You can call off the shoot, Mark. Tell em to shove it.
You're a volunteer lad. They smoked in silence for a full minute before Mark replied. That Hun is a bad one. If it's snowing, he probably won't be out tomorrow.
Snow will keep him in bed also. Mark shook his head slowly. If he's that good, he'll be out. Yes. Fergus nodded. He's that good. That shot he made last evening, after lying up all day in the cold, then five hundred yards if it was an inch, and in that light, Fergus cut himself off, and then went on quickly, But you're good also, lad. You're the best, boy.
Mark said nothing, but carefully pinched out the glowing tip of the Woodbine.
You're going? Fergus asked. Yes. Get some sleep then, lad. It's going to be a long day. Mark blew out the candle flame as he lay back and pulled the blankets over his head. You get a good sleep Fergus said again. I'll-wake you in plenty of time, and he resisted the paternal urge to pat the thin bony shoulder under the blanket.
The young Captain spoke quietly with one of the sentries on the forward firing step, and the man whispered a reply and pointed with his chin along the darkened trench. This way, sir. He went on down the boards, swaddled in clothing so that he had the shape of a bear, and Sean towered head and shoulders above him as he followed.
Around the next revert, through the soft curtains of falling snow, there was the subdued red glow of a brazier from the shallow dugout in the side of the trench. Dark figures squatted close about it, like witches at a sabbat.
Sergeant MacDonald? One of the figures rose and stepped forward. That's me. There was a cocky, self-assured tone to the reply. Is Anders with you? Present and correct, said MacDonald, and one of the other figures rose from the circle about the brazier and came forward. He was taller, but moved with grace, like an athlete or a dancer.
. You are ready, Anders? the Captain went on, speaking in the soft half-whisper of the trenches, and MacDonald replied for him. The lad is fighting fit, sir. He spoke with the proprietary tone of the manager of a prize- fighter. It was clear that the boy was his property, and that ownership gave him a distinction he would never have achieved on his own.
At that moment another flare burst high overhead, a brilliant white and silent explosion of light, softened by the snow.
Sean could judge a man like he could a horse. He could pick the rotten ones, or the big-hearted, from the herd. It was a trick of experience and some deeper inexplicable insight.
in the light of the flare his eyes flickered across the face of the older Sergeant. MacDonald had the bony undernourished features of the slum-dweller, the eyes too close set, the lips narrow and twisted downwards at the corners.
There was nothing to interest Sean there and he looked at the other man.
The eyes were a pale golden brown, set wide, with the serene gaze of a poet or a man who had lived in the open country of long distant horizons. The lids were held wide open, so that they did not overlap the iris, leaving a clear glimpse of the clean white about the cornea so that it floated free like a full moon. Sean had seen it only a few times before, and the effect was almost hypnotic, of such direct and searching candour that it seemed to reach deep into Sean's own soul.
After the first impact of those eyes, other impressions crowded in. The first was of the man's extreme youth. He was nearer seventeen than twenty, Sean judged, and then saw immediately how finely drawn the boy was. Despite the serenity of his gaze, he was stretched out tight and hard, racked up with strain close to the snapping point.
Sean had seen it so often in the past four years. They had found this child's special talent and exploited it ruthlessly, all of them, Caithness at 3rd Battalion, the ferrety MacDonald, Charles, Dicky and, by association, himself. They had worked him mercilessly, sending him out time and again.
The boy held a steaming tin mug of coffee in one hand, and the wrist that protruded from the sleeve of his coat was skeletal, and speckled with angry red bites of body lice.
The neck was too long and thin for the head it supported, and the cheeks were hollow, the eye-sockets sunken. This is General Courtney, said the Captain; and as the light of the flare died, Sean saw the eyes shine suddenly with anew light, and heard the boy's breath catch with awe. Hello, Anders, I've heard a lot about you, And I've heard about you, sir. The transparent tones of hero-worship irritated Sean. The boy would have heard all the stories, of course. The regiment boasted of him, and every new recruit heard the tales. There was nothing he could do to prevent them circulating. It's a great honour to meet you, sir. The boy tripped on the words, stuttering a little, another sign of the terrible strain he was under, -yet the words were completely sincere.
The legendary Sean Courtney, the man who had made five million pounds on the goldfields of the Witwatersrand and lost every penny of it in a morning at a single coup of fortune. Sean Courtney, who had chased the Boer General Leroux across half of Southern Africa and caught him at last after a terrible hand-to-hand fight. The soldier who had held Bombata's ravaging Zulu impis at the gorge and then driven them on to the waiting Maxims, who had planned with his erstwhile enemy Leroux and helped build the Charter of Union which united the four independent states of Southern Africa into a single mighty whole, who had built another vast personal fortune in land and cattle and timber, who had given up his position in Louis Botha's Cabinet and at the head of the Natal Legislative Council to bring the regiment out to France, it was natural the boy's eyes should shine that way and his tongue trip, but still it annoyed Sean. At fifty-nine I'm too old to play the hero now, he thought wryly, and the flare went down, plunging them back into the darkness. If there's another mug of that coffee, said Sean. It's bloody cold tonight. Sean accepted the chipped enamel mug and hunkered down close to the brazier, cupped the mug between his hands, blowing on the steaming liquid and sipping noisily, and after a moment the others followed his example hesitantly. It was strange to be squatting like old mates with a General and the silence was profound. You're from Zululand? Sean asked the boy suddenly, his ear had picked up the accent, and without waiting for a reply went on in the Zulu tongue, Velapi wena? Where are you from? The Zulu language came naturally and easily to Mark's lips though he had not spoken it for two years. From the north beyond Eshowe, on the Umfolosi River. Yes. I know it well. I have hunted there. Sean changed back to English. Anders? I knew another Anders. He rode transport from Delagoa Bay back in 89. John? Yes, that's it. Old Johnny Anders. Any relation? Your father? My grandfather. My father's dead. My grandfather has land on the Umfolosi. That's where I live. The boy was relaxing now. In the brazier glow, Sean thought he saw the lines of strain around his mouth ironing out. I didn't think you'd know poor folk, like us, sir. Fergus MacDonald spoke with cutting edge in his voice, leaning forward towards the brazier with his head turned towards him so that Sean could see the bitter line of his mouth.
Sean nodded slowly. MacDonald was one of them then.
One of those who were intent on the new order, trade unions and Karl Marx, Bolsheviks who threw bombs and
