These Oranjes Are Not For Eating - Fun and Games in the Orange Free State

For the record, at no point did I mention a tent I believe the word "office" is used...

I did, however, mention crocodiles!

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

Thomas Van Anders was scared, and rightly so. He'd been riding with the Oranje Vrystaat Commando when the British had ambushed them, and was one of the Boers taken in by Van Moordenaar's men for the Colonel to question. Unlike some of the grizzled ventrans of the Commando, Thomas wasn't much of a soldier. A post office clerk by proffession, he had allowed himself to be carried along on the dizzying wave of patriotism that had washed over his small peer group at the outbreak of hostilities, and before he knew where he was he had enlisted, had been handed a rifle and told that if it wore a red coat and a white pith helmet, chances are it was a good thing to be shooting at (1).

He never had a chance to find out if he was any good at soldiering, however, because his first assignment had been with the ill-fated caravan that Van Moordenaar's men had attacked. The skirmish had terrified him and he couldn't even remember if he had fought or fled. What he did know, however, was that four men had been brought into the room in which he was now sitting, and none of them had come back out alive.

The room itself was tiny and spartan in the extreme, with a bare, stone floor and featureless grey walls. The only light came from a single, barred window that dominated the far wall and overlooked the veldt beyond. Two doors faced each other on opposite walls. One of them was the door through which Thomas had been brought, while the other one - presumably it was where the other four men had gone when Van Moordenaar had finished questioning them.

Thomas sat on a wooden chair in the centre of the room. He was surprised that the soldiers who had brought him here had not restrained him, for the only other occupant of the room was Lieutenant Colonel Van Moordenaar himself; a slight man who was a good deal shorter than Thomas was. The Colonel faced the window, gazing out over the sun kissed veldt, and just as Thomas was weighing up whether or not he could take Van Moordenaar in a fight the Colonel turned to face him and smiled.

The sight chilled Thomas to his very core, something that the Colonel evidently sensed, for he closed the distance between them and crouched on his haunches before the terrified Boer. Thomas tried to remain calm and Van Moordenaar cocked his head to one side before reaching out and running a finger across Van Anders' brow. He glanced at the sweat staining his glove and shook his hand in evident disgust before standing and turning towards the window again, hands clasped behind his back.

"Have you ever stood and just...stared at it? Marvelled at its beauty? The British Empire - this land. All the land like this across the world. The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets. Billions of people, just living out their lives. Oblivious to the hardship required to keep their cosy little existences safe."

He rocked back and forth on his heels, seemingly heedless of the other man in the room.

"Did you know that when the British first came to Africa they did so in search of Utopia? That their aim was not to subdue and dominate the natives, but to create the perfect human world - a place where none suffered and everyone would be happy?"

Upon hearing no reply from Thomas, Van Moordenaar turned to face his subject who found himself shaking his head frantically and smiling the smile of a man terrified beyond his capacity for rational thought.

"It was a disaster Mr Van Anders, a disaster. No one would believe such a feat was possible, the natives rebelled and before we knew where we were villages and farms were being burnt - entire crops were lost."

The Colonel began to slowly circle Thomas, his movements and voice calm and leisurly - speaking like a teacher addressing a favoured pupil, rather than an interogater and his subject.

"Some believed, like in India, that the British lacked the local language to describe to the natives their perfect world. But I believe, that as a race, Africans define their reality through misery and suffering. Which is why this particular outpost of Empire is like this, with all these different cultures of yours in one big melting pot."

A low, sinister chuckle came from the Colonel and he placed both of his hands on Thomas' shoulders, causing the younger man to shudder.

"I say your culture, but as soon as we took over and started showing you the correct way to do things it really became our culture, which is, of course, what this is all about..."

He paused. Thomas, retreating into himself out of fear, was acutely aware of only two sounds - the Colonel's breathing and his own heartbeat; one slow and measured, the other racing frantically. The only two noises the frightened Boer could make out in that cramped and terrifyinging little room. Van Moordenaar, after what seemed like an age, bent down so that his mouth was next to Thomas' ear, and when his voice came it was a slow, sibilant whisper.

"Have you heard of Darwin? Another triumph of Empire. This is about evolution, Mr Van Anders, evolution. Look outside that window. Look at the bodies, the camps and the burning farms. You've had your time. The future is our world, Mr Van Anders, the future is our time."

1. The British weren't stupid however. A few months into the war it became quite apparent to High Command that soldiers wearing red jackets and gleaming white helmets in the middle of the South African veldt weren't really taking their camouflage lessons seriously. Such lessons, it seemed, were neccessary as it appeared that the Boers weren't exactly gentlemen where this whole warfare business was concerned; preffering to skulk around in the undergrowth and snipe from a distance rather than face the vastly more numerous British troops on the field of battle. It has often been said that the British Victorian army's leadership lacked a sense of perspective... Regardless, khaki uniforms were soon issued to the British troops (complete with khaki helmets no less) to alievate the sense of walking around with a huge target on one's back. Van Moordenaar, however, refused to allow his troops to wear this uniform, and instead insisted on the men under his command adhearing to the traditional red jackets, blue trousers and white helmets. When asked questions like "Won't that mean that the Boers will see you coming?" Van Moordenaar always smiled and pointed out that that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to let the Afrikaaners know that he and his men weren't scared of their tactics - and he wanted them to know just who exactly they were about to confront.