The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay Read Free Book Online Page B

effect of his words on us. There was no reaction except for a low murmur from where the senior boys sat. “Do you know what this means, man?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued. “It means freedom! Freedom and liberty for our beloved fatherland! Adolf Hitler will destroy the cursed English and remove the yoke of oppression placed on the Afrikaner nation by these uitlanders who burn down homes and imprison Boer women and children in concentration camps where twenty-six thousand died of starvation, dysentery, and blackwater fever!”
    The headmaster made it sound as though it was all happening at that very moment in South Africa. I suddenly realized that this was what had really happened to my mother. She had been mistaken for a Boer woman and been put in a concentration camp.
    The headmaster took a couple of steps back from the table and then lurched forward again. His spit-flecked mouth worked silently, as though he were trying to say something but it wouldn’t come out. Instead he raised his arm in the same way the Judge had done in the dormitory. “Heil Hitler!” he blurted out at last.
    Just then the doors burst open and Mevrou entered the dining room. Through the briefly open doors we could see Miss du Plessis standing in the hallway biting her knuckles. Mevrou marched up to the headmaster, and taking him firmly by the elbow she led him quickly from the dining hall.
    â€œHeil Hitler!” he shouted back at us as he passed through the swinging doors.
    We sat there bewildered. Then the Judge jumped to his feet and stepped up onto the bench on his side of the top table. He rolled the sleeve of his shirt up over the top of his shoulder so we could all see the crude blue crossed and angled lines of his swastika tattoo.
    â€œAdolf Hitler is the king of Germany and God has sent him to take South Africa back from the English and give it to us.” He jabbed at the swastika on his arm. “This is his sign... the swastika! The swastika will make us free again.” His right hand shot up in the same salute the headmaster had given moments before. “Heil Hitler!” he cried.
    We all jumped to our feet and, thrusting our arms out in the manner of his own, yelled, “Heil Hitler!”
    It was all very exciting. To think that this man, Adolf Hitler, who was going to save us all from the accursed English, was going to be our new headmaster!
    Then, slowly at first, the words of the Judge on the first night back at school began to form in my mind, gathered momentum, and then roared into my consciousness: “Don’t be fucking stupid, Pisskop! you ARE the verdomde English!”
    My long march to the sea had begun.
    Flap-lips de Jaager at our table just kept on shouting “Heil Hitler” and soon everyone was chanting it louder and louder. A piercing whistle from the Judge finally stopped them.
    â€œSome of us have sworn a blood oath to Adolf Hitler, and the time has now come to march the rooineks into the sea. After school we will meet behind the shithouses for a council of war!”
    I don’t suppose any of us had much idea of where the sea was supposed to be, somewhere across the Lebombo Mountains and probably over the Limpopo River. Whichever direction, it was a long, long way away. The long march to the sea would be a pretty serious undertaking, and I could understand why it would take some planning.
    The dining room buzzed with excitement and the Judge held up his hand to silence us. Then he pointed directly at me. “Pisskop, you are our first prisoner of war!” He brought his fingers together and raised his arm higher. “Heil Hitler!” he shouted.
    We all jumped up again, but the two kids on either side of me pushed me back into my seat. “Heil Hitler!” the rest of the dining hall chorused back.
    It was the most exciting day in the school’s history, although my own prospects looked pretty bleak. What was certain was that Granpa