The covenant - James A. Michener [483]
and then surrender again, twice a day, six days a week, to Lord Roberts.
Slowly the old man rose, indicating that Cronje must do the same. Sternly he edged the huge warrior to the hut doorway, where he said, 'Piet, dear comrade, as you can see, I need the money. But there's never been a time in my life when I fired blank cartridges, and I'm too old to learn.'
Cronje had no trouble in conscripting other fine horsemen, who went to St. Louis and put on an exhibition that dazzled the locals, improving considerably their estimation of Boers. But whenever the band stopped dramatically, and two small cannon roared, and the lights came on, General Cronje stepped forward in the costume he had worn in the photograph and surrendered to a taut little major on detached duty from Fort Sill who wore a fake mustache and a replica of an English uniform.
When photographs of this tableau filtered back to South Africa, they caused anguish, but in St. Louis the approval was so marked that Cronje's contracted salary was raised. General de Groot found one of these photographs and tacked it to the wall, beside the original version.
'Remarkable,' he told Detlev when the boy first compared the two. 'How could they get the surrender so accurate?' Detlev was afraid the old man was going to tear the wall apart, so strained became the muscles on his neck, but all he did was tap the two pictures gently, as if they were of value. 'Never surrender, Detlev,' he said. 'Not even in play.'
The people at Vrymeer were so obviously concerned about Detlev's education that Mr. Amberson fell into the habit of riding out from Venloo now and then to report on their boy's progress, and as he sat in the kitchen at the farm, Detlev noticed two things about him. Unlike the hefty Boer farmers of the area, this thin young man could sit in a chair, twist his left leg over his right knee, and then hook his left toe under his right ankle, as if he were made of rubber. Detlev could imitate this, but none of the chubby larger boys could, and certainly none of the elders. Also, Mr. Amberson was interested in everything, and that was why Vrymeer acquired an additional beauty which made it somewhat different from the other farms.
'They have a new system now,' he said with some excitement. 'They come from Australia, mostly.'
'What does?' the general asked suspiciously. He did not like Mr. Amberson, but Detlev noticed that he appeared whenever the tall Englishman visited, because he enjoyed arguing with him.
'The trees. The government are importing millions of trees to spruce up the veld.'
'Who pays for them?'
'I think they're free. Eucalypts, I believe, and something they call wattle.'
'Free?'
'Yes, but you must plant them. That's only fair.'
Mr. Amberson used that phrase a good deal, for he saw many things in life that could be adjudicated easily on that principle: 'It's only fair.'
'Is it fair for you to make our boys learn English?' De Groot asked, as usual.
'I've learned Dutch.' He coughed modestly. 'Such as it is. I do this out of respect. But Detlev must learn English for a better reason. Because the world runs on English, that's why.'
On this basic point he would make no concessions. English was the language of the great world, and provincial Boers stuck off in their corner must learn it, if they presumed to participate in world affairs. On all else he was conciliatory, granting that the Boers probably won the war through their obstinate heroism and conceding that Dutch cooking was much better than English. He was really rather a likable chap, and when he sat with his legs twisted in knots, rocking back and forth on his haunches, arguing abstruse points, he lent a touch of congeniality and culture to what was otherwise a dull existence.
The farm