steel that's only a got a small dent in it. “That's the best bullets we got, man!” he shouts. “They won't go through this steel from the tank factory next door! Shame on you! Your next big job is to make an anti-tank bullet that can go through this steel, you hear?” ' Frikkie paused. ‘
Wragtig
! By the time those German tanks come out the other side of that channel Gawie Grobler is talking about and all of a sudden there's British tanks facing them, it's . . .
Kapow! Zing! Kapow! Boom! Boom!
Boom!
Finish and
klaar
! What the British tanks are made of is only pots and pans they collected at the last moment from the British people! They up to shit, man!' Frikkie Botha spread his hands. ‘For a German tank it's like shooting through a paper bag and the British bullets coming back, it's like they made of putty when they hit a German tank!'

I must say I hadn't built up a lot of sympathy for the British and it certainly looked as if Adolf Hitler was well in control. But I couldn't see things improving for me when he won the war, which could be as early as next week, if you listened to what people were saying. Already being English wasn't easy, now all of a sudden with Hitler winning the war and giving South Africa back to the Boere my future didn't look too bright. So Gawie and me had one of our discussions at the library rock.

‘What's going to happen to the English in South Africa when Hitler wins the war?' I asked him.

Gawie, looking down at his hands, didn't answer right off. Finally, he said, ‘Unfortunately, concentration camps.' He paused and looked up at me. ‘Just like you did to us,
Voetsek
.'

‘All the English here, we going to die then?'

‘Not all. Those that don't die we going to send to Madagascar.'

‘Madagascar! What's in Madagascar?'

‘It's just a place to send people you don't want,' he replied. ‘Don't worry, I'll look after Tinker for you.'

‘Why can't she come with me?' I was deeply shocked.

‘No dogs allowed,' Gawie said firmly. ‘Those boats are too full, you can't even fit a mouse in them.'

‘I could hold her on my lap,' I said defiantly.

‘No food, man! You all going to come out walking skeletons, some people will just be a heap of bones and a bit of skin and hair that's left behind in the Union Castle boat that takes you there.'

‘But . . . but you are my friend, Gawie. Wouldn't you help me?'

‘Can't!' He looked at me sympathetically. ‘Honest,
Voetsek
, I would, but it's against the law. Besides, I'll be too busy running a goldmine.'

‘But you're only eleven, that's too young to own a goldmine,' I said, relieved that all this was just a big pretend and he was pulling my leg. But I'd momentarily forgotten that Afrikaners are very serious people and don't go in for a lot of leg-pulling.

‘No, I won't be!' Gawie protested. ‘You forget, you first going to have to go to the concentration camps where you have to starve to death for a long time like we did and maybe also die. Only what's leftover goes to Madagascar. By that time I will be old enough to have a goldmine.'

‘I don't think they just going to give you a goldmine,' I said doubtfully.

‘Yeah, there's plenty, man! I'll have one that a Jew used to have, but because he's dead, it will be mine.' He looked at me. ‘I told you already. When I grow up I
have
to be rich.'

‘But we're already rich,' I replied. ‘We've still got our ten bob.'