The Horns of the Buffalo (3 page)

Simon sank back on to the pillow and heard the doctor's quick step recede down the wooden-floored corridor, like the tap of a side-drum.

He looked out at the hill framed in the window. Surgeon Major Reynolds had a reputation as a hard man. He had gained glory as a young surgeon at Inkerman in 1854 when he had carried out twenty-four amputations in the rain under heavy Russian fire. Mess gossip had it that his perception of bravery was based on his memories of that day and of how his patients had borne the knife. Since then, malingerers had always received short shrift from him. Simon turned restlessly to the wall. Did the doctor think that
he
was malingering now?

The thought made him indignant. Well, damn the man! He would prove him wrong. Was he ill now? Let's see. Slowly Simon raised first one leg and then the other, breaking loose the stern envelope of blanket and sheet that encased him. Nothing wrong there. He elbowed himself upright and cautiously pushed back the bedclothes and lowered one leg to the floor, then the other. For a moment he paused before transferring his weight and standing upright. This, he thought, is where I collapse again - but no, he could stand. Apart from that fuzzy feeling in the head, he felt quite fit and he easily retained his balance.

He was standing so, in his flannel nightgown, when the orderly entered, carrying a tray of porridge, tea and bread and butter.

‘Oh, I think you'd be better back in bed, sir,' he said, his eyebrows raised solicitously. ‘You bin out for a long time, look you, and you must get your strength back before you start marchin' about again. The doctor says you shouldn't eat anything too 'eavy to start with. Mind you,' he sniffed, ‘eat
this
an' you won't be
able
to get out of the cot.'

Simon smiled and looked more closely at the po-faced orderly. He realised that the big moustache dressed the bright, lively countenance of a man not much older than himself - perhaps three or four years. Dark eyes and thick black hair revealed the Welshness and the upright bearing betrayed a few years' service, at least. The Welshman was short, about five inches shorter than Simon's five feet nine inches, but he was extremely thick-set and the powerful shoulders made him seem almost as wide as he was tall.

‘What's your name?'

‘Jenkins, sir, 352 Jenkins.'

‘I don't want to know your damned number.'

‘Beggin' your pardon, but you do, sir. See, there are seven Jenkinses in the depot holding company. We 'ave to use our last three to sort us out, look you.'

‘Ah, yes.' Simon climbed back on to the hard bed and regarded the orderly with interest. Band boys or civilians usually did the medical orderly duties. What was this bright-eyed, obviously fit soldier doing in the depot hospital?

‘Did you volunteer for this work? What's your regiment?'

Jenkins's face showed surprise at the question. ‘The 24th, o' course, sir. Same as you. An' your battalion, too.'

Simon took a mouthful of porridge. Jenkins was right. It was awful. He grimaced. ‘I don't remember seeing you before. What the devil are you doing here on hospital duty?'

For the first time the confident Jenkins looked slightly disconcerted. ‘Ah well, sir. I got busted is the truth of it, see.' He pushed a rueful finger into his ear. ‘I was a corporal but I had just a drink or two and lost me stripes. But it was me 'ittin' a colour sergeant which really did it, look you an' I've bin in detention in Aldershot for a year, until yesterday. The regiment was all packed up and it was too late to take me, so they've stuck me in 'ere. Nobody seems to know what to do with me, see.' The brown face broke into a grin.

Simon tried not to grin back but failed. Aldershot meant the army's new central detention centre, gaining fame already as ‘the Glasshouse', because of its glass-fronted design. It was also feared as a hell-hole.

‘Serves you right,' he said. ‘Hit a senior NCO, did you? Lucky you weren't flogged.'

‘Ah, no, sir. They stopped that six years ago, look you, except for offences committed on active service, an' then you can only get fifty lashes, and I weren't on active service, see, though it's true I was actively 'ittin' Colour Sergeant Cole.'

‘That's enough - and don't lecture me on army law.' Simon tried another mouthful of the gruesome porridge. The orderly, quite unabashed by the rebuke, looked on interestedly. He showed no sign of wishing to leave. ‘How do you know so much about Queen's Regulations anyhow?'

Private Jenkins's face lit up. ‘I've bin studyin' for my certificate, see.'

Simon allowed himself to look puzzled. He had known about the reform of flogging, although not about the fifty lashes limit. There was more to this young soldier than met the eye. ‘Certificate. What certificate?'

‘It's the Army Certificate of Education, see,' said Jenkins proudly. ‘It's not that I couldn't read, though . . .' his face screwed into a frown, ‘sometimes I 'ad a bit of trouble with the big words, so I started about three years ago. I was doin' quite well till I was busted, like, but at the end of my time at Aldershot they let me 'ave a few books and a bit of candle to read by at night. There wasn't much time during the day, see.'

Simon smiled. ‘I am sure there wasn't. Not in the Glasshouse. Bad, was it?'

The black eyes sparkled. ‘Could 'ave bin worse, sir. Better than 'ome, anyhow.'

‘All right. That will be all, Jenkins.'

‘Sir.' The orderly crashed to attention, spun smartly - perhaps a little too ostentatiously - and marched to the door.

‘I suppose,' Simon called after him, ‘that we are both rather in the same boat now.'

‘That's just what I was thinkin', sir,' said Jenkins, beaming.

And he strode purposefully down the corridor, the thump of his boots echoing back into the room.

The porridge, heavy as it was, made Simon realise how hungry he had been. He lay back on the bed and tried to order his thoughts once again. What now? He had never collapsed before. Would it happen again, whenever he was presented with something . . . disconcerting? Was it the old complaint of childhood which he thought he had overcome years ago? Or was there some recent event which had weakened him? No. Regimental life had been uneventful. True, he had taken a fall from his horse out on the Beacons a few weeks ago which had knocked him out temporarily. But, apart from a brief headache, there had been no bad after-effects. Far more uncomfortable had been the dinner party his parents had given at their house just outside Brecon for their old friends and neighbours the Griffiths. The visitors had brought their twenty-year-old daughter. Her manner had been restrained and somehow hostile. Perhaps she resented what might have seemed to be match-making by his mother. Perish the thought! But his mind was wandering, and after a few moments more of disjointed speculation, he slipped back into sleep.

A diffident knock on the door woke him. He knew the visitor's identity immediately and he smiled that, while others announced their arrival up that corridor like a battalion on the march, his father was able to arrive so quietly.

Major George Fonthill entered and stood at the door smiling at his son. His hair was now grey but it remained plentiful and he wore it long, so that it curled around his collar. His brown eyes were set widely apart and his mouth was full, giving his face an open, even ingenuous look. He wore a frock coat and carried a top hat. Only the erect posture betrayed an ex-soldier.

He approached the bed. ‘My dear boy, I am so glad that you are feeling better.'

Simon struggled upright. ‘Papa. How good of you to come.'

Rather self-consciously, the two shook hands. It was clear that they were father and son. Simon's brown eyes carried the same half-hidden look of uncertainty and his face had a similar open roundness, although the son had inherited his mother's firm mouth and squareness of jaw. The fact that father and son were both unfashionably clean-shaven marked further their resemblance.

‘Mama is not with you?'

‘No.' Major Fonthill smiled shyly, as though sharing a confidence. ‘She is, of course, out riding, although the hunting season has finished, thank goodness. Reynolds's telegram came after she had left, so I pencilled her a note and came straight away. Had to take the dog cart. But never mind about that. How do you feel now?'

‘Quite well, really. Still a bit weak and not exactly topping, but much better. In fact, I feel a bit of a fraud.'

They smiled at each other awkwardly. Simon looked hard into his father's face. Did he suspect him of . . . of deliberately avoiding the draft? It was not the sort of thing he would normally discuss with him. The few deeply felt matters that had arisen over the years had always lain unspoken between them. Simon decided to grasp the nettle: ‘Father, what have they told you about my illness? About how it happened and all that?'

Major Fonthill frowned. ‘Not much really. It all seemed rather peculiar. Reynolds at first thought you had contracted malaria or something like that, but you have never been to the tropics, and although I caught the thing out in India, I understand that it is not hereditary. Anyway, it seems that you have not shown symptoms of high fever.'

The Major leaned forward in his chair. ‘I am afraid that you have missed the show out in the Cape, because they immediately posted one of the subalterns from the 2nd Battalion to fill the gap. I am so sorry, my boy. It's very bad luck.' Then his face brightened. ‘But the most important thing is that you seem to have got through the worst now and whatever it is that hit you has receded. I would say that you will be up and about soon. I expect that they will gazette you now to the 2nd, who are in Warwick but who are expected back here to do depot duty for a while.'

As he spoke, the Major's face reflected the meaning of the words, like the sun reappearing from behind a cloud. Simon thought - not for the first time - that his father would probably find it impossible to dissemble, even if his life depended upon it. He decided to test him.

‘Are they gossiping about me here in the depot?' he asked in a low voice. ‘Was there talk in the regiment before it embarked?'

Major Fonthill's smile disappeared but he held his son's gaze. ‘Yes, I believe that some scuttlebutt nonsense was begun, but the senior officers soon stamped it out. You know what a mess can be like.'

Simon swallowed. ‘Yes, but did they say that I was a coward and that I faked this illness to avoid being posted abroad and going on active service?'

The Major shifted slightly in his chair. ‘I doubt it, and if they did, no one would really have believed it, you know. A bit of idle speculation, nothing more.' The older man's face lightened again. ‘Anyway, by jove, it would have taken some consummate acting by you to carry the thing through for three days, eh? What?' He chortled. ‘You always were a bit of a fantasist as a boy, but, really . . .'

Simon pushed himself further upright. ‘Father, I cannot understand why I collapsed. I don't remember feeling ill at all before the Adjutant came into the room.' He hesitated for a moment. ‘Could it have been that I was suddenly so frightened by the thought of having to fight the Kaffirs that I collapsed - in fear?'

In his straightforward way the Major considered the question. ‘Never heard of such a thing in my time in the service,' he said. ‘Cowardice is usually expressed in a different sort of way. Chaps sometimes get into a blue funk and, er, shout a bit. But I have never heard of someone actually folding up, so to speak, without a word.'

Slowly he turned his head and gazed out of the window. ‘But then fear takes many different forms. I am sure that we are all afraid in our lives - probably many, many times.' His voice dropped a little. ‘But soldiers are all so well trained that they rarely show it. Fear is a perfectly natural emotion and I think that it might be better, sometimes, if we recognised it occasionally, rather than, well, bottling it up. Perhaps we should face it openly and even, perhaps, give into it sometimes if we really must.' He looked round in sudden embarrassment. ‘Not, that is, if we let the side down by doing so. That would be reprehensible. One must recognise one's responsibilities to one's fellows, of course.'

‘Of course.' Simon nodded and carefully studied his father's features. Was he - could he have been - about to admit that he himself had been afraid in the past? Was this why he had given up hunting? Would it be offensive to ask? He and his father had never discussed anything of a particularly profound nature. Their closeness had been intuitive and whatever empathy lay between them had never been acknowledged formally. It was difficult, now, to be personal. But Simon resolved to try. ‘Papa,' he began.

Major Fonthill held out a hand and rose to his feet. ‘I think we have talked enough for the moment, Simon. I have been warned not to tire you. But I shall be back with your mother as soon as we are allowed.' He proffered his hand. ‘Goodbye, my boy.'

‘Goodbye, Father.'

 

The next few days passed as slowly as they do only when boredom and inactivity predominate. Simon's strength returned quickly and both parents came to see him, observing a studied informality - although his mother, grey-haired now but as handsome as ever, could not contain herself for long.

‘What made you ill, Simon?'

‘I am sorry, Mama. No one seems to know.'

‘Don't be silly, dear boy.' She smoothed the folds of her linen day dress with a controlled movement. ‘The doctors surely must have some idea.'

Simon felt trapped on the bed, like a butterfly being dissected. ‘I am sorry, Mother, but they don't. Surgeon Reynolds says that he could understand it if I had picked up some kind of malarial infection in the East, but as you know, I have never been there.' He laughed uneasily. ‘Perhaps it was just a case of too much port in the mess.'