Blunted Lance

by Max Hennessy

He stared about him, looking at the pictures of his ancestors. None of them was very much from the point of view of art, but they represented continuity and order. The Khalifa’s capital had been nothing but disorder, his arsenal full of military material of all kinds and all periods, from battleaxes and javelins to Nordenfelt guns and Gatlings captured after the Hicks massacre. There were trophies from Abyssinia and the Congo, Gordon’s telescope, the bell of Khartoum church and the Khalifa’s carriage, made by Erler of Paris, with upholstery of flame red, yellow and puce. The march in had not been the most orderly because Kitchener had seemed to lose interest after his victory, and it had been Smith-Dorrien who had gained the honour of being first to reach the inner city, by taking his Sudanese down a side street and appearing ahead of the outraged Grenadier Guards who had confidently expected to be in the lead.

  As they reached the library, he turned and took his mother in his arms. Coming from slow, easy-going Virginia, she had fitted surprisingly well into the harsher background of Yorkshire where, if the people were warm-hearted, they were also inclined to hide it under a laconic manner. Small, bright-eyed and petite, she had been a beauty in her day, and she was forthright, firm and devoid of humbug. Perhaps that was why his father was still active, he decided, when many of his contemporaries had died or passed into oblivion, spending their lives huddled in the leather armchairs at the Cavalry Club waiting for the end.

  ‘It’s good to be home, Mother. Has it been lonely with all your family away?’

  ‘Of course. But Helen brought the children from Germany and Jane’s always handy, of course. And my cousin, Micah Love, stayed. He’s in London on business for his government. He’s a lawyer, you know. He was sorry to miss your father, because he’s fond of him. Your father carried him off the field at Parks Bridge, of course, when he was wounded in the Civil War.’

  Ackroyd entered with the decanters and began to pour drinks. When they were alone, Dabney stretched in a chair, his feet towards the fire.

  ‘How is your father, Dab?’

  ‘He’ll be home soon. All British officers temporarily employed with the Egyptian army have been returned to England. He was the same as ever. Full of beans. He dined us out in London before we separated. He was bubbling over with energy. Don’t know how he manages it. He always seems as sprightly as the youngest subaltern. He sent his love and said he’d be home in a day or two. What’s been happening here? The one thing I always missed was knowing what was happening in Braxby.’

  His mother shrugged. ‘Lord Cosgro’s dead.’

  Dabney sat up. ‘I saw it in The Times. Drank himself to death, did he?’ He paused. ‘You know what Father said? “Poor old Claude. For all his faults he was the best of the lot. I couldn’t stand him.”’

  His mother smiled. After twenty-eight years of married life, she was no longer surprised by her husband’s bluntness.

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say, Dab,’ she said.

  ‘They’re an awful family, Mother. They’re lazy, cowardly and mean, and I bet Father saw no reason to pretend to be upset. I know what he’s thinking: “Thank God, there’s one less of ’em.” With Aubrey shooting himself in Paris on the way home from Zululand, it’s thinned the ranks a bit, and perhaps that’s no bad thing.’ He looked at his mother. ‘Do you think Father ever felt guilty about Aubrey?’

  She paused, considering. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He thought he was a coward and that if he’d left him in command he’d have deserted his men again. He’d done it twice before.’

  ‘What about the third baron – Claude’s son, Walter?’

  ‘He went to live in Paris—’

  ‘That’s where Oscar Wilde went when they let him out of gaol. I expect they were together.’

  ‘I always thought Wilde rather a sad man.’

  Dabney shrugged. ‘I think they all are, Mother, on the whole, and Walter never seemed happy when he went around with Wilde and Alfred Douglas.’ He paused. ‘Personally I thought Wilde quite poisonous, but also quite harmless, but Walter Cosgro’s like the rest of his family. Douglas stood up for Wilde. Walter denied he ever even knew him.’

  His mother smiled. ‘I think that phase is over now, dear. He’s back home. He’s taken over the family firm and they say he’s good at it.’

  ‘All the Cosgros were good at screwing money out of other people,’ Dabney said bluntly. ‘And none of them had the slightest idea how to treat their employees. That’s why they were such rotten officers. They’d just as soon sack an employee of fifty years standing as look at him. We’ve always felt responsibility strikes both ways – up and down. Look at the Ackroyds.’

  Lady Goff smiled at her son. He was handsome in tweeds, young, healthy and full of life, but also full of a young man’s arrogance.

  ‘Let’s not be too smug, dear,’ she said quietly. ‘They might all up and leave us tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it, Mother. The Ackroyds wouldn’t walk out on us like that.’

  She nodded because she knew he was right. One of the things that had impressed her most when she had first met her husband’s family was the correctness of their behaviour and the fact that they paid for belonging to a privileged group by accepting the responsibility that went with it. Nevertheless, she didn’t believe in letting them get on to hobby horses, and she kissed her son quickly before he could start sounding off like a Hyde Park orator.

  He knew the sign and changed step. ‘Saw Robert just before I left London,’ he said. ‘He’s still talking of marrying Elfrida Cosgro. The man’s an ass!’

  His mother smiled. ‘Perhaps he gets it from me, dear. My family was never noted for cleverness. And Robert’s a good boy, so don’t run him down too much.’

  Determined not to listen to what he thought of his brother’s choice, she tried to hurry over the subject but he refused to budge.

  ‘Father doesn’t like it,’ he said. ‘If there’s one family he doesn’t wish to be allied to, it’s the Cosgros.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about it, dear,’ Lady Goff said placidly. ‘Marriages aren’t arranged by parents these days. After all, Helen married a German. A Prussian, too.’

  ‘And wasn’t that the surprise of the season?’ It was Dabney’s turn to smile because Karl-August von Hartmann, contrary to expectations, had proved to be a highly intelligent young man who was clearly going to go far. After Bismarck’s wars nobody had had much of a liking for the Prussians, but Karl-August’s father had known General Goff ever since the Civil War in America, and for a few days at the wedding, with all the German relations clicking their heels every time they were addressed, Braxby had looked like Potsdam. They had all brought their uniforms and the village had been treated to half the German army and diplomatic corps strutting about, until Graf von Hartmann had taken the more stiff-necked ones to one side and explained. ‘British soldiers do not wear uniforms when they can possibly avoid it’.

  Dabney’s mind was still racing on. ‘Would you mind, Mother, if I went over to see Fleur la Dell?’

  His mother smiled. ‘You fond of her, Dab?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your father would approve. He was always fond of her father. They were at school together. They rode in the Light Brigade together. He still gets a bit sentimental about him being killed in Zululand.’

  ‘Do you approve?’

  ‘Of course. Will you marry her?’

  ‘Eventually. Pity Robert couldn’t find someone like Fleur.’

  ‘The whole family can’t marry La Dells, dear. It would become rather boring. How was Robert?’

  Dabney’s face clouded over. ‘Same,’ he said. He paused. ‘I don’t think Robert enjoys active service, Mother.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘There’s something about it that makes your blood race. But it has its horrors. The food, for example.’ Dabney grinned at his
mother, trying to brush aside her worries. ‘I just don’t think Robert fits. He’ll be home soon, too. He met Elfrida in London.’

  His mother said nothing and he went on.

  ‘Father was going on about growing old. Says he’s had enough of battle, murder and sudden death.’

  ‘How did he bear up? Did the desert wear him out?’

  ‘Less than some of the youngsters. Some of ’em were arriving on a Friday, hoping to fight a battle on Saturday and go home on a Sunday, perhaps with a couple of medals to show for it, and complaining when they didn’t.’ Dabney eyed his mother. There was a curious quiet excitement inside her, and he guessed something was in the wind.

  ‘You encouraging Father to be off again?’ he asked. He grinned and kissed her. ‘I’ll bet you’ve got a lover somewhere.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ve lived long enough with him to know what makes him happy. He’d die if they sent him home and told him to grow vegetables.’

  Dabney admitted the truth of it. ‘And now? What is it you’ve got up your sleeve?’

  She smiled and produced a telegram. He stared at it suspiciously. ‘What is it? Retirement?’

  ‘You’d better read it.’

  He was loath to open it, half-afraid. ‘War Office?’

  ‘Yes. Wolseley.’

  He gazed at her for a second, then he opened the folded sheet. ‘Good God,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what your father will say, I’m sure.’

  He looked up and grinned at her. She smiled back.

  ‘He thought the Sudan would be the lot,’ Dabney said. ‘But they’ve made him Inspector of Cavalry. Full General. Well, it gives him a few more years before they put him out to grass. I expect he’ll be going abroad, to stir ’em up in all the little outstations of Empire. Will you go with him?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  Dabney put his arms round his mother. ‘You enjoy campaigning as much as he does, I swear.’

  She didn’t deny it. ‘In India once,’ she said, a faraway look in her eyes, ‘when the Pathans got into the compound and burned everything they could lay their hands on, your father and I had only a single camp bed between us for several weeks.’

  ‘Was it uncomfortable?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear. Your father was in the saddle all day and needed his rest. He had the bed. I slept on the ground.’

  ‘Wonder where they’ll send him?’

  ‘Evelyn Wood said South Africa. He says it’s South Africa where he’ll be most needed.’

  Dabney’s eyes were gleaming suddenly and he gave his mother a mischievous grin. ‘Wonder if he could do with a good aide-de-camp,’ he said.

  Two hours later, Dabney was waiting in the lane near the house where Fleur la Dell’s family lived. Born after her father’s death, Fleur was only a few months younger than Dabney and he had long since decided he wanted her for his wife.

  He’d met her first at a meet of the Braxby Hunt. While the adults drank cherry brandy and ate slabs of plum cake among the tremendous bustle of grooms and second horsemen and the cohorts of gleaming mounts, he had seen her at the other side of the crowd, sitting on a fat pony, a dark girl watching him intently. He had been riding a hard-looking dun with a hogged mane and as the fox had broken clear, it had run away with him. As the hounds had given tongue in a covert, with the whip holla-ing from the other side, everyone had bunched in the road, all pushing towards a gate leading to open country, and he had been expelled through it like a cork from a champagne bottle with shouts around him of ‘Get out of the way, blast you!’ With his horse getting its hocks under it and shooting forward, he had fought to gain control but had been unable to stop and, as the pasture lifted up in ridge and furrow to a blackthorn hedge, he had heard shouted warnings to hold back. By this time, however, he had given up trying, and the horse, which had stopped pulling and boring, had balanced itself and soared over the hedge so that he had been on the spot as the fox disappeared under a wave of tan and white. The Master, standing by his sweating horse, his moustache cock-eyed, his stock hanging loose, had called him over, complimented him on his courage and, rubbing the blood from the fox on his face, had handed him the brush.

  Proud as the devil, he had hacked back the twelve miles home with a group of youngsters, among them the dark girl who had watched him so intently.

  ‘They gave me the brush,’ he had said.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I’m Dabney Goff. Who’re you?’

  ‘Fleur la Dell.’

  She had answered without shyness and, since she had to pass Braxby on the way to her own home, she had stopped, with several other children – most of them cousins – to eat. She had been the only one who had seemed to understand when he refused to wash his face, and he had never forgotten her, and had always made a point of seeing her, during school holidays, even after he had joined the Regiment, slipping over to her home when he was on leave. She was slim, lithe, intelligent, easy to talk to – and always eager to see him. He knew he was going to marry her, and had done since he was a boy. Sometimes, the rest of the family teased him, but it was like water off a duck’s back because he knew the story as well as anyone of how his mother at the age of fifteen had told his father within two days of meeting him that she intended to marry him. Perhaps, he decided, it ran in the family.

  He had had other girl friends, of course, friendships that involved kissing and fondling, but they had never been any more than a youth’s exploration towards adulthood, because always in the background there was Fleur waiting for him as he waited for her. The conviction that they had been made for each other was a deep-rooted one. It was irrational and indefensible but he had never swerved from it and, though he told himself often he might lose her, all his life he had assumed that he would marry her, and he had often sat alone, half-dreaming, saying her name to himself over and over again – Fleur, Fleur, Fleur – while his brother Robert jeered and his sisters laughed.

  He had never experienced with her the intolerable silences he had found with other girls and was never awed, shy, apologetic, afraid of being considered impudent, never held by indecision. The thing had been so natural all the time there had never been the slightest doubt.

  Yet also there had never been any deep feeling of sex between them. Though he sometimes dreamed of seeing her as he would see her as a wife, slender, white and naked, he never thought for a minute of trying to force the issue. They had swum in the Brack together, but always with his or her brothers or sisters, they had watched birds and wandered the moors, they had ridden close to each other with the Braxby, Dabney never again wishing to be up at the front, always close by her in case of accidents, terrified that something might happen. He had cheered her successes at school and she his successes in point-to-points, and he invariably felt she was a good deal older and wiser than he.

  She appeared unexpectedly from the shadows and reached up to kiss him gently.

  ‘Hello, Dab,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m glad you’re back. Was it terrible?’

  He smiled. ‘No, Fleur. It was all right. I think I’m cut out to be a soldier. I’ve certainly never wanted to be anything else.’ He paused, lit a cigarette and offered it to her to puff. She did so inexpertly and handed it back.

  ‘We’ve just heard Father’s been appointed Inspector of Cavalry.’

  She smiled. ‘I expect he’ll be good at it,’ she said. ‘Mother says my father was terrified of him.’

  ‘He’ll be going to South Africa. There’s trouble brewing there.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘With the Boers.’

  ‘War?’

  ‘It’s beginning to look like it.’

  ‘But we’ve only just finished a war.’

  ‘I suppose it’s one of the costs of having an Empire as big as ours. They’re always having wars i
n South Africa. Little ones – against the Kaffirs or the Zulus. Nothing much.’

  ‘My father was killed fighting the Zulus,’ she said quietly.

  Realising his gaffe, he took her hand and held it tightly then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. It was cool. For a moment she stood still, then she turned and put her arms round him.

  ‘I love you, Dabney,’ she said.

  ‘I love you, too, Fleur. And I want you to know it, because I’m going to see Evelyn Wood to try to get an attachment to the 5th Lancers. They’re in Natal, and if I can, I might persuade my father to accept me as an aide.’

  ‘Your father’s never been a believer in influence.’

  ‘No, but he’s a great believer in staff experience. He’s always sounding off about the fact that we haven’t got a general staff like the Germans.’

  She watched him quietly. ‘If you get this attachment, Dab, will that mean you’ll be involved if there’s a war?’

  ‘It wouldn’t last long. The Boers are only farmers.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Dab.’

  He grinned at her and, holding her close, kissed her again. ‘Then marry me, Fleur.’

  ‘Of course!’ She seemed surprised that he should bother to ask. ‘But not immediately. Mother might not wish it yet.’

  ‘We could elope.’

  ‘No, Dab.’ She pecked his cheek. ‘Later. You know what they say: Lieutenants may not marry. Captains might. Colonels must.’

  ‘I can’t wait until I’m a colonel. Couldn’t we get engaged? Couldn’t I see your mother and ask her?’

  ‘Let’s just leave it as an understanding.’

  Dabney sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘There’s already enough trouble in the offing. Robert wants to marry Elfrida Cosgro.’

  Four

  South Africa, Dabney realised, was bigger than people thought.

  Beneath him, as he swayed and rocked from the motion of the train, the line ran in enormous loops between the rusty kopjes of the Great Karroo Desert. There was little to do but view the scenery and stare through the rain-spattered windows of the carriage at the scattered herds of springbok in the distance searching for the sparse new grass shooting up through the rocky soil.