Above
all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he
returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to
the poultry man.
"Go on with your complaint. I'm listenin'."
"Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort by
thousands."
The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper's stomach. His face was
dusky with rage.
"Yess, I'm a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find out
how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army--it is the
laughing-stock of the Continent." He tapped the newspaper in his pocket,
"You think you're going to win, you poor fools. Your people--your own
people--your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out of it as they did
after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your own working classes,
the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you come out of, are
saying." He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the leading article, on
Copper's knee. "See what dirty dogs your masters are. They do not even
back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the country down to Ladysmith--
to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to Colesberg."
"Yes, we 'ad to clean up be'ind you. Messy, I call it."
"You've had to stop farm-burning because your people daren't do it. They
were afraid. You daren't kill a spy.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169