The Burning Shore (27 page)

He barked into it. The line was bad, the background hissed and rushed like the sea, so Douglas Caithness’s voice seemed to come from across an ocean.

Hello, sir, the guns have just come up-’Thank God, Sean growled.

I have deployed them- Caithness gave the map reference. They are hammering away already and the Huns seem to have run out of steam. I am going to raid them at dawn.

Douglas, be careful, there are no reserves behind you, I won’t be able to support you before noon All right, I understand, but we can’t let them regroup unopposed. Of course not, Sean agreed. Keep me informed. In the meantime I’m moving up four more batteries, and elements of the Second Battalion, but they won’t reach you before noon. Thank you, sir, we can use them. Go to it, man.

Sean handed the instrument back, and while he watched the coloured pins rearranged on the map, the solution to his personal problem came to him.

Garry- He thought of his twin brother, and felt the familiar twinge of guilt and compassion. Garrick Courtney, the brother whom Sean had crippled.

It had happened so many years ago and yet every instant of that dreadful day was still so clear in Sean’s mind that it might have taken place that very morning. The two of them, teenage scamps, arguing over the shotgun that they had stolen out of their father’s gunroom and loaded with buckshot, as they trotted through the golden grass of the Zululand hills.

i saw the inkonka first, Garry protested. They were going out to hunt an old bushbuck ram whose lair they had discovered the previous day.

I thought of the shotgun, Sean told him, tightening his grip on the weapon, so I do the shooting. And, of course, Sean prevailed. It was always that way.

It was Garry who took Tinker, their mongrel hunting dog, and circled out along the edge of thick bush to drive the antelope back where Sean waited with the shotgun.

Sean heard again Garry’s faint shouts at the bottom of the hill, and Tinker’s frantic barks as he picked up the scent of the wary bushbuck. Then the rush in the grass, and the long yellow stems bursting open as the inkonka came out, heading straight up to where Sean lay on the crest of the hill.

He looked immense in the sunlight, for in alarm his shaggy mane was erected and his dark head with the heavy spiral horns was raised high on the thick powerful neck. He stood three foot high at the shoulder and weighed almost two hundred pounds, and his chest and flanks were barred and spotted with delicate patterns, pale as chalk on the dark rufous ground. He was a magnificent creature, quick and formidable, those horns were sharp as pikes and could rip the belly out of a man or slice through his femoral artery, and he came straight at Sean.

Sean fired the choke barrel, and he was so close that the charge of buckshot struck in a solid blast, and tore through the animal’s barrel chest into lung and heart.

The bushbuck screamed and went down, kicking and bleating, its sharp black hooves clashing on the rocky ground as it slid back down the hill.

I got him! howled Sean, leaping from his hiding place. I got him first shot. Garry! I got him! From below Garry and the dog came pelting through the coarse golden grass. It was a race as to which of them could get to the dying animal first. Sean carried the shotgun, the second barrel still loaded, and the hammer at full cock, and as he ran a loose stone rolled under his foot and he fell. The gun flew from his grip. He hit the ground with his shoulder and the second barrel fired with a stunning thump of sound.

When Sean scrambled up again, Garry was sitting beside the dead bushbuck, whimpering. His leg had taken the full charge of buckshot at almost point blank range.

it had hit him below the knee, and the flesh was wet red ribbons, the bone white chips and slivers and the blood a bright fountain in the sunlight.

Poor Garry, Sean thought, now a lonely one-legged old cripple. The woman whom Sean had put with child, and whom Garry had married before she gave birth to Michael, had finally been driven insane by her own hatred and bitterness and died in the flames she herself had set.

Now Michael, too, was gone, and Garry had nothing nothing except his books and his scribblings.

I’ll send him this bright pert girl and her unborn infant. The solution came to Sean with a flood of relief. At last I can make some retribution for all I have done to him. I will send him my own grandchild, the grandchild I should so dearly love to claim as my own; I’ll send to him in part payment. He turned from the map and limped quickly back to where the girl waited.

She rose to meet him and stood quietly, her hands clasped demurely in front of her, and Sean saw the worry and fear of rejection in her dark eyes, and the way her lower lip trembled as she waited for his judgment.

He closed the door behind him, and he went to her and took her small neat hands in his great hairy paws and he stooped over her and kissed her gently. His beard scratched her soft cheek, but she sobbed with relief and flung both arms around him.

I’m sorry, my dear, he said. You took me by surprise.

I just had to get used to the idea. Sean hugged her, but very gently, for the mystery of pregnancy was one of the very few things that daunted and awed Sean Courtney.

Then he settled her back in the chair.

Can I go to Africa? She was smiling, though the tears still trembled in the corners of her eyes.

Yes, of course, that’s your home now, for as far as I am concerned, you are Michael’s wife. Africa is where you belong. I’m so happy, she told him softly, but it was more than merc happiness. It was a vast sense of security and protection, this man’s aura of power and strength was now held over her like a shield.

You are Michael’s wife, he had said. He had acknowledged that which she herself believed, somehow his endorsement made it a fact.

This is what I am going to do. The German U-boats have been playing such havoc. A sailing for you on one of the Red Cross hospital ships that leave directly from the French Channel ports will be the safest way of getting you home. Anna- Centaine cut in quickly.

Yes, of course, she must go with you. I’ll fix that also.

You will both volunteer for nursing duties, and I’m afraid you’ll be expected to work your passage. Centaine nodded eagerly.

Michael’s father, my brother, Garrick Courtney-Sean started.

yes, yes! Michel told me all about him. He is a great hero, he won the cross of the English Queen Victoria for his courage in a battle against the Zulus, Centaine cut in excitedly, and he is a scholar who writes books of history. Sean blinked at the description of poor Garry, but of course it was factually correct and he nodded.

He is also a kind and gentle person, a widower who has just lost his only son- An almost telepathic understanding passed between them; although Centaine knew the truth, from now on Michael would always be referred to as Garrick Courtney’s son. Michael was his whole life, and you and I know how he must feel at the loss, for we share it. Centaine’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears and she bit down on her lower lip as she nodded vehemently.

I will cable him. He will be at Cape Town to meet you when the ship docks. I will also give you a letter to take to him. You can be certain of his welcome and his protection, for both you and Michael’s child. Michael’s son, said Centaine firmly, and then hesitantly, but I will see you also, General, sometimes? Often, Sean assured her, leaning forward to pat her hand gently. Probably more often than you wish.

After that it all happened very quickly; she would learn that with Sean Courtney, this was always the way.

She remained only five more days at the monastery, but in that time the German breakthrough at Mort Homme was contained by dour bloody fighting, and once the line was stabilized and reinforced, Sean Courtney had a few hours each day to spare for her.

They dined together every evening, and he answererd her endless questions about Africa and its people and animals, about the Courtney family and its members, with good-natured patience. Mostly they spoke English, but when at a loss for a word, Centaine lapsed into Flemish again.

Then at the end of the meal she would prepare his cigar and light it for him, pour his cognac and then perch beside him, talking still, until Anna came to fetch her or Sean was summoned to the operations room; then she would come to him and hold up her face for his kiss with such a childlike innocence, that Sean found himself dreading the approaching hour of her departure.

John Pearce brought their nursing uniforms to Centaine and Anna. The white veils and the white cross-straps of the apron were worn over a blue-grey dress and Centaine and Anna made the finer adjustments themselves, their needles giving a touch of French flair to the baggy shapeless outfits.

Then it was time to leave, and Sangane loaded their meagre baggage into the Rolls, and Sean Courtney came down the cloisters, gruff and stern with the pain of leavetaking.

Look after her, he ordered Anna, and Anna glowered at him in righteous indignation at this gratuitous advice.

I will be at the docks to meet you when you come home, Centaine promised him, and Sean scowled with embarrassment and pleasure when she went up on tiptoe to kiss him in front of his staff. He watched the Rolls Pull away with the girl waving at him through the back window, then roused himself and rounded on his staff.

Well, gentlemen, what are we all gawking at, we’re fighting a war here, not conducting a bloody Sundayschool picnic.

And he stomped back down the cloisters, angry at himself for already feeling the girl’s absence so painfully.

The Protea Castle had been a mailship of the Union Castle Line. She was a fast three-funnel passenger liner which had operated on the Cape to Southampton run before being converted to a hospital ship and repainted pristine white with scarlet crosses on her sides and funnels.

She lay at the dock of the inner harbour of Calais, taking on her passengers for the southward voyage, and they were a far cry from the elegant affluent travellers who had filled her pre-war lists. Five railway coaches had been shunted on to the rail spur of the wharf, and from these the pathetic stream of humanity crossed to the liner and went up her fore and aft gangways.

These were the veritable sweepings of the battlefield.

They had been rejected by the medical board as so incapacitated that they could not even be patched up sufficiently to feed the man-hungry Baal of the British Expeditionary Force.

There would be twelve hundred on board for the southbound voyage, and on the return northbound leg the Protea Castle would be repainted in the camouflage of an ordinary troopship and bring another load of young eager and healthy young men for a sojourn in the hell of the trenches of northern France.

Centaine stood beside the Rolls at the wharfside and stared with dismay at this ruined legion as they went aboard. There were the amputees, missing an arm or a leg, the lucky ones with the severance below knee or elbow. They swung across the wharf on their crutches, or with an empty sleeve of their tunic pinned up neatly.

Then there were the blind, led by their companions, and the spinal cases carted aboard on their stretchers, and the gas victims with the mucous membranes of their noses and throats burned away by the chlorine gas, and the shell-shocked who twitched and jerked and rolled their eyes uncontrollably, and the burn victims with monstrous pink shiny scar tissue that had contracted to trap their limbs into the bent position, or drawn down their ravaged heads on to their chests, so that they were as twisted and contorted as hunchbacks.

You can give us a hand here, luv. one of the orderlies had spotted her uniform, and Centaine roused herself.

She turned quickly to the Zulu driver. I will find your father, Mbejane?

Mbejane! Sangane grinned happily that she had the name right. And I will give him your message. Go in peace, little lady.

Centaine clasped his hand, then snatched her carpet bag from him and, followed by Anna, hurried to her new duties.

The loading went on through the night, and only when it was completed a little before dawn were they free to try and find the quarters that they had been allocated.

The senior medical officer was a grim-faced major, and it was apparent that word had been whispered to him from on high.

Where have you been? he demanded when Centaine reported to his cabin. I have been expecting you since noon yesterday. We sail in two hours. I have been here since noon down on “C” Deck, helping Doctor Solomon. You should have reported to me, he told her coldly. You can’t just wander around the ship suiting yourself.

I am responsible to General - he cut himself off, and went off on a new tack. Besides, “C” Deck is other ranks.”Pardon?

Through practice, Centaine’s English had improved immeasurably, but many terms still eluded her.

Other ranks, not officers. From now on you will be working with officers only. The lower decks are out of bounds to you, out of bounds, he repeated slowly, as though speaking to a backward child. Am I making myself clear to you? Centaine was tired, and not used to this type of treatment. Those men down there hurt just as much as the officers do, she told him furiously. They bleed and die just like officers do. The major blinked and sat back in his chair.

He had a daughter the same age as this French chippy, but she would never have dared answer him like that.

I can see, young lady, that you are going to be a handful, he said ominously. I did not like the idea of having you ladies on board, I knew it would lead to trouble.

Now you listen to me. You are going to be quartered in the cabin right across from mine, he pointed through the open door. You will report to Doctor Stewart and work to his orders. You will eat in the officers mess, and the lower decks are out of bounds to you. I expect you to conduct yourself with the utmost propriety at all times, and you can be certain that I will be keeping a very sharp eye on you. After such a bleak introduction, the quarters that she and Anna had been allocated came as a delightful surprise, and again she suspected that the hand of General Sean Courtney had moved. They had a suite that would have cost 20o guineas before the war, twin beds rather than bunks, a small drawing-room with sofa and armchairs and writing-desk, and their own shower and toilet, all tastefully furnished in autumn shades.