The covenant - James A. Michener [467]
Looking alternately at her two friends, she asked them, 'Do you swear?' They swore that they would not surrender.
When the first of the two children died, in terrible emaciation caused by a combination of typhoid, dysentery and inadequate food, Sybilla tried to mask the fact from Detlev, only six years old, but he knew what death was, and said, 'The little girl is dead.'
The entire tentthat is, those who could walkattended the funeral. Camp attendants, who seemed to be quite healthy, came down the lane between the tents, collecting bodies, and at Sybilla's they lifted up the little corpse, then reached for the other child, who lay inanimate. 'That one's not dead yet,' Detlev said, and the attendants passed on.
The attendants carted the bodies to a busy burial ground, where a carpenter from Carolina had volunteered to build rude caskets from whatever odds and ends he could scavenge. He was Hansie Bronk, descendant of that Balthazar Bronk who had protested the marriage of Sybilla and Paulus de Groot; big, round-shouldered, blessed with a rural sense of humor, he was a civilizing force, his most appreciated contribution being not his caskets, but his ability now and then to find extra meat and vegetables in the countryside.
When Detlev appeared at the burial ground, Hansie chucked him under the chin and said, 'Nou moenie siek word nie, my klein mannetjie.' (Now don't you fall sick, little man.)
This day there were four caskets, and beside their shallow graves stood Dr. Higgins holding a Bible. He despised every moment of his service in this horrible place but felt obligated to oversee all that happened, as if he were both the cause and the participant, and he strove to make the burials decent. Detlev listened as the doctor prayed.
The boy was in the tent three days later when the other little girl died, her arms like threads, and he walked with the attendants as they collected the bodies of those who had died of fever in the preceding hours. He was always present at the burials, and always Hansie Bronk told him, 'Nou moenie siek word nie, my klein mannetjie.'
His watchful eye noticed when the older of his twin sistersAnna, who boasted of her precedencebegan to waste away, but he was not prepared for what happened when he said to his mother, 'Anna needs medicine,' for Mevrou van Doorn uttered a piercing scream and started running down to the doctor's quartersbut there were no medical supplies.
'My God!' Sybilla cried, running after her, slapping her and bringing her back to the tent. 'We swore an oath, Sara. We have got to protect the children.' When food was doled out, a meager amount, the hungry women apportioned much of it to the twin, who nevertheless grew weaker each day.
'Is Anna going to die?' Detlev asked.
'Don't say that!' his mother cried, whereupon old Sybilla shook her again and made her sit down, and she became quiet.
In time Anna did die, just as Detlev had expected, and at the funeral he watched attentively as Hansie Bronk placed her thin body in one of his caskets. On this day there were four other children to be buried, and when Dr. Higgins tried to read from his Bible he could not control his voice, so Sybilla took the book and finished reading the Psalm. Detlev listened to the sound of earth pitched upon the caskets.
The death of her child had such a debilitating effect on Sara that she seemed to wilt in the intense heat like one of the flowers. At night it was extremely cold, and this sharp fluctuation aggravated whatever illnesses the internees contracted, but in Sara's case it was merely lack of will power.
One week the supply of Boer meal increased noticeably, and everyone in the tent received an extra portion, but this did little good for one of the