The Covenant by James A. Michener
‘Detleef,’ she repeated. ‘I like that.’
‘Done!’ he said. ‘I prefer all things Afrikaans. I am now Detleef van Doorn.’ He was sorely tempted to take her hand, or even to kiss her to mark the solemnity of his rechristening, but the mournfulness of the monument prevented this, and they spent the rest of that meaningful day talking of sober subjects.
When he returned home he found himself something of a hero, for he was invited to speak at various communities, telling of the splendid monument which memorialized their hardships in the camps. He was asked to come even to Carolina, an invitation he accepted eagerly, since it enabled him to renew acquaintance with Maria Steyn and to meet her father. When in his talk he alluded gracefully to the heroic performance of Christoffel Steyn and the Carolina men, everyone applauded.
After his speech he shared supper with the Steyns, and in later years he remembered this affair as one of the most important in his life. It had nothing to do with Maria, and was a silly thing, really, but as he watched Mrs. Steyn, almost as plump as her husband, moving easily about the kitchen and displaying her love for her family, it occurred to him that she was a second wife, not a first, and he wondered if his childhood would not have been happier had his father married again. He saw Mrs. Steyn as the epitome of what a loving Afrikaner woman could be, and it was important that he see this.
When he returned to his own home he was struck by its bleakness, and he felt depressed, but his thoughts were diverted by a series of mysterious incidents. Unidentified horsemen arrived at Vrymeer asking where General de Groot lived, and when they were told, they galloped off into the darkness. Excitement was caused by the appearance of an automobile containing three serious-looking men who wanted to consult with the general, and one afternoon Maria Steyn’s fat little father appeared on the stoep, asking to talk not only with General de Groot but also with Jakob. Van Doorn was now sixty-nine years old, white-haired and somewhat stooped, but still mentally alert, and after the meeting ended he was obviously disturbed.
One evening in midwinter, 1914, when supper was over, he pushed back his plate and looked at his son. He said nothing, reflected for some moments, then stalked from the room, and Detleef could hear him walking back and forth across the stoep. Much later he returned to the kitchen and said brusquely, as if his thoughts had suddenly clarified, ‘Son, England has declared war unrightfully against Germany. We must all make decisions. Let’s go see De Groot.’
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 vistors 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 breast them would be disgraceful. De Groot, you have the Venloo Commando in excellent condition. Visit the others. Get them ready. And when the time comes, you must lead your horsemen into battle. This time we shall regain our freedom.’
From that strong position Steyn never retreated. When others wavered, pointing out the considerable advantages the government forces would have, he persisted on one steady course, freedom, and he expected all about him to do the same. But Detleef noticed that even in his most stubborn moments, he sought guidance from General de Groot and insisted upon the old man’s approval and allegiance, as if he knew that he himself lacked the leadership qualities to head a revolution, whereas De Groot had them in marked degree.
‘Keep your eye on Smuts,’ the old man warned. ‘Christoffel, you will succeed or fail insofar as you can outsmart Slim Jannie.’ When De Groot used slim he did not intend the English word, although Jan Christian was that—slim and tall and handsome—but rather the Afrikaans word pronounced the same way: clever, shrewd, sly, not to be trusted, devious, tricky, deceitful, treacherous. It was a wonderful word, used often in connection with Smuts, whom no republican-minded Afrikaner could trust. ‘Be careful, Christoffel, of that Slim Jannie.’
It was sound advice, for Smuts, perhaps the keenest brain that South Africa had ever produced, was convinced that the destiny of this country had to lie with England, and stood ready to repel any German invader from the outside or discipline any German sympathizer who sought to operate secretly on the inside. Supporting him were English-speaking South Africans and many like-minded Afrikaners who were eager to forget the past and wanted to unite the two white tribes of the land. Paulus de Groot was shrewd when he perceived that the battle of his commandos would be not against England, but against Slim Jannie. It would be a precarious revolution and he said so.
But he was impatient to lead it. He fed his Basuto pony extra rations, oiled his rifle, and consulted constantly with leaders of the other command
‘The Bible is replete with instances in which men were called to defend their nations, in which they rode forth to protect the principles upon which their homeland existed. The Israelites in particular had to protect themselves against Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians and Philistines, and whenever they fought in accordance with God’s principles, they were victorious. When they raised their own false banners, they were defeated.
‘What words appear on the banner of God? Justice, fortitude, obedience, charity to the defeated enemy, reverence, prayer, and above all, sacred respect for the covenant under which our nation exists. If we, in moments of crisis, can comport ourselves in harmony with those commands, then we can be assured that we fight on God’s side. But if we are arrogant, or seek what belongs to others, or are cruel, or behave without respect for the covenant, then we must surely earn defeat.
‘How can a man discern, in time of crisis, whether he is in harmony with God’s commands? Only by searching his own heart and comparing his proposed behavior with instructions he has learned in the Bible. And only by subjecting himself to that comparison constantly. It is in the Bible that we find our instructions.’
After the sermon, when De Groot asked him point-blank if he would be riding with the commandos, the predikant said that his duty lay with the community, to help it regardless of the outcome. ‘Then you are afraid we’ll lose?’ De Groot asked.
‘I am,’ Brongersma said.
‘You mean our cause is unjust?’
‘I mean, General, that I have heard you say a dozen times, “We have lost the battles. We have lost the war. Now we shall win in other ways.” You were right when you said that. But now, at the first chance, you go back to the battles. Why?’
‘If a bugle sounds against the English, who can stay home?’ As he asked this, the old warrior stared straight into the eyes of the predikant, recalling the dismal fact that in the great moments of his life—the trek, the frontier, the battles—his church had never supported him. He did not expect it to now.
The first two weeks of September 1914 were a hectic and dazzling experience: Paulus de Groot dispatched emissaries to the other commandos, advising them that he expected them to rise as soon as the great generals declared themselves in favor of Germany; Christoffel Steyn assembled seventy-two men out of a possible ninety, each ready to mount his pony and ride forth; Piet Krause had already put away his books and was eager to fight; Jakob van Doorn, at seventy, had purchased an automobile; and his son Detleef, at nineteen, was up in the hills behind Vrymeer, practicing with a Mauser.
Beginning on Friday, September 12, De Groot convened a series of leader-meetings attended by a secret agent of the German armed forces in South-West Africa, who assured the locals that all was in readiness. The uprising was to start on Tuesday, September 16; wild Manie Maritz would lead his commando across the border into German territory; General Beyers would resign his position with the government after releasing a fiery condemnation of Smuts; and General de Groot would summon the men in the northeastern Transvaal. Pretoria would be taken, the government would be captured; and German power would reach from the Atlantic on the west to the Indian Ocean at Tanganyika. Combined with victory in Europe, this would herald the dawn of Germanic hegemony, in which Afrikaner nationalism would dominate southern Africa, under German guidance.
On the night of Sunday, September 14, Detleef van Doorn rode slowly eastward to Venloo, where his brother-in-law, Piet Krause, had assembled twenty-two men of the local commando. They rode through the starry night to a meeting point where others were gathering for the uprising; when morning came and he saw the masses of men willing to fight once more for a republican South Africa, his excitement soared and he cried to Krause, ‘Nothing can stop us now!’ He gained additional reassurance when he found that these men were to be led by Christoffel Steyn.
And then the blows of misfortune began to fall. As Barend Brongersma had foreseen, God was not with these Afrikaners this time. The general on whom they depended most to lead them, Koos de la Rey, a fine and brilliant man, had a horrible misfortune to be riding out of Johannesburg to convene his segment of the rebellion when a policeman, suspecting that the speeding car might contain a team of gangsters who had committed many depredations, including murder of policemen, fired a shot at the Daimler’s tire. It should have never hit the car, but it ricocheted off a rock, smashed into the head of De la Rey and killed him. Sometime later, capable General Beyers, who might have taken the dead man’s place, tried to flee across the Vaal River and was drowned. Tough Manie Maritz was neutralized across the border, and even brave General de Wet, noblest of the lot, was surrounded and forced to surrender.
Slim Jannie Smuts made not a single mistake. When the rebellion appeared to be powerful, he did not panic; instead, he called up loyal Afrikaner troops to confront their defiant brothers, keeping the English section of the nation out of the fight. And when the rebellion began to fizzle, he did not exult. He simply maintained one pressure after another, and in the end, found himself victorious on every front: the German invading force from South-West Africa was beaten back; the Germans in Tanganyika were immobilized; and within the country only Paulus de Groot and Christoffel Steyn held out against him, pinned down, as in 1902, in a wee corner of the Transvaal.
‘We must fight to the death,’ De Groot told his men, and if any showed an inclination to despair, young firebrands like Piet Krause disciplined them, saying, ‘In Europe, Germany is winning everywhere. Victory will still be ours.’
But then they were crushed by the most devastating blow of all. One night in November 1914, after a tiring ride across the highveld, General de Groot said to Jakob and Detleff, who had ridden with him, ‘I feel tired.’ A bed was made for the old man, the first he had slept in for the past ten days, and he began to breathe heavily. He said a most curious thing: ‘I would like to see my Basuto.’ So the little horse was brought to where he lay. Sixteen, eighteen, fifty … how many of these wonderful beasts had he ridden and out of how many traps? He tried to pat the munching animal, but fell back, too exhausted to complete the effort.
‘Take him away,’ Jakob told his son, but the old man protested: ‘Leave him with me.’ Toward midnight he rallied somewhat and told Christoffel, ‘Lead the men toward Waterval-Boven. We always fought well there.’ In some bewilderment he looked at Jakob and could not remember who he was, but then he saw Detleef, who had been so kind: ‘Are you Detleef with the new name?’
‘I am.’ The old man tried to speak, fell back, and died. Born in 1832, he had witnessed eight decades of fire and hope, defeat and victory.
With his death, the last commando more or less dissolved. Christoffel Steyn made a valiant effort to hold the men together, and Piet Krause threatened to shoot any who deserted, but finally, even men like Jakob and Detleef drifted away, for as Van Doorn told his son-in-law, ‘Piet, it’s time to get back to the farm.’
‘No!’ the young schoolteacher pleaded. ‘One more battle, just one big victory, and the Germans will come storming up from Moçambique to save us.’
‘There are no Germans in Moçambique,’ Jakob said, but Krause was so determined to pursue this logic that he maneuvered the men into a position from which they could not escape without giving battle, and in this fight Jakob van Doorn caught a burst of .303 bullets right between the eyes. Little of his head was left to be buried with the shattered trunk, and after prayers were said at his improvised graveside, Detleef said, ‘Piet, I think we’d better go home.’
It was fortunate they did, for the very next day government troops surrounded the remnants of the commando and arrested Christoffel Steyn.
Then began the worst agony of this abortive affair, for Jan Christian Smuts discovered that Christoffel, in the years of peace following the end of the Boer War, had accepted a position in the South African army which he had
Piet Krause led a delegation of schoolteachers to Pretoria to plead for Christoffel’s life, and Reverend Brongersma preached four tremendous sermons, two in Johannesburg, begging the government to show clemency, but to no avail. Only a few days before Christmas, Steyn was taken before a firing squad in Pretoria Central Prison, where he sang an old Dutch hymn: ‘When we enter the Valley of Death we leave our friends behind us.’ As the soldiers took up firing positions he refused a blindfold and continued singing until the bullets silenced him.
Detleef was torn apart by this tragic culmination of the rebellion: De Groot dead on the battlefield; Jakob buried in strange soil; Christoffel, of them all the most chivalrous, executed on a summer’s morning; his own life shattered. That night he wrote to Maria, the rebel’s daughter:
I fought alongside your father. I saw him at his noblest and his memory will always abide with me. He was executed most unfairly, and if I ever see that Slim Jan Christian Smuts, I will put a bullet through his brain, if he has one, which I doubt.
She, being a prudent young woman, showed the letter to no one, for she realized that if it were seen by the police, the young man she loved might be in serious trouble. She folded it carefully and placed it with mementos of her father: a handkerchief worn at Spion Kop, his cartridge belt, a book of Psalms in Old Dutch that he had carried with him in all his Boer War battles.
Christoffel Steyn was dead, but his memory would be kept alive not only by his daughter but also by a whole people longing for heroes. Slim Jannie Smuts had created a martyr out of this little commando and left a burning wound in the soul of Afrikanerdom. It would flame alongside the charred memories of Slagter’s Nek, Blaauwkrantz and Chrissiesmeer—a bitter legacy upon which the sacred history of a nation would be built.