There were a dozen thick letters in Marion Littlejohn’s neat feminine hand, all in blue envelopes, a colour which she had explained in previous letters indicated undying love; there was also an account for a disputed twelve and sixpence which his tailor insisted Mark had underpaid; and there was another envelope of marbled paper, pale beige and watered expensively, with Mark’s name blazoned across it in a peremptory, arrogant hand – and no address.
Mark singled it out and turned it over to examine the crest, thickly crusted in heavy embossing that stood out on the flap.
Dicky watched him open it and then learned forward to read it unashamedly, but Mark saved him the effort and flipped it across to him.
‘Regimental dinner,’ he explained.
‘You’ll just make it,’ Dicky pointed out. ‘Friday the 16th.’ Then his voice changed, imitating a regimental sergeant-major. ‘Two oh hundred hours sharpish. Dress formal and R.S. bloody V.P. Take your dressing from the right, you lucky blighter, your guinea has been paid by your Colonel-in-Chief — Lord Muck-a-Muck General Courtney his exalted self. Off you go, my boy, drink his champagne and steal a handful of cigars. Up the workers, say I.’
‘I think I’ll give it a miss,’ murmured Mark, and placed 239 Marion’s letters in his inside pocket, to prevent Dicky reading those also.
‘You’ve gone bush-crazy, the sun touched you, old boy,’ Dicky declared solemnly. ‘Think of those three hundred potential owners of Cadillacs sitting around one table, pissed to the wide, and smoking free cigars. Captive audience. Whip around the table and peddle them a Cadillac each while they are still stunned by the speeches.’
‘Were you in France?’ Mark asked.
‘Not France.’ Dicky’s expression changed. ‘Palestine, Gallipoli and suchlike sunny climes.’ The memory darkened his eyes.
‘Then you’ll know why I don’t feel like going up to the old fort to celebrate the experience,’ Mark told him, and Dicky Lancome studied him across the loaded table. He had made himself a judge of character, of men and their workings. He had to be a good judge to be a good salesman, so he was surprised that he had not recognized the change in Mark sooner. Looking at him now, Dicky knew that he had acquired something, some new reserve of strength and resolution the likes of which few men gathered about them in a lifetime. Suddenly he felt a humility in Mark’s presence, and although it was tinged with envy, the envy was without rancour. Here was a man who was going somewhere, to a place where he would never be able to follow, a path that needed a man with a lion’s liver to tread. He wanted to reach across the table and shake Mark’s hand and wish him well on the journey, but instead he spoke quietly, dropping the usual light and cavalier façade.
‘I wish you’d think about it, Mark. General Courtney came to see me himself—’ and he went on to tell him of the visit, of Sean Courtney’s anger when he had heard that Mark had been discharged at his daughter’s behest. ‘He asked for you to be there especially, Mark, and he really meant it.’
Mark showed his invitation at the gates, and was passed through the massive stone outer fortifications.
There were fairy lights strung in the trees along the pathway that led through the gardens of the old fort, giving the evening a frivolous carnival feeling at odds with the usual atmosphere this bastion had known from the earliest British occupation, through siege and war with Dutch and Zulu; many of the Empire’s warriors who had paused here on their occasions.
There were other guests ahead of and behind him on the pathway, but Mark avoided them, feeling self-conscious in the dinner-jacket he had hired from the pawnbroker when he retrieved his decorations. The garment had the venerable greenish tinge of age, and was ventilated in places by the ravages of moths. It was too tight across the shoulders and too full in the belly, and it exposed too much cuff and sock, but when he had pointed this out to the pawnbroker, the man had asked him to finger the pure silk lining and had reduced the hire fee to five shillings.
Miserably he joined the file of other dinner-jacketed figures on the steps of the drillhall, and when his turn came, he stepped up to the reception line.
‘So!’ said General Sean Courtney. ‘You came.’ The craggy features were suddenly boyish, as he took Mark’s hand in a grip that felt like tortoise-shell, cool and hard and calloused. He stood at the head of the reception line like a tower, broad and powerful, resplendent in immaculately cut black and crisp starched white with a gaudy block of silk ribbons and enamel crosses and orders across his chest. With a twitch of an imperial eyebrow, he summoned one of his staff.
‘This is Mr Mark Anders,’ he said. ‘You remember the old firm of Anders and MacDonald, 1st brigade?’
‘Indeed, sir.’ The officer looked at Mark with quick interest, his eye dropping from his face to the silk ribbons on his lapel and back to his face.
‘Look after him,’ said General Courtney, and then to Mark, ‘Get yourself a drink, son, and I’ll talk to you later.’ He released Mark’s hand and turned to the next in line, but such was the magnetism and charm of the big man that after the brief contact and the few gruff words, Mark was no longer the gawky stranger, callow and awkward in cast-off clothes, but an honoured guest, worthy of special attention.
The subaltern took his charge seriously and led Mark into the dense crowd of black-clad males, all of them still subdued and self-conscious in their unaccustomed finery, standing in stiff knots, although the waiters moved among them bearing silver trays laden with the regiment’s hospitality.
‘Whisky, is it?’ asked the subaltern, and picked a glass from one of the trays. ‘All liquid refreshment tonight is with the General’s compliments,’ and took another glass for himself. ‘Cheers! Now let’s see – 1st brigade—’ and he looked around. ‘You must remember Hooper, or Dennison?’
He remembered them and others, dozens of them; some were vaguely familiar features, just shades at the edge of his memory, but others he knew well, had liked, or disliked, and even hated. With some he had shared food, or passed a cigarette butt back and forth, with others he had shared moments of terror or exquisite boredom; the good ones, the workers, the cowards and the shirkers and the bullies were all there – and the whisky came endlessly on silver trays.
They remembered him also; men he had never seen in his life came up to him. ‘You remember me, I was section leader at D’Arcy Wood when you and MacDonald—’ And others, ‘Are you the Anders, I thought you’d be older somehow – your glass is empty,’ and the whisky kept coming on the silver trays – and Mark felt tall and clever, for men listened when he talked, and witty, for men laughed when he jested.
They sat at a table that stretched the full length of the hall and was covered with a damask cloth of dazzling white; the regimental silver blinked like heliographs in the candlelight, and now it was champagne cascading into crystal glass in showers of golden bubbles. All around, the comradely uproar of laughter and of raised voices — and each time Mark lowered his glass, there was a turbaned figure at his side and a dark hand poising the green bottle over his glass.
He sagged back in his chair with his thumbs hooked in his armpits and a black cigar sticking a foot out of his mouth, ‘Hear! Hearing!’ and ‘Quite righting!’ the after-dinner speakers, as owlish and wise as the best of them, exchanging knowledgeable nods of agreement with his neighbours, while the ruby port smouldered in his glass.
When the General rose from his centre seat at the cross piece of the table, there was an audible stir in the company which had become heavy and almost somnolent with port and long meandering speeches. They grinned at each other now in anticipation, and though Mark had never heard Sean Courtney speak, he sensed the interest and recharged enthusiasm and he sat up in his chair.
The General did not disappoint them; he started with a story that left them stunned for a moment, gasping for breath, before they could bellow with laughter. Then he went at them in a relaxed easy manner that seemed casual and natural, but using words like a master swordsman using a rapier, a jest,
an oath, a solid piece of good sense, something they wanted to hear, followed immediately by something that disturbed them, singling out individuals for praise or gentle censure.
‘Third this year in the national polo championships, gentlemen, an honour which the regiment carried easily last year — but a certain gentleman seated at this board has chosen to ride for the sugar planters now, a decision which it is his God-given right to make, and which I am certain not one of us here would condemn,’ and Sean Courtney paused, grinning evilly and smoothing his whiskers, while the entire company booed raucously and hammered the table with their dessert spoons. The victim flushed to vivid scarlet and squirmed in the cacophony.
‘However, good news and great expectations for the Africa Cup this year. By dint of adroit sleuthing, it has been discovered that dwelling in our very midst—’ and the next moment the entire hall was slapping palm to palm, a great thunder of sound, and heads were craning down to Mark’s end of the table, while the General nodded and beamed at him, and when Mark slumped down quickly in his seat and tried to make his lanky frame fold like a carpenter’s ruler, Sean Courtney called, ‘Stand up, son, let them get a look at you.’
Mark rose uncertainly and bobbed his head left and right, and not until later did it occur to him that he had been skilfully manoeuvred into accepting their applause, that in doing so, he was committed. It was the first time he witnessed from a front-row seat the General handling the destiny of a man and achieving his object without apparent effort.
He was pondering this, a little muzzily, as he steered for the safe base of the next lamp post. It would, of course, have been wiser and safer to accept the offer made to him by one of the rickshaw drivers at the gates of the fort, when he had reeled out into the street two hours after midnight. However, his recent unemployment and extravagant expenditure on fancy clothing had left him no choice as to his means of transport. He faced now a walk of some three miles in the dark, and his progress was erratic enough to make it a long journey.
He reached the lamp-post and braced himself just as a black Rolls-Royce stopped beside him and the back door swung open.
‘Get in!’ said the General, and as Mark tumbled ungracefully into the soft leather seat, an iron grip steadied him.
‘You are not a drinking man.’ It was a statement, not a question, and Mark had to agree.
‘No, sir.’
‘You’ve got a choice,’ said the General. ‘Learn, or leave it alone completely.’
Sean had waited for almost half an hour, the Rolls parked under the banyan trees, for Mark to appear through the gates, and he had been on the point of abandoning the evening and giving his driver the order to return to Emoyeni when Mark had tottered out into the street, brushed away the importunate rickshaw drivers and set off like a crab along the pavement, travelling further sideways than forward.
The Rolls had crept silently along behind him with the headlights dark, and Sean Courtney had watched with a benevolent smile the young man’s erratic progress. He felt a gentle indulgence for the lad and for himself, for the odd little quirks and whims with which he still surprised himself occasionally. At sixty-two years of age, a man should know himself, know every strength and be able to exploit it, know every weakness, and have built a secure buttress against it.
Yet here he was, for no good reason that he could fathom, becoming more and more emotionally involved with a young stranger. Spending time and thought for he was not sure what end.
Perhaps the boy reminded him of himself at the same age, and now he thought about it, he did detect beneath the warm glow of champagne in his belly the nostalgia for that troubled time of doubt and shinning ambition when a boy stood on the threshold of manhood.
Perhaps it was that he admired – no, cherished was a better word – cherished special quality in any animal. A fine horse, a good dog, a young man, that excellence that horsemen might call ‘blood’, or a dog-handler ‘class’. He had detected it in Mark Anders, and as even a blood horse might be damaged by bad handling or a class dog spoiled, so a young man who had the same quality needed advice and direction and opportunity to develop his full capability. There was too much mediocrity and too much dross in this world, Sean thought, so that when he found class, he was drawn strongly to it.
Or perhaps again – and suddenly he felt that terrible black wave of mourning sweep over him – or perhaps it is simply that I do not have a son.
There had been three sons: one had died before he had lived, still-born in the great wilderness beyond the Limpopo River. Another had been borne by a woman who was not his wife and the son had called another man father. Here Sean felt the melancholy deepen, laden with guilt; but this son was dead also, burned to a charred black mass in the flimsy machine of wood and canvas in which he had flown the sky. The words of Garry’s dedication to his new book were clear in Sean’s mind. ‘This book is dedicated to Captain Michael Courtney, D.F.C., one of the Young Eagles who will fly no more.’ Michael had been Sean’s natural son, made in the belly of his brother’s wife.
The third son lived still, but he was a son in name only and Sean would have changed that name had it been within his power. Those ugly incidents that preceded Dirk Courtney’s departure from Ladyburg so many years before, among them casual arson and careless murder, were nothing compared to the evil deeds he had perpetrated since his return. Those close to him knew better than to speak the name ‘Dirk Courtney’ in his hearing. Now he felt the melancholy change to the old anger, and to forestall it, he leaned forward in his seat and tapped the chauffeur’s shoulder.
‘Pull up beside him,’ he said, pointing to Mark Anders.
‘What you need is fresh air,’ Sean Courtney told Mark. ‘It will sober you up or make you puke, either of which is desirable.’
And by the time the Rolls parked at the foot of West Street pier, Mark had, by dint of enormous mental effort, regained control of his eyes. At first, every time he peered at the General beside him, he had the nauseous certainty that there was a third eye growing in the centre of his forehead, and that he had multiple ears on each side of his head, like ripples on the surface of a pond.
Mark’s voice had at first been as uncontrolled, and he had listened with mild disbelief to the odd blurred sounds with which his lips had replied to the General’s questions and comments. But when he frowned with the effort, and spoke with exaggerated slowness and articulation, it sounded vaguely intelligible.
However, it was only when they walked side by side down through the loose sand to the edge of the sea where the outgoing tide had left the sand hard and wet and smooth, that he began to listen to what the General was saying and it wasn’t tea-party talk.
He was talking of power, and powerful men, he was talking of endeavour and reward, and though his voice was rumbling and relaxed, yet it was like the purr of an old lion who has just killed, and would kill again.
Somehow Mark sensed that what he was hearing was of great value, and he hated himself for the alcohol in his veins that slowed his mind and haltered his tongue. He fought it off actively.
They walked down along the glistening strip of wet smooth sand, that was polished yellow by the sinking glow of the late moon; the sea smelt of salt and iodine, a crisp antiseptic smell, and the little breeze chilled him so that he shivered even in his dinner jacket. But soon his brain was keeping pace with that of the burly figure that limped beside him, and slowly a sense of excitement built up within him as he heard things said that he had only sensed deep in some secret place of his soul, ideas that he recognized but that he had believed were his alone.
His tongue lost its drag and blur and he felt suddenly bright as a blade, and light as the swallow that drinks in flight as it skims the water.
He remembered how he had at one time suspected that this man might have been responsible in some way for the loss of Andersland, and the old man’s death. But now those suspicions smacked almost of blasphemy, and he thrust them aside to throw all his mind into the discussion i
n which he found himself so deeply involved.
He never did suspect until long afterwards how important that single night’s talk would be in his life, and if he had known perhaps his tongue would have seized up solid in his mouth and his brain refused to keep peace, for he was undergoing a rigorous examination. Ideas thrown at Mark seemingly at random were for him to pick up and carry forward or to reject and leave lying. Every question raked his conscience and bared his principles, and gradually, skilfully, he was forced to commit himself on every subject from religion to politics, from patriotism to morals. Once or twice the General chuckled, ‘You’re a radical, did you know that? But I suppose I was at your age – we all want to change the world. Now tell me what do you think about—’ and the next question was not related to the one that preceded it. ‘There are ten million black men in this country, and a million whites. How do you think they are going to be able to live together for the next thousand years?’ Mark gulped at the enormity of the question, and then began to talk.
The moon paled away in the coming of the dawn, and Mark walked on into an enchanted world of flaming ideas and amazing visions. Though he could not know it, his excitement was shared. Louis Botha, the old warrior and statesman, had said to Sean once, ‘Even the best of us gets old and tired, Sean, and when that happens, a man should have somebody to whom he can pass the torch, and let him carry it on.’
With a suddenness that took them both by surprise, the night was passed, and the sky flamed with gold and pink. They stood side by side, and watched the rim of the sun rise from the dark green sea and climb swiftly into the sky.
‘I have needed an assistant for many years now. My wife hounds me,’ Sean chuckled at the hyperbole, ‘and I have promised her I will find one, but I need somebody quick and bright and trustworthy. They are hard to find.’ Sean’s cigar was long dead and horribly chewed. He took it from his mouth and examined it with mild disapproval before tossing it into the creeping wavelets at his feet. ‘It would be a hell of a job, no regular hours, no set duties, and, God knows, I’d hate to work for me, because I am a cantankerous, unsympathetic old bastard. But on the other hand one thing I’d guarantee — whoever took the job wouldn’t die of boredom, and he’d get to learn a thing or two.’