The covenant - James A. Michener [499]
In the moonlight they walked to the other farm, where they found the old general in bed, a weary man past eighty, very thin, his long white beard rimming his sunken face. He had not been eating well, and it looked as if his sheets had not been changed for weeks, or even months, but the fire in his eyes had not abated. 'Have you heard the glorious news?' he cried in weakened accents. 'We have a chance to fight England again!'
'We come asking your advice, Paulus.'
'Only one thing to do. Take this country into the war on the side of Germany. Only that way can we win our freedom.'
'But won't Smuts try to make us fight in the English armies?'
General de Groot got out of bed and began to stride about his little room. 'There's the man we have to fear. That damned Jan Christian Smuts. He will try to make us fight on the wrong side, because he loves everything English. Uniforms. Medals. The king. People bowing to him. I wish I could shoot him tonight. Save us all a lot of trouble.'
They talked long about the strategies they must follow to assure that South Africa joined this war beside Germany, and what great steps they would take when German victory set them free of the bondage in which they were convinced they languished. Toward dawn De Groot said, 'By tonight I'll have the commando assembled again, and if they'll take me as their leader, we'll ride out to battle once more.' And from a pile of clothes in a corner he found his frock coat and top hat, donned them, and rode off toward Venloo to start training his men.
In the last weeks of August, when the big guns were firing salvos across wide fronts in Europe, the schoolteacher Piet Krause was marshaling public opinion in Venloo, and he was most persuasive: 'There is no reason on God's green earth why we Afrikaners should fight on the side of England against Germany, the land of our brothers, to whom we have always looked for deliverance. We must tell Jan Christian Smuts that he cannot bludgeon us into this war on the wrong side.' Constantly he harped on this theme, convincing most of the Afrikaners in his region that they must join with the Germans. In a show of hands in his classroom he found that some fifty-two boys out of sixty would volunteer for war against England. 'Wonderful! It proves that the spirit of the great commandos is not dead.'
'What will you do, Mr. Krause?' one of the boys asked.
'What could any self-respecting man do? I shall ride with the commando.'
Detleef, hearing this response, thought: They all speak of riding their horses with the commando. This time it'll be automobiles, and trucks, and the government will have them. He alone among his friends was apprehensive about the outcome. He considered Jan Christian Smuts a clever man who would defend the imperial cause effectively; but despite his caution, he knew that if the Afrikaners did not rebel now, they might never win their freedom. When Mr. Krause asked, 'You, Detleef, what will you do?' he responded promptly, 'I shall fight in defense of South Africa.'
'Which South Africa?'
'The Afrikaner homeland my father fought for.'
'Good, good.'
Now the night visitors to General de Groot increased in number, and Detleef came to know the great heroes of his people: General de Wet, General de la Rey, General Beyers, tough Manie Maritz, big as an ox, ferocious as a leopard. But the hero who impressed him most was Christoffel Steyn, who showed himself to be a man of iron courage and sober judgment.
Said he during one meeting with De Groot: 'The tides of history run tempestuously. This has always been a storm-tossed land, and where the currents will sweep us now, we cannot foresee. But to stand on shore and watch others