Read Online The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay - Free Book Online

looked querulous. “That I piss my bed?”
    â€œJa, and chickens shit in it as well! What is a rooinek?”
    â€œI am English.”
    â€œYes, I know, man! But how do you know you’re a rooinek?”
    â€œI—I just know, sir.”
    The Judge shook his head and gave a deep sigh. “Come here. Come closer, man.”
    I stepped forward to stand directly in front of where he sat cross-legged on his bed. The Judge’s arm came up and my hand
    flew up to protect my face, but instead of hitting me he pulled at the cord of my pajama pants, which collapsed around my ankles.
    â€œYour blery snake has no hat on its head, domkop! That’s how you know you’re English! Understand?”
    â€œYes, sir.” I bent down to pull my pajama pants back up.
    â€œDon’t!” he shouted, and I jumped back to attention. “What am I, Pisskop?” the Judge demanded.
    â€œA Boer, sir?”
    â€œYes, and what is a Boer?”
    â€œAn Afrikaner, sir.”
    â€œYes, of course... but what else?”
    â€œA Boer has a hat on his snake.”
    Why, when he had made all white people look alike, had God given the English snakes without a hat? It seemed terribly unfair. My camouflage was perfect except for this one little thing.
    â€œTonight you will learn to march. We must get you ready for your march into the sea.” The Judge pointed to the corridor between the beds and gave me a push. I tripped over my pajama pants and fell to the floor. One of the jury reached down and pulled the pants away from my ankles. I rose bare-arsed and looked uncertainly at the Judge. “March!” he commanded, pointing down the corridor between the beds once more. I started to march, swinging my arms high. “Links, regs, links, regs, halt!” he bawled. Then again: “Left, right, left, right, halt! Which is your left foot, prisoner Pisskop?” I had no idea but pointed to a foot. “Domkop! Don’t you even know your left from your right?”
    â€œNo, sir,” I said, feeling stupid. But I did know, the left side was where my shoulder hurt.
    â€œEvery day after school you will march around the playground for five thousand steps, you hear?” I nodded. “You will count backward from five thousand until you get to number one.”
    I couldn’t believe my luck; no one had laid a hand on me. I retrieved my pajama pants and scurried back along the dark passage to my dormitory.
    Being a prisoner of war and learning how to march weren’t such bad things. I had nothing to do after school anyway. But I must admit, counting backward from five thousand isn’t much of a way to pass the time. It’s impossible anyway, your thoughts wander and before you know it you’re all jumbled up and have to start all over again. I learned to mumble a number if anyone came close, but mostly I did the Judge’s homework in my head. Carrying his books from school, I would memorize his arithmetic lesson and then I would work the equations out in my head as I marched along. If things got a bit complicated, I’d make sure nobody was looking and I’d work out a more complex sum using a stick in the dirt. It got so I couldn’t wait to see what he’d done in class each day.
    The Judge was an awful domkop. In the mornings, carrying his books to school, I’d check his homework. It was always a mess and mostly all wrong. I began to despair for him and for myself as well. You see, he could only leave the school if the work he did during the year gave him a pass mark. So far, he didn’t have a hope of passing. If he failed, I’d have him for another year. That is, if Hitler didn’t come to march me away.
    Escape seemed impossible, so I’d have to think of something else. Over a period of several marching afternoons a plan began to form. The something else, when it finally emerged, was breathtakingly simple, though fraught with danger. For the