As dusk slid quickly through its spectrum into darkness, an oversized full moon rose in majestic silence from the near-flat ocean. Lorna breathed in the warm salt air with obvious pleasure. ‘Mmm. If it stays like this tomorrow, might I suggest crayfish for lunch?’
It had been many years since Dallas first tried catching the giant red-backed crustaceans with a homemade basket trap based on Scottish lobster pots. His design worked well and crayfish soon became a holiday favourite, along with mussels and oysters gathered off the rocks at low tide.
‘Sounds good to me.’
Something happened to the family when they stayed at Umdhloti. Unconventional already, at least by society’s standards, Lorna and Dallas had seen nothing wrong in allowing their children to play naked on the beach, tearing around in unrestrained exuberance. Although less ebullient than their offspring, both were quick to embrace each new fashion as it appeared, delighting in a growing freedom of dress and behaviour. To them, change meant that old attitudes were, at last, catching up with their mutually held belief in common sense.
Relaxing in canvas-backed deckchairs that evening, enjoying pre-dinner drinks – Champagne for Lorna; Dallas, his favourite Islay malt – they watched the waves break, surging up the beach only to be sucked back in a foam of shimmering phosphorescence. As the sea retreated towards low tide, hundreds of crabs performed a moonlit ballet while newly exposed rocks took on lithograph-sharp outlines of black against white. Both sight and sound combined to bring a sense of total tranquillity and Lorna soon fell under its spell. She was wearing an orange and white bathing suit of the very latest design. It covered her from neck to knee but was frilly, frothy and feminine with a cheeky slit from neck to cleavage and very short sleeves which ended above the elbow. Drawn in at the waist it ballooned out until caught by laces just under each kneecap. It might have been a clown’s outfit except that, on Lorna, it was chic and ever so naughty. The matching look on her face showed that she loved it. A mobcap was supposed to top off the outfit but she’d decided against it, allowing her hair to spring free. Bare feet simply added an element of defiance.
It mattered little to Lorna that no-one other than Dallas and the servants was there to see her. Umdhloti was not frequented by many people and being mid-week, those fortunate enough to own property there were not in evidence. Lorna could cavort to her heart’s content.
Earlier they had played a game of badminton and the hot flush on her cheeks had told Dallas that Lorna was determined to win. She had, though not by much. Dallas blamed it on his bad leg.
She swatted at him. ‘Liar.’
The ships were still out there, dark silhouettes against a solid silver sea, constant reminders that the world and war were not far away.
Dallas sensed Lorna looking at him in the moonlight and turned towards her. He loved this woman so much, sometimes it threatened to engulf him. If he had a recurring nightmare, it was of losing Lorna.
‘You’ve got that look on your face, ’she told him.
‘What look?’
‘The one that tells me you’re about to say something soppy.’
‘Soppy! I take exception, Madame.’
‘So you admit it.’
He chuckled. ‘Guilty.’
He felt her fingers, warm against the skin of his forearm. ‘Thank you, ’ she said softly. ‘I was losing my way.’
Dallas picked up her hand, turned it palm up and kissed it gently. ‘You will never do that, not for as long as I draw breath.’
She nodded acceptance. ‘I know. And that’s the most comforting feeling in this world.’ Her eyes never left his face. ‘I’m afraid there’s still some distance to go.’
‘Not as far as you might think. And I’m here to walk with you. Don’t ever forget that.’
‘Never.’
They ate steaks by candlelight, their own beef, cooked to rare perfection on an open fire and served without gravy or sauce of any kind. Salad was picked at with fingers. The same went for boiled new potatoes, swimming in butter and topped with a sprinkling of mint. At the coast the family preferred to keep life simple. No dressing up, no silver-set table, no formality of any kind. Lorna had found a few frangipani flowers and floated them in dishes on the table. Their fragrance wafted over them. For good measure, she placed another behind one ear. Looking at his love of almost thirty years in her orange and white outfit, hair hanging in unrestrained curls, the flowers, candles and casual way of eating, Dallas felt they might have been in a different world. The incessant mosquitoes didn’t give a damn where they were.
They made love that night with the tenderness of newlyweds. ‘I remember our first time, ’ he whispered later.
‘Me too.’ Lorna hesitated. ‘Who was your first?’
Dallas propped himself on an elbow. ‘You’ve never asked me that before.’
‘I’ve never wanted to know.’
‘Why now?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘No particular reason.’ Shrugging, she went on. ‘Curiosity.’
‘The answer might disappoint you.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘It was in London. A brothel. Father took me.’
‘The Earl?’ Lorna appeared more amused than disappointed.
Dallas laughed. ‘He said it was about time I found out about such things. It was all so matter-of-fact; the man might as well have been speaking about his cattle.’
Lorna gave a snort of mirth. ‘Oh dear me, Dallas. How young you must have been.’
‘I was seventeen and as green as they come, ’he admitted.
‘What happened?’
‘I can barely recall. Terrified is a word that springs to mind. I stood in a lavishly furnished room, deep red it was, turning my hat round and round in my hands and not knowing what to do next.’ He gave a self-deprecatory grin. ‘Fortunately, one of the ladies took pity on me. Father went off with someone and left me to it. This woman ... Constance, that was it, though for the life of me I don’t know why I remember her name ... Anyway, Constance took my hand and led me upstairs. It was a disaster.’
Lorna shook her head, laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Dallas demanded.
‘I just can’t imagine you behaving like that.’
‘I was young. The fact that my father instigated the experience was acutely embarrassing. I’d have preferred to keep that part of my life a secret.’
‘My father did something similar for Charles.’
‘Well, I most certainly didn’t for Cameron.’
‘He didn’t need help.’
‘How do you know?’
‘People talk.’
‘People! Like Duncan or Torben, perhaps?’
‘Mmm.’ She would not be drawn further, preferring the original subject. ‘What do you mean it was a disaster?’
‘Must we speak of this?’
‘We most certainly must, ’ she said firmly. ‘I’m enjoying every minute of it.’
Dallas hemmed and hawed for a while before accepting the inevitable. ‘I was shaking like a leaf. Constance was very considerate. She took my hand, led me to the bed, even undressed me – and was kind enough not to remark on the fact that I didn’t appear to be ...er ...ready.’
‘Not a problem I’ve ever noticed.’
He hugged her in appreciation. ‘No, thank God. Um ...anyway, she was skilful and patient. Before long ...well ... once I got the idea – ’ Dallas broke off. ‘For God’s sake, Lorna, can we change the subject?’
She snuggled into him, stretching a possessive arm across his naked body. ‘Yes.’
‘What brought all that on?’
‘I needed to know.’
The penny finally dropped, or at least he thought it did. Lorna was vulnerable and somehow it helped to embarrass him. She knew full well the reason he had been forced to leave Scotland. Dallas had been only twenty-one when his affair with Lorna’s mother, a woman nearly twice his age, was discovered, and, to protect her reputation, Lady Alison de Iongh wa
s forced to accuse him of rape – at the time a hanging offence. True, she had not provided Dallas with his first experience of the opposite sex but did Lorna know that? Even after so many years it was still a subject they never discussed.
Feeling slightly hurt– it was as though she didn’t trust him – Dallas tried to understand. Slowly came the realisation that it had nothing to do with the past, or doubt. She simply needed to demonstrate her love for him by talking openly about subjects which had always been a closed book between them. It proved to be the key which unlocked much of the private sorrow still trapped within her.
They spoke for hours and by the time Lorna drifted into exhausted sleep, Dallas knew how deep was the abyss into which his wife had fallen. She was trying to climb back and with his being there was managing to make progress. Until that evening Dallas hadn’t fully understood the way in which Frazer’s death had affected Lorna. Surprised that he hadn’t seen it before, realisation only dawned when he recalled his relationship with his own mother. Dallas had loved and respected his late father but Lady Pamela stood out as something more– a friend, the one person in this world who had known him inside out and loved him like no other. Although she had died five years earlier – at the age of sixty-nine – something quite strange suddenly occurred to him. The day was 21 January, her birthday. At that moment he knew it was no coincidence. Wherever she might be, Lady Pamela had just helped him understand the magnitude of Lorna’s loss.
Cradling her in his arms, Dallas too succumbed to sleep. The healing had started.
FOURTEEN
Aware of Lord Roberts’s imminent arrival in Cape Town, General Sir Redvers Buller decided to demonstrate his command of the situation in Natal by making a flanking movement to try to get behind the Boer forces besieging Ladysmith. He knew the garrison had been reduced to eating horse meat, though even that could not last more than a few weeks. The South African Light Horse made up a small part of the three thousand cavalry at Buller’s disposal. They led the move west, followed by nineteen thousand infantry and some sixty artillery pieces.
Cameron was buoyed by the thought of action, the creak of saddle leather music to his ears as they left behind the stinking heat and boredom of Chieveley, their task to secure two possible crossings of the Thukela. This they did with ease, encountering no enemy resistance and setting up a base camp on Spearman’s farm, near Mount Alice. There they waited for six days, until the main force finally caught up. With it came Will. His relief at finding Cameron fit and well was obvious, though he didn’t much take to his godson’s new-found English friend, Winston Churchill, who seemed to have a better way of doing everything.
While Sir Charles Warren’s infantry laid pontoon bridges and crossed the river, Dundonald’s cavalry ranged north, towards Acton Homes, successfully ambushing a Boer komando and reaching open country behind General Botha’s position. The back door to Ladysmith was well and truly open.
‘I don’t believe it, ’ Cameron commiserated with Winston when he heard they had been called back. ‘If Buller thinks we’re too spread out, why doesn’t he close up on our position and split the enemy’s defences? Dammit, man. Ladysmith is less than two days away.’
‘He’s worried about his supply line, ’ Winston pointed out. ‘It’s stretched already. If the Boers cut him off he could lose the entire army. It takes a ton of provisions each day to keep a hundred men in the field. Redvers has twenty thousand. A disaster like that could lose us this war.’
‘Point taken, Winston. Would you take the chance?’
‘Without a doubt.’
Lookout Hill, better known as Spion Kop, was to be the pivot point. On the night of 23 January, Lieutenant Colonel Alec Thorneycroft – wearing his all-too-familiar ‘TMI’ stencilled helmet – led two thousand men of General Woodgate’s Lancashire Brigade as well as his own normally mounted infantry, in a night attack on the fourteen-hundred-foot outcrop of weathered rock. They gained what was thought to be the summit at 0400 hours, a final bayonet charge dispersing the few Boer defenders into an impenetrable blanket of morning mist.
The flat plateau was only as big as the area needed for a good game of cricket, and a shallow defensive trench was dug on the assumed crest. As a new day dissipated the mist it became clear that their only protection lay a good two hundred yards from where it should have been. Unbeknown to Buller – or General Warren, who waited below– the Boers had already withdrawn seven thousand men and twelve heavy guns from their siege of Ladysmith. Come the dawn they commenced pounding the exposed British positions with shrapnel shells and a hail of sniper fire from two higher kopjes which remained in their hands. General Woodgate was killed shortly after 0830 hours.
It was not long before General Botha’s Carolina and Pretoria komandos reached the rim and added to the deadly barrage. In a heliograph message from below, Warren promoted Thorneycroft to Brigadier-General, giving him command of the hilltop. The summer sun beat down mercilessly. Still there were no reinforcements and it fell to Thorneycroft to rally the flagging morale of his men, some of whom opted for surrender and were taken prisoner before a white flag could be torn down by their new leader.
One of the Natal volunteers, Stanley King, led an attempt to reach a rocky outcrop on the plateau’s edge, the place where their forward position was supposed to be. He and those who followed were cut to pieces by the pinpoint accuracy of enemy marksmen. Thorneycroft tried himself but fell, twisting his ankle – an accident which probably saved his life.
As the cloudless summer day wore on, casualties mounted on both sides. Confined to their meagre protection, without food, water or shelter, British losses were less obvious. It was a fact that seemed to demoralise the Boers, who quickly fell back when faced with a bayonet charge by Thorneycroft’s long-awaited reinforcements. The advantage didn’t last long.
With the Light Horse being held in reserve, Winston and Cameron decided to see for themselves what was happening on the plateau. There had been no news for hours. Leaving their mounts at the white-tented field hospital they cautiously climbed the hill and looked out on a scene of indescribable carnage. They saw the smashed heliograph and decided to report an immediate and critical need for further assistance. On General Warren’s orders, Cameron rejoined his unit while Winston returned to the summit with a handwritten message for Thorneycroft telling him that the desperately awaited men and artillery were on their way.
It was now after dark, making it impossible to see that the Boers had abandoned their positions and retreated, leaving only the unnerving sounds made by the wounded or dying. Thorneycroft had no idea that he had won the day and by midnight – still without water or the promised support, low on ammunition and with half his men killed, wounded or taken prisoner – he chose to save those who remained.
Two days later, Spion Kop was reoccupied by the Boers and General Botha communicated a truce to clear the dead and wounded of both sides. The day passed in eerie silence as friend and foe sought out any who were still alive. The dead were buried where they had fallen. Nearly two hundred and fifty British soldiers lay in the trench alone. Half as many again had been lost by the Boers. As Indian doolie-bearers carried those unable to walk from the hill, the search for survivors went on and an ashen-faced photographer recorded the scene for posterity.
Cameron was carefully checking casualties who had fallen beside a rocky outcrop. Suddenly something moved against his ankle. Looking down he saw a huge blood-soaked hand flex, its owner almost hidden under two dead bodies. Gently Cameron rolled one aside, the man’s sightless eyes staring accusingly back as if objecting to the intrusion. The second couldn’t have cared less, his face torn to pieces by an impact-exploding pom-pom shell. It was impossible to tell which bits of bone or how much blood belonged to the one man left alive. He wore no khaki uniform– none of those surrounding Cameron did – meaning they were probably Natal volunteers from Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry.
Cameron held up a hand to summon stretcher-bearers. ‘Over here, �
� he yelled, dropping to his knees beside the wounded man, subconsciously muttering encouragement in Zulu.
The softly spoken sound brought a surprising response: one whispered word – ‘Bayete’– the Zulu war cry. This man was most certainly from Natal. His eyes flickered open for a second and in their dark-brown depths Cameron saw a spark of recognition.
Carefully the doolie-bearers lifted him onto a stretcher. He was big all right, obviously strong, probably in his mid to late thirties, and swarthy, with dark, receding hair. Cameron had no idea who the man might be or whether he would survive.
Buller blamed the fifty-nine year old Warren for his latest misfortune, one which left him no option but to pull back south of the Thukela.
On Spearman’s farm, the anticipated arrival of more troops and artillery tempted Buller to wait where he was, then try to break through the Boer line slightly further east, this time at Vaal Krantz. The fresh faces included Winston’s nineteen year old brother, Jack, for whom he had pulled strings to secure a commission in the South African Light Horse.
On 5 February the assault began. Long-range 4.7-inch quick-firing guns, borrowed from the navy, pounded Boer positions across the river, though the troops who did manage to cross the fast-flowing Thukela were soon forced to dig in and suffer a similar bombardment. For two days it went on. The Light Horse could do nothing but watch and wait. Unable to take the high ground and faced with what was far from ideal cavalry country, Buller once more decided to pull back. The failed attempt added more than three hundred casualties to his losses. In just over two weeks some eighteen hundred British troops had been killed, wounded or captured. Confidence in Buller himself was at an all-time low.
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