A Medal For Murder (17 page)

I had him. Every muscle in his face tightened. He was weather-beaten and dark from his years serving in the Empire, but his face darkened still more. It was answer enough. Yesterday afternoon, Captain Wolfendale and Mr Lawrence Milner, formerly Corporal Milner, had sat by the fireplace and played
Called to Arms
.

‘Well, Captain?’

‘Yes,’ he said in almost a whisper. ‘Milner was here yesterday. He sometimes calls by, brings me a bottle of whisky and a twist of tobacco. Knows I don’t get out much.’

 
 

Special duties took Captain Wolfendale across country that spring, Kimberley behind him, Ladysmith ahead. The fertile horseshoe of land within the Wittenbergen range was well guarded, in British possession. Now it must be safeguarded. These Boers had a way of living to fight another day. Surrender on Tuesday, re-form on Wednesday, attack on Thursday. But only if they could be fed and watered in the meantime.

In the bright sunshine, watching a lizard sun itself on a boulder as he rode by, he could almost forget that Brother Boer nearly did for him. His shoulder still gave him gyp. His leg went into cramp at a whim.

He sat easy in the saddle, the grey pony trotting patiently, keeping its foothold. His batman, Sergeant Lampton, followed behind, then the small troop of infantry. Thank God so many black Africans had joined the good fight. They could find the way when the captain came to a bend in the river and did not know how to cross. When the game was over, the Kaffirs
would expect their reward. You could see it in the energy of their movements, hear it in their voices. At night, they made music, caressing concertinas, singing to the stars. Once he had asked what they sang about, but he couldn’t fathom the answer.

The captain waved the line to pause. He took out his field glasses and looked down at the peaceful valley. The farm nestled like a sleeping cat. He could see why Brother Boer would fight to keep this land, fight for what he saw as his birthright. Psalm-singing Brother Boer thought God was on his side. Well, he would soon learn that when push came to shove, the Almighty signed up for the British Empire.

Captain Wolfendale looked back at Sergeant Lampton. ‘We take everything we can carry.’

He halted the column further on, letting the horses drink at the river that ran through the valley, ordering the native drivers to unhook the oxen and let them rest and graze. It had been a long trek. The business could wait till morning.

The woman who opened the farmhouse door was about fifty years of age, big and buxom, with a broad Dutch face and a wary smile. She knew better than to argue, looking beyond him to the troop of men, indicating in her guttural voice and with waves of her arm that the men could sleep in the barn. He told her they would pitch their own tents. Don’t trust them an inch.
Sleep in our barn. We’ll put a match to the straw while you sleep
. Opening the door a little wider, she asked the captain and the sergeant inside. A boy of about ten fetched two mugs. These people never had just one child. There’d be sons, off on commando with their father. There’d be a girl, out of sight. The woman
poured milk from a jug into mugs, handing them to the captain and sergeant, waving them to sit at the table.

She spooned stew with dumplings into dishes. They were strange people. He could not tell whether she was hospitable or trying to ingratiate herself. Yet she showed no fear. If he were to believe her gestures, she was complaining that there was little food, little to give or to be commandeered.

The captain looked round the room. It was a typical farmhouse with a sturdy dresser, gleaming pottery, a piano, and what he took to be religious texts framed and hung either side of the door.

Through the open window, he could smell smoke from the fire the men had lit. The Boer boy looked through the window, said something to his mother.

‘The men have killed a pig to roast,’ Sergeant Lampton said quietly.

The captain nodded.

When they had finished eating, Captain Wolfendale thanked the woman politely. He made a point of ruffling the lad’s hair. The boy squirmed. Captain and sergeant pulled on their caps, and left the house.

Early the next morning, the captain knocked on the door again. This time he had half a dozen men with him. The woman opened the door. Behind her was a girl of about sixteen who seemed unsure whether to stay put or to hide. The woman spoke to her daughter, telling her to give the men a jug of milk.

The captain nodded to Corporal Milner to take the jug. Then he said, in his loudest, clearest English, ‘You have ten minutes to leave the house and then we shall burn it down.’

The woman did not understand.

He repeated the words.

The girl dropped the jug. It smashed. Milk spread in a puddle across the flagged floor. She translated the captain’s words.

In came the six men, carrying straw. Like furniture removers, they began to shift table, chairs and the dresser. Unlike furniture removers, they stacked it in the middle of the room.

‘Not yet,’ the captain said.

The six men took up positions around the room, idly picking up this item and that. Corporal Milner pulled one of the framed texts from beside the door, dropped it with a clatter, ground it under his heel.

A shot rang out. The boy ran to the window and yelled. His sister joined him.

The girl drew herself up defiantly, turned to her mother and spoke quietly, then back to the captain. ‘Why do you kill the bullock?’

The captain pointed to the clock. He held up his fingers. ‘Ten minutes.’ No one could say he was an unfair man.

The girl and her mother disappeared upstairs.

Milner said, ‘I wouldn’t mind living here meself.’

One of the straw bringers said, ‘Seems a terrible shame.’

‘Are we gloomy?’ asked Private Clark. ‘No we are not.’ He pulled out the piano stool, sat down and began to play ‘Rule Britannia’. Lampton took out his mouth organ and joined in. At the end of each chorus, the men sang the words at the ceiling,
Britons never ever ever shall be slaves!

From upstairs came a young sweet voice, singing in Afrikaans. One of their damned hymns.

Private Clark thumped out a music-hall tune as mother and daughter came down, carrying bags, wearing coats and sturdy shoes. The mother and daughter looked straight ahead as they left the house and walked into the yard. The boy helped a bent old woman. Hatred spilled from her currant eyes. She cursed, spit dribbling from her mouth.

‘Never mind that, Ma,’ the captain said. ‘Just get yourselves outside.’

The old grandmother leaned heavily on the boy’s arm, still cursing the soldiers as she left.

The captain looked through the window at the burning fields, at the cattle being walked away, at the sacks of oats and barley, being lifted by the mule drivers onto the carts. He would never ask his men to do a job he wouldn’t do himself. Striking a match, he lit his pipe. With great care, he held the match out to his batman. Lampton took the match. Every eye was on him as he touched it to the straw in the middle of the room, beneath the stacked furniture. There was a low derisory laugh when it did not take and Lampton had to strike another, breathing soft encouragement on the flame.

There is something about a burning house, as the flames lick up the walls, as the smoke pours out, chased by the wind, as a wooden lintel cracks and drops and a roof collapses in on itself.

The old woman cursed every soldier in sight, her hand on the boy’s shoulder. Their faces blank with misery, mother and daughter watched the house burn. It was as if, by not turning their backs, the destruction might be reversed.

Africans had appeared from who knows where, the
farm labourers. They stood in silence, watching.

The girl said, in English, ‘What do we do now?’

‘You should have thought of that before,’ the captain said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘We know your father and brothers come here for supplies and to use this as a base for going out and cutting the telegraph lines and destroying the railway. Ask
them
what you should do.’

A plume of black smoke rose through the light spring breeze, etching cruel unnatural clouds onto the clear blue sky.

 
 

What would Dylan Ashton have to say for himself, I wondered. Might he have dared let Lucy and Alison stay in his rooms above the house agent’s office?

Croker & Company, house agents, occupied a prime position in the town centre. A small poster advertising
Anna of the Five Towns
still held pride of place in a corner of the window. A flyer taped to the glass of the door informed, in neatly printed block script, “Tickets at the box office, or apply within.”

A balding gentleman with a perfectly egg-shaped head sat at an important-looking oak desk scanning a ledger. Dylan, slight, his hair oiled into submission, came from the back room carrying a file. He frowned with concentration as he took his seat at a smaller desk opposite the door, where a typewriter held paper. He looked down at the open file, and then began to type.

I stared hard through the window, hoping to attract his attention. I did not relish the thought of waiting until either he or his boss chose to go out for their midday meal. Mr Croker looked like a man whose wife would wrap a potted meat sandwich in a piece of beef sheeting.

Dylan had said that he lived above the premises, so he may not venture out.

Mr Croker raised his head. I tried to look like a woman dissatisfied with her current abode as I perused the information in the window. If Dylan felt my stare, he did not respond. Just when I thought this could not go on for much longer, the telephone rang.

Mr Croker picked up the receiver and began an animated conversation. I stepped inside and approached Dylan and his tap-tapping typewriter. He stopped and looked up.

I smiled warmly. ‘Pretend you’re helping me with something in the window and step outside.’

His eyes lit with surprised recognition. ‘Mrs Shackleton. How lovely to see you.’

Poor boy. I felt quite mean that all I wanted was information, not to pass the time of day or to reward Mr Croker for his advertisement in the theatre programme by becoming a customer.

‘A property in the window, Mr Ashton?’

The edge to my voice deflated Dylan in an instant. For a moment, he looked as though he would object. He thought better of it.

‘Certainly, madam.’

Dylan followed me into the street, turning his back towards Mr Croker. He ran his tongue over his lower lip. His face was pale, with just a little soreness around the right ear. A sprinkling of fiery spots could have been a skin complaint that erupted now and again. He had cut himself shaving and had taped a plaster under his chin. Something about him inspired pity. The hardness in my voice came with some effort.

‘Captain Wolfendale is desperately worried about his
granddaughter who is missing. I think you might be able to help.’

‘Lucy?’ he said, the fiery spots on his cheeks growing a deeper shade of red. ‘Why should I know?’

It was the lack of concern in his voice that gave him away. ‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Lucy is missing, Dylan, and so is Alison. You were with them last night. Where are they?’

He touched the red blotch on his face as if to soothe it. ‘I tell you, I don’t know.’