The covenant - James A. Michener [312]
Usually the expeditions were silent affairs, a few warriors braving considerable dangers to penetrate what had become English property and sneaking away without having done the white men harm. But in the spring of 1832 careless Xhosa, some drunk on Kaffir beer, had gone to the Stevens farm to collect not only red earth but also quite a few white sheep. A scuffle had ensued, with dead bodies, and now the Xhosa must be punished.
'What we'll do,' Major Saltwood of the Grahamstown Irregulars proposed as the men assembled, 'is ride east, cross the river at Trompetter's Drift, and take them in the rear.'
But the local Xhosa who rallied to the defense of the raiders were a battle-hardened group, a hundred veterans of many skirmishes with the English and Boers, and were not likely to be surprised by any flanking action. So when Saltwood led the men forward at a gallop, Xhosa warriors in ambush peppered them with spears and bullets from the few guns they had been able to beg, trade or capture.
That was the first skirmish, with the white men losing. The second was inconclusive, but the third was quite a different affair. Major Saltwood, Tjaart van Doorn and Lukas de Groot concocted a plan that would smash the Xhosa from three sides, and everything worked to perfection except that a hiding spearman stabbed Thomas Carleton deeply in the left thigh, dragged him from his horse, and was about to kill him when Van Doorn saw the danger, wheeled in midnight and roared back to brain the black with his rifle butt. It was a near thing, and when Carleton realized that he was saved, and that the wound in his leg was much bigger than he could tend, he quietly fainted in Van Doorn's arms, and the two men stayed on the ground till Saltwood and some others doubled back to find them.
When they returned to Grahamstownvictors, but with serious losses Carleton was so effusive in his praise of Van Doorn's heroism, and repeated it so often, that Richard Saltwood told his wife, Julie, with some asperity, 'You'd think he'd let it rest.' Then he added, with no malice, 'But of course, poor Carleton's not a gentleman. He hasn't had the training.'
'Nor am I a lady,' Julie snapped. 'So I can't be expected to know, either. And I think it's a thrilling story. So does poor Vera, because without it she'd be a widow.'
'But you must admit, he does overplay it, rather.'
'If I'm in trouble, first I'd want you to come riding up to rescue me. But next in line, Van Doorn.'
The victory celebrations were so congenial, with many of the English volunteers offering toasts in reasonably good Dutch, that Van Doorn and De Groot lingered, and this delayed their arrival at the Graaff-Reinet Nachtmaal.
When De Groot and Van Doorn, accompanied by their Coloureds, who had fought bravely, prepared for the ride home they were joined by a veldkornet who had conducted himself, as always, with notable dignity. It was Piet Retief, a farmer from the Winterberg far north; thin, tallish, with a small beard, he was a friendly, outspoken man in his fifties, but when Saltwood and Carleton came out to bid the Boers thanks and farewell, he stood apart.
Carleton hobbled over to Van Doorn's horse, grasped Tjaart fervently, and said, 'Old chap, you carry my life in your saddle. May God bless you for what you did.'
'I'd expect the same from you,' Tjaart said, and the Boers left town.
For a day and a half they were accompanied by Retief, and came to understand the perplexities that gnawed at him. He was a strange mixture, an esteemed commando leader from a Huguenot family, but also a reckless business adventurer who seemed destined to overreach himself. 'The English sued me when the barracks collapsed,' he grumbled, referring to a disastrous construction venture in Grahamstown.
'But you had it complete,' Van Doorn said, 'I saw it, and you did a fine job on the magistrate's office.'
'I ran out of money.