Cripple in the Mist

Raiders of the Cape, fighting for all our worth.

Follow General Jannie Smuts to the far ends of the earth.

Clothes torn, shoes worn, degradation untold.

Wearing sackcloth on our backs to keep us from the cold.

Hounded, surrounded, trapped out in the night;

Stumbling, mumbling we see a friendly light.

For no better fortune we could not have wished,

In a farmhouse doorway on his staff stands a cripple in the mist.

In the mist.

He says "I will lead you down a path I know.

If this you take you will escape to the valley down below"

Riding, sliding, steeper than a cliff;

Blindly we follow the cripple in the mist.

Frail and weak he leads us leaning on his staff

Through the dark unknown down the bridle path.

Freedom of the valley, our spirits now in bliss,

With tearful eye we say goodbye to the cripple in the mist.

In the mist.

Through hunger, anger, a British camp we storm

Right there, strip them bare, steal their uniforms,

It was bold but later told; and we catch our breath!

Captured wearing British garb, penalty is death.

No braver savior in a land engulfed in war;

Helped straggling strangers arriving at his door;

Siding with our nation, put his life at risk.

He was our salvation, the cripple in the mist.

In the mist.

Cripple in the mist.

Cripple in the mist.