by CL Skelton
‘Yes, I help,’ said the Boer. ‘We have sent many of your men back today, if you ‒’ He stopped.
There was the crack of a rifle and a neat little hole appeared in the man’s temple. He fell like a log.
Ian hit the ground trying to shield Peter Leinie, tugging at his Webley as he did so. He could see the man who had fired, another Boer it looked like, but this one was carrying a rifle. A tall, bearded figure in ragged clothes with a bandolier and a slouch hat.
‘Don’t draw your pistol, Ian. I wouldn’t like to have to shoot you.’
Ian got to his feet, astonished. It was Donald Bruce. ‘You murdering swine!’ he said. ‘That man was helping me with our wounded.’
‘He was a Boer,’ said Donald, his face expressionless.
‘I’ll see you hang for this,’ said Ian coldly.
‘I doubt it,’ replied Donald. ‘Is that your horse?’
‘What of it?’
‘I’m taking it.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m looking for Boers and I’ll go on doing that until one of them finds me first. I’ll take your Webley while I’m at it.’
Ian did not move.
‘Just unbuckle your belt and let it fall.’ Then as Ian hesitated, ‘Ian, if you do not, I shall shoot you and then your sergeant. I don’t want witnesses, but I’ll make an exception in your case. Get on with it, and then step back.’
Slowly, Ian complied. ‘How do you think you are going to get away with this?’
‘Frankly, Ian, I don’t care. Step back,’ he said as Ian’s belt fell to the ground.
Keeping Ian covered, Donald approached and slipped the revolver out of its holster and tucked it into his belt. He started to back away towards Ian’s charger.
‘Goodbye, Ian,’ he said as he mounted. ‘If you see my mother, give her my love.’
He rode off at a gallop in the direction of the Boer lines.
Ian realized that Peter Leinie had not known who was speaking to him. ‘That was …’ Then he stopped, knowing he would never repeat what he had seen, and his voice went quiet. ‘That was one of the enemy.’
Chapter Seven
The twentieth century was only eleven days old when Willie Bruce burst into the library at Culbrech House. Of course it was not the library any more. It was the War Room. Here Willie and Andrew played at generals, just as when they had been children together they had played at soldiers. The big desk had been completely cleared. On it could usually be found a large sheet of paper with a sketch map of the current battle and there they moved guns and men and fought the battle, much more efficiently in their estimation, than the general in command. The lower bookshelves had become a filing system for newspaper cuttings. They collected every piece of literature written about the war and decided what should have been done and what should not have been done. Of course they had the advantage of fantasy, they could conjure up a hundred field pieces as fast as a thought or move a battalion over a thousand miles with the same speed that it took to make the decision. The only thing which remained in the chaos which had replaced the former order of the library was the sideboard with its decanter of Glenlivet and two crystal glasses for the refreshment of the armchair warriors.
One wall had had a large board pinned against it covering the masses of leather-bound volumes. On to this had been pinned a large-scale map of South Africa. On this map Willie, who spent a great deal of time at Culbrech House, together with Andrew moved little flags and pins about as they got news of what was happening. There were blue ones for the family. Maud and the children in Kimberley; Ian, Gordon, and Robert with the regiment, now withdrawn to Durban; and Naomi at Pietermaritzburg. There was one other single blue flag. It was stuck into the border of the map. That was for Donald, for no one knew where Donald was.
Little red-headed pins indicated casualties in the battalion; the smaller ones were for wounded and the larger ones for killed, or died on active service.
They had spent many long hours poring over this map and arguing about what was being done and what should be done. During the course of such discussions they had both come to the conclusion that territory did not matter and that the only way to end the war was to bring the Boer to action in a set-piece battle where they could destroy his forces in the field. But, as they both agreed, that would be no easy task.
Willie had written letter after letter to Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief Great Britain, begging him for a command. The only response that he got was the offer of a desk job in Whitehall and there was no way that Willie Bruce would be persuaded to spend a war polishing the seat of his pants behind a desk.
It had become apparent to them and to the rest of the nation that what they had imagined would be a short, swift campaign which would send the Boers scurrying back to their farms with their tails between their legs, was not going to be like that at all. They were in for a long, hard war against a courageous and tenacious foe. Willie blamed the generals and Andrew blamed the terrain, while the truth probably lay somewhere between the two.
Andrew heaved his pegleg off the stool in front of his armchair and got to his feet as Willie entered the room.
‘You’ll have a dram, Willie,’ he said, stomping over to the sideboard.
‘Thanks,’ said Willie. ‘Andrew, have you heard the news?’ There was a ring of pleasure in his voice.
‘What news?’
‘They’ve arrived at Cape Town. They got there yesterday. Roberts and Kitchener. Now we’ll be able to show the Boer a thing or two.’
‘What about Buller? I suppose he’ll resign his command now that he has been placed under Roberts’s command.’
‘Not Buller,’ said Willie. ‘He’s always been a number twa and he kens it fine. Remember that he never wanted the job in the first place. He’ll be happy tae serve under Little Bobs.’
‘I don’t know why you’re so keen on Roberts,’ said Andrew. ‘He’s an old man now, he’s older than I am.’
‘Aye, I ken that’s true. But he’s tough and he’s got the right sort of mind for a general. Niver forget the march from Kabul tae Kandahar.’
‘But,’ said Andrew, ‘this is a big war. That was an ordinary colonial campaign. And another thing, Wolseley doesn’t like him. I can’t understand how he got the appointment.’
‘Wolseley had nae choice. It was the government and though, as you ken, I has little time for the politicians, I think they did the right thing this time.’
‘Kitchener, I can understand,’ said Andrew. ‘He was an obvious choice.’
‘Aye. Though I canna say that I like the man; he’s afu’ cold. No a man’s man. But he’s a deep-thinking soldier and he did a good job in the Sudan. I have a wee feeling in ma bones that those twa will manage tae sort it oot between them.’
‘I can only hope to God that you are right,’ said Andrew. ‘Have you had any other news?’
‘No, I had that letter from Maud a few days ago. She and the bairns seem tae be doing all right in Kimberley. It’s funny, is it no?’
‘What?’
‘Well, there’s a toon under siege and yet they still get letters oot as if nothing had happened. They tell me that Cecil Rhodes is still conducting his business all over Africa even though he’s cooped up there. You know, Andrew, I canna understand why the Boers dinna attack.’
‘I suppose,’ replied Andrew, ‘it’s because Kimberley is well garrisoned. They don’t want a lot of casualties and they probably think that if they sit it out long enough … I mean, whatever food they have there cannot last forever, and there must come a time that they will just have to surrender.’
‘Well, according to Maud, they dinna seem tae be doing too bad, and the bairns are fine, though I wish I had some word of Donald.’
They were silent for a little while, both of them wondering what had happened to Willie’s son since the day his wife died and he had stolen out of Kimberley.
‘Did you go and see Hugh Grant’s folk?’ asked Willie, changing the s
ubject.
‘Yes, I did. I went down the day before yesterday. They had the news, of course. It’s a bloody shame, a pretty wife and four children. They’ll not want for anything, of course.’
‘Except for their father,’ said Willie.
‘Yes, I know. I suppose we’ve been lucky in a way, even with this.’ He gazed ruefully at his wooden leg.
‘And Brenda?’ said Willie.
‘None of us really knew her,’ said Andrew. ‘I often wonder what she would have been like if we had.’
‘What aboot your mother?’ asked Willie. ‘How’s she keeping?’
‘Pretty much the same,’ said Andrew. ‘She’s getting very frail. Doesn’t come down often now, stays in her room most of the time.’
‘Aye, we’re all getting older.’
Just then the door opened and Victoria came into the room. The worry of having her husband away on campaign had shown on her, and there was a tenseness about her that had never been apparent before. However, she gave signs of genuine pleasure at seeing Willie.
‘Hello, Uncle Willie,’ she said. ‘Will you be staying to lunch?’
‘Well …’ said Willie, hesitating.
‘Of course he’ll be staying to lunch,’ said Andrew, ‘and to dinner. I don’t know why the devil you don’t move over here. A five-mile trek every other day so that we can play at soldiers together. There’s plenty of room here. You could shut up Cluny Cottage and move in. Doesn’t that make sense to you?’
‘Why don’t you, Uncle Willie?’ said Victoria.
‘Och, no,’ replied Willie. ‘It’s fine the way it is. After all, I want tae keep the place nice for Maud and I enjoy pottering aboot in the garden.’
Andrew glanced out of the window at the snow-covered landscape. ‘I shouldn’t think that you are getting much gardening done at the moment.’
‘Well, not exactly,’ said Willie. ‘But there could be a thaw any time now and then I can get on wi’ the digging.’
‘I had a letter from Ian,’ said Victoria. ‘It was from Durban. They’ve been taken out of Buller’s force and moved back there. I wish they’d send them home.’
‘There’s no much chance o’ that, lassie,’ said Willie. ‘We’re sending oot men as fast as we can get them half trained. Everybody’s singing “Goodbye Dolly Gray” and then awa’ they go tae the war. It was no like this in oor time, was it, Andrew? A wee bittie here and a wee bittie there. But now there’s only one war, the big yin. And men like me and your father-in-law not allowed tae dae anything aboot it. We just sit here on our arses, sticking pins in a map while others mak’ the mistakes. Sorry, Victoria, I should no have used such language in front of you.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Victoria. ‘I’m a soldier’s wife, you know. I’ve heard it all before.’
‘Aye,’ said Willie. ‘Did somebody say something aboot lunch? I’m afu’ hungry.’
‘Come on in, Uncle Willie,’ said Victoria. ‘It’s all ready.’
In Kimberley their principal enemy was boredom. Maud Bruce had arranged her little hospital and in spite of her worries about Donald, she had continued her preparations with a group of ladies of the town. They had all received their course of instruction in first aid from Nurse Wickstead. Not that their little ward had had a single patient since Brenda died. Kimberley was fortunate in possessing a very well-equipped hospital which even boasted a primitive X-ray unit, and this had proved ample for all of the town’s needs.
Food, however, was beginning to become a problem. Fresh milk was almost non-existent and the child mortality rate had risen to alarming proportions, especially among the Bantu. Maud and her ladies did what they could to alleviate this, but the milk simply was not there. On the ninth of January, Maud tasted horse flesh for the first time in her life and had to confess, much to her own surprise, that she could barely distinguish it from good beef. Some of her friends were quite shocked at the thought of eating horse, but it was not many days before they too gave way. Cats had almost disappeared in the town. A kitten would bring as much as five shillings and sixpence, while a plump fully grown tom would bring seven shillings more. Things got to a stage where you never asked what it was that was on your plate for fear that the knowledge would spoil your appetite.
It was a month since the abortive battle of Magersfontein, when they had watched the smoke and heard the gunfire of Methuen’s army which Buller had given the task of relieving them. Their hopes of an early relief were finally dashed on the eleventh of December when the Boers sent a message into the beleaguered town saying, ‘We have smashed up your fine column.’ Later that night they had the Boers’ claim confirmed when Methuen’s searchlight blinked a message to them: ‘I am checked.’
Morale for the subsequent days was probably at its lowest ebb during the entire period of the siege, but by the turn of the year the new century was welcomed in with whatever festive fare they could scrape together. Apart from the shelling, which did little damage, the Boers made no offensive move, and strange though it may seem, spirits began to rise again.
Then there was Mr Labram. Maud found him a most charming and engaging young man, even though he was an American. He seemed to be possessed of two qualities in boundless excess, energy and mechanical knowledge. He was the chief engineer of the De Beers company and had applied himself to many tasks, including the fitting out of Maud’s ward, since the siege had begun. On the twentieth of January he proudly showed off his latest piece of engineering to an admiring populace. It was a cannon which he had constructed in twenty-four days. It was a breech loader with a rifled bore of 4.I inches, able to fire a shell weighing twenty-eight pounds. All of the town dignitaries including Rhodes, Colonel Kekewich, and many ladies, came to see Mrs Pickering, the wife of a De Beers executive, pull the lanyard to fire the first shell. Maud, along with everyone else, was suitably impressed, even though she wondered at such a warlike act being performed by a lady.
Maud was, of course, completely unaware of the politics which were going on around her; of the intense hatred which had sprung up between Rhodes and Kekewich. She felt reasonably safe. The shelling was more tiresome than it was dangerous. She stayed close to her grandchildren, always ready to be called on in an emergency, and just waited for the siege to end. Perhaps with the raising of the siege she might get some news of Donald.
Naomi stood looking at the card which was hanging on the foot of the bed. The hospital at Pietermaritzburg was enormous and she was well aware that it would only be a matter of time before someone she knew was sent there. The wounded were now coming in by the hundreds, and every day she scanned the lists to see if they contained some familiar name.
It was a vast place; there were fourteen wards, long and pillared down the centre, with a long row of cots down either side, each with its burden of suffering humanity. It was a place of smells. The smell of carbolic was everywhere as the black orderlies scrubbed the wards from end to end every day. This mingled with the smell of festering flesh, and in the dysentery ward, where they laid the men on sloping boards so that their excrement would dribble down into the bucket of carbolic at the end, the stench was indescribable.
Outside on the well-cut and watered lawns ladies, mostly of the establishment, wearing what would pass at a distance for a senior nurse’s uniform, pushed wheelchairs with convalescing patients and talked to them about the season in London and the delights of home.
Naomi was not one such as they. And it is only fair to say that many great ladies did as much as she. Naomi scrubbed, and changed filthy bandages and comforted the dying and never showed the nausea that often she felt within her. On one occasion ‒ it was two o’clock in the morning ‒ she made no protest when a dying soldier fondled her breasts.
He had looked up at her and said, ‘Eeh, lass, that were just like the missus.’ And then he died with a smile on his lips and Naomi gently covered his face with the blanket.
She never wept. Not even in the solitude of her room. There was no time for tears. Whenev
er she did stop it was because she was so tired that there was nothing left but sleep.
That morning she had found a name she recognized. Lieutenant de Vere-Smith, Duke of Beverley, of the Duke of Lancaster’s Imperial Yeomanry. The regiment was one of many which had been raised in the first months of the war and sent overseas with a minimum of training.
She had assumed that the duke must be the elder brother of Charles, whom she had not seen since that day, long ago, when he had given her the pearls and walked out of her life. Still she held him in deep affection and had resolved that she would make herself known to his brother and help in any way that was possible to provide him with little extras while he was in the hospital.
She looked from the card to the sleeping figure in the bed. It was Charles himself. There could be no doubt of that. It was not his brother, of that she was quite sure.
The man lying before her was not seriously wounded. A bullet in the shoulder had put his left arm out of action. It was nothing that should not clear up in a week or two. He had arrived at Pietermaritzburg that morning and been put in D ward, which was a ward reserved for junior officers. Exhausted after his long journey, he had gone straight to sleep and had been sleeping for about five hours when Naomi found him.
As if in answer to her presence, his eyes flickered and opened and puzzlement followed by recognition flooded his face. Naomi, for her part, did not speak. She observed the man who had been her lover and so much more for five years. He had not changed much. There were streaks of grey in his hair and his features were lined, giving them a maturity and a new attractiveness.
‘I suppose I am awake,’ he said.
She nodded, still smiling.
‘Hello, Naomi. If I am not dreaming, then I should like to know what on earth you are doing here?’
‘I might as well ask you the same,’ she replied. ‘You are not old, Charles, but surely you are a little too old to be playing at soldiers. Or is it “Your Grace,” now?’
