The Burning Shore (28 page)

Centaine bounced on the bed and then fell back on the pillows and sighed blissfully.

Anna, I am too tired to undress. Into your nightdress, Anna ordered.

And don’t forget to clean your teeth. They were wakened by the alarm gongs ringing, the blast of whistles in the companionway and a hammering on the cabin door. The ship was under way, vibrating to her engines and working to the scend of the sea.

After the first moments of panic, they learned from their cabin steward that it was a boat drill. Dressing and strapping themselves hastily into their bulky life-jackets, they trooped on to the upper deck and found their lifeboat station.

The ship had just cleared the harbour breakwater and was standing out into the Channel. It was a grey misty morning and the wind whipped about their ears so that there was a general murmur of relief when the stand down was sounded and breakfast was served in the firstclass dining-room, which had been converted into the officers mess for the walking wounded.

Centaine’s entrance caused a genteel pandemonium.

Very few of the officers had realized that there was a pretty girl on board, and they found it difficult to conceal their delight. There was a great deal of jockeying for position, but very quickly the first officer, taking advantage of the fact that the captain was still on the bridge, exercised his rank, and Centaine found herself installed at his right hand surrounded by a dozen attentive and solicitous gentlemen, with Anna seated opposite, glowering like a guardian bull-dog.

The ship’s officers were all British, but the patients were colonials, for the Protea Castle was going on eastwards after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Seated around Centaine there were a captain of Australian Light Horse who had lost a hand, a pair of New Zealanders, one with a piratical black patch over his missing eye and the other with an equally piratical Long John Silver wooden stump, a young Rhodesian named Jonathan Ballantyne who had won an MC at the Somme but paid for it with a burst of machine-gun fire through the belly, and other eager young men who had all lost parts of their anatomy.

They plied her with food from the buffet. No, no, I cannot eat your great English breakfasts, you will make me fat and ugly like a pig. And she glowed at their concerted denials. The war had been in progress since Centaine was a mere fourteen years old, and with all the young men gone, she had never known the pleasure of being surrounded by a horde of admirers.

She saw the senior medical officer scowling at her from the captain’s table, and as much to spite him as for her own amusement, she set herself out to be pleasant to the young men surrounding her. Although she felt a stirring of guilt that she might be less than faithful to Michael’s memory, she consoled herself.

It is my duty, they are my patients. A nurse must be good to her patients. And she smiled and laughed with them, and they were pathetically eager to catch her attention, render small services for her and answer her questions.

Why are we not sailing in convoy? she asked. Is it not dangerous to go down Channel en plein soleil, in broad daylight? I have heard about the Rewa. The Rewa was the British hospital ship, with 300 wounded on board, that had been torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Bristol Channel on January 4th that year.

Fortunately, the ship had been abandoned with the loss of only three lives, but it had fuelled the anti-German propaganda. Displayed in most public places were the posters headed: What a Red Rag is to a bull, the Red Cross is to the Hun, with a graphic account of the atrocity beneath.

Centaine’s question precipitated a lively argument at the breakfast table.

The Rewa was torpedoed at night, Jonathan Ballantyne pointed out reasonably. The U-boat commander probably didn’t see the red crosses. Oh, come now! Those U-boat chaps are absolute butchers- I don’t agree. They are just ordinary fellows like you and me. The captain of this ship obviously believes that too, that’s why we are covering the most dangerous down-channel leg in daylight, to let the U-boats get a good look at our Red Cross markings. I think they’ll leave us alone, once they know what we are. Nonsense, damned Huns would torpedo their own mothers-in-law-’So would I, mind you! This ship is steaming at twenty-two knots, the first officer reassured Centaine. The U-boat is capable of only seven knots when submerged. It would have to be lying directly in our track to have any chance of a shot at us.

Odds of a million to one, miss, you don’t have to worry at all. just enjoy the voyage. A tall, round-shouldered young doctor with a mild scholarly air and steel-rimmed spectacles stood before Centaine as she rose from the breakfast table.

I am Dr Archibald Stewart, Nurse de Thiry, and Major Wright has put you in my charge. Centaine liked the new form of address. Nurse de Thiry had a nice professional ring to it. She was not so certain that she enjoyed being in anyone’s charge, however.

Do you have any medical or nursing training? Dr Stewart went on, and Centaine’s initial liking for him cooled.

He had exposed her in the first few seconds, and in front of her new-found admirers. She shook her head, trying not to make the confession public, but he went on remorselessly.

I thought not. He eyed her dubiously, and then seemed to become aware of her embarrassment. Never mind, a nurse’s most important duty is to cheer up her patients.

From what little I’ve seen, you are very good at that. I think we’ll make you chief cheerer-upper, but only on “A” Deck. Strict orders from Major Wright. “A” Deck only. Dr Archibald Stewart’s appointment turned out to be inspired. From an early age, Centaine’s organizational skills had been honed in the running of the chAteau of Mort Homme, where she had been her father’s hostess and assistant housekeeper. Effortlessly she manipulated the band of young men that had gathered about her into an entertainments team.

The Protea Castle had a library of many thousands of volumes, and she quickly instituted a distribution and collection scheme for the bedridden cases, and a roster of readers for the blind and illiterate amongst the men on the lower decks. She arranged smoking concerts and deck games and card tournaments, the comte had been a wicked bridge player and taught her his skills.

Her team of one-eyed, one-legged, maimed assistant alleviators of the boredom of the long voyage vied with each other to win her approval and render their services; and the patients in the tiers of bunks thought up a dozen tricks to delay her beside them when she made her unofficial rounds each morning.

Amongst the patients was a captain of the Natal Mounted Rifles who had been in the convoy of ambulances during the retreat from Mort Homme, and he greeted her ecstatically the first time she entered his ward with her armful of books.

Sunshine! It’s Sunshine herself! and the nickname followed her about the ship.

Nurse Sunshine.”When the usually surly chief medical officer, Major Wright, used the nickname for the first time, Centaine’s adoption by the ship’s company was unanimous.

In the circumstances there was little time for mourning, but every night just before composing herself for sleep, Centaine lay in the darkness and conjured up Michael’s image in her mind’s eye, and then clasped both hands over her lower stomach. Our son, Michel, our son! The brooding skies and brutal black seas of the Bay of Biscay were left behind on the long white wake, and ahead of the bows the flying fish spun like silver coins across the blue velvet surface of the ocean.

At latitude 3c, degrees north, the debonair young Captain Jonathan Ballantyne, who was the reputed heir to the 100,000-acre cattle ranches of his father Sir Ralph Ballantyne, Prime Minister of Rhodesia, proposed marriage to Centaine.

I can hear poor Papa, Centaine mimicked the comte so accurately that it cast a shadow in Anna’s eyes. “100,000 acres, you crazy wicked child. Tiens alors! How can you refuse 100,000 acres?”

After that the marriage proposals became an epidemic even Dr Archibald Stewart, her immediate superior, blinking through his steel-rimmed spectacles and sweating nervously, stammered through a carefully rehearsed speech, and looked more gratified than abashed when Centaine kissed both his cheeks in polite refusal.

At the equator Centaine prevailed on Major Wright to don the regalia of King Neptune, and the crossing ceremony was conducted amidst wild hilarity and widespread inebriation. Centaine herself turned out to be the main attraction, clad in a mermaid costume of her own design.

Anna had protested strenuously at the dkollet6_, all the while she helped to sew it, but the ship’s company adored it. They whistled and clapped and stamped, and there was another rash of proposals immediately after the crossing.

Anna huffed and gruffed, but secretly was well content with the change she saw coming over her charge. Before her eyes Centaine was making that wonderful transformation from girl to young womanhood. Physically she was beginning to bloom with early pregnancy. Her fine skin took on a lustre like mother-of-pearl, she lost the last vestiges of adolescent gawkiness as her body filled without losing any of its grace.

However, more powerful were the other changes, the growing confidence and poise, the awareness of her own powers and gifts that she was only now beginning to exercise fully. Anna had known that Centaine was a natural mimic, could switch from the midi accent of Jacques, the groom, to the Walloon of the chambermaids and then to the Parisian intellectual of her music teacher, but now she realized that the child had a talent for Ian guages which had never been tested. Centaine was already speaking such fluent English that she could differentiate between the Australian and South African and pure Oxford English accents, and take them off with startling accuracy. When she greeted her Aussies with a dinky Gid die! they hooted with delight.

Anna had known also that Centaine had a way with figures and money. She had taken over the family accounts when the estate factor had fled to Paris in the first months of the war, and Anna had marvelled at her ability to cast a long column of figures simply by running her pen down it, without the laborious carrying over of digits, and without moving her lips, all of which Anna considered miraculous.

Now Centaine demonstrated the same acumen. She partnered Major Wright at the bridge table and they made a formidable pair, and her share of the winnings flabbergasted Anna who did not really approve of gambling. Centaine reinvested these. She organized a syndicate with Jonathan Ballantyne and Dr Stevens and they were big punters on the daily auction and sweepstake on the ship’s I run. By the time they crossed the equator, Centaine had added nearly two hundred sovereigns to the hoard of louis I I d’or they had salvaged from the chateau.

Anna had always known that Centaine read too much. It will damage your eyes, she had warned her often enough, but she had never realized the depth of the knowledge that Centaine had gathered from her books, not until she heard it demonstrated in conversation and discussion. She held her own even against such formidable i debaters as Dr Archibald Stewart, and yet Anna noticed that she was cunning enough not to antagonize her audience by ostentatiously flaunting her learning, and would usually end an argument on a conciliatory note that allowed her male victim to retreat with only slightly ruffled dignity.

Yes, Anna nodded comfortably to herself, as she watched the girl blooming and opening like some lovely flower in the tropical sunshine, she’s a clever one, just like her Mama. It seemed that Centaine really had a physical need for warmth and sunlight. She would turn her face up to the sun every time she went on deck. Oh, Anna, I did so hate the cold and the rain. Doesn’t this feel wonderful?

You are turning ugly brown, Anna warned her. It’s so unladylike. And Centaine considered her own limbs thoughtfully. Not brown, Anna, gold! Centaine had read so much and queried so many people, that she seemed already to know the southern hemisphere into which their ship now thrust its bows. Centaine would wake Anna and take her on to the upper deck to act as chaperone while the officer of the watch showed her the southern stars. And despite the late hour, Anna was dazzled by the splendours of this sky that each evening revealed more of itself before their upturned eyes.

Look, Anna, there is Achernar at last! It was Michel’s own special star. We should all have a special star, he said, and he chose mine for me. Which is it? Anna asked. Which is your star? Acrux. There! The brightest star in the Great Cross.

There is nothing between it and Michael’s star, except the pivot of the whole world, the celestial South Pole. He said between us we would hold the axis of the earth.

Wasn’t that romantic, Anna? Romantic twaddle, Anna sniffed, and secretly regretted that she had never had a man to say such things to her.

Then Anna came to recognize in her charge a talent that seemed to make all the others pale. It was the ability of making men listen to her. It was quite extraordinary to see men like Major Wright and the Protea Castle’s captain actually keep silent and attend, without that infuriatingly indulgent masculine smirk, when Centaine spoke seriously.

She’s only a child, Anna marvelled, yet they treat her like a woman, no, no, more than that even, they are beginning to treat her like an equal. That was truly astonishing.

Here were these men according to a young girl the respect that thousands of other women, Emmeline Pankhurst and Annie Kenney at their head, had been burning property, throwing themselves under racehorses, hunger-striking and enduring prison sentences to obtain, so far unsuccessfully.

Centaine made the men listen to her, and very often she made them do what she wanted, although she was not above using the sly sexual tricks to which women over the ages have been forced to resort; Centaine achieved her ends by adding logic, cogent argument and force of character. These, combined with an appealing smile and level look from dark, fathomless eyes, seemed irresistible. For instance, it took her a mere five days to get Major Wright to rescind his order confining her to ADeck.

Although Centaine’s days were filled to the last minute, she never for a moment lost sight of the ultimate destination. Each day her longing for first sight of the land where Michael had been born, and where his son would be born, became stronger.