The Power of One

TWO

The holidays came to an end. My bed-wetting habit had, of course, been cured, but not my apprehension at the prospect of returning to boarding school. As for my hatless snake, I’d asked Inkosi-Inkosikazi about that and he’d hinted that we were similarly unique which was why we were so special. It was comforting at the time, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Nanny and I had a good old weep on the last evening at home. She packed my khaki shorts and shirts and two pairs of pyjamas and a bright red jumper my mother had sent from the nervous breakdown place. We laughed and laughed, in between crying of course, because one sleeve was about ten inches shorter than the other. Nervous breakdowns probably do that sort of thing to people’s knitting. By unpicking it at the shoulders Nanny made it into a nice red jumper.

We set out after breakfast in Granpa’s old Model A Ford truck. On the way we picked up fat Mrs Vorster, the widow who owned the farm next door. Granpa spoke no Afrikaans and she no English so she thumped up and down in silence with her chins squashing onto her chest with every bump of the old truck.

I was delighted to be in the back with Nanny and Granpa Chook, who was concealed in the mealie sack where he lay so still you’d have sworn he was an empty sack. Nanny was going to town to send money to her family in Zululand to help with the terrible drought.

Granpa Chook’s wing feathers had practically grown again and by taking a run-up, his long legs pumping up and down, he could take off and land high up on a branch anytime he liked. I have to admit, while he was heavier, he wasn’t any prettier. His long neck was still bare and his head still bald, his cock’s comb was battered and hung like an empty scrotum to one side of his head. Compared to the black Orpingtons he was a mess.

We stopped at the school gates and Nanny handed me the suitcase and the bag with Granpa Chook playing possum. ‘What have you got in the bag, son?’ Granpa asked.

Before I could reply Nanny called from the back, ‘It is only sweet potatoes, baas.’

The tears were as usual running down her cheeks and I wanted to rush back and hide myself in her big safe arms. With a bit of a backfire and a puff of blue exhaust smoke the truck lurched away and I was left standing at the gates. Ahead of me lay the dreaded Mevrou, the Judge and the jury and the beginning of the power of one, where I would learn that in each of us there is a flame that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it burns within us, we cannot be destroyed.

I released Granpa Chook from the sack and gave him a pat. Pisskop the Rooinek, possessor of a hatless snake, was back in town. But this time, for damn sure, he was not alone.

The playground was empty as we crossed it; Granpa Chook darted here and there after the tiny green grasshoppers that landed on its hot, dusty surface. They too seemed to be in enemy territory for not a blade of grass grew on the sun-baked square of earth. To make it across to safety they were forced to land frequently, exposing themselves to the dangers of a marauding Granpa Chook. Though the odds were rather better for them, there were hundreds of them and only one Granpa Chook, while it was the other way around with the two of us.

We seemed to have arrived early and so I made for my secret mango tree, which grew on the other side of the playground. Leaving my suitcase at its base, I climbed into its dark, comforting canopy of leaves. Granpa Chook, taking a run-up and flapping his wings furiously, flew up and perched on a branch beside me, swaying and wobbling and making a lot of unnecessary noise and fuss.

I carefully explained the situation to him. He just sat there and tossed his silly cock’s comb and squawked a lot. I tried to impress on him that this was the big time, that things were different here to down on the farm. I must say that any chicken who could outsmart Inkosi-Inkosikazi’s cooking pot and get the better of his magic circle had to be a real professional, so I didn’t lecture him too much. Granpa Chook was a survivor; how fortunate I was to have him as my friend.

After a while we left the mango tree, and skirting the edge of the playground we made our way to the side of the hostel which contained the small kids’ dormitory. It looked out onto a run-down citrus orchard of old, almost leafless grapefruit trees. Half a dozen cassia trees had seeded themselves over the years and their bright yellow blossom brought the dying orchard back to life. The ground was covered with khaki weed and black jack which reached to my shoulder. No one ever came here. It was the ideal place for Granpa Chook to stay while I reported to Mevrou.

Deep inside the orchard I set about making a small clearing amongst the rank-smelling weed and in the process unearthed a large white cutworm with a grey head and a yellow band around its neck. Granpa Chook thought all his Christmases had come at once, and with a sharp squawk he had the plump grub in his beak. You could see the progress of that worm as it made a bulge going down his long, naked neck.

The clearing complete, I drew a circle on the ground and he settled politely down into it. It still annoyed me a bit that he refused to go through the whole magic rigmarole, but what’s the use, you can’t go arguing with a chicken, can you?

I found Mevrou in the wash house folding blankets. She looked at me with distaste and pointed to a tin bucket which stood beside the mangle. ‘Your rubber sheet is in that bucket, take it,’ she said.

I tried not to sound scared. ‘I… I am cured, Mevrou,’ I stammered.

‘Ha! Your oupa’s beatings are better than mine then, ja?’

I stood with my head bowed, the way you were supposed to in the presence of Mevrou. ‘No, Mevrou, your beatings are the best… better than my granpa’s. It just happened, I just stopped doing it.’

‘My sjambok will be lonely.’ Mevrou always called the bamboo cane she carried her sjambok. She handed me a coarse towel and a blanket. ‘You are too early, there is no lunch, the other children will be here not till this afternoon.’ The blanket smelt of camphor balls and with the familiar smell that old fear returned and with it came doubt that perhaps I wasn’t cured of my bed-wetting habit.

I dropped my blanket and towel off in the small kids’ dormitory and returned to Granpa Chook. The absence of lunch didn’t bother me. Nanny had packed two large sweet potatoes in my suitcase and I now planned to share one of these with Granpa Chook.

As I approached the abandoned orchard I could hear a fearful squawking coming from Granpa Chook. Suddenly he rose from above the weeds, his short wings beating the air. I lost sight of him again as he plunged back into the undergrowth. Up he came again, neck arched, legs stretched with talons wide. Down again, the weeds shaking wildly where he landed. This time he didn’t come up and he had stopped squawking, though the khaki weed continued to shake where he’d disappeared. My heart beat wildly. Something had got Granpa Chook. A weasel or a feral cat? It was my fault, I’d left him helpless in the magic circle.

I stumbled blindly towards the tiny clearing where I’d left him, khaki weed and black jack lashing out at me, holding me back. Granpa Chook stood inside the circle; held firmly in his beak was a three-foot grass snake. With a vigorous shake of his head and a snip of his powerful beak he removed the head from the snake and, to my astonishment, swallowed it. The snake’s head went down in the same way as the fat cutworm had done. Unaware that the show was over, the snake’s brilliant green body continued to wriggle wildly in the weeds.

The toughest damn chicken in the whole world tossed his head and gave me a beady wink. I could see he was pretty pleased with himself. I’ll tell you something, I don’t blame him, how can you go wrong with a friend like him at your side?

The snake had ceased to wriggle, and picking it up I hung it from a branch of a cassia tree growing only a few feet from the window nearest my bed in the little kids’ dormitory. Now there were two hatless snakes in the world and I was involved with both of them.

The afternoon gradually filled with the cacophony of returning kids. I could hear them as they dumped their blankets and suitcases in the dormitory and rushed out to play. Granpa Chook and I spent the afternoon making his shelter from bits of corrugated iron I found among the weeds. He seemed to like his new home, scratching for worms where I’d pulled up the weeds. He would be safe and dry when it rained.

By the time the wash-up bell went at a quarter to five, I was a bit of a mess from all the weeding and building. I left Granpa Chook for the night scratching happily away in his new home and washed under a little-used tap on the side of the building facing the orchard. By the time the supper bell went the late afternoon sun had dried me and I was good as new. I waited until the last possible moment before slipping into the dining hall to take my place at the bottom table where the little kids sat.

Shortly after lights out that night I was summoned to appear before the Judge and the jury. It was a full moon again, just like the very first time. But also a moon like the one that rose above the waterfalls in the dreamtime when, as a young warrior, I had conquered my fears.

The Judge, seated cross-legged on a bed, was even bigger than I remembered. He wore only pyjama pants, and now sported a crude tattoo high up on his left arm. Cicatrisation wasn’t new to me, African women do it to their faces all the time, though I had not seen a tattoo on white skin before. Reddish-pink skin still puckered along the edges of the crude blue lines which crossed at the centre like two headless snakes wriggling across each other.

Absently rubbing his tattoo, the Judge shook his head slowly as he looked at me. ‘You are a fool, a blêrrie fool to have come back, Pisskop.’ A small lump of snot in his left nostril pumped up and down as he breathed.

‘You have marks like a Kaffir woman on your arm,’ I heard myself saying.

The Judge’s eyes seemed to pop out of his head. He snorted in amazement and the snolly-bomb shot out of his nostril and landed on my face. His hand followed a split second later. I felt an explosion in my head as I was knocked to the floor.

I got to my feet. Stars, just like in the comic books, were dancing in a red sky in front of my eyes and there was a ringing noise in my ears. But I wasn’t crying. I cursed my stupidity, the holidays had blunted my sense of survival; adapt, blend, become part of the landscape, develop a camouflage, be a rock or a leaf or a stick insect, try in every way to be an Afrikaner. The jury was silent, struck dumb by my audacity. A warm trickle of blood ran from my nose, across my lips and down my chin.

The Judge grabbed me by the front of my pyjamas and pulled me up to his face, lifting me so that I stood on the very tips of my toes. ‘This sign means death and destruction to all Rooineks. And you, Pisskop, are going to be the first.’ He released me and I stumbled backwards but managed to stay on my feet.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, my voice barely audible.

‘This is a swastika, man! Do you know what that is?’

‘N… no, sir.’

‘God has sent us this sign from Adolf Hitler who will deliver the Afrikaner people from the hated English!’

I could see the jury was deeply impressed and I was too.

The Judge turned to address the jury, prodding at the swastika.

‘We must all swear a blood oath to Adolf Hitler,’ he said solemnly. The jury crowded around his bed, their eyes shining with excitement.

‘I will swear too,’ I said hopefully. The blood was still running from my nose and some had dripped to the floor.

‘Don’t be fuckin’ stupid! Pisskop, you are the English.’ The Judge stood upright on the bed and held his arm aloft at an angle, with his fingers straight and pointing to the ceiling. ‘In the name of Adolf Hitler we will march every Rooinek bastard into the sea.’

I had never been to the sea but I knew it would be a long march all right. ‘The blood oath! The blood oath!’ the jury chanted.

‘Come here, Pisskop,’ the Judge commanded. I stepped over to his bed. ‘Look up, man.’ I looked up at him as he stood high above me on the bed. He wiped his forefinger under my nose and then he pushed me so that I sat down hard on the floor. He held up his finger, my blood on its tip shining in the moonlight.

‘We will swear this oath with the blood of a Rooinek!’ he announced solemnly. Two members of the jury lifted me to my feet while the others crowded around me, sticking their pudgy fingers into the blood running from my nose. The supply wasn’t coming fast enough and one boy tweaked my nose to increase the flow.

This seemed to cause it to stop altogether, so that the last two members were forced to dab their fingers into the drops of blood on the floor.

The Judge, wiping the blood on his finger across the swastika, instructed the jury to do the same. Soon the swastika on his arm was almost totally concealed. ‘Death to all Englishmen in South Africa, the fatherland,’ the Judge cried, raising his arm once more.

‘Death to all Englishmen in South Africa, the fatherland!’ the jury chorused.

The Judge looked down at me. ‘We won’t kill you tonight, Pisskop. But when Hitler comes your days are numbered, you hear?’

‘Yes, sir, when will that be, sir?’ I asked.

‘Soon!’ He stepped from the bed, and placing his huge hand over the top of my head he turned me towards the dormitory door and gave me a swift kick up the bum which sent me sprawling headlong across the polished floor. I could smell the wax polish on the floorboards and then I got to my feet and ran.

Back in my own dormitory the little kids leapt out of bed, crowding around me, demanding to know what had happened. Too upset to mind my tongue, I sniffed out the story of the swastika and the blood oath and my threatened demise upon the arrival of Hitler.

An eight-year-old named Danie Coetzee shook his head solemnly.

‘Pisskop, you are in deep shit, man,’ he said.

‘Who is this person called Adolf Hitler who is coming to get Pisskop?’ a fellow we called ‘Flap-lips’ de Jaager asked.

It was apparent nobody knew the answer until Danie Coetzee said, ‘He’s probably the new headmaster.’

There had been some talk among the kids the previous term about the headmaster and his ‘drinking problem’. I had wondered at the time what a drinking problem was. Obviously it was something pretty bad or the huge, morose man we all feared wouldn’t be leaving.

One of the kids started to chant softly: ‘Pisskop’s in trouble… Pisskop’s in trouble…’ The others quickly took up the chant which grew louder and louder. I placed my hands over my ears to try to stop it.

‘Still!’ The dormitory rang to the command. Mevrou stood at the doorway, her huge body filling the door frame.

‘We was just talking, Mevrou,’ Danie Coetzee said. As the oldest of the small kids he assumed the position of spokesman.

‘You know that talking after lights out is verboten, Coetzee.’

Danie Coetzee was left standing at the end of my bed as the others tiptoed back to their beds. ‘Ja, Mevrou. Sorry, Mevrou.’ His voice sounded small and afraid.

‘Bend over the bed, man,’ Mevrou instructed. The cane cut through the air in a blur as she planted it into the seat of Coetzee’s pyjamas. He let out a fearful yelp, and holding his bum with both hands hopped up and down. Without further ado, Mevrou left the dormitory.

For a moment there wasn’t a sound and then Danie Coetzee, his voice on the edge of tears, blurted out, ‘You will pay for this you blêrrie pisskop Rooinek!’

I waited until everyone was asleep and then crept quietly to the window. The full moon brought a soft sheen to the leaves of the grapefruit trees which seemed to shimmer in the ghosted light. Granpa Chook’s headless snake made a silver loop in the moonlight, a beautiful and unexpected decoration on the branch of the cassia tree. ‘I didn’t cry. They’ll never make me cry again!’ I said to the moon. Then I returned to my bed. It was the loneliest moment that had ever been.

Granpa Chook’s cover was blown the following morning. Like all Kaffir chickens he was an early riser. Before even the six o’clock wake-up bell went, the whole dormitory had awakened to his raucous crowing. I awoke, startled out of a deep sleep, to see him perched on the window sill nearest my bed, his long scrawny neck stretched in a mighty rendition of cock-a-doodle-doooo! Then he cocked his head to one side, gave a tiny squawk and, from the window, flew onto my iron bed head. Stretching his long neck towards me, almost to the point of losing his balance, he gave my ear a gentle peck.

The kids raced from their beds to surround me. ‘It’s an old Kaffir chicken come to visit Pisskop,’ Flap-lips de Jaager yelled excitedly.

Granpa Chook, imperious on the bed head, fixed them with a beady stare. ‘He is mine,’ I said defiantly, ‘he is my friend.’

Well! You should have heard them carry on. Danie Coetzee, temporarily forgetting his revenge for the caning the previous night, chortled: ‘Don’t be stupid, man, nobody has a Kaffir chicken for a friend!’

‘I do, he can do tricks and everything.’

‘No he can’t! He’s a dumb Kaffir chicken. Wait till the Judge hears about Pisskop’s new friend,’ Flap-lips de Jaager volunteered and everyone laughed.

The wake-up bell went, which meant Mevrou would arrive in a minute or two, and so we all scrambled back into bed to await her permission to get up. I barely had time to push Granpa Chook through the window into the orchard and climb back into bed when her huge form loomed through the door.

Mevrou paced the length of the dormitory, her sjambok hanging from a loop on the black leather belt of her dark blue uniform. She stopped as she reached my bed, whipped off the blanket and examined the dry mattress.

‘Humph!’ she snorted, dropping the blanket onto the floor. I jumped from my bed and stood beside it. She ignored me and turned slowly to address the dormitory. ‘I am warning you, kinders, if I hear you talking after lights out again, my sjambok will also talk to all of you, you hear?’

‘Ja, Mevrou,’ we chorused.

Suddenly her eyes grew large and seemed almost to pop out of her head: ‘Pisskop! There is chicken shit on your pillow!’

I looked down at my pillow in horror: deposited neatly between two lines of its mattress-ticking cover, Granpa Chook had left his green and white calling card.

‘Explain, man!’ Mevrou roared.

No explanation but the truth was possible. Shaking with terror I told her about Granpa Chook.

Mevrou glowered at me, and undoing the buckle of her leather belt she slipped the cane from it. ‘Pisskop, I think you are sick in the head, like your poor mother. First you come here and you piss in your bed every night. Then you come back and you fill it with chicken shit!’ She pointed to the end of the bed where Danie Coetzee had taken his medicine the previous night. ‘Bend over,’ she commanded.

She blasted me four strokes of the sjambok. Biting back the tears, I forced myself not to grab my bum by clamping my hands tightly between my thighs and hunching my shoulders. This also seemed to stop me shaking.

What a shit of a day already!

‘Clean up your pillow and bring this devil’s chicken to the kitchen door after breakfast, you hear?’ At the door she turned and faced us: ‘Go to the showers now,’ she commanded.

Granpa Chook and I were in a terrible jam, all right. After breakfast I slipped out of the hostel to find him. He was still in the old orchard clucking and scratching around looking for worms. I produced a slice of bread which I’d saved at breakfast, and while breaking it up into bits small enough for him to swallow explained the latest disaster to him. So much for my resolution not to cry, I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.

After Granpa Chook had had his breakfast I picked him up and, fighting my way through the khaki weed and black jack, I took him to the edge of the orchard to a low corrugated iron fence which marked the hostel boundary. Standing on tiptoe I looked over the fence. My heart gave a leap; in the distance I could see three Kaffir huts with smoke rising from a fire, for sure they’d keep Kaffir chickens and Granpa Chook could board with them.

Considerably cheered I explained this new plan to Granpa Chook and then pushed him over the fence. There is a blurred distinction between imagination and reality in a five-year-old child and the new plan, once imagined, was immediately achieved.

Granpa Chook, though, had other ideas. With an indignant squawk and a flap of his wings he was back on my side of the fence. We pantomimed for the next few minutes: over the fence I’d put him and back he’d come. Finally it became clear that the toughest damn chicken in the whole wide world had no intention of deserting his friend, even if his own life was at stake.

We waited at the kitchen door for about ten minutes before Mevrou appeared. ‘So this is the chicken that shits in you bed, Pisskop?’

‘It wasn’t on purpose, Mevrou. He’s very clean and very clever too.’

‘Look who talks of clean! A chicken is a chicken. Who ever heard of a clever chicken?’

‘Look, Mevrou, I’ll show you.’ I quickly drew a circle in the dust and Granpa Chook immediately hopped into it and settled down as though he were laying an egg, which he couldn’t, of course. ‘He’ll stay in that circle until I say to come out,’ I said.

For a moment Mevrou looked impressed and then she suddenly scowled. ‘This is just some dumb thing Kaffir chickens do that white chickens don’t,’ she said smugly.

‘No, Mevrou!’ I begged. ‘He can do lots of other things too!’

I made Granpa Chook hop around the perimeter of the circle on one leg going ‘Squawk’ with every hop. I showed her how he would fly onto my shoulder and, at my command, peck my ear.

This last trick signalled the end of Mevrou’s patience. ‘Your hair will be full of lice, you stupid boy!’ she screamed. Just inside the kitchen door stood a butcher’s block with a large cleaver resting on it. ‘Give me that filthy, lice-ridden, bed-shitting, Kaffir chicken!’ she yelled, grabbing the cleaver.

Two cockroaches resting under the cleaver on the block raced up the back of Mevrou’s hand. She let out an almighty scream, dropping the cleaver and frantically flapping both arms. One cockroach dropped to the floor, while the other ran up her arm and disappeared down her bodice.

With a delighted squawk, Granpa Chook came charging into the kitchen and scooped up the cockroach frantically crossing the kitchen floor. Mevrou was waving her arms. Her bosoms jiggling up and down. She made little gasping noises as though she was struggling to get a scream out as she danced from one foot to the other in extreme agitation. The second cockroach fell from under her skirt and made for a crack in the polished cement floor. But Granpa Chook was too fast for it and had it in a trice.

Mevrou had turned a deep crimson and her head seemed to vibrate from the shock. ‘It’s orright, Mevrou, the other one fell out and Granpa Chook got it,’ I said, pointing to Granpa Chook strutting around looking very pleased with himself.

I rushed to fetch a kitchen chair and Mevrou plopped down into it like an overripe watermelon. Taking a dishcloth from a drying rack beside the huge black wood-burning stove, I began to fan her the way I had seen Nanny do when my mother had one of her turns.

I became aware of a dripping sound coming from under the rattan seat of the chair and realised in alarm that Mevrou had pissed her pants. I think she must have been too upset to notice it herself. I wondered how many strokes pissing your pants would earn in her book. When she had recovered somewhat she pointed a trembling finger at Granpa Chook.

‘You are right, Pisskop. That is a good chicken. He can stay. But he has to earn his keep,’ she gasped. Then she seemed to become aware of what had happened beneath the chair. ‘Go now,’ she said, and grabbing the cloth from my hand she pointed to the door.

And that’s how Granpa Chook came to do kitchen duty. Every day after breakfast he checked every last corner in the hostel kitchen for creepy-crawlies of every description. The toughest damn chicken in the world had survived, he had beaten the executor by adapting perfectly and we were safely together again.

The weeks and then a couple of months went by. I had become slave to the Judge. In return for being at his constant beck and call, I was more or less left to my own devices. The odd cuff behind the head or a rude push from an older kid was about all I had to endure. Things were pretty good, really. If the Judge needed me he would simply put two fingers to his mouth and give one of his piercing whistles and Granpa Chook and I would come running.

Granpa Chook was now under the protection of Mevrou, although he still needed to be constantly on the alert. Farm kids just can’t help chucking stones at Kaffir chickens. He would cluck around the playground during lessons, hunting for grubs. The moment the recess bell went he would come charging over to my classroom, skidding to a halt in the dust, cackling his anxiety to be with me again.

No class existed for my age and so I had been placed with the seven-year-old kids, all of whom were still learning to read. I had been reading in English for at least a year so that the switch to reading Afrikaans wasn’t difficult, and I was soon the best in the class. Yet I quickly realised that survival means never being best at anything except being best at nothing, and I soon learned to minimise my reading skills, appearing to pause and stumble over words which were perfectly clear to me.

Mediocrity is the best camouflage known to man. Our teacher, Miss du Plessis, wasn’t anxious for a five-year-old Rooinek to shine in a class of knot-headed Boers. She was happy enough to put my poor results down to my inability to grasp the subtlety of the Afrikaans language as well as being the youngest in class, whereas I already spoke Zulu and Shangaan and, like most small kids, found learning a new language simple enough.

It became increasingly hard for the other kids to think of me as being different when no visible or audible differences separated us. Except, of course, for my hatless snake; but even this, like a kid with a birthmark or a little finger missing, started to go unnoticed. I was becoming the perfect stick insect.

And then on September 3rd, 1939, Neville Chamberlain finally and sadly concluded that Herr Hitler was not a gentleman, not to be trusted and not open to negotiation. That Britain, having let Czechoslovakia down thoroughly, couldn’t face the embarrassment of doing the same thing to Poland and so found it necessary to declare war on Germany. The new headmaster had arrived.

At lunch in the hostel dining hall, the old headmaster with the drinking problem addressed us. He stood, swaying slightly, both hands holding the edge of the table. Then, picking up a knife, he thumped it on the table with the handle. ‘Silence!’ he roared. Whereupon Miss du Plessis, lips pursed, rose quickly and left through the swinging doors. The old headmaster seemed not to notice, dropping the knife onto the table he started to talk in a very loud voice, as though he were addressing hundreds of people: ‘Today, England has declared war on Germany!’ He paused to gauge the effect of his words on us. There was no reaction except for a low murmur from where the senior boys sat. ‘Do you know what this means, man?’ Not waiting for an answer he continued, ‘It means freedom! Freedom and liberty for our beloved fatherland! Adolf Hitler will destroy the cursed English and remove the yoke of oppression placed on the Afrikaner nation by these uitlanders who burn down homes and imprison Boer women and children in concentration camps where twenty-six thousand died of starvation, dysentery and black-water fever!’

The headmaster made it sound as though it was all happening at that very moment in South Africa. I suddenly realised that this was what had really happened to my mother. She had been mistaken for a Boer woman and put in a concentration camp.

The headmaster took a couple of steps back from the table and then lurched forward again, his spit-flecked mouth worked silently, as though he were trying to say something but it wouldn’t come out. Instead he raised his arm in the same way the Judge had done in the dormitory. ‘Heil Hitler!’ he blurted out at last.

Just then the doors burst open and Mevrou entered the dining room; through the briefly open doors we could see Miss du Plessis standing in the hallway biting her knuckles. Mevrou marched up to the headmaster, and taking him firmly by the elbow she led him quickly from the dining hall.

‘Heil Hitler!’ he shouted back at us as he passed through the swing doors.

We sat there bewildered. Then the Judge jumped to his feet and stepped up onto the bench on his side of the top table. He rolled the sleeve of his shirt up over the top of his shoulder so we could all see the crude blue crossed and angled lines of his swastika tattoo.

‘Adolf Hitler is the King of Germany and God has sent him to take South Africa back from the English and give it to us.’ He jabbed at the swastika on his arm. ‘This is his sign… the swastika, the swastika will make us free again.’ His right hand shot up in the same salute the headmaster had given moments before. ‘Heil Hitler!’ he cried.

We all jumped to our feet and, thrusting our arms out in the manner of his own, yelled, ‘Heil Hitler!’

It was all very exciting. To think that this man, Adolf Hitler, who was going to save us all from the accursed English, was going to be our new headmaster!

Then, slowly at first, the words of the Judge on the first night back at school began to form in my mind, gathered momentum, and then roared into my consciousness.

‘Don’t be stupid! Pisskop, you are the fuckin’ English!’

The long march to the sea had begun.

Flap-lips de Jaager at our table just kept on shouting ‘Heil Hitler’ and soon everyone was chanting it louder and louder. A piercing whistle from the Judge finally stopped them.

‘Some of us have sworn a blood oath to Adolf Hitler and the time has now come to march the Rooineks into the sea. After school we will meet behind the shit houses for a council of war!’

I don’t suppose any of us had much idea of where the sea was supposed to be, somewhere across the Lebombo Mountains and probably over the Limpopo River. Whichever direction, it was a long, long way away. The long march to the sea would be a pretty serious undertaking and I could understand why it would take some planning.

The dining room buzzed with excitement and the Judge held up his hand to silence us. Then he pointed directly at me. ‘Pisskop, you are our first prisoner of war!’ He brought his fingers together and raised his arm higher. ‘Heil Hitler!’ he shouted.

We all jumped up again, but the two kids on either side of me pushed me back into my seat. ‘Heil Hitler!’ the rest of the dining hall chorused back.

It was the most exciting day in the school’s history, although my own prospects looked pretty bleak. What was certain was that Granpa Chook and I were living on borrowed time and needed to make some pretty urgent escape plans. I was in despair. Even if I did know how to get home, which I didn’t, how far could a little kid and a chicken travel without being spotted by the enemy?

That afternoon in class Miss du Plessis, who seemed even more upset than usual, rapped my knuckles sharply on two occasions with her eighteen-inch ruler. In the end she grew totally exasperated when, deep into my escape plans, I simply didn’t hear her ask what three times four came to.

‘Domkop! You will have to stay in after school!’ The idea was impossible. Granpa Chook and I had to escape before the council of war met behind the shit houses.

‘Please, miss! I’m sorry, miss. It won’t happen again, miss,’ I begged. In a desperate attempt to make amends I blew my camouflage. I recited the nine times table, then the ten, eleven and twelve. I had carefully concealed my knowledge of anything beyond the four times table and, what’s more, we hadn’t even reached the eleven and twelve times table in class. The effect was profound. By the time I had almost completed the twelve times table, which I’d learned from the back of the Judge’s arithmetic book, Miss du Plessis was consumed by anger.

‘Twelve times twelve is, ah… one hundred and… er, forty-four,’ I announced, my voice faltering as I perceived the extent of her indignation.

‘You wicked, rotten, lying, cheating child!’ she screamed, raising her steel-edged ruler. The blows rained down on me though, in her agitation, her aim was wild and I took most of them on my arms and shoulders. One swipe got through my guard and the thin metal strip in the ruler sliced into the top of my ear. I dropped my guard and grabbed at my ear which was stinging like billy-o. The warm blood started to run through my fingers and down my arm.

The sight of the blood snapped Miss du Plessis out of her frenzy. She looked down at me and brought her hand to her mouth. Then she screamed and fell dead at my feet.

The shock of seeing Miss du Plessis drop dead at my feet was so great that I was unable to move. The blood dripped from my ear onto her spotless white blouse until a crimson blot the size of my fist stained the area just above her heart.

‘Cripes! You’ve broken her heart and killed her,’ I heard Flap-lips de Jaager say as he ran from the classroom. All the others followed, screaming as they fought each other to vacate the scent of the crime. I just stood there, unable to think, the blood leaking from my head.

I was unaware of anyone entering the room until a huge hand lifted me and hurled me across the classroom where I landed against the wall. I was too stunned to hurt and sat there propped up by the wall like a discarded rag doll. Mr Stoffel, the master who taught the Judge’s class, was on his knees bending over Miss du Plessis and shaking her by the shoulder. His eyes grew wide as he observed the blood on her blouse. ‘Shit, he’s killed her!’ I heard him say.

Just then Miss du Plessis opened her eyes and sat up like Lazarus. Then she looked down and saw her bloodstained blouse and with a soft sigh she passed out again. Mr Stoffel slapped her cheeks and she opened her eyes and sat up. ‘Oh, oh, what have I done!’ she sobbed.

Quite suddenly the classroom grew very still and dark, like a cloud passing over the sun. I could dimly see Mr Stoffel coming towards me, his long, hairy arms flapping at his sides as though in slow motion, his shape wavy at the edges. I tried to cover my face but my arms refused to lift from my lap.

‘Look what happens when you forget your camouflage, Pisskop,’ I observed to myself. Then I must have passed out.

I awoke in my bed in the small kids’ dormitory, but before I’d opened my eyes I could smell Mevrou at my side. She must have seen the flicker of my eyelids. ‘Are you awake, Pisskop?’ she said, not unkindly.

‘Ja, Mevrou.’ I was back in the real world and I quickly gathered my mental camouflage about me. My head was swathed in a thick crêpe bandage and I was wearing my pyjamas. My head didn’t hurt a bit but my shoulder ached where I’d landed against the wall.

‘Now listen to me, Pisskop.’ There was a note of urgency in Mevrou’s voice. ‘When the doctor comes you must tell him you fell out of a tree, you hear?’

‘Ja, Mevrou.’

‘What tree did you fall out of, Pisskop?’ she asked.

‘There was no tree, Mevrou.’ I had fallen at once for the trick.

‘Domkop!’ she shouted. ‘Wash out your ears. What did I just tell you, man?’

‘It was the mango tree, the big one next to the playground,’ I corrected.

‘Ja, that’s good, the mango tree.’ She rose from the chair beside my bed. ‘You have a good memory when you try, Pisskop. Remember to tell the doctor when he comes.’

No sooner had she left than I leapt from the bed and ran to the window where I whistled for Granpa Chook. In a few moments he appeared, clucking and beady-eyed as ever as he came to rest on the window sill beside me.

‘Granpa Chook, we’re in a lot of trouble,’ I told him and explained about the arrival any day now of Adolf Hitler who was coming to march us into the sea. ‘Can you swim?’ I asked him. Granpa Chook was so amazing that it wouldn’t have surprised me if he turned out to be the only chicken in the world who could swim.

‘Squawk!’ he replied, which could have meant he could or he couldn’t, who’s to say? Granpa Chook wasn’t always easy to understand.

We could hear voices coming towards the dormitory so I quickly pushed Granpa Chook back into the orchard and jumped into bed.

To my joy Mevrou entered with Dr Henny. He sat on my bed and unwound the bandage around my head. ‘What’s the matter, son? You look pretty done in.’

Even if Dr Henny wasn’t a Rooinek I knew he was on my side, and I longed to burst into tears and tell him all my troubles. But I had already blown my camouflage once that day with near disastrous results. A bandaged ear and a sore shoulder weren’t too bad a result for having been unforgivably stupid. Next time I might not be so lucky. Choking back the tears I told him how I had fallen from the big old mango tree next to the playground.

I must have laid it on a bit thick because he turned to Mevrou and in Afrikaans he said: ‘Hmmm, except for the cut between the ear and the skull there are no contusions or abrasions, are you quite sure this child fell from a tree?

‘The other children saw it happen, Doctor. There is no doubt.’ Mevrou said this with such conviction that I began to wonder myself. I realised that Dr Henny’s line of questioning could only mean trouble for me.

‘It’s true, sir. That’s what happened, I fell out of the tree and hurt my shoulder against the wall.’

Dr Henny didn’t seem to notice that I’d replied in Afrikaans. ‘The wall? What wall?’

Fear showed for a moment in Mevrou’s eyes but she quickly recovered. ‘The child doesn’t speak Afrikaans very well, he means the ground.’

‘Ja, the ground,’ I added, my camouflage damn nearly blown sky high.

Dr Henny looked puzzled. ‘Okay, let’s look at your shoulder, then.’ He rotated my shoulder clockwise. ‘That hurt? Tell me when it hurts.’ I shook my head. He moved it the opposite way with the same result. Then he lifted it upwards and I winced. ‘That’s sore, hey?’ I nodded. ‘Well it’s not dislocated anyway.’ He checked my heart and chest and my back with his stethoscope which was cold against my skin. ‘Seems fine. We’ll just put in a couple of little stitches and you’ll be right as rain,’ he said in English.

‘Can I go home please?’

‘No need for that, old son. You’ll be brand new tomorrow.’ He dug into his bag and produced a yellow sucker. ‘Here, this will make you feel better, you get stuck into that while I fix up these stitches.’

He must have seen the look on my face. ‘Ja, it’s going to hurt a bit, but you’re not going to cry on me now, are you?’

‘He’s a brave boy, Doctor,’ Mevrou said, relaxed now that the truth had remained concealed.

‘Well done,’ Henny said, dabbing my stitches with mercurochrome, ‘No need for a bandage, we’ll be back in a week to remove the stitches.’ He turned to Mevrou, ‘Let me know if he complains of backache.’ He took a second sucker from his bag and handed it to me. ‘That’s for being extra brave.’

‘Thank you sir. Doctor Henny, are you English?’ I asked taking the second sucker.

His expression changed and I could see that he was upset. ‘We are all South Africans, son. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’ He spoke with a quiet vehemence, then repeated: ‘Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything else!’

I had certainly had better days, but a two-sucker day doesn’t come along very often so it wasn’t all bad.

Despite my prisoner of war status, the kids were pretty good for the next few days. My stitches made me a hero in the small kids’ dormitory and even Maatie de Jaager kept his loose mouth buttoned for a change.

We had a new teacher, Mrs Gerber, who turned out to be the wife of the Government vet who had once come out to the farm to check Granpa’s black Orpingtons for Newcastle’s disease. Mrs Gerber wasn’t tetchy and I don’t think she even knew I was a Rooinek. She wasn’t a real teacher so she was quite nice.

There was a rumour going around that Miss du Plessis had suffered a nervous breakdown. I knew of course that I was to blame and it struck me with dismay that I had probably been the direct cause of my mother’s nervous breakdown as well. I must be a nervous breakdown type of person. First my mother, now Miss du Plessis and, while I hadn’t given Mevrou one yet, I had caused her to piss in her pants, which was probably the next best thing.

Granpa Chook and I discussed our predicament at some length but were unable to reach a useful conclusion. After all, Granpa Chook was a Kaffir chicken and they don’t have such a good life. One minute you’re walking along scratching about and the next you’re dinner for a jackal or a python, or bubbling away in a three-legged cast-iron cooking pot. Granpa Chook, a proven survivor, worked on the principle that if anything bad could happen it would. A five-year-old isn’t much of a pessimist, though we agreed that one thing was for sure, something pretty bad was bound to happen.