Solitaire

by Masterton, Graham

‘I – I –’ she began, but she was trembling too much to say any more. She felt freezing cold, and when she covered her breasts with her arm, the nipples were as tough and tight as buttons.

  ‘You’ve got to finish the job,’ said Simon de Koker. ‘I’m not going to die like this. Not bleeding my guts art.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Sara told him, in a hot colliding rush of words. ‘Oh my God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.’

  Simon de Koker slowly turned towards his coat, which he had left on top of the salt-barrel. ‘In the left-hand pocket, you’ll find some more shells,’ he told her. ‘Take one out, that’s it, and I’ll tell you what to do next.’

  In the gloom, Sara dropped his coat on to the floor, and two or three of the shells rolled away between the boxes of provisions. But she managed to catch one of them, and clutch it in her hand, and sit up straight again, facing Simon de Koker with a feeling of such anguish and shame that she could not do anything but hold it up, and blurt, ‘Here.’

  Simon de Koker nodded. It took him a few moments to catch enough air in his lungs to be able to say anything. Then he whispered, ‘Pull back the bolt on top of the rifle … to eject the empty … Then insert the new cartridge … that’s right … wait, I can’t see you very well … Then push the bolt back in again … The action of pulling back the bolt … will have … the action of pulling … will have cocked it again.’

  Sara’s arms seemed to have lost all of their co-ordination. She felt as if she were trying to load the rifle with wooden butter-pats. But at last she managed to jiggle home the bolt, and lift the muzzle again, and say to Simon de Koker in the most haunted of voices, ‘It’s done.’

  With the deliberate slowness of someone who feels very tired, or melancholic, Simon de Koker reached up with one blood-spattered hand and guided the rifle towards his mouth. He closed his lips around it, and then turned his eyes towards Sara, neither pitifully nor appealingly, but in simple resignation at what had to be done. Sara could hardly see him through the tears which suddenly sparkled and danced in front of her eyes.

  Hunt said, ‘Sara –!’ and that was all she needed. A word to break the spell of her own horror. A word to remind her that she could not sit here a fraction of a second longer, undressed, in the company of a hideously wounded man. She tugged at the trigger, and Simon de Koker’s face vanished as abruptly as a china pot knocked off the top of a wall. She did not even hear the bang this time.

  Hunt had blankets ready for her as she stepped down from the waggon. There was blood on her knees where she had been crouching down, and she was shaking as uncontrollably as an epileptic. Hunt glanced into the darkness of the waggon cover, and then followed her across to the fire. ‘More wood,’ he said to Nareez. ‘Let’s get this fire burning up really decently, shall we? And brandy.’

  Joel was sitting up in his bedroll, his face strained and white. ‘He’s dead?’ he asked. It was an irrelevant question, but he had to hear the answer.

  Hunt said, in a citric voice, ‘A casualty of war. It was quite monstrous, anyway, the idea of selling that marvellous diamond to pay for arms and ammunition, especially since they were going to be used against the British. We must have some principles, mustn’t we? Some sense of honour, and love of the country that gave us our birthright.’

  ‘Shah!’ Joel told him, venomously. ‘Sara – are you all right?’

  Sara lifted her head up and down like a marionette. ‘It’s the shock,’ chipped in Hunt. ‘A little brandy, a little sleep, and she’ll be perfectly all right.’

  Nareez had ignored Hunt’s orders to go for more firewood, but she came across with a half-bottle of Napoleon brandy, which she poured into an enamel mug and placed carefully between Sara’s shivering fingers. ‘You drink now,’ she cooed, gently, stroking Sara’s hair. ‘Don’t think about anything at all. Just drink.’

  ‘Well, I think she deserves congratulation,’ said Hunt, with his hands perched on his hips, like a dapper little school boy admiring a cracking good innings at house cricket. ‘She said she was going to knock the fellow for six, and she did. I think she’s an absolute brick.’

  ‘For the love of God, who is understanding and merciful, will you please stop behaving as if this is the snooker-room at Government House?’ Joel pleaded. ‘Go get some wood. That would be useful. The amah’s not going to do it.’

  Hunt sighed, misunderstood but unabashed, and started circling around in search of logs. ‘Always thought Indians were rather keen on this kind of thing,’ he mumbled to himself, as he disappeared behind the line of tethered horses.

  Sara finished her brandy, and then threw her head back, and closed her eyes, and stayed silent and still for two or three minutes, the fog prickling her face as it was slowly and wetly precipitated across the valley of the Sand River. Joel looked questioningly at Nareez, but Nareez gave him a little shake of her hand as if to say that he should not worry. A dog barked, somewhere far off in the darkness; or perhaps it was an ape.

  Sara opened her eyes. Joel watched her a moment longer, and then said, ‘I didn’t think you’d do it.’

  Sara lowered her head, and ran her fingers into her hair. ‘I had to,’ she said.

  ‘The world needs more women like you.’

  She turned to him, and made a bitter face. ‘Does it? Or is it just that men like you need more women like me?’

  ‘You’re being unfair to both of us,’ said Joel.

  ‘And you don’t know what you’re saying. If there were more women in the world like me, then I don’t think you would care for the world very much, and neither would I. You see only what you want to see, don’t you, when you look at me? You never see the struggle that goes on beneath the lace and the jewellery.’

  ‘Struggle?’ said Joel. ‘Why should you ever have to struggle?’

  Sara stood up, keeping her blanket wrapped tightly around her. ‘I have to struggle because I’m strong. At least, I could have been strong, if my background and my upbringing had allowed me to be. Can you imagine what it’s like, to be born into a wealthy colonial family? Well, I don’t suppose you can. It’s the most privileged, marvellously idle life you can think of. I loved every minute of it, and I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t. I liked the riding, I liked the parties, I liked the gossip. And it was just as well that I did; because if I chafed against the life, like some women do, then I probably would have ended up mad.’

  She was quiet for a little while, and then she said, more gently, ‘I had freedom, of course, and money, and whatever dresses I wanted. But it was not considered proper for me to express a political opinion; or to show interest in anybody whose station was below mine; or to be too “enthusiastic”. I was quite amazed that my parents consented to my marrying Barney; but then he did own diamond mines, and he had travelled halfway across Africa to find me; and he was Jewish. Mama found him rather romantic.’

  Joel rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that,” he mused, with obvious sarcasm, ‘He is rather romantic. I don’t know what else he is, but he is rather romantic.’

  Sara drew a deep breath, and looked back towards the waggon. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘my strength finally overcame my upbringing, and look how violent it turned out to be.’

  Joel held up the gazelle-skin bag, dangling on the end of her gold chain. ‘You won’t forget the whole reason you did it, will you? You left it in Nareez’s blankets.’

  Sara came over and took the pouch, and hung it around her neck again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think you’re the only one who really understands what I feel.’

  Joel smiled at her, and kissed her cheek.

  It was left to Hunt to drag Simon de Koker’s stiffened body out of the waggon at first light, and bury him in a shallow depression by the stand of trees. He was still panting and perspiring as Sara and he stood by the grave and said a prayer for Simon de Koker’s departed soul. Nareez was busy swilling blood from the planks of the waggon’s floor; and Joel was sitting by the as
hes of the campfire, trying to shave in icy cold water.

  They had decided by default rather than by general consent to make straight for Durban, where Sara believed that her father could help them market the diamond, perhaps to one of his Indian or Persian business friends; and where Hunt could board a steamer for England and for anonymity. Sara was sure that Barney would eventually discover that she was back with her parents, but by that time the diamond would be long gone, and Gerald Sutter’s lawyers would be quite capable of dealing with any infamous suggestions that Barney might level against Sara that she had taken the Natalia Star. She had left him because he had wrongfully deceived her about his social status in Kimberley, and because he had been intolerably cruel to her. He had been an ogre, and a Jewish ogre at that. Now he was showing his obsessive cruelty even more openly, by accusing her of stealing a valuable diamond!

  This was their plan, anyway. At least, it was mostly Sara’s and Hunt’s plan. Joel had not yet completely decided what he was going to do; or if he had, he was not telling any of the others what it was. He remained smiling but uncommunicative as they heaved him up on to the freshly-scrubbed waggon, harnessed the horses, and prepared to head eastwards through the morning fog.

  ‘I must say it’s all gone rather well,’ remarked Hunt, brightly. ‘But I pity those poor Boer chaps at Wesselstroom. They’re going to have a frightfully long wait if they’re expecting us to turn up in a day or two!’

  ‘I pity de Koker,’ said Sara, baldly; and Hunt could not think of a reply to that. He grimaced like a disgruntled child, and stayed quiet for the next half an hour.

  By mid-afternoon, they had reached Colenso, where they stopped to water and feed the horses, and to buy smoked bacon and bran from one of the small farmhouses there. There were a few British Army tents pitched five or six hundred yards away on the banks of one of the tributaries of the Tugela River, among the scrub and the trees, and a cooking-fire was sending up a lazy spiral of smoke into the fog. After he had brought out a thick side of bacon for them on his shoulder, the farmer told them about the massacre at Isandhlwana, only fifty miles or so to the north-east, and about the defence of Rorke’s Drift. He was a red, grizzled little Afrikaner, who had decided in 1842 that the trek back across the mountains to the Transvaal was too much for him. He gave bacon and fresh eggs to the British soldiers, and in return they left his farm and his daughters grudgingly alone.

  ‘So,’ said Hunt, as they sat around the waggon by the roadside, and ate a scrappy lunch of biscuits and bacon, ‘it seems as if Sir Bottled Beer finally went ahead and made a right royal mess of things!’

  ‘They’ll crush the Zulu in the end, though, won’t they?’ asked Sara.

  ‘Of course,’ said Hunt. ‘The Zulu are terribly fierce, but they don’t have any idea of what they’re up against; or even why they’re up against it. They only have one tactic, too: the “chest and horns”, and even Lord Chelmsford should know how to cope with that. God knows what went wrong at this Isandhlwana place, but you can bet your boots that Sir Bottle will want his revenge. I wouldn’t be sitting in the royal kraal at Ulundi now for all the tea in China. Not me!’

  ‘Talking of tea,’ said Sara, quietly, ‘we seem to have run completely out.’

  ‘Didn’t that farmer have any?’ asked Hunt.

  Nareez said, ‘I forgot to ask him. I’m sorry. I’ll go back and see.’

  Sara stood up, rather quickly. ‘It’s all right. I feel like a ride. I’ll go down and ask those soldiers. They’re bound to have some. The British Army survives on tea.’

  She untethered one of the spare horses from the back of the waggon, threw a blanket over its back, and mounted it. ‘I won’t be a minute!’ she called, and rode off down the rocky slope at the side of the road towards the Army encampment. Her horse slipped and hesitated, but eventually made its way down to level ground.

  ‘Well,’ said Joel, ‘there she goes.’

  Hunt frowned at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, precisely?’

  ‘It means, there she goes. That’s the last we’ll see of her. Isn’t that right, Nareez?’

  Nareez looked cross. ‘She went to fetch tea. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh, she went to fetch tea, did she? Well, you watch her. She’s going to skirt right around those Army tents, and ride parallel to the road until she gets two or three miles further east; and then she’s going to rejoin the road again and ride like all hell until she’s so far ahead of us that we can’t catch up, not with a waggon.’

  ‘That’s not right!’ protested Nareez. ‘She will not betray you!’

  Joel shook his head. ‘She’s been thinking about it all day. I’ve been watching her face, and I could tell. First of all, with Simon de Koker dead, it seemed like a good idea to take the diamond to Durban and split it three ways. But then she probably began to think, why split it at all? I killed de Koker, I did all the dirty work, why should I share the diamond with anybody? Especially with a nancy-boy like Hunt, and a cripple like Joel. And they won’t hurt Nareez, those two, so she can meet up with me later.’

  ‘I am telling you, Mr Blitz, she went for tea!’ said Nareez.

  Joel lifted himself up a little, and then pointed down the valley of the Tugela. Sara had already passed the military encampment; and through the fog they could hear the soldiers whistling at her. Now she was following the course of the tributary north-eastwards, with her horse stepping carefully over the rocks, and she was almost invisible in the greyness, a disappearing ghost.

  Joel grinned. ‘There you are, Nareez, she’s gone, just like you knew she would. All that ridiculous play-acting about tea! “I’m sorry, Mrs Sara, I’ll go back and see if there’s any tea.” “Oh no, Nareez, I’ll just get on my horse and trot down to get some from the soldiers. The British Army thrives on tea!” Tea! You women make me choke.’

  Nareez said, ‘It is rightfully hers, the diamond. It is a small thing, to compensate her for the suffering she has been through.’

  ‘What suffering?’ Joel demanded. ‘A few boring months at Kimberley? And Barney never mistreated her, did he? Whatever you say about Barney, he always behaved like a gentleman, and a husband, whenever Sara would let him. He didn’t love her. That was plain enough. But he didn’t make her suffer.’

  ‘I like to hear brothers standing up for each other,’ said Hunt, prissily. Joel ignored him, and twisted himself over sideways, so that he could dig his hand deep into his overcoat pocket. Grunting, he tugged at the lining, until at last he was able to withdraw his fist and sit up straight again.

  ‘She may think she deserves all kinds of things, your charge and mistress,’ said Joel. ‘But what she thinks she deserves and what she’s actually got are two different things. Look.’

  He opened his hand, and there on his palm was the Natalia Star, shining dully in the dull afternoon light.

  Hunt, in delight, applauded. ‘Joel, you’re a positive genius! I thought the diamond was around her neck!’

  ‘What she has around her neck is a stone I picked up near Mont aux Sources, when we were crossing the Drakensberg. Every time the waggon was held up, I sorted through the pebbles beside the road until I found one that was almost the same size and shape as the diamond. Yesterday night, when she shot de Koker, she left the pouch in Nareez’s blankets; thinking that I was asleep. I took out the diamond, and substituted the stone. A rock for a rock.’

  Nareez clenched her fists. ‘You are a teef! You are a terrible teef!’

  Joel laughed in her face. ‘I’m not as much of a thief as Sara; or as any of you. This diamond is legally half mine, in any case. I shall share some of the proceeds with you both, for helping me get to Durban; but I warn you that if you try to betray me to the authorities, you won’t get very far. I shall simply say that you kidnapped me, and tried to steal the diamond which rightfully belongs to me and my brother. At the very worst, I shall be forced to share the diamond fifty-fifty with Barney. At the very best, you will both be hung for abduction and theft.’
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  ‘I suppose there’s a Yiddish word for this kind of ruse,’ said Hunt, cuttingly.

  Joel held up the diamond, and a single piercing star of refracted light caught Hunt’s eye. ‘We call it a chachma,’ said Joel. ‘A wily trick.’

  Nareez, who was looking the other way, spat noisily on to the ground.

  *

  Even in bright sunlight, the valleys formed by the tributaries of the Tugela River can be hopelessly misleading. In unrelenting fog, they are an endless nightmare of twists and turns and blind alleys, a Chinese puzzle in different shades of grey.

  Sara knew that the tributary of the Tugela which flowed north-eastwards from Colenso joined the main river about fifteen miles downstream from Ladysmith; and that if she followed the main river about thirty miles further, she would cross the Newcastle-to-Durban road at Tugela Ferry. All she would have to do then would be to ride hard through Ugg and Greytown, following the road for two or three days until she reached Durban.

  She had chosen to ride by a completely different road in case her horse went lame, and Joel was able to catch up with her; or in case they sent Hunt riding on ahead.

  What had seemed like a simple escape in principle, though, became more and more confusing and frightening as the day went on. For some reason, around the tiny settlement of Stendal, she began to believe that she had lost her way; and after she had taken a short cut across the brow of a foggy kopje between one tributary and another, she mistook the Tugela River itself for the tributary that ran into the Tugela from Empangueni. She forded the Tugela on her horse, and continued to ride north-eastwards, wet and shivering, when she should have been riding south-eastwards.

  Later in the afternoon, the fog began to clear, and the sun came out, wan and yellow at first, but then brightly enough to finish the day with long shadows and a pottery-blue sky, and birdsong. Sara felt better, and stopped to rest her horse and drink from a small stream. She had no food or bottled water with her: she had been counting on finding the Greytown road before dark, and stopping for supper at a farmhouse or an Army encampment.