The shrill ring of the phone pulled Hannah from the journal and, not thinking, she went to answer, grabbing a tissue from the box in the kitchen to blow her nose and hoping she could mask the choke in her voice.
‘Hello?’
Nothing.
‘Dammit!’ She slammed the phone down, then took the receiver off the hook before it could ring again. The calls were coming every night now, numerous times, and she’d resorted to leaving her phone off the hook mostly, especially when she went to bed. There had been times in Cape Town when the family had experienced something similar. Hangup calls or just breathing. Her mother had dismissed them as random or, at worst, a disgruntled student, unhappy with a term mark. Ignored, the calls usually stopped.
Pouring herself a glass of water at the kitchen sink, Hannah glimpsed her reflection in the black window. The dark hollowed her face, making her think of Esme. She was still the biggest obstacle to finding out more about Rachel. Hannah knew there was more at the Silwerfontein cottage, if only she could get to it.
She had seen Karl at the petrol station earlier that day, and had quickly crossed the street, coming to the window of his pickup and greeting him.
He’d smiled at her, but there was a hovering awkwardness. ‘Esme is just in the supermarket – I can’t stop to chat, sorry, man.’
‘It’s okay. Karl, I just want to ask you one thing, please.’
He’d looked through the front windscreen and nodded slightly.
‘There was this girl, Rachel Badenhorst. She was part of your family during the South African War. We think she was sent to a concentration camp on Goshen. Most of the family were sent to Winburg and they died there. Have you ever heard of this before? Did your mother or grandparents tell you any stories? Is there anything at Silwerfontein which could tell me more about her?’
‘That’s more than one question, Hannah,’ he had said gently, looking at his big hands on the steering wheel. ‘I don’t remember anything about that stuff. I wasn’t interested when my mother tried to tell me about her research. It bored me. Look, Esme’s my priority right now. She’s too fragile to risk setting off. I can’t get involved, sorry.’ As he’d looked up at Hannah, the deep sorrow in his eyes had filled her with remorse.
‘It’s okay. I’m the one who’s sorry. I don’t mean to cause you or your family more pain.’ She’d stepped away from the car with a smile of apology for Karl.
But her mind raced. Karl’s mother had researched the family? It was all probably sitting in her little house, gathering dust. The revelation hung over Hannah as she returned to Rachel’s journal.
Reverend Charlie led us in prayer. He is so angry. He shouts at the Lord and pleads with Him, like the psalmists. He said that enough people have died here. He says he’s going to write and protest to the Queen herself, if things do not change in this camp. He is so full of ire, so enraged, I believe he would do it too. But then he read Psalm 23 and the words rang out in the camp. This was no quiet balm for our pain. He read with ferocity. A declaration against the evil we have seen.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my souclass="underline" He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no eviclass="underline" for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
For eternity, I will think of that psalm read like a battle cry against that camp. Declaring the Lord as our master, not the British. His rod and staff raised in defence of the helpless.
To Hannah’s relief, Joseph, with the helpful intervention of Moses Motala, was making huge strides. He had networked and pulled together a group of researchers who were interested in pursuing their own work on the site. One archaeologist was interested especially in the use of fuels in the camp. She was a botanist and wanted to investigate the hearths and take samples of charcoal or ash to find out which plant materials had been used. In that open Free State landscape, there were few trees to be seen, so it was likely that, like in many camps, people had collected and burnt cakes of dung. The presence of dung would suggest livestock around the camp, and that would say much about the life of the camp inmates.
Joseph told Hannah he had identified the main living area, though there was little left of the camp dwellings. The hearth places were useful, and it seemed that some tents or shelters had had a cooking place directly outside. The team had found the odd utensil and the leg of a cast-iron cooking pot to confirm the idea.
One day, Hannah caught a lift up to the dig with one of the students. She found Joseph at the far end of the plateau, working on the section which he had confirmed as the cemetery. Most graves were unmarked, though a few seemed to have small cairns built across the graves. Students were marking off the graves with lines of string, pegging the strings into the hard ground with mallets.
‘You’re making great progress, Jose,’ Hannah said, coming up behind him.
He spun around, pulling her into his side for a hug. ‘Nice to see you up here. You’ve been scarce.’
‘Just busy,’ she said. ‘How many are you up to?’
‘We’ve estimated two hundred graves.’
Hannah let out a slow whistle. ‘Two hundred people? In two years? That’s awful, Jose.’
‘We haven’t begun to excavate yet. There might be more than one body in some of these. The number could be twice or even three times that.’
‘Rachel describes that in December 1901, actually. It just hits home when you’re standing here looking at the real scale of it. How many people do you think were in the camp?’
‘Difficult to say without records. The standard measure is that ten per cent of the camp populations died. That would put this camp at two thousand people at a minimum. But I don’t think this plateau camp could hold that many people. I would guess that, rather, the death rate was horrendously high.’
‘Rachel speaks of measles and typhoid being the main killers,’ said Hannah, breathing a deep sigh and looking over the site.
‘I would imagine we could add exposure to that list, thinking of being up here in winter. And starvation.’ Joseph kicked a stone at his feet. ‘We haven’t found nearly as many ration tins as we thought. Certainly no condensed milk tins, which we expected to find. And very little military detritus. There’s something strange about this camp.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Hannah.
‘We know quite a bit about other Boer camps. There were soldiers around a lot, managing the everyday running of the camp. The inmates were given rations – meagre, but still, they were fed. Here, we’ve found the odd buckle and a few ammunition shells, but nothing like the number we should have found. And very few ration tins.’ He bent to pick a grass stem, and twisted it in his hands.
‘Maybe they were just very tidy and threw away all the old tins.’ Hannah grinned at Joseph.
He looked back at her and smiled. ‘You think you’re being silly, but you could be right. We’ve got the rubbish heap still to excavate – that should tell us more about what they ate here, I suppose.’
The afternoon light was shifting to golden as Hannah had seen it do in this valley. It brushed the distant sandstone faces, the grass even greener against the orange stone.
‘Did Suzanne come up to say goodbye this morning?’ Hannah pulled away to see his face as he watched the students, measuring and making sure their lines were straight.