The night after I had my stitches out I was summoned to appear before the Judge and jury.
The Judge had been quite nice to me over the past week and, because of my sore shoulder, hadn't
required that I carry his books to school each day. In fact, because Miss du Plessis was generally
disliked, I'd become a bit of a hero.
But Rooineks in this part of the world are not designed to be permanent heroes. I knew it would soon
come to an end: when the stitches were out, my temporary reprieve would be over. So, here I was
again, being marched straight into another calamity.
'Stand to attention, prisoner Pisskop,' the Judge snarled.
I drew myself up, my arms ramrods at my side. 'Bring your stupid legs together, man!' one of the jury
shouted.
'Name?'
I looked confused, everyone knew my name?
'What is your name, Pisskop?' the Judge asked again.
'Pisskop?' I ventured, still not certain what he meant.
'What does your name mean?'
Again I looked querulous. 'That I piss my bed?'
'Ja, and chickens shit in it as well! What is a Rooinek?'
'I am English.'
'Yes I know, man! But how do you know you're a Rooinek?'
'I... I just know, sir.'
The Judge shook his head and gave a deep sigh. 'Come here. Come closer, man.'
I stepped forward to stand directly in front of where he sat cross-legged on his bed. The Judge's arm
came up and my hand flew up to protect my face, but instead of hitting me he pulled at the cord of my
pyjama pants which collapsed round my ankles.
'Your blerrie snake has no hat on its head, domkop! That's how you know you're English!
Understand?'
'Yes, sir.' I bent down to pull my pyjama pants back up.
'Don't!' I jumped back to attention. 'What am I, Pisskop?' the Judge demanded.
'A Boer, sir?'
'Yes, and what is a Boer?'
'An Afrikaner, sir.'
'Yes, of course... but what else?'
'A Boer has a hat on his snake.' Why, when He has made all white people look alike, had God given
the English snakes without a hat? It seemed terribly unfair. My camouflage was perfect except for this
one little thing.
'Tonight you will learn to march. We must get you ready for your march into the sea.' The Judge
pointed to the corridor between the beds and gave me a push. I tripped over my pyjama pants and fell
to the floor. One of the jury reached down and pulled the pants away from my ankles. I rose bare-
arsed and looked uncertainly at the Judge. 'March!' he commanded pointing down the corridor
between the beds once more. I started to march, swinging my arms high. 'Links, regs, links, regs, halt!'
he bawled. Then again: 'Left, right, left, right, halt! Which is your left foot, prisoner Pisskop?' I had no
idea but pointed to a foot. 'Domkop! Don't you even know your left from your right?'
'No, sir,' I said, feeling stupid. But I did now, the left side was where my shoulder hurt.
'Every day after school you will march around the playground for five thousand steps, you hear?'
I nodded. 'You will count backwards from five thousand until you get to number one.'
I couldn't believe my luck, no one had laid a hand on me. I retrieved my pyjama pants and scurried
back along the dark passage to my dormitory.
Being a prisoner of war and learning how to march wasn't such a bad thing. I had nothing to do after
school anyway. But I must admit, counting backwards from five thousand isn't much of a way to pass
the time. It's impossible anyway, your thoughts wander and before you know it you're all jumbled up
and have to start all over again. I learned to mumble a number if anyone came close, but mostly I did
the Judge's homework in my head. Carrying his books from school, I would memorise his arithmetic
lesson and then I would work the equations out in my head as I marched along. If things got a bit
complicated, I'd make sure nobody was looking and I'd work out a more complex sum using a stick in
the dirt. It got so I couldn't wait to see what he'd done in class each day.
The Judge was an awful domkop. In the mornings carrying his books to school I'd check his
homework. It was always a mess and mostly all wrong. I began to despair for him and for myself as
well, you see, he could only leave the school if the work he did during the year gave him a pass mark.
So far, he didn't have a hope. If he failed I'd have him for another year. That is, if Hitler hadn't come
by then to march me away.
Escape seemed impossible, so I'd have to think of something else. Over a period of several marching
afternoons a plan began to form. The something else, when it finally emerged, was breathtakingly
simple though fraught with danger. For the next two days I thought of little else.
If I blew my camouflage and helped the Judge with his homework so that he would pass, would he not
be forced to spare Granpa Chook and me if Adolf Hitler arrived before the end of term?
I must say I was worried. Every time I had blown my camouflage disaster had followed. Finally, after
a long talk with Granpa Chook, we agreed it was a chance worth taking.
After breakfast the following morning, when I was folding the Judge's blanket and arranging his towel
over his bed rail, I broached the subject. He was sitting on a bed licking his pencil and trying to do
some last-minute arithmetic.
'Can I help you, sir?' My heart thumped like a donkey engine, though I was surprised how steady my
voice sounded.
'Push off, Pisskop. Can't you see I'm busy, man.' The Judge was doing the fractions I'd done in my
head the previous afternoon and getting them hopelessly wrong.
Gulping down my fear I said, 'What happens if you don't pass at the end of the year?' The Judge
looked at me, I could see the thought wasn't new to him. He reached out and grabbed me by the
shirtfront.
'If I don't pass, I'll kill you first and then I'll run away!'
I took my courage in both hands. 'I... I can help you, sir,' I stammered.
The Judge released me and went back to chewing his pencil, his brow furrowed as he squinted at the
page of equations. He appeared not to have heard me. I pointed to the equation he'd just completed.
'That's wrong. The answer is seven-ninths.' I moved my finger quickly. 'Four-fifths, six-eighths, nine-
tenths, five-sevenths...' I paused as he grabbed my hand and looked up at me, open-mouthed.
'Where did you learn to do this, man?'
I shrugged, 'It's just easy for me, that's all.' I hoped he couldn't sense how scared I was.
A look of cunning came into his eyes. He released my hand and handed me the book and the pencil.
'Just write the answers very softly and I'll copy them, you hear?'
The camouflage was intact and I'd moved up into the next evolutionary stage. From knowing to hide
my brains I had now learned to use them. Granpa Chook and I were one step further away from the
sea.
But I had already experienced the consequences of revealing too much too soon. I knew if a domkop
like the Judge went from bottom to the top of his class overnight, Mr Stoffel would soon smell a rat.
Telling the Judge he was a duffer was more than my life was worth. Besides, I was beginning to
understand how manipulation can be an important weapon in the armoury of the small and weak.
'We have a problem,' I said to the Judge.
'What problem, man? I don't see a problem. You just write in the answers very soft, that's all.'
'Judge, you're a very clever fellow.'
'Ja, that's right. So?'
'So arithmetic doesn't interest you, does it? I mean, if it did you could do it,' I snapped my fingers,
'just like that!'
'Ja, if I wanted to I could. Only little kids like you are interested in all that shit!'
I could see this conclusion pleased him and I grew bolder. 'So you can't just get ten out of ten today
when yesterday you only got two sums right out of ten. Mr Stoffel will know there's some monkey
business going on.'
The Judge looked worried. 'You mean, you're not going to help me?'
'Of course I am. But you will get better a little bit each week and you'll tell Mr Stoffel that you
suddenly got the hang of doing sums.'
The Judge looked relieved and then grinned slyly, 'Jy is 'n slimmetjie, Pisskop,' he said.
The Judge had called me clever. Me! Pisskop! Rooinek and possessor of a hatless snake! It was the
greatest compliment of my life and I was beside myself with pride.
But before the Judge could notice the effect of his words on me, I quickly resumed my obsequious
manner. The thrill of the compliment had almost caused me to forget my other anxiety.
'What will happen if Adolf Hitler comes before the end of term?' I asked, my heart beating overtime.
The Judge looked at me blankly, then suddenly grinned, understanding the reason for my question.
'Okay, man, you got me there. I will say nothing until I've passed at the end of the year.'
He shook his head and gave me a look not entirely without sympathy, 'I'm sorry, Pisskop, after that I
will have to tell him about you. You must be punished for killing twenty-six thousand Boer women
and children. You and your stupid kaffir chicken are dead meat when he comes. But I'll tell you
something, I give you my word as a Boer, if I pass in sums, I swear on a stack of Bibles not to tell
Adolf Hitler until next term.'
The Judge, his brow furrowed as though he were doing the calculations himself, started to copy over
the answers I had written in his exercise book.
I had won: my plan had worked. I could hardly believe my ears. Granpa Chook and I were safe for
the remainder of the term.
The Judge had come to the end of his copying. I had never seen him quite so happy, not even when he
was Heil Hitlering all over the place. I saw my opportunity and, taking a sharp inward breath, said
quickly, 'It will be difficult to march every afternoon and still do your homework, sir.'
The inside of my head filled with a zinging sound. Had I gone too far? I'd won the battle and here I
was risking all on a minor skirmish. Marching around wasn't so bad. Quite fun really.
What if he realised I used the time to do his homework anyway?
The Judge sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. 'Orright, no more marching. But you do
my homework, you hear? If I catch you and that kaffir chicken messing around, you'll do twice as
much marching as before. You are both prisoners of war and you better not forget it, man.'
Victory was mine a second time. My first conscious efforts at manipulation had been successful.
It was a heady feeling as Granpa Chook and I followed the Judge to school that morning.
_______________________________________________________
One thing is certain in life. Just when things are going well, soon after they are certain to go wrong.
It's just the way things are meant to be.
Mrs Gerber told us that day in class, there had been an outbreak of Newcastle's disease on a chicken
farm near Merensky Dam. Her husband, the vet, had left to visit all the surrounding farms.
Even the youngest kids know what havoc a disease of any kind can cause with poultry or livestock. Of
course, rinderpest and foot-and-mouth disease amongst the cattle were the worst, but every farm
keeps at least fifty chickens for eggs, so Mrs Gerber's news was met with consternation. My mother
had once said that if my granpa lost all his black Orpingtons it would break his heart.
It was pretty depressing to think of my mother with her nervous breakdown in an English
concentration camp knitting jumpers with funny sleeves. Knitting away with all the Boer mothers and
children as she waited to starve to death or die of black water fever. Meanwhile, back on the farm,
there was poor old Granpa slowly dying of a broken heart. That was, if Adolf Hitler didn't arrive
first. If he did, I knew Granpa wouldn't even have the strength to make escape plans or drive the
Model A and then what would become of me?
Maybe I could live with Nanny in Zululand? This thought cheered me up a lot. Adolf Hitler would
never look for a small English person in the middle of Zululand. Inkosi-Inkosikazi would hide me
with a magic spell and they wouldn't have a hope. As for Granpa Chook, Adolf Hitler would never be
able to tell an English-speaking chicken apart from all the other kaffir chickens. I decided right there
and then, when I got back to the farm I would put this excellent plan to Nanny.
From what we could gather from the Judge, who was allowed to listen to the news on Mr Stoffel's
wireless on Saturday nights, the war was going pretty badly for the English. Adolf Hitler had taken
Poland, which I took to be a place somewhere in South Africa, like Zululand, but where the Po tribe
lived. The Judge made it sound as though Adolf Hitler could be expected any day now in our neck of
the woods.
I had no idea that South Africa was on England's side, from where I sat the English were most
definitely the local enemy. While I knew myself to be English, I regarded this as my misfortune, like
being born into a poor and degenerate family.
Most of my information came from the regular war councils the Judge held behind the school shit
houses. All the senior hostel boys were stormtroopers and Danie Coetzee, as head of the small kids'
dormitory, was also allowed to attend. As the official prisoners of war, Granpa Chook and I were
dragged along for the purposes of interrogation and torture.
I was blindfolded and tied to the trunk of a jacaranda tree with a rope around my chest and waist,
leaving my arms and legs free. This was because two of the main tortures required my hands to be
free.
Most torture sessions began with the iron bar which was known as 'Chinese torture' after the make of
the Judge's big, cheap pocket watch, one of his most treasured possessions. I was required to hold the
bar out in front of me while he timed each session, so that I would have to hold the bar up longer than
the previous time before dropping it. My times were duly recorded by a kid called Boetie Van der
Merwe, who was known in the Nazi Party as Stormtrooper, Timekeeper and Tallyman.
Van der Merwe was very proud of his job and would remind me at every opportunity of the minimum
time allocated for the next Chinese torture session. If I failed to best my previous time I got a severe
cuff from the Judge and the six stormtroopers whose turn it was to beat me up.
The second main torture which required my hands be free was referred to as 'shooting practice'.
Every stormtrooper carried a catapult as his deadly weapon. Farm kids all have catapults for shooting
birds and grow very skilled at using them. While they were not allowed to be worn openly, all the
senior boys had one stashed away and they would wear these around their necks at Nazi Party
meetings.
For shooting practice I was required to stretch my arms out on either side of me with my palms open
and turned upwards. An empty jam tin was placed on either hand and each of the stormtroopers was
allowed two shots to try to knock the tins down. The six best results for the day earned the right to
beat me up on the next occasion it became necessary. As usual, Boetie Van der Merwe was the
tallyman.
I must say this for those Nazis, while they hit the tins from twenty feet often enough, only once did I
collect a stone which thudded into the butt of my hand. Lucky it was my left hand as I was unable to
use it for several days.
Granpa Chook would fly up onto a branch of the jacaranda where he would keep a beady eye on the
proceedings. He was known to the Nazi Party as Prisoner of War Kaffir Chicken Rooinek.
There isn't too much interrogation and torture you can do to a chicken. As Mevrou's leading kitchen
insect exterminator, Granpa Chook was pretty safe. Tough as the Judge was, he wasn't willing to take
Mevrou on.
He would look up at Granpa Chook and say menacingly, 'Your time will come, Prisoner of War Kaffir
Chicken Rooinek, don't think we've forgotten about you, you hear?'
I was constantly fearful for Granpa Chook but there wasn't much I could do about it. Like me, he was
a prisoner of war. Together we just had to hope for the best and try to muddle through.
Besides, Granpa Chook had it easy up there in the jacaranda tree while I was the one who suffered at
ground level.
The Nazi Party sessions were held twice a week. Although they would leave me trembling for hours
afterwards, the physical damage wasn't too bad. I only got hit if I dropped the iron bar too soon and in
one or two other conditions, like when the Judge got very excited or I failed to answer one of his
ranting questions fast enough for his liking.
'What is your mother, Pisskop?'
'A whore, sir!' I had no idea what a whore was, but I knew it was the answer he wanted.
'Who does she sleep with?'
'Kaffirs, sir.'
'Ag sis man! Dirty, stinking Kaffirs!' the rest of the Nazis would chorus, groaning and sticking their
tongues out and clasping their hands to their throats pretending to vomit.
Even the smallest farm kid knows about animal sex, though it never occurred to me that humans
performed the same function. I would wonder why this particular answer was so insulting. After all,
Nanny had slept with me on her sleeping mat at the foot of my bed all my life and to the Nazis she was
a Kaffir.
'What are you, Pisskop?'
'A piece of shit!' I would respond.
'Not shit! Dog shit!' they would all chorus back.
You can get used to anything, I discovered. They expected me to make the mistake so that they could
all pantomime back. Halfway through the interrogation I would be blindfolded. Then, often in the
middle of an interrogation, someone would throw a bucket of water over me.
Knowing it might come but not knowing when meant that I would get an awful shock. The imagination
is always the best torturer.
Or they would release half a dozen red ants down my trousers and watch me frantically trying to find
them as the ants bit painfully into my scrotum and the soft inner parts of my legs. If I tore my blindfold
away it would mean a double clout from every member of the Party. I soon learnt that a red ant tends
to bite only once if you leave it alone. But, let me tell you something, that one bite isn't a very nice
experience.
If some new trick, like the red ants, worked, they would congratulate each other loudly and yell with
laughter as my legs pumped up and down and my hands searched frantically in my khaki shorts to rid
myself of the marauding ants.
The Judge encouraged new insults and tortures, but he ruled out any torture that left obvious bruises.
For instance, Chinese burns were allowed but pinching was out. As the last term wore on, their
limited minds ran out of ideas and as I knew all the answers to all the dumb questions and had
admitted to everything they accused me of while happily accepting all their insults, the proceedings
quietened down a lot. I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.
One thing got to all of them more than anything else. They couldn't make me cry. Even the Judge, with
all the fear he could provoke, could not make me cry. I suspect they even began to admire me a bit.
Many of them had little brothers of my age at home and they knew how easy it is for a five-year-old to
cry. In fact I had turned six but nobody had told me, so in my head I was still five.
Not being able to cry was the hardest part for me as well. Crying can be a good camouflage. In truth,
my willpower had very little to do with my resolve never to cry, I had learned a special trick and, in
the process, had somehow lost the knack of turning on the tap.
What they didn't know was that behind the blindfold I had learned to be in two places at once. I could
easily answer their stupid questions, while with another part of my mind I would visit Inkosi-
Inkosikazi. Down there in the night country I was safe from the stormtroopers who were unable to
harm me or make me cry.
As they tied the dirty piece of rag over my eyes, I would take three deep breaths. Immediately I would
hear Inkosi-Inkosikazi's voice, soft as distant thunder: 'You are standing on the rock above the highest
waterfall, a young warrior who has killed his first lion and is thus worthy to fight in the impi of
Shaka, the greatest warrior king of all.'
I stood in the moonlight on the rock above the three waterfalls. Far below I could see the ten stones
wet and glistening and the white water as it crashed through the narrow gorge beyond. I knew then
that the person on the outside was only a shell, a presence to be seen and provoked.
Inside was the real me, where my tears joined the tears of all the sad people to form the three
waterfalls in the night country.
_______________________________________________________
The last term of the year had come to an end, only one more day remained, just one more
interrogation, then freedom.
The Judge had pleased Mr Stoffel with his efforts in the final term and his poor performance earlier
in the year had been forgotten. He was top of his class by the time term ended. Mr Stoffel would hold
him up as an example and I think he also liked to take a bit of the credit. The Judge had been
considered a hopeless case and now he was the star performer. The Judge showed me his report card
which said, in black and white, that he had passed. He had come to accept his brilliance and expected
the compliments of his fellow Party members. Not only was he tough but he was also smart, it was a
most satisfactory situation.
Therefore I had no reason to expect anything but a light going over at the last interrogation and torture
session before the Judge would disappear from my life forever. After all he owed me something, and
as Adolf Hitler, despite his smashing victory at a place called Dunkirk, hadn't arrived yet he hadn't
been compromised one bit.
Prisoners of War Pisskop and Kaffir Chicken Rooinek were marched off to the jacaranda tree for the
last time under the Nazi leadership of the Judge. This time I was blindfolded immediately as I was
tied to the tree in the usual manner. I could hear Granpa Chook squawking away in the branches above
me. I was about to visit the night country when the Judge's voice rang out harshly.
'This is the last time, English bastard!'
With a sudden certainty I knew today would be different. That, in his mind, the Judge owed me
nothing. The bad times were back. I tried to get down to the safety of the night country, but the fear
rose in me like a Vesuvius spewing vomit and I was unable to detach myself from it.
'Today, Englishman, you eat shit.' His use of the word 'Englishman' rather than the familiar, almost
friendly Rooinek added greatly to his menace.
'Hold your hands out in front of you.' I could hear him sniff as I held my hands out in front of me,
palms upwards. He grabbed my arms about the wrists and held them so tightly I couldn't move them.
'Bring it here, Stormtrooper Van der Merwe, 'I heard him say.
A soft object was dropped first into one hand and then into the other. 'Close your hands, bastard,' the
Judge commanded.
The pain in my wrists was almost unbearable. Slowly I closed my hands. 'Take his blindfold off,'
the Judge commanded again. The rest of the Nazis had grown very quiet and one of them unknotted the
blindfold. I blinked at the sudden light. My nose as well as my eyes had been covered by the
blindfold and even before I'd looked down a terrible smell rose up at me. My hands were sticky and I
opened them to see that they contained two squashed human turds.
The Judge released my wrists. 'Now, lick your fingers,' he demanded.
I stood with my hands held out in front of me, not knowing what to do.
'I am going to count to three, if you haven't licked your fingers I'm going to knock your blerrie head
off, you shit house!' The Judge stood pop-eyed in front of me and I could see he was trembling.
I was too deeply shocked to react. I think I would have eaten the shit when the message finally made it
through my disconnected brain. But at that moment all the wires were fusing.
'Een... twee... drie!' he counted. The Judge reached three and I remained with my hands held out in
front of me, quaking with terror. He made a gurgling sort of animal sound deep in his throat, then,
grabbing my wrists, he forced my hands into my mouth. My teeth were clamped shut in fear, and the
shit was rubbed all over my lips and teeth and the rest of my face. Some of it must have got onto the
Judge's hand because he released my wrists and wiped it through my closely cropped hair.
Then he grabbed the tree trunk about two feet above my head, his body straddled over mine.
First he tried to shake the tree. Then he began beating at it with his clenched fists. Suddenly he threw
his head back so that he was looking directly upwards into the tree.
'Heil Hitler!' he screamed.
In the tree high above the Judge Granpa Chook's anus opened, and from it dropped a perfect bomb of
green and white chicken shit straight into the Judge's open mouth.
Granpa Chook had waited until the last day of term to give his opinion of the Nazi Party. As usual it
was short, accurate and to the point.
The Judge spat furiously, bent double, racing round in circles clutching his throat and stomach,
hawking and spitting and then finally throwing up. He raced for the tap and filled his mouth and spat
out about six times. Then he stuck his index finger into his mouth like a toothbrush and rubbed his
teeth and gums, took more water and spat and spat.
'Run, Granpa Chook! Run, man, run!' I screamed up into the tree.
But Granpa Chook had done enough running for one old kaffir chicken. Sitting squawking up there
amongst the purple jacaranda blossom he sounded as though he was laughing his scraggy old head off.
'Please run, Granpa Chook, please, please run! The bastard will kill you!' I screamed, oblivious to the
shit on my face and in my hair.
Granpa Chook hopped onto a lower branch and then, to my horror, flew onto my shoulder and gave
my ear one of his famous Granpa Chook kisses. I grabbed him, intending to throw him on his way, but
as I lifted him from my shoulder there was an explosion of feathers in my face.
Granpa Chook let out a fearful squawk as he was blasted from my hands and fell to the ground.
The Judge stood a few feet away, his empty catapult dangling in his left hand.
'Run, Granpa Chook, run for your life!' I pleaded.
Granpa Chook tried to get up from where he had landed but the stone from the Judge's powerful
catapult had broken his ribcage. He made several more attempts, each time falling back onto his wing.
I think he knew it was useless. After a while he just sat there, looked up at me and said, 'Squawk!'
Danie Coetzee ran over and grabbed Granpa Chook. I managed to kick him once, but then he held
Granpa Chook triumphantly upside down by his legs. Granpa Chook beat his wings furiously, the pain
must have been terrible. Quite suddenly he stopped and I thought he must be dead. But then I saw his
bright, beady eye trying to find me from his upside down position.
'No blerrie kaffir chicken shits on me! Hang him up by the legs next to Pisskop,' the Judge
commanded. He was still doing little dry spits and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Two stormtroopers slung a piece of rope over a branch and Granpa Chook soon hung upside down
just beyond my reach and at about the level of my head.
'Please, sir. I will do anything! Anything you ever ask! Anything you want! Please don't kill Granpa
Chook!'
The Judge, his eyes cruel, bent down and looked into my face. 'Now we'll see who'll cry,' he grinned.
I was seized by panic. 'Kill me!' I begged. 'Please kill me. But don't kill Granpa Chook!'
The Judge butted me on the forehead with the heel of his hand and my head slammed against the trunk
of the jacaranda, leaving me dazed. 'Ag, shit!' he exclaimed, some of the shit on my face had rubbed
off onto his hand. Then he wiped his hand in my hair once again.
'You're shit and your fuckin' kaffir chicken is shit. Did you see what he did to me? Me, Jaapie Botha!
That fuckin' chicken shit in my mouth!'
Still dazed, I tried another desperate tack. 'I'll tell Mevrou!' I shouted, trying to sound threatening.
'Mevrou kan gaan kak!' (Mevrou can go to shit!) The Judge spat on the ground, this time with a proper,
not a chicken-shit spit. He turned to the stormtroopers. 'Prisoner of War Kaffir Chicken Rooinek will
be executed, two shots each!' He moved to take his place in the shooting line as the rest of the
stormtroopers loaded up their catapults.
I sloughed the last of my camouflage. 'I'll tell Mr Stoffel about how I did your arithmetic for you!' I
screamed at the Judge.
I heard the soft 'pfflifft' of his catapult at the same time as I felt the stone slam into my stomach.
The pain was terrible, it seemed to be happening in slow motion as though the stone had a life of its
own, gnawing at my gut, burning and squirming through my intestines and into my back. A vicious,
determined, alive, eyeless thing. The shock to my system was enormous, my eyes bugged out of my
head and my tongue poked out in involuntary surprise.
'Fire!' A series of dull plops tore into the fragile bones of Granpa Chook's breast. The first stones had
set the rope swinging, but the stormtroopers were expert shots and their second shots also tore into
the funny old body of that upside-down chicken. Spots of blood dropped into the dry dust and among
the fallen jacaranda blossoms, the rope swinging so that no two drops landed in the same place.
Granpa Chook, the toughest damn chicken in the whole world, was dead.
A tiny feather drifted towards me, it was one of the soft downy ones which grew at the very top of
Granpa Chook's scrawny legs. It stuck to a piece of shit in my face. The Judge walked over and untied
the rope from around my waist and I dropped to my haunches at his feet. He placed his bare foot on
my shoulder.
'What are you, Englishman?'
'Dog shit, sir.'
'Look at me when you say it!' he barked.
Slowly I looked up at the giant with his foot resting on my shoulder. High above him I could see a
milky moon hanging in the afternoon sky. We had got so close, Granpa Chook and I had got so close to
making it through to the end, just a few more hours.
I spat at him, 'You're dog shit! Your ma is a whore!'
He pushed violently downwards with his foot, sending me sprawling. Then he let out a howl, a
mixture of anger and anguish. 'Why don't you cry, you fucking bastard!' he sobbed and started to kick
blindly at me.
The stormtroopers rushed to restrain him, pulling him from me. The Judge allowed himself to be led
away and we were left alone behind the shit houses under a white moon set in a flawless blue sky.
I untied the broken body of Granpa Chook and we sat under the jacaranda tree and I stroked his
bloody feathers. No more gentle African dawn folding back the night, no more early cock-a-doodle-
doo to tell me you are there, my loved and faithful chicken friend. Who will peck my ear? Who will
be my friend? I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. The great drought was over, the inside man was out,
the rains had come to Zululand.
After a long, long while, when the crying was all out of me and the loneliness bird had entered to
build a nest of stones in the hollow place inside of me, I carried Granpa Chook to the orchard and
laid him in the place I had made for him to keep him from the rain. Then I climbed through the
window into the dormitory to fetch my new red jumper, the one my mother had knitted in the
concentration camp and Nanny had fixed.
I gathered as many rocks as I could find and then I pulled my red jumper over Granpa Chook's body,
his wings poked out of the arm holes and his long neck stuck out of the head part and his feet poked
out of the bottom.
He looked the best I'd ever seen him. I took the jam tin I had used for his water and, in about five
minutes, I'd collected twenty little green grasshoppers, which are the very best chicken scoff there is.
I placed the tin beside his body so that he'd have a special treat on the way to heaven.
Finally I covered his body with the stones.
South Africa's first victim in the war against Adolf Hitler was safe at last.
I sat there on my haunches beside the pile of stones as the afternoon sun began to set. Now the sun
was passing beyond Zululand, even past the land of the Swazi and now it leaves the Shangaan and the
royal kraal of Modjadji, the rain queen, to be cooled in the great, dark water beyond.
The first bell for supper rang and I moved to the tap and began to wash the blood and shit from my
hands and face and hair.
Deep inside me the loneliness bird sat on its crude stone nest and laid a large and very heavy stone
egg.
The bell for supper sounded. The last supper. Everything comes to an end. Tomorrow I would be
going home for Christmas and Nanny. Wonderful, soft, warm Nanny.
But life doesn't work that way. I, most of all, should have known this. At supper Boetie Van der
Merwe told me Mevrou wanted to see me in the dispensary. 'If you tell about this afternoon, we'll kill
you,' he hissed. I wasn't frightened, I knew a proper ending when I saw one.
Only hours remained before my liberation, nothing the Judge, Mevrou and, for the moment anyway,
Adolf Hitler could do would alter that. Soon I would be returning to my quiet backwater.
I didn't know then that what seemed like the end was only the beginning. All children are flotsam
driven by the ebb and flow of adult lives. Unbeknownst to me the tide had turned and I was being
swept out to sea.