‘He’s not my husband. I hardly know him.’ She cut in and ignored the exclamation of protest from Sean. ‘My husband is with your army. I want you to take me with you, please.’
‘Well, now … ! That’s a horse of another colour,’ the officer drawled, but the lazy arrogance of his tone barely concealed his pleasure at the prospect of Ruth’s company. ‘I’d be delighted to escort you, ma’am.’
With her knees Ruth backed her mount and fell in beside the subaltern. This small manoeuvre placed her directly facing Sean – as though she were on the far side of a barrier.
‘Ruth, please. Let me talk to you about this. Just a few minutes.’
‘No.’ There was no expression in her voice, nor in her face.
‘Just to say good-bye,’ he pleaded.
‘We’ve said good-bye.’ She glanced from Sean to Dirk and then away.
The subaltern raised his clenched fist high and lifted his voice. ‘Column! Column, Forward!’ and as his big, glossy hunter started he grinned maliciously at Sean and touched the brim of his helmet in ironical salute.
‘Ruth!’
But she was no longer looking at Sean. Her eyes were fixed ahead and as she swept away at the head of the column her chin was up, that smiling type of mouth was drawn into two straight lips and the thick braid of hair thumped against her back with each thrust of the horse beneath her.
‘Rough luck, matey!’ called a trooper from the rear rank and then they were past.
Hunched in the saddle Sean stared after them.
‘Is she coming back, Pa?’ Dirk inquired.
‘No, she’s not coming back.’
‘Why not?’
Sean did not hear the question. He was watching, waiting for Ruth to look back at him. But he waited in vain, for suddenly she was gone over and beyond the next fold in the land and a few seconds later the column had followed her. Afterwards there was only the vast emptiness of the land and the sky above – as vast as the emptiness within him.
– 7 –
Sean rode ahead. Ten yards behind they followed, Mbejane restraining Dirk from a closer approach for he understood that Sean must now be left alone. Many times in the years they had been together Mbejane and Sean had travelled in this formation – Sean riding ahead with his sorrow or his shame and Mbejane trailing him patiently, waiting for Sean’s shoulders to straighten and his chin to lift from where it drooped forward on his chest.
There was no coherence in Sean’s thoughts, the only pattern was the rise and swoop of alternate anger and despair.
Anger at the woman, anger almost becoming hatred before the plunge of despair as he remembered she was gone. Then anger building up towards madness, this time directed at himself for letting her go. Again the sickening drop as he realized that there was no means by which he could have held her. What could he have offered her? Himself? Two hundred pounds of muscle and bones and scars supporting a face like a granite cliff? Poor value! His worldly goods? A small sack of sovereigns and another woman’s child – By God, that was all he had. After thirty-seven years that was all he had to show! Once more his anger flared. A week ago he had been rich – and his anger found a new target. There was at least somewhere he could seek vengeance, there was a tangible enemy to strike, to kill. The Boer. The Boer had robbed him of his wagons and his gold, had sent him scurrying for safety; because of them the woman had come into his life and because of them she had been snatched away from him.
So be it, he thought angrily, this then is the promise of the future. War!
He straightened in the saddle, his shoulders seemed to fill out wide and square. He lifted his head and saw the shiny snake of a river in the valley below. They had reached the Tugela. Without pause Sean pushed his horse over the lip of the escarpment. On its haunches, loose rock rolling and slithering beneath its hooves, they began the descent.
Impatiently Sean followed the river downstream, searching for a drift. But between the sheer banks it ran smooth and swift and deep, twenty yards wide and still discoloured with mud from the storm.
At the first place where the far bank flattened sufficiently to promise an easy exit from the water, Sean checked his horse and spoke brusquely.
‘We’ll swim.’
In reply Mbejane glanced significantly at Dirk.
‘He’s done this before,’ Sean answered him as he dismounted and began to shed his clothing, then to the boy, ‘Come on, Dirk. Get undressed.’
They drove the pack-horses in first, forcing them to jump from the steep bank and watched anxiously until their heads reappeared above the surface and they struck out for the far bank. Then all three of them naked, their clothing wrapped in oilskins and lashed to the saddles, they remounted.