The Regiment

by Christopher Nicole

  Then there was the even harder business of winning a won war. Kitchener had triumphed. His name might be anathema to the Boers for the rest of time, but he had been given a job of work to do, and he had done it. Nothing more could be asked of any soldier. And if the newspapers, having finally got hold of the story, were claiming that some twenty thousand women and children had died of disease and malnutrition in the concentration camps—whereas only four thousand Boers had actually died in battle—he could claim that in murdering that number of civilians he had perhaps saved the lives of a large number of British soldiers.

  It had still been an enormous decision to have to take, to believe that British control of the Boer republics was worth that number of innocent lives. And having taken it, it must have been even harder to enforce, day after day, knowing that to start something like that and then not succeed in the announced objective would be to bring down the wrath of the entire nation on his head. Would he ever have the determination to carry through a policy like that, much less to think of it in the first place? It was a daunting thought that he probably would not.

  Murdoch dreamed of Margriet less often now, and never on purpose; it seemed dishonourable to dream of another man’s wife. And yet...he did not actually know that she was married to Reger; Morton had only said that he had been told she was going to marry the German, not that she actually had. He knew that was something he had to find out, because if she was not, was existing in some kind of mental and physical wasteland...the old enmity, at least on the British side, was over and done with. Now the Boers were being invited to form part of the government of South Africa. If he doubted he would ever be given permission to marry her, he was yet twenty-four, and approaching that magic age when he could do so without permission; in any event, he would be able to bring her to England. He had no doubt Mother would support him in that, once he had explained the situation.

  But finding out came first, if only to save himself from slowly going mad. When Dr Williams told him that even after leaving hospital he would have to take at least three months’ convalescent leave before he would again be fit for duty, the idea of returning to South Africa began to form in his mind.

  *

  His resolution was actually crystallised by an event which took place in the autumn of 1906, only a fortnight before he was due to be released. He was sitting on the hospital verandah, in his dressing gown, having had his afternoon walk up and down the corridors to help in rebuilding the strength in his wasted muscles, when Sister Anderson told him there were visitors to see him. ‘An American gentleman and lady,’ she explained.

  ‘American? I don’t know any Americans...’ Murdoch snapped his fingers. ‘Harry Caspar!’

  ‘The same,’ Caspar said, coming through the doorway with arms outstretched. ‘My dear Murdoch, what in the name of God have they done to you?’

  ‘My horse rolled on me,’ Murdoch told him. ‘Poor fellow, he broke both forelegs and had to be shot.’

  ‘You sure do live an exciting life. You going to be all right?’

  ‘I’m nearly all right now. And all the better for seeing you.’

  ‘Snap! Say, do you mind if I have you meet someone?’

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure.’

  A girl was hesitating in the doorway. As she came into the open air, Murdoch took in the small, slight body, the dark hair—worn short rather than in the huge pompadour which was the current style in England—the somewhat sharp but certainly attractive features, the lively green eyes.

  ‘Marylee,’ Caspar said. ‘This is the man himself.’

  She came closer, still hesitantly, and held out her hand. ‘Captain Mackinder! I’ve so looked forward to meeting you. Harry has told me so much about you.’

  Murdoch took the softly strong fingers. ‘But never a word about you, Mrs Caspar.’

  ‘Not Mrs Caspar,’ Caspar grinned. ‘Marylee is my sister. Thought it was time she saw how the other half lives.’ Murdoch realised he was still holding her hand, and hastily released it. ‘Well, you never mentioned that you had a sister, either.’

  ‘I guess it’s not something he wants to talk about,’ Marylee Caspar said. ‘But he sure has talked about you. Told me, told all America, I guess, how you won the Medal of Honour—’

  ‘Not the Medal of Honour, honey,’ Caspar corrected. ‘The British equivalent: the Victoria Cross. That’s even better, because it’s given only for valour in the field.’

  ‘Isn’t that something,’ Marylee Caspar said, gazing at Murdoch, cheeks pink.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Murdoch told her, feeling equally embarrassed. ‘It always is an accident.’

  ‘And even more an accident that you stayed alive to get it,’ Caspar said. ‘That’s what makes you so special.’

  Their enthusiasm, so typical of their countrymen, was overwhelming. As was their unaffected admiration for what he had done. Obviously they knew nothing of Murdoch’s ‘illness’.

  Caspar’s concern was only for the scanty knowledge he had of the camps. He had the somewhat pragmatic point of view, being an Anglophile, that the war had had to be won. ‘Don’t seem all that different to what we had to do to the Sioux or the Apache,’ he remarked. ‘When you’re fighting whole peoples, as opposed to professional armies, boy, it sure can be tough.’

  ‘Maybe too tough,’ Murdoch suggested.

  ‘Well...it’s winning that counts, right?’

  Which was what General French had said, Murdoch remembered.

  They had brought him flowers, in a big way, and in return he gave them a letter of introduction to his mother and sent them down to Broad Acres—and also one to Colonel Walters, so that they could visit Bath and see how the regiment worked in its peacetime establishment, which was really what Caspar wanted to do.

  They obviously took advantage of the opportunity immediately, because when Mother came to see him the following Sunday, she remarked, ‘Such a nice girl, that Miss Caspar. And she fell in love with Broad Acres. I saw Martin Walters yesterday, and do you know, he liked her too.’

  A decidedly pointed remark, Murdoch thought, and could not help but wonder if, after all, Mother knew what had happened in South Africa. What really alarmed him, however, was a return visit Marylee paid to the hospital, the day before he was due to be released.

  ‘I just wanted to thank you for putting us in touch with your folks and your friends,’ she said. ‘I have never enjoyed a visit with anyone so much as with your mother and sister. They were so kind. And that place, Broad Acres...it’s just a heaven.’

  ‘It’s been in the family just over a hundred years,’ he said modestly.

  ‘A hundred years! Gee. Do you know, that’s about as far back as we go! And it’s yours?’

  ‘Well ... I suppose it is. But Mother will live there for the rest of her life.’

  ‘But you’ll live there when you’re through soldiering?’

  ‘Why, I suppose I will.’

  ‘That must be a very comforting thought,’ she said seriously.

  He hadn’t considered it in that light before, but he supposed it was a very comforting thought. It was a part of the background to which he had surrendered, probably the more important part, he thought. And yet Broad Acres and the Army were inextricably mixed. Margriet would have adorned Broad Acres, but only as the wife of an army officer, not as the wife of a disgraced member of society. Otherwise, with every memento in the house one of the regiment, he would have driven them both mad. ‘I suppose it is,’ he agreed.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then she said, ‘The sister told me you’ll be discharged tomorrow.’

  ‘About time. There’s been nothing wrong with me for weeks. They seem to think I am going to walk straight out of here, jump on a horse and gallop twenty miles across country.’

  ‘It must have been a bore, not doing any of the things you wanted to. Will you be going back to the regiment?’

  He shook his head. ‘That scares them too. No, I’m to have three months’
convalescent leave.’

  ‘Now that sounds pretty civilised. Will you be spending them at Broad Acres?’

  He gazed at her, and she flushed. ‘Harry and I are going across to Paris, France, next weekend. And then Berlin, and Vienna, and Rome. Maybe Madrid on the way home. It’s some kind of grand tour he’s taking me on, I guess you could call it.’

  Murdoch realised that Harry Caspar was either a very successful journalist or, like himself, came from a moneyed background. He rather felt the latter. This girl had all the obvious trappings of wealth and position, even if to a British officer it was difficult to associate Americans with anything more than wealth. But she dressed superbly, in an advanced style which suited the way she wore her hair; she did not, for instance, indulge in the bustle, and her skirts were an inch shorter than normal, allowing a good deal of boot to be revealed. Her pearls were glowing white against her throat as her matching earrings gleamed against the dark hair, and she exuded a softly seductive perfume. But more than any of those physical attributes, she was possessed of that indefinable quality of knowing what she was and to what she belonged. Something that he thought he possessed himself, if perhaps for different reasons.

  ‘But we’ll be coming back to England to catch the ship to America,’ she added shyly.

  ‘Oh, that is a shame,’ he said. ‘I won’t be here.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was taken aback. ‘But you said you had to convalesce.’ She was very direct. ‘We’ll be back in a couple of months.’

  ‘I’m sure Mother and Philippa would love to see you again,’ he said. ‘And do please go down to Broad Acres to stay.’

  ‘But you won’t be there?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The doctor says I have to take a sea voyage to get myself really fit again. I’m to sail to South Africa and back.’

  *

  The final decision had been taken on the spur of the moment, in the very midst of their conversation, because Marylee Caspar was very definitely developing a crush on him—or perhaps she had had a crush on him long before she ever met him, thanks to her brother’s purple prose. And she was a girl on whom it would be very easy to develop a crush in return, especially with both Mother and Colonel Walters nodding approval in the background. But there was no possibility of Murdoch Mackinder ever falling in love with any woman while Margriet Voorlandt dominated his thoughts. He simply had to go, and see, and know, whether he could begin to love again.

  And Marylee Caspar? He might never meet another like her.

  But she did not seem especially put off by his decision, although she was certainly disappointed. ‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘I guess I’ll have to take a rain-check. But I do hope we’ll meet again, some day.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said. And he meant it.

  Mother was no less surprised by his decision to return to South Africa. She was somewhat perturbed when he told her he wanted no word of his intention breathed to a soul, especially anyone from the regiment, or indeed the Army at all. ‘Tell them I’ve gone to Italy,’ he said.

  ‘But...’ she pursed her lips, as she had done when he was a little boy and she felt he had misbehaved, but could not put her finger on what he had done. ‘Why South Africa?’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s because I spent two years there, killing people. I would like to have a look at it again, now the killing has stopped.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think I can understand that.’ She considered for a moment, and he knew then beyond doubt that she had been told about Margriet, and was now wrestling with her conscience, whether or not to betray that confidence—and wondering if it would accomplish anything to do so. ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think you should stay here. I promise I’ll come back with nothing on my mind.’

  That was as far as he could go in telling her he was aware of her concern.

  ‘But are you sure you are strong enough,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll get strong enough, on the voyage. Anyway, I’ll be taking Reynolds; he’s had a long enough holiday while I’ve been in hospital.’

  Reynolds was also somewhat taken aback at the idea. ‘South Africa, sir?’ he asked. ‘Cape Town?’

  Reynolds could not help but be aware of the existence of Rosetta Dredge—who was a risk that had to be run, even if Murdoch had not heard from her for three years.

  ‘Briefly, Reynolds.’

  ‘You’ll be going up to the Free State, then, sir? And the Transvaal?’

  ‘Why, yes. Revisiting old haunts, you might say. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Oh, sir, wherever you go, I’ll be there,’ Reynolds protested. ‘But...are you sure it’s the right thing to do?’

  ‘It’s something I have to do, George,’ Murdoch told him. ‘If I am ever going to get a good night’s sleep again. Savvy?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Reynolds said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  *

  Perhaps he was. He was the best of company on the voyage out, and the voyage itself completely restored Murdoch to health. Only the weakness of too long in bed remained, and that could be combated simply by good food and fresh air, and time.

  He arranged with the ship’s captain to wireless ahead and reserve them berths on the first available train to Johannesburg—or at any rate out of Cape Town—after they had docked. He discovered his haste was unnecessary when he learned from the customs officer at Table Bay that Rosetta Dredge was married and a mother. Yet however relieving that thought was, it was also alarming, and made him the more anxious to get to the north.

  The railway line was the same—it might have been the same locomotive as had towed the regiment’s armoured carriages six years before. Now there was more comfort, certainly, but only for a favoured few; if he sat in a first-class compartment and enjoyed cooling drinks supplied by the steward, the black people confined in the third-class carriages looked as hemmed in, and as uncomfortable, as the troopers had been on that unforgettable journey.

  Within a couple of days they were back at other places which he supposed would remain forever imprinted on his mind: De Aar, then Belmont, where he had seen his first action, and where Reynolds had saved him from capture. He glanced at the batman, who was also staring at the tumbled kopjes, clearly also remembering; Murdoch knew that Reynolds never went anywhere without his Military Medal in his pocket—but he had left his Victoria Cross at home.

  The train rumbled across the Orange River, and then came to the Modder. The bridge had long been rebuilt, of course, and the village around the station was larger than he remembered it, but the brown water still flowed between those high bluffs which had concealed the Boer riflemen, and he could remember it soaking him to the neck as he had floundered across it, bullets splashing all about him. He had thought he was untouchable and immortal, then. Now he carried more scars than he cared to count.

  But he was still alive. As the train made a lengthy stop at Modder, he walked back across the foot bridge, and after a few minutes spent in regaining his bearings, found the graves of Holt and Fielder. At least, he presumed they were the graves; both the helmets and the swords had long been removed. He stood there for some time, gazing at them; it was a sobering thought that Holt, but for that utterly senseless episode, would probably now be colonel of the regiment.

  He rejoined the train, and watched Magersfontein looming, huge and formidable even in peace, on their right, and then they were back at Kimberley, before heading north for the great city of gold. Here he was truly amazed at the way Johannesburg had quadrupled in size in the four years since he had been here, the architecture of the buildings, the obvious prosperity of the inhabitants—if they happened to be white—the way heavy-bearded Boers and thin-moustached Englishmen walked the streets and were to be seen talking together, while the Union Jack waved lazily above all of their heads.

  They put up at the Union Hotel, had a hot bath and a good dinner, and the next morning Murdoch began making inquiries. �
�Voorlandt,’ said the clerk at the town hall. ‘Voorlandt.’ He checked various lists. ‘You say he was field cornet of a commando in the closing days of the war?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Man of about sixty, would he have been?’

  ‘I would say so.’

  ‘Would he have been a farmer before the war?’

  ‘That sounds like the man.’

  ‘Yes. Well, I’m sorry, Mr Davis, but he died two years ago. Heart attack.’

  ‘Oh. Did he not have any family?’

  ‘Yes. He had a wife, who survived him, and a daughter. I imagine the wife now lives with the daughter.’

  ‘That seems probable,’ Murdoch said, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart. ‘Well, perhaps you could give me their address? I would very much like to pay my respects to Mrs Voorlandt.’

  ‘Friends of yours, were they?’ The clerk was interested. ‘Ah, acquaintances. I was in South Africa before the war and met them then,’ Murdoch lied easily.

  ‘Yes. Hm.’ He flicked through more files. ‘Well, I would say your best bet is to try Reger’s Farm. It’s not far from here, maybe twenty miles. There’s no railway, but you should be able to hire a horse, I should think.’

  ‘Reger’s Farm,’ Murdoch said, his heart slowing and seeming to sink. ‘That is where they live?’

  ‘I should think they do. According to my records, Juffrouw Voorlandt married Meneer Paul Reger on 1 July 1902.’

  *

  Barely a month after she would have been released from the concentration camp. So there it was. Now he had found out for certain that she was another man’s wife, he knew he should get back on the train and hurry back to England as quickly as possible, and try to start living his life over again.

  Except that he wasn’t going to do that, after having come all this way to see her. But the next morning he left Reynolds behind; he had no idea what he was going to find, and did not wish to involve the good fellow in anything which might turn out very unpleasant. Reynolds protested, aghast at Murdoch taking a long ride by himself, but Murdoch knew he was now as strong as ever, and insisted.