mercy on the British Army! ' 'Sean, you mustn't talk about your
brother that way.
'Colonel Garrick Courtney. ' Sean laughed out loud.
'I don't know what there is between you and Garry. But it's something
very nasty-and I don't want any of it in this house.
Ada's tone was fierce and Sean stopped laughing.
'I'M sorry.'
'Before we close the subject, I want to warn you. Please be very
careful how you handle Garry. Whatever happened between you two-and I
don't want to know what it is-Garry still hates you. Once or twice he
started talking about you but I stopped him. Yet I know it from
Michael,-the boy has picked it up from his father. It's almost an
obsession with him. Be careful of Garry.
Ada stood up. 'And now about Dirk. What a lovely child he is, Sean.
But I'm afraid you've spoiled him a little.
'He's a tiger,' Sean admitted.
'What schooling has he been given?'
'Well, he can read a little-' 'You'll leave him here with me.
I'll enrol him when the school term begins.'
'I was going to ask. I'll leave money with you.
'Ten years ago there was a very large and mysterious deposit to my bank
account. It wasn't mine-so I placed it out at interest. ' She smiled
at him and Sean looked guilty. 'We can use that. ' 'No,' he said.
'Yes,' she contradicted. 'And now tell me when you are leaving.
'Soon.'
'How soon?'
'Tomorrow.
Since climbing the World's View road out of Pietermaritzburg, Sean and
Mbejane had travelled in sunshine and in companionship. The feelings
between them were solid, compacted by time and the pressure of trouble
and shared laughter into a shield of affection-so that now they were
happy as only men can be together. The jokes were old jokes, and the
responses almost automatic-but the excitement between them was new, in
the same way that each day's sun is new. For they were riding to war,
to another meeting with death, so that everything else lost
significance. Sean felt free, the thoughts and relationships with
other people which had weighed him down over the past months slipped
away. Like a ship clear for action he hurried with a new lightness to
meet his chance.
At the same time he could stand aside from himself and grin tolerantly
at his own immaturity. By God, we're like a couple of kids sneaking
out of school. Then, following the thought further-he was suddenly
thankful. Thankful that this was so; thankful that there was still
this capacity to forget everything else and approach the moment in
childlike anticipation. For a while this new habit of self-appraisal
asserted itself, I am no longer young and I have learned much, gathered
it brick by brick along the way and, trimmed each brick and cemented it
into the wall. The fortress of my manhood is not yet completed, but
what I have built so far is strong, Yet the purpose of a fortress is to
