1999 - Ladysmith (23 page)

“Boers don’t understand cricket, sis. Well, neither do I actually.”

“Nor me. Look, your Tom’s back on bowling.”

The tumble of Colonial Born wickets seemed to have halted at the lower end of the batting order, and the tag-end batsmen were making a good fist of it. With the mounting runs came further disillusion among the Mother Country. Even Norris conceded that they needed to make something happen, and with some urging from Foster allowed Tom Barnes to take the ball.

So it was that the mysterious controlling force of destiny (which struck Bella as rather fortuitous) decreed that Tom should be bowling to Father, while Foster crouched behind, alert and expectant, his wicket-keeper’s gloves, pads and leather helmet as armour-like as the accoutrements of a medieval knight. And yet she should not have thought these an encumbrance, if Foster’s handling of the next ball was anything to go by.

Bella watched Tom pace out, turn, run back to the crease and let fly. A scorcher, it first made Father jerk back, so that the cap fell off to reveal his red hair, and then—passing high above the off stump—caused Foster to leap acrobatically to the right as he enclosed the ball in his capacious glove. The cries of triumph of Mother Country supporters rose in unison as the gunner rolled to one side and clambered to his feet. But did they anticipate the facts? Had ball touched bat, or not? As Foster made his appeal, all eyes were on Nevinson, waiting for movement.

But that grave adjudicator gave only a stern compression of his brow, keeping his hands firmly behind his back. The next ball he called over, and the loose pattern of fielders broke up as they moved across the pitch to take up their new positions.

Now Norris was bowling again, and it was here that the balance of the game swung. In spite of Mother Country worries, at sixty-two for seven it had looked—to Nevinson’s impartial eye—as if the Colonial Born were on the rack. But then in came Mr Greenacre, who was careful but productive. This new batsman’s fruitful caution would, in combination with further flamboyant striking by Mr Kiernan, see the Ladysmithites home. Or so Nevinson believed.

Even the weather seemed to change in those closing stages. As the day declined, a sluggish draught of wind blew away the vibrating heat and broke up the large, isolated clouds that had been floating across from the Drak-ensberg. Their luxury liners and heavily laden men-o’-war now disintegrated into a flotilla of lesser craft—steam packets, skiffs and wherries, cutters. As each fragment of cloud eased imperceptibly away, the overall effect was to increase the shade over the pitch, and an air of coolness descended upon the players. A resounding crack alerted Nevinson to Kiernan taking a four off his leg stump. He only caught the end of the stroke. Rather outlandish, but effective. The next ball, though, the correspondent gave Greenacre out l.b.w., reflecting that caution can sometimes let you down…

It fell to another batsman to help Leo Kiernan round things off. With the Colonial Born needing one run to win, and their father himself needing a six to reach his own fifty, even Jane and Bella were on tenterhooks. Then, just as the bowler was running up, Bella happened to look up at the hills again.

She understood at once the significance of what she saw: in the middle of the spinney, a puff of white smoke, a noise like a gong, and then—too soon, too soon—a hissing sound. Norris stopped dead in the middle of his run-up, Father’s bat froze at the end of his arms as if it was part of them; others scattered, still not wise to the rule of keeping still. Tom and Foster, wise heads, kept their positions. Foster, to his credit, moved not an inch, maintaining his keeper’s crouch perfectly as, out of the cloudless sky above the pitch, the canister burst like a seed head.

The iron cascaded down.

Astonishingly, as it appeared in the quiet afterwards, there seemed to be no casualties among players or spectators. Worst off were the blue-gum trees, which, rained upon by searing metal, sputtered and glowed.

“My God,” whispered Jane, “that was lucky.”

Bella’s throat was too dry to speak; she looked up at the sky again, as if for another shell, and saw only the golden fizz of the gum trees.

On the field, the cricketers slowly regathered, resuming their positions. No earthly power would prevent the conclusion of the game: the Colonial Born, the Mother Country, the Empire itself was at one in this. Men near the wicket kicked glowing splinters of steel into the outfield.

Bella heard Father’s voice ring across the pitch. “Come on, let’s finish it, I’ve got a fifty to make. The end is close at hand!”

A dry, crackling laugh rustled across the pitch. Major Mott’s it was, and then everyone, nearly, was laughing with the blessed relief of it all. Norris walked back to his scuff mark, ready to bowl again: that last ball that would come, six or no six, siege or no siege. Tom readied himself in the slips, glancing at Foster. What a brick, Tom thought. The keeper was still crouching in his position, his pads erect, gloved hands out. He hadn’t moved a muscle—although he looked a trifle pale. But then they all did.

“Ready then, Herbert?” Tom said affectionately. He’d never used that forename before, not knowing Foster very well, but what they’d just been through brought all those men closer together. The keeper made no reply. He was concentrating, his eye trained on the line of Norris’s vicious outswing.

Leo Kiernan swung for his six, missed. The ball hit Foster chest-on. He fell over to one side. Tom sighed with relief. The Mother Country had won. Then he heard a strange noise, like the first sound—the very first, that is almost not to be heard—of a kettle coming to the boil: Foster’s mouth, the breath coming out of.

“I say, are you all right?” Tom leaned down over the wicket-keeper, whose knees were drawn up uncomfortably into his belly.

“Winded, is he?” asked Kiernan, leaning on his bat.

Tom saw how Foster’s lips, still whistling, were blue; how the leather helmet was ripped at the very crown of the head where a small piece of shrapnel, plunging downwards, had passed through his skull. For Foster, who died none the wiser, the last-but-one-ball had also been the last. Tom looked at Kiernan, whose eyes were popping, and then over to Bella and Jane. The latter had got up out of her deckchair and was running towards them. As she ran, her dress was rippling. Behind her, fanned by the wind, a tall curtain of flame gathered in the blasted trees.

The Tower

B
ella looked for her mirror, opening drawers and pulling aside curtains. She couldn’t understand it. The thing seemed to have disappeared. She soon abandoned the search, however. There were more important things to worry about. For the second night running, she climbed into bed with her sister. The first night, Jane’s sobbing had been quiet: convulsive and rapid, but quiet. Tonight the sobs were just as regular, except that they were broken with involuntary cries and shudders. These cries were much louder than the sobbing and had a raw quality to them: something of an animal caught in a trap. Bella held her close, cupping her with her own body, so that the heat of their skins interpenetrated their nightgowns.

In the middle of the night, Bella woke to find Jane smoking a kaffir pipe on the window seat, her legs gathered up beneath her on the warped wood.

“Janey,” she exclaimed. “Come back to bed.”

“I’m all right. Leave me.”

The room was full of sweetly scented smoke.

“Where did you get that thing?” asked Bella.

“The Zulu woman. Nandi…she saw me crying, and said it would help.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Leave me.”

Bella thought it was best to do so. Maybe the pipe would help. Whenever she had pressed Jane in any way since Foster’s death, it had resulted in tears, so now she thought it sensible to let her be. She tried to watch over her for a while—sitting there wide-eyed in the window, amid plumes of smoke shot through with moonlight—but then sleep won the battle.

In the morning, Jane was still at the window. Bella got up quickly and rushed to her. An ember from the pipe had burned a hole in her gown. There were dabs of ash on the fabric and on the skin of her breasts. Her eyes were hollow and vacant.

“Jane…” Bella said, in a tone somewhere between reproach and concern, and took her by the shoulders. Her sister slumped into her arms and whimpered. Bella helped her back to the bed, and pulled the covers over her. She sat there stroking her hair for a while, and then, when it seemed she was asleep, dressed and went downstairs to make her some breakfast.

Her father was in the kitchen. “How’s Jane?” he said.

“Not good. She didn’t sleep.”

“Should I go and see her?”

“Best not now. I think she’s gone off.”

“Do you reckon we should get a doctor?”

“Maybe. I don’t know if it would help. She has become locked up in herself. Let’s see how she does today.”

Bella made up a tray of bread (there was no jam or butter now), mealie porridge and tea without milk, adding to the last the final shakings of the sugar bag, and took it upstairs. Jane was awake again, sitting up in bed and staring straight in front of her.

“You must eat, Janey.”

She shook her head.

“Please.” Bella held out the cup of tea.

Jane took it, and sipped. And then put it down. Bella picked up the mealies bowl and began to spoon the grey porridge into her sister’s slack mouth. It was dreadfully slow. Every now and then Jane turned her head, and a dribble of porridge came out of the side of her mouth. Bella fetched a handkerchief from the chest of drawers and wiped Jane’s face. Spoon. Then more tea. And the bread. Finally it was finished.

“Good,” Bella said, rubbing Jane’s arm.

Then a shell went off near by, and Ladysmith’s guns began to return fire. Jane lifted both her hands to her face and started screaming, throwing the tray to the floor and kicking out her legs like an infant. Bella climbed on to the bed and pulled her close, gathering her like a ball and holding her tight until the thrashing stopped. Still the guns rumbled and roared, and after every sound Jane started gasping hoarsely. Bella held her, waited. Slowly her sister relaxed, and then, with a regular moaning noise, fell into some sort of sleep. Bella gathered up the scattered breakfast things and carried the tray downstairs.

Later, when Bella went up to check on Jane again, she found her sitting naked in a corner of the room. She was shivering, in spite of the heat outside. She had also been sick, and there was vomit on the bedclothes. When Bella tried to pick her up, reaching under her arms, she just let her weight go dead. The elder girl squatted down next to her.

“Help me, Janey. Don’t be like this.”

No reply. Her sister’s face, that face which she knew as well as her own, registered no expression—just stared through her. Bella looked back, and shook her head. Outside, the sound of shellfire came again. She put her hands over Jane’s ears.

Once the bombardment had ceased, Bella went out on to the landing to fetch fresh bedclothes from the cupboard. Returning with a bundle she found her sister lying on her front on the floor, with her arms out. Her temple and one ear were flat against the boards, as if she were listening for something. Dropping her bundle on the floor, Bella picked out a blanket and laid it over the prone figure of her sister. She then removed the soiled bedclothes and took them through to the bathroom. No water to clean them with. She remade the bed with fresh linen and with great difficulty half heaved, half cajoled Jane back into it.

This was no good, they would have to get her a doctor…Or take her down to Intombi, where the nuns could give her proper care. She, Bella, would go too; Father would just have to manage in the hotel on his own. Nandi could help. She went downstairs to the bar to tell him.

It was an ordinary evening at the Royal Hotel—an ordinary evening in siege time, that is, which is different from ordinary time. Expectancy hung over everything. Critical but chronic, specific but elastic, this expectancy was the pervasive, overwhelming condition. It was the element in which townsfolk and garrison existed, but it was also as elusive as the will-o’-the-wisp. For like the lamps above the Royal’s dining tables, which could be moved lower or higher by means of a pulley (according to the number and relative intimacy of the diners), expectancy was governed by the day, the hour, the minute at which the relief column would arrive. Hope abolished being an impossible and unpatriotic condition, as news of the approach of General Buller came, went and returned, hope deferred became the only constant note.

Yet, if truth be told, there were other constants, even if they appeared to belong to another era—a lost, machine-less time of troubadours and old-style crafts, romance and derring-do. Ironically enough, it was a machine that evoked these sentiments among the company at the Royal that night, as they ate their meagre dinners—the musical box, playing through its customary roster of songs and tunes: ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’, ‘The March of the Cameron Men’, ‘The Old Folks at Home’…

It was during this last that a shell spun through the slates of the roof and exploded in the hallway outside the dining room. The bar filled with acrid smoke within seconds. Bella had hardly time to take cover before another shell-burst ripped through the building—from below, as it seemed, entering the window of a cellar room directly beneath the main dining room. The floor collapsed, then a wall. The tables were swept clear of everything, and she saw her father blown from his stool at the edge of the bar; he seemed to be flung halfway across the room. Bottles flew off the shelves and exploded on the floor. Aware only of a tearing sound and the terrible fumes filling her lungs, Bella was tumbled down by the blast and, receiving a violent blow on the side of the head, lost consciousness.

Very quickly afterwards, as a vast volume of smoke and dust billowed out of the broken doors and smashed windows, came a shocked silence—punctured only by the moaning of the injured, the sound of falling plaster, and the eerie continuance of the musical box, playing on regardless:
There’s where my heart is turning ever, There’s where the old folks stay
…