The covenant - James A. Michener [488]
'You are a Boer!' De Groot said.
'They keep telling us at school we're not Boers any longer. We're not fighting anybody . . .'
'We're always fighting the English,' De Groot said. 'In your lifetime we will never stop.'
Detlev returned to the jellies: 'Each color in its own level. Order. Neatness.' He had found the guiding secret of life. 'We're Afrikaners, that nice clean color on top.'
'That's the way it should be,' De Groot said, and that week he launched his campaign to get rid of Mr. Amberson as the Venloo teacher. He had learned to like the Englishman and told him so openly, but he also felt that the time had come for the education of Boer boys . . . 'Afrikaner boys deserve Afrikaner men to teach them.' He liked this Afrikaner business. It bespoke the true heritage of his people. They were not Englishmen, and God knows they were not Dutch. They were men and women of Africa, and the word carried crisp meaning.
Mr. Amberson reacted as one would expect: 'I think you have a legitimate concern, General de Groot. Besides, you should be bringing up a generation of your own teachers. I've been offered two appointments to the English schools in Grahamstown. My rugby training, you know.'
Even when public meetings were convened to discuss the necessity of dismissing him, he continued with rugby games, striving in his final weeks to instill his boys with the abiding principles of sportsmanship: 'Don't crybaby... A tooth can be replaced ... Be gallant when you win and extend your hand to the man who played opposite you . . . Fight to the very last second, then give a cheer for the goodness of the game ... Be manly ... If the other man is bigger, you be more clever . . . The goal is to win . . . Always you must win . . . You must drive for that score .. . But there are rules you dare not break in trying to score ... Be manly . . .'
In the grand exhibition prior to his departure he was about as capable as a stand-off halfback could be, diving straight into the biggest bully on the town team and being knocked so silly that when he got the ball he ran in the wrong direction. In his farewell speech he paid resounding tribute to General de Groot: 'Just as this noble captain led his men through every difficulty, so our team has fought against all the odds presented by bigger schools and heavier opponents. To General de Groot I give my fullest admiration. He is the spirit of Venloo. To my boys I give the eternal challenge. Be manly.'
It was the consensus that this small town had been lucky in having this scrawny Englishman in the period of transition. He had helped make boys into men, Boers into Afrikaners, and former enemies into relaxed allies.
The week after he departed, the new schoolmaster appeared, a young man of much different stamp. He was Piet Krause, graduate of the new college at Potchefstroom, which would become the most Afrikaner of the universities, and he let it be known on his first day that the nonsense about instruction in English was ended. To the delight of the local farmers, this tense, crop-headed young fellow announced: 'The spirit of a nation is expressed in its language. This nation is destined to be Afrikaner. Therefore, its language must be Afrikaans.' This was the first time that word had been used in Venloo, and when he saw the confusion on the faces before him, he explained: 'Just as we have created a new people in this cauldron, steeped in Slagter's Nek, Blood River and Majuba, so we are building a new language, simpler than the old, cleaner, easier to use. It's our language now, and with it we shall conquer. One day we shall give thanks for this victory, using our own Bible in our language,.the Afrikaans Bible.'
General de Groot applauded all but the last sentence; he was not sure that the Bible should be in any language other than Dutch: