The Visitors (24 page)

It is hopeless, I see that. The woman is long gone, scot-free. All this way, and she has done a flit. At least we can see the tent where Jackson was killed. But how to ask Henrietta about that? What reason can we give? I sign to Lottie and she shrugs her shoulders.

Henrietta says, ‘Excuse me for interrupting. But I may be able to help you myself. When he was ill in the hospital, the boy Jurie talked about it while he was feverish. The other nurses are English and did not understand him. But I knew what he was saying. He was speaking about his home. One time, he called out the name of his farm.’

‘Mimosafontein,’ says Lottie.

‘That is right! How did you know?’

‘My brother told us.’

‘He told me, “When we get out of here, we’re going home. We’re going back to Mimosafontein.” He said it had been burned down, but they were going back there anyway and were going to build it up again from scratch. He told me all about it, half asleep. He said they were going to hide in the cellar during the day and at night were going to work on the farm. I assumed he meant after the war. But then they escaped and … maybe that is where they have gone.’

I want to know something, and Lottie translates for me. ‘Did you tell the British about this?’

‘About what the boy said? No, I kept it to myself. They had suffered, suffered very much. I thought, Good luck to them. She had lost her husband, the boy’s father. And Jackson – the dead man – he was a bad man. Bad all through. A coward and a bully. And he raped her, oh yes. More than once. Everybody knows that. They say he had it coming to him. We did not even hear the shot, as there was a bad dust storm that day. Everyone was hiding away and the wind was very loud, whistling and howling. We only heard about the murder when we saw Maria taken to the commandant’s office. And then people were saying your brother had confessed. Maria went back to her tent, but she did not speak again to any of us staff. Not even when her son was ill. And apart from his ramblings that one time the boy himself didn’t say another word after the murder, not even to his mother. That time he told me about the farm he was in a fever, he was delirious, and after that it was as if he were mute. But it may be true, what he said. They may have gone home. Where else can they go?’

‘Thank you,’ I sign, and Lottie tells her. I reach out and touch Henrietta’s hand. ‘Why are you helping us?’ I ask. I want to understand.

Henrietta looks squarely at us. ‘You are good women, I can see that. God has sent you to help your brother. I met him once. He was a good man, I could see that. He tried to help Maria and her son. Maybe he shot Jackson, maybe she did. No one but Jackson knows what really happened in that tent. A horrible business.’

‘Can we see the tent, where it happened?’ I sign.

Henrietta looks concerned, curious, a little suspicious. ‘If you wish. Do you think it will help?’ We have our own reason for seeking out that tent, something this woman would not believe or understand.

‘We are trying to get a clear picture of events,’ adds Lottie. ‘We can do very little for my brother, but the least we can do is investigate this as thoroughly as possible.’

Henrietta nods and her green eyes sparkle. ‘Like lady detectives, mmm?’ She has been helpful and generous with her time, but also she seems to be enjoying this, a little drama to entertain her in which she has no stake.

We take our leave, thanking her again and shaking hands like men. The tent is in row fourteen, number four. Henrietta has told us it is meant for storing cooking and medical equipment, but is used by the soldiers for privacy with their female companions. Not all relations that go on here are rape, it seems. As we count our way down the tents, I begin to banish the Visitors that crowd around, dismissing children, women, Boer men. Soon there are no Visitors left. When we reach the small tent, we peer inside. There are some empty crates stacked on one side, almost blocking the entrance.

Lottie taps my arm. ‘Anyone?’ she asks.

‘Not yet.’

I step around the boxes. There is no Visitor here. It is ferociously hot and I look down to see a dark stain that scrawls across the dirt floor, alive with black flies. It must be blood, Jackson’s blood. No one has thought to clear it. Or perhaps it has been preserved as evidence for the trial. But there is no guard, no one to stop us entering and poking about. All very slapdash, if you ask me. But their carelessness is our good fortune. I step outside again and beckon Lottie inside to show her the blood. Back outside, I walk around the full circumference of the tent. I check other tents close by, looking for the telltale violet glow in the air of a Visitor about to appear. But there is no one. I would know Jackson directly by his uniform, as I have seen no other British soldiers as Visitors here, only Boers. I suppose the soldiers get more to eat than their charges. We stay by the tent for an hour, sometimes peering inside, though the heat and the flies drive us out; then we patrol the paths nearby, looking for Jackson. I want to converse with him, I am relying on him to talk of his last obsession as Visitors do, to reveal to us who raised that gun and shot him dead. He is the key to our plan. We must find Jackson. But there is no sign of him.

‘It is just like Tom,’ Lottie says, wiping her damp brow with a handkerchief.

‘But it has been weeks since this one died,’ I say. ‘And he wasn’t at sea. They always wander the place they die, always. Where could he be?’

We decide to search further afield. By the time our train is due, we have circled the entire camp, walked past every tent in every row and looked in every building. We have had enquiring looks from inmates and nurses and guards, but no sign of Jackson. The train is imminent and we must leave. We thank the guard at the entrance for his help and walk down to the station, even looking in and out of every corner there too. Jackson has eluded us. We sit still and exhausted on the train back to Pretoria and observe the South African terrain. I take out my handkerchief and blow my nose, over and over. I cannot rid myself of the stench of that place. The train rushes past the slow lumber of innocent oxen drawing wagons and I am reminded of Kent in September, our own cattle which pull the loads of freshly picked hop cones stored in green bags to the oast for drying. I want to cry at the remoteness of home and I look at Lottie. She is weeping. I have let her down again.

‘I am sorry,’ I finger spell into her palm.

‘It is not your fault.’

‘We can go to that farm, Wallis will help us. Maybe we’ll be lucky. Maybe we’ll find her.’

‘Maybe,’ says Lottie. ‘But what good will it do? Wallis was right. Even if we find her, she will never help us. Perhaps it is best to leave her be.’

‘But it is her fault, that woman. It is all her fault.’

‘No,’ says Lottie. ‘No, it is not.’

She speaks no more. It is as if her heart is slow, worn down and made old by her worry and grief. Again, I watch my friend suffer and I cannot help her. I sit and think of that camp, a modern Hades through which sweep the rivers of sorrow, hate and lamentation, the living waiting to die, the dead searching for rest. And I curse the ghost of Private Arnold Jackson for his absence, the British Army for bringing him here, the Boers for declaring war, the money men who want the African gold, the generals for setting up the camp, the soldiers who burned down Maria’s farm, Caleb for leaving me and coming to this wounded land. I must blame someone.

We return late to our guest-house and are met with raised eyebrows from our German hosts. Our grimy faces, dirty skirts and unkempt hair must be a sight to see. We wash and eat the salted venison left out for us. We both sleep badly that night and are up with the lark, hoping to see Wallis early and discover the way to the farm. We find him after breakfast, looking large and ungainly in the little garden behind our hotel, his face glum, tugging on his moustache.

‘Is all well?’ asks Lottie.

‘I shan’t lie to you. Caleb is in trouble. Yesterday while you was at the camp, his counsel came by the hospital and spoke to the doctor. They say he’ll be discharged in a couple of days and then he’ll stand trial straight away.’

‘But he’s not strong enough yet,’ cries Lottie. ‘He needs to recuperate.’

‘I know. But they had an army surgeon in to check him over and he says he’s all right and fit to stand trial. I think they want to get it over with. It’s an embarrassment for them. It’s all over the newspapers here and back home. Counsel says they want to make an example of him. And that they might not believe his defence, that he was mad when he did it. There’s no history of madness, see? He’s as steady as they come, Caleb Crowe. You know that. So counsel says there’s not much hope.’

Lottie shakes her head violently and I fear she will cry.

‘Then there’s no time to lose,’ I sign to her, and make her pull herself together and translate. ‘Listen, Wallis. We have news. Maria and her son have escaped from the camp.’

‘Oh, Lord!’

We tell him the nurse’s story.

‘We want to go to her farm and look for her. Will you help us?’

‘Oh, ladies, if only I could. But I’ve come to tell you my leave is up. I’m back off to Frankfort this morning. I came to say my goodbyes.’

The thought of Wallis accompanying us had been heartening, but now I see this may serve us well. After all, as soon as she sees a British soldier approach her farm, she would fly. Or worse.

‘It is all right. We can go there alone. But first we need to find out where it is. Do you have time to help us with that before you go?’

Wallis says he will speak to the German couple. They have lived in Pretoria for twenty years and probably know the names of all the farms round here. But we explain to Wallis that they barely talk to us.

‘They’ll take your rent but they hate you all right.’

‘But whyever do they hate us?’ asks Lottie.

‘Germans are pro-Boer, didn’t you know? They really hate the British. The Boers all fight with German weapons, Mauser and Krupp. There’s even a German volunteer corps fighting over here. The Boers get money sent over from German charity. Germans love them. They think us British are all big bullies, pushing the poor little Boers about. But the Kaiser can be a bully when he wants to. Never fear though. I’ll get these two in order. They’ll do what I tell them or I’ll make a heap of trouble for them.’

He puffs himself up to full military stance and intimidates the German couple into telling him where the farm is, saying that it is army business and they will be arrested if they do not reveal its location. It is all bluster but they look alarmed and give him directions. He races off to visit army HQ nearby and comes back directly with a crumpled map of the environs of Pretoria. We search across it and find the place the Germans have described. We can take the railway so far, and then we must hire a cart to get to the farm. I recall my blind fingers moving over Father’s globe, how smartly I could find a country, sea or landmark when Lottie asked it; excellent spatial sense I had. It serves me still as, once I could see, I would visualise distance as well as divine it tactilely. As I study the map, I memorise our route to Mimosafontein and see it unfurl in my mind’s eye.

Wallis is awkward in bidding goodbye. For a moment I believe I glimpse his lip trembling. He promises he will come back on his next leave, but he has no idea when that will be.

‘I’ll go in to see Caleb again before I get off.’

‘Do not tell him what we are doing,’ I sign.

‘Why not? He’d be proud of you both, going to all this trouble for him.’

‘I am not so sure,’ adds Lottie, understanding my meaning. ‘He will not want us to harass Maria, that is certain. And he may rush to trial if he feels his position is threatened. No, I think it best we keep this to ourselves for the moment, Walter. It can be our secret.’

Wallis cannot resist Lottie and takes off his hat to bow for us. Within the hour, we are on our way. We know to detrain at a little village just twenty minutes up the line. Wallis has instructed us to pay the natives very little when hiring a Cape cart. We haggle and then find our charge, a sprightly pony ready to trot us forth. We peruse the map and head north from the railway station, following a dirt road that should lead us past two farms then to Mimosafontein. The land hereabouts is open grassland, undulating low hills and small clumps of trees here and there. The weather is mild and dry; we are comfortable in our shawls and hats, flurries of wind teasing our hair loose. The land is so vast, so quiet, so dwarfed by the skies that I begin to grasp the appeal. I imagine the Dutch settlers in their wagons trekking across this land and seeing their peaceful future spread out beneath the blue heavens.

As we trot on, Lottie manning the reins and making a good fist of it, it is as if we are on an outing to watch birds, not a life-or-death encounter with a woman I hate to my bones. I steel myself as we see our first farm ahead. But it is no farm, not any more. It is a smoke-blackened husk. We go onwards and say nothing, its vacuity an accusation for which we have no answer. A while further on, we pass another derelict farm. This one looks as if it has exploded, as the roof timbers lie dozens of feet from the wrecked main building, some skewered into the ground by force, their splintered ends cutting a harsh black line through the calm sky. As we ride past, I spy a Visitor at this one, a Boer man, low flat hat askew on his head, beady eyes glaring. He stands before the rubble of his farm, a threshold guardian. He marches forward, raises his arm and shouts something in Afrikaans, his face filthy with dirt and anger. He starts to run after us, gaining on the cart alarmingly. Though I know he cannot hurt us, I urge Lottie to trot faster. As we rush on, he stops, his arm still raised as if in farewell, his spirit dissolving into the air as if he has reached the boundary of the place of his death and cannot travel further.

The next farm is Mimosafontein. We watch it come. It is ruined, like the others. The main building is half burned-out, but two walls are still intact and some of the roof clings on. Low stone walls nearby, which might have housed animals, are complete. There were tall trees growing here once, but they are all dead, hacked off below the lowest branch to murder them. What was once a dam is dry and the earth within it cracked into brown fissures. Weeds proliferate in ragged squares marked out beside the house, perhaps a former flower garden. We pull up outside the front door, still intact and standing ajar; through habit, I knock on it and see Lottie call out, ‘Mrs Uitenweerde? Hello, is anyone at home?’