Mousers, veterans of the Boer war, but there was one among them that stood out. The woodwork was hardly marked, and the metal shone smooth and oily, no scratches or pitting of rust, and Mark picked the weapon off the rack and the shape and feel of it brought memories crowding back. He thrust them aside. He would need a rifle where he was going, and it was sensible to have one he knew so well.
Fate had put a P. 14 there for him, and damn the memories, he decided.
He slipped the bolt from the breech and held the barrel to the light from the doorway, peering into the mouth of the breech. The bore of the barrel was unmarked, the rifling described its clean glistening spirals, again without fouling or pitting. Somebody had cared well for the weapon. How much? he asked the pawnbroker, and the man's eyes turned to lifeless pebbles behind his steel-rimmed spectacles. That's a very good rifle, he said, and I paid a lot of money for it. There's a hundred rounds of ammunition goes with it also. Mark found he had gone soft in the city, his feet ached within the first five miles and the straps of rifle and haversack cut painfully into his shoulders.
The first night he lay down beside the fire and slept as though he had been clubbed. In the morning he groaned at the effort of sitting upright, the stiffness was in his legs and back and shoulders.
The first mile he hobbled like an old man, until his muscles began to ease, and he was going well by the time he reached the rim of the escarpment and started down into the coastal lowlands.
He kept well away from Andersland, crossing the river five miles upstream. His clothing and rifle and pack were balanced on his head as he waded through a shallow place between white sandbanks, and he dried naked in the sun, sprawled out like a lizard on a rock, before he dressed again and headed north.
The third day, he settled into the long swinging hunter's stride, and the pack rode lightly on his back. The going was hard, the undulating folds of the ground forced him to climb and then descend, taxing every muscle, while the thick Thorn scrub made him weave constantly to find a way through, wasting time and almost doubling the distance between point and point. Added to this, the grass was dried and seeding. The seeds were sharp as spears and worked easily through his woollen socks into his flesh. He had to stop every half hour or so to dig them out, but still he made thirty miles that day. In the gathering dusk he crossed another of the countless ridges of higher ground.
The distant blue loom of Chaka's Gate almost blended with darkening clouds of evening.
He camped there that night, sweeping a bed an the bare ground below an acacia thorn tree and eating bully beef and maize porridge by the light of the fire of acacia wood that burned with its characteristic bright white flame and smell of incense.
General Sean Courtney stood at the heavy teak sideboard, with its tiers of engraved glass mirrors and displays of silver plate. in one hand he held the ivory-handled carving fork and in the other the long Sheffield knife.
He used the knife to illustrate the point he was making to the guest-of-honour at his table. I read it through in a single day, had to stay up until after midnight. Believe me, Jan, it's his best work yet. The amount of research, quite extraordinary. I look forward to reading it, said the Prime Minister, nodding acknowledgement to the author of the work under discussion. It's still in manuscript. I am not entirely satisfied yet, there is still some tidying up to do. Sean turned back to the roast and, with a single practised stroke of the blade for each, cut five thin slices of pink beef rimmed with a rind of rich yellow fat.
With the fork he lifted the meat on to the Rosenthal porcelain plate and immediately a Zulu servant in a flowing white kanza. robe and red pillbox fez carried the plate to Sean's place at the head of the long table.
Sean laid the carving-knife aside, wiped his hands on a linen cloth, and then followed the servant to the table and took his seat. We were wondering if you might write a short foreword for the book, Sean said, as he raised a cut crystal glass of glowing red wine to the Prime Minister, and Jan Christiaan Smuts inclined his head on narrow shoulders in an almost birdlike gesture. He was a small man, and the hands laid before him on the table were almost fragile; he had the mien of a philosopher, or a scholar, which was not dispelled by the neat pointed beard.
Yet it was hard to believe that he was small. There was a vital force and awesome presence about him that belled the high, rather thin voice in which he replied, Few things would give me as much pleasure. You do me honour. He seemed to bulk huge in his chair, such was the power of character he commanded. I am the one who is honoured, Colonel Garrick Courtney replied gravely from across the table, bowing slightly - and Sean watched his brother fondly. Poor Garry, he thought, and then felt a guilty stab. Yet it seemed so natural to think of him in those terms. He was frail and old now, bowed and grey and dried out, so that he seemed smaller even than the little man opposite him.
Have you a title yet? asked Jan Smuts. I have thought to call it The Young Eagles. I hope you do not find that too melodramatic for a history of the Royal Flying Corps. By no means, Smuts contradicted him. I think it excellent. Poor Garry, Sean thought again. Since Michael had been shot down, the book filled the terrible gap that his son's death had left; but it had not prevented him from growing old. The book was a memorial to Michael, of course, an act of great love, This book is dedicated to Captain Michael Courtney D. F. C one of the Young Eagles who will fly no more. Sean felt the resuscitation of his own grief, and he made a visible effort to suppress it.
His wife saw the effort, and caught his eye down the length of the table. How well she knew him after all these years, how perfectly she could read his emotions, she thought, as she smiled her sympathy for him, and saw him respond, the wide shoulders squaring up and heavy bearded jaws firming as he smiled back at her.
Deftly she changed the mood. General Smuts has promised to walk around the gardens with me this afternoon, Garry, and advise me on planting out the proteas he brought me from Table Mountain. You are also such a knowledgeable botanist. Will you join us? As I warned you, my dear Ruth, said Jan Smuts in that ready, yet compelling voice, I do not give much hope for their survival. Perhaps the Leucadendrons, ventured Garry, if we find a cool, dryish place? Yes, agreed the General, and immediately they fell into an animated discussion. She had done it so skilfully, that she seemed to have done nothing.
Sean paused in the doorway of his study and ran a long lingering gaze over the room. As always, he felt a glow of pleasure at re-entering this sanctuary.
The glass doors opened now on to the massed banks of flowers, and the smoking plumes of the fountain, yet the thick walls ensured that the room remained cool even in the sleepy hush of midday.
He crossed to the desk of stinkwood, dark and massive and polished, so that it shone even in the cool gloom, and he lowered himself into the swivel chair, feeling the fine leather stretch and give under his weight.
The day's mail was neatly arranged on a silver salver at his right hand, and he sighed when he saw that, despite the careful screening by the senior clerk down at the city Head Office, there were still not much less than a hundred envelopes awaiting him.
He delayed the moment by swinging the chair slowly to look once again about the room. It was hard to believe it had been designed and decorated by a woman, unless it was a woman who loved and understood her man so
