by Wilbur Smith
A dozen chefs could have prepared a banquet for five hundred guests in this kitchen, but there was only a tiny wood fire burning in one of the ranges and they seated Michael on a stool in front of it.
‘Get some of your famous ointment,’ Centaine ordered, and Anna hurried away.
‘You are Flemish?’ Michael asked. He was delighted that the language barrier had evaporated.
‘No, no.’ Centaine was busy with an enormous pair of shears, snipping away the charred remnants of the shirt from his burns. ‘Anna is from the north – she was my nurse when my mother died, and now she thinks she is my mother and not just a servant. She taught me the language in the cradle. But you, where did you learn it?’
‘Where I come from, everybody speaks it.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said, and he was not sure what she meant, for her eyes were lowered to her task.
‘I look for you every morning,’ he said softly. ‘We all do, when we fly.’
She said nothing, but he saw her cheeks turn that lovely dusky pink colour again.
‘We call you our good luck angel, l’ange du bonheur,’ and she laughed.
‘I call you le petit jaune, the little yellow one,’ she answered. The yellow Sopwith – Michael felt a surge of elation. She knew him as an individual, and she went on, ‘All of you, I wait for you to come back, counting my chickens, but so often they do not come back, the new ones especially. Then I cry for them and pray. But you and the green one always come home, then I rejoice for you.’
‘You are kind,’ he started, but Anna bustled back from the pantry carrying a stone jar that smelled of turpentine and the mood was spoiled.
‘Where is Papa?’ Centaine demanded.
‘In the basement, seeing to the animals.’
‘We have to keep the livestock in the cellars,’ Centaine explained as she went to the head of the stone stairs, ‘otherwise the soldiers steal the chickens and geese and even the milch cows. I had to fight to keep Nuage, even.’
She yelled down the stairs, ‘Papa! Where are you?’
There was a muffled response from below and Centaine called again, ‘We need a bottle of cognac.’ And then her tone became admonitive. ‘Unopened, Papa. It is not a social need, but a medicinal one. Not for you but for a patient – here.’
Centaine tossed a bunch of keys down the stairs and minutes later there was a heavy tread and a large shaggy man with a full belly shambled into the kitchen with a cognac bottle held like an infant to his chest.
He had the same dense bush of kinky hair as Centaine, but it was woven with grey strands and hung forward on to his forehead. His moustaches were wide and beeswaxed into impressive spikes, and he peered at Michael through a single dark glittering eye. The other eye was covered by a piratical black cloth patch.
‘Who is this?’ he demanded.
‘An English airman.’
The scowl abated. ‘A fellow warrior,’ he said. ‘A comrade-in-arms – another destroyer of the cursed boche!’
‘You have not destroyed a boche for over forty years,’ Anna reminded him without looking up from Michael’s burns, but he ignored her and advanced on Michael, opening his arms like a bear to envelop him.
‘Papa, be careful. He is wounded.’
‘Wounded!’ cried Papa. ‘Cognac!’ as though the two words were linked, and he found two heavy glass tumblers and placed them on the kitchen table, breathed on them with a decidedly garlicky breath, wiped them on his coat-tails, and cracked the red wax from the neck of the bottle.
‘Papa, you are not wounded,’ Centaine told him severely as he filled both tumblers up to the brim.
‘I would not insult a man of such obvious valour by asking him to drink alone.’ He brought one tumbler to Michael.
‘Comte Louis de Thiry, at your service, monsieur.’
‘Captain Michael Courtney. Royal Flying Corps.’
‘A vôtre santé, Capitaine!’
‘A la vôtre, Monsieur le Comte!’
The comte drank with undisguised relish, then sighed and wiped his magnificent dark moustaches on the back of his hand and spoke to Anna.
‘Proceed with the treatment, woman.’
‘This will sting,’ Anna warned, and for a moment Michael thought she meant the cognac, but she took a handful of the ointment from the stone jar and slapped it on to the open burns.
Michael let out an anguished whinny and tried to rise, but Anna held him down with one huge, red, work-chafed hand.
‘Bind it up,’ she ordered Centaine, and as the girl wound on the bandages, the agony faded and became a comforting warmth.
‘It feels better,’ Michael admitted.
‘Of course it does,’ Anna told him comfortably. ‘My ointment is famous for everything from smallpox to piles.’
‘So is my cognac,’ murmured the comte, and recharged both tumblers.
Centaine went to the wash basket on the kitchen table and returned with one of the comte’s freshly ironed shirts, and despite her father’s protests, she helped Michael into it. Then as she was fashioning a sling for his injured arm, there was a buzzing clatter of an engine outside the kitchen windows and Michael caught a glimpse of a familiar figure on an equally familiar motor-cycle skidding to a halt in a spray of gravel.
The engine spluttered and hiccoughed into silence and a voice called agitatedly, ‘Michael, my boy, where are you?’
The door burst open and admitted Lord Andrew Killigerran in tam-o’-shanter, followed closely by a young officer in the uniform of the Royal Medical Corps. ‘Thank God, there you are. Panic not, I’ve brought you a sawbones—’ Andrew pulled the doctor to Michael’s stool and then, with relief and a shade of pique in his voice, ‘You seem to be doing damn well without us, I’ll say that for you. I raided the local field hospital. Kidnapped this medico at the point of a pistol – been eating my heart out about you, and here you are with a glass in your hand, and—’
Andrew broke off and looked at Centaine for the first time, and forgot all about Michael’s condition. He swept the tam-o’-shanter from his head. ‘It’s true!’ he declaimed in perfect sonorous French, rolling his Rs in true Gallic fashion. ‘Angels do indeed walk the earth.’
‘Go to your room immediately, child,’ Anna snapped, and her face screwed up like one of those fearsome carved dragons that guard the entrance to Chinese temples.
‘I am not a child,’ Centaine gave her an equally ferocious glare, then recomposed her features as she turned to Michael. ‘Why does he call you his boy? You are much older than he is!’
‘He’s Scots,’ Michael explained, already ridden by jealousy, ‘and the Scots are all mad – also, he has a wife and four children.’
‘That’s a filthy lie,’ Andrew protested. ‘The children, yes, I admit to them, poor wee bairns! But no wife, definitely no wife.’
‘Ecossais,’ murmured the comte, ‘great warriors and great drinkers.’ Then, in reasonable English, ‘May I offer you a little cognac, monsieur?’ They were descending into a babble of languages, crossing from one to the other in mid-sentence.
‘Will somebody kindly introduce me to this paragon among men, that I may accept his fulsome offer?’
‘Le Comte de Thiry, I have the honour to present Lord Andrew Killigerran.’ Michael waved them together and they shook hands.
‘Tiens! A genuine English milord.’
‘Scots, my dear fellow – big difference.’ He saluted the comte with the tumbler. ‘Enchanted, I’m sure. And this beautiful young lady is your daughter – the resemblance – beautiful—’
‘Centaine,’ Anna interposed, ‘take your horse to the stable and groom him.’
Centaine ignored her and smiled at Andrew. The smile stopped even his banter; he stared at her, for the smile transformed her. It seemed to glow through her skin like a lamp through alabaster, and it lit her teeth and sparkled in her eyes like sunlight in a crystal jar of dark honey.
‘I think I should have a look at our patient.’ The young army doctor
broke the spell and stepped forward to unwrap Michael’s bandages. Anna understood the gesture, if not the words, and she interposed her bulk between them.
‘Tell him, if he touches my work, I will break his arm.’
‘Your services are not required, I’m afraid,’ Michael translated for the doctor.
‘Have a cognac,’ Andrew consoled him. ‘It’s not bad stuff– not bad at all.’
‘You are a landowner, milord?’ the comte asked Andrew with subtlety. ‘Of course?’
‘Bien sûr—’ Andrew made an expansive gesture which portrayed thousands of acres and at the same time brought his glass within range of where the comte was filling the doctor’s glass. The comte topped him up and Andrew repeated, ‘Of course, the family estates – you understand?’
‘Ah.’ The comte’s single eye glittered as he glanced across at his daughter. ‘Your deceased wife has left you with four children?’ He had not followed the earlier exchange all that clearly.
‘No children, no wife – my humorous friend,’ Andrew indicated Michael, ‘he likes to make jokes. Very bad English jokes.’
‘Ha! English jokes.’ The comte roared with laughter and would have clapped Michael on his shoulder had not Centaine rushed forward to protect him from the blow.
‘Papa, be careful. He is wounded.’
‘You will stay for lunch – all of you,’ the comte declared. ‘You will see, milord, my daughter is one of the finest cooks in the province.’
‘With a little help,’ Anna muttered disgustedly.
‘I say, I rather think I should be getting back,’ the young doctor murmured diffidently. ‘I feel rather superfluous.’
‘We are invited to lunch,’ Andrew told him. ‘Have a cognac’
‘Don’t mind if I do.’ The doctor succumbed without a struggle.
The comte announced, ‘It is necessary to descend to the cellars.’
‘Papa—’ Centaine began ominously.
‘We have guests!’ The comte showed her the empty cognac bottle and she shrugged helplessly.
‘Milord, you will assist me in the selection of suitable refreshments?’
‘Honoured, Monsieur le Comte.’
As Centaine watched the pair, arms linked, descend the stone staircase, there was a thoughtful look in her eyes.
‘He is a drôle one, your friend – and very loyal. See how he rushed here to your aid. See how he places a charm on my Papa.’
Michael was surprised by the strength of his dislike for Andrew at that moment. ‘He smelled the cognac,’ he muttered. ‘That’s the only reason he came.’
‘But what of the four children?’ Anna demanded. ‘And their mother?’ She was having as much difficulty as the comte in following the conversation.
‘Four mothers,’ Michael explained. ‘Four children, four different mothers.’
‘He is a polygamist!’ Anna swelled with shock and affront, and her face went a shade redder.
‘No, no,’ Michael assured her. ‘You heard him deny it. He is a man of honour, he would not do such a thing. He is married to none of them.’ Michael felt not a qualm, he had to have an ally somewhere in the family, but at that moment the happy pair returned from the cellars laden with black bottles.
‘Aladdin’s cave,’ Andrew rejoiced. ‘The comte has got it filled with good stuff!’ He placed half a dozen bottles on the kitchen table in front of Michael. ‘Look at this! Thirty years old, if it’s a day!’ Then he peered closely at Michael. ‘You look awful, old boy. Death warmed up.’
‘Thanks,’ Michael grinned at him thinly. ‘You are so kind.’
‘Natural brotherly concern—’ Andrew struggled to draw the cork from one of the bottles, and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘By God, isn’t she a corker!’ He glanced across the kitchen to where the women were at work over the big copper pot. ‘I’d rather feel her than feel sick, what?’ Michael’s dislike for Andrew turned to active hatred.
‘I find that remark utterly revolting,’ he said. ‘To talk like that about a young girl, so innocent, so fine, so – so—’ Michael stuttered into silence, and Andrew held his head on one side and peered at him wonderingly.
‘Michael, my boy, this is worse than just a few burns and bruises, I’m afraid. It’s going to need intensive treatment.’ He filled a glass. ‘To start with, I prescribe a liberal dose of this excellent claret!’
At the head of the table the comte had the cork out of another of the bottles, and refilled the doctor’s glass.
‘A toast!’ he cried. ‘Confusion to the damned boche!’
‘A bas les boches!’ they all cried, and as soon as the toast was drunk the comte placed his hand over the black patch which covered the socket of his missing eye.
‘They did this to me at Sedan in ’70. They took my eye, but they paid dearly for it, the devils – Sacré bleu, how we fought! Tigers! We were tigers—’
‘Tabby cats!’ Anna called across the kitchen.
‘You know nothing of battle and war – these brave young men, they know, they understand! I drink to them!’ He did so copiously and then demanded, ‘Now, where is the food?’
It was a savoury ragoût of ham and sausage and marrow bones. Anna brought bowls of it steaming from the stove and Centaine piled small loaves of crisp new bread on the bare table.
‘Now tell us, how goes the battle?’ the comte demanded as he broke bread and dipped it into his bowl. ‘When will this war end?’
‘Let us not spoil good food.’ Andrew waved the question away, but with crumbs and gravy on his moustache the comte insisted.
‘What of a new Allied offensive?’
‘It will be in the west, on the Somme river again. It is there that we have to break through the German lines.’ It was Michael who answered; he spoke with quiet authority, so that almost immediately he had all their attention. Even the two women came from the stove and Centaine slipped on to the bench beside Michael, turning serious eyes up to him as she struggled to understand the English conversation.
‘How do you know all this?’ the comte interrupted.
‘His uncle is a general,’ Andrew explained.
‘A general!’ The comte looked at Michael with new interest. ‘Centaine, do you not see that our guest is in difficulty?’ And while Anna gruffed and scowled, Centaine leaned over Michael’s bowl and cut the meat into manageable portions so that he could eat with one hand.
‘Go on! Continue!’ the comte urged Michael. ‘What then?’
‘General Haig will pivot right. This time he will succeed in cutting across the German rear, and roll up their line.’
‘Ha! So we are secure here.’ The comte reached for the claret bottle, but Michael shook his head.
‘I am afraid not, not entirely anyway. This section of the line is being stripped of reserves, regimental fronts of the line are being reduced to battalion strength – everything that can be spared is being moved to take part in a new push across the Somme.’
The comte looked alarmed. ‘That is criminal folly – surely the Germans will counter-attack here to try and reduce pressure on their front at the Somme?’
‘The line here, it will not hold?’ Centaine asked anxiously and involuntarily glanced up at the kitchen windows. From where they sat, they could see the ridges on the horizon.
Michael hesitated. ‘Oh, I am sure that we will be able to hold them long enough – especially if the fighting round the Somme goes as well and as quickly as we expect. Then the pressure here will swiftly be relieved as the Allied advance swings across the German rear.’
‘But if the battle bogs down and is stalemated once again?’ Centaine asked softly in Flemish.
For a girl, and one with little English, she had a firm grasp on the essentials. Michael treated her question with respect, answering, in Afrikaans, as though he was speaking to another man.
‘Then we will be hard-pressed, especially as the Huns have aerial superiority. We may lose the ridges again.’ He paused and frowned. ‘Th
ey will have to rush in reserves. We may even be forced to pull back as far as Arras—’
‘Arras!’ Centaine gasped. ‘That means—’ She did not finish, but looked around at her home as though already taking farewell of it. Arras was far to the rear.
Michael nodded. ‘Once the attack begins, you will be in extreme danger here. You will be well advised to evacuate the château and go back south to Arras or even Paris.’
‘Never!’ cried the comte switching back into French. ‘A de Thiry never retreats.’
‘Except at Sedan,’ Anna muttered, but the comte did not deign to hear such levity.
‘I will stand here, on my own land.’ He pointed at the ancient chassepot rifle that hung on the kitchen wall. ‘That is the weapon I carried at Sedan. The boche learned to fear it there. They will relearn that lesson. Louis de Thiry will teach it to them!’
‘Courage!’ cried Andrew. ‘I give you a toast. French valour and the triumph of French arms!’
Naturally the comte had to reply with a toast to ‘General Haig and our gallant British Allies!’
‘Captain Courtney is a South African,’ Andrew pointed out. ‘We should drink to them.’
‘Ah!’ the comte responded enthusiastically in English. ‘To General – what is your uncle, the general, called? To General Sean Courtney and his brave South Africans.’
‘This gentleman,’ Andrew indicated the slightly owl-eyed doctor swaying gently on the bench beside him, ‘is an officer in the Royal Medical Corps. A fine service, and worthy of our toast!’
‘To the Royal Medical Corps!’ The comte accepted the challenge, but as he reached for his glass again, it trembled before he touched it, and the surface of the red wine was agitated into little circular ripples which lapped against the crystal bowl. The comte froze and all their heads lifted.
The glass of the kitchen window-panes rattled in their frames and then the rumble of the guns rolled down from the north. Once again the German guns were hunting along the ridges, clamouring and barking like wild dogs, and as they listened in silence, they could imagine the misery and agony of the men in the muddy trenches only a few miles from where they sat in the warm kitchen with their bellies filled with food and fine wine.