“I'll see you get home safely. But for now â I have a little tale to tell you.”
Louisa listened in perfect silence as he gave them the gist of the story as he now saw it, though she went quite pale when she heard of the money given to Sarah Jenkins. But it was when he came to the part about Ned Crowther that she sat up “Mafeking?”
“What is the matter, Miss Fox?”
“Osborne, did you say, Mr Crockett? Hannah Osborne?”
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Augustus Fox, normally so easy going and amenable, could be stubborn in the way of such men when once they have made up their minds to do, or not to do, something. In the shock following his dear Ellen's death in late-age childbirth, his daughter Margaret, like the good girl she was, had competently picked up where her mother had so tragically left off and taken care of the new baby, Alice, without any discernible difference to the smooth running of the household; but for all of them the heart had been taken out of the family, the sunshine had gone from life.
Bereft of his dearest wife, Gus was totally at sea. He had always left the managing of the house, the children, every domestic detail, to Ellen, confident in the knowledge that she would keep things running like the smoothly oiled gears of one of the inventive bits of machinery he loved to tinker with. He
never troubled himself with details, living life in the optimistic belief that things generally turned out well if you let them alone. Normally the most loving and approachable of fathers, after Ellen's death he had shut himself away with his grief and his guilt at having subjected his dearest wife to another dangerous pregnancy â and he, a doctor! â until at last he emerged with his own solution: in his youth, before he married, he had travelled adventurously and knew nothing better as a cure for melancholy. Always an impulsive man, he had conceived the notion of making the journey to South Africa to visit his boys, his eldest son Robert and his younger brother Barty, who had settled on the borders of British Bechuanaland and become ostrich farmers.
What folly, what could Gus be thinking of? cried the voices of reason. Did he not realise the dangers of travelling in a country existing at that moment in a state of high tension between the Boers and the British? Where war might break out at any time?
He pooh-poohed such cowardice. There was nothing to prevent his going. Of his two sons still in England, Joseph was doing well for himself in the Army, while the younger boy, William, was away at school. Just for a while, he did hesitate: if he went, the burden of keeping things running at home would fall on Margaret, but of course, she reacted to this exactly as he'd known she would.
“Do what you feel you must, Papa,” she'd said calmly. Already five-and-twenty, born with an old head on her shoulders, she had inherited that wisdom from her mother which had always told her what Gus needed. “I'm quite capable of looking after the house and servants â and Louisa â and as for Baby ⦔
Even had her face not lit up as she cuddled the child to her, there was no need to ask how she felt about that. She adored little Alice with a fierceness that revealed she was making the most of an opportunity which might never come her way again. Eminently suitable though she was to make someone a good wife, there was already a spinster air about Margaret.
When the first shock of Gus's decision had subsided, another one took its place. To everyone's astonishment, there was young Louisa, begging and praying to be allowed to accompany her father, which was, of course, quite impossible â out of the question
â as everyone knew. It was not a sensible journey for even Gus to undertake in the circumstances, never mind encumbered with the responsibility of a child. Conditions out there were not suitable for children. What about her brother Robert's children on the ostrich farm? she demanded, they were only
babies.
That was entirely different, was the response, their parents had taken them there from necessity, when they themselves went out to make a new life. Yes, to live there permanently, Louisa retorted, so why should a mere visit be deemed out of the question for her?
It became a war of attrition. Anything from tantrums, tears, and requests to the Almighty in her nightly prayers. And a wounded, stricken look behind her eyes that made Gus blame himself for his selfishness in not sensing that her own desolation at her mother's death was as deep in its way as his own. He saw that Louisa, at thirteen, could not be expected to cope with the loss of her mother and also now, as she saw it, her father, too.
With a characteristic lack of regard for other people's opinions, he gave in and announced that she should go with him.
The journey that everyone predicted would be a fiasco, and might well have become so, turned out to be the most momentous adventure of Louisa's â and Gus's â life, and the one wherein she formed the decision she was to hold on to, in the face all difficulties, to study medicine, like her father. She had witnessed more suffering than most of her friends would ever see in a lifetime, and would never forget it.
The child Louisa had found the ostrich farm nothing like she had expected it to be, but from the first she was as delighted with it as was her father. After expending all their savings on the purchase of an unpromising and dilapidated farm with a few dispirited ostrich penned into an enclosure, her brothers had first worked to increase the flock and make the business profitable again, then drilled more wells and made the land fruitful, planted trees and orchards around it and grew crops where no crops had ever grown before. As well as the ostriches, they raised a few cattle and Robert's wife Frances kept fowls and bees. By now Orchard Farm, as they renamed it, was well on the way to becoming a little Eden, a lush oasis of trees, fruit and flowers, where birds, small animals and butterflies abounded, set like a jewel in the echoing silences of the great plain that surrounded the farm.
Robert's children were too young for Louisa to play with but being of a naturally gregarious disposition it didn't take her long to find companions among the children of the workers on the farm. There was Tommy, a white boy of about her own age, son of the overseer Jock MacBean, a dour Scotsman who walked with a limp; and there was Tommy's black friend, who was called October and who was up to any kind of mischief which could be devised. Robert had immediately given Louisa a pony and Barty had taught her to ride and to look after it herself. Used to the company of boys, she spent hours galloping over the veld with her two new friends, who knew just how far to venture into the bush without danger. The farm was very isolated, except for the bushmen who wandered into the area from time to time.
For three months they had a blissful time. Gus, in his own way, had faced the fact that he must accept the loss of his wife, Ellen, coming to terms with her death for the first time. On the farm, he slipped back imperceptibly into his natural, easy-going self, content to do nothing more for the moment than blissfully collect moths and butterflies, drawing and preserving them for his scientific purposes, marvelling at the way the stony veld
blossomed amazingly after the rain, and watching the copper-hued sunsets while sipping a sundowner.
All was not so rosy on the political front, where the situation was deteriorating by the day. Yet Gus, happy on the farm, kept putting off the decision to leave, while knowing he would sooner or later have to make up his mind and do so.
“You know you're more than welcome to stay as long as you wish, but don't leave it too late,” advised Robert who, after much soul-searching, had some weeks before finally made up his mind and sent Frances and their two young children to stay at the Cape with her sister until such as time as he deemed it safe for her to return. “Think what it would mean to Louisa, if not yourself, if you were caught up in the middle of a war.”
“In the unlikely event things do come to a head, don't you think we should be safe enough out here? In any case, they're saying it'll all be over by Christmas. The Boers won't have a chance against British army troops.”
“If we can raise enough of them,” replied Robert, who was cynical by now about the Home Government's response to the plight of its subjects out here. The Boers might be convinced that God was on their side, but the optimism (or the arrogance) of the politicians in London had persuaded them that Britain had the rest of the world with them, as well as God. They seemed astonished now to find that this was not so, and that the rest of the world was not being slow to condemn what was being viewed as the aggressive might of the British Empire pitted against the burghers of a small state.
“If that's so, rarely can aggressors have been so ill-prepared,” Robert countered somewhat bitterly when he and Gus discussed this. It was undeniable that troops were being mustered from India and all parts of the British Empire, and support was coming readily from the Colonies, but even so, the numbers were niggardly compared with the force Kruger could raise. He had had a huge and formidable trained fighting force at his disposal for years in the form of well-organised, well-trained commando units, into which all burghers were liable to be called up for military service at a moment's notice. “A bunch of farmers! Our lads will soon have 'em by the tail,” said Gus comfortably.
Robert sighed. It was easy to make fun of the Boer burghers, presented as they were in the newspapers: thickset men with beards and uncompromising hats, going to war in their farm clothes, with a Bible in one hand and the umbrella they always carried in the other; but Robert had a great respect for their staying power, their stubbornness. They were as hardy as their tough little horses. Moreover, every Boer had been trained from childhood to shoot straight and ride hard â they were used to the climate and they were as familiar with the terrain over which they'd be fighting as with the backs of their own hands. “Armitage was right when he said they won't give in easily,” Robert said.
There was a pause, then he went on, “I have to tell you, Father, that as soon as we can get everything cleared up here, Barty and I are going to enlist as volunteers. We shall leave Jock MacBean in charge of the farm, pro tem. So I'm afraid â”
“Volunteer?” Gus was brought up short not only with the dismay of any parent when faced with the thought of their sons going into battle, but also because it had made him realise, as nothing else might have done, precisely how critical the situation was. Robert was quite right, of course; he was the sort of level-headed man who nearly always was, and though this was often irritating, Gus saw that he had been very remiss in tarrying here so long and perhaps, where Louisa was concerned, selfish. In Frances's absence, she had been allowed to run wild with the two farm boys, which to her was a life of perfect bliss. He knew she would ask nothing better than to stay here forever.
After this conversation with Robert, he watched her running across the paddock towards the house, with two of the farm dogs barking with hysterical joy and running circles around her, and realised he hadn't looked at her properly for weeks. She was like a little unkempt pony, invariably running about with her hair roughly tied back, or not at all. The sun had brought out a thick band of freckles across her nose. Like her mother, she was always going to be a little thing, but she was nearly fourteen and had grown these last few months to what was probably going to be her ultimate height. He realised suddenly that he hardly ever saw her in anything but riding breeches and shirt, such as the boys wore. When she did wear a dress it had become noticeably too
short and too tight. She went bare-legged whenever possible. Margaret would have been ashamed of them both.
He was suddenly overcome with guilt. What was he doing, keeping her here and hiding himself away from life? Their sojourn in this beautiful spot had done its work, the spell of lotus-eating was over. They were both healed and ready to return to their old life.
But before any further move could be made, a calamity that no one could have foreseen occurred. Barty, a robust and vigorous young man who was never ill, had indeed escaped all of the usual childish ailments, fell sick with a tropical fever which within a few days had Gus despairing of his life. In this land of biting insects and water-borne infections no one could escape stomach upsets or unexplained agues for long. Malaria, bilharzia and typhoid were endemic â but this was different, a virulent disease unknown to Gus.
There could be nothing more harrowing than seeing a young man in the prime of his healthy young life brought down by an unexpected illness; here it was, his own son, and Gus was helpless. All his medical knowledge was brought to bear to save Barty, but he was not familiar with tropical diseases and without modern drugs, or the means of getting them, he knew he faced a difficult, if not impossible, task. A message was sent to the doctor in Mafeking, who arrived with a bag of potions but not much hope, and after he had heard what Gus had to say, and had examined the patient himself, he shook his head.
“God knows where he picked this up,” said Gus wearily, “but my elder son informs me that one of the nomadic tribes arrived down by the creek a few weeks ago. Barty spoke to them while negotiating a place for them to set up their camp. I understand there was lately something of the same sort of epidemic amongst them.”
Dr James spread his hands. “Then look no further for an explanation. These sort of fevers are endemic amongst the Kaffirs. You know how it is, they've built up a certain immunity over the years to diseases that kill us white men. They themselves can survive, but it's still possible for them to pass on the disease.” He looked at the other man's blanched, weary face, and
put a hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry, old fellow â but I must warn you, you should prepare for the worst.”
He and Louisa should have left Orchard Farm and been on their way home weeks ago â but Gus was very glad indeed now that they had not done so. He would be able to care for his son himself until he was well again. The days wore on, stretched into two weeks, but there was no question of their leaving. Barty lay, yellow and shivering one minute, consumed by heat and drenched in a cold sweat the next. He rambled and recognised no one. His big, strong frame grew skeletally thin overnight.
Gus was afraid of contagion and would allow no one but himself into the room where the sick boy lay but nursed him entirely alone. He doused himself with disinfectant whenever he emerged and hoped he would not pass on the disease. Louisa, frightened and miserable, crouched on the veranda while the heat pressed down like a lid, and watched the gathering banks of cumulus clouds, listened to the sounds from the sickroom and wondered whether it was ever likely to rain again.
One night Gus walked along the veranda and sat down on the step next to her. His hands reeked of carbolic as he clasped them over his knees. “Have you been praying, Louisa?”
“Yes,” Louisa answered, looking down at her feet. “But it isn't doing much good, is it?”
“You must be very brave, my darling. Think only, God's will be done.”
“Is Barty going to die?” It was the first time she had dared to voice this. Robert was unapproachable on the subject, and his wife Frances, to whom Louisa might have been able to talk and who would have given her motherly comfort, was hundreds of miles away. Gus had been too preoccupied and worried to bother him.
“Dearest child, we must be prepared,” he said, drawing her to him.
She looked desperate. “Papa â October says his father knows the bushmen have a remedy that never fails â but Robert won't hear of using it, he says the Kaffirs might give him poison that would kill Barty. Won't you listen to what October says? We â we could at least try.”
For a long time, Gus said nothing. His face was drawn and lined. He had aged ten years. He knew Barty was going to die.
“Please. Please, Papa.”
He looked down at his daughter's clutching hand. He thought of October's father, a louche man who smoked an evil tobacco from a cow's horn, and his friend the witch doctor who could make people die simply by telling them they would do so. “Please, Papa.”
“All right, child,” he said at last. “Go fetch October, and we'll see what he has to say. But don't tell Robert.” He need not tell Louisa, either, that he had no intention of administering to the patient whatever this cure might turn out to be.
Negotiations were conducted through one of the kitchen boys. Robert could never have been persuaded, even in the unlikely event of success, to part with cattle as a means of barter â which was all the bushmen were really interested in, money being of no account to them since you could not eat it when you were hungry â but Gus had a many-bladed penknife and a meerschaum pipe which they were persuaded to trade in exchange for the remedy. This thankfully turned out to be, not a potion of juice extracted from some unknown plant or root, and which may or may not have been mixed with urine or dung or some other unspeakable substance, but a bundle of herbs tied with grass and feathers which was to be hung around the patient's neck. It wouldn't do any good, thought Gus, but neither would it do any harm.
Barty that night grew worse. His life was ebbing away in a river of sweat, and Gus hung the fetish around his neck; he had ceased to be ashamed of himself for entertaining such barbaric methods. He might even, so great was his despair, have been prepared to administer to Barty one of the witch-doctor's potions, but about three o'clock, as he bent to wipe the sweat from his son's face once more, Barty opened his eyes and spoke. The fever had broken. Whether it had been the bundle of herbs and feathers, or whether the illness had taken its natural course, Gus neither knew nor cared to speculate. He threw himself into the armchair by the bed and within seconds was fast asleep.
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It took Barty less than three weeks to regain any semblance to the healthy young man he had been before the fever hit him. He was very weak at first and had lost so much weight his clothes hung on him, but he had youth, strength and a splendid constitution to aid his recovery. Very soon he was eating enough for six and growing restless to be off with Robert to join the volunteers as news filtered through of the worsening political situation. Tales were reaching them of people deserting Johannesburg in thousands, grabbing every means they could of getting away â by trains packed to suffocation, by ox-wagon, or even by cattle-truck. These stories were so rife they could not be dismissed as mere rumour. Now that Barty was recovered and he and Robert were adamant to go and enlist, Gus knew it was time he and Louisa were off, too.