The Condition of Muzak (18 page)

“I don’t think I’ll try it now.” Catherine was concerned for him. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

“Turned my ankle in the stirrup, that’s all.”

“Foei tog!” said Olmeijer sympathetically. He spoke in Afrikaans to the blacks holding Jerry, ordering them to take him to the stoep, ordering others to capture the ostrich and return it to its pen. At the door to the house Olmeijer dismissed the boys and he took one side of the hobbling Englishman while Catherine took the other. Olmeijer was in fine humour.

“I hope the ostrich is all right,” said Jerry.

“Dit is vir my om’t ewe!” Olmeijer was admiring. “Ye’ave te’ve gets to rroide them oostriches…” He remembered himself. “Excuse me, Miss Cornelius. Eouwt ’ere, wivart vimenfolk arahnd, ya git a liddel sleck wid de lengvij.” They entered a large white kitchen, seating Jerry in a high-backed wooden chair. “Olly! Olly! Waar die drummel—weah de deuce es det houseboy?”

The houseboy emerged grinning. He had evidently heard what had happened. Olmeijer told him to bring cold water and towels for Jerry’s ankle.

Catherine helped Jerry to remove his jacket, looking about for a cloth. “I’ll clean your face.”

“Nar, nar,” said Olmeijer pleasantly, “lit one av der serrvants do et! Det’s wod dey’re paid fer, efter all!”

Catherine left the kitchen, entering a shady hall, on her way to Jerry’s room to get him a fresh shirt and jacket. As she passed the door of the room she and Una were sharing, she heard her friend’s voice raised in song. Glad that Una seemed more cheerful, she went in. Una was bathing. As an uncomprehending black girl poured warm water over her perfect back she rendered an old Gus Elen music-hall song of several seasons before:

“Ssshh,” said Catherine smiling, “he’ll hear you. He’s only in the kitchen. I thought you hated that song. You were saying…”

“I do hate it,” Una agreed, sponging her breasts, “but it’s the only thing that’ll cheer me up at the moment.”

“You’re such a pro-Boer! You could hardly get work…”

“Yesterday’s underdog is tomorrow’s tyrant.” Una stood up, taking the towel which the pretty servant girl handed to her. “That must be even more obvious on the Dark Continent, I suppose.” She raised her voice and sang louder:

Naked, Una swaggered around the room, watched by a spluttering Catherine and a wide-eyed black girl.

Spontaneously, Una linked arms with Catherine and then with the servant, to march them back and forth across the carpet. “Altogether for the chorus!”

“We don’t know it, Una.”

Una stopped, put her hand on the back of the young servant’s neck and kissed her full on the lips. The girl uttered a strangled yell and fled from the bedroom.

Catherine stared at her friend in despair. “What did you want to do that for, Una? You’ll give the whole game away at this rate.”

Only hours ahead of the Cossacks and the so-called ‘Mohawks’, Una Persson reached the garrison at Fort Henry to find the place crowded with the Northwest Mounted Police and a couple of regiments who, on first sight of their dark blue and scarlet uniforms, seemed to be the 5th and 7th Royal Irish Lancers. The four high concrete towers of the fort were thick with Maxim guns. There was also a generous display of medium-weight artillery all along the crenellated walls, while circling over the pines and crags of the heavily wooded pass which the fort defended, a Vickers Vimy biplane kept reconnaissance. As she dismounted and went to look for the CO Una realised that her ride had been unnecessarily hasty—the plane would be able to warn the Canadians of an attack in plenty of time. The Cossacks, as usual, were not showing much caution. Her long Henry rifle in the crook of her arm, she forced her way through the Lancers and Mounties and ran up the concrete steps to the HQ building, saluting the healthy corporal on duty at the door. “Captain Persson the scout. Who’s your commandant, trooper?”

He returned her salute. “District Superintendent Cornelius, at present, ma’am. Um. Is it urgent, captain?”

She straightened his broad-brimmed hat on his head. She took a pace backward, cocking her eye at him. “You’d probably have time for a couple of choruses of ‘Rose-Marie’ before a Cossack sabre turned you into a soprano.”

He was shocked. He opened the door for her; he was still saluting. “Scout to see you, sir.”

Una strode in. In the loose silk divided skirt of the Don Cossack, a wolfskin-trimmed riding kaftan, with cartridge pockets just above the breasts, an astrakhan shapka, she could be immediately identified as an irregular.

The District Superintendent greeted her: a wary wave of his gloved hand. The scarlet of his tunic clashed horribly with his young face which bore an expression of callow sternness and which suggested that he was new to the job. His accent was a reasonable attempt to give Canadian inflexions to an otherwise nondescript English accent. “You’ve news of the invasion?”

“They’re done with Quebec and are on their way. I didn’t expect to see you this far north, Jerry.”

“They posted me from Toronto two days ago. I was supposed to be in Niagara Falls by now. Do you think I’ve been set up? Is it going to be the Alamo, all over again? Or was it the Alma?”

“Don’t forget Quebec initially welcomed the Cossacks. The French always think they can control their conquerors. There wasn’t any resistance to speak of. And nobody was much interested in stopping them between the time they left Alaska until they landed at Ungava. Even then you all thought they’d be content to run around in the Northwest Territory a bit until they got tired and went home. But by that time the States had started to get worried. Those are American guns out there, aren’t they?”

“Mostly. They’ve been very good about giving us support.”

“Then you’ve nothing to worry about. Why were you going to Niagara Falls? Honeymoon?”

“Oh, sure.” He scratched his red sleeve with leather fingers. “No, I was meeting my father. I think. He’s got business in Buffalo.”

“I thought your father was in Mexico.”

“Maybe he’ll be going to Mexico later.”

“Are you sure he’s—?”

“No. But he says he is. It was worth checking.”

“I suppose so.”

“The bloody Cossacks have fucked everything up, as usual. Once they start—”

“You’ll stop them. They’ll never reach Kingston.”

He frowned anxiously at a map of the Great Lakes. “We don’t want the Americans moving in. And they will, unless…”

“They’ve left nobody behind—the Cossacks, I mean. The ‘Mohawks’ aren’t a problem. As long as they all attack Fort Henry, that’s it. You’ll blow them to bits.” She sounded sad. “You needn’t worry about the States.”

“It was bad enough when it was only Sitting Bull. Or do I mean Notting Hill? What’s that?”

“Since Roosevelt they’ve had it in their heads that the rest of America is really theirs, too, that they’re leasing it to a lot of incompetent relatives and foreigners on condition that they look after it properly. But in this case there won’t be much more interference.” She was decidedly regretful. “A shame. I’d love to see the Cossacks in New York.”

“I heard that’s where they meant to go. They thought the Ungava Peninsula was Nantucket.”

“You could be right. They’re still not clear as to whether they’re in the USA or Canada. There’s only one or two of them can speak any English at all—and the French ‘Mohawks’ can’t understand the Cossacks’ French while the Cossacks can’t understand the French’s French. Apparently the accents create two virtually different languages.”

“You know a lot about them.”

“I should do. I’ve been acting as an interpreter since Fort Chimo.” She straightened her shapka. “Well, I must be on my way.”

“You’re not staying for the ‘fun’?”

“No point. You’ll beat them. They’re tired, overconfident, poorly armed. They’ll have eaten badly and been sleeping in the saddle, if I know them. Most will probably be drunk. They’ll keep coming at you until you’ve wiped them out. In the meantime the ‘Mohawks’ will have run back to Quebec.”

“They can’t have come all this way without a plan.”

“They got to Uppsala two years ago without a plan. They were wiped out. Four prisoners taken. It’s their nature. And twenty years ago they reached Rawalpindi, couldn’t find the British, hit the Chinese by accident and drove them back. Hardly anyone in England ever knew there had been a threat!”

“That was a bit of luck for someone,” said Jerry innocently.

“It usually is. Well, cheerio. You’re bound to get a promotion if you hang around long enough after the battle.”

“I told you, I was on my way…”

“I can go via Niagara, if you like. Any message?”

“If you get a chance, find a man named ‘Brown’. He’s staying at the Lover’s Leap Hotel on the American side. Tell him I’ve been held up.”

“Okay.” She removed her kaftan. She had a buckskin jacket underneath. Hanging by a deerhide thong at her beaded belt was an old-fashioned powder horn. She reached for the horn, taking something from the bullet pouch on her other hip. “Have you got a mirror?”

He removed the map of the Great Lakes. There was a large oval mirror behind it. She inspected her face. Then, tipping a little powder onto the puff, she began to cover her nose.

“I remember the good old days,” said Sebastian Auchinek, his voice grumbling along with the twelve wing-mounted engines on either side of the cabin, “when there was still a sense of wonder in the world.”

“That was before universal literacy and cheap newsprint.” Jerry spoke spitefully. Either Auchinek or the engines began to cough. They had not been getting on since Calcutta when the Russian policeman had demanded to see their documents and Jerry had shot him.

The Dornier DoX was circling Darwin while they tried to make up their minds what to do. Nobody had expected the Japanese to strike so fast. As far as Whitehall had been concerned the problem had been whether or not to let them stay in Manchukao. When they had materialised simultaneously outside Sydney, Brisbane and other cities, pounding the settlements to bits with naval guns and bombs, resistance had been minimal. Help was on the way from Singapore and Shanghai, but it would be some time before the Emperor’s armies were shifted.

“Besides,” said Moses Collier from the co-pilot’s seat, “it’s the Aussies’ own fault for being élitist. You know how eager the Japs are to be accepted everywhere at any cost. We’d better scarper, Jerry. Rowe Island’s our only chance.”

“It’s full of bones. It’s haunted. I hate it.”

“No time for superstition now, Mr Cornelius,” said Auchinek with a fair bit of pleasure. “It was you who believed the story about the waters of Eternal Life with their powers of resurrection. I never did.”

“You’ve never believed anything. A lot of people were as impressed as I was.” Jerry was defensive, but he responded without much spirit. “I only said I hated the place…”

“That’s hardly the point.” Mo took a tighter grip on his controls as the plane lost height for a moment. “We’ve got to dump this bugger, get her repaired before she falls out of the sky. Listen to those engines!”

Jerry was looking moodily down at the Australian wasteland. “I suppose so.”

“There’s a couple of C-class Empire flying boats in reasonable nick there,” said Collier. “I diverted them myself.” Mo had spent a lot more time than any of the others in this part of the world. Occasionally he would even claim to be an Australian. “Lovely jobs. Better than this old madam any day of the week.”

Jerry was sensitive about his Dornier. He would never admit that he had been hasty in acquiring it while it was still in its experimental stages. “They’ve got nothing like the range,” he said automatically. “Nothing like.”

“Maybe not, but it’ll take a plane in good nick to get us to Singapore, if that’s where you still want to go.” Collier buttoned up his helmet strap. “What do we all think? Is it on?”

“For me it is.” Auchinek began to leave the cabin. “I’ll go aft and see what the others have to say.”

“See if you can get some more info out of the abo,” Collier suggested. They had found a black tracker in the ruins, before they had realised that the Japanese were still present in the city.

“Can’t.” said Auchinek.

“He left.” Jerry explained. “While we were going up. Opened the door and walked out. Said he had to find his mother and father. They’d been after an emu, apparently.”