A Medal For Murder (23 page)

Captain Wolfendale cursed his luck. He had given the order to blow up a cartload of Free State ammunition that they did not have the capacity to carry. Some fool of a private had been too hasty with the charge and killed himself. The blast threw Wolfendale into evil red rocks. It knocked his shoulder out. When he regained consciousness, the pain stopped him in his tracks. That he escaped that damned hospital without catching typhoid was a miracle. His new posting made him wish for the battlefield, or for typhoid.

Tailed by Sergeant Lampton and two privates, the captain gazed on the rows of white bell tents with half closed eyes. If he looked slantwise, he could fool himself that it was a stop-over, a temporary camp on the dusty veld. The putrid stench of latrines gave a lie to that pretence. No soldiers’ camp ever stank to high heaven as this did. He waved a hand at his batman. Sergeant Lampton produced a handkerchief. The captain held it to his nose and mouth.

‘Dammit, we should number these rows. And why don’t they raise their tent flaps in this heat?’ He stopped at a tent with an open flap, thinking this must be the right place. The woman might be a traitor to her country, but an Englishwoman would have the sense to want fresh air.

Three adults sat listlessly, gazing at nothing. One nursed a child. Another child lay motionless on a mat, flies buzzing around its face.

It was not the right tent. They kept going.

Further on, the sergeant stopped. The captain opened the flap with his stick. Flies buzzed inside the tent. Three women looked up. At the back of the tent, two young children lay on a blanket. A fly landed on one of the children’s eyelids. The younger of the women waved a scrap of material across the children’s faces, as if to cool them.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom of the tent, the captain could see that the tiny bodies were covered with red spots. One of them had yellow puss oozing from a scab.

The captain leaned into the tent and addressed the younger woman. ‘Are you Elizabeth Bindeman?’

She did not budge, but glared at him defiantly. ‘Yes.’

‘Your husband is on commando.’

‘He is. And when this war is over, you’ll answer to him.’

The captain turned to his batman. ‘Send for a stretcher.’

The sergeant passed the order to a private, telling the second private to stay by the tent. ‘Make sure these two kids aren’t disappeared into some other tent.’

‘I’ll take care of my own children!’ The woman placed
her fingertips on the forehead of the smallest child. ‘Just get me some fresh water, some calamine lotion.’

The captain said, ‘You won’t be taking care of anyone. Not for a good while.’

‘Don’t send them to that damned hospital to die.’

One of the children moaned, more like the hurt cry of a small animal than a human sound.

‘They’ll be better off there. You’re coming with me.’

‘Don’t take them.’ The woman pleaded now. ‘Children die in there. Go in with measles, come out dead from typhoid.’ She came to the front of the tent, blocking the children from view.

How did you deal with these people? That was the question the captain asked himself. If she were a soldier, there’d be rules. He knew better than to send her off to the magistrate in town. It would reflect badly if he could not keep order in the camp. Better to deal with this himself.

She stared at him in sullen silence. She was a fine looking woman, a bit scrawny but good bones.

‘You were seen, leaving the camp. Supplies went missing. You were giving succour to the enemy.’

She stepped from the tent. ‘So shoot me. You’ve just condemned my children to death.’

From a shadowy corner of the tent, a woman raised her head and in broken English said, ‘You mad. What Elizabeth give? Nothing. No food. No wood for fire, nasty, nasty . . .’

Elizabeth Bindeman said, ‘She’s right. What succour can any of us give? We queued six hours for mouldy horseflesh that we can’t cook. There’s no fuel to bake bread with your rotten weevil-ridden flour, even if we had clean water.’

‘I’m not here to listen to complaints,’ the captain said calmly. ‘I’m here to investigate.’

If she would vehemently deny giving help to the enemy, he could go back and write in his report that he had investigated and found no evidence. If these foolish crones would give her an alibi instead of coming out with a battery of complaints, he could say that his informant had been mistaken.

‘You were seen leaving the camp, madam.’

‘And where did I go on these mysterious escapades? Do you think I would stay here if I knew how to leave?’

‘I did not mention more than one occasion. You have just done that yourself.’

‘Who accuses me?’

Another reason not to send her to the magistrates. That would suit her – to demand in court to know who were the camp informers.

‘Escort this lady to my office,’ he said to the sergeant.

Let her kick her heels for an hour, then he would give her two weeks’ detention in the cage, keeping a watch in case her Boer husband or his friends came to her rescue.

In the camp office, Captain Wolfendale made a great show of looking at his notes. ‘You were seen by the camp fence two nights ago, passing food through the wire. Last night you were watched going through a gap in the fence.’

Fires had been lit on the hillside. Scouts were sent but, as usual, found no one. Brother Boer, as ever, disappeared into the heart of the mountains, following the Pied Piper. Before dawn, the explosion from the railway track had lit the sky. And this was the shame of
it, he believed it was not the men on commando who had done that, but Elizabeth Bindeman.

She did not deny it. ‘Your trains won’t fetch any more souls here to their slow death,’ was all she said.

‘For breaking camp regulations, your punishment will be two weeks’ detention. Sergeant, escort Mrs Bindeman into detention.’ He could not say, to the cage.

‘Say it,’ she said. ‘Say that an English officer condemns an English woman to be caged.’

She fixed herself to the spot and closed her eyes. Her fists clenched. When the sergeant touched her arm, she would not move. The sergeant sighed. He turned to the private. ‘If she won’t walk, carry her.’

The women started to sing as she passed by, one of their Boer hymns.

A sullen silence hung over the concentration camp as the captain walked his rounds. This wasn’t what he’d signed on for, to be a prisoner himself in this stinking hole, this town of tents. Tents were all right for soldiers who struck camp and moved on. How long could this continue? Was every Boer woman and child to be holed up, and forever?

In a clearing by the fence, two dead children lay on a blanket. A group of women sat weeping.

How he hated these scenes. Fortunately, his batman had found him again. ‘For God’s sake, get those kids buried.’

The sergeant paused and spoke to the women. He had picked up a little of their language.

To the captain he said, ‘They won’t bury them without coffins.’

The captain and the sergeant exchanged a look. For a brief moment, each knew what the other was thinking:
of their comrades left behind at the foot of a hill, not marked by the smallest of crosses.

‘Tell them there are no more coffins. If we had wood, they could have fuel. Tell them I’ll speak to the hospital. We’ll find them shrouds.’ The sergeant did not respond. ‘What? What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know how to say shrouds in their language.’

The captain strode on, leaving him to it. He had a report to write. The powers that be wanted to know how lessons progressed in the school tent. They seemed to think this place was a Sunday school outing.

He stood in the doorway of the designated tent. Miss Marshall had her back to him. A dozen children sat cross-legged. One or two looked at the teacher. The others, skeletal and hollow-eyed, existed in a kind of trance. Did they all have dysentery? A foul stench filled the tent.

She had not heard him, or affected not to. She spoke in English, with a Cape twang, and was reading to them from
Alice in Wonderland
. ‘If everybody minded their own business, said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, the world would go round faster than it does.’

Feeling his presence, the woman turned. She had light curling hair, the colour of burnished gold. Her skin was pale with a faint sprinkling of freckles. In the half light of the tent, he could not make out the colour of her eyes. Blue? He should remember. He had boldly remarked on their loveliness the last time they spoke. Her lips were full and ready to go on speaking of the Duchess.

She turned back to the children. ‘Excuse me one moment, class.’

Outside the tent, the teacher stepped onto the dusty track. As she did, the heavens opened. Rain came in a great sudden pelt so that for a moment she seemed to
lose her balance. He reached out a hand to steady her.

Through a sheet of rain, she said, ‘Captain, one of the children is upset.’

Upset? They stank, they sickened, came out in scabs, their bellies swelled, they caught measles, typhoid, were bitten by snakes. In the hospital and out of it, they died like flies.

‘Upset?’ Captain Wolfendale repeated, wondering had his ears deceived him.

‘Yes. One of the boys. Young Bindeman.’

The captain put his hand lightly on her waist and guided her back into the tent, out of the rain. ‘It would be a help if you would come to the office, Miss Marshall, after your duties. I should like to hear about the little chap who is upset, and to know how your classes progress.’

She blushed at his interest.

He spoke in a low voice, almost cajoling, as if his life depended on her answer. ‘You will come to see me?’

‘At what time should I come?’

‘Would six o’clock be convenient?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Good.’

Women were such fools. All an officer had to do was swear undying love and eternal fidelity and the manoeuvre was more straightforward than an Aldershot field day. But a school teacher. This would be a challenge, he could tell. He smiled at her, looking adoringly into her deep-set eyes. A washed-out blue. She was not in the first flush of youth. Perhaps a proposal of marriage would be number one priority. He felt sure his reputation had not reached the well-meaning school teachers of Cape Town.

 
 

Rodney walked me through the motor showroom. We paused by a shining Wolseley 10, highly polished paint work, glossy mudguards and gleaming lamps.

‘This was Dad’s favourite.’

On an impulse, I opened the door, stepped onto the running board and climbed in. ‘She’s a beauty.’ I patted the driver’s seat beside me.

As Rodney got in, the tension slid away and he smiled. ‘My mother said cars were better standing than running. No noise, wind, smell, and you didn’t have to put on goggles and a big coat.’

‘She had a point.’

He reached out and held the steering wheel. ‘Who would have killed him, Mrs Shackleton?’

Good question. I shook my head, and kept my thoughts to myself. You are not a bad actor, Rodney. It could have been you. Your way is clear to take over the firm and marry Alison. Be rid of the man who tormented your mother and belittled you. Alison herself? Milner stood in the way of her happiness. Or Lucy, sick of Lawrence Milner’s pestering. And what
better and more dramatic diversion than to take herself into hiding, as a kidnap victim. All four young people had stuck together in the theatre bar. Rodney, Alison, Dylan and Lucy. For weeks they had rehearsed, perhaps in a hothouse atmosphere that led them to compare notes about more than the play. Three of the four, Rodney, Alison and Lucy, would have easier lives as a result of Milner’s death.

Either of the Geerts could be the murderer. He because cuckolded, she because she knew he made love to her while hankering after a girl half her age. Or the captain. The man I could not fathom. Did he want Lucy off his hands to the highest bidder, or resent Milner’s interest in her?

I looked at Rodney, holding the wheel like a little boy pretending to drive. ‘The investigation is in good hands. Inspector Charles will get to the truth.’

His hands dropped to his sides. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know what to do now. It seems so strange that I’ll be going home without having to give a full report to Dad on who came in to look at what motor. I made most of my sales on a Saturday, while he was playing golf.’