The Last Horseman (33 page)

Taylor tried to muster courage he’d never had. Thankfully shocked numbness made the doomed effort redundant.

‘Guard!’ the aide-de-camp called.

*

Darkness came quickly and hundreds of oil lamps were lit and hung outside bell tents – a glowing field of fireflies. Shadows fell across men’s faces as they were partially caught in the lamps’ glow. Pierce had not moved, watching to see where sentries patrolled and men came and went. By midnight the camp would be quiet. A cur dog could give him away but it might be less of a risk than trying to reach Radcliffe in daylight. He watched as African levies gathered in small groups around braziers, huddled against the cold night’s air. No matter what hardship they endured, he realized, they sat and ate with a muted cheerfulness. They laughed, teeth shining in the firelight. There was no difference between these people and those at home who had been enslaved before Lincoln’s war. He pulled his jacket back on and moved to the edge of a brazier where Mhlangana ladled out what looked to be a kind of porridge into a tin plate and handed it to Pierce and then passed him a piece of roughly torn bread.

‘Your friend is near the railway line. There is a tin shed there. He is not in chains, but they have a guard watching him. One of the levies saw him. They have given him a blanket and food.’

‘Near the soldiers’ tents?’

‘No. It is beyond them and past the buildings where the general works. It is closer to the supply yards where the train comes in.’

Pierce nodded. He dragged the piece of bread through the cloying food and pushed it into his mouth. Mhlangana watched, and smiled, as Pierce tested the blandness. It was hot, but it wouldn’t fill him.

‘
Putu
,’ said Mhlangana.

‘
Putu
,’ Pierce repeated. ‘We call this grits back home. Corn. We crush corn and boil it. Grits, though there’s usually a piece of meat that comes with it.’

‘We will have some meat, but not today,’ said Mhlangana, and used his fingers to scoop the food.

As Pierce ate, his eyes followed the movement of shadows as soldiers went back and forth to their own field kitchens. There would be picket lines set and guards rotated through the night.

‘You have fought in a war before?’ said Mhlangana.

Pierce nodded. ‘Oh yeah.’

‘But not here?’

‘No. A long way from here.’

‘Did you win your war?’

Pierce scowled and then sighed. ‘Well, they say we did. I think we won some of it.’

‘Did many people die?’

‘Sometimes there were dead as far as the eye could see.’ He gazed into the firelight as his memory recalled the great slaughter.

Mhlangana let the words settle. ‘Then you were hungry for war?’

Pierce dragged his fingers around the remains of the food on the plate and sucked them clean. ‘No. Freedom.’

Neither man spoke for a moment. Mhlangana hugged his knees to his chest and began to speak quietly, as the other men settled into silence and listened. ‘We work for the Boers and when the English took their women from the farms then our people were taken and put in other camps. Places only for blacks. But we work for the English now. We are crying out in our hunger. Our hearts are starving. We stand at the table of the white man and we look for crumbs of compassion, and we go hungry. We are beggars in our own land.’

A low, almost imperceptible murmur went around the gathered men.

Mhlangana continued and they remained silent and unmoving; his soft voice was meant only for them to hear. ‘We are not even allowed to dream. For they say there can be no dream of freedom, they say they will come in the night and snatch that dream from our hearts so we will wake in darkness and see only the white shadows walking this land. But I say our dream is greater than anything a thief can carry away. We do not want the bitterness of revenge on our tongues, but the day must come when we will not let them starve us any longer.’

This time there was no response from the gathered men. Some of them nodded and went back to their food.

‘I reckon that’s about it,’ said Pierce. He got to his feet and then stepped away into the darkness. There was little sense, Pierce decided, in trying to move through the shadows and risk being challenged. He lifted a pail of water and a lantern from a corner of the stables and made his way directly across the camp, his shoulders hunched in a subservient manner. If questioned he would pretend not to understand English. There were manned picket lines beyond in the darkness – a dull glow from a solitary lamp showed the soldier’s post. Clouds occasionally obscured the night sky but any half-decent Boer sniper could have picked off the sentry and created havoc in the camp. One man and a rifle could cause hundreds of men to stand to, ready to repel an attack that need never come. They would lose a night’s sleep and that gave an enemy the edge. The Boers, he decided, were far enough away not to pose a threat; the danger for him and Radcliffe lay within this camp. What seemed to be a parade ground loomed out of the darkness when he followed the boardwalk towards the rail yard. Tin huts boxed three sides of the large square; they had the look of an extended makeshift barracks, each corrugated hut joined to the other. This appeared to be where some of the fresh troops were quartered, and as he walked across the square he saw the field hospital with its Red Cross dark against the half-lit white canvas background.

He hesitated, thinking for a moment that he could try and see Edward, but caution stopped him. It would be too dangerous: the boy might recognize him and name him for who he was. But where was Radcliffe being held? He could not see any solitary hut. Then, moments before he turned away into the darkness, a door opened and a lantern lit the features of his friend as a guard escorted him in the direction of the hospital. Pierce fixed the hut in his mind’s eye and watched as Radcliffe was taken into the hospital. Pierce knew he would not be able to linger in the vicinity of the hut to wait for Radcliffe’s return. An African bearing a pail of water needed to be heading purposefully towards a destination.

He turned back to retrace his steps. Now that he knew where Radcliffe was being held, and how long it would take to reach the hut, he could plan how best to approach him in daylight. He would need Mhlangana to arrange for him to change places with whoever took Radcliffe’s washing water. If he could get close enough then he would find out what his friend wanted to do. They would need to move quickly because he still had no idea how badly injured Edward might be. And if they could make a run for it then to where and how? The countryside would be swarming with British troops. A couple of months back a boy had run off to war and here they were, two ageing men trying to save his skin. Goddammit, war was a whore in the night that robbed a man blind.

Sir George Amery was looking forward to his bed after a long day of surgery and care for the soldiers. Treating the sick and wounded in this godforsaken war took its toll on everyone. He read the notes on one of the Boer prisoners, his eyes blurring with tiredness, willing himself to push on for a few more minutes to determine the man’s chances of survival. Behind him in the corner of the room the kind-hearted soldier who guarded the ward was questioning a new prisoner, brought in an hour earlier with a leg wound. Amery’s orderlies eased off his bloodied clothing, readying him for a hospital suit and then surgery. The guard’s low murmuring voice was almost soporific as he checked in the Boer’s personal items, writing down each item of his personal belongings in a heavy bound war book.

‘Right we are then, now... the sooner we get this done the quicker that leg o’ yours’ll be seen to.’

A gold watch was passed from an orderly to the guard.

‘That’s a handsome piece, lad. Right, tuck that under his pillow,’ said the guard, licking the tip of his pencil and noting it down.

‘There you go, Dutchy,’ said the orderly, ‘safe and sound. Right where you can reach it.’

‘Anything else?’ asked the guard. ‘Got any money, have you?’

The Boer seemed comforted by the fact that no one had stolen his watch. He nodded.

‘All right, let’s have it. You’ll have it all back – Dutchy or Briton, we treat ’em all the same here.’

‘A shilling,’ said the Boer, pulling it from his tattered jacket, handing it over to the guard who added it to his list.

‘Anything else?’

The Boer shook his head. The guard raised his eyes above the ward book. There was always something else. ‘It goes in the book, lad. You see that, don’t you? It all goes in the book, lad. You see that, don’t you? Friend or foe – in the book it goes.’

The prisoner started to pull bits and pieces from every pocket. A small collection: a pipe, tobacco pouch, a matchbox, a bible, a silver snuffbox, a pot of beef essence and half a dozen Mauser bullets.

The guard watched as the men made a final foray through his pockets and then nodded that that was all.

‘Right. There we are then,’ said the guard.

Amery smiled, thankful for the kind voice of a decent man in this place of pain. A comfort of any kind was welcome. There were neither beds, nor sufficient linen, nor stretchers, nor nurses, and ambulances were often contributed by volunteers. The army seemed to have no concept of men’s pain. Those with shattered limbs were bundled unceremoniously on to the back of flatbed wagons whose jolting across the stony veld caused them even more agony. They were brave men, barely uttering complaint, but he thanked God for the Indian stretcher-bearers whose compassion and fearlessness sent them out under fire to carry back the wounded. Medical supplies were at times life-threateningly scarce, especially for the treatment of typhoid. The field hospital overflowed into bell tents that were meant to hold six healthy men. But when sickness struck, then ten typhoid patients at a time had to lie in that same space day and night on the hard ground, or, when it rained, in inches of mud. A groundsheet if they were lucky, a blanket if they were blessed. He had tested the forbearance of the army generals with his continual demands for supplies. He had only three doctors and a handful of nurses to attend to more than three hundred sick and injured men. Amery was haunted by the lack of nourishing food for his patients. Beef broth and horse-meat stew were staples but were not enough. His practice in England was far removed in all manner from this primitive environment, but his determination to relieve the men’s suffering was not diminished. He had scratched the scab of army callousness by dismissing half a dozen doctors whose ability to deal with the injured left a great deal to be desired. Reece-Sullivan had suppressed his irritation because of Amery’s influence and standing within the medical community, and had quickly drafted the incompetent doctors to other units.

Amery spent another hour in the main ward and then returned to the prisoners of war to assure himself that the wounded Boer had been taken into the shed that served as the surgical unit. He saw Evelyn Charteris with the hospital guard. Amery knew he was a family man: a soldier who had a gentle enough nature to be in charge of the wounded enemy. He and Evelyn were lifting Edward into a better position.

‘There you go now, son,’ said the ward guard.

Evelyn smiled at him with gratitude; she would not have been able to lift Edward on her own. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Got a lad his age myself back home,’ he said, and then saw Amery step closer. ‘Good evening, Sir George.’

The surgeon nodded his acknowledgement. Evelyn was already attending to Edward’s bandages.

‘You can manage?’ said Amery.

‘I’ve done this before. There’s no infection yet.’

He watched for a moment and saw that she was adept as a nurse. He peered at the discoloured and raw-looking stump. ‘The dry air helps heal wounds. It’s the only good thing about this place.’

The ward guard had returned to the chair by the room’s rear door, which led out into the open space around the hospital. He settled himself with his rifle across his lap.

‘He’s a good man,’ Amery told Evelyn, glancing at the guard. ‘He will call an orderly and have him check the boy through the night. He’ll have morphia. I’ll see to that. Try to get the lad to sip some beef tea before you leave him.’

‘I will. Thank you again, Sir George.’

He touched her shoulder. ‘I know what you tried to do in the camps, Mrs Charteris, and I appreciate your distress at what happened to that poor girl. From what I have heard the officer who murdered her did so to protect himself. Occasionally in these frightful times justice will be done.’ And with that he turned away and left Evelyn in the dim glow of the oil lamp as she put a new dressing on the rawness of Edward’s arm. The boy’s eyes half opened, the morphia still fogging his mind. His eyes widened as a figure appeared behind the woman who tended him.

‘Father,’ he whispered in disbelief.

Evelyn turned quickly and smiled warmly at Radcliffe, whose guard moved to the door and sat with the older soldier. ‘Joseph, he’s doing well,’ she assured him. ‘He has to get over the shock of the wound, and then he will gain his strength quickly.’

She stepped back so that Joseph could ease himself between the beds and sit next to his son. Radcliffe laid his hand on the boy’s face and lent forward to kiss his forehead. Evelyn moved quietly away to give them privacy.

Edward’s mouth was dry and he licked his parched lips, trying to form words to speak to his father. Radcliffe took a beaker of water from the top of the old ammunition box that served as a bedside table, and tilted the boy’s head so he could drink.

‘It’s OK,’ Radcliffe said.

The boy took a few sips and then nodded that he had had enough. He looked down at the stump of his arm. Radcliffe saw Edward grimly gather his courage and clench his jaw before smiling bravely at his father. ‘You came after me. Just as well. Look at what happened to me.’ Then, despite himself, his eyes welled with tears.

His father held the boy’s good hand to his lips.

‘I’m sorry, Father, truly I am.’

Radcliffe let Edward compose himself. He was aware that the guards were not that far away and might overhear anything he said. ‘Liam told me what happened. You were very brave.’