The Sound of Thunder (5 page)

“Yes. I know him.”

So my brother-in-law is now a general, Sean grinned to himself, and then asked: “Is this the general we are going to visit?”

“If we can find him.”

Young Dirk will meet his uncle at last-and Sean found himself anticipating the reunion with a tingle of pleasure.

The canvas of the tent did little to moderate the volume of the voice within. It carried clearly to where Sean waited with his escort.

“Must I drink coffee and shake hands with every rooinek we catch?

Have I not already enough work for ten men, but you must bring me more?

Send him to one of the Field-Comets!

Send him to Pretoria and let them lock him up! Do whatever you like with him if he is a spy-but, in the name of a merciful providence, don’t bring him to me. ” Sean smiled happily. Jan Paulus certainly hadn’t lost his voice.

There was an interval of comparative quiet while Beaver’s voice mumbled within the tent. Then again the muted bellow.

“No! I will not! Take him away.”

Sean filled his lungs, cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted at the tent.

“Hey, you bloody Dutchman! Are you afraid to meet me again? You think I’ll knock your teeth out like I did last time. ” A few minutes of appalling stillness, then the clattering of an overturned stool and the flap of the tent was thrown open. Into the ma light blinking in the glare, but scowling, the red hair that fringed his bald pate burning like a bush-fire, and Ins shoulders hunched aggressively, came Jan Paulus. His face turned from side to side as he searched for the source of the insult.

“Here,” called Sean, and Jan Paulus stopped dead. Uncertainly he peered at Sean.

“You!” He took a pace forward and then,

“It is you, isn’t it.

Sean! And he began to laugh. His right hand that had been clenched into a huge fist unfolded and was thrust forward.

“Sean! Hell, man! Sean!”

They gripped hands and grinned at each other.

“Come into the tent. Come on in, man.”

Once they were inside, Jan Paulus’s first question was: “Where’s Katrina? Where is my little sister?” and immediately the smile was gone from Sean’s face. He sat down heavily on the reinWje stool and took off his hat before he answered.

“She’s dead, Paulus. She’s been dead these last four years.”

Slowly the expression on Jan Paulus’s face changed until it was bleak and hard.

“How?” he asked.

And what can I answer him, thought Sean. Can I tell him she killed herself for some reason that no one will ever know.

“Fever,” he said. “Blackwater fever.”

“You did not send word to us. ” “I did not know where to find you. Your parents?” “They too are dead,” Jan Paulus interrupted brusquely and turned away from Sean to stare at the white canvas wall of the tent. There was silence between them then as they remembered the dead in sorrow, made more poignant by its utter helplessness. At last Sean stood up and went to the entrance of the tent.

“Dirk. Come here.”

Mbejane pushed him forward and he crossed to Sean and took his hand. Sean led him into the tent.

“Katrina’s son,” he said and Jan Paulus looked down at him.

“Come here, boy.” Hesitantly Dirk went to him. Suddenly Jan Paulus dropped into a squat so that his eyes were on a level with those of the child. He took Dirk’s face between the palm of his hands and studied it carefully.

“Yes,” he said. “This is the type of son she would breed.

The eyes-” His voice stumbled and stopped. A second longer he looked into Dirk’s eyes. Then he spoke again.

“Be proud,” he said and stood up. Sean motioned at the flap of the tent, and thankfully Dirk scampered out to where Mbejane waited.

“And now?” Jan Paulus asked.

“I want passage through the lines.”

“You are going over to the English?”

am English, ” said Sean. Frowning a little, Jan Paulus considered this before he asked: ” You will give me your word not to take up arms with them?

“No,” answered Sean and Jan Paulus nodded, it was the answer he had expected.

“There is a debt between us,” he decided. “I have not forgotten the time of the elephant. This is full payment of that debt.” He crossed to the portable desk and dipped a pen. Still standing he wrote rapidly, fanned the paper dry and proffered it to Sean.

“Go,” he said. “And I hope we do not meet again, for the next time I will kill you.”

“Or I you,” Sean answered him.

That afternoon Sean led his parry across the steel railway bridge over the Tugela, on through the deserted village of Colenso and out again across the plain. Far ahead, sown on the grass plain like a field of white daisies, were the tents of the great British encampment at Chievely Siding. But long before he reached it Sean came to a guard post manned by a sergeant and four men of an illustrious Yorkshire regiment.

“And where the hell do you think you’re off to?”

“I am a British subject,” Sean informed them. The sergeant ran an eye over Sean’s beard and patched coat. He glanced at the shaggy pony he rode, and then considered the direction from which Sean had approached.

“Say that again,” he invited.

“I am a British subject,” Sean repeated obligingly in an accent that fell heavily on the Yorkshire man’s ear.

“And I’m a ruddy Japanese, ” agreed the sergeant cheerfully.

“Let’s have your rifle, mate. ” Two days Sean languished in the barbed-wire prison compound while the Intelligence Department cabled the Registrar of Births at Ladyburg and waited for his reply. TWo long days during which Sean brooded incessantly, not on the indignities which had been inflicted on him, but on the woman he had found and loved and lost again so quickly. These two days of enforced reactivity came at precisely the worst moment. By repeating over and over in his imagination each word that had passed between them, by feeling again each contact of their hands and bodies, by forming her face in his mind’s eye and gloating over every detail of it-Sean burned her memory so deeply into himself that it was there for all time. Although he did not even know her surname, he would never forget her.

By the time he was released with apologies and given back his horses, rifle, moneybag and packs-Sean had driven himself into a mood of such overpowering depression that it could only be alleviated by liquor or physical violence.

The village of Frere, which was the first station south on the line to the coast, promised both of these.

-nkeep Dirk with you,” instructed Sean, “beyond the town find a camp beside the road and make a big fire, so I can find you in the dark.

“What will you do, Nkosi?

Sean started towards the dingy little canteen that catered for the thirsty of Frere.

“I’m going there,” he answered.

“Come, Nkosizana. ” As he and Dirk continued on down the street MbeJane was deciding how long he should give Sean before coming to fetch him. It was many years since the Nkosi had headed for a bar in such a determined fashion, but then there had been much to distress him these last few days. He will need until midnight, Mbejane decided, then he will be in a condition conducive to sleep.

From the door Sean surveyed the interior of the canteen. A single large room with a trestle bar counter along the back wall, and the room was comfortably MI of warmth and men and the smell of liquor and cigars. Still standing in the entrance, Sean slipped his hand into the pocket of his trousers and surreptitiously counted his money, ten sovereigns he had allowed himself, more than sufficient for the purchase of the liquor he intended to consume.

As he worked his way through the crowd towards the bar, he looked at the men about him. Soldiers mostly, from a dozen different regiments. Colonials and Imperial troops, other ranks predominating, although a party of junior officers sat at a table against the far wall. Then there were a few civilians whom he judged to be transport drivers, contractors and business men, two women with the officers whose profession was never in doubt, and a dozen black waiters.

“What will it be, ducks?” the large woman behind the counter asked as he reached it and Sean regarded her moustache and her term of address with disfavour.

“Brandy.” He was in no mood for the niceties.

“You want the bottle, ducks?” She had recognized his need.

“That will do for a start,” he agreed.

He drank large brandies, and with a fianit dismay know that they were having no effect-apart from sharpening his imagination to the point where he could clearly see Ruth’s face before his eyes, complete in every detail down to the little black beauty spot high on her cheek and the way the corners of her eyes slanted upwards as she smiled. He would have to make a more active approach to forgetfulness.

Leaning back with both elbows on the counter and the glass clutched in his right hand, he studied the men about him once more.

Evaluating each of them as a source of distraction and then discarding and moving his attention on, he was finally left with the small group around the gaming-table.

Seven players, the game draw poker, and from what he could see the stakes were modest. He picked up his bottle, crossed the room to join the circle of spectators and took up his position behind a sergeant of yeomanry who was receiving a battering from the cards. A few hands later the sergeant drew one to fill his flush, missed and pushed the bluff-raising twice until he was called by two pairs across the table.

He threw his hand “in and blew through his lips in disgust.

“That cleans me out. ” He gathered the few coins left on the table in front of him and stood up.

“Rough luck, Jack. Anyone care to take his place?” The winner looked around the circle of spectators. “Nice friendly little game, table stakes. ” “Deal me in.” Sean sat down, placed his glass and bottle strategically at his right hand and stacked five gold sovereigns in front of him.

“The man’s got gold! Welcome.”

Sean ducked the first hand, lost two pounds to three queens on the next, and won five pounds on the third. The pattern of his luck was set, he played with cold single-mindedness-and when he wanted cards it seemed he had only to wish for them.

What was the old adage?—Unlucky in love, and the cards turn hot.”

Sean grinned without amusement and filled a small straight with the five of hearts, beat down the three sevens that came against him and drew the pot towards him to swell the pile of Ins winnings. Up about thirty or forty pounds. He was enjoying himself now.

“A small school, gentlemen. ” Three players had dropped out in the last hour leaving four of them at the table. “How about giving the losers a chance to recoup?”

“You want to raise the stakes?” Sean asked the speaker. He was the only other winner, a big man with a red hice and the smell of horses about him. Tkansport rider, probably.

“Yes, if everyone agrees. Make the minimum bet five pounds. ” “Suits me, ” grunted Sean, and there was a murmur of agreement round the table. With heavy money out an air of caution prevailed at first, but slowly the game opened up. Sean’s luck cooled a little, but an hour later he had built up his kitty on a series of small wins to a total of seventy-five pounds. Then Sean dealt a strange hand.

The first caller on Sean’s left raised before the draw, and was raised in turn by the gentleman with the horsy smell, number three called and Sean fanned his cards open.

With a gentle elation he found the seven, eight, nine and ten of Clubs-with a Diamond six. A pretty little straight dealt pat.

“Call your twenty, and raise it twenty, ” he offered, and there was a small stir of excitement among the onlookers.

“Call.” Number one was short of cash.

“Call,” echoed Horse Odour and his gold clinked into the pot’I’m dropping. ” Number dime closed his cards and pushed them away. Sean turned back to number one.

“How many cards?”

“I’ll play with these.” Sean felt the first premonition of disaster.

“And you?” he asked Horse Odour.

“I’m also happy with what I have. ” TWo pat hands against his small straight; and from the suit distribution, Sean’s four Clubs, one of them would certainly be a flush. With a queasy feeling in his stomach Sean knew he was in trouble, knew his hand to be a loser.

Break the straight and go for the other Club, still not a certain winner, but the only thing worth trying.

“I’ll draw one. ” He tossed the six of Diamonds into the welter of discards, and dealt to himself from the top of the pack.

“My bet.” Number one’s face was glowing with confidence.

“I’ll raise the maximum-another forty. Cost you eighty pounds to look at me, boys. Let’s see the colour of your money.

“I’d like to push you-but that’s the limit. I’ll call. ” Horse Odour’s expression was completely neutral but he was sweating in a light sheen across his forehead.

“Let me go to the books.” Sean picked up his cards and, from behind the other four, pressed out the corner of the card he had drawn.

It was black, he opened it a little more-a black six. Slowly he felt the pressure build up within him like a freshly fired boiler. He drew a long breath and opened the card fully.

“I’ll call also. ” He spoke on a gusty outgoing breath.

“Full house,” shouted number one. “Queen’s full-beat that, you bastards! ” Horse Odour slapped his cards down viciously, his red face crumbling in disappointment. “Goddam it-of all the filthy luck.

I had an ace-high flush. ” Number one giggled with excitement and reached for the money.

“Wait for it, friend,” Sean advised him, and spread his cards face up upon the table.

“It’s a flush. My full house beats you,” protested number one.

“Count the pips-” Sean touched each card as he named them, “six, seven, eight, nine and the ten-all Clubs. Straight flush! You come second by a day’s march.” He lifted number one’s hands off the money, pulled it towards him and began stacking it in columns of twenty.

“Pretty hot run of luck you’re having,” Horse Odour gave his opinion, his face still twisted with disappointment.

“Yes,” agreed Sean. Two hundred and sixty-eight pounds.

Very pretty’ Funny how it comes to you on the big hands,” Horse Odour went on. “And especially, when you’re dealing. What did you say your profession was?”