At the Fireside--Volume 1 (2 page)

Rachel de Beer

Rachel de Beer

If on your way down the N3 towards Natal, you afford yourself the pleasure of stopping off at Van Reenen Village and visiting its historic Little Church and the lovely old wayside inn called the Green Lantern, owned by Lew and Maria, you will become acquainted with the area in which this story takes place.

Just to the north of the village runs the old road from the Transvaal to Port Natal, and the pass is known as De Beer's Pass. It is named after an old Freestater named Heiman de Beer, who in the late 1870s owned a farm on top of that part of the Drakensberg between the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State.

One of the biggest dangers in the area is the cold. During the winter months, snowfalls are often accompanied by winds that drop the temperature so swiftly that even during the day animals have been known to freeze to death on those open plains.

One winter Heiman de Beer was visited by a man of the same name, who was looking to buy a farm in that area. He was accompanied by his wife and two children, a boy of six or seven and a girl of twelve years named Rachel. They had a small number of stud cattle, along with some sheep and goats and, as there was an unoccupied hartbeeshuis on the farm, Heiman offered to let them stay there, to afford the man a chance to look around for a farm.

Scarcely a week later, just after midday, a terrible storm came in from the south-east. Heavy dark clouds came rolling over the Mountain peaks and the icy wind cut through the thickest clothing like a knife. The young animals from the summer lambing season had to be attended to immediately and everyone on the property, even old Herman, was busy carrying the young lambs into the barns, and herding the cattle into the kraals where they could huddle together to ward off the bitter cold. The younger De Beer was not rich and with his comparatively few cattle and sheep he could scarcely afford to lose any. When he had accounted for his herds, he noticed that a young cow, which had only just calved, was not accompanied by her new calf. As the herd had not been far from the house, it was easy to follow the spoor to locate the new calf. Night was falling fast, no time could be wasted and everyone had to help in the search. Rachel, or Raggie as she was called, was an energetic young girl who had grown up with cattle and already helped her father to take care of his herd. She often acted as herder and could milk cows, inspan a team of oxen and drive a wagon. So it was decided that the father, along with a Koranna assistant, would look further afield while Rachel searched the area nearest to the house.

Just before leaving, the young brother insisted on going with Rachel. It was bitterly cold, but these children were accustomed to a hard way of life and even their mother saw nothing wrong in the boy accompanying his elder sister. After all, it was close to the house and they wouldn't be away that long. So she wrapped him up warmly in a sheepskin kaross and the two of them went searching for the calf.

It is not necessary to drag out this tragic story. It IN as long after dark that the father and his Koranna servant returned, but Raggie and Boetie were still not back. The storm was vicious. The wind was so strong that it was difficult to keep one's direction, and the falling snow was turning to ice. The alarm was raised. The mother lit a big dung fire next to the house. The father, along with the Koranna and another two servants with lanterns, all heavily wrapped up in blankets, started the search for the children.

Throughout the night they searched, shouting, calling and shooting continually, but to no avail. At dawn the storm began to abate. The wind died down and the snow ceased to fall. At this stage the mother joined the search, but there was scant hope in anyone's heart. What shelter was there on those cold plains? The only possible hope was that they had found refuge in a deserted antbear hole.

Just after sunrise, one of the labourers picked up the spoor. The children had walked through the first and then the second dale and had evidently become completely lost in the storm and the darkness and, when the labourer signalled and the rest of the search party joined him, this is what they found.

A relatively big termite mound had been hollowed out with a sharp stone, to resemble the oven used by the trekkers. The mound might have been partly hollow when Raggie found it. She had made many such ovens for her own mother. Chipping away with a stone, in the bitter cold, with her little brother lying next to her almost unable to move, and slowly freezing to death, she had managed to make the excavation big enough for him to squeeze into.

It had long been dark when she had carried him over fifty metres to the termite mound. Her arms must have been almost paralysed when she started digging, but she worked without stopping, though slower and slower in the cold, until the hole was finished – and then she had made her final decision.

She was found naked, with only her small velskoens on her feet, curled around the entrance to the little cave she had dug, completely blocking it. She was dead, her body almost as white as the surrounding snow. Inside the ant heap was Boetie, curled up tight and close to death, and over his clothes were those of Raggie – her dress, her petticoat and her thick sheepskin jersey wrapped around his little legs and her kappie on his head.

The bitter cold wind blew a little softer that day, over the frozen fields of the eastern Free State.

The Homeward Bound

The
Homeward Bound

In July 1883 more settlers arrived at the Marburg Mission Station run by the Reverend Stoppel, on the Natal South Coast near Port Shepstone. By September 1883 there were 246 Norwegians, 175 Britons and 112 Germans all settled in the district, having taken up farming or trading in the surrounding district.

Unfortunately, there was a terrible depression in Natal during the 1880s and this affected the area very badly, so much so, in fact, that even the local shipping service that had sprung up was curtailed. As a result, many of the settlers were driven away from the area in search of work.

Three of these unfortunate Norwegian settlers were Inguald and Bernhard Nilsen and Zefanias Oslen. They wandered up the coast, finding part-time work to keep body and soul together, and at Durban they decided to turn inland towards the Drakensburg in search of work on the farms that were now being populated by the incoming farmers. They eventually reached the Witzieshoek area of the Free State, and there, in that most beautiful part of the country, they found employment on one of the local farms.

With the passage of time, however, they all became extremely homesick, and longed to visit their families and relatives. Being seafaring men they decided to build a seaworthy boat and designed a four-and-three-quarter ton vessel with an overall length of 6 m, a beam of just over 2 m and drawing 1,3 m of water. After buying the necessary materials they started construction. As they could only work on the boat in their spare time, the task was long and arduous and she took about eighteen months to complete. They christened her
Homeward Bound
and she was ready for her laborious journey down to Durban in February 1886.

They lashed her to a long-wheelbase transport wagon, inspanned a team of oxen and proceeded to the coast. Towards the end of March that year they arrived in Durban. The people of the town could not believe it. This was certainly the first sea-going vessel ever to come from the Free State and when the townsfolk heard that they planned to sail back to Norway, they were aghast. After many parties and much pomp and ceremony on 2 May 1886 they raised the sails on the Homeward Bound and put to sea. The newspapers were full of the story, the international press was informed, and her passage was watched with intense interest and concern by the world. Her every known movement was charted and passing ships instructed to report on her progress. The voyage was extremely hazardous as, being such a small craft, she had to hug the coastline. Whenever stonily weather threatened she would have to heave to, in a suitably protected bay along the coast, wait out the weather and then set forth once more. Everywhere they docked along the way they were met by tumultuous welcomes and fanfare, and treated as celebrities.

On 20 March 1887, a full ten months after setting sail from Durban, this tiny craft sailed into Dover harbour, to the twin sprays of salute from the harbour tug, every ship's foghorn blaring a welcome and a full military band playing. The crowd of people lining the pier went mad with excitement.

They were feted and feasted by royalty and London society. So famous had their incredible feat become that Queen Victoria ordered that the little boat be hoisted out of the water and put on public exhibition at the Crystal Palace. The sale of the
Homeward Bound
, plus a generous public grant, ensured its brave crew a luxurious trip back to their motherland from England, after which these three brave Norwegians, all the way from Witzieshoek in the Free State, disappeared from the pages of the world press, never to be heard of again.

The Natal Native Contingent

The Natal Native Contingent

It was January 1879 in Natal, Sir Bartle Frere's ultimatum had expired and Britain was at war with the Zulu people. But the senior officers soon realised that they did not have sufficient troops at their disposal and it was decided to raise a corps of irregular horse troops from among the local black people to offset the shortage of regulars. This ‘Natal Native Contingent' (NNC) comprised volunteers from tribes that had fled south of the Tugela from Shaka. The Hlubi, Amangwani and Mangwe all had scores to settle with the Zulu. This story revolves around the ‘Edendale Contingent' a troop of deeply religious men from the settlement of Edendale just outside Pietermaritzburg.

Edendale was one of the finest Christian mission settlements ever. The land was owned by the inhabitants, bought and paid for by themselves. A strongly Wesleyan community possessing schools and a church, this settlement was led by three fathers, all of them preachers and class leaders.

One of the three, Daniel M' Simang, upon receiving the message from the Government calling for volunteers, said: ‘We have sat in the shadow of the Great White Queen in security and peace for many years, we have enjoyed privileges and grown well, our children have a good education. Shall we not obey her when she calls for the services of her dark children...?' The response was immediate – ‘We will!'

The fathers of the settlement undertook to bear the expenses of that voluntary troop. They provided the horses, the saddles and all the stores.

The British Army gave them very little and treated them rather contemptuously. All the young men of the settlement volunteered their services and it fell to the elders to choose the best hundred men. And very well they did their job. These were the finest, proudest black soldiers ever seen. Many of the volunteers were married with children.

On the day of their departure, a solemn service was held to commend the men to the care of the Almighty. Then quiet farewells were exchanged between mothers and sons, husbands and wives, and the troop began to march away. A little way out of the settlement, the elders stopped and led the men in prayer and then handed over to Sergeant Major Simeon Kambule, one of the settlement leaders. The old men returned to Edendale to pray.

When the volunteers joined the regular forces of the British Army, they were given only mealies and rough beef as rations. Simeon Kambule made representation to the officers and requested normal rations, including bread, tea, sugar and coffee. This was refused. Simeon quietly informed the officers that they would provide rations at their own expense and that they would serve without Government rations until some officer could decide upon their status.

I don't want to go into the battle of Isandlwana here. Suffice it to say that Simeon Kambule managed to extricate his few remaining men from that disastrous battle, forded the Mzinyathi River at Fugitives Drift and rode for Helpmekaar.

In Pietermaritzburg two irregular troopers arrived exhausted and desperate for food and water. They blurted out the terrible news and were promptly thrown into jail, lest they cause panic by spreading the news. Another two arrived and told the Edendale Elders of the disaster and Daniel M'Simang said, ‘If this be true, the Great White Queen will need every one of her children to fight for this country. We will go and raise another troop from Edendale.' Once more, fully equipped by the fathers, another Edendale troop was raised and hastened to the front.

Natal now lay at the mercy of the Zulus, and it was only because of the strict orders of King Cetshwayo that the colony was not invaded. The losses were appalling and troops so scarce that the dead lay for four months on the battlefield of Islandlwana until reinforcements arrived. The enlarged Edendale troop guarded the colony's borders and helped to prepare for the next advance to Ulundi, the capital of Zululand. Since their great deeds at Isandlwana, their worth had been realised and they now, for the first time, received normal rations as well as pay from the British Army.

The contingent fought in every single battle, acquitting themselves excellently and winning the admiration of every British officer who came into contact with them. Every morning they would rise one hour prior to their schedule in order to hold family prayers. Every man was present and every evening, no matter what time, they would all gather for the evening service.

On the morning of the Battle of Ulundi, the final battle of the Anglo-Zulu War, Captain Shepstone, their commanding officer, was lying asleep when he heard the sound of singing. He recognised the hymn and sheepishly arose and joined his troops in worship, knowing full well that many of them would not return that night.

The battle that day was terrible and when the Zulus were put to flight, the Edendale Contingent was among those ordered to pursue them – and they were the last to return to the camp that night. Shepstone, utterly exhausted, threw himself down on a blanket, glad to be alive. He heard the sound of singing. His men were singing a Methodist hymn before even seeking food or rest. ‘God forgive me', he said, ‘they are thanking the Lord for their lives', and he joined his men in worship.

When the war was over, Simeon Kambule was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. I believe that had he been white he would have received the Victoria Cross. The British did not give the Natal Native Contingent the praise and the glory that it rightly deserved. No wonder the people of Edendale lost respect for white people, and it does not surprise me that, during the apartheid era, there was so much trouble in that area.