1999 - Ladysmith (12 page)

“Can I help you?” said Mrs Star, rubbing her hands over the tray, so that the pieces of dough fell back inside.

“I was hoping to buy a loaf.”

“You and the rest of town. Have you got a coupon?” The woman’s face, dry and red below her linen cap, could not be described as a generous one.

“I haven’t. I was just hoping…”

“Miss Kiernan—you know very well that I can’t sell anything nowadays without receiving a coupon. Not a crumb.”

“I’ve got the money. I’ll pay you double.”

Mrs Star rubbed her hands again, turning the remaining bits of dough into little cylinders. Bella watched them drop on to the main mass of white paste, attaching themselves to it in such a way that they stuck up like little bits of hair. Suddenly she didn’t feel so keen upon the bread—there was also the sickly smell that one sometimes found in bakeries—but Mrs Star had decided that here was a bargain worth making.

“Thricefold. Three times.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Bella. But the initiative had already passed to the vendor. Bella felt herself reaching for her purse. She put out the coins on the counter. Mrs Star fetched a long iron spatula, and pulled a loaf out of the oven. The deal was done.

On the way home, Bella held the warm, wrapped bundle against her, and felt better for it, in spite of the extortionate price. She went into the kitchen immediately, unwrapped the loaf from its paper, and cut a slice. It was still warm. There was no butter in the larder (that was now five bob a pound), but there was some pear preserve from Grimble’s orchard; she spread it on the slice, and lifted it to her lips.

She had taken only one bite when her father came into the kitchen.

“What have we got here?” he said.

“Just having a snack.” Her mouth was full, and the words came out all jumbled.

“And where did you get that loaf?” He pointed at the offending article, where it sat on the table—crumbs, bread knife and wrapping papers lying around, giving it the appearance of something out of a painting.

“Star’s,” said Bella, reddening.

“We’ve got no coupons…I suppose they made you pay over the odds?”

Bella nodded.

“How much?”

She whispered the sum. He walked over and, taking her by the shoulders, shook her.

“Just because there’s a siege on, it doesn’t mean we can go out spending money like lords. All these officers—they’re not paying their bills too swiftly, you know.”

Bella swallowed, and freed herself from his grasp. “Father! It wasn’t that much!”

And then she burst into tears. He looked ashamed then, standing there with his hands at his sides.

“Ah, come on now, come on, I’m sorry…” He reached out for her and took her in his arms, gently this time, patting her back.

Leo Kiernan briefly held his daughter in his arms, allowing her sobs to subside, absorbing them in his own body. Then he released her.

“All right now?”

“Yes.” Bella looked at the half-eaten crescent of bread on the table, smeared with amber-coloured preserve.

Her father smiled. “You might as well finish it up then. I’d better get back to the bar. It’s quiet tonight. Why don’t you go to bed?”

Bella did eat the rest of the slice, but it tasted bad, and made her stomach feel sour; so sour, in fact, that she vomited later on in the evening—an experience which made the whole enterprise seem all the more pointless, foolish and unpleasant. Still, she wouldn’t have thought anything of it except that when Jane ate some of the bread the next day, she too was sick. It had evidently been spoiled.

The Kiernan family were not the only inhabitants of Ladysmith worrying about food. The rumour that those at Intombi Camp were eating better than those in town (untrue, as it happened) had made the neutral camp an all the more attractive destination to those not committed to the defence of the town; a faction which (as it also happened) included many who had shouted loudly at the public meeting against self-imposed exile. Flight to Intombi was now a possibility of which many non-combatants availed themselves. There were so many wounded to be conveyed there after the ceasefire had ended, and so many civilians whose patriotism had wilted, that Joubert (to his credit) had now agreed to let a train go out twice weekly. It was one of the conditions of civilian sojourn at Intombi that able-bodied people should help care for the wounded. Many were panic-stricken, however, so Bella could not see how they would perform their duties. British prisoners of war and injured Boers were also being sent there from Joubert’s camp, so all in all it was said to be quite a colourful location, with a queer fraternization between the two sides.

Some were calling this place ‘Fort Funk’. It was a description that might actually have been applied to Ladysmith itself: everything was now mortgaged to fear in the town. Rumour was the interest attached to this debt of fear, and it was rising at a rate which would have pleased a banker: Buller’s army was on its way, it had left Durban, it was at Frere, it was not, it would be here tomorrow—all of this exacerbated by the refusal of the military powers to release any proper information.

It was on account of this that Nevinson, Steevens and MacDonald, and the many other correspondents immured in Ladysmith, established a newspaper or, more properly, ‘news sheet’ under the title
The Ladysmith Lyre
. As Steevens wrote in the prospectus for this new venture, the purpose of the
Lyre
was ‘to supply a long-felt want. What you want in a besieged town, cut off from the world, is news which you can absolutely rely on as false. The rumours that pass from tongue to tongue may, for all we know, be occasionally true. Our news we guarantee to be false. In the collection and preparation of falsehoods we shall spare no effort and no expense. It is enough for us that Ladysmith wants stories; it shall have them’.

“I’ve got a story for you,” said Foster. “Funny thing that happened in our battery the other day. I wasn’t there but I had it from Reynolds Sharp.”

“Go on then.”

“Our lads…” Foster kept bursting into laughter. “Our lads…were manning the trenches and one of them vaulted—over the parapet and…impaled himself on his own bayonet.”

“No!” said Tom, disbelievingly.

“On God’s honour. It went right into his arse up to the hilt. The sick orderly reported it as ‘Bayonet passed through port cheek of backside’!”

Their laughter could be heard across the other side of the square—until a deeper sound covered it.

“Sounds like thunder,” said Tom, as his chuckles subsided.

“It’s shells, you dullard,” Foster countered. “Maybe Buller is nearer than we think.”

“Definitely thunder.”

The two of them kept up this discussion as they approached the Royal, where they had an appointment with the Kiernan sisters—kept it up until a 40-pound shell from a 6-inch gun settled it, falling about twenty yards in front of them, and killing a mounted orderly from the 5
th
Lancers. Foster and Tom were thrown to the ground, the latter’s temple being scratched by a fragment of shrapnel.

Tom looked up. He could feel blood trickling down on his face. Through the smoke, he could see the orderly’s lance quivering where it had stuck into its owner’s back, having been driven into the air by the force of the explosion. It was a disgusting sight.

He heard Foster’s voice beside him. “Are you all right?”

Tom scrambled to his feet, holding his sleeve to his bleeding temple, which was also burning hot. “Just a scratch, I think.”

Foster came close and inspected it. “You’ll be all right. It’s more of a scorch really.”

“Look, there it is.” Tom pointed at a shard of metal lying on the ground near by, and reached down to pick it up.

“Don’t!” cried Foster, but it was too late.

“Ow!” yelped Tom and instantly dropped the fragment, which was still stove-hot. Now he had a badly blistered thumb to add to his wound.

“That was a close business,” said Foster as they continued their journey, stepping round a group of coolies gathering up the orderly’s corpse into a blanket.

“Well, at least it answers the question of the thunder.”

“Wasn’t Buller, though.”

“Uh-uh,” said Tom, blowing on his thumb. “Johnny Boer.”

They passed under the portals of the Royal in silence, presenting Jane and Bella with a hunted, haggard look when they came through to the bar—Tom proudly clutching Foster’s handkerchief to his throbbing temple.

“What happened?” cried Bella, running up to him.

“I got a nick.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s fine.”

“I insist.”

She lifted away the handkerchief and saw where the splinter had gashed him. “It needs bathing.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Bella’s will prevailed and Tom was taken upstairs to be cared for, while Jane stayed behind the bar, talking to the bluejacket. The lunchtime rush had not yet begun, and it was still quiet.

Up in the sisters’ room, Bella and Tom sat on the bed. She dabbed at the gash with a fresh handkerchief dipped in disinfectant and, true to the time-honoured form of such incidents, he winced dramatically each time she touched it.

“Don’t be a baby.”

“It really does hurt.”

Bella raised her eyebrows and gave the dark-haired soldier a quizzical look. He suddenly leaned across towards her and, pausing to catch only the smallest encouragement from her gaze, kissed her on the mouth. Allowing his lips to rest upon hers for only the briefest moment, Bella drew back.

“I couldn’t help it,” Tom explained, giving her a look that was both innocent and amusing. “It’s the concussion.” Bella’s only slightly put-on expression of affront faded away. Tom leaned forward again, but she put the flat of her hand on his tunic.

“This is not good behaviour, Trooper Barnes. And look, you’ve dripped on the bed.”

On the white wick bedspread was a small spot of Tom Barnes’s blood.

“I’ll never get that out,” Bella said. “Come on, let me put a dressing on it before you make any more mess.”

Making him hold the disinfectant-soaked cloth to his temple, she got up and went to a chest of drawers. As she was looking inside for some lint, there was a knock on the door.

“Bella?”

The young woman looked anxiously at Tom.

“Bella? Are you there? It’s time you were downstairs. People are coming in.”

“Yes, Father,” she said, in a strained voice. “I’m just on my way.”

“Well, hurry up then. We’ve still got a business to run, war or no war.”

They listened in silence as Mr Kiernan walked along the corridor and clumped down the great bare staircase of paternal duty.

“That was close,” said Bella. “I thought he was going to come in. It would have put him in one of his moods.”

“So what if he had? It’s not as if you were doing anything wrong—in fact, tending a wounded soldier is surely a sign of a good conscience.”

“You don’t understand. I mean, he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t approve—of a man being in my room. Come on, let me finish. I better hurry down. You follow later.”

Once she had applied the dressing, Bella left Tom in the room, and went downstairs, to be greeted by the half-worried, half-naughty, blonde-framed expression of her sister.

“All right?”

Bella nodded, and picked up a couple of empty glasses.

“I tried to put him off,” Jane whispered, looking sidelong at their father. “Where’s Tom?”

“Coming down.”

Tom Barnes was at that very moment making his appearance, walking down the uncarpeted, heavy-banistered stairs as unobtrusively as he could. But it was no good. Mr Kiernan saw him and, lifting up the hatch in the bar, strode over to confront him.

“What have you been doing up there? You’re not a guest, if I’m not mistaken.”

Tom paused, and leaned against the banister with a cocky air.

“No, sir. Just looking.”

“And what would you have been looking for, in God’s name, upstairs in my hotel?”

“The hand of beauty, sir, to ease my pains.”

“What the hell do you mean?” The Irishman’s face was getting red. “I’ve seen you before round here, haven’t I? Talking to my daughters, is that what you imply?”

“I have paid them my compliments, sir, it is true.”

“I suppose that’s your idea of a joke? Well, I don’t find it very amusing.”

Tom looked at his feet on the stairway.

“I didn’t mean to be insolent, sir, I just find myself embarrassed.”

Bella came up and touched her father’s arm. But he ignored her, keeping his angry gaze fixed on Tom Barnes.

“Oh! Bella, is it?”

“Let me explain,” intervened Bella, in agitated fashion.

“Very well then,” he said, turning to her. “Explain.”

“Before you were here, Trooper Barnes came in with a wound. You see the dressing. It was an emergency. I put it on for him.”

“What? Upstairs?”

“Yes, Father.”

“I see.”

“Mr Kiernan,” said Tom from his station. “I am sorry if you misunderstood me—my remark, I mean—I was trying to pay you a compliment on the beauty as well as the kindness of Miss Bella here. I have acted entirely with honour.”

This show of respect mollified Mr Kiernan a little. He nodded slowly. “I should think so. You better come down.” With that he went back to the bar, and Bella walked over with Tom to where Herbert was sitting.

“That was silly,” she said. “You shouldn’t have riled him.”

“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to say how beautiful you were.”

“Well, don’t,” said Bella. “I’m not, anyway.”

“You will still let me see you, won’t you?”

She looked into his eyes and then, over his shoulder, at her father regarding them.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

That night, Bella was embarrassed about the bloodstain on her bed. Jane teased her about it and, when Bella slept, she dreamed an awful dream in which her blood and the blood of British soldiers mixed in dreadful fashion. The soldiery appeared in the figure of Tom Barnes, and the image of his body, mashed to pulp by a Boer shell, prompted her to cry aloud, waking her sister—who reached across and shook her.

“It means you love him,” Jane mumbled through the darkness, when the dream was related; and Bella thought she might be right, and felt sick at heart as she tried to sleep again.