by John Masters
They had some light for the first two hours, then, for an hour, Stella could see nothing. She wondered how the pony could know where it was putting its hoofs. It was a Navajo pony, she thought; it knew not from the ordinary senses, but from a communion with nature that it shared with its brothers, the Dinneh. Death too, was part of the land, of this communion, and acknowledged as such.
After the first four hours the cold began to work through her blanket and the thick woollen clothes she was wearing … her shirt was wool, for she had known it would be cold in the Ford – but she had not expected this. One should always expect anything in this country. A Navajo did not assume that he was going to reach any place so many hours after he started out for it; he knew better … her toes were becoming numb … her hands … her nose … cheeks … Was she dreaming, or was the snow lessening? There was a foot of it on the ground now. What if the appendix burst … would John die on the spot? If they could reach Fort Defiance within, say, three hours after it had, could the doctors help him?
The travois stopped moving. Her horse almost ran over it, and then stopped so suddenly that Stella rocked forward over the saddle bow, grabbing hold of it to keep her balance. She had almost been asleep, then. She pulled out and rode up alongside Peshlakai. He said, ‘Dismount … walk …’
The other Indian swung down with her. The young man knelt before her, a shape in the glimmery white darkness, and began to take off her moccasins. ‘Sit,’ he said; and when she had, he rubbed snow on her feet, and then her hands … again on her feet, then on her cheeks. She felt the blood returning in painful, sharp stabs. Peshlakai said, ‘Eat!’ He was eating, she could tell from the chomp of his jaws beside her; and she found the meat the woman had given her, and ate too.
Peshlakai grunted, ‘On.’ She struggled over to the travois and called through the mummy wrapping – ‘John? How are you? Are you cold?’
She heard his little groan – ‘No … belly hurts … like hell … Where are we?’
‘I don’t know … We’re going on now.’ They mounted, moved on. How many hours gone? She had no idea. It was not necessary to know. Americans had to know the time; the Navajos lived without time, but in it. The question now was, not what time is it, but is it John’s time to die? And who knew? How many miles gone, to go? She did not know that either. They were moving as fast as anyone could, through these mountains, in these conditions.
The moon was out, riding in a cold sky. There was no wind, and the snow had stopped. Her breath condensed inside her goggles and she had to keep taking them off and wiping them clear with her gloved hand.
An isolated rock, dim red in the moonglow, swam up out of the night ahead. A ponderosa pine perched on top of it, after growing horizontally for six feet, curved straight up towards the moon. Her heart leaped, for she knew that rock, that tree. They were close to the Fort. Close enough? Who knew? She wanted to urge the pony faster, to shout to Peshlakai, ‘Hurry, hurry!’ … The ponies plodded on, the trails of the travois straight and deep in the untrodden snow. She saw the buildings of the Fort and again wanted to shout … a vagrant flurry of snow blotted them out, they no longer existed … was this the meaning of time, and place? They swam out once more, by a car parked beside the road – that was the Agent’s Packard … here was the Agency … the store … the hospital.
They turned in through the open gate in the stone wall.
John was sitting propped up in bed, his face brown against the pillows. In the three days since the operation he had recovered much of his colour, and a little of his strength, enough to hold out his hand to her and say ‘Thank you, Stella.’ He thought: I should say, you saved my life. But it wasn’t appropriate; she knew she had, but their lives were one now. She had saved her own. She leaned forward in her chair beside the bed and kissed him on the cheek. Sitting back she said, ‘The day before you were sick, I had a feeling … a knowledge … that I was going to pass through some arch … in a cliff, or mountain. When you became ill, I thought, it is the bad spirit that was in me, passing into him. Then it seemed that the only way you could rid yourself of that spirit was by dying; so you would have died for me … first taking the spirit, and then dying so that it would die. But you were saved. The spirit has gone from both of us …’ She held out her hands, bare, palms up – ‘I do not need heroin, or peyote … or even danger. I am whole.’
He held her hands tight – ‘There’s a long letter from Dad, on the chair there. He’s going to lobby for the Navajo in Washington until … until I’m ready to take over, he says. But I’m never going to go back East. We … something’s happened, recently, Stella. The Navajo have wholly accepted us. They trust us. We are of them …’
‘I felt that some time ago,’ she said, ‘the night I delivered Hoskie Tsosi’s baby.’
‘This is our home! These are our people. We’ll never leave them.’
She said slowly, ‘In spirit, no, John. But we can never lead them – they must lead themselves. And whenever their affairs, their fate, become centred off the reservation, they need guides. The time may come when the Dinneh will send us away, because the place where they then need our help is not here, but in Washington. You could never do as much for the Navajo and the Hopi here as you could if you were Commissioner of the Indian Service – or Secretary of the Interior.’
After a time John said, ‘I can’t believe it now, but my father thinks as you do, so it’s possible, many years on. But it may never happen, and I’ll be happier if it doesn’t.’
She said, smiling, ‘Me, too. But one thing that will happen, in about seven months, is that Peace will have a little brother. Or a little sister.’
Daily Telegraph, Monday, December 1, 1919
AMERICAN INVASION
POST-WAR RECORD
From Our Own Correspondent, New York, Sunday.
Nearly 7000 passengers left New York yesterday for England by four liners, a record number of civilians leaving New York on any day since War was declared. They are a mere advance guard of the tens of thousands who will follow in the spring and summer. London will have several months to prepare for invasion, and if London fails there will be a tremendous disappointment.
… Amongst the many notables on the White Star Liner Adriatic were Sir John Ferguson, Sir David Henderson, Lord and Lady Swaythling, Sir John and Lady Harrington, Sir Alfred Smithers, Sir Alexander and Lady McGuire, and Sir Thomas Lipton, who returns here again next April in an effort to win the America’s Cup, and to take part in the tercentenary celebration of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. Just as Sir Thomas Lipton sailed, a lady in deep mourning rushed aboard to thank him for his kindness to her late husband, an American surgeon who died in Serbia … The lady told reporters that Sir Thomas Lipton not only looked after the funeral arrangements but what she valued most, himself provided the American flag to cover her husband’s remains. ‘If all Britishers were like Sir Thomas Lipton,’ the lady said, ‘we would not need an Anglo-American alliance because we would have one already.’
What a nice little vignette, Cate thought; though Sir Thomas’s kindness had apparently been more to the surgeon’s corpse than to his living person. And the bereaved lady’s heartfelt expressions about an Anglo-American alliance made much warmer reading than the reports of the political in-fighting going on over there about the League of Nations.
Isabel said, ‘Have you read the piece about Mr Churchill and the League?’
Cate looked at the page he was reading and said, ‘Not yet, but I suppose it’s here, under the headline US SENATE AND TREATY – EFFORTS FOR COMPROMISE.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Apparently he has written an article somewhere in which he declares that the League was conceived and pressed on the Peace Conference by America alone, and therefore America owes a duty to the world which she is quite sure to perform.’
Cate said, ‘It doesn’t look a bit sure to me. The Senate has already rejected the League once. Perhaps they don’t agree with Mr Churchill’s assessment of what their duty is
.’
Isabel sighed, ‘Oh dear … It all seemed so rosy, and clean, and right, when Mr Wilson was speaking … and was well.’
Cate said, ‘I fear that eloquence won’t count for much now that we’re at grips with vital national interests … nor will Sir Thomas Lipton’s generous treatment of the American surgeon’s body.’
Chapter 33
England: December, 1919
David Toledano tossed and turned in the bed. He could not make himself comfortable, so that he could sleep, because his mind would not rest. Of course his father knew he was here, at High Staining; and that Helen was here, too, with little Boy. His father regularly employed spies in his business and it was natural that they should also report to him about his only son’s private life. It was these same men who would have found out for his father about the character, lineage, wealth, and morals of the Jewish girls who had been put in his way ever since he came back from the war.
So, his father would know that he had been polite enough with the pretty, rich Jewish girls; but had seen more and more of Helen. Coming down to High Staining was, in his own mind at least, a declaration. If she would have him, he was going to marry her, and of course take Boy under his wing, too … bring him up as his real father would have wanted. But what would his own father think, say, do? Perhaps he would not care so much that Helen had had an illegitimate child; for he knew what the war had done, and in his youth, David knew, he had been a lover of many beautiful women, mostly Egyptians or Circassians, all kept in seclusion as though in a harem. His father was a very old-fashioned man … But it might kill him that his son was marrying a Gentile, then how could he face the great God, when his own time came?
It was four o’clock, the moon shining in through the window, hoarfrost on the panes, no wind, few clouds. He got up, dressed, and went silently out of the room and out of the house. The lane to Walstone was a wall of moon shadow on one side, a ribbon of light on the other. The gravel crunched under his shoes as he swung along, cold gravel, frozen to the ground below. A hunting owl called over from the edge of the wood, but he did not see it. He walked faster, not knowing or caring where he was going.
From the shadow of the hedge, deep among the brambles and hazel bushes, Probyn Gorse, two pheasants in the tail of his coat, watched him approach. The Duke of Clarence crouched at heel, as silent as his master.
Probyn had heard the footsteps long before, and wondered whose they were … not Fulcher … surely not another poacher … Then he saw him and recognised him – the big Jew staying the weekend at High Staining. He stepped out of the hedge a few yards ahead of David and said, ‘Morning, sir. Going to be a nice day.’
David did not start. He knew Probyn slightly, and had heard much about him from Helen and, years ago, from Guy Rowland. It did not seem strange that he should rise out of the earth at half-past four and fall in to shamble along beside him. He said, ‘I couldn’t sleep … because I want to marry Helen … Lady Helen … but I think my father would be very upset, because she’s not Jewish …’
Probyn said nothing for a while, then – ‘No use asking if she’d want to become a Jew – she wouldn’t … Well, I always tried to please my dad. Reckon us men always do, until we hit on something we’ve both got our minds set on, opposite ways, and we’re both men and can’t give way … then we go on our own ways, and four, five, ten years later, it’s all blown over … but we never really grow up till it’s happened … Marry her, sir. Won’t find many better women than Her Ladyship, Jewesses or no …’ He turned off into a footpath, instantly vanishing in the shadows, without another word.
David came back at eight, to find Helen alone at the breakfast table. Louise Rowland and the sole land girl now left at the farm were already out at work. Helen looked up from her kippers – ‘Good morning, David. Did you have a nice walk?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Twelve miles.’ He went to the sideboard, picked up a porridge plate, and ladled porridge into it. Behind him, Helen said, ‘I don’t know how Mrs Rowland runs this place with no help but Frances and old Foden … Foden never was a very good farm labourer even before he went to France, and he certainly didn’t learn anything out there …’
David turned and walked towards her. He said, ‘Will you marry me, Helen?’ He stood, waiting, the plate of porridge growing hotter in his hand.
She looked up, lowering her knife and fork – ‘Are you sure you won’t regret it later? I cannot change my religion, you know.’
‘I know. And I’m sure.’
‘I will, then. I’ve always liked you. You’ve been so kind, generous … not with money, though that too, of course … just generous, with friendship.’
‘It was love.’
She said, ‘I don’t know about that with me yet, David. Perhaps it’ll never be really love … but, everything else, yes, and perhaps … I can’t promise.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, and sat down opposite her. Louise Rowland came in, wearing outdoor farm clothes, with bedroom slippers. She had taken off her Wellingtons at the front door and left them on the mat just inside. She said cheerfully, ‘The milking’s nearly done … and I need a cup of coffee.’
David said, ‘Helen and I are engaged.’
‘Oh, my dear … how wonderful. Congratulations! Wait till I tell Frances … and Naomi, of course.’
David sprinkled a little salt on his porridge – ‘Mrs Rowland,’ he said, ‘do you know if Naomi has any plans to live here … or run it as a farm?’
‘Why, no,’ Louise said. ‘I’m sure she hasn’t. We hoped that Boy … well, you know that.’
David said, ‘I’d like to buy it for young Boy. And live here and work it as a farm until he’s ready to take it over … if he wants to.’
Helen was half on her feet, her hands to her face – ‘David! I’ve dreamed of … But are you sure you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Rowland?’
Louise said, ‘It takes a great weight off my mind … and does what we always hoped for … gives High Staining to Boy’s descendants. I can’t run it any more. I’ve been dreaming of retiring, going to Torquay or Lyme Regis, to sit on a bench and look at the sea. I’ll be happy to sell, and give some of the money to Naomi. She’s going to stay in Hedlington, on top of her factory. This is the place for you.’
‘Now I have to tell my father,’ David said.
And Helen – ‘And I, mine.’
Guy Rowland, sitting at the bare table in the great room, glanced at his wrist-watch – nearly time to set out for Wokingham and his promised visit to his sister. He was beginning to make some more notes in the margin of the estimate he was studying, when the sound of footsteps made him look up. A man in his forties was coming towards him, his face gaunt, the hair slicked down with water … thin of body as well as face, weak but striving to keep his back straight and his head up … clothes ragged, boots falling to pieces … he was trying to put his feet down like a soldier, but not strong enough to do more than shuffle. He came to a stop by the table and stiffened to attention – ‘Wing Commander Sir Guy Rowland?’
Guy got up and put out his hand, ‘That’s me.’ The other’s hand was thin and bony and had no strength in it.
‘Private Lucas, sir … 1st Battalion, Weald Light Infantry …’ Guy felt the hand slipping out of his as the man slowly collapsed, falling at last to his knees as Guy grabbed him by the shoulders and eased him down.
He came round in a few moments, and Guy pulled him upright and sat him in his own chair, kneeling beside him – ‘Starved?’ he asked.
Lucas nodded and Guy said, ‘I’ll get you some hot milk in a minute, and something more substantial later … You served under my father?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Lucas said. ‘Twenty-two years. Saw you once in the trenches, when you come up to visit him … on the Somme.’
‘But you’re not still serving?’
‘No, sir. I didn’t want to go, but they demobbed me … couldn’t get a job … all my people dead … had to spend my pension on doctors and medici
nes – piles, sir … stole some bread … went to gaol for a month … starved again … I want to work for you here, sir … for the other blokes … walked down from Brummagem …’
‘God! Sleeping in hedges, at this time of year? How did you manage to keep shaved? And your boots clean?’
‘I’m a soldier, sir.’
‘What can you do?’
Lucas hesitated, his head down – ‘Nothing, what will help you, I s’pose … I’d best get back to Brumm … I’m not taking any charity.’
Guy said, ‘You’re a real old sweat. You must be able to run a Crown & Anchor board.’
Lucas looked up quickly, ‘That I can, sir … and all fair and above board, too.’
‘Every soldier, sailor, and airman loves Crown & Anchor,’ Guy said. ‘But you can’t do that eight hours a day.’
Lucas said, ‘I can look after clothes and such, sir … make beds, keep a house regimental-like … clean floors, silver … iron trousers.’
‘And ladies’ blouses?’ Guy asked.
Lucas nodded; and Guy said, ‘Very well, you shall be my valet … and Florinda’s lady’s maid – up to a point – until she gets a real one, if she ever does … Now, sit tight, and I’ll bring you that milk …’