The covenant - James A. Michener [457]
But General Buller was not forgotten. As soon as the war ended he was whisked aboard ship and hustled to England, where he was given a prestigious job in the military and a score of resounding state dinners, in which one city after another handed him ornate silver testimonials in the form of old-style Roman marshal's batons inscribed with the roster of his victories: 'Conqueror of the Tugela, Relief of Ladysmith, Hero of the High Veld.' His picture in tight little battle cap appeared everywhere, and it was agreed that he was perhaps the finest fighting general that England had ever produced.
Of course, some years later, when the facts of Spion Kop surfaced, all hell broke loose, and generals in the military establishment hounded him, charging him with lack of leadership. He was dragged before boards of inquiry, where his testimony was not inspiring. These attacks by envious rivals seemed not to worry him, for he surrendered none of the public acclaim which he adored, and to his home in the country came a constant queue of men who had fought under him in South Africa to assure him that he was the finest general they had ever known. As one conscripted soldier told the press: 'When you fought under Buller, things went slower, but you did eat well.'
On the morning that Lord Roberts knelt before his sovereign to become an earl and a Knight of the Garter, a group of tired flop-hatted Boers met secretly at a farm west of Pretoria. Louis Botha was present, Koos de la Rey the brilliant improvisator and Paulus de Groot the bulldog, and a brilliant young fellow all ice and steel, Jan Christian Smuts.
They had no settled government, no railway line to the outside world, no guaranteed arms supply, no replacement of horses, no system of conscription to fill their ranks, and no money. They were as defeated a group of men as military history provided; they had been mauled and chased almost off the continent, but there was not one among them prepared to put his hands up.
'The situation is this,' Louis Botha said. 'Lord Kitchener has two hundred thousand men in arms right now. And he can get two hundred thousand more. We have maybe twenty thousand burghers in the field. That's twenty-to-one against us, plus their ships, their heavy guns, the support of their empire. But what we have is knowledge of this land and determination.'
For some hours the discussion continued, and there was still not a leader there who was not ready to continue the conflict perpetually against the English. They drafted plans which only a fool would have accepted, and they applauded the daring. When someone said, 'The sensible thing to do is attack Cape Town; that will encourage the Cape Dutch to join at last,' four different commandants volunteered to undertake this incredible mission.
'The bulk of Kitchener's force will have to play policeman,' Botha predicted. 'He'll need a hundred thousand, maybe two hundred thousand, just to hold on to what they think they've got.'
On and on went the wild discussion, until a listener might have thought that these were victors planning their next campaign, and as they talked and encouraged one another, the tremendous determination of these Boers manifested itself: 'Our women will be with us. Our children will find a way to help.'
Paulus de Groot took no part in formulating these soaring plans, but they were confirmed when he jammed on his worn top hat, fastened his coat with the two safety pins that had replaced the lost silver buttons, and said, 'The battles are over. Now the war begins.'
It began with an action that reverberated around the world. It would have been a remarkable adventure had General de Groot done it alone, but it so happened that two newspapermen, a Frenchman and an American, hearing of the dissolution of the commandos now that the war was over, sought out old De Groot, thinking that he would provide a colorful story: the old veteran of the Great Trek who had fought first as a general, finally as a mere private. Also, since he had long ago been one of the heroes at Majuba, his return to civil life would