Chapter Eighty-Seven: Oak Town
Located between Simmonsburg and Parrot Hill, close to the River Elsdi, Stellenbosch is a well-known tourist area in Cape Town in the 21st century.
In addition to the world-famous wines, Stellenbosch has also contributed to the European-style architecture, of course, most of the buildings in the 21st century have not yet appeared, the current Stellenbosch, there is no Stellenbosch University, there is no Mare Square, there is no museum, the most magnificent building in the whole town is a church, the roof of the church is not as high as the roof of Roque's house.
"It's such a place, I don't understand why you're here." From the moment he entered Stellenbosch, Henry covered his nose with a handkerchief, as if that would stop the unpleasant smells.
It really smelled bad, too many vineyards had been abandoned, and the whole town was filled with the smell of rot, mixed with a little of fermented failed sake lees, which even drunkards didn't like.
Because Roque insisted, Henry had no choice but to agree, and within the scope of his authority, he secured the maximum support for Roque, such as doctors and medicines, as well as more food, which Stellenbosch desperately needed.
Henry is also very interesting, Roque led the team to come, Henry didn't say a word and accompanied Roque along, of course, don't expect Henry's attitude to be good, it's already very face-saving to come.
"Do you dare to bet me that within two years, I'm going to turn Stellenbosch into heaven." Roque began to paint cakes again, but the level was higher, in the past, Roque painted cakes for Chinese police officers, and now it is Henry.
When he arrived at Stellenbosch, Roque only brought Anton's squad, a total of eighteen Chinese policemen, plus two Boers in charge of logistics, as well as a cook, a doctor and two nurses, this is Roque's entire manpower.
"Heaven?! Hell is pretty much the same! "Henry didn't believe it at all, and in Henry's opinion, Stellenbosch was hell right now.
"Just wait and see." Roque is not in a hurry, anyway, there are still more than two years before the end of the war, and it is not bad to stay in Stellenbosch for more than two years, at least he will not be sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder.
Now that he is going to be based in Stellenbosch, Roque will of course have to make a proper transformation of Stellenbosch.
If it was before, Roque still needed to ask for the cooperation of the locals, but now no, the local Boers are either thrown into refugee camps or fled overseas, and Roque does not need to ask anyone's opinion, as Roque knew before, in Stellenbosch, Roque is the emperor of the soil.
"Oak Town is now an empty city, there is no one in these houses on the side of the road, the former sheriff lived in the church, if you want to live in the church Mr. Inspector, I'm afraid you will have to find a few people to clean it." Roque was introduced to a Boer police officer named Jeffrey, who was at war between the British and the Boers, and the Boer police officer was also sent to Stellenbosch.
Cape Towners use the name "Stellenbosch" when they mention Stellenbosch, but they can't use it in Stellenbosch, so these police officers who work in Stellenbosch use the name "Oaktown".
Very vividly, Stellenbosch does have a lot of oak trees.
However, it is obvious that the current Oak Town is not even worthy of this name, there are about thirty or forty families in the whole Oak Town, and it can be seen that the living conditions of these Boers are not very good, most of the houses are dilapidated, some houses do not even have doors, and the windows are not made of glass, but are directly nailed with wooden strips, which can play a role in ventilation and light transmission when opened, and it is estimated that the house will be dark when closed.
In addition to these thirty or forty houses, there were more than a dozen piles of ruins, which were presumably the homes of the Boers who had fled to the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State, and the British had never treated them with mercy, and if they had escaped, they would not return, and it would be useless to keep them.
"Oak Town, it's a good name, there's no one in the town, where can I find someone to clean it?" Roque hasn't stepped into the role yet, and his thinking is still in peaceful mode.
Jeffrey opened his mouth, but didn't speak, and turned around and called over a dozen Boole girls.
It's really all girls, Roque's opinion, the oldest is no more than twenty years old, but white girls develop relatively early, so these girls may not be adults.
Unlike the white girls in Roque's impression, these Boer girls all bowed their heads, hunched over, and began to clean from outside the church, not letting go of every corner, the degree of seriousness and concentration of this kind of work-
More serious than when Ada put on makeup in the morning.
Well, Roque has resumed his relationship with Ada, and every other day, Roque goes to the Table Mountain Inn.
Seeing these girls, Roque realized, yes, in Stellenbosch, the police are the Emperor of the Earth, don't look at Stellenbosch no one, but as long as Roque is willing, there will be thousands of people working for Roque at any time.
The Stellenbosch refugee camp now has more than 2,000 Boer women and children, all women and children, no old people or men.
"Reed, go back to Cape Town, Christian call, I'm going to build a house in Oaktown." Roque doesn't want to live in the church all the time, Rahul can make a living, Roque doesn't, what about more than two years, living in the church all the time, thinking of himself as God?
"Okay-" Li De hesitated a little, Christian is very busy now, there are more than twenty Chinese policemen waiting for Christian to build a house for them, and the rest of the Chinese policemen are not unwilling to build, but have no money, and the money is borrowed by those guys who are in a hurry to use the house.
"It's okay, just call Christian." Roque is not worried about delaying the progress, Christian's subordinates are all skilled workers, in order to further expand the team, Christian is also consciously cultivating deputies, and now calling Christian over will not affect the progress of the work of building the house.
If there's anything bad about Stellenbosch, it's that it's a bit far from Cape Town, 55 kilometers, and in the twenty-first century it's one foot on the gas, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, Christian won't be able to come over until tomorrow.
It didn't take long for a dozen Boer girls to clean the inside and outside of the church, and even by Roque's standards, they couldn't find anything wrong with it.
"Thank you very much, Jeffrey, how can I thank them?" Roque didn't speak Dutch and couldn't communicate directly with these Boer girls, and most of the time he didn't have to, because many Boers were used to using English, and they only used Dutch when they were with Boers.
"You don't need anything, just give each person an extra piece of bread at dinner." Jeffrey's answer surprised Roque, who was also a Boer, as if Jeffrey didn't have much sympathy for these Boer girls.