The covenant - James A. Michener [247]
When Hilary received the letter he was at low ebb, for Golan Mission was not doing well. The rows of huts were filled with Hottentots and Xhosa seeking to avoid work under the Boers, but few were sincere Christians. Not even Emma's parents had converted, and there was a problem with Emma herself. She was nineteen now, and a true Christian, but plans of some kind had to be made for her future; the most she could hope for was marriage to some half-Christian Xhosa; more probably she would slip back into servitude at some Boer kraal.
Funds to support the mission were slow in coming from England, and one young man who had been seconded to relieve Hilary had taken one look at South Africa and scrambled back aboard his ship, preferring to trust his luck in India. Hilary kept himself insulated from such disappointments by cherishing his trivial accomplishments and sharing them with Emma: 'Phambo appeared at prayers again, and I do believe he is on the way to salvation.' Three days later, when Phambo ran off to the Xhosa camp on the other side of the Great Fish, taking with him three Golan cows, Hilary did not condemn him: 'Poor Phambo heard temptation and could not resist, but when he returns, Emma, as I am convinced he will, we must greet him as our brother, with or without the cows.'
Hilary refused to acknowledge the ostracism directed against him by both the Boers and the English: the former because he was an agent of the English repression; the latter because he had 'behaved poorly' at Slagter's Nek. And both sides viewed him with scorn for supporting the Kaffirs against white men. One good reason why he was able to ignore the ostracism was that he rarely participated in any public gathering. His world was his church.
But his brother's letter suggesting that he take a wife made great sense; he was thirty-four now, worn and wasted by his exertions on a difficult frontier, and he felt the need for someone to share his spiritual burdens; if his mother, in consultation with her other sons, could comb the Salisbury scene and locate a suitable wife, the years ahead might prove more profitable both to Jesus and to His servant Saltwood. So he wrote a careful letter, advising his mother as to the requirements for a missioner's wife in South Africa.
He was distracted from such personal matters when Tjaart, accompanied by four Boers, galloped into the mission one morning, shouting in anxiety, 'We need every man! The Kaffirs are marching on Grahamstown.'
The commando waited some fifteen minutes for Saltwood to arm himself, and Hilary spent ten of these in agonizing inner debate as to whether it was Christian for him to participate in armed combat against the Xhosa, a people he loved; but he realized that until the frontier was pacified, not even missionary work could proceed, so reluctantly he took his rifle.
'Bring your Hottentots, too!' Tjaart cried, and six of them eagerly mounted up. For the English to have used armed Hottentots against the Boers had been criminal; for the Boers to use them against the Kaffirs was prudent.
It was seventy miles from Golan Mission to the little military post at Grahamstown, and as the Boers urged their horses onward, Saltwood reflected that only Englishmen lived in the village, yet here were the Boers galloping full speed to aid them. He was aware that Tjaart despised the English, inveighing against them at every chance, but when an English outpost was threatened by Kaffirs, the Boer commandos were always ready to saddle up. It was confusing.
The twelve newcomers were given a cheering welcome at Grahamstown, where fewer than three hundred English and Hottentot soldiers, plus two cannon, awaited the Xhosa attack. Tjaart's contingent meant that thirty civilians would aid the soldiers; he was distressed when the English commander divided his troops: 'Half to the barracks southeast of town, half here with me to defend the empty town.' He sent the women and children to the safety