Free Stones for My Father by Trilby Kent

aprons and knotting them into bundles to be doused in oil. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Tant Minna clamber up on top of one of the wagons to pass ammunition to one of the men. When the man suddenly tumbled from his post just seconds later, she grabbed the rifle from his hand and proceeded to load it herself. I’d never seen my aunt load a gun, let alone fire it. Butfire it she did, flattening herself against the wagon canvas and taking aim with all the skill of a practiced hunter. As soon as she shot, she readied her rifle for another round. The fallen man — Jacob van der Westhuizen, who had played his banjo for us every night around the campfire — remained where he had landed, crumpled in a heap on the ground. It took me several moments to realize that he was dead.
    The siege can’t have gone on for long, but to me it felt as if days passed before the first enemy face appeared between two of the wagons. The soldier was beefy but compact, with mutton-chop whiskers and a fleshy, sunburned nose. Between his teeth he clenched a silver whistle that glinted in the sun. Filling red cheeks as round as apples, he blew with all his might, alerting his comrades to the chink in our defense. Like rats, they poured through the gaps. Lizzie and Irene were the first to flee, screaming, as the soldiers tore the thorn-tree branches from their hands. In an instant the
laager
was swarming with khakis.
    Through the mayhem, I caught a glimpse of Sipho lunging at one of the British soldiers from behind, brandishing a knife. It must have been the same knife that he’d taken from my mother’s kitchen all those weeks ago, and for an instant I froze in disbelief. Shooting at khakis to defend the
laager
was one thing, but to attack a grown man with a knife used for gutting fish — I couldn’t decide whether to be horrified or awed by my friend’s bravery.
    I didn’t see what happened because my brother hadappeared at my side, hair slick with sweat, blue eyes widening in terror.
    “There’s no more ammunition,” gasped Gert. His face was streaked with gun powder. “I fired until I had no more bullets, so Andries gave me some of his. Then Oom Sarel ran out, and Koos Viljoen. Only Oom Willem has any left, and they won’t last another round.” My brother scanned the chaos around him — the panicked, screaming women, the wailing children cowering beneath their families’ wagons, the tired old men struggling against trained soldiers half their age — and his chin began to dimple. “I saw Jacob van der Westhuizen fall from the wagon, Corlie,” he said. “Two of the others are dead. Danie was hit in the shoulder — you can see right down to the bone …” I watched his shoulders buckle as Pa’s rifle slid from his hands to the ground.
    “Pick that up,” I snapped. “Don’t leave Pa’s gun in the dirt.”
    My brother started to lean down to do as I said — but then he froze, his gaze trained on something beyond my shoulder. I turned just in time to see Sipho fly toward Smous Petrus, grasping the glinting blade. The older man was fleeing a pair of soldiers who were calling at him to freeze — “
Staan stil!
” they cried in our language — when Sipho slid beneath his flailing arms, plunging the knife into Petrus’s abundant belly. It all happened in an instant: then he was gone. As Smous Petrus fell to the ground, features twisted in rage and anguish at the sight of blood blooming through hissweat-streaked shirt, the soldiers descended on the old man without paying the African boy a second thought.
    Had I been the only one to see this, I would never have breathed a word of it. As God is my witness, I would have taken my friend’s secret to my grave. But through the commotion, I caught sight of my mother, and I could tell by the expression on her face that she, too, had witnessed the terrible act.
    Only then did I realize that our time had run out.

HER HUSBAND’S GUN
    W e surrendered with a white petticoat tied