Ellie felt her heart miss a beat. Everything fitted.
Duncan looked sharply at his sister and a smile passed between them, wiping away any feelings of weariness. It seemed that the search was over.
Marie Burger had always known the day must come when some stranger would take away her reason for living. It was why she hadn’t gone to the hospital. The English doctor didn’t need to be told her child’s name and seemed better informed about Alice than she was. It was the beginning of the end.
Two days later Major John Scott arrived at the camp with a letter ironically signed by Sir Alfred Milner himself, now Baron Milner of St James’s and Cape Town, the skilled politician whose backing of Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit had been largely to blame for starting the war in South Africa. With the officer from military intelligence were two civilians who, he explained, had come to collect the toddler being looked after by Marie Burger. He introduced them as the child’s real father, Mister Petersen, and his mother from Natal.
Knowing Major Scott and being satisfied that the paperwork was in order, the handover of a confused and tearful Alice was a mere formality, nothing more than another statistic. Nobody gave a moment’s thought to Marie Burger, who later that day was found hanging from the pole in her tent. Middelburg camp records showed her death as accidental. Only the numbers had to tally.
Torben would never learn that the woman who had been a mother to his daughter for the last eight months had taken her own life.
TWENTY-NINE
Dallas had been in a sultry Durban for five days and it was driving him mad. There was still no word from Lorna or Torben, and although he had promised to stay at the Berea house until their return, time was beginning to drag.
Gerda kept very much to herself, which was probably a good thing. She thought Torben had gone on another of his business trips and didn’t seem to find it strange that Lorna went with him. Lanice came to the house every day, which meant that Dallas could at least get out and attend to other matters. He had never met the woman before, though the rumours of her past life were well known to him. Dallas instinctively liked Lanice, who was genuinely concerned for Gerda, and by keeping her occupied had managed to reduce her sister’s dependence on drugs to almost nothing. They would play cribbage, crochet, cut and arrange flowers, even just talk. As long as Gerda had somebody with her and something to do, she was fine.
Dallas’s business meetings did not take nearly as long as he had expected. For some time there had been talk of new land releases by the government for those willing to plant sugar cane. The scheme was still some way off and Dallas couldn’t help but wonder who gave anybody other than the Zulus the right to dictate what happened to their land. Times were certainly changing and, for the Zulus, not for the better.
Sir Liege Hulett was talking sugar production in the foreseeable future of thirty thousand tons from Zululand alone. Almost fifteen tons of cane had to be processed to yield one ton of sugar so at thirty tons to the acre– high in comparison with Natal – that would mean planting over fifteen thousand acres. Dallas had applied for new cane quotas, which he was surprised to find had been approved without the usual bureaucratic delays and conditions.
Sitting in the Durban Club he scanned the Natal Mercury for news of the war. Even that seemed to have gone quiet, though he noticed that the blockhouse line from Kroonstad to Lindley was due for completion by the year’s end. Mention of Lindley started him thinking about Frazer, who had been killed not far from there. It all seemed so long ago. Dallas could picture the place and recalled his promise to Lorna that he would bring their son home. Somehow it was no longer important. He was with them always. Would Lorna see it the same way, he asked himself.
Dallas had no plans for the afternoon and was wondering what to do when he remembered Cecily and Stephen. Were they back from Bechuanaland? Only one way to find out, he decided, freshening himself up in the cloakroom and letting an Indian valet polish his shoes while he waited for Torben’s carriage and driver.
A Zulu Dallas didn’t recognise answered the door and asked him to wait while he found out if visitors were being received. The fact that somebody was home lifted Dallas’s spirits as he stood in the hall, hat in hand, looking around. They must have returned very recently, he realised, noticing still-drawn curtains and dust covers on some of the furniture. It was dark and, thank goodness, quite a lot cooler than outside, where the weather was building to an afternoon thunderstorm. The servant returned and bid him follow.
Stephen Holgate was only two years younger than Dallas but the stick-thin figure who greeted him was not the man he knew. ‘Hello, Dallas, what a pleasant surprise, ’he said. ‘Sorry about the shambles, old chap. New staff and all that. Must get round to doing something about it.’
Dallas realised he was staring. ‘Stephen, good to see you. When did you get back? Where’s Cecily?’ Somehow he knew the answer.
Stephen shrugged and opened his hands, palms up and fingers splayed in a gesture which clearly said not here. ‘Last week, to answer your first question. Afraid you’ve caught me at a bad time.’
Stephen had first met Dallas nearly thirty years earlier. It was Lorna who had introduced him to a woman fifteen years his senior – Cecily Jerome– first cousin of the late Randolph Churchill’s wife, Jennie. They fell in love but never married, their liaison frowned on by many. Cecily and Stephen couldn’t have cared less, becoming close friends with Dallas and Lorna, whose circumstances were equally unconventional. Ellie had developed a particularly close relationship with Cecily, who was both her godmother and mentor. As she stayed at the couple’s house in Durban while studying to become a doctor, it became her home away from home.
Dallas moved to the almost closed curtains. ‘May I?’ he asked, before opening them.
Stephen nodded and screwed up his eyes as light flooded into the room.
There was so much Dallas had to tell his old friend – Frazer’s death, Ellie and Duncan both having married, his grandchildren, the abduction of Alice. Now was not the time.
Lightning flashed and a peal of thunder crashed close behind, rattling the window. In seconds the heavens opened, pounding the glass with driving rain.
‘It’s the most beautiful place, Dallas, ’ Stephen said over the noise from outside, his mind miles away. ‘There are animals the like of which we had never seen. Gemsbuck – Ko, the Bushmen call them – with straight, needle-sharp four-foot horns. Nakong, or sitatunga, strange antelope which seemed to walk on the water but would submerge and hide if danger threatened. Our camp was at Totin beside Lake Ngami. It fills from the Okavango, which floods south-east down the Botletle towards Lake Xau. The water is crystal clear and in October, before the rains, all manner of beasts arrive in their thousands. We would lie under the stars at night and listen to the lions. Sometimes their footprints passed right through our camp.’ He hesitated. ‘That’s where she is, not far from a village called Xhumaga. I watched her die, Dallas, and there was nothing I could do.’
Dallas laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Stephen was staring at the rain as it ran down the window. ‘The fever came first. We assumed malaria and thought it would run its course. It didn’t. She just got weaker and weaker. When the tremors started I held her, held a woman who was wasting away before my very eyes. Do you know, Dallas, Cecily felt more afraid for me than she did for herself? “Tsamaya sentle, Stephen”. Those were her last words. Her journey was longer than mine and she lived every mile of it.’ He reached up and touched the hand resting on his shoulder. ‘It’s fate that brought you here today, Dallas.’
They talked for hours, well beyond the storm and into a warm summer evening. Dallas did tell Stephen why he was in Durban, as well as all that had transpired since they last met. He promised to come back with Lorna as soon as she and Torben returned from Johannesburg – no matter what the outcome of their mission. Stephen agreed to spend Christmas at Morningside.
By the time Dallas got back to the Berea, Gerda h
ad retired for the night. On a table in the hall he found a telegram with his name on it. The message was cryptic and brief: ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED RETURNING TOMORROW’. It was signed ‘TORBEN’.
Cameron knew that Ginnie’s marriage to Paul Norman had been postponed – twice, apparently – but he hadn’t once been to see her. The dream of a life together was part of the past. Only the future mattered.
Cameron had promised to hold the fort at Morningside while Dallas and Lorna were away. As it turned out there wasn’t a great deal to be done. Meggie was not there most of the time and one visit to Tanith and Frazer had been more than enough. Cam was very fond of his sister-in-law but they had little in common and when Frazer decided to regurgitate an entire meal all over him, the opportunity to go home and change was most welcome.
He and Saba spent many hours trying to outwit the old saurian of Mhlathuze lagoon. Although Cameron saw him on a number of occasions, that was as close as he ever got. Mister David had told him that ngwenya grew about one foot a year for the first five or six years of their lives then slowed right down and only increased in length by an inch or so every twelve months. The old fellow in the lagoon was all of eighteen feet long – maybe more. Which meant that he had been born a good fifty years before the birth of Shaka, founder of the Zulu nation, who had been just over forty when he was murdered in 1828. The calculation occupied Cameron’s mind as he sat waiting for the crocodile to surface.
Almost an hour had passed and there was still no sign of the ancient monster. He found himself thinking of Caro and the farm she had given him. It had been almost a year since ... Suddenly there were two eyes watching him from the water, a snout breaking the surface two feet in front of them. The click-click as he cocked the hammers of his father’s .577 sounded loud and out of place. Although he remained totally focused on the crocodile, it slipped back below the surface and was gone.
To hell with this. The day was coming to an end and the mosquitoes were getting hungry– not to mention the leeches on his legs. There would be none of these bloody things at Wakefield, he thought, carefully removing another. Cameron decided to go there as soon as his parents returned. He would go by himself, not with his father.
It was another five days before Dallas and Lorna returned to Morningside with the news that Alice had been found and was back with her parents in Durban. Apparently, the change in Gerda had been quite unbelievable.
Alice hadn’t recognised them and at first seemed quite confused by the sudden change in daily routine. To everyone’s delight, her tiny mind adapted fast as sights and sounds not seen or heard in over a year awoke dormant memories. A mother’s scent, the unchanged nursery, Hilda’s bulk and toothless grin. Perhaps even the humidity. It was only when Gerda tried to sing ‘Sarie Marais’ that Alice cried.
Lorna had been so elated when she returned to Durban with Torben and Alice; the news of Cecily’s death from sleeping sickness hit her hard. She and Dallas spent two days trying to help Stephen pick up the pieces of his life and make him realise that there was a future– no matter how bleak it looked. He refused their immediate invitation to Morningside but confirmed he would be there for Christmas.
Dallas was not sorry when Cameron said that he intended going to Wakefield by himself. There were a thousand and one things to do at home. ‘Perhaps Caro would like to come for Christmas. Why don’t you ask her?’ Dallas said, holding Saba’s collar to stop her following Cam’s horse.
In strictest confidence, Lorna had told Dallas that Duncan had been granted leave and planned to surprise his wife and family. That it would be, he had thought, especially since Cameron considered it an excellent idea that Duncan and Tanith build their own house on the farm.
The Petersens would be coming too.
Cameron broke his journey in Durban to meet a very special young lady, his niece. He was amazed at the size of Alice, who understood not one word of English but would happily respond when Gerda spoke to her in Afrikaans. Torben laughed. ‘Good thing for the future, I suppose.’ Cam had never seen his half-brother so relaxed and felt closer to him than at any time he could remember.
Torben knew about his father’s half-sister giving Cameron her farm. Dallas had told him. Instead of the usual display of jealousy he was genuinely pleased. ‘If you need a hand catching some of those trout, just give me a shout.’
‘It’s about bloody time you turned up, ’ Caro called, hands on hips.
The wide-brimmed hat still shaded Cameron’s face.
‘Can’t hang around here waiting for you. I’ve got better things to do.’ She noticed a stiffness as he dismounted and secured his horse.
‘At least I wrote, which is more than some people I could mention, ’Cameron responded, removing his hat.
‘My God, ’Caro exclaimed, a hand flying to her mouth before she jumped down from the verandah for a closer inspection. ‘What happened? Your letters said nothing.’
Cameron wasn’t sure how he should greet his aunt, who had reached up to touch the scars. ‘It’s a long story, ’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘I have also resigned my commission.’
‘On medical grounds, I suppose, judging by the limp and the mess your face is in. How’s your father?’
‘Fully recovered, thank you. He and Mother would like you to spend Christmas at Morningside.’
‘That’s kind of them. What about you, Cameron?’
He hesitated. ‘I would rather be here but not if you are there. What’s the point?’
‘Being with family sounds like a good reason to me. We’ll talk about it later. Now, let Klipklop see to your horse.’
An Indian woman had appeared from inside with a tray of drinks. ‘Ah, Popeti, there you are. You remember my brother’s son, Cameron? As you are aware, he now owns Wakefield.’
After putting down the tray, Popeti studied the blond-haired young man with the scarred face before bringing her palms together and leaning slightly forwards. ‘Namaste.’
‘Nice to see you again, ’Cameron replied.
‘Popeti, please make sure the spare room is made up, ’ Caro instructed. ‘Cameron will be staying for a few days. I hope.’
‘And how are you, Caro?’ Cameron asked, smiling at his aunt.
‘Nimbo paani or Scotch?’ she answered.
Cameron did most of the talking, telling her of Duncan’s near-death experience with Messrs Klaas and Ramos and how they had both been killed in Portuguese East Africa. It was almost embarrassing to reveal that his own wounds were caused by an accident.
Caro was delighted to learn that Alice had been found and reunited with her parents. Meggie’s engagement to Stan meant little to her. She had never met either of them, though she remembered how Dallas had a special affinity with his youngest daughter. Ellie and Lindsay were just names to her as well.
That evening they ate corned beef with boiled potatoes, cauliflower and a white sauce. ‘All homeproduced, ’ Caro said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. ‘Hope you don’t mind Moses slaughtering one of your beasts?’ she added, more as a statement than a question.
They ate on the verandah by lamplight then turned it off to watch the stars. Caro produced a bottle of Portuguese red wine. Cameron felt completely at home and relaxed.
‘Tomorrow we must talk about you taking over this place. I’m getting itchy feet.’
‘What about the lion?’
‘On the list of things to do but it can wait.’
‘Father has this theory that it’s safer to approach lions on all fours.’
Caro looked incredulous. ‘Crawling, you mean?’
‘Yes. He says they find you less threatening like that.’
‘Well, tell your father he’s mad. You and I will have to get that lion on our own. I refuse to be responsible for my half-brother’s death!’
The evening disappeared. Time didn’t matter. They opened another bottle. When that too was gone the time came to call it a night.
‘Your room, ’ Caro pointed to one of two candlelit doo
rways.
‘My room, ’ Cameron agreed.
‘I enjoyed this evening, Cam. Christmas at Morningside would be wonderful.’
They kissed goodnight and she was gone.
He blew out the candle on his bedside table and in seconds was fast asleep.
Cameron had no idea where he was when the fire woke him. The room had filled with acrid, eye-watering fumes but beyond the open door was a raging inferno. ‘Caro!’ he screamed. There was no reply.
Flames licked hungrily at the thatch over his head. The only way out was through the window. He had to find Caro. No sooner had his bare feet touched the ground outside than the room behind him burst into flames. With a crackling sigh the whole roof collapsed, sending a spark-filled shower of burning thatch spiralling into the night sky. There was no possibility of going back inside. ‘Caro, ’ he called again, hoping beyond hope that she had managed to escape. The heat drove him further back.
He ran round the house, calling her name. Suddenly a black figure burst from the flames dragging something behind him. The man seemed to be on fire himself. Cameron rushed forwards to help and found his hands sticking to raw flesh. Sweeping the African into his arms he carried him clear of the house and laid him gently on the ground.
Klipklop and others had appeared with buckets of water but it was too late. Cameron looked around in desperation. Popeti, in her dressing gown, long black hair hanging to her waist, covered Moses with the thing he had salvaged from the house. It was a leopard skin.
‘Madam Caroline is gone, ’ she said simply. ‘Moses will take care of her.’
There was no option but to let the fire burn itself out. By morning, the house was nothing more than a smoking pile of ashes atop a rectangular plinth of scorched rocks. A couple of charred roof poles miraculously remained standing, otherwise it had all gone.
Cameron knew what he had to do. A milking pail was all that he could find. Klipklop brought the other things he had asked for.
Footprints of Lion Page 44
