Hornet’s Sting (59 page)

“You're too beautiful,” she said. “If you grow old I'll kill you.”

Next day it rained. He wore old, shabby tweeds, much patched with leather. “Belonged to my father,” he said. They had breakfast in a room as big as the mess at Gazeran. They had the castle to themselves; his sisters were all in London with their mother. “Won't they come back?” Dorothy asked.

“Not in a hurry. Mother has a place in town. She probably thinks I'm skulking around Soho.”

“You can't skulk in a Daimler.”

He stood up abruptly, and wrapped some bacon in toast. “Don't tell me what I can and can't do.” He went out. She heard orders shouted, doors slammed; then silence. She sipped her coffee and read some old newspapers. Mata Hari shot by French firing squad. More Zeppelins
over London. Fierce fighting in Ypres Salient. Board of Trade appeals for less pleasure motoring. “Too late,” she said. “Anyway, it wasn't all fun.”

He came back three hours later, very wet and muddied to the knees, and holding a rifle. “Come and see,” he said, and gave her an umbrella.

Standing in the rain was a horse with a dead stag across its back. “One clean shot. Halfway up the mountain. He dropped where he stood. Never heard me fire. A very Christian kill.”

Blood dribbled down the horse's flanks. “What is this?” she said. “Some sort of Caledonian gift-offering?”

“It's supper. Fresh deer's liver, absolutely yummy. Thank you, Bobby.” A servant led the horse away.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Better than what? Wait a second ...” He saw a shape flying in the mist and aimed and fired. It veered away.

“God in heaven!” she said. “Can't you stop killing things?”

“Bloody heron. They eat our trout.”

“What if I eat your silly trout? Will you shoot me?”

She was annoyed, but he was still very pleased with himself. “I might,” he said, “if you were poaching.”

* * *

He soaked in a hot bath. She sat and watched. They both drank whisky. “Tell me, then,” he said. “The blessed woodwork. How did it happen?”

“Oh ...” She looked away. “My mother wanted me to be a ballerina. Actually, she wanted to be a ballerina herself, but child-bearing had got in the way, which was obviously all my fault, so she pushed me into ballet school. I was about three, and very small and not nearly strong enough, but I had to dance and dance and dance, until one day the leg conked out. Some kind of paralysis. No way back. Better off without it, the doctors said.”

“Hell's bells. Who needs a mother, eh?” She shrugged. “Still,” he said, playing boats with the loofah, “they were probably right, weren't they? I mean, a conked-out leg is no use to anyone. You'd just end up a cripple.”

She kicked the bath with her wooden foot. “I
am
a cripple.”

“Yes, but not like a chap with a crutch.”

She stood and kicked the bath repeatedly, until white paint flaked off. “When you can do that, you can lecture me on cripples.” She sat down and gave herself more whisky. “Anyway ... what smacked your face, apart from mother?”

“Shell splinters. They had to travel a long way to hit me, fortunately. Otherwise I might have lost this eye altogether.”

“How awful. A conked-out eye is no use to anyone, is it? You're better off without it. They make very good glass eyes nowadays, you know.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“That's the trouble with you soldiers. You never see the joke in war.” She kicked the bath one last time. “You're too one-eyed. I'm off to lunch.”

She had eaten and gone by the time he came down, so he ate alone. He thought of her, sometimes angrily, more often eagerly; until he couldn't wait any longer and he abandoned the meal and went in search.

She was at the window of a turret, looking out at three other turrets and two spires. “You might as well live in St Pancras station,” she said. “Handier for the shops.”

“The whole place is a fraud. It's a glorified shooting-lodge, put up by some Victorian grandee who went bankrupt and threw himself from this very window.”

“Not possible. It's got bars on it.”

“He was dreadfully thin. All that worry. Couldn't eat.”

“Uh-huh.” Obviously she believed none of this.

“It was a real castle, once. There's a genuine lump of the original stone underneath one of the lavatories.”

“How interesting. A large fraud, surrounding a tiny bit of truth, which nobody ever sees. Why does that sound familiar?”

“It can't be me, so it must be you.” It was a cheap remark, made in anger at her mocking jibe, and he regretted it. “Caledonian peace offering,” he said quickly, and gave her the record from Cleve-Cutler.

There was a gramophone in the music room. As the needle made its preliminary hiss, he took her hands. “I can't dance,” she said. “I haven't got the feet for it.”

“Stand on my shoes. I'll dance for both of us.”

Poor Butterfly
,
Neath the blossoms waiting
.
Poor Butterfly
,
For she loved him so .
..

She hung from his shoulders, so that he scarcely felt her feet on his. When she began to sing, he knew that he had done something right, at last.

I know he'll come to me,
Bye and bye.
But if he don't come back
Then I'll never sigh or cry,
I just must die ...
Poor Butterfly
.

The record spun to an end. They were left in what had to be an embrace.

“I say,” he said. “May I —”

“Yes.”

“Have the pleasure. I was going to say —”

“You talk too much.”

As they went upstairs, she said, “Hugh thinks I'm the Poor Butterfly, and I think he is.”

“Were you ...” It was too late to stop. “Were you ever ... um ... intimate with him?”

“Hugh couldn't be intimate with the Queen of Sheba if she wore nothing but his spurs and his Sam Browne,” she said; which made him laugh, and that made her smile.

* * *

Next morning there was blood on his pillow; quite a lot of blood.

The castle had a telephone, but it wasn't working. One of the servants bicycled seven miles to the nearest doctor. When he came, a police sergeant was with him in his car.

The doctor changed the dressings. “This should have been done yesterday,” he said. “I don't like the look of some of those stitches.
What the devil have you been up to?”

“Oh ... rest, and quiet reflection.”

“Hogwash.” He tested Mackenzie's heart and lungs and blood pressure, and shook his head. “A week in bed. Alone. If you don't lie down soon, you'll fall down.” He scribbled a note. “Hospital in Edinburgh. See this man. He'll help you.”

The sergeant replaced the doctor.

He said he had received a telephone call at the police station from Mrs Mackenzie in London. Of course it was an awful long way, and the line was all crackles and whistles ... Still, it seemed that Mrs Mackenzie had lost her big car, the Daimler ... It was a pity the details weren't exactly clear ... And wouldn't you know it, she was cut off by the operator. Military priority, or some such blether ... There was no escaping the war, was there? Congratulations on your medal, sir. He said goodbye and rejoined the doctor. Mackenzie and Dorothy watched the doctor's car rattle down the long drive.

“That policeman knows the Daimler's here,” Mackenzie said. “He's heard the gossip. He'll probably telegram my mother. She'll probably tell that fat-faced brigadier. We'd better leave.”

“Where would you like to go?”

He tried to scratch his stitches, until she pulled his hand away and held it. “I haven't any money,” he said.

“You own half of Argyll.”

“I don't inherit until I'm twenty-one. I get an allowance, but I spent it all in France.”

“Look around. There must be money here. Somewhere.”

“Mother has a study. She always keeps it locked.”

“Wake up, Andrew. If at first you don't succeed,
cheat.”

He went away and came back ten minutes later with a felling axe. She watched as he hacked away at the study door. The noise attracted a couple of servants. “It's all right,” she told them. “A cat got trapped in there, that's all.” They left. He chopped through the lock and the door swung open.

There was a massive bureau-desk, and it too was locked. “Mistrustful old bat,” he said, and attacked it.

Inside was a cashbox. Also locked. “You miserable bitch!” he shouted. He stood it on end and swung the axe as if splitting a log. After three blows the lid fell off. They were forty-seven pounds richer.

“Where shall we go?” she asked. “Since you're not going back to France.” He sat on the floor. His face was shining with sweat. Below the dressings the sweat was pink. “America?” she said. “I have friends there.”

“That's desertion. I'm not going to desert.” He spread the notes like a fan. “Forty-seven miserable quid. I don't know ... What should I do?”

“That's easy. When in doubt, go to the races.”

“I like being with you. I don't have to think. Thinking just makes my stitches itch.”

They went to their room to pack. “Fresh underwear,” he decided. “It's about the only thing I've got lots of.” He undressed, and stood in front of the mirror, carefully brushing his hair. He cleared his throat. “May I have the pleasure?”

“Andrew ... your affairs are your affair, but ... Haven't you got a bank account?”

“It's empty.”

“Well, empty it some more. Get an overdraft.”

“Jolly good idea.
Now
may I have the pleasure?”

“Yes, of course.” She fell onto the bed and lay spread-eagled.

“Take me for all you're worth, Andrew. Including the overdraft.”

* * *

The bank manager at Crianlaroch knew the Mackenzie family well and he valued their custom; all the same he could allow an eighteen-year-old an overdraft of no more than twenty-five pounds. Crianlaroch was a prudent place and the manager was only a year off retirement. Mackenzie took the lot in cash, on the spot, which was not at all what the manager expected.

“Perth,” she said. “There's a race meeting at Perth.”

It took them four hours to drive there. The weather was better, and Mackenzie was grateful for that because he was feeling worse. His face throbbed painfully and he was sweating all the time. The road was straight, even if it wasn't smooth. For mile after mile it ran alongside Loch Tay, and then it followed the Tay through Ballinluig and Birnam. “Where the beeches came from,” he told her. Conversation was an effort. He was drowsy. At times it seemed to him that the Daimler was driving itself, and he was just there to fool about with
the wheel. That was a dangerous idea. They had a flask, so he took some whisky to clear his head. “Darling, you just missed that cow, or whatever it was,” she said.

“Did I really?” He squeezed her hand. “Goes to show what a bloody brilliant pilot I am.”

They reached Perth too late for the first race. The bar was open. They ate smoked salmon sandwiches and drank whisky while they picked a horse in the second. “There's a runner called Total Wreck,” she said. “No form, unknown jockey, poor draw.”

“Back it!” he said. Total Wreck surged through the field and won by a length at thirty-to-one. They rejoiced, and went to collect a fistful of notes, and were still rejoicing when they came back to the bar and celebrated with more whisky. A big, pleasant-faced major strolled over and congratulated them. “You'll be Captain Mackenzie?” he said. “The D.S.O.?”

“No, no. Can't you see I'm in mufti? I'm on leave, old chap.”

“Not so, I'm afraid. My name's Day. I'm in the APM's department.”

“You're all bastards,” Dorothy said. “Every last one of you.”

“I'm not going to France,” Mackenzie said.

“Of course you are. No fuss, old man. We'll forget the nonsense about the car. Forget all about the munitions factories. Up you get, old chap. If we go now, we can catch the London express and put you on tonight's boat train.”

“How did you know I was here?” Mackenzie asked.

“Your picture's in all the papers. You're famous.”

“He's not very well,” Dorothy said.

“In that case he'll be in good company when he gets to Wipers,” Day said. “Nobody's very well there at the moment.”

* * *

Poperinghe wasn't a patch on Gazeran. The field was vast and bumpy; three squadrons were based here. The crews lived in draughty Nissen huts, eight officers to a hut. The mess was gaunt and cold. There was no escape from the wind; it rattled the windows of the orderly room. When two military policemen delivered Mackenzie there, they found the adjutant alone; and the adjutant was not Brazier.

“Where's Uncle?” Mackenzie asked.

“Moved on. I'm the new Uncle.” He was balding and amiable, and he wore a faded Observer's wing. He scribbled a signature and the policemen saluted and marched away. “Spot of bother? I expect you're glad to be back. Blighty's a dangerous place, if you ask me. Too many beanos. Too many poppets.”

“I'm not well, Uncle.”

“See Dando. He's got some new hangover cure.”

“Not hungover.”

“Look ... the C.O. wants everyone in the anteroom in five minutes. You'd better be there. You don't want to blot your copybook again, D.S.O. or no D.S.O.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“I must say you look pretty foul. Stay off the gin, old chap. That's my advice.”

Mackenzie walked to the anteroom. He felt cold, but walking made him sweat. What he needed more than anything was a bath. Major Day had travelled with him on the express to London. Mackenzie had dozed most of the way. Occasionally he daydreamed about killing the major and running away, but the man was big and alert. Just to look at him made Mackenzie feel drained of energy. In London, Day had handed him over to a captain in the APM's department. They caught the boat train, and the boat. In France, the military policemen took possession. They had put him in a car and driven him to Poperinghe, hitting every pothole on the way. “Slow down,” he'd said. “I'm not perishable goods, for God's sake. What's the rush?” They hadn't answered, and they hadn't slowed down.