He wrote to the War Office to remind them of this fact, and to his consternation was informed that the vacancy had already been filled—from another regiment. Furiously he wrote a letter of protest to Sir John French, who as usual took the trouble to reply, pointing out that while he had been pronounced fit for duty, no one had said anything about active service, and medical opinion was it would be at least another year before he would be up to that, certainly in such an inhospitable clime as that of the North-West Frontier. French reminded him that he had to be patient—and assured him that he was not being forgotten.
Murdoch had no alternative but to return to Broad Acres for two weeks’ convalescent leave before taking up his new duties. This was actually a great pleasure, as apart from the joy of being once again in his own home, with the dogs and cats and horses and servants, he could also renew his acquaintance with Buccaneer, who had served him so well in Somalia. The horse had been stabled at the house rather than the depot during his spell in hospital.
And of course, at Broad Acres there was Lee, now so much a part of the establishment that he lowered his mental guard. When, after a week, Philippa dropped out of their morning ride with a headache, he did not even raise an eyebrow. By now he was strong enough to raise Buccaneer into a gentle canter, and the moors were there to be enjoyed, with Lee at his shoulder, sitting astride in a divided skirt which was really shockingly indecent because it rode up from her boots and revealed her legs.
‘Oh, this is just the most heavenly country on earth,’ she cried, when he drew rein on a low brow looking down on a shallow valley through which there bubbled a stream. ‘I don’t see how you can bear to leave it.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t appear as if I am going to leave it for some time.’
‘And that burns you up, right?’
‘That’s one way of putting it, yes. I just have the feeling life is passing me by.’
‘You don’t think you have seen enough of life to satisfy most men for a lifetime?’
‘Not really.’
‘So where you’d really like to be is India.’
‘Well, that’s where the regiment is, isn’t it? India is the traditional battleground of the British Army. Certainly of the Western Dragoons. And they are there now, while I have never set foot on the place.’
‘Well,’ she said seriously, ‘I wouldn’t count yourself too unlucky. Harry is convinced that the next real war is going to be right here in Europe.’
‘I can’t believe that.’ They were walking their horses down the slope into the valley, over springy turf. ‘Everyone is working like mad to preserve the peace, from the King downwards.’
‘You reckon so? Even the Kaiser?’
‘Oh, he’s a pompous ass. But he really has very little to do with it. It’s governments that make war nowadays, not kings. And governments are in the main composed of businessmen who have a vested interest in preserving the peace. Oh, they are predatory monsters; I’ll not deny that. They’ll snatch a piece of territory here or there, if getting it won’t cost them any profit. But there can’t be any profit in a major European war. That’s what this enormous system of alliances is all about. If we are really going to ally ourselves with Russia as well as France, as the newspapers are suggesting—and that will be a turn-up for the history book, if you like—then, with Germany allied to Austria-Hungary and Italy, the whole of Europe will be divided into two virtually equal camps. It’ll be a permanent stand-off. People only go to war when they reckon they can smash someone. There is no hope of either side smashing the other in the present European situation.’
‘Harry thinks that dividing Europe into two camps—two armed camps, he calls it—is the surest way to guarantee an eventual war,’ Lee persisted.
Murdoch drew rein to look at her. ‘I hope he’s wrong. In fact, I am sure he must be. Has he any idea what a war between European armies would be like? Have you? Has Harry studied the reports of what it was like in Manchuria, when the Japanese and the Russians were fighting there three years ago? Searchlights, barbed wire, mines, high explosive shells...we had a taste of that in South Africa, and no one could describe the Boers as a modern industrial power.’
‘It was horrendous,’ she agreed. ‘As a matter of fact, Harry was in Manchuria.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know that. Well, then, can he really imagine anything like that happening in Europe, between civilised people?’
‘Yes,’ she said, more seriously than ever. ‘He can. He reckons our so-called civilisation is only skin deep.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘And you’ll be in the middle of it.’
He gazed at her, and she gazed back, cheeks pink—but that could have been the fresh autumnal breeze. Yet he was aware of an odd emotion, a feeling .of intimacy with her, that he had never experienced before, but he was also aware that it was an emotion which had been struggling to make itself felt for some time...And with the mental rapprochement there was a good deal more. Physical attraction had been there from the beginning. He had been restrained by other factors, and if his own experiences had been the principal part of those factors, fear, or distrust, of woman as such had been the principal part of his experiences. But to suppose that this girl could have the slightest inclination towards deception or promiscuity or viciousness was utterly unacceptable. Of course she had thrown herself at him, was still doing so, in fact. But only at him, so far as he knew. And he was loving every moment of it. He could quite easily love her, too.
But then, what of the past, which came back to haunt him every night? Was not marriage to a girl like Lee Caspar the only way of exorcising that nightmare? Perhaps, but was it fair on her? Was it fair, indeed, to involve her in his career at all, with its inevitable long separations, its constant alarms, its high tension...
‘Anything I can do to help?’ she asked.
He forced a smile. ‘Do you think I need help?’
‘Sure I do.’ She dismounted, let the reins trail and walked to the banks of the stream to look down at the bubbling water. ‘Everybody needs help,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Some more than most.’
‘And I qualify in the second bracket?’ He dismounted as well, still moving slowly and carefully, still aware of the odd twinges, still not sure when some of the carefully patched-up parts of his body were not going to give way with a snap.
She turned to face him. ‘I think so. You served in Somaliland. Saw action there. Harry has told me what it can be like.’
He frowned at her. ‘Young ladies don’t think about things like that.’
‘Why in the name of hell not? Do you suppose we can’t take it? My great-grandparents were massacred by Indians. Shall I tell you what they did to my grandmother? And she survived!’
‘You’re talking about history,’ he reminded her. ‘Somaliland is today.’
‘So people don’t really change. I told you, that’s what Harry thinks, too.. Just as he reckons the people in Europe haven’t really changed either, and a European war, with modern weapons, would be the Thirty Years War, with all of its horrors, all over again.’
‘You are a very erudite young lady,’ Murdoch observed.
‘Oh, I can darn socks too,’ she said. ‘I can even cook.’
‘All of which will help me?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Although they sure can make a man comfortable. But sharing would help you. Everybody has to share with somebody. Or they go nuts.’
Once again they gazed at each other. She had just proposed marriage, as they both knew. As perhaps they had both known she was going to, eventually. Now she gave a twisted smile. ‘I’ve always been told I shoot my mouth off too often. Harry’ll be back in another week. I’m to meet him in London next Friday, in fact. So you won’t have me around any more to annoy you.’
‘I go up to London next week, too,’ he said. ‘For the investiture.’
‘You mean they’re giving you another medal?’
‘Well, they have to give them to somebody. Mother and Philippa wil
l be coming up with me. Why don’t you come with us too, if you can stand it. Then we can all meet Harry, and have a celebration.’
‘You mean you don’t intend to throw me out on my ear, or have me strung up and flogged, or whatever it is you do to one of your troopers when he’s insubordinate?’
‘Flogging is passé. The modern punishment is CB.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a period of time, depending on the severity of the offence, during which you would be confined to barracks. So, as you have certainly been guilty of insubordination, Trooper Caspar, I think I should certainly confine you to barracks.’
She stared at him, pink spots in her cheeks. ‘For how long?’
‘How about...a lifetime?’
Her mouth opened, and then closed again. Then she was in his arms. Her lips were wet, her tongue was eager. But not less so than his own. It had been too long, and where a girl like Lee Caspar was concerned, it had been forever. The feel of her in his arms, the knowledge that she was preparing to give herself into his keeping, was the most heady he had ever known.
After she had kissed him a few times, she paused to look at him. ‘Say,’ she said. ‘If I come up to London as your fiancée, do I get to shake hands with the King?’
Part Three – The Major
11 – Bath, 1908
Suddenly there was a great deal to be done. Mother and Philippa had to be told, to begin with, and much champagne to be drunk.
‘I always knew you and Lee would end up together,’ Philippa said enthusiastically. ‘Now you won’t have to go home, Lee.’
‘I guess not,’ Lee agreed thoughtfully, as if she hadn’t considered that.
But there was also the matter of permission; Murdoch might have been pitchforked into the position of senior officer commanding at the Bath depot, but he was still not yet twenty-seven. He promptly took Lee along to meet Judith Walters, who in her husband’s absence reigned over the depot like a somewhat forbidding queen. Lee had been carefully rehearsed, both by himself and by Philippa, and to make matters easier, Mother accompanied them, to leave no doubt that she approved of the match. Even Judith Walters, who regarded herself as the regiment’s most important person, had to bow to Mrs Fergus Mackinder, who had ruled Bath only briefly, but as the wife of one of the more famous lieutenant-colonels, and she was graciously pleased to welcome Lee into the fold, on Florence’s recommendation.
All the same, she remained a stickler for protocol. ‘You’ll be writing to Martin, of course,’ she remarked to Murdoch.
‘This evening,’ he assured her. ‘I just wanted you to meet Lee first.’
‘Oh, quite,’ Mrs Walters agreed. ‘I shall add a letter to yours,’ she said meaningfully.
Which meant endorsement.
‘Home and dry,’ he told Lee, as they drove home in the family trap.
‘It seems so God-awful old-fashioned,’ Lee remarked, still smarting. ‘I mean, here you are, a grown man, one of Great Britain’s most famous soldiers, a medal of honour winner—’
‘Victoria Cross,’ Murdoch reminded her.
‘Well, anyway, here you are, and if this Walters character says no, you mean you can’t marry me?’
‘Well...’ Murdoch looked to his mother for support.
‘It’s all part of what makes the British world tick, my dear,’ Florence Mackinder explained. ‘What makes Britain Great, if you like. It’s what made Murdoch rescue Colonel Edmonds from the fuzzy-wuzzies—’
‘Boers,’ Murdoch murmured.
‘And lead that charge in Egypt.’
Murdoch sighed and did not bother to correct her this time; vagueness had always been one of his mother’s most endearing characteristics—but the tendency was getting worse.
‘It’s part of our tradition, the Army’s tradition, of duty and honour and obedience,’ Florence went on, and gave Lee a very hard look. ‘You are going to have to take your place in that tradition, my dear. And bring your sons up in it, too.’
‘Oh,’ Lee said. Murdoch wasn’t sure if that meant she hadn’t really considered what she was marrying before, or that she was taken aback by such an abrupt, and early, reference to children. He squeezed her hand, reassuringly.
*
But both were aspects of the situation which he realised he had not properly considered. Lee had clearly intended to marry him from almost the moment of their first meeting. But of course Lee knew nothing about Margriet Voorlandt, or the son Margriet claimed was his. What her reaction would be to that earthy and unromantic piece of news he could not decide. She seemed so broadminded and unstuffy, and had obviously been told things by Harry which he would never have dreamed of confiding to either of his sisters...but there was no way of knowing what she really felt about the seamy side of life, and whether she had any intention of ever letting it intrude upon the essential sunshine she had been brought up from birth to enjoy.
He decided that Margriet Voorlandt was a secret to be kept firmly locked away in his breast, however dishonest it made him feel to have to do so.
But there was also the sheer physical business of being engaged to be married to a girl who was actually living in the same house as himself. Here again, she appeared to be totally modern and broadminded, and apparently not in the least concerned about being left alone with him, as she invariably was. Mother regarded Philippa as a built-in chaperon, and Philippa, who so far as Murdoch knew had never been kissed passionately in her life, could find nothing the least wrong in an engaged couple being alone together as much as they liked, especially when the man concerned was her own adored baby brother.
That Lee might be aware of desire, or even passion, was another question he found it difficult to assess. In addition to being something of a tomboy, she presented a very business-like appearance to the world, and to him. It came as something of a shock when he realised that neither of them had actually said, ‘I love you’, to the other. It had just happened that they agreed to get married, almost as if it was something decided by their parents, as in the old days, which they had at last decided to implement. Now, her interests seemed to lie mainly in the sort of life she would have to live as Mrs Murdoch Mackinder—some aspects of which clearly did not attract her at all. At first, having to live in the married officers’ quarters at the depot sounded fairly exciting—until she actually saw the quarters, which were small, poky, and cheek by jowl with those occupied by the other married officers, with whose wives she was apparently required to spend large portions of each day drinking coffee or tea, or playing whist, or just gossiping. And over the majority of these happy get-togethers, Judith Walters would be presiding.
‘Golly,’ Lee remarked. ‘If you were to get sent out to India now, leaving me here on my lonesome, I think I would go nuts.’
‘Well, my dear, there seems absolutely no chance of me being sent to India,’ Murdoch reminded her. ‘So that’s not something to worry about. As for living here, it’ll only be for a little while. As I move up, we’ll be able to take a house in Bath itself, or even to live at Broad Acres, if you prefer.’ The estate was only three miles from the depot.
‘Move up, how far?’ Lee asked.
‘Well, lieutenant-colonel, certainly. Perhaps even major.’
‘How come Mrs Walters doesn’t have a house in Bath? She’s the wife of a lieutenant-colonel, isn’t she?’
‘Well, she prefers to live in the depot, I suppose.’
‘Where she can bully all of us juniors,’ Lee remarked.
‘I’m sure you’ll find her an absolute brick, when you get to know her better,’ Murdoch said, uttering a silent prayer that such a miracle could happen; Judith Walters had never endeared herself to any member of the regiment that he was aware of—or their wives.
‘Of course I will,’ she agreed, with one of her ready smiles. ‘Now come and look at this list of things we will have to buy—or persuade people to give to us.’
Their shoulders touched as he stood beside her over the table, and she glan
ced at him, and then was in his arms. She did like being in his arms and kissing him, and there was passion in the kiss. For him it was considerable mental agony as he felt her against him, and kept thinking of Margriet’s long, muscular, naked body, and felt surges of tremendous passion building inside himself...as she could of course tell, for after a few seconds she very gently released herself.
‘Sets of twelve, I think,’ she said, returning to her linen list. Her ears glowed and her cheeks. were pink, and he could not tell whether he had embarrassed her or if she was herself fighting back a desire to do more; he could have laid her across the table there and then.
*
There was also the very important question of where the wedding was going to take place. Letters were of course sent hurrying across the Atlantic, and naturally Lee’s parents—while appearing to be delighted that their daughter was going to marry a soldier who had been made quite famous in America by Harry’s articles—wanted the wedding to be in Baltimore, where they lived. This would present difficulties, however, as regards securing the necessary leave; Murdoch had already been off duty for very nearly a year and did not really feel he could apply for another furlough so soon, which Lee entirely understood. She was also rather taken with the idea of a wedding in Bath Abbey, draping it with the regimental colours and having a guard of honour of raised swords for them to pass beneath after the ceremony. That too was obviously going to present a difficulty, as the officers would have to come from other regiments, unless they waited for the return of the dragoons from India. But Geoffrey Phillips promised to organise everything.
Yet it all was academic until a reply was obtained from Colonel Walters, and meanwhile there was the trip to London and the meeting with Harry, who clasped his hand most warmly.
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