Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 123

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In the front row Uncle Tromp roared like a wounded bull buffalo while beside him Sarah shrieked herself hoarse as tears of joy and excitement wet her lashes and shone upon her cheeks.

The next morning the boxing correspondent of the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger, The Citizen', dubbed Manfred The Lion of the Kalahari and mentioned that he was not only the great nephew of General Jacobus Hercules De La Rey, hero of the Volk, but also related to the Reverend Tromp Bierman, boxing champion, author, and the new dominie of Stellenbosch.

Roelf Stander and the entire boxing squad were waiting in the quadrangle when Manfred came out of his sociology lecture and they surrounded him.

You've been holding out on us, Manie, Roelf accused furiously. 'You never told us that your uncle is the Tromp Bierman. Sweet mercy, man, he was national champion for five years. He knocked out both Slater and Black Jephta!

Didn't I tell you? Manie frowned thoughtfully. It must have slipped my mind., Manie, you have to introduce us, the vice-captain pleaded. We all want to meet him, please, man, please. Do you think he would coach the team, Manie? Won't you ask him. Hell, if we had Tromp Bierman as coach Roelf broke off, awed into silence by the thought.

,I tell you what, Manie suggested. If you can get the whole boxing team to church on Sunday morning, I'm sure that my Aunt Trudi will invite us all to Sunday lunch. I tell you, gentlemen, you don't know what heaven is until you have tasted my Aunt Trudi's koek-sisters. So scrubbed and shaven and Brylcreerned and buttoned into their Sunday-best suits, the university boxing squad took up a full pew of the church, and their responses and rendition of the hymns shook the roof timbers.

Aunt Trudi looked upon the occasion as a challenge to her culinary skills and she and the girls took all week to prepare the dinner. The guests, all lusty young men in peak physical condition, had existed on university fare for weeks, and they gazed in ravenous disbelief upon the banquet, trying valiantly to divide their attention between Uncle Tromp, who was in top form at the head of the long table recounting his most memorable fights, the tittering blushing daughters of the house who waited upon them and the groaning board piled with roasts and preserves and puddings.

At the end of the meal Roelf Stander, bloated like a python which had swallowed a gazelle, rose to make a speech of thanks on behalf of the team, and halfway through changed it into an impassioned plea to Uncle Tromp to accept the duties of honorary coach.

Uncle Tromp waved away the request with a jovial chortle as though it were totally unthinkable, but the entire team, including Manie, added their entreaties, whereupon he made a series of excuses, each one lamer than the preceding one, all of which were vociferously rebutted by the team in unison, until finally, with a heavy sigh of resignation and forbearance, he capitulated. Then while accepting their fervent gratitude and hearty handshakes, he at last broke down and beamed with unrestrained pleasure.

I tell you, boys, you don't know what you've let yourselves in for. There are many words I don't understand at all. "I'm tired" and "I've had enough" are just some of them, he warned.

After the evening service, Manie and Roelf walked back under the dark rustling oaks to Rust en Vrede and Roelf was uncharacteristically silent, not speaking until they had reached the main gates. Then his tone was reflective: Tell me, Manie, your cousin, how old is she? 'Which one? Manie asked without interest. The fat one is Gertrude and the one with pimples is Renata.

No! No, Manie, don't be a dog! Roelf cut him short. The pretty one with blue eyes, the one with the silky gold hair.

The one I'm going to marry. Manfred stopped dead and swung to face him, his head going down on his shoulders, his mouth twisting into a snarl.

Never say that again! His voice shook and he seized the front of Roelf's jacket. Don't ever talk dirty like that again.

I warn you, you talk about Sarah like that again, and I'll kill you. Manfred's face was only inches from Roelf's. That terrible yellow glow, the killing rage, was in his eyes.

Hey, Manie, Roelf whispered hoarsely. What's wrong with you? I didn't say anything dirty. Are you mad? I would never insult Sarah. The yellow rage faded slowly from Manfred's eyes and he released his grip on Roelf's lapels. He shook his head as if to clear it, and his voice was bemused when he spoke again.

She's only a baby. You shouldn't talk like that, man. She's only a little girl. A baby? Roelf chuckled uncertainly and straightened his jacket. Are you blind, Manie. She's not a baby. She is the most lovely, but Manfred flung away angrily and went storming through the gates into the house.

So, my friend, Roelf whispered, that's how it is! He sighed and thrust his hands deeply into his pockets. And then he remembered how Sarah had looked at Manfred during the meal and how he had seen her lay her hand on the back of his neck, furtively and adoringly, as she leaned over him to take his empty plate, and he sighed again, overcome suddenly with a brooding sense of melancholy. There are a thousand pretty girls out there, he told himself with an attempt to throw off the dark mood. All of them panting for Roelf Stander, and he shrugged and grinned lopsidedly and followed Manie into the house.

Manfred won his next twelve matches in an unbroken succession, all of them by knock-out, all of them within three rounds; and all the sports writers had by now adopted the name Lion of the Kalahari in describing his feats.

All right, Jong, win them while you can, Uncle Tromp admonished him. But just remember you aren't going to be young always, and in the long run it's not a man's muscles and fists that keep him on top. It's what's in his skull Jong, and don't you ever forget it! So Manfred threw himself as enthusiastically into his academic studies as he had into his training routine.

German was by now almost as natural to him as Afrikaans, and he was considerably more fluent in it than in English, which he spoke only reluctantly and with a heavy accent. He found the Roman Dutch Law satisfying in its logic and philosophy and read the Institutes of Justinian like literature; at the same time politics and sociology both fascinated him. He and Roelf debated and discussed them endlessly, cementing their own friendship in the process.

His boxing prowess had made him an instant celebrity on the Stellenbosch campus. Some of his professors treated him with special favour and condescension because of this, while others were at first deliberately antagonistic, acting as though he were a dunce until he proved that he was not.

Perhaps our well-known pugilist will give us the benefit of his towering intellect and throw some light on the concept of National Bolshevism for us. The speaker was the professor of Sociology and Politics, a tall austere intellectual with the piercing eyes of a mystic. Though he had been born in Holland his parents had brought him out to Africa at an early age, and Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was now one of the leading Afrikaans intellectuals and a champion of his people's nationalist aspirations. He lectured first-year political students only once a semester, reserving most of his efforts for his faculty's honour students. Now he was smiling superciliously as Manfred rose slowly to his feet and composed his thoughts.

Dr Verwoerd waited for a few seconds and was about to wave him down again, the fellow was clearly a clod, when Manfred began his reply, speaking with carefully couched grammatical exactitude and in his newly acquired Stellenbosch accent which Roelf was helping him hone - the Oxford accent of Afrikaans.

As opposed to the revolutionary ideology of conventional Bolshevism created under Lenin's leadership, National Bolshevism was originally a term used in Germany to describe a policy of resistance to the Treaty of Versailles, and Dr Verwoerd blinked and stopped smiling. The fellow had seen the trap from a mile off, separating the two concepts immediately.

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