An Encounter with the Khakis

Oom Christiaan smiled - "The Khakis became more and more hard boiled in these days. One day an officer just walked into the house as if it belonged to him. Tannie Neethling was in her kitchen. She had a big container full of eggs next to her."

"When he ordered her to fry these eggs for his troops she gave him one look and took the whole container full of eggs and smashed it to the floor. She never took any nonsense from nobody, mate. If this episode was the result, I do not know, but shortly afterwards the British arrived with wagons and we had to pack our things. Off to the concentration camp."

"It was a very slow journey. We young ones sat on the wagon talking. But very soon we were bored and began to sing. We liked to sing Hallelujah hymns. Also English songs "What a friend we have in Jesus", many-voiced like our mothers taught us.

Then we saw the old English soldier who was walking next to the wagon, with tears in his eyes also singing along, whilst he was staring in the distance. We didn't understand this.
"You are Christians. I am a Christian. It is so wrong", he said and kept on walking. "It is so wrong!"

Oom Christiaan said that that soldier gave him hope for the future of our land.

Sieketroosters, by Bertrand Retief