The covenant - James A. Michener [424]
'We have no army. Only commandos.'
'Then you'll lose the war. Because the English surely will have an army, and that makes a difference.'
Jakob was glad to be rid of Cape Town. The Afrikaners there seemed more interested in playing political games than in fighting for their freedoms. Little things had irritated him, too, like Du Preez and Carolus Marais saying 'Good heavens!' as if they were proper Englishmen. He saw other manifestations of this pervasive English influence, all making him think that the local Afrikaners were corrupted by their long severance from the Boers of the north. It was impossible to imagine Paulus de Groot in the Cape setting, or his own vibrant father, Tjaart. There were apparently two groups of Afrikaners now, and the southern had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
The train puffed across the Cape flats to Stellenbosch, out beyond the broken hedge of bitter almond: it passed suburban backyards, small settlements and numerous farms. He had left Cape Town with no promises, but he felt confident that when he got among his own people at Trianon his reception would be different, for these Afrikaners lived outside the debilitating influences of the city, and he would be able to talk with them in specifics.
When he saw the lovely tree-lined streets of Stellenbosch and the low white buildings, he felt that he had come to a town that had always been his. He stopped at a small, very clean whitewashed inn, where he had a room overlooking the central square and better food than he had enjoyed in some time. Three other travelers shared his table, men in from farms near Swellendam, and they wanted to know his business. When he told them that he was a farmer, too, but from Venloo in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, they all leaned forward: 'What's Oom Paul doing up there?'
'He's facing down the English, and he better, or you'll all be losing your freedoms.'
'I wouldn't know what to do with more freedom if I had it,' one of the farmers said.
'I mean freedom to worship as you wish. Have Dutch taught to your children.'
'We have that now.'
Another broke in: 'You say your name's Van Doorn? One of our Van Doorns?'
'The same.'
'You're not going to talk to them about joining Kruger's ridiculous war?'
'It's the duty of every good Afrikaner to support Oom Paul.'
'Agreed,' the three men said at once. And one added, 'I liked it when he took the strap and belted those lords of Johannesburg and their cheeky Uitlanders. But war . . . against England . . . With her navy? And her empire? Your people can't be serious about that?'
'Aren't you?' Jakob asked.
'Good heavens, no.'
There was the phrase again, spoken in accented English, betraying the corruption that had overtaken these good people; they lived so far from the heartland of the Volk, where great decisions were being made, that they could not comprehend the problems facing them. He rose to leave this depressing assembly, but as he walked away one of the farmers warned him: 'Don't go talking rebellion to the ones at Trianon. They sell their wine to London.'
The warning was perceptive, for next morning when he hired a cart to carry him west to the winery, he could see that its vineyards were so substantial and so ancient that whoever owned them must perforce be a cautious man; but when the driver swung about in a large circle to approach the house from the west, and Jakob saw for the first time that magnificent entrance, with the white arms reaching out in welcome and the great house standing in pristine loveliness, he gasped.
'These are the Van Doorns of Trianon,' he whispered respectfully. The place was like some palace he might have seen in a children's book, all green grass and blue hills, white walls of an older society. When the cart approached the big house the driver blew a small whistle, which brought the occupants to the stoep.
'It's Jakob come from up north!' the master of the house