“Our orders were to burn the farm and bring any stock back to the garrison. But she had only the one cow.”
“You burned her farm . . .”
“Without even threatening her, she said we could slaughter her cow for food . . . even though we were the enemy, we were God’s children and we were starving.”
“So you slaughtered her cow and then burned her farm . . .”
“We asked her about her kindness . . . unbelievable kindness. And grace . . . such grace. She said she imagined if her son was fighting in England. If he was starving . . . she hoped that some Englishwoman would have the heart to sacrifice her last cow to help him survive.”
I knew women like that. Tante Hannah would probably do that. But I also knew many who would have shot him between the eyes. Moeder, for one.
“And then you burned her farm . . .”
“No, we didn’t. We thanked her. Some of the men even gave her little things from home that they were carrying. And we took the cow back to the main column.”
“You didn’t burn her farm?”
“No, we did not.”
“Good.” A thimbleful of my faith in humankind was restored.
He tightened his mouth, words caught on the threshold of speech.
“Ja?”
“The following day . . . another troop scouted in that direction . . . and burned the woman out.”
I thought I was beyond being sickened. It turned out I was not. We were silent for several moments, looking out through the fence.
“So how did that get you into this camp? They didn’t think you were savage enough?”
“That’s what they decided. I kept getting sick at every farm; the men kept mocking me, but I couldn’t stop. I kept telling them it was stomach trouble from bad water. They finally sent me to the doctor and I told him the truth. He told the major to get me out of there . . . didn’t want me around the other men.”
“So now you guard women and children.”
“I don’t like this, either . . . but it’s not”—he searched for the word—“as savage.”
“How do you live with this?”
He considered it and shook his head a time or two before answering.
“I can’t.”
WILLEM HAD GONE SILENT. He had lost his playmate and then his sister, and he was unwilling to invest in me anymore. I made no attempt to teach him. Concentration was difficult for all of us, and it seemed pointless. He had solved the most important mathematics problem of his life, in the face of the commandant, so the teaching he had received was considered a success already.
He had his back to me, to all of us, his hat pulled low, but I could see his ears moving, betraying the motion of his jaws. He was chewing, slowly, like a cow.
“What do you have?” I whispered.
He would not turn.
“Are you hiding food?”
Silence.
“Willem?”
“Mmmm?”
I crawled closer.
“Willem . . . you can tell me. I won’t take it. . . . I won’t tell Moeder. You can trust me.”
He turned and opened his mouth, showing a thick gray bolus, and some blood at his gum line.
“What is that?”
I couldn’t understand what he said.
“What?”
“Riempie,” he said.
“From where?”
“Stool.”
“From your stool?”
“Ja . . .”
I looked for his little stool in that wedge of the tent that he had claimed as his area. Half the tanned ox-hide strapping had been peeled from it.
“You can’t eat that.”
“Not eating . . . chewing.”
“Does it taste good?”
“Hmph-um.” He shook his head.
“Why?”
He moved the mass to one cheek to speak: “Feels like eating.”
I groaned, but no one looked our way.
“Biltong,” he said.
“Like biltong?”
He nodded.
“But what about your stool?”
He lifted his shoulders up to his ears.
“It will make you sick.”
“Hmph-um.”
He pulled a short piece from his pocket and held it out to me.
“No . . . you keep it. But thank you.”
I would write this in my journal. Willem, now nearly as thin as the legs of his stool, gnawed on ox-hide strips to be reminded of chewing meat. Were boots next? Leather? Tent canvas? Anything to give him the feeling that he was eating? I felt the opposite; I had such little appetite.
But when Moeder turned, she saw Willem looking at me through an air of guilt. His bleeding gums oozed at the corners of his mouth.
“Hey, little soldier,” I said, trying to explain the blood. “Everybody loses their teeth.”
Moeder waved him closer and examined his mouth. She found bloody holes. His permanent teeth were falling out.
“Maybe we need supper early today,” she said.
The stringy tinned beef would do him no good. That challenged anyone with well-rooted teeth.
She opened the ration bin and took out the small bag of mealie meal and the pinch sack of salt.
“Porridge,” I said. “Perfect for Willem.”
I brought the water bucket to Moeder.
“We should try it cold tonight,” she said. “It would be good for us to get used to it cold, just mixed with a little water and salt.”
Willem sniffed. Moeder moved her eyes toward the pot. We had no way to heat water.
FRETFUL WOMEN CLOSED TIGHT around the guards at the front of the hospital tent. They talked at once, frantic, some pawing at the men’s tunics. The guards were deaf to their begging and unmoved by taunts and curses. The women glared when I approached, resentful of my health.
“Nurse Agnes said I could help here,” I told the guards.
“Wait here.”
The women stirred at the word “help.” Was I there to help the children or to help the British? They began talking at once to me, as if I could somehow solve their problems or could help them gain entrance. I erased all expression, gesturing in a way that implied I could not understand them.
It was another outing about which I misled Moeder. These outings were growing more common, and I swallowed back rising bile every time I deceived her. I was growing used to the taste. I expected her to block a trip to the hospital because of exposure to illness and to the British. It was easier just to leave while she was preoccupied. I was not sure she would notice my absence, anyway.
Nurse Agnes appeared, her cape covered in fluids, and her hair coming unpinned. But she was stiff backed and strong voiced. “Aletta . . . good to see you. . . . I have only a few minutes, but I’ll show you our little hospital. Your aunt Hannah told me about you and what a wonderful young woman you are. She is a great help here. She loves the children. She works more hours than any of us. She almost never goes back to her own tent.”
“I didn’t know she was helping here,” I said.
“For months,” she said.
There were dozens lying in low cots, mostly children, a few elderly. Some areas were separated by portable drapes.
“Measles.” She pointed to one portion that was quarantined and then gestured in sequence around the large tent. “Pneumonia, dysentery, whooping cough . . . typhus in that corner.”
“I’ve seen them all,” I told her.
“Just living in this camp should cover half the classes you’d need to get through nursing school.”