PROLOGUE
Spring 1900
Bechuanaland, Africa
Doctor Paulos de Klerk packed the last of the medical supplies into the wooden trunk and locked the three brass clasps, mumbling under his breath with each snap. “Amat . . . victoria . . . curam.”
Victory favors the prepared.
Or so he prayed.
“So, my good doctor, how goes the effort?” General Manie Roosa’s voice boomed from the fort’s watchtower above.
De Klerk shielded his eyes from the blazing sun and stared up at the bearded figure leaning over the railing, grinning down. Though not physically imposing, Roosa had a commanding presence that made him look seven feet tall; it was in the man’s eyes. The general always looked eager for a fight.
And he was about to get one if word from up north held true.
“Are we ready?” Roosa pressed.
De Klerk returned his attention to the other trunks, cases, and burlap sacks. Though the general’s words had indeed ended with a question mark, he knew Roosa was not making an inquiry. At various times throughout the day their leader had posed the same “question” to almost every Boer soldier under his command, all of whom bustled around the plateau on which the fort sat, cleaning weapons, counting ammunition, and generally preparing for the upcoming march.
With an exaggerated sigh, De Klerk replied, “As always, I will be ready to leave five minutes before you are, my general.”
Roosa let out a booming laugh and slapped the log railing. “You amuse me, Doctor. If you were not so good at your profession, I might be tempted to leave you behind, out of harm’s way.”
De Klerk stared around the bustling fort. He hated to leave its security, but he knew where he was best needed. As primitive as the fort was, with its palisade walls and crude buildings, this place had withstood countless British attacks, making it a bastion for Boer troops. Leaving the confines of its protective walls likely meant he and his medical aides would be seeing a brisk business in the coming days.
Not that he wasn’t accustomed to the horrors of battle.
Though only thirty-two years old, this was De Klerk’s fifth year of war in the past decade. The first Vryheidsoorloë, or freedom war, was fought back in 1880 and had mercifully lasted but a year, ending well for the Boers—the Dutch/Afrikaans word for farmers—as they won their sovereignty from British rule in the Transvaal. Eight years later, the second Vryheidsoorloë started, involving not only the Transvaal but also the neighboring Orange Free State.
Same issues, more soldiers, he thought sourly.
The British wanted the Boers under their colonial thumb, and the Boers were not keen on the idea. De Klerk’s ancestors had come to the savannahs and mountains of Africa to be free, and now the Engelse wanted to take that away. Unlike the first Vryheidsoorloë, this war was protracted, with the British implementing a scorched-earth policy. Though neither De Klerk nor any of his comrades verbalized it, they knew their own defeat was inevitable. The one person who seemed oblivious to this was General Roosa; the man was an irrepressible optimist when it came to matters of war.
Roosa pushed himself away from the railing and climbed down the rough-hewn ladder to the ground and walked over to where De Klerk was working. The general straightened his khaki uniform with a few well-experienced tugs. He was the same height as the doctor, but burlier of physique and bushier of beard. For the sake of hygiene, De Klerk kept himself clean-shaven and insisted his aides did the same.
“So I see many bandages are being packed,” Roosa said. “Do you think so little of my leadership, Doctor? Or is it you think too highly of the Engelse soldiers?”
“Certainly not the latter, my general. I simply know that before long I will be treating throngs of enemy prisoners wounded by our bullets.”
Roosa frowned and rubbed his beard. “Yes, about that, Doctor . . . about supplying succor to the enemy . . .”
It was a sore point between them, but De Klerk refused to relent. “We are Christian, are we not? It is our duty to provide such help. But I also understand that our men must come first. I will only provide enough aid so that a British soldier might survive long enough to be reached by his own doctors. If we do not do that, we are no better than them.”
Roosa clapped him on the shoulder—not necessarily agreeing, but acknowledging the sentiment.
For reasons he had never fully understood, Roosa had come to think of him as a sounding board. The commander frequently shared information with De Klerk that had nothing to do with his medical duties—as if the general also saw him as his own conscience.
Still, he knew there was another reason Roosa took such an interest in his preparations. The men under the general’s command had become his family, a surrogate to his own wife, three daughters, and two sons, all who’d been taken by smallpox two years earlier. The loss had nearly destroyed Roosa and left lasting scars. When it came to bullet and bayonet wounds, the general was phlegmatic and optimistic; when it came to disease, he was frighteningly anxious.
Changing the touchy subject, Roosa pointed to the leather-bound diary that was never beyond De Klerk’s reach. “Cataloging more flowers, I see.”
He touched the worn cover both affectionately and protectively. “Providence willing, yes. If we are going where I think we are going, there will be many species I have never encountered.”
“We are indeed heading north, into the mountains of the Groot. My scouts tell me a brigade of Engelse soldiers are headed west from Kimberley, led by a new commander—a colonel fresh from London.”
“And in a hurry to prove himself no doubt.”
“Aren’t they all? If we leave in the morning, their lead elements will spot us by early evening.”
And then the chase will be on. Though not a military strategist by any means, De Klerk had been with Roosa long enough to recognize the general’s favorite tactic: let the British scouts spot them, then draw the enemy north into the mountainous Groot, where the harsh terrain could be used to set up an ambush.
The British preferred to fight on the savannah, where their tidy formations and overwhelming firepower always won the day. The enemy commanders hated hills and mountains and ravines, hated that Roosa and his band of backward farmers refused to fight on their terms. And it was exactly such a strategy that Roosa had used many times to lure the British into murderous engagements. And still the enemy did not learn.
But how long would such arrogance last?
A chill iced through De Klerk as he gathered his research journal and pocketed it away.