Kruger's Alp

‘Two events were crucial in driving the old man to this place. The story of the Thirstland Trekkers of the 1870 haunted Kruger, Happé writes. Perhaps you know it? The Thirstland Trekkers were not content even with a pure Boer Republic. Even there they felt the lack of freedom, even there they felt constrained, even there when they had what they wanted of Africa they dreamed of yet another Promised Land, a heavenly Republic beyond the horizon. They dreamed, in a word, of Beulah, the Promised Land, Eden, Shangri-La. It was a vision which drew this particular party of Boers to trek forever onwards to the sacred laager. It carried this small desperate party of six hundred or so men, women and children through the Kalahari Desert “dying as they went”, according to one historian. The end is sad. The dream drew them not to Beulah but to a steamy, fever-ridden province owned, not by Jehovah, but by Catholic Portugal. They set off, as Uncle Paul told Happé, those poor haunted brave Boers in search of heaven only to end in the hands of Portuguese market-gardeners! The special significance of this trek, said Uncle Paul, exposed the vital character of the Boers. They were destined to trek, but the mistake of the Thirstland Trekkers was that they trekked away outward, whereas the true trek was not one which covered territory but one that moved forever inward. An interior trek, an internal journey to the centre of themselves. This was the paradox at the heart of the true Boer, that he must continue to trek and yet he could never expect to arrive in the Promised Land. Kruger saw the fate which awaited his people if the trek failed. He saw it in the two colleagues closest to him, he saw it in Smuts who turned from general to bank robber overnight, and, worse, went on to show considerable flair for world diplomacy. Kruger did not know which was the greater scandal. And then there was General Piet Cronje, whose defeat in the Battle of Paardeberg and his subsequent surrender to the British enemy had been one of the most cruel calamities of the war and hastened the end of the struggle against the British Empire. He saw his enemies, the foreign outlanders, the gold bugs, throwing parties and buying beers all round, inviting Boer generals to sit on the boards of their companies. And then in the final months of his life he heard of General Cronje’s horrible plans in St Louis, Mississippi. For what was the old general preparing to do? He was preparing to stage, for gawping tourists, his Last Stand at Paardeberg. According to Happé this distressed the old man terribly. “Can you imagine it, can you imagine it?” he is supposed to have said. “Can you see, these Americans, queuing up to see this great disaster inflicted on our suffering people?” The knowledge tortured him. Visitors to the Kruger House in Clarens gave him graphic descriptions of the preparation for Cronje’s little piece of theatre in faraway St Louis.’

The matron drew deeply on her cheroot and puffed creamy smoke. Her voice sharpened and quickened in an American drawl. ‘Roll up! Roll up! See the Boojers meet the British in mortal combat! See General Kitchener’s final triumph! See the Boojers digging nests of trenches! See the Lydite shells blasting their positions! Read Cronje’s courteous request for a truce to bury his dead and for British doctors to treat his wounded. Listen as Field-Marshal Roberts pronounces his niggardly refusal. Then hear General Cronje’s noble response, which was in essence, Then bombard away…! Now watch the great Boer military genius De Wet harassing the British from Kitchener’s koppie which with supreme daring he has snatched from under their noses. See him command the strong point of Paardeberg for three days. But it is too little, too late. Now see everything lost. See General Piet Cronje and his four thousand men surrendering to Roberts. See him stepping down from his white horse, the Boer in his big hat and his floppy trousers and see the triumphant Roberts, neat and dapper, stepping towards him while in the shade Cronje’s broken troops watch impassively from their wagons, and all around them sit the British in their khaki, wearing their fu

‘And what do you do here?’ Kipsel was bold enough to ask.

‘What do we do? We tell stories, of course.’

‘More stories!’ Kipsel protested. ‘I’m tired of stories. Will we never get to the end of stories?’

Matron turned on him sternly. ‘Never. And what would you do if that happened? Stories have brought you this far. From the most powerful member of the Regime to the lowest gardener, cook or na

Kipsel hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that we never seem to get to the end.’

‘The end? Mr Kipsel — we are the end of these stories. I see you’re puzzled. You fail to understand — even now.’

Sweets were brought, great big dishes of koeksusters, golden plaited sweetmeats oozing oil, and milk tarts as big as wagon wheels, fig jam, watermelon conserve, raw sugar cane, fly cemetery, coconut ice and, of course, peach brandy with the coffee.

‘Fail to understand what, precisely?’ Blanchaille asked.

‘Everything,’ came the laconic reply. Matron nodded her head towards the first speaker who had got up and was preparing to address them. ‘Listen and you’ll learn.’

A thin man with a nervous ma

‘My friends, my name you know.’

‘I don’t,’ whispered Kipsel.

‘It’s Peterkin, Claude Peterkin, the radio producer,’ said Blanchaille, ‘from home, I knew him immediately.’

‘From home!’ Kipsel echoed in hot sarcastic tones. ‘Where’s that?’

Matron banged on the table with her spoon. ‘Let him tell his story,’ she ordered.

Peterkin bobbed his chin gratefully towards her. ‘I was by trade a radio producer and rose in time to become Head of Broadcasting. My motto had always been — “choose the middle way”. Useful advice to myself, working on the State radio you might say, since it meant I could steer between what was on the one hand a public broadcasting facility and on the other a Government propaganda service. You could say I’d been happy and moderately successful. Then one day I made a mistake. I allowed myself to be persuaded by Trudy Yssel that times were changing. “Produce plays,” she said, “which display our adaptiveness to new political perceptions, which are modern, which are of today!” I went out and commissioned a play by none other than Labush Labuschagne. The Labuschagne you all know with his Eskimo wife and his interest in Zen and his quivering attacks upon the Regime’s race policies and his impeccable Boer credentials, being a descendant of one of those heroes in Piet Retiefs party who were murdered by Dingaan. And what did Labuschagne give me? He gave me an attack on the Catholic Church in Africa. Fair enough, you might say. The play was entitled Roman Wars — and not, let me stress, not Roman Whores. That was an incredibly stupid printing error. The same combination of bad luck and mechanical error which has pursued me all my life. Be that as it may, my intentions were good. Could I have made a better choice of playwright than Labush Labuschagne? His radicalism was unchallenged and yet his Government co