The Sound of Thunder (53 page)

Looking into the clear innocent eyes of his son. “As God is your witness-did Norman Van Eek draw this knife on you?”

Please, my son, deny it now. Say it so they all can hear you.

If you value my love-tell me the truth now. Please, Dirk, please.

All this he tried to say, tried to convey it with the sheer force of his gaze.

“As God is my witness, Pa,” Dirk answered him and was silent again.

“You have not answered,” Sean insisted. Please, my son.

“He drew that knife from the hip pocket of his overalls-the blade was closed. He opened it with the thumbnail of his left hend, Pa,”

Dirk explained softly. “I tried to kick it out of his hand, but hit his chest instead. He fell onto his back and I saw him raise the knife as though he were going to throw it. I hit him with the stool. It was the only way I could stop him. ” All the passion went out of Sean’s face. It was stony and hard.

“Very well, ” he said. “We’d better get home now.” Then he addressed the rest of the bar-room. “Thank you, gentlemen.”

And he walked out through the door to the Rolls. Dirk followed him meekly.

The next afternoon Dirk Courtney was released by the local magistrate into his father’s custody on bail of fifty pounds, pending the visit of the Circuit Court two weeks later, when he was to stand trial on a charge of manslaughter.

His case was set down at the head of the Court list. The whole district attended the old, packing the tiny Courthouse and clustering at each of its windows.

After a retirement of seven minutes the jury brought back its verdict and Dirk, walking out of the dock, was surrounded by the laughing, congratulating crowd and borne out into the sunlight.

In the almost deserted Courtroom Sean did not rise from his seat in the front row of chairs. Peter Aaronson, the defence lawyer Sean had imported from Pieten-naritzburg, shuffled his papers into his briefcase, made a joke with the Registrar, then walked across to Sean.

“In and out again in seven minutes already-that’s one for the record book. ” When he smiled he looked like a koala bear.

“Have a cigar, Mr. Courtney. ” Sean shook his head and Peter thrust a disproportionately large cigar into his own mouth and lit it.

“I tell you truly, though, I was worried by the knife business. I expected trouble there. I didn’t like that knife.”

“No more did I, ” Sean agreed softly, and Peter held his head on one side examining Sean’s face with bright, birdlike eyes.

“But I liked those witnesses-a troupe of performing seals.

“Bark,” you say to them-Woof! Woof! Just like magic. Someone trained them pretty well!”

“I don’t think I understand you,” Sean said to him grimly, and Peter shrugged.

“I’ll post my account-but I warn you I’m going to hit you with a big one. Say, five hundred guineas?”

Sean lay back in his seat and looked up at the little lawyer.

“Say, five hundred,” he agreed.

“Next time you need representation-I recommend a bright youngster name of Rolle. Humphrey Rolle,” Peter went on.

“You think I’ll need a lawyer again?”

“With your boy-you’ll need a lawyer, ” Peter told him with certainty.

“And you don’t want the job?” Sean leaned forward with sudden interest. “At five hundred guineas a throw?”

“Money I can get anywhere.” Peter took the cigar from his mouth and inspected the fluffy grey ash at its tip. “Remember the name, Mr. Courtney-Humphrey Rolle. He’s a bright boy and not too choosy.

He walked away down the aisle lugging his heavy briefcase, and Sean stood up and followed him slowly. Pausing on the steps of the Courthouse he looked across the square. The centre of a small knot of men, Dirk stood laughing, with Archy’s arm around his shoulder. Archy’s voice carried to where Sean stood.

“Don’t let any of you get the idea you can tangle with Dirkie here-you’ll end up with your teeth busted clean out the back of your head. ” Archy grinned so that the blackened tooth showed. “I say it so you can all hear me. Dirkie here is my friend-and I’m proud of him.

” You alone, thought Sean. He looked at his son and saw how tall he stood. Shaped like a man-broad in the shoulders with muscle in his arms, no fat on the belly and long legs dropping away clean from hips.

But he is only sixteen. He’s a child-perhaps there is still time to prevent him setting hard. Then with truth he knew he was deceiving himself, and he remembered what a friend had said to him long ago: “Some grapes grew in the wrong soil, some were diseased before they went to the press, and others were soiled by a careless vintner-not all grapes make good wine.

And I am the careless vintner, he thought.

Sean walked across the square. “You’re coming home,” he told Dirk harshly, knowing as he looked at the lovely face that he no longer loved his son. The knowledge nauseated him.

“Congratulations, Colonel. I knew we’d win,” Archy Longworthy beamed, and Sean glanced at him.

“I’ll be in my office ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I want to talk to you! - ” “Yes, sir!” grinned Archy happily, but he was not grinning when he left Ladyburg on the following evening’s train with a month’s pay in lieu of notice to compensate him.

With the storm of adverse editorial comment raised by Dirk’s trial, Garry Courtney’s chances in the coming election increased significantly. The jingo press spoke darkly of a “surprise outcome, which thinking men will welcome as a true assessment of the worth of the two candidates for the Ladyburg constituency. ” Only the Liberal papers reported the generous pension which the Ladyburg Wattle Cooperative Co. voted to Norman Van Eek’s widow and orphan.

But everyone knew that Sean Courtney was still a long way ahead.

He could be certain of the vote of the two hundred men employed at the factory and on his estates, the other wattle producers of the valley and their employees, as well as a good half of the townsfolk and ranchers-that was until the Pietermaritzburg Farmer & Trader devoted a full front page to the exclusive story of one Archibald Frederick Longworthy.

Mr. Longworthy related how, by the threat of physical violence and loss of employment, he had been forced to pedure himself in court.

How, after the case, he had been summarily dismissed from his work.

The exact nature of his peury was not revealed.

Sean cabled his lawyers in Pietermaritzburg to begin immediate proceedings against the &rmer & Trader for defamation of character, libel, contempt, treason, and anything else they could think of. Then, reckless of his own safety, he climbed into the Rolls and raced at thirty miles an hour in pursuit of his cable.

He arrived in Pietermaritzburg to find that Mr. Longworthy, after signing a sworn statement and graciously accepting a payment of fifty guineas, had departed without leaving a forwarding address. Legal advice was against Sean visiting the editor of the Farmer & Rader and laying himself open to a counter-suit of assault and battery. It would be two months before the defamation trial was heard in court, and the election was to be held in ten days” time.

All Sean could do was publish a full-page denial in each of the Liberal papers, then return to Ladyburg at a more sedate pace. There a telegram awaited him from Pretoria. Jan Paulus and Jan Niemand suggested that in the circumstances it might be better if Sean withdrew from nomination. Sean’s reply went sizzling back over the wires.

Like a pair in harness, Garry and Sean Courtney swept up to the polling-day finishing line.

The actual voting took place in the Ladyburg Village Management offices under the beady eyes of two Government registration officers.

Thereafter, the ballot boxes would be removed to Pietermaritzburg, where on the following day in the City Hall the votes would be counted and the official results announced.

On opposite sides of the square the opposing candidates set up the large marquee tents from which free refreshments would be served to the voters. Traditionally the candidate who fed the largest number would be the loser. Nobody wished to put their choice to additional expense, so they patronized the other man’s stall. This day, however, both candidates served an almost equal amount of food.

It was a day that threatened the approach of the wet season, humid heat lay trapped beneath grey overcast clouds and the occasional bursts of sunlight stung like the blast of an open furnace door. Sean, suited and waist coated sweated with anxiety as he greeted each visitor to his stall with a booming, false camaraderie. Beside him Ruth looked like a rose petal, and smelled as sweet. Storm, demure for once, stood between them.

Dirk was not there-Sean had found work for him on the far side of Lion Kop. Many sly eyes and snide sallies remarked his absence Ronny Pye had persuaded Garry not to wear his uniform.

Anna was with him, pretty in mauve and artificial flowers. It was only at closer range that the ugly little lines around her mouth and eyes, and the gray hairs that were woven into the shiny black mass of her hair showed up. Neither she nor Garry let their eyes wander across the square.

Michael arrived and spoke first with his father, kissed his mother dutifully, then crossed to resume the argument Sean had broken off the night before. Michael wanted Sean to buy ten thousand acres of the coastal lowlands around Tongaat and plant it to sugar-cane. Within a few minutes he realized that this was not the best time to push his idea; Sean greeted each of his points with hearty laughter and offered him a cigar. Discouraged but not resigned, Michael went into the ballot office and, settling his problem of divided loyalty, deliberately spoiled his paper.

Then he returned to his office at the wattle factory to whip his sugar estimates into shape for the next attack on Sean.

Ada Courtney never left the Protea Street cottage all that day.

She had steadfastly denied appeals to join either camp, and refused to allow any of her girls to help in the preparations. She had prohibited any political discussion in her house-and ordered Sean to leave when he had disregarded this rule. Only after Ruth had interceded and Sean had made an abject apology, was he allowed to return. She disapproved of the whole business and considered it undignified and common that members of her family should not only be standing for public office but actually competing for it. Her deep distrust of and contempt for officialdom stemmed from the time the Village Board had wanted to place street lamps along Protea Street.

She had attended their next meeting armed with an umbrella, and in vain they had tried to convince her that street lights did not attract mosquitoes.

However, Ada was the only person in the district who did not attend. From midmorning until polling closed at five o’clock the square was jammed solid with humanity, and when the sealed ballot boxes were borne in state to the railway station, many of them climbed on the same train and went up to Pieten-naritzburg for the official counting.

It had been a day of unremitting nervous tension, so a very short time after entering their suite in the White Horse Hotel, Ruth and Sean fell into exhausted sleep in each other’s arms.

When, in the early morning a brilliant electrical storm raged down upon the town, Ruth moved restlessly in her sleep, coming slowly back to consciousness-and to the realization that she and Sean were already engaged in the business that had been delayed so long. Sean woke at the same time and, for the few seconds that it took him to understand what was happening, was as bewildered as she-then both of them went to it with a will.

BY dawn Ruth knew that she would bear a son, though Sean felt it was a little soon to tell for certain.

After bathing, they ate breakfast in bed together with a renewed sense of intimacy. Ruth in a white silk gown, with her hair loosed into a shiny mass on her shoulders and her skin glowing as though she had been freshly scrubbed, was extreme provocation to Sean.

Consequently they arrived late at the City Hall, much to the agitation of Sean’s supporters.

The counting was well advanced. In a roped-off section of the hall ballot officers sat in silent industry at the tables piled with the small pink slips of paper. On a placard above each table was printed the name of the district and the candidates, and between the tables scrutineers paced watchfully.

The body of the hall was filled with a milling, humming swarm of men and women. Before it engulfed them Sean caught a glimpse of Garry and Anna moving through the press, then for the next ten minutes he was subjected to an orgy of handshaking, back-slapping and well wishes-interrupted by a bell and a complete silence.

“The result for the legislative assembly seat of Newcastle .

a high thin voice announced in the hush Mr. Robert Sanipson 986 votes. Mr. Edward Sutton 423 votes . And the rest was lost in a burst of cheers and groans. Sampson was the South African Party candidate, and Sean fought his way through the pack that surrounded him.

“Well done, you old son of a gun,” shouted Sean and beat him between the shoulder-blades.

“Thanks, Sean. It looks as though we are home and dry-I never expected a majority that size!” and they wrung each other’s hands deliriously.

The morning went on with intervals of excited, buzzing ten exploding into applause as each result was announced.

Sean’s confidence rose as his party captured each seat they had expected, and one that they were resigned to lose-but then the bell rang again and in the satire impersonal tone the Chief Registration Officer at last announced: “The resuk for the legislative assembly seat of Ladyburg and the lower lbgela-” he felt the cold emptiness of apprehension in his stomach, and his breath burning up the back of his throat.

Standing beside him he could sense the rigidity of Ruth’s body and he groped for her hand.

“Colonel Garrick Courtney 638 votes. Colonel Sean Courtney 631 votes.”

Ruth’s hand squeezed hard, but Sean did not reply to the pressure.

The two of them stood very still, a tiny island of quiet in the surge and roar-in the triumphant cheers and despairing groans-until Sean said softly: “I think we’ll go back to the hotel, my dear.

“Yes,” she answered as softly, and the sound of her voice was helpless pity. Together they started across the floor and a way opened for them. A passage lined by faces that bore expressions of regret, happiness, curiosity, indifference and triumphant malice.