by Tim Jeal
Clara had never hunted and did not want to. But she was happy to crawl along a damp gully beside Francis in pursuit of a gazelle with pointed horns. Flies buzzed around their faces, and mosquitoes whined near their ears. Unaware of being watched, the little buck had urinated before trotting off. Unaccountably, they had lost him. But Francis persevered, staring hard at the ground, even crossing a broad shelf of rock where no hoof prints were visible. At last he had found the spoor again: just a few stalks of crushed grass and some spots of damp earth. Seeing Francis on his knees, concentrating so hard, Clara longed to go up to him and kiss his neck; instead she crawled along behind him. And then they had come upon the buck again: this time quietly nibbling the new grass between some thorn trees. Although Francis’s excitement was infectious, she hesitated when offered his rifle. Yet how could she decline it? He was offering to her as a gift the outcome of his careful stalking.
He breathed close to her ear, ‘Perfect specimen. Aim low. Don’t harm the head.’
As she looked down the barrel, she whispered, ‘No, Francis. He’s yours.’
‘Go on,’ he urged hoarsely.
She felt both scared and excited. Which would be worse, to miss or to kill? To end a graceful life she could never restore, or to disappoint Francis? A tickbird squawked loudly, and the startled gazelle took several bounding leaps, tottering on landing. Clara fired. Something shot upwards where the buck had been standing – something like a divot of turf. After a stunned silence, Francis gasped, ‘Christ almighty! Didn’t I say, “Don’t harm the head”, and you go and blast the damned thing right off!’
Still on her knees, she had started to cry, and suddenly he had knelt to embrace her. She wanted to swim into his body, and the pain of not being able to was intense. But he loved her. Surely he did?
Then he had picked up his rifle and asked, ‘Can I come to you tonight?’
His obvious fear of rejection had persuaded her. He felt as she did and therefore must not suffer. ‘Yes,’ she had whispered. ‘Yes, my love.’
So Clara lay waiting in the darkness of her tent, listening to the dry scuffling of insects and the yelping of jackals. A thread of intimacy and danger seemed to vibrate in the air. Arnot resented his commander and would be able to wreck Francis’s career if he found out about them. And there was danger from Simon too – if he had seen nothing by the stream, he might see them now. The risks Francis was taking on her account made Clara feel weak with tenderness.
He crept into the tent so quietly that she gasped with shock. As she rolled over towards him, his face came slowly down on hers. For a moment she held her lips closed against his. The sooner a thing started, the sooner it ended. Let it never be over but always in expectation – something mysterious and forbidden waiting to come about. And then she could no longer bear to wait but parted her lips and hung for a long time on his mouth. His hands were touching her hair and then her neck, slipping inside her nightdress and tracing the outline of her breasts. He paused to remove his shirt; his skin felt dry and hot, and his heart was thudding as if he had been running. As he loosened his trousers, she lifted her nightdress over her head. His hands came forward and took a bare breast in each. Then he caressed her body with an explorer’s pleasure. Robert had never touched her like this. His lovemaking had always been self-absorbed – as if he would stifle his compulsion if he could – whereas Francis was reaching out to her with every nerve.
She could not see his body when he had finally wriggled out of his boots and trousers, but she could feel his penis brushing against her stomach as he moved.
‘Darling,’ he was murmuring, ‘darling.’
A hand was moving gently across her bottom, pressing one cheek and then the other. It slipped down between them, and a finger traced its way along the split. She opened her thighs and let him touch her properly, though she had never allowed Robert to do the same. She wanted Francis so badly that she moved on to her back, holding him tightly as he rolled on top of her, lacing her arms around his neck. He kissed her face and neck as she guided him into her. Already she was moving her head from side to side, ecstatic, overwhelmed.
It was two hours later, and still reassuringly dark. In less than an hour, light would begin to glow opaquely through the canvas, and he would have to leave. He had just rolled off her for the second time, and she could feel his warmth lingering on her breasts and stomach. She reached out for his hand and clasped it. Her body was still thrumming with pleasure, but already sadness was undermining contentment. Inevitable questions were crowding in on her. How had he learned to make love so beautifully? How many affairs had he had? Longing to know him better, she started with inquiries about his family. And the more he told her, the more she warmed to him. His father had died years ago; his mother was not well off; his sister was the paid companion of an old lady in a country town.
From time to time, a horse would whinny in the lines, reminding her of the male world that would soon reclaim him. He told her about the absurd snobberies that bedevilled the lives of poorer officers like himself. How there were certain makers of cheap saddles and tack who could be patronized only at grave social cost to the purchaser. An officer breaking this taboo generally resorted to the secret removal of all the telltale embossed rivet heads and then plundered a worn-out but expensive saddle in order to reuse its rivets.
‘I can’t see you doing that.’
‘I suppose you think me too noble to stoop to such ploys?’
She kissed him on the forehead. ‘Of course I do.’
He tapped her lips gently with his index finger. ‘You’re quite wrong. My family made sacrifices for me, so I must justify their faith by climbing the greasy pole. Poor men were often forced out of the regiment. I survived as a subaltern only because I was a natural polo player.’
She tried to get him to tell her whether he had stayed on at Mponda’s village solely to await her return.
‘What would you think of me if I made my military plans fit in with personal wishes?’
‘I’d love you even more.’
‘Liar. You’d want me to put my men first, like any decent commander.’
Because she had always thought Francis above life’s ordinary struggles, Clara was disturbed to learn that unless he received favourable mention in his general’s dispatches, he would not gain the promotion that alone would enable him to meet his regimental bills.
Moving her fingers across her lover’s stomach – marble smooth, apart from a sprinkling of hairs around his navel – she was struck that in a few hours, and in the dimmest of lights, she had mapped Francis’s body more accurately by touch than she had ever done with Robert’s in all their time together. She loved the way Francis repaid her attentions, stroking her hair and saying whatever bizarre endearment occurred to him. It might be to compliment her on, of all things, her elbows. She had grown so used to Robert’s habit of never speaking unless having something of substance to say that Francis’s chatter came as a delightful surprise.
Panic rocked her when she thought of Fynn and Robert returning in a few days. What would she and Francis do then? Even a furtive squeeze of the hand would be difficult. She forced herself to smile and said, ‘At Mponda’s village, when people asked if anyone had heard any news, the usual reply was masepa hela, which means literally ‘only dung’, the word they also use for gossip and lies.’
He leaned on an elbow and sighed, ‘Let’s hope that’s what they’ll say if news about us leaks out.’
Clara blurted out unhappily, ‘I’d rather they thought it true.’ At once she sensed his dismay. ‘I’m sure they won’t,’ she reassured him. But tears were spilling from her eyes. What hope could there be for them? Scandal would harm his career. Naturally he would wish to avoid it for the sake of his family. If Simon had seen them together and told Robert, Francis would probably expect her to patch things up with her husband. And why should she complain? Hadn’t she made a point of telling him she knew how cavalry officers behaved with unhappy wives? And wh
at could he have read into that, except that he could trust her to treat an affair lightheartedly?
And in the future, Robert would expect his marital rights as before. He would speak again about their souls being open to one another, and she would want to die when she remembered an experience that had really been like that.
CHAPTER 21
Five days after Clara Haslam had become his lover, Captain Vaughan was with the squadron’s veterinary officer, discussing the recent increase in horse sickness. The vet had no idea what caused the illness, except that, being a disease of the rainy season, it was likely to have something to do with dampness and cooler temperatures. A threat to the horses was a worse danger to the squadron than malaria, but Francis could not stop thinking of Clara, even while inspecting the tongue of a dying mare and discussing the failure of quinine injections.
Francis had been with Clara the previous night and the night before that; and on both occasions he had sensed a new desperation in her lovemaking. Even when soaked in each other’s sweat, they were left afterwards nursing solitary fears, neither daring to test the other’s ultimate intentions. With Robert’s return drawing closer, the course of their love no longer resembled the clear and sparkling stream Francis had briefly imagined it to be. Darker now, it contained hidden depths and dangers.
For Clara’s sake, Francis longed to make promises about the future, but he desisted for fear of alienating Haslam and thus throwing away his men’s best chance of survival: a bloodless truce brokered by the missionary with Mponda.
That evening, loud cheers were heard coming from the camp’s northern perimeter – sounds that could only mean that Fynn and Robert had returned. In future, Francis knew, he would be able to exchange only a few rushed words with Clara. Even now he shied away from calculating the consequences of their discovery. Haslam was as likely to forgive her as he was to set about destroying her seducer’s career. Not even knowing whether Simon had seen him with Clara, Francis could only wait.
When he came upon Fynn in the horse lines, Francis was dismayed to learn that Haslam had already hurried away to find his wife. The American clasped Francis’s hand and pumped it up and down. ‘You ain’t lookin’ too good, Vaughan.’ He showed his strong yellow teeth. ‘You been busy nights?’
Francis gestured impatiently. ‘Out with it, man. What did you find? Do we live or die?’
‘Strangest thing, Vaughan – not a sign of that goddamned impi.’
‘Isn’t that good?’
‘Yeah, but it’s hard to explain.’ Fynn undid his horse’s girth and lifted off the saddle.
‘What about Nashu? Any sign?’
‘If I ever see that little son of a bitch, I’ll kill him.’
‘So he didn’t join forces with Mponda after all?’
‘Ain’t no evidence either way. He may have.’
Francis shook his head. ‘I’m sure he still hates the chief.’
When Fynn described the well-defended hill where Mponda had his stronghold, Francis was shaken. It had been impossible for Haslam to get near enough to make contact with the chief. For the first time in several days, Francis focused entirely upon the fighting ahead. According to Fynn, the chief’s neighbour, Mucheri, had left a thousand warriors with Mponda before moving north, for the chief now appeared to have almost three thousand men with him. How they could be dislodged from their caves and crags, Francis could not imagine. More than ever, he needed Haslam to act as mediator. But supposing that the two men met: would Mponda agree to lay down his arms until he had first seen evidence that his enemies had enough men and guns to punish him? Francis did not think so and therefore decided that Haslam should not be asked to negotiate until after the chief had been given a serious jolt.
It was dark by the time Francis had finished discussing the situation with his officers. Unlike Carew and the others, Arnot had refused to accept Fynn’s assurance that the impi had left the region. In his opinion, Mponda was being used by the Matabele as bait to lure the squadron into an ambush. Francis chose to believe Fynn.
His men were eating supper by their campfires before Francis persuaded himself that he could no longer decently postpone welcoming Robert Haslam. To delay now would be blatant discourtesy. Outside the missionary’s tent, Francis took a long breath and then announced himself. On getting no reply, he glanced inside and saw Clara sitting by herself. Francis could hardly bear to look at her unhappy face.
‘Has the boy told him?’
‘I can’t tell.’
Francis moved closer to her. ‘If Haslam knew, he’d say something to you, surely.’
‘Maybe not at once. Robert thinks a lot. He’ll need to know what God wants him to do.’
‘What might that be?’
She sighed heavily. ‘God knows.’ A pale smile parted her lips. ‘At the moment, Robert’s obsessed with the state of my faith. My need to give myself entirely to Jesus. He’s talked of little else since he returned. If the strain gets the better of me, I’ll probably tell him about us myself.’ She gazed at Francis as if challenging him to deny her right to be truthful.
‘Would that help you?’
‘It might take my mind off you.’
He said gently, ‘Neither of us willed or wanted this. But we’re in its grip, and we have to be brave for a while.’
She looked at him between dark lashes, her eyes bright with anger. ‘Till we get over it? Is that what you mean?’
‘No,’ he cried. ‘Till it’s clear what we should do.’ Determined not to speak of love, he found he could not help himself. ‘I have to be near you. You know that. But how can anything be decided at a time like this?’
She did not answer, but Francis recognized the truth of his situation. If Clara left her husband, there would be a scandal, and his career would be ended. His uncle would cut off his allowance, and without even his army pay, he would be penniless. Only a simpleton would expect Clara’s pious father to bail them out. Francis wanted to comfort her, but he could not find the words. Instead he said, ‘I must talk to your husband about Mponda.’
‘Robert’s out there somewhere … praying with your men.’
The thought of the wronged husband on his knees, surrounded by docile troopers, was both sad and comical, yet Francis could find no humour in the image. Already Clara was paying heavily for their brief happiness – more heavily than he. Soon Haslam would be forcing himself on her.
Just as Clara had predicted, Francis found the missionary praying with a small group of soldiers. The sight jarred his conscience more than he had expected, although many officers of his acquaintance would think it a grand joke to roger a missionary’s wife. As Haslam rose from his knees, his dusty and unshaven face looked drained, but if Simon had given him bad news, Francis could detect no sign of it. In fact, the missionary was entirely calm as Francis explained to him why he meant to give Mponda a bloody nose before trying to persuade him to lay down his arms.
Haslam asked mildly, ‘What if he teaches you a lesson?’
Francis could not help grinning. ‘I’d wish I’d asked you to talk to him first.’
‘That’s just what you should do.’ The man’s vehemence took Francis by surprise. He was holding a Bible, and its brass-bound corners caught the red glow of a nearby fire.
Francis tried to sound tolerantly amused. ‘You think he’ll go trotting home just because you ask him nicely?’
‘To ask in the name of Jesus is no ordinary request.’
‘He could still refuse you. And I’d have lost my only chance to surprise him. That’s why I can’t let you see him first.’
‘You’ll never surprise him,’ predicted the missionary. ‘Mponda is always watching for enemies.’
Haslam’s conviction was very demoralizing and gave Francis his first inkling of how Mponda had been driven to put away his wives. He said more sharply than he intended, ‘He’ll fight harder if I let him think my men are scared.’
‘They are scared, Mr Vaughan.’
‘Fear
is normal, sir,’ snapped Francis. ‘I’ll thank you not to talk to my men about death.’
‘I spoke to them of faith.’
‘The only faith they need is faith in their officers.’
The missionary’s gaze was loftily compassionate. Francis told himself that all salvationists had to pretend to be morally superior in order to make their message convincing. But he still could not bear to think of the disdain Clara might soon be facing.
After parting with Haslam, Francis plunged into the mess tent and, pushing past Arnot and several other officers, demanded whisky.
*
On the third day of their northward march, Francis gave orders for the column to continue by night. It pleased Heywood Fynn that this decision had been based on his estimate of the time it would take to reach Mponda’s stronghold and on his recommendation of a dawn attack. Guiding the squadron by night held no fears for him, and he was never happier than when striding out in the darkness at the head of several hundred silent and trusting men. Beside him, for the first time, strode Arthur Winter, who was entranced to see his hero studying his compass inside an upturned hat by the hidden light of a match, and listened to Fynn as if to God when he gave hints for remembering the shapes of individual hills. Arthur was disappointed that the night was not quite dark enough for them to be obliged to kneel on the ground and feel for tracks with their hands.
Smoking and talking were forbidden in the column, and apart from the occasional cough of a man or snort of a horse, the only sounds to be heard were the creaking of saddles and the soft thud of hooves – until an NCO’s half-tame dog began to yelp at the scent of a buck. Fynn had warned what would happen to noisy dogs, and he himself knifed it.
Open country caused Fynn few qualms, but whenever rocky ridges and gullies delayed him, he thought of the Matabele. Vaughan’s four hundred men could be wiped out in an hour if an impi surprised them. In a rocky pass, four horses lost their footing and fell among the rocks. One had to be shot, and the other three were too lame to continue. It being after midnight, Francis decided to leave these animals behind, along with the ox wagons, which could be brought on at first light. The surefooted battery mules, carrying the barrels of the Maxims on their backs, would continue with the column.