The Sound of Thunder(2)

‘We are making a full day’s trek today, Dirk. No outspan until we reach Pretoria. Ride back and tell the drivers.’

‘Send Mbejane. He’s doing nothing.’

‘I told you to go.’

‘Hell, Dad! I’ve done enough today.’

‘Go, damn you!’ Sean roared with unnecessary violence.

‘I’ve only just come back, it’s not fair that—’ Dirk started, but Sean did not let him finish.

‘Every time I ask you to do something I get a mouthful of argument. Now do what I tell you.’ They held each other’s eyes; Sean glaring and Dirk resentful, sulky. Sean recognized that expression with dismay. This was going to be another of those tests of will that were becoming more frequent between them. Would this end as most of the others had? Must he admit defeat and use the sjambok again? When was the last time – two weeks ago – when Sean had reprimanded Dirk on some trivial point concerning the care of his pony. Dirk had stood sullenly until Sean was finished, and then he had walked away among the wagons. Dropping the subject from his mind, Sean was chatting with Mbejane when suddenly there was a squeal of pain from the laager and Sean ran towards it.

In the centre of the ring of wagons stood Dirk. His face still darkly flushed with temper, and at his feet the tiny body of one of the unweaned puppies flopped and whimpered with its ribs stoved in from Dirk’s kick.

In anger Sean had beaten Dirk, but even in his anger he had used a length of rope and not the viciously tapered sjambok of hippo hide. Then he had ordered Dirk to his living-wagon.

At noon he had sent for him and demanded an apology – and Dirk, uncrying, with lips and jaw set grimly, had refused it.

Sean beat him again, with the rope, but this time coldly – not for the sake of retribution. Dirk did not break.

Finally, in desperation Sean took the sjambok to him. For ten hissing strokes, each of which ended with a wicked snap across his buttocks, Dirk lay silently under the whip. His body convulsed slightly at each lash but he would not speak, and Sean beat him with a sickness in his own stomach and the sweat of shame and guilt running into his eyes, swinging the sjambok mechanically with his fingers clawed around the butt of it, and his mouth full of the slimy saliva of self-hatred.

When at last Dirk screamed, Sean dropped the sjambok, reeled back against the side of the wagon and leaned there gasping – fighting down the nausea which flooded acid-tasting up his throat.

Dirk screamed again and again, and Sean caught him up and held him to his chest.

‘I’m sorry, Pa! I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again, I promise you. I love you, I love you best of all – and I’ll never do it again,’ screamed Dirk, and they clung to each other.

For days thereafter not one of the servants had smiled at Sean nor spoken to him other than to acknowledge an order. For there was not one of them, including Mbejane, who would not steal and cheat and lie to ensure that Dirk Courtney had whatever he desired at the exact moment he desired it. They could hate anyone, including Sean, who denied it to him.

That was two weeks ago. And now, thought Sean watching that ugly mouth, do we do it all again?

Then suddenly Dirk smiled. It was one of those changes of mood that left Sean slightly bewildered, for when Dirk smiled his mouth came right. It was irresistible.

‘I’ll go, Dad.’ Cheerfully, as though he were volunteering, he prodded the pony and trotted back towards the wagons.

‘Cheeky little bugger!’ gruffed Sean for Mbejane’s benefit, but silently he queried his share of the blame. He had raised the boy with a wagon as his home and the veld as his schoolroom, grown men his companions and authority over them as his undisputed right of birth.

Since his mother had died five years before he had not known the gentling influence of a woman. No wonder he was a wild one.

Sean shied away from the memory of Dirk’s mother. There was guilt there also, guilt that had taken him many years to reconcile. She was dead now. There was no profit in torturing himself. He pushed away the gloom that was swamping the happiness of a few minutes before, slapped the loose end of the reins against his horse’s neck and urged it out on to the road – south towards the low line of hills upon the horizon, south towards Pretoria.

He’s a wild one. But once we reach Ladyburg he’ll be all right, Sean assured himself. They’ll knock the nonsense out of him at school, and I’ll knock manners into him at home. No, he’ll be all right.





That evening, the third of December, 1899, Sean led his wagons down the hills and laagered them beside the Apies River. After they had eaten, Sean sent Dirk to his cot in the living-wagon. Then he climbed alone to the crest of the hills and looked back across the land to the north. It was silver-grey in the moonlight, stretching away silent and immeasurable. That was the old life and abruptly he turned his back upon it and walked down towards the lights of the city which beckoned to him from the valley below.