Free The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

back to the farm, I would put this excellent plan to Nanny.
    From what we could gather from the Judge, who was allowed to listen to the news on Mr. Stoffel’s wireless on Saturday nights, the war was going pretty badly for the English. Adolf Hitler had taken Poland, which I took to be a place somewhere in South Africa, like Zululand, but where the Po tribe lived. The Judge made it sound as though Adolf Hitler could be expected any day now in our neck of the woods.
    I had no idea that South Africa was on England’s side; from where I sat the English were most definitely the local enemy.
    While I knew myself to be English, I regarded this as my misfortune, like being born into a poor and degenerate family.
    Most of my information came from the regular war councils the Judge held behind the school shithouses. All the senior hostel boys were storm troopers, and Danie Coetzee, as head of the small kids’ dormitory, was also allowed to attend. As the official prisoners of war, Granpa Chook and I were dragged along for the purposes of interrogation and torture.
    I was blindfolded and tied to the trunk of a jacaranda tree with a rope around my chest and waist, leaving my arms and legs free. This was because two of the main tortures required my hands to be free.
    Most torture sessions began with the iron bar, which was known as “Chinese torture” after the make of the Judge’s big, cheap pocket watch, one of his most treasured possessions. I was required to hold the bar out in front of me while he timed each session, so that I would have to hold the bar up longer than the previous time before dropping it. My times were duly recorded by a kid called Boetie van der Merwe, who was known in the Nazi party as Storm Trooper, Timekeeper, and Tallyman.
    Van der Merwe was very proud of his job and would remind me at every opportunity of the minimum time allocated for the next Chinese torture session. If I failed to best my previous time, I got a severe cuff from the Judge and the six storm troopers whose turn it was to beat me up.
    The second main torture was another one that required my hands to be free and was referred to as “shooting practice.” Every storm trooper carried a catapult as his deadly weapon. Farm kids all have catapults for shooting birds and grow very skilled at using them. While they were not allowed to be worn openly, all the senior boys had one stashed away, and they would wear these around their necks at Nazi party meetings.
    For shooting practice I was required to stretch my arms out on either side of me with my palms open and turned upward. An empty jam tin was placed on either hand, and each of the storm troopers was allowed two shots to try to knock the tins down. The six best results for the day earned the right to beat me up on the next occasion it became necessary. As usual, Boetie van der Merwe was the tallyman.
    I must say this for those Nazis, while they hit the tins from twenty feet often enough, only once did I collect a stone that thudded into the butt of my hand. Luckily it was my left hand, as I was unable to use it for several days.
    Granpa Chook would fly up onto a branch of the jacaranda, where he would keep a beady eye on the proceedings. He was known to the Nazi party as Prisoner of War Kaffir Chicken Rooinek. There isn’t too much interrogation and torture you can do to a chicken, and as Mevrou’s leading kitchen insect exterminator, Granpa Chook was pretty safe. Tough as the Judge was, he wasn’t willing to take Mevrou on.
    He would look up at Granpa Chook and say menacingly, “Your time will come, Prisoner of War Kaffir Chicken Rooinek, don’t think we’ve forgotten about you, you hear?”
    I was constantly fearful for Granpa Chook, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Like me, he was a prisoner of war. Together we just had to hope for the best and try to muddle through. Besides, Granpa Chook had it easy up there in the jacaranda