‘I’m surprised he didn’t lock you up. I know he had it in mind.’
Murdoch’s face at last relaxed into a grin. ‘He seems to think I did quite a good job. I’m to get the Order of Merit.’
‘Oh, Dad! Best congratulations.’
‘Thanks. This visit is also top secret. I simply had to come, however.’
‘And it’s great to see you. How was Yugoslavia?’
‘Yugoslavia,’ Murdoch said, ‘was grim. And is going to get grimmer, regardless of when the Germans call it a day. But I imagine that goes for several places in Europe.’ Fergus realized that his father was definitely not in a good mood. ‘You, ah...know about the situation at home.’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said. ‘Is Bert around?’
‘I imagine so. He’s leaving today, for England. He’s going to be an officer. Can you imagine that? We both felt he’d do better with Annaliese as an officer.’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said. ‘I’d like a word with him.’
Fergus frowned. ‘You’re not going to lay into him, I hope. He really has behaved very well, except for, well...the beginning, I suppose. And he’s going to get the VC for destroying that bridge under enemy fire.’
‘I am delighted,’ Murdoch said. ‘I am very proud of him. I am very proud of all of you. But I’m afraid that I have to speak with him. And you.’
‘Oh. Waterman, find the Sergeant-Major for me, will you? On the double, there’s a good chap.’
‘I gather you, and the regiment, have been covering yourselves with glory, as usual,’ Murdoch remarked.
‘We happened to be there. You wouldn’t care to tell me what’s on your mind?’
‘I’d rather tell you just once,’ Murdoch said. ‘Ah, Sergeant-Major, good to see you.’
Bert was panting with exertion as he climbed into the truck and saluted. ‘And to see you, sir!’
Murdoch shook hands. ‘I’d like you to sit down, Bert.’
Bert glanced at Fergus, and received a quick nod. Cautiously he lowered himself on to the bench seat that ran along the side of the ACV.
Murdoch sat opposite him. ‘You haven’t seen your son yet, Bert, have you?’
Again Bert gave Fergus an anxious glance. ‘Not yet, sir. I hope to do so this coming week.’
‘Well, I can tell you that he is a fine healthy babe. He’s at Broad Acres. Being looked after by Lady Mackinder.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bert said. ‘That’s very kind of her ladyship, sir.’
Fergus was slightly quicker on the uptake. ‘Where is Annaliese?’ he asked.
Murdoch took a long breath. ‘Annaliese is dead.’
Both the younger men stared at him in consternation.
‘She went up to London a fortnight ago. Neither Lady Mackinder nor I knew anything about it until after she had left. Apparently she just walked out of the house in the middle of the night, and walked into Bath as well. She left a note. It said that she simply had to let off some steam after being cooped up at Broad Acres for nearly a year. I suspect the news of Paul’s death had something to do with her mood. Well, I chased behind her, but there wasn’t really any hope of catching or finding her, so I returned home. It wasn’t until four days ago that we received word that her body had seen found and identified, as the widow of the late Colonel Ian Mackinder.’
‘But... how?’ Fergus asked.
Bert was apparently incapable of speech.
‘She was the victim of a V-2 rocket. Would you believe that it must have been one of the very last to fall on London? There hasn’t been one since 29th March.’
‘Good Lord!’ Fergus said. ‘Poor Liese. I am so terribly sorry, Bert.’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said.
Bert sighed, his shoulders hunched. ‘I don’t think it was meant to be, sir.’ The shoulders squared. ‘The boy...he is my son, sir.’
‘Of course he is, Bert,’ Murdoch agreed. Tut, do you think you can cope?’
‘He is my son, sir,’ Bert repeated. ‘And I am going to be an officer.’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said. ‘You are.’ He stood up, held out his hand. ‘Lady Mackinder will be very glad to see you, Bert.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Bert saluted, then went down the ladder.
‘He took it very well,’ Murdoch said.
‘I think, in fact, that he never actually loved Annaliese,’ Fergus said. ‘However much he wanted her. It was her misfortune, to be wanted but not loved. But I’d like him to have the boy. I’d like to think of him going to Sandhurst. The boy.’
‘He will,’ Murdoch said. ‘But you...you haven’t said what you feel about Annaliese.’
‘Roughly the same as Bert.’
‘Hm. You’re thirty-five. It’s a shame you aren’t married.’
‘I will be, very shortly.’
Murdoch raised his eyebrows. ‘Anyone I know?’
Fergus grinned. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. A woman named Monique Deschards.’
‘Monique...Good God. I thought she was dead.’
Fergus told him how he had found her, and again it Paris.
Murdoch squeezed his hand. ‘I am absolutely delighted. And I know your mother will be too. Oh, I am so pleased. Well, aren’t you going to let me inspect your brigade, even if I am retired?’
‘Of course. But there is something I must give you, first.’ He handed over Paul’s letter.
Murdoch frowned as he slit the envelope, read the contents. Then he crumpled it into a ball. ‘Did he die well?’
‘He fell on his sword, in a manner of speaking, in the best tradition of defeated and disillusioned commanders. At least he never knew about Annaliese.’
‘Did he say anything before he shot himself?’
‘No. Should he have?’
‘He was your brother.’
‘My...’ Fergus’s jaw dropped.
‘Yes. I had an affair with his mother, way back during the Boer War, and he was the result. Oh, Lee knows about it. Always has done. There didn’t seem much point in telling any of you, when you were kids. And then, when Paul became a Nazi, there seemed even less point.’
‘Good Lord! And he never said a word. Oh, Dad, I am most terribly sorry.’
‘I said, he did become a dyed in the wool Nazi,’ Murdoch reminded him. ‘And at least he died well.’
‘But, if he was my brother, then Annaliese...’
‘No, she is pure Reger. Or I couldn’t have let her marry Ian. Or you.’
‘I thought his face was familiar...my God, he looked like you,’ Fergus said.
‘Yes, he did. Well...it’s all over and done with now. My God, forty-five years I have been mixed up with that family. And he was the very last. I’m glad he died like a gentleman.’
‘Paul wasn’t the last von Reger, Dad.’
Murdoch raised his head.
‘There’s little Ian.’ Fergus smiled. ‘But he’s the last Mackinder, too. That little chap has quite a heritage to live up to.’
Epilogue
1985
That was no longer true, Murdoch thought, as he glanced at Brigadier Ian Mackinder, and from him to young Murdoch, seated opposite him at the bottom of the centre leg, face animated as he talked with his subaltern friends. Amongst whom was Ralph Manly-Smith, Bert’s grandson. Like Bert, his son Albert had got moving young, as regards both marriage and children.
They would be re-fighting the battles of the past, because they had seen none of their own; they were too young even to have been in the Falklands. Should he pray to God that they never would fight a battle of their own? Or would that be to negate man’s natural state?
The noise of conversation and clinking glasses rose around him, almost like the din of battle. He heard little of it, beamed benevolently when someone addressed him; his hearing was getting a little weak, certainly in a large gathering. Besides, these regimental dinners always filled him with so much nostalgia.
He had so much to remember.
South Africa! The Modder River. Murdoch Mackinder and Bert Yea
ld, a very young second lieutenant and a very young corporal, leading a fording party, without orders, into the Boer position. The story of his life, presumably.
Margriet Voorlandt!
Somaliland, surrounded by the Mad Mullah’s warriors, and leading his squadron in a famous charge! Sergeant-Major Yeald had been at his side then too.
The Curragh, and the hideous spectre of an army mutiny!
Mons and Le Cateau, fighting the swarming Germans tooth and nail!
Mesopotamia, and Chand Bibi!
Amiens, and riding into battle beside the first tanks! Meeting Hitler in the Landsberg!
The North West Frontier, and the final confrontation with the Mahsuds!
Jennifer Manly-Smith!
Dunkirk, and that last glorious tank battle in which he had been involved! And the death of Ian.
And then, the triumphs of the Hitler War. Fergus’s triumphs. But out of the war had come, for all its tragedies, much solid happiness. If his apprehensions for the Balkans, and indeed all of Europe — apprehensions which had been shared by Churchill, but not, unfortunately, by Roosevelt —had been proved only too accurate, and they had had to live through a generation of fear, those days at last seemed to be ending; he had at least been right about Tito, who had very soon thrown off the Russian yoke, regardless of the risk involved.
While domestically, his life had bloomed in retirement. There had been so much to enjoy. Fergus and Monique; if they had never been able to have children following her horrific experiences, they had been very happy, and Fergus had got his KCMG. Young Ian, who had grown into the so competent soldier beside him. The glorious return of Harry, not after all killed, but a prisoner of the Japanese for four years; he had thrown that aside with the spirit of a true Mackinder to become a best-selling novelist. Bert and his son. Bert hadn’t quite made brigadier, but he had died a colonel. Ralph and Jennie would have been proud.
And Lee and himself, and Broad Acres. They had trodden a long and sometimes tortuous path together. But she had forgiven all his twists and turns, and they had had a so happy old age together. Since her death, five years ago, he had tended to live more and more in the past.
More and more, he thought. As he grew more and more tired. It was way past his bed time, and his resident nurse would be having kittens. But he did not want to go home. Here he was in the heart of his true family, the regiment, for whom, he knew, he remained the one and only General.
*
‘Gentlemen,’ Brigadier Ian Mackinder said, standing. ‘Pray rise for the loyal toast.’ He waited while the officers stood, and then raised his glass. ‘Gentlemen, the Queen!’
Only then did he meet his son’s eyes. Murdoch was staring up the table, an expression of horror on his face. Ian looked down, at Sir Murdoch. The general had not risen. And now everyone was staring with equal consternation.
‘Oh, my God!’ Fergus bent over his father, put his hand on his breast, his ear to his nostrils.
‘Sergeant-Major, fetch a doctor,’ someone called.
Fergus straightened. ‘The General is dead,’ he announced.
The company stared at him.
Fergus took a long breath, then picked up his glass. ‘Gentlemen, I give you the greatest fighting soldier this army has ever possessed, Sir Murdoch Mackinder.’
‘Sir Murdoch Mackinder,’ they said.
Sir Murdoch Mackinder, Lieutenant Murdoch Mackinder thought. Now I do have a great deal to remember. And live up to.
I shall not fail him.
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