He moved deeper into the orchard. Everywhere was evidence of neglect. Indeed, he had begun to believe he was on abandoned land when the apple-trees gave way to a stretch of cleared ground beyond which he saw brick outhouses and the thatched roof and whitewashed walls of a farmhouse. In the cleared ground were neatly tended patches of vegetables: cauliflower, carrots, potatoes. He emerged from the shelter of the trees into the downpour and on hands and knees began to pull yellow half-grown carrots out of the soft earth. It is God's earth, he thought, I am not a thief. Nevertheless he imagined a shot cracking out from the back window of the farmhouse, he imagined a huge Alsatian streaking out to attack him. When his pockets were full he stood nervously erect. Instead of taking the carrot-tops with him to scatter under the trees as he had intended, he left them where they lay.
During the night the rain stopped. In the morning he was back on the road in his damp clothes, his belly bloated with raw food. When he heard the rumble of an approaching convoy he would creep away into the bushes, though he wondered whether by now, with his filthy clothes and his air of gaunt exhaustion, he would not be passed over as a mere footloose vagrant from the depths of the country, too benighted to know that one needed papers to be on the road, too sunk in apathy to be of harm. One of the convoys, with an escort of motorcycle outriders, armoured cars and trucks full of helmeted boy soldiers, took a full five minutes to pass. He peered steadily out from his hiding-place; the machine-gunner in the last car, muffled in scarf, goggles and woollen cap, seemed to look for an instant straight into his eyes before being borne away backwards into the Boland.
He slept under a culvert. By nine o'clock the next morning he was in sight of the chimneys and pylons of Worcester. He was no longer alone on the road but one of a straggling line of people. Three young men passed him walking briskly, their breath leaving them in white puffs.
On the outskirts of the town there was a roadblock, the first he had seen since Paarl, with police vehicles and people clustered densely around them. For a moment he wavered. To his left were houses, to his right a brickfield. The only way out was back: he pressed on.
'What do they want?' he whispered to the woman ahead of him in the line. She looked at him, looked away again, said nothing.
It was his turn. He held out his green card. From the head of the line, between the two police trucks, he could see those who had passed through the check; but also, to one side, a silent group of men, men only, guarded by a policeman with a dog. If I look very stupid, he thought, perhaps they will let me through.
'Where are you from?'
'From Prince Albert.' His mouth was dry. 'I am going home to Prince Albert.'
'Permit?'
'I lost it.'
'Right. Wait there.' The policeman pointed with his baton.
'I don't want to stop, I don't have time,' K whispered. Could they smell fear on him? Someone gripped his arm. He baulked, like a beast at the shambles. A hand behind him in the line was holding out a green card. No one was listening to him. The policeman with the dog made an impatient gesture. Shoved forward, K walked the last paces himself and entered captivity, his fellows shuffling aside as if to avoid contamination. He clasped the box and looked back into the yellow eyes of the dog.
In the company of fifty strangers K was driven to the railway yards, fed cold porridge and tea, and herded into a lone carriage at a siding. The doors were locked and they waited, watched over by an armed guard in the brown and black uniform of the Railways Police, till another thirty prisoners arrived and were loaded aboard.
Next to K, by the window, sat an older man dressed in a suit. K touched his sleeve. 'Where are they taking us?' he asked. The stranger looked him over and shrugged. 'Why does it matter where they are taking us?' he said. 'There are only two places, up the line and down the line. That is the nature of trains.' He brought out a roll of sweets and offered one to K.
A steam locomotive was backed up to the siding and, with whistles and jerks and clashes, coupled to the carriage. 'North,' said the stranger. ' Touws River. ' When K did not reply he seemed to lose interest in him.
They pulled away from the siding and began to move through the back yards of Worcester, where women hung out washing and children stood on fences to wave, the train gradually picking up speed. K watched the telegraph wires rise and fall, rise and fall. They passed mile after mile of bare and neglected vineyards circled over by crows; then the engine began to labour as they entered the mountains. K shivered. He could smell his own sweat through the musty odour of his clothes.
They came to a halt; a guard unlocked the doors; and the moment they stepped out the reason for stopping became clear. The train could go no further: the track ahead was covered in a mountain of rocks and red clay that had come pouring down the slope, tearing a wide gash in the hillside. Someone made a remark, and there was a burst of laughter.
From the top of the earthslide they could see another train far down the track on the other side: there were men struggling like ants to roll a mechanical shovel out of a truck and down a ramp.
K found himself assigned to a gang working on the track, which was dislocated for some distance short of the obstruction. All afternoon, under the eye of an overseer and a guard, he and his fellows worked at moving the buckled rails, firming the bed of the track, and laying sleepers. By evening there was enough new track for an empty truck to advance to the foot of the slide. They broke off for a supper of bread and jam and tea. Then, in the glare of the locomotive headlight, they climbed the mound and began to shovel clay and stones. At first they were high enough to pitch a load straight into the truck; as the mound grew lower each shovelful had to be lifted over its side. When the truck was filled the locomotive hauled it back down the track, and the same men emptied it in darkness.
Revived by the suppertime break, K soon began to flag again. Every spadeful he lifted cost him an effort; when he stood erect there was a stabbing in his back and the world spun. He laboured more and more slowly, then sat down at the trackside with his head between his knees. Time passed, he had no idea how much time. Sounds grew faint in his ears.
He was tapped on the knee. 'Get up!' said a voice. He scrambled to his feet and in the faint light faced the gang overseer in his black coat and cap.
'Why have I got to work here?' K said. His head swam; the words seemed to echo from far away.
The overseer shrugged. 'Just do what you're told,' he said. He raised his stick and prodded K in the chest. K picked up his shovel.
Till midnight they toiled, moving like sleepwalkers. Herded back into the carriage at last, they slept slumped against one another on the seats or sprawled on the bare floor, the windows shut against the bitter upland cold, while outside the guards stamped up and down and shivered and cursed and took turns to sneak into the cab to warm their hands.
Tired and cold, K lay with the box of ashes in his arms. His neighbour pressed against him and embraced him in his sleep. He thinks I am his wife, thought K, the wife in whose bed he slept last night. He stared at the misty window, longing for the night to pass. Later he fell asleep; when the guards unlocked the doors in the morning his body was so stiff that he could barely stand.
Again there was porridge and tea. He found himself sitting beside the man who had spoken to him on the journey from Worcester.
'Are you feeling sick?' said the man.
K shook his head.
'You don't talk,' said the man. 'I thought you must be sick.'
'I'm not sick,' said K.
'Then don't be so miserable. This isn't jail. This isn't a life sentence. This is just labour gang. It's peanuts.'
K could not finish the lukewarm slab of mealie-porridge. The guards and the two overseers were going among them now, clapping their hands and prodding them to stand up.