the lower decks. She arranged smoking concerts and deck games and card tournaments, the comte had been a wicked bridge player and taught her his skills.
Her team of one-eyed, one-legged, maimed assistant alleviators of the boredom of the long voyage vied with each other to win her approval and render their services; and the patients in the tiers of bunks thought up a dozen tricks to delay her beside them when she made her unofficial rounds each morning.
Amongst the patients was a captain of the Natal Mounted Rifles who had been in the convoy of ambulances during the retreat from Mort Homme, and he greeted her ecstatically the first time she entered his ward with her armful of books.
Sunshine! It's Sunshine herself! and the nickname followed her about the ship.
Nurse Sunshine.'When the usually surly chief medical officer, Major Wright, used the nickname for the first time, Centaine's adoption by the ship's company was unanimous.
In the circumstances there was little time for mourning, but every night just before composing herself for sleep, Centaine lay in the darkness and conjured up Michael's image in her mind's eye, and then clasped both hands over her lower stomach. Our son, Michel, our son! The brooding skies and brutal black seas of the Bay of Biscay were left behind on the long white wake, and ahead of the bows the flying fish spun like silver coins across the blue velvet surface of the ocean.
At latitude 3c, degrees north, the debonair young Captain Jonathan Ballantyne, who was the reputed heir to the 100,000-acre cattle ranches of his father Sir Ralph Ballantyne, Prime Minister of Rhodesia, proposed marriage to Centaine.
I can hear poor Papa, Centaine mimicked the comte so accurately that it cast a shadow in Anna's eyes. '100,000 acres, you crazy wicked child. Tiens alors! How can you refuse 100,000 acres?'
After that the marriage proposals became an epidemic even Dr Archibald Stewart, her immediate superior, blinking through his steel-rimmed spectacles and sweating nervously, stammered through a carefully rehearsed speech, and looked more gratified than abashed when Centaine kissed both his cheeks in polite refusal.
At the equator Centaine prevailed on Major Wright to don the regalia of King Neptune, and the crossing ceremony was conducted amidst wild hilarity and widespread inebriation. Centaine herself turned out to be the main attraction, clad in a mermaid costume of her own design.
Anna had protested strenuously at the dkollet6_, all the while she helped to sew it, but the ship's company adored it. They whistled and clapped and stamped, and there was another rash of proposals immediately after the crossing.
Anna huffed and gruffed, but secretly was well content with the change she saw coming over her charge. Before her eyes Centaine was making that wonderful transformation from girl to young womanhood. Physically she was beginning to bloom with early pregnancy. Her fine skin took on a lustre like mother-of-pearl, she lost the last vestiges of adolescent gawkiness as her body filled without losing any of its grace.
However, more powerful were the other changes, the growing confidence and poise, the awareness of her own powers and gifts that she was only now beginning to exercise fully. Anna had known that Centaine was a natural mimic, could switch from the midi accent of Jacques, the groom, to the Walloon of the chambermaids and then to the Parisian intellectual of her music teacher, but now she realized that the child had a talent for Ian guages which had never been tested. Centaine was already speaking such fluent English that she could differentiate between the Australian and South African and pure Oxford English accents, and take them off with startling accuracy. When she greeted her Aussies with a dinky Gid die! they hooted with delight.
Anna had known also that Centaine had a way with figures and money. She had taken over the family accounts when the estate factor had fled to Paris in the first months of the war, and Anna had marvelled at her ability to cast a long column of figures simply by running her pen down it, without the laborious carrying over of digits, and without moving her lips, all of which Anna considered miraculous.
Now Centaine demonstrated the same acumen. She partnered Major Wright at the bridge table and they made a formidable pair, and her share of the winnings flabbergasted Anna who did not really approve of gambling. Centaine reinvested these. She organized a syndicate with Jonathan Ballantyne and Dr Stevens and they were big punters on the daily auction and sweepstake on the ship's I run. By the time they crossed the equator, Centaine had added nearly two hundred sovereigns to the hoard of louis I I d'or they had salvaged from the chateau.
Anna had always known that Centaine read too much. It will damage your eyes, she had warned her often enough, but she had never realized the depth of the knowledge that Centaine had gathered from her books, not until she heard it demonstrated in conversation and discussion. She held her own even against such formidable i debaters as Dr Archibald Stewart, and yet Anna noticed that she was cunning enough not to antagonize her audience by ostentatiously flaunting her learning, and would usually end an argument on a conciliatory note that allowed her male victim to retreat with only slightly ruffled dignity.
Yes, Anna nodded comfortably to herself, as she watched the girl blooming and opening like some lovely flower in the tropical sunshine, she's a clever one, just like her Mama. It seemed that Centaine really had a physical need for warmth and sunlight. She would turn her face up to the sun every time she went on deck. Oh, Anna, I did so hate the cold and the rain. Doesn't this feel wonderful?
You are turning ugly brown, Anna warned her. It's so unladylike. And Centaine considered her own limbs thoughtfully. Not brown, Anna, gold! Centaine had read so much and queried so many people, that she seemed already to know the southern hemisphere into which their ship now thrust its bows. Centaine would wake Anna and take her on to the upper deck to act as chaperone while the officer of the watch showed her the southern stars. And despite the late hour, Anna was dazzled by the splendours of this sky that each evening revealed more of itself before their upturned eyes.
Look, Anna, there is Achernar at last! It was Michel's own special star. We should all have a special star, he said, and he chose mine for me. Which is it? Anna asked. Which is your star? Acrux. There! The brightest star in the Great Cross.
There is nothing between it and Michael's star, except the pivot of the whole world, the celestial South Pole. He said between us we would hold the axis of the earth.
Wasn't that romantic, Anna? Romantic twaddle, Anna sniffed, and secretly regretted that she had never had a man to say such things to her.
Then Anna came to recognize in her charge a talent that seemed to make all the others pale. It was the ability of making men listen to her. It was quite extraordinary to see men like Major Wright and the Protea Castle's captain actually keep silent and attend, without that infuriatingly indulgent masculine smirk, when Centaine spoke seriously.
