An Ice-Cream War

1: 9 August 1914, Smithville, British East Africa

The Finnegan and Zabriskie Sisal Decorticator thumped and banged away with an immense din, shaking and rattling, throwing up clouds of dust, smoke belching from its exhaust stack. Temple Smith watched it with the delighted satisfaction he always experienced when his cherished machine was in operation. At one end Saleh and some farm boys fed in the spiky faggots of harvested sisal leaves. At the other, damp, chewed, pale yellow strands were flung out, were collected in loose bundies and taken away to hang in the sun on drying racks.

Temple approached the thundering machine. The huge spinning drive wheels and flapping belts fanned the fibrous air around him. He could feel the powerful vibrations running through the concrete floor, causing his legs to tremble visibly. He reached out and placed his hand on a steel plate. The thrum and shudder set up a tingle in his finger tips. He shut his eyes. He was at the centre of the world: every functioning sense claimed by his machine.

Then, as though from a great distance, he heard a faint shouting noise. He turned round. Some six feet away stood Wheech-Browning, his arms raised protectively as if to ward off a blow. Temple saw his mouth opening and closing. He couldn’t make out what the man was trying to say.

“What?” Temple roared back. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” He was exasperated to see the Assistant District Commissioner here. Wheech-Browning had been trying to get him to pay customs duty on the coffee seedlings he’d bought in Dar for weeks. Seedlings that were now so many tinder-dry, shrivelled weeds despite the fanatical care and attention they’d received. The last time Wheech-Browning had called Temple had taken him out to the patch of hillside where he’d envisioned his field of coffee bushes and shown him the forlorn, wasted rows.

“Defective goods,” Temple had said. “Diseased, useless plants. You can’t make me pay duty on these.”

Wheech-Browning, on his part, apologized and assured him he could. As a result Temple was not predisposed to welcome further visits. Wheech-Browning was now pointing at the shed door and mouthing ‘outside’. Temple reluctantly followed him out.

In the open air the noise of the Decorticator was still considerable, but it was possible to speak. Wheech-Browning removed his sun-helmet and mopped his sweating face with a handkerchief. Then he swept his white jacket free of the shreds of sisal fibres. Temple noticed his boots and trousers were thick with dust. Looking back up the hill he saw Wheech-Browning’s mule tethered outside the house, guarded by two native policemen. Surely the man hasn’t come to arrest me? Temple thought wildly for a moment. Surely the British wouldn’t clap a man in prison for the late payment of customs duties?

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Wheech-Browning said, delivering crisp blows to his thighs with the brim of his topee. Small clouds of dust rose up.

Temple waved away a couple of buzzing flies. “What?” he said. “Stand what?”

“The noise. The din. The hellish din.” He pointed his hat at the Decorticator shed and the clouds of smoke issuing from the engine stack.

“Oh, the Decorticator. You get used to it. You don’t even notice it after a while.”

Wheech-Browning replaced his hat. “Bad news,” he said, looking sternly at the Pare Mountains. Temple felt a flutter of panic in his chest. He could arrest me, too, he thought. It’s exactly the kind of thing the English would do. You can’t break the rules and get away with it.

Wheech-Browning switched his gaze back to Temple. “It’s war,” he uttered prophetically.

This was ridiculous, Temple said to himself. The man’s taking it far too personally.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll pay.”

A brief look of incomprehension crossed Wheech-Browning’s face. Then it cleared.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I see what you mean. Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right. We’ll all pay.” He looked down at his large feet. “In the end,” he added gloomily. Then, “Bloody flies!” he suddenly exclaimed, swatting the air about his head with his hands.

“We’ll all pay?” Temple repeated slowly. He was lost.

To Temple’s surprise Wheech-Browning suddenly leapt four feet sideways leaving the two flies circling aimlessly in the space he had occupied a second before. It took them a moment to find him again.

“Telegraph came three days ago,” Wheech-Browning said. “I’ve been riding round the district since then, letting everyone know. It seems we declared war last week, on the fourth. The news has just taken a little time to reach us here in the sticks.”

Temple began to comprehend and relax. This had nothing to do with him.

“You mean the British are at war?”

“Of course. What do you think I’ve been talking about?” Wheech-Browning looked angry.

“Who with?”

“Good Lord, man, who do you think? Our German neighbours over there.” He waved at the Pare hills. “The huns, jerries, square-heads. The bloody wa-Germani, that’s who with. With whom,” he corrected himself.

“Why?”

“Oh God. Um…” Wheech-Browning looked puzzled.

“They didn’t actually spell that out in the message.” He drummed his fingers on his chin. “Something to do with mobilizing and declaring war on France, I think. Anyway, whatever it was it was nothing we could possibly ignore.”

“I see. Damn.” Temple was thinking that this state of affairs might make it difficult getting reimbursement for the coffee seedlings from the Chef der Abteilung in Dar.

“How’s that going to affect us?” Temple asked. “I guess they’ll close the border for a while. But wait, aren’t the colonies staying neutral?”

Wheech-Browning gave a harsh ironic laugh. “Good God, Smith, what do you think’s going on here? We’re at war with Germany. And that includes those swine across the border.” He looked scornfully at Temple.

“We’re expecting an invasion any day. Taveta’s bound to be the first object of an attack. I’ve come here to tell you to evacuate your farm. Same as I’ve been telling everybody close to the border—”

“Hold on one second,” Temple said forcefully. “Just hold on. There’s going to be no evacuation here. I’ve got my sisal harvest to process. What am I going to do with no Decorticator?”

“Look here, Smith,” Wheech-Browning began.

“No, you look here,” Temple said. “You British have declared war on Germany. It’s got nothing to do with me. I’m an American. Neutral. I’ve got no quarrel with the Germans.”

“Well you’re a damn fool American,” Wheech-Browning replied angrily, his face getting redder. “My God, if you’d heard the stories going round. Think of your wife and children for God’s sake. Your wife’s English. If you get a company of German askaris in here they won’t stop to check your nationality.”

Temple pursed his lips. “What about the British Army?” he asked. “Where are the troops?”

“We’ve got three battalions of the King’s African Rifles, that’s all. Half of them are up in Jubaland, the other half will have their work cut out defending the railway. You can’t expect them to go running after every crackpot American—”

“Now, just a minute—”

But Wheech-Browning was in full flight, clearly rattled by the prospect of Taveta being overrun by thousands of bloodthirsty native troops. “I’ve got my orders to pull back to the railway at Voi at the first sign of attack. That’s my advice to you. I’m staying with my police askaris at Taveta, but…” Wheech-Browning controlled himself. “Smith, believe me, this is official advice. It’s just not safe.”

“I’ll be fine,” Temple said easily. “Don’t you worry.”

Wheech-Browning made a despairing grabbing motion at the air. “Very well.” He closed his eyes for two seconds. “I’ve told you. I can’t order you. Anyway, I’ve got to get on. Think it over, Smith. It’s not some kind of a game.” He came closer. “There are stories going round. When they attacked the line at Tsavo — yes, already — it seems they caught one of the Indian station managers.” He blanched. “Cut off his…you know. Horribly mutilated, by all accounts. They’re savages.” He paused. “Look, it’ll only be for a few months at the most. They say there are troops coming from India. Once they’re here they’ll tie everything up in no time. But just at the moment we’re a bit stretched.”

Temple patted Wheech-Browning’s thin shoulder. “I’ll give it some thought,” he said deciding on conciliation. “Let me think it over.”

He walked back up the hill and saw the ADC off on his mule, before returning to the Decorticator and his sisal harvest.

♦

Temple did take Wheech-Browning’s advice seriously enough to inform Saleh and his boys and told them to keep their eyes open. He also firmly locked the doors and windows of the house at night and took his guns down from the wall. He told Matilda everything Wheech-Browning had said, adding that he thought it was unreasonable panic. Matilda’s sanguineness remained as constant as ever. She felt sure that no one would want to bother them at Smithville.

As the days went by and nothing occurred to disturb the normal routine of their lives, Temple’s little apprehensions disappeared. One night he thought he heard an explosion in the distance. On another he made out a noise which just might have been taken for gunfire. But it was impossible for him to verify this. He sent Saleh into Taveta, and he reported that, although O’Shaugnessy’s shop was closed, Wheech-Browning was still there with his company of police. The Indian bazaar was trading as normal, nobody had heard of any trouble, of any massing of troops along the border.

Temple busied himself with work on the sisal harvest. The Decorticator clattered and belched smoke most of the day as Saleh and his workers hacked the leaves from the plants in the fields, trundled them up the trolley lines to the ‘factory’ and fed them into the voracious machine. Steadily the mounds of dried fibre grew higher. They spent a day roping them into loose bales, enough to fill two large waggon loads which Temple would eventually take down the road to Voi, where the Afro-American Fibre Company was based. There they had a scutching machine and hydraulic balers. The general manager, Ward, was an American too, but he and Temple did not get on. Ward’s charges for scutching and baling were too high, Temple considered, especially for a fellow country-man. However, he quite enjoyed his trips to the company’s factory at Voi. He got good ideas for the future expansion of Smithville from looking at the way Ward ran the place. He’d bought the Decorticator from Ward, and had his eye on a scutching drum. On this coming trip he intended to buy another two hundred yards of trolley line; he was going to extend the sisal plantations in 1915.

As he worked on in this way and considered his plans for the future, the slight feelings of alarm generated by Wheech-Browning’s words disappeared. The price he was getting for his sisal seeds, let alone the fibre, guaranteed him a prosperous year. If he planted another four acres he would have doubled his turnover in three years. It was unfortunate about the coffee seedlings; he had thought that particular idea was a master-stroke. He wondered vaguely about the possibility of rubber. There was a German at Kibwezi, near Voi, with six hundred acres planted. But rubber took even longer to grow than sisal, and however much Temple liked the image of Smithville surrounded by profitable acres of rubber trees, he wanted to move faster than that.

On the morning of the eighteenth of August, just before he left for Voi with the sisal fibre, he had his brainwave. He sat across the breakfast table from Matilda. Glenway was crying because he claimed he didn’t like his porridge. Matilda, to Temple’s annoyance, was ignoring the boy. She was reading a book, a cup of warm tea pressed to her cheek. She seemed to be growing more oblivious to the demands of her family. Temple reached for the butler tin. There was only a smear of the oily orange butler left.

“Matilda,” Temple said. “Do we have no butter?”

“What, dear?”

“Butter, it’s finished.” He put down his knife. “Would you see what the boy wants?” he added crossly.

Matilda put her book face down on the table. “What is it, Glennie?”

“It’s not sweet,” Glenway said, telling porridge plop from his spoon on the enamel plate.

“Joseph,” Matilda called lo the cook. “Did you remember lo put vanilla essence in the porridge?”

Vanilla. That was it, Temple suddenly realized. The cash crop of the future…Someone had planted an acre near Voi. No machinery, no processing plant, just pods to pick. His mind began lo work. He’d plough up the abortive coffee plantation, yes. Perhaps he could even get seedlings on this trip to Voi.

“No vanilla,” Joseph announced from the kitchen doorway.

“No vanilla and no butter,” Matilda reported. “Can you get some in Taveta on your way back?”

“What?” Temple said, his mind preoccupied with visions of vanilla fields, the brittle pods rattling soothingly in the breeze off Lake Jipe. “Sure; oh no, I can’t. I’ll get them at Voi. O’Shaugnessy’s left. Shut up shop.”

“Of course,” Matilda said, picking up her book. “It’s the war. I forgot.”

Saleh appeared at the dining room. He looked worried.

Temple stood up. “All ready?” he asked. Saleh had been hitching the oxen to the heavily laden waggons.

Saleh leant against the door frame. Temple realized it wasn’t worry distorting his features, but fear.

“Askari.” Saleh gestured feebly down the hill towards the factory buildings. “Askari are here.”

Temple ran to the door, a sudden feeling of pressure building up in his chest. Matilda followed close behind. Sure enough, drawn up in a ragged line in front of the Decorticator shed was a column of black soldiers. For a moment Temple thought they were British. They wore the same khaki tunics and shorts, the same felt fezzes as the King’s African Rifles he’d seen. But then he caught sight of two Europeans who, just at that moment, were walking out of the Decorticator shed. They wore the thick drilljodhpurs and knee-length leggings, the long-sleeved jacket buttoned to the neck, of Schütztruppe officers. The leading man looked up the hill to the house and waved.

“Hello, Smith,” he called cheerily. “How nice to see you again. May we come up?” It was von Bishop.

“Look it’s von Bishop,” Temple said to Matilda as the two men walked up the hill. “You know, Erich von Bishop. I met him and his wife when I was in Dar. Very pleasant man.”

♦

“What happens now?” Temple asked as he watched his empty trek waggons being driven off towards Taveta. The large heap of deposited sisal bales was already beginning to crackle and smoke. Sixteen hundredweight, he thought. Two months’ work gone. He saw his vanilla plantation swept from the land as though by a blast from a hurricane.

“I am sorry about all this,” von Bishop said equably. “We have to commandeer any transport and destroy all crops.”

“What? Even those in the fields?”

Von Bishop shrugged. “Orders, I’m afraid.” Then he laughed…“Don’t worry, Smith, I won’t try too hard in your case. After all, we are almost next-door neighbours.”

He seemed quite unconcerned, Temple thought. He tried to summon up a rage or a sense of injustice, but von Bishop’s easygoing manner made it appear somehow inappropriate, an overreaction, even a discourtesy. He looked away and saw his two boys dancing merrily around the pyre of sisal fibres.

“GET AWAY FROM THERE!” he bellowed, taking out his frustration on them. “Go and help your mother pack.” They ran off obediently. Von Bishop had obligingly left them an old buggy and two mules in which they were to travel to Voi. Von Bishop said that, theoretically, he should have interned them, but as Temple was an American citizen he’d let them go. Matilda and Joseph were hastily getting their personal possessions together and a squad of farm boys were relaying them from the house to the buggy.

Von Bishop told Temple about the capture of Taveta. The invading Germans, about four companies strong, had crossed the border and had sent a note to Wheech-Browning and his police askaris telling them that they intended to occupy the town and that he had one hour to evacuate. In fact they waited overnight, and in the morning marched down the road into Taveta. Wheech-Browning’s men opened fire and the Germans reassembled for a frontal attack. But when they cautiously advanced they discovered that Wheech-Browning and his men had disappeared.

Temple thought this highly characteristic of Wheech-Browning and was about to tell von Bishop a few home truths about his adversary, when a loud clanging noise came from the Decorticator shed.

“My God!” Temple cried and ran forward. Von Bishop made no attempt to restrain him. Inside the shed he found the other German officer banging experimentally at the Decorticator and some of the steel girders supporting the roof with a hammer.

“Hey! Stop it!” Temple shouted, snatching the hammer away. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” But the man didn’t speak English. Von Bishop said something to him in German and he shrugged and wandered off.

“Nobody touches that machine, Erich,” Temple said warningly to von Bishop. “Everything is tied up in that machine, one way or another. Burn the crops if you must, but leave this alone.”

Von Bishop looked around the shed. “So this is the factory you told me about. Very impressive I must say. Is it economically viable, though? With such a small acreage?” For a few minutes they talked about the pros and cons of independently producing your own sisal fibre, Temple searching his machine for any dents and scratches caused by the hammering. They were interrupted by Saleh who told them that everyone was ready and the buggy was loaded.

Von Bishop and Temple left the shed, Temple taking a final fond look at the Decorticator. Outside he saw his wife and children gathered in a small group curiously watching the German askaris ripping up his trolley lines supervised and directed by the other European officer.

“For God’s sake!” Temple exclaimed. “What’s wrong with that man? Is he some kind of vandal? Got this urge to destroy?”

This time von Bishop did place a restraining hand on Temple’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Trolley lines are required. So is fencing wire. You’re lucky, I see you have no wire fences.”

“Oh yes,” Temple said sardonically. “I’m a lucky man.”

“Well,” von Bishop said, his breeziness returning. “Fortunes of war and all that.”

Temple shook his head and kicked angrily at a stone. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. Fortunes of war, he thought. It didn’t feel in the least bit like a war, yet there were enemy soldiers with loaded weapons forcibly ejecting him from his property. Von Bishop was behaving like a man who’d come round to reclaim a book he’d once lent. Temple watched sections of his trolley line being prized from the dusty and unyielding ground. Then he had an idea. Reparations, he thought, I can demand reparations. He started doing quick sums in his head. Often this sort of disaster could be turned to your advantage. It should be seen as an opportunity for a fresh start: a chance to re-think and re-plan. He’d always regretted not laying the trolley lines closer to Lake Jipe…now, with his reparations, was the ideal time to redirect them. He turned back to von Bishop.

“You’re right, Erich. Fortunes of war. Could you provide me with a…I don’t know, an affidavit or something? Just so I can prove things have been commandeered.”

“Yes, of course,” von Bishop said. “With pleasure.” He called the other officer over and told him to make out a careful note of everything that had been taken or destroyed.

“What about the house?” Temple asked.

“I suppose I might billet some men here,” von Bishop said. “It commands a good position on the hill. We can’t pay you rent,” he laughed. “Doubtless there’ll be some minor breakages, wear and tear. Who knows, we might even finish building it for you.”

Temple smiled, even the sight of a thin plume of smoke rising from the linseed fields didn’t give him pause. Von Bishop signed the piece of paper and tore it out of the officer’s notebook. Temple looked it over.

“Imperial German…Erich von Bishop, Major. That’s excellent, Erich. Excellent.” He patted him on the shoulder. “Just don’t touch the Decorticator that’s all. My future’s in that machine. I’ll come all the way to Dar to get you otherwise.”

The two men laughed heartily.

“We have our own decorticators, Smith,” von Bishop said. “We don’t need yours. Krupps Decorticators. Very efficient. One hundredweight of fibre an hour. Much better than your American machines.”

They were walking back to the buggy which now contained his family as well as their possessions.

“I don’t know about that,” Temple said. “Finnegan and Zabriskie are renowned”—he paused. “Krupps, did you say? Is there an agent in Mombasa, do you know?”

Saleh and the farm boys were ranged beside the buggy. They all wore uniform expressions of deep misery, glancing uneasily about them at the armed askaris.

“Don’t worry, Saleh,” Temple said quietly, confident that he wouldn’t. “Keep an eye on the place. Look after the farm and the Decorticator. We’ll be back in two months.” He gave the man an encouraging slap on the back and climbed up on to the buggy. Matilda sat beside him, still reading her book. The children nestled in the back among the trunks and bundies of clothes and bedding, protected from the sun by a makeshift canvas shelter. The ayah sat on the back, her feet hanging down, crying piteously. She was the only one who seemed obviously affected by the occasion.

“Well goodbye, Smith,” von Bishop said. “Mrs Smith. I’m so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.” He touched the brim of his sun helmet in a casual salute.

Temple shook the reins and the mules moved forward. “Remember,” Temple called back to von Bishop, “look after the machine. I’m holding you responsible.”

Von Bishop laughed again and waved. Seeing him do this all the farm boys laughed politely and waved too. This is most strange, thought Temple, it’s as if we’re being seen off on holiday.

At the top of the rise, just before Smithville was lost to sight, Temple looked back. Smoke still rose from the sisal bonfire and at least half his linseed fields seemed ablaze. The gang of askaris had uprooted some fifty yards of trolley line and were piling the rails in neat bundies. Von Bishop was leading half a dozen soldiers up the hill to the house.

Temple felt suddenly disorientated and confused. Von Bishop’s matter-of-fact behaviour, his genial appropriation of his goods and chattels, the total absence of threat hardly made it seem like a criminal act.

“Criminals,” Temple said experimentally, more out of a sense of duty than outrage. He felt the same. “Criminals!” he repeated more fiercely.

“What’s that, my dear?” Matilda asked, raising her eyes from her book. If she was going to read all the way to Voi, Temple said to himself, he would get very angry. He shook the reins viciously and the buggy moved forward with a lurch. The ayah gave a squeal of alarm as she fell off the back. Temple reined in.

“When are we coming back?” Glenway called out as the whimpering ayah clambered back on board.

“Soon,” Temple said with grim confidence. “Very soon indeed.”

♦

It was about a forty-mile journey from Smithville to Voi along an old caravan track which led through particularly and and dusty scrubland. The Smith family in their buggy made slow but steady progress without seeing any further signs of the Germans. Temple briefly savoured the cruel irony of the fact that he had intended to make this journey today anyway — but with two valuable loads of sisal, instead of his placid wife and increasingly fractious children. For the first time and for a brief moment he experienced a feeling of rage and frustration which seemed to do some justice to his new refugee status, but it didn’t last long. The track was too bumpy and the waggon jolted too much for Matilda to read, he noted with selfish pleasure. But she seemed as unperturbed as always, gazing out over the thorny scrub, which shimmered and vibrated in the haze, at the distant hills and mountain ranges, fanning herself with her book. She also, in an effort to amuse the children, played interminable word games which seemed to consist of building ever-longer lists of groceries and vegetables, repeated ad nauseam, and which drove Temple wild with a kind of rampaging boredom, until he ordered them to cease forthwith. They stopped once to water the mules, for an hour and a half, at midday, and ate some sandwiches which Joseph had prepared before they left. Temple looked back up the road to Taveta, squinting into the glare, wondering if he could see the smoke from his burning fields.

It was nearly dark as they approached the small village of Bura, still some eight miles from Voi. The mules were plodding very slowly, the children and Matilda were asleep, curled up in the back, and Temple himself nodded dozily over the reins.

“Halt!” came a sudden shout. “Who goes there?” followed immediately by a ragged volley of shots. Temple saw the flash of the muzzles, but as far as he could make out no bullet came anywhere near.

“Get down!” he yelled at his screaming terrified family, and then bellowed “Friends!” up the road in the direction the shots had come from.

“Cease fire! Cease fire, you bloody fools!” came a familiar voice. A lantern came bobbing down the track towards them, casting its glow on long thin legs protruding from flapping shorts, and improbably shod in black socks and very large tennis shoes.

“Thought I recognized your accent, Smith,” said Wheech-Browning. “Sorry my men were a bit premature. ‘Trigger-happy’ is the expression in your part of the world, I believe. Gave the children a fright I expect.” He held up the lantern. “Evening Mrs Smith. Sorry about all this fuss. Wheech-Browning here, late of Taveta. Ha-ha!”

“You stupid…stupid dumb idiot!” Temple seethed. “You could have killed us.”

“Steady on, old chap. You could have been the wa-Germani for all we knew. No harm done anyway, thank goodness, that’s the main thing.” He gave a nervous smile. “Come across any Huns by any chance?”

“Yes,” Temple said, too exhausted to remonstrate further. “They threw us off the farm this morning. Set fire to the crops.”

“My God, the swine,” Wheech-Browning said, his voice hoarse with loathing. Temple wondered where the man got his antagonism from. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Wheech-Browning added, a little smugly. “They didn’t take you prisoner, though, that’s a bonus. We clapped old Heuber in irons for the duration, p.d.q. You know Heuber? Chap with the rubber at Kibwezi. He was most put out. Listen, are you going on to Voi? Can I get a lift back with you?”

On the way to Voi Wheech-Browning gave him his version of the attack on Taveta. He claimed he’d received no message from the Germans to surrender and was extremely surprised one morning to see about three hundred of them marching down the road ‘bold as brass’. It would be too undignified to leave without firing a shot, he thought, so he ordered his men to open fire. Nobody, he was sure, had been hit, but he was extremely surprised at the way in which the German askaris had scattered and had proceeded to lay down a furious fire on Taveta’s flimsy defences. Wheech-Browning and his men wasted no time in setting off down the road to Voi. Luckily, Wheech-Browning said, considering the amount of bullets shot in their direction, they had suffered only one casualty.

“Unfortunately he was my bearer,” Wheech-Browning said. “Got a round in the throat. I was standing right beside him. Fountains of blood, you wouldn’t believe it. I was covered, head to tail — dripping. Of course the fellow had been carrying all my personal gear. I had to leave everything behind in the retreat, everyone was hot-footing it out of town, I can tell you. Which explains,” he pointed to his footwear, “this unorthodox regalia.”

Temple was glad enough to have Wheech-Browning beside him as an escort. He felt it was only his due anyway, considering he’d had his farm seized and his crops burned in the cause of an Anglo-German war. Wheech-Browning could see them all right, he reasoned, make sure the authorities cared for them properly.

He was surprised when, as they reached the outskirts of Voi, Wheech-Browning leapt off the buggy saying he’d better report to the KAR officer who was in command.

“But hey,” Temple called. “What about us?”

“What about you, old man?”

“What are we meant to do?”

“I should put up at the dak bungalow at the station,” Wheech-Browning advised. “Pretty reasonable rates, and jolly good breakfasts.”

♦

The next morning, foregoing his jolly good breakfast, Temple went in search of the KAR officer to see what the British Army’s plans were for transporting the Smith family to Nairobi. He found the man in the Voi post office which was being used as a temporary command headquarters.

“My dear fellow,” said the KAR officer. “No can do.” He was smoking a pipe which he didn’t bother to remove from his mouth. As a result all his words were delivered through clenched teeth which made them sound, to Temple’s ears, even more heartless.

“But I’m a refugee,” Temple protested. “I’m a victim…of, of German war crimes. Surely there’s something in your rulebook about care of refugees?”

The man took his pipe out of his mouth, pointed its saliva-shiny stem in Temple’s direction and closed one eye as if taking aim.

“Ah. Ah-ha. But, you see, I’m not so sure you are a refugee. According to Reggie Wheech-Browning you were warned to evacuate your farm over a week ago. I’m afraid you can hardly expect us to take the consequences of your”—he stuck his pipe in his mouth again—“what shall we say? Your recalcitrance.”

Temple marched back to the dak bungalow viciously cursing the British Army in general and ‘Reggie’ Wheech-Browning in particular. He felt more irate and hard done-by now than when he’d been watching von Bishop destroying his livelihood. At the dak bungalow he discovered that the train from Mombasa to Nairobi, which had spent the night at Voi, had departed half an hour previously. The Smith family would have to wait until the next morning before their journey could continue.

Temple’s anger swiftly died down but he insisted that his family get and keep a receipt for everything they spent or consumed. He was fully determined to present the largest bill possible in his reparations claim. He sold his American buggy and two mules to a thieving Greek merchant for a fraction of their true worth, and added this deficit to his rapidly growing column of figures.

The boys and Matilda seemed far less put out than he was. The Dak bungalow was efficiently run and they enjoyed — as Wheech-Browning had promised — wholesome meals. In the afternoon Temple read his way through a pile of newspapers and illustrated magazines that had recently arrived from Eng-land. The news from Europe was two weeks old and was only of war declared and of the German invasion of Belgium. Talking to other travellers Temple pieced together some idea of what had been going on in East Africa while he had been innocently gathering and decorticating his sisal harvest. Dar-es-Salaam had been bombarded by HMS Astraea; Taveta had been captured — as he was by now well aware — and instructions had been sent to India for the dispatch of troops to East Africa. Indian Expeditionary Force ‘C’ was believed to be on its way at this very moment and was expected at the beginning of September. “Should be over soon after that,” his informant confidently told him. “Crack Indian troops. Fine body of fighting men.”

Temple’s spirits rose considerably at this. September, he thought. Let’s not be too hasty…say, two months before it’s all over. That would give him several weeks before the rains to lay the new trolley tracks down, possibly even plant out the first of the vanilla fields…Conceivably, this enforced stay in Nairobi could turn out to be more beneficial than irksome. He could examine different strains of vanilla seedlings at his leisure; there might even be someone — the idea was appealing — who would tell him a little more about Krupps Decorticators.

2: 20 August 1914, Nairobi, British East Africa

Temple looked out of the window as the train approached Nairobi. Compared to the stifling heat at Voi the cooler, drier air up here on the plateau felt almost chilly, even though it was mid-afternoon.

Nairobi in 1914 presented a curious sight. Built on a flat plain, with gently rising hills to the north and south, ten years before it had been no more than a cluster of tents and tin shacks around a rudimentary railway depot. Now there were many imposing stone buildings among the galvanized iron and wooden shops; motor cars bumped up the dirt streets, two of which — Government Road and Sixth Avenue — were illuminated at night by electric streetlamps. On many occasions Temple was forcibly reminded of small American townships.

The same single-storied wooden shop façades with hand-painted signs, the same wooden awnings over the sidewalks, but with bicycle racks outside instead of hitching posts. There was a half-mile of macadamized road leading to the centre of town from the station, otherwise all the thoroughfares were dirt, or slightly better, gravel and dirt.

As the train pulled into the station — new, stone and quite impressive, Temple had to admit — he saw the distinctive bald-headed, slope-shouldered figure of his father-in-law, the Reverend Norman Espie, of the Friends of Africa Evangelical Mission. Temple had telegraphed ahead the day before — the mission was some ten miles outside Nairobi — and arranged for them to be met. He was going to send Matilda and the children to stay with her parents while he remained in Nairobi to see what the government were prepared to do about the loss of his farm.

So it was with less reluctance than usual that Temple allowed his father-in-law to grasp his hand and shake it vigorously for a full minute. The Reverend Norman Espie was of average size and was a wiry, fit-looking man considering he was in his fifties. But his lack — almost his complete absence — of shoulders gave him an unalterably puny appearance. From the back, his silhouette resembled a pawn in a game of chess, his arms tapering smoothly up into his neck with no interruption and his round bald head tee-ed up on top of it. Indeed he was the sort of man, Temple often thought, whose weakness was a kind of challenge: it made you want to punch him in the chest, just to prove you weren’t affected by it.

“My son, my son,” Espie was saying, “we have been praying for you.” He released Temple’s hand and fell to his knees — to Temple’s extreme embarrassment. Temple assumed his father-in-law was about to offer up an impromptu prayer for their deliverance, but in fact he was only positioning himself the better to sweep his grandchildren into his arms and smother them with kisses. From this humble posture he looked up at Matilda, who at this point had just stepped off the train. Espie clambered to his feet crying, “My child, my child,” and wrapped his arms about her.

“Now, now, Father,” Matilda said. Her father was the only person who could provoke a show of irritation in her. “Don’t fuss so, we were in no danger.”

“The barbarians!” Espie exclaimed. “If you knew the stories that have been coming out of Belgium. To think that in Christian Europe we can harbour such—”

“Shall we get along?” Matilda said in a business-like way. “The baby is very tired.”

“The baby, the baby,” Espie intoned. Temple went off in search of the baggage.

♦

He saw his family loaded into Espie’s — or rather the mission’s — motor car (the ayah was sobbing plaintively for some reason) and waved them goodbye. Then he climbed into a rickshaw and gave orders to be taken to the Norfolk Hotel.

The rickshaw moved steadily away from the station up the long stretch of Government Road. Temple saw the new stone post office standing alone in a great field of grass looking quite incongruous. A red flag was flying from the roof to signify the arrival of the Mombasa train and to alert any letter writer who wanted mail sorted and carried on up to Entebbe in Uganda.

He looked curiously about him as they reached the built-up areas and jogged past the astonishing number of shops and stores Nairobi possessed. For such an out of the way place it was truly incredible what goods were on sale. There were large general stores, taxidermists, jewellers, tobacconists, chemists, photographic studios, wine merchants, milliners and tailors selling all the well-known brand names from Britain. He passed Cearn’s Outfitters, boasting proudly in their window that they possessed ‘all the luxuries and necessities of the colonial gentleman’. He saw advertisements for Burberry and Aertex, ‘K’—shoes and Frank Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade. He passed the wooden and corrugated iron two-storey building of the Stanley Hotel, one of eight hotels in Nairobi. The Norfolk was half a mile further on.

At this stage the flow of traffic was considerable: some motor cars, lots of rickshaws and bicycles, bullock carts and horse-drawn buggies. Temple hadn’t been in Nairobi for months and the throng and bustle always made him feel a little excited: the country boy come to the big city. All this traffic raised clouds of dust from the dry mud road which hung in the branches of the small tattered casuarina pine trees which lined the street and gave it a ludicrous air of pretending to be an avenue.

The Norfolk was Nairobi’s best hotel. It was an unassuming single-storey stone building with a tin roof and a large verandah running the length of the Government Road frontage. It was not nearly as grand as the palatial Kaiserhof in Dar, but it did have electric light throughout and hot and cold running water, and was the central meeting point and social centre of the town.

Although Temple became excited by his visits to Nairobi, he very quickly grew irritated by the place. Just as the tattered spindly trees in Government Road seemed to indicate ideas above its station, so too did Nairobi’s newly-won international renown as a big-game shooting resort allow the town to affect a similar inappropriate grandeur and sophistication which it could never possess in reality. And the presence of the British made that affectation almost insupportable. There was the Turf Club with its race meetings. The gymkhanas and polo matches, the Maseru Hunt, the golf club, the Masonic Lodge…all the trappings of an English provincial town. Many times Temple had listened to discussions about who would win the Governor’s cup, about the cross breeding of wanderobo hunting dogs with fox hounds for the hunt’s pack; whether Somali ponies were better than Abyssinian ones; if it wasn’t really about time that ‘shirt sleeve order’ was banned at race meetings. He would shake his head in rueful wonder at the shouting incongruities that presented themselves daily. The immense mock-Tudor Government House, with its leaded lights and half-timbered upper floor; lady golfers in boaters and long white dresses driving off into a wilderness on a first tee where the air was dark with thousands of buzzing flies; the piping shouts of tally-ho as the Maseru Hunt took off after some hapless hyena, and above all the snobbish hierarchies that existed, symbolized by the Nairobi Club on the Hill for senior officials and the Parklands Club on the plain in Parklands for junior officials. Being an American, and one who, lately, at any rate, had some money in his pocket, meant that he was always something of an outsider and that he was naturally excluded from the phenomenally exact social rankings which obtained in polite Nairobi society. He had no complaints on either count.

♦

Temple occupied his room at the Norfolk, had a bath and went to sleep for a couple of hours. Later in the evening, feeling much refreshed, he walked through the hotel to the bar. To his surprise the place was crowded with men, spilling out of the room onto the verandah and even down the front steps onto Government Road. They were all dressed, moreover, for the bush, as if they were going on safari. Many wore crossed bandoliers of cartridges, and rifles and shotguns were propped in corners or leaning against the backs of chairs. Temple recognized a group of fellow Americans: Ward from the Afro-American farm enterprise at Voi, Paul Psainey, a millionaire big-game enthusiast and others he knew from the American Industrial Mission. Although the bar was crowded and nearly everyone was drinking heavily, the mood was one of boredom and irritation. Temple joined the group and ordered a whisky and soda. The sight of a new face acted as a catalyst to their flagging spirits and great commiseration was soon being lavished on him over the loss of his farm.

There was no real interest. All these men had streamed into Nairobi at the outbreak of war to volunteer their services in the defence of the country and as reinforcements to the hard pressed battalions of the KAR. Temple found himself something of a celebrity for actually having been a victim of Furor Teutonicus and he was prevailed upon several times to repeat his account of the seizure of his farm and of Wheech-Browning’s heroic stand at Taveta. By unanimous assent it was agreed that Wheech-Browning’s luckless bearer was the first casualty of the war, a war which everyone fervently expressed the hope would last long enough for them to have a squareheads. Temple was encouraged to join two of the volunteer units that had been swiftly formed to defend British East Africa. He could choose between the more prosaic Nairobi Defence Force or the East African Mounted Rifles — an aristocratic and cavalier crowd, requiring the ownership of a horse or polo pony. This particular outfit had claimed most of the Americans as it was a polyglot assembly of nationalities containing also Boers, Swedes and three Italians. Members around the bar that night included a musician, several publicans, an ex-circus clown and a Scottish light-house keeper.

Temple didn’t commit himself as he had no intention of getting involved in the fighting, though he wasn’t averse to being bought drinks as an inducement to join up. The fact was that the initial enthusiasm and war-fever had died away. The military had as yet no use for these volunteer forces and they were being encouraged to return to their farms and jobs. The group in the Norfolk Hotel that night represented a hard core, but one whose resolution was fast on the wane, considering that they’d been idling in Nairobi for two weeks and it was clear that it was unlikely they’d ever be deployed. Learning of the departure of the Indian Expeditionary Force ‘C’ had been the most depressing news and had fully doused their ardour.

For his part Temple spent the next few days in an increasingly frustrating attempt to find someone who would admit he was a ‘problem’. He was, he soon discovered, the only person in the whole of British East Africa who had had his land overrun and occupied. He tried to see the Governor of the colony, the national commander-in-chief, but got no further than the hall of Government House where he was politely but firmly turned away and told to go and see the Land Officer. The Land Officer informed him that it was not a civil but a military matter and that he ought to take up any complaints with the officer commanding the KAR.

“And where is he?” Temple asked.

“Somewhere in Uganda.”

As for the question of reparations, that would have to wait until the war was over, but in the meantime he could file a claim with the Registrar of Documents, Mr Pailthorpe. Mr Pailthorpe, in his turn, said he had received absolutely no official instructions about reparations (“for God’s sake, man, the war’s only been on for a fortnight”) and suggested he consult the Attorney General. Until Mr Pailthorpe had received official notification from the Attorney General’s office nothing further could be done.

Temple decided to let the question of reparations rest for a while. All the government offices he had visited were housed in a terrace of corrugated iron shacks. Over the past three days Temple had been passed from one to another and he had no desire to wait out the duration of the war in a succession of sweltering ante-rooms. In the meantime he planned to visit his insurers and see if he could extract some interim payment for his burnt sisal, his smouldering linseed fields and uprooted trolley lines.

His insurers, the African Guarantee and Indemnity Co., occupied a small office above a butcher’s shop on Sixth Avenue. Temple pushed past several sheep and antelope carcases and entered the dark interior. The close heat, the subdued murmur of sated flies and the rich gamey smell of offal made his stomach heave and saliva squirt into his mouth. He was breathing heavily — inhaling the musty but fresher air on the first floor — when an Indian clerk ushered him into the office of Gulam Hoosam Essanjee Esquire, General Manager of the African Guarantee and Indemnity Co.

Mr Essanjee stood at a single window looking down at the traffic on Sixth Avenue. He was a dapper plump Indian of about Temple’s age with black, well-oiled hair and the straightest, most clearly defined parting Temple had ever seen. He wore a washable rubber collar with his tie and coarse linen suit and was perspiring heavily. He had a very thin, neatly clipped pencil moustache. The room was oppressively hot and unusually dark. So dark that Mr Essanjee had a lit hurricane lamp fizzing quietly on his totally bare desk. The darkness was explained by the fact that the other window in the room was obscured by a thick hand-woven blanket, which was soaking wet and dripping steadily onto a mushy copy of the East African Standard placed beneath it.

Temple sat down heavily, still nauseous from negotiating the charnel house below. “Can’t we open the curtains?” he asked weakly. The stifling atmosphere was worse than the government offices.

“Not a curtain, my dear sir. Mr…?”

“Smith.”

“Mr Smith. Not, I repeat, a curtain.”

Mr Essanjee strode forward and lifted the bottom of the blanket to reveal what looked to Temple like a miniature copy of the paddle wheel of a Mississippi river boat, placed on the ledge of the open window.

Mr Essanjee let the blanket drop.

“A thermantidote. Very popular in my own country. The wind blows the rotating fan, which in turn casts a stronger breeze onto the tattie — which you will have observed has been soaked in cold water—ergo a cool moist breeze penetrates the intolerably dry and hot room. Most efficient.” Mr Essanjee wiped his damp hands on his linen jacket. “The Essanjee Thermantidote. This is my own improved version. Patent pending.” He smiled broadly at Temple. “The S. and G. Thermantidote.” He sketched an ‘S’ and a ‘G’ in the air with his finger. “You follow? I am Gulam Hoosan Essanjee. My machine is the S and G—”

“Yes, yes,” Temple said, feeling faint. “I see.”

“My brother controls the agency in Mombasa. If you’re interested?”

“But what happens if there’s no breeze to rotate the fan? Like today.”

“Ah yes. I regret an exterior breeze is essential. But the drip of the water from the tattie has, I find, a cooling effect of its own. No?” He sat down at his empty desk. “Now, my dear Mr Smith, what can I do for you?”

Temple explained about the loss of his farm, while Mr Essanjee sat nodding his oiled head. He presented von Bishop’s affidavit and said he was claiming for the loss of various goods. Mr Essanjee went to a wooden filing cabinet and extracted a copy of Temple’s policy. He hummed and hawed, tapping his fingernails on the desk.

“Yes,” Mr Essanjee said. “There seems to be no problem. We shall regard it as theft.”

Temple couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Oh. Well, that’s excellent.”

“‘We aim to please.’ Is this not what they say in your country? I see here it says you are a citizen of the USA.”

“Indeed it is, and indeed I am.” Temple felt full of irrational affection for this plump little man.

“Reimbursement shall be effected as soon as we receive our assessor’s report.”

“Oh,” Temple said. “An assessor’s report.” He stroked his moustache.

“Of course,” said Mr Essanjee, touching his own with the little fingers of each hand. “Simply procedure. It’s not a question of doubting you, Mr Smith. But you can hardly expect us to take the word,” he held up von Bishop’s affidavit, “of our sworn enemy.”

“You’re right, I suppose,” Temple said. “But my farm is now occupied by this same enemy. It is, as you might say, behind enemy lines.”

“Alas,” Mr Essanjee spread his damp palms. “This war; it causes endless inconveniences.”

Temple had a mad idea. “At least I think it’s behind enemy lines. Von Bishop might just have taken what he wanted and left. Supposing the enemy have withdrawn. Would your assessor be prepared to come with me? Who is your assessor, by the way?”

Mr Essanjee bowed his head. “It is I. We are very short-staffed at the moment. The international situation, you understand.”

“Would you come?” Temple asked.

“Naturally,” Mr Essanjee said suavely. “At the African Guarantee and Indemnity Co. we aim to please.”

3: 30 August 1914, Voi, British East Africa

“Don’t you think you’re going a bit far?” Wheech-Browning said two days later. He was sitting in a dilapidated cane chair outside his tent in Voi. The slightest move he made set up a filthy screeching noise.

“I mean, good God, there is meant to be a war on, you know. You can’t just swan up to Heinrich Hun and say, ‘Look here, old chap, any chance of a cease-fire while we carry out an insurance assessment?’”

“Normally,” Temple said patiently, “I’d agree.” He paused while Wheech-Browning noisily shifted his weight. “But I know von Bishop. He was practically a next-door neighbour. He’s British too.”

“Was British,” Wheech-Browning corrected fiercely. “Damned bloody traitor.”

“He’s a farmer. He’d understand, I’m sure. If, that is, he’s there. For all I know the place may be deserted. After all, Mr Essanjee and I aren’t soldiers. We won’t be there long. Mr Essanjee says it’s only a formality.”

“Precisely,” Mr Essanjee confirmed. “A mere formality.” He was standing behind Temple, dressed in an immaculate white drill suit with matching solar topee.

“Well, I don’t know,” Wheech-Browning said, standing up. “I mean we are meant to be at daggers drawn…Mind you, there hasn’t been a shot fired in this area since my old bearer got it in the neck.” He paused, cocked his head to one side and smiled. “Got it in the neck. Not bad.” He paced up and down. “Tell you what,” he said. “We’ve got these volunteer chaps with motorbikes: East African Mechanical Transport Corps. I take one out and drive up the road to Taveta once in a while. Bit of scouting.” Wheech-Browning had been seconded to a battalion of the KAR as an intelligence officer. “If all three of us tootled off up the road, I could drop you two off a few miles away. You might even do a bit of spying while you’re about it.”

“Sure we will,” Temple said.

“Capital,” echoed Mr Essanjee. “Capital.”

“Right,” Wheech-Browning said. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

♦

The motorbike was a Clyno 6 h.p. with a side-car. Wheech-Browning drove, Temple rode pillion while Mr Essanjee sat in the side-car with Wheech-Browning’s rifle. All three of them wore goggles. Dawn was breaking and the air was quite cool.

Mr Essanjee had tied a silk muffler round his throat. His white suit seemed to glow eerily in the bluey light. They stopped at the KAR lines at Bura where Wheech-Browning informed a sleeping picket where they were going. Then they motored off along the caravan trail, bumping along at fifteen miles an hour across the flat scrubby desert that separated them from Taveta. Soon the rising sun picked out the snowy top of Mount Kilimanjaro, towering out of the shadowy foothills up ahead. They drove on across the plain beneath a placid gulf of sky, the tiny sputtering of the engine breaking the silence, towards the beautiful mountain, watching the sun creep down its side.

“Splendid view,” Wheech-Browning shouted.

They had to stop after half an hour to allow Mr Essanjee to be sick. He said he found the motion of the side-car most unpleasant. Wheech-Browning and Temple waited patiently, warmed now by the sun rising in the sky, while Mr Essanjee retched and spat fastidiously a few yards off the road, leaning over at an angle to avoid besmirching his spotless suit. He and Temple changed places which seemed to solve the problem. Temple’s weight in the side-car, Wheech-Browning observed, cut their speed down considerably.

They stopped after a couple of hours while Wheech-Browning consulted the map and tried to plot their position. Temple peered over his shoulder. The caravan track was a dotted black line across a perfectly white unmarked piece of paper. Wheech-Browning pretended to scrutinize the surrounding countryside for landmarks.

“Not the most efficient map in the world,” he said with a nervous laugh. Temple, who reminded them that he’d been travelling the Voi-Taveta road for the last four years, said that he thought they were about five miles from the Lumi River bridge. Salaita hill, a smooth mound that rose a couple of hundred feet out of the flat scrub, was a mile or so ahead. Before they reached the hill they should come across a rough path that led to Smithville and Lake Jipe.

“Good,” Wheech-Browning said, taking a swig from his water bottle. “Let’s make a move.” He offered the bottle to Mr Essanjee, who politely declined. “You see,” Wheech-Browning said. “It’s like I told you, not a squarehead in sight. Probably find your farm’s deserted.”

“If they’ve touched my Decorticator…” Temple said, his eyes narrowing vengefully.

“Never fear, Mr Smith,” Mr Essanjee said. “You are covered by the African Guarantee and Indemnity Co. Have no fear.”

They came to the track that led to Smithville. Ahead was Salaita, and beyond that they could just make out the darker line of trees which marked the Lumi River. Swinging his gaze to the left Temple could see the rise of small hills among which Smithville nested.

“Huns in those trees, I’ll be bound,” Wheech-Browning said. “I don’t think I’ll come any closer if you don’t mind. How far is it to your place from here?”

“About four miles. It’ll take us an hour to get there, a quick look over, then an hour back. Shouldn’t be too long a wait.”

“Absolutely no trouble. See the outcrop there? I’ll stroll over with my binoculars.” He pointed to an untidy tumbled clump of boulders some six hundred yards off. “See what the old Germani are getting up to.”

Temple and Mr Essanjee looked in the direction he indicated. Temple saw the rocks, warm in the morning sun.

Then suddenly they seemed to explode in puffs of thick black smoke. A second later came the loud report of rifles. The thorn bushes around them seemed to be plucked and shaken by invisible hands.

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Wheech-Browning. “Damn Germans! Not even a warning.”

“Oh my bloody God,” Mr Essanjee said and sat down with a thump. He looked in horror at his thigh. The starched white drill was being engulfed by a brilliant red stain.

“Oh shit!” Temple said.

“Ouf,” Mr Essanjee sighed and fell back to the ground. Temple and Wheech-Browning ran over and knelt by his side. Another stain had appeared in the middle of his chest.

“Good God!” said Wheech-Browning, holding his hand up to his mouth. The rattle of firing ceased.

“Let’s get out of here,” Temple said. They leapt onto the motorbike. Wheech-Browning attempted a kick-start, but banged his ankle on the foot rest.

“Christ!” he wept, tears in his eyes. “That’s agony!” Wincing, he kick-started again and the engine caught. Temple glanced back over his shoulder. He saw small figures scrambling down the rock pile and running up the track towards them.

“Hold on!” Temple shouted. “We’d better get Essanjee.”

“Fine. But look sharpish!”

They dragged Mr Essanjee over to the side-car and toppled him in head first, leaving his legs hanging over the side. Then Temple and Wheech-Browning jumped on the bike and, with rear wheel spinning furiously, they roared off back down the track to Voi.

Some miles further on, when they felt they were safe, they stopped. They confirmed that Mr Essanjee was indeed dead. His suit and jacket were soaking with blood, rendered all the more coruscating by the contrast it made to the patches of gleaming white. They rearranged his body in a more dignified position, so that it looked like he was dozing in the side-car, his head thrown back.

“Damn good shots, those fellows,” Wheech-Browning observed as he wedged his rifle between Mr Essanjee’s plump knees. “He was a plucky little chap for an insurance salesman. What did you say the name of his company was?”

“African Guarantee and Indemnity Co.”

“Must bear that in mind.”

Temple wondered who would process his claim now. How long would it take to find a replacement for Mr Essanjee? And would he be as amenable? He heard Wheech-Browning say something.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I was saying that, if you ask me, the only way you’re going to get back to that farm of yours is to join the army and fight your way there.”

Temple tugged at his moustache. “You know,” he said resignedly, “I think you may be right.”

4: 26 October 1914, SS Homayun, Indian Ocean

Gabriel Cobb stood in a patch of shade on the aft officers’ deck of the SS Homayun. The sun beat down out of a sky so bleached it seemed white, scalding the gently swelling surface of the ocean. The smoke from the Homayuns twin stacks hung in the air, trailing behind the ship, a tattered black epitaph marking its ponderous eight-knot passage from India to Africa.

Gabriel had been standing in the same position for nearly an hour, mesmerized by the wake streaming out behind. He was sunk in a profound lethargy, a sense of depressed boredom that seemed to penetrate every corner of the ship, if not the entire fourteen-vessel convoy of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’—force ‘C’ had arrived a month earlier — eight thousand men, steaming off, as far as he knew, to invade German East Africa.

He leant back against a bulkhead and exhaled, feeling his shirt press damply against his back. He was lucky to find this corner of the deck unoccupied. Every bit of shade had been claimed by sprawling supine soldiers, desperate to escape from the balmy clamminess of their tiny cabins. God only knew,

Gabriel thought, what it must be like for the other ranks, the Indian soldiers and regimental followers quartered below decks, sleeping in hammocks slung only a foot apart. He took off his pith helmet and used it to fan his face. God only knew what it was like for the stokers shovelling coal into the furnaces in the belly of the ship. He tried to cheer himself up. At least he was better off than the stokers and the miserable, ill-disciplined men he was supposed to lead into battle.

Gabriel sat down on the deck and stretched his legs out in front of him. It was small consolation. He’d never known life deal him such a succession of cruel disappointments. His ambitions had been modest. He wished only to fight in France with his regiment, but even that was to be denied him. He paused. The effort of swishing his hat to and fro was enervating in this heat. He allowed his head to roll to one side. Everywhere he looked he saw ships. Tramp steamers, reconditioned liners, troopships. He saw the battleship HMS Goliath, its four stacks belching smoke as for some reason it got up steam. It raised only a flicker of interest. The German commerce raider Emden was known to be loose in the Indian Ocean. So too was the cruiser Königsberg, recently on display to the inhabitants of Dar-es-Salaam, now believed to be roaming the coastal waters in search of prey. He didn’t really care; anything would be preferable to the numbing monotony he’d been experiencing for the last four weeks. He saw the battleship slowly wheel round and head back in the direction of India. Just another straggler, Gabriel thought, falling behind.

It was now the middle of October. The war had been going on for nearly three months. For at least two of them, Gabriel calculated with some sarcasm, he’d been on board ship. Anyone would have thought he’d joined the navy.

♦

Gabriel and Charis had returned from their shortened honey-moon on the thirtieth of July. Gabriel had gone at once to London in search of instructions but had been told to go away as there was nothing anyone could tell him. They then spent an uncomfortable few days at Stackpole — no one was expecting their return, the cottage was not ready, Cyril was still distempering the bedroom walls — watching the slide into war. He and Charis had been unhappy. Charis had been cool and distant. Every day she pointedly reminded him that they could be walking along the promenade at Trouville. Every day, that is, until the fourth of August when war was declared, thereby vindicating what had seemed like precipitate caution on Gabriel’s part. On the night of the fourth they had also been able to move into the cottage and, as if by magic, some of the happiness and intimacy they had experienced in Trouville returned. But it was clouded by the knowledge that Gabriel would soon have to go away. Diligently he telephoned to London every day, keen to get his orders. On the sixth, he was instructed to report to Southampton where he would find a berth on the SS Dongola, a P&O liner, which would take him to rejoin his regiment in India.

The Dongola left Southampton on the thirteenth, crammed with officers rejoining regiments in Egypt and India. Sammy Hinshelwood, and a few others from the West Kents who had been on leave, were also on board and the first days of the voyage out were passed in frenzied speculation about the possible length of the war and what role the West Kents would play in it, assuming it lasted long enough. As they sailed slowly across the Mediterranean the now familiar boredom began to infect them all. Interminable games of contract bridge were the main diversion, sessions starting at breakfast and lasting long into the night.

From time to time the odd wireless message brought snippets of news of the progress of the war in Europe: the German advance through Belgium, the fall of Liège, the disastrous French attack in Lorraine, the battle of Mons. The sense of frustration at missing out was acute. But there were no mails at Gibraltar (they were not even allowed off the ship) and none waiting at Port Said either. As they neared Port Said the weather became noticeably hotter. Awnings were stretched over all available deck space and most of the officers forsook their cramped cabins to sleep on deck during the night. Gabriel, fortunately, had a cork mattress that he could lie on and so passed the night in some comfort. The others had to make do with blankets, or at best a deckchair. One break in the routine occurred when they were all inoculated against smallpox and yellow fever. Gabriel was incapacitated for two days with a high temperature.

It took the Dongola a week to chug through the Red Sea. The thermometer rose to 114° (140° in the stoke hold) and everyone went about stark naked at night in an attempt to keep cool. “Just as well there are no ladies on board,” Gabriel said to Sammy Hinshelwood one evening as they picked their way through naked bodies towards their mattresses. “On the contrary,” Hinshelwood laughed, “it’s a great shame.” That night as they lay side by side Hinshelwood talked for a long time about sex. About a girl he knew, a tart he’d picked up at the Adelphi theatre. Gabriel lay beside him, uneasy and embarrassed. Hinshelwood made some coarse jokes about his interrupted honeymoon, and described Charis as ‘a truly charming girl’. Gabriel made no response, but the muted talk of women made him excited and he had to roll onto his stomach to conceal his arousal.

One of the stewards died of heatstroke in the Red Sea. Gabriel attended the small religious service and watched as the weighted body was tipped into the water with a forlorn splash. Gabriel found that the death depressed him unusually. He found his thoughts continually on the armies in Europe and the war ahead. One night somebody said that a quarter of the troops would surely be killed. That gave each individual a one in four chance, Gabriel thought. Even when it was figured as personally as that Gabriel found, to his vague surprise, that the idea of war seemed even more exciting.

After the Red Sea the Indian Ocean was cooler. However the Dongola caught the tail end of the monsoon season and rolled and pitched the rest of the way to Bombay. Everyone on board suffered terribly from seasickness. Often there were two hundred or more men leaning over the leeward side of the ship being sick into the sea. The sides of the Dongola became streaked and spattered with dried vomit and the faint acid smell of sick hung in every corridor and companionway.

They arrived in Bombay after a twenty-six-day voyage. Gabriel and Hinshelwood were given instructions to proceed directly to the regiment at Rawalpindi. “I’m damned if I’m getting straight on a train after a month in that accursed ship!” Hinshelwood swore. He and Gabriel booked in to the Taj Hotel for a night. They bathed, had two enormous meals and went shopping. The next morning they boarded the train at Bombay Station and spent a dusty, but tolerably comfortable, fifty hours crossing the Punjab to Rawalpindi.

For two weeks life regained its sense of composure. News of the German retreat to the Aisne caused great belligerent excitement. Gabriel returned to a means of existence that he had known before his marriage. Except on this occasion there was no Charis nearby. Nor was there much time for entertainment of any sort as the Regiment was busily preparing itself for embarkation. The main Indian expeditionary force for the European theatre was in the process of being despatched, and in addition two subsidiary forces were being raised. One was for the Persian Gulf and one for the invasion of German East Africa. Rumour had it that the West Kents would be embarking for Europe in early October, but no one was sure. Gabriel thought it was typical of the army’s Byzantme reasoning to send him all the way to India just to send him back to Europe. It was, he later realized, equally typical of the army to decide that, of all the officers in the regiment, he was the one chosen not to accompany it. The fateful Movement Order telegram arrived from headquarters in Simla. It informed him that he was being ‘attached’ to the 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry, who were due to embark for East Africa in mid October as part of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’.

East Africa! The Palamcottah Light Infantry! Gabriel’s disappointment was bitter and acute. A third-rate Indian regiment from the little-regarded Bangalore Brigade in Madras. His prompt protestations and appeals had no effect. His colleagues sympathized but their patience over his relentless moaning and complaints was limited. Sammy Hinshelwood reminded him that the West Kents could end up guarding the Suez Canal and that at least Gabriel could be sure of some action before the war ended.

So, for the second time in a month Gabriel crossed the Punjab, but on this occasion, as if cruelly to remind him how his plans had gone awry, the journey took ninety hours. He shared the train with a hospital unit full of Indian sub-assistant surgeons and with dozens of coolies and bearers. They, it transpired, were are going to East Africa; but the British doctors seemed quite content with their lot. A place called Nairobi, they said: apparently the climate was superb. Gabriel spent most of the journey in a corner of the crowded compartment (the fan wasn’t working) trying to read a book. The doctors repeatedly congratulated themselves on their good luck. All they seemed to care about, Gabriel reflected, was the weather. One day they spent a full ten hours motionless in a railway siding with nothing to eat or drink except some petit beurre biscuits and warm soda water.

Gabriel’s spirits had been set in a decline ever since he’d received the news of his transfer. At the barracks in Bombay they took another plunge when he was united with his new battalion. The 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry hadn’t seen active service since the Boxer rebellion in 1900, which battle order for that campaign hung proudly in the mess. A little inquiry on Gabriel’s part provided him with the information that the Palamcottahs had in fact only got as far as Hong Kong.

There they had been pressed into service with a regiment of Army Pioneers and had made roads for nine months, an activity for which they had shown a surprising efficiency and which had earned them an official commendation from the Governor of the colony.

It was small consolation also when it turned out that the Palamcottahs were so undermanned and ill-prepared that six other officers, apart from Gabriel, had been separated from their official regiments to bring the battalion up to something like operational strength. The seven new boys swiftly formed a circle of malcontents in the mess, ignoring and being ignored by the regulars. Gabriel was the last to arrive and was happy to contribute his own grumbles to the dark mutterings that continually preoccupied the disaffected group.

There proved to be virtually no chance to get to know the men under his command because the day after his arrival embarkation orders were received. The Homayun was a dirty little steamer which before being drafted into war service had plied the route between Bombay and Arabia, conveying pilgrims to Mecca and back again. About a thousand men were finally crammed aboard: the Palamcottahs, a detachment of sappers, the Punjabi Coolie Corps and about thirty mules and four dozen sheep, which had to be tethered on one of the decks.

Gabriel found himself sharing a small cabin with two other officers, a doctor from the Indian Medical Service, and a tall thin major from the Welch Regiment called Bilderbeck, who had been at the staff college at Quetta but was now attached to the expeditionary force’s headquarters staff as intelligence officer because he’d served in East Africa before the war.

Embarkation was completed by the thirtieth of September. The last mules were winched on board, the last lighter had deposited its load of excited coolies and had returned to the wharves. The Homayun got up steam and moved slowly out of Bombay harbour until she was some three miles offshore.

Then with a rattle of chains the anchors were released and she stopped once more. Gabriel assumed, as he looked over the railing at the distant shore, that they were waiting for the rest of the fleet to form up.

The days went by with an inconceivable slowness. Two, three, four, five. The Homayun rolled heavily at anchor in the ocean swell and to a man, it seemed, the coolie corps went down with seasickness. A widening slick of human effluence polluted the sea around the immobile ship. Gabriel inspected his company twice a day, just to give himself something to do. They were thin-faced, resentful men in baggy uniforms and thick khaki turbans. The Indian officers — the jemadars and subadars — seemed too old and slack, and treated Gabriel with caution and suspicion. On the seventh day new Maxim guns were ferried out and each company supplied with two. Seizing the opportunity, Gabriel held machine-gun drill every afternoon, teaching the lethargic sepoys how to strip down, load and fire the bright, shiny weapons. They fired at empty barrels thrown over the side, kicking up the scummy surface of the sea with a flurry of bullets.

Ten days went by and still the Homayun swung listlessly at anchor. Gabriel fell into a state of thoughtless passivity of which he would never have believed himself capable. After breakfast he would make a cursory inspection of his troops, send the sick men to the surgery, and then retire to the shadiest part of the ship and try to write letters. His life was so empty that once he’d got beyond, “Dear Mother and Father, here we are still on the Homayun…” there seemed little point in going on. He tried several times to write to Charis on more personal matters but to his consternation he found that even harder. He did think about her a lot, and the emotions he experienced were genuine, but when it came to giving them some shape, pinning them down in a few heartfelt words, he found it impossible to identify and name correctly what were in actuality only the most vague and nebulous sensations.

“My Darling Charis,” he would write. Then he would pause. What could he say? That he loved her? But surely she knew that; it wouldn’t do to state things so bluntly, he needed a more elegant turn of phrase…And he would drift off into a doze until it was time for luncheon. In the afternoon came yet more sleep, or else vacant staring at the shoreline. Sometime she would plunge into the sailbath that had been rigged up and for ten minutes feel more alive. In the evening he’d mix uneasily with the other officers, but nobody really knew each other and the talk was desultory and formal. No orders had been issued and Lt Col. Coutts, the portly, ageing commanding officer, had nothing to report at the few briefing sessions called. As on the Dongola most officers ended up passing the time by playing cards, or deck quoits. Gabriel played a few hands of whist, but he didn’t know how to play contract bridge and couldn’t be bothered to learn.

Eventually, sixteen days after they had embarked, the Homayun finally weighed anchor and took its place in the convoy that sailed out of Bombay harbour. No explanation for their wait offshore was ever forthcoming: it was assumed that someone had forgotten about them. As India gradually disappeared from view Gabriel was possessed briefly of a thrilling and venomous anger at the nameless staff officer whose order had condemned them to the two-week purgatory they had lived through. Sixteen days, roasting motionless offshore. Sixteen entire endless days of petty irritations, extreme discomfort and near-fatal boredom. Gabriel felt his face go taut with frustration and his eyelids twitch with angry tears. He felt sure that he could have killed the man responsible without a qualm, slowly, intricately and with excruciating pain…Calm down, he told himself, calm down, at least they were on the move.

Just before they left a launch delivered mail from Europe. There were three letters: from his mother, Felix and Charis. The news was six weeks old. He opened his mother’s first.

My dear Gabriel,

The news from France is most depressing. Your father says we have lost a battle at a place called Mons. He has pinned a large map on the library wall where the entire household is invited each day to hear the latest news of the fighting.

Charis is well, despite a slight cold. She was so sad after you had gone, but has buckled down with a will helping us organize collections of provisions for the poor Belgians. She has decided to stay on in the cottage even though there is so much room in the house. However she comes to us for most luncheons and dinners.

Felix received a letter from the War Office telling him to go to the OTC recruiting office at Oxford. But it now seems they can’t take him because of his eyes. I always knew that boy read too much. Your father refuses to speak to him so he has gone up to London to stay with his friend Holland. I think it’s for the best, for the meanwhile, anyway.

Henry is up to his ears in work at the Committee of Imperial Defence. He told Albertine not to worry; he will see Greville gets a staff posting (Greville is not to know about this, it seems). Nigel Bathe, however, is going to a place called Mesopotamia. Henry says there is nothing he can do. Poor Nigel is most disappointed: he so wanted to go to France…

His mother’s letter continued in this vein for several more pages. Felix’s was briefer.

…you will have heard I am not to be called to the colours. Such a disgrace. Father practically accused me of arrant cowardice. It was pointless to remind him that there are so many volunteers that anyone not 100 % fit is turned away. Cyril, of course, was snapped up. I’ve never seen anyone look so pleased…

Your dear wife has wisely decided to remain in the cottage. She seems well, running about the county with Dr Venables collecting blankets for the Belgians. Life at home is more intolerable than ever, what with Father’s nightly (compulsory) briefing on the course of the war.

I am going to stay with Holland, also rejected by the Army. We will be going up to Oxford together in October, though goodness knows what the place will be like with everyone off at the war. Nigel Bathe has been sent to guard some desert wastes. He thinks the war is some vile and complicated plot to thwart and discomfit him…

Gabriel saved Charis’s letter until last. He sat and looked at her handwriting on the envelope trying to conjure up an image of her face in his mind. They had had three nights in the cottage before he had left for Southampton. Three nights in which they had managed to repeat the solitary success they had enjoyed in Trouville. Gabriel leant back on his bunk and shut his eyes. He could feel his heart beating faster at the uncomfortable, somehow embarrassing memories. He opened the letter.

My Darling Gabey,

How I miss you! Our little cottage seems so quiet and empty. I want my big strong boy back beside me, and to take me in his arms. You will be careful, won’t you, darling? I want my Gabey back in one piece so don’t go trying to be a hero…

Gabriel found it impossible to read on: he could hear Charis’s voice echoing through each word. He put the letter down and thought back to their last nights together and the pattern of arousal that each one seemed instinctively to follow.

Each time as he had changed into his pyjamas he felt almost sick with mounting apprehension. He would go through the door into the tiny upstairs bedroom which was almost entirely filled by their soft double bed. And there Charis lay. Her long wavy dark hair down, her white nightdress crisp and fresh. Then she would scold him, gently, for some misdemeanour. One night it was for not brushing his hair, another night for a mismatched pyjama top and bottom. “You naughty boy!” Charis would say and sternly resist his imploring pleas for forgiveness and understanding. “No! You may not give me a kiss and I’m very cross with you.” The tone of voice, the situation, worked like a magic charm on him, Gabriel realized. All the fumbling apprehension, the shaming absence of arousal, the fear — even of slipping into bed — disappeared.

They played out their parts with the instinct and assurance of professional actors. Charis strict but ultimately forgiving, Gabriel alternately fawning and sulky. The teasing, coyly bullying Charis of those nights had his erection pressing against his pyjama trousers within seconds. He would lay his head on her small breasts, kissing her throat, plucking at the cords that held her bodice together. “Stop it!” she would cry with fake horror. “You dreadful, dreadful boy! What are you doing?” But somehow the cords always came undone and he would uncover her small white breasts, smearing his face over them, dabbing at the tight nipples, hunching himself into position between her parting thighs. Then clumsy thrusting, a feeling of heat, moistness, a glove-like grip.

Such transient sensations, Gabriel thought. No more than a few seconds, that was all. Then she would cradle his head in her arms, stroking his hair, cooing endearments, calling him their private names, “Gabey, my big boy…Gabbins, my naughty boy…my terrible lovely Gabbey,” and Gabriel would drift off to sleep.

On their last night Gabriel woke up and found her gone. Half awake, he stumbled out of the bed and along the little passage to the bathroom. He pushed open the door and she was standing there naked, a face-flannel in her hand, in front of the basin. “Oh sorry,” Gabriel said, and backed out of the room. That was the only time he’d ever seen her naked. Her slim pale body like a boy’s, her breasts very small, almost flat, her little dark bush. Her body, he had to be frank, was not what he had expected. Before that night on the honeymoon, he had imagined women to be very soft and yielding, with large soft breasts like pillows. She didn’t come back to bed for a while and he fell asleep. They didn’t refer to their midnight encounter again.

All these memories returned as Gabriel read her letter. But to hear these endearments and phrases, to have the roles conjured up for him when she wasn’t there, made him feel confused. He felt a heavier sweat break out on his upper lip. He felt his face grow hot. He realized he was experiencing shame. He was embarrassed. Ashamed and embarrassed at his own intimacy with his wife! He felt suddenly appalled at himself. And this realization brought guilt and self-contempt in its train. What kind of person was he, he asked himself? What kind of a person was he to feel so ill-at-ease, so uncomfortable with the truth?

♦

Gabriel never re-read her letter. Now, some ten days into the voyage, it still lay deep in his small case in his cabin. He didn’t want to think about it, or about their married life. He found he was becoming almost prudish, as a kind of reaction. Some of the other officers on the Homayun were dubious types, coarse and much given to risqué conversations. Gabriel never joined in their discussions.

One day someone had passed him an old copy of Nash’s magazine, folded open to a page covered with photographs of a French dancer — one Mademoiselle Sadrine Storri. She was very pretty, Gabriel saw, in a plump coquettish way. Her dark hair was tousled. She wore her dancing costume, a scant toga strewn with garlands. She had heavy thighs, and in one photo leant forward to exposé the swells of nicely rounded bosom. Because she danced with bare legs, the caption said, the censor had determined that on stage she should be lit only by a blue light.

“Nice little filly,” the man had said on passing the magazine over. Gabriel had given a taut smile and glanced at the photographs for form’s sake. “My Grecian dance is absolutely artistic,” Gabriel read. He turned the page. There were more photographs of her posing in velvet shorts and a skimpy top that showed her midriff.

“I say, look at Cobb,” the officer called. “We’ve certainly got the newly-wed interested.”

Gabriel had blushed deeply. He had been interested. But almost simultaneously he hated himself for being so. What kind of husband was he, poring over photos of a French tart?

He looked out now at the convoy. He had been on the ship for twenty-six days, and it was beginning to affect him. The crushing, annihilating boredom. The constant noise from the bickering coolies. The braying mules and the bleating sheep. His fifth-rate resentful men. His uncouth, unfamiliar fellow-officers. Thank God, he thought, for the two men he shared his cabin with. He never really saw the doctor, who was the busiest man on board, constantly tending the coolies and other ranks who were coming down with all manner of ailments — but mainly dysentery and malaria — at the rate of seventy a day. But at least Bilderbeck was a decent sort, if a little strange.

Bilderbeck spent a lot of time drawing up information sheets and maps of German East Africa, compiling official intelligence notes on the climate, population and terrain based on journals and records he’d kept while serving in British East some seven or eight years previously. He was a lean, ascetic-looking man in his mid-thirties with a slightly weak chin. He spoke very quickly with a low voice, delivering his words in short bursts, as if from a Maxim gun. He would sometimes laugh or smile at stages in conversation which didn’t seem to warrant any such response at all, as if he saw jokes and ironies invisible to others all the time. Talking to him was extremely disconcerting, as his wry smiles and cynical looks seemed to imply that these observations were shared. Rather than seek for an explanation Gabriel had decided that the best thing to do was simply to copy Bilderbeck’s expression as it changed: smile when he smiled, roll eyes and sneer when he sneered. The other officers were not so accommodating and clearly thought Bilderbeck a little mad. Consequently, as time moved on, he and Gabriel spent more time in each other’s company.

They talked about the war. Bilderbeck asked Gabriel if he’d ever been in action. Gabriel admitted he hadn’t. Bilderbeck said he’d personally killed upward of thirty people during his service in Africa. “But they were all natives,” he added, as if this somehow wasn’t so remarkable.

Gabriel looked curiously at him. “What…? I mean, what was it like?”

“Just shot ‘em,” Bilderbeck said. “I shot three of my own men once. Native soldiers. A fine lot of men in fact, but these ones had killed a woman and outraged a girl. I shot them there and then. I had to set an example, you see. To the others.” He smiled broadly. Gabriel smiled automatically in return.

“Actually I did kill a Russian once,” Bilderbeck mused. “In Constantinople.” Bilderbeck paused. “What do you think of this lot?” Bilderbeck jerked his thumb in the direction of the officers’ quarters.

“I haven’t really got to know them,” Gabriel said.

“Sportsmen,” Bilderbeck sneered. “If they’re not senile all they think about is ponies and women.” He darted a look at Gabriel, smiling weirdly again.

“I shall find my girl,” he said suddenly. “I know I will.”

“Your girl?” Gabriel repeated, mystified at this turn the conversation had taken.

“One day I shall find her.”

Gabriel wondered what he was talking about. “Yes,” he said safely. “I expect you shall.”

“You’re married aren’t you?” Bilderbeck said. “Love your wife?”

“What…? Yes, I do, yes.”

“My God,” Bilderbeck said, shaking his head in wonder. “Is she your girl, then?”

Gabriel thought it best to agree. “Yes,” he said simply.

“Hah!” Bilderbeck gave a cynical laugh. “Sportsmen! Treat the army like a social club.”

♦

Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’ sailed on steadily towards Africa. Sheer desperation eventually forced the troops on the Homayun to search for some form of distraction. When they crossed the equator they had a crossing-of-the-line ceremony. The Captain of the ship was Neptune. All the officers under thirty were initiated. Gabriel was copiously lathered, shaved with a three foot long wooden razor and was then thrown into the sailbath.

This effort seemed to stimulate the others and one night shortly after they had a concert — a piano and two mouth organs. A downpour drenched them half-way through but the men played on and the audience remained heedless of the rain.

As they sailed south the weather grew hotter and hotter. The doctor spent his day moving among the crew with pitchers of lime cordial. Every three days they had to drink a glass of quinine dissolved in water.

Lt Col. Coutts fell down a flight of steps, was concussed and broke one of his ribs. The news drew a loud snort of disgust from Bilderbeck. Gabriel felt quite sorry for Coutts who was a kindly and lazy old chap in his late fifties. Gamely enough, he was up and about after a couple of days but was clearly in some pain and discomfort. However they were nearing their destination and a slight air of tension was beginning to percolate through the ship so expressions of sympathy were few and far between. Bilderbeck made a trip over to the Kamala, a P&O liner, to pass on his maps, notes and opinions to General Aitken, the commander-in-chief.

The final distraction of the voyage was less happy. One of the sailors on the Homayun had, it so appeared, been found guilty of plotting mutiny. For this crime he was sentenced to six months imprisonment and twelve lashes from the cat o’ nine tails. All the officers on the Homayun were invited along as witnesses. Gabriel went with some misgivings and stood uneasily beside Bilderbeck. The whipping was to be administered by the boatswain of the Goliath, a large man with a bulging ruddy face. In his hands the cat o’ nine tails looked very small and curiously inoffensive. The culprit was brought out, bare-chested, and tied to a wooden triangle, hastily constructed by the ship’s carpenters, his hands at the peak and his feet spread to the other two points. The sentence was read out and the boatswain whipped the man very quickly. The prisoner’s back turned bright pink before their eyes and the skin broke by the seventh or eighth lash. At the end the boatswain was panting heavily from his exertions. Gabriel felt more shocked than sickened.

“This is 1914, not the Crimea,” he protested to Bilderbeck as they walked back to the officers’ quarters. “It’s barbaric.”

“No,” Bilderbeck said firmly. “Mutiny in time of war.” He flashed a quick smile. “I’d have had him shot.”

♦

On the thirtieth of October the convoy halted about a hundred miles off Mombasa. Gabriel felt a pressure steadily build up in his lungs, a sense of nervous anticipation that he couldn’t shake off and that left him feeling permanently slightly breathless. He paced about the decks all day experimenting with impromptu breathing exercises: holding his breath, breathing shallowly, inhaling deeply and letting the air out of his lungs as slowly as possible. But none of this worked.

He saw another battleship steam out from the direction of land. Shortly after, Bilderbeck was summoned over to it and a boat was lowered for him. That evening the battleship — the Fox — steamed with the Kartnala.

The convoy sat off Mombasa for another two days. Gabriel inspected his men. They were weary and disgruntled, many of them having been sea-sick for a full month. He got some of them up on deck for PT but the resulting shambles was so embarrassing that he dismissed them after five minutes.

The Karmala returned to the convoy and Bilderbeck came back to the Homayun to pick up his kit. He was to be permanently attached to General Aitken’s staff. Gabriel stood in the doorway of the cabin watching Bilderbeck pack.

“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked. “Dar-es-Salaam?”

“I shouldn’t really tell you,” Bilderbeck said. “But no. It’s Tanga.”

“Oh,” Gabriel said. He’d seen Tanga on one of Bilderbeck’s maps. A port to the north of Dar, starting point for the northern railway that ran up to Kilimanjaro.

“Got a pillow?” Bilderbeck asked, holding up his own.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I have. Why?”

“And a basin? Pillow and a basin. The two most essential pieces of equipment to have on active service. Get some decent sleep and have a chance for a wash and a shave. Always make sure you’ve got them with you. Best advice I can give.”

“Thanks,” Gabriel said distractedly. “Yes, I’ve got both.” He paused. “Are we invading Tanga?”

“That’s the idea,” Bilderbeck said, a look of withering cynicism on his face. “It’s the first invasion of a hostile beach for forty years or thereabouts, and they pick this lot.” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head sorrowfully. “There’s another problem, though. It seems the Navy made a truce with the German governor in Tanga at the very beginning of the war. Now the Navy are insisting that we must inform the authorities there that ‘belligerent hostilities’ are going to be resumed. They feel their dignity demands an official abrogation of the truce.” Bilderbeck’s face lit up in one of his most beaming smiles.

“Good Lord.” Gabriel sat down on his bunk. “Isn’t that a bit…? I mean, won’t they know then that we’re going to attack?”

“Of course they will.” Bilderbeck gave a great hoot of laughter. “Of course they will. But try telling that to the Navy.” He rubbed his hands together like a fly. His mood seemed one of profound satisfaction, as if he’d just had some hotly disputed fact confirmed in his favour. “Remember,” he said, looking up. “Whatever happens, don’t forget your pillow and basin.”

5: 2 November 1914, Tanga, German East Africa

Gabriel stood at the rail of the Homayun and gazed out at the shoreline a mile away. It was six o’clock in the evening. He looked down at the map in his hand and then back again at the shore. What he was looking at, he calculated, was the headland called Ras Kasone that jutted out on the southern side of Tanga bay. Behind the lee of the headland, about two miles distant, lay the town of Tanga which, from his position, was invisible. At the tip of the headland was a signal tower, and nearby that was a white stone house. Five hundred yards down, to the left of the white house, was a red house. All of these buildings seemed deserted, though the German flag flew from the signal tower. From what he could see through the thickening dusk the shore facing him was composed of cliffs, at the bottom of which was dense and tangled vegetation, and curious twisted trees which he had been told were mangroves. Beneath the red house, however, was a beach some two hundred yards long. This, according to Lt Col. Coutts, was where the Palamcottahs were to land later tonight: Beach ‘A’.

At the briefing he’d just attended, and where the map had been issued, Lt Col. Coutts (still in pain from his broken rib) had read out Major-General Aitken’s orders. The first sentence had been immensely reassuring. “From reliable information received,” it read, “it appears improbable that the enemy will actively oppose our landing.”

Gabriel watched his company edge down the gangway into the huge wooden lighters that had been towed from Mombasa to provide transport from the ships to the beach. All around the headland he could see the ships of the convoy moored in line. Earlier that morning, Lt Col. Coutts had informed them, the Fox had steamed into Tanga harbour and officially abrogated the truce and had demanded the surrender of the town — which was not forthcoming. Tanga, it appeared, was deserted.

Gabriel followed his second-in-command, 2nd Lt Gleeson, down the gangway. Gleeson was gazetted to the Palamcottahs, a young man, just twenty-two, with pale blue eyes and a blond moustache that reminded Gabriel of Nigel Bathe. He had very yellow teeth. Gleeson seemed not to have the slightest objection to a newcomer being placed in command over him. Gabriel had made some attempts to strike up some sort of a friendship with him during the voyage, but with little success. He suspected Gleeson of being a little ‘simple’.

Lt Col. Coutts was not fit enough to take part in the invasion of Tanga and the adjutant — Major Santoras — was now in temporary command of the battalion. In the lighter Gabriel looked around for the subadar of his battalion, subadar Masrim Rahman. To Gabriel it seemed that every second man in the Palamcottahs was called Rahman. Unfortunately, subadar Rahman was one of those most prone to seasickness and the pitching and wallowing of the lighter had already rendered his brown skin a pale beige colour.

“Everything in order, subadar?” Gabriel asked, having to raise his voice above the babble of conversation.

“Sir,” the subadar replied, removing his hand from his mouth to perform a shaky salute.

“Do you think you could shut the men up?” Gabriel said, and pushed his way through the press of soldiers to the stern of the lighter where Major Santoras and six of the other officers were gathered, all peering at copies of the map of Tanga by the light of torches. The Palamcottahs could only muster three full companies — illness during the voyage having taken its toll. Two companies were to land and a third was being kept in reserve.

“What’s this mark?” someone asked.

“It’s a railway cutting,” Major Santoras replied. “Between the landing beaches and the town.” He went on less confidently: “There’ll be bridges over it, I think…Should be, anyway.”

“Anyone know what the country’s like beyond the beach?”

“Someone’s put ‘rubber’ down here. I assume that means rubber plantations.”

“Are the North Lancs landing on our beach?” Gabriel asked. These were the only regular British troops in the entire invasion force. Gabriel thought he would feel more secure, somehow, if he knew they were nearby.

“Don’t think so,” Santoras said. “They’re round on the other side of the headland — Tanga side. Beach ‘C’. No, sorry, Beach ‘B’.”

“Actually it’s Beach ‘C’, I think,” another volunteered. “In fact aren’t we meant to be landing with them?”

“Are you sure?” Santoras asked. “I thought the Colonel said Beach ‘A’.”

“Look! There go the Rajputs!”

Everyone looked over towards the transports to their right. A small tug was towing a string of three lighters towards the shore. It was nearly dark, but they could just be made out. About three hundred yards offshore the tow lines were slipped and the lighters drifted in towards the beach on the surf until they grounded. As the first men jumped into the water a flat crackle of shots rang out briefly, then there was silence. About two minutes later the Fox fired a salvo of shells. Everybody jumped with alarm. The shells exploded impressively around the red house. Gabriel realized he’d just witnessed his first shots fired in anger.

The Palamcottahs remained in their lighters for another five hours. Seventeen men in Gabriel’s company collapsed from exhaustion and chronic seasickness and had to be helped back on board the Homayun. It was about one o’clock in the morning when the lighter finally crunched into the sand about eighty yards offshore. It had turned into a brilliant moonlit night and the beach below the red house was thronged with dark figures.

“Right, Cobb,” Santoras said. “Get ‘A’ company ashore. Report to the beach officer for our assembly point.”

“Who’s the beach officer, sir?” Gabriel asked.

“Um, some major in the 51^st Pioneers, I think,” Santoras said.

Gabriel and Gleeson, followed by their men, struggled to the bow of the lighter. Gleeson led the way. He jumped into the water and disappeared completely from view. He emerged, spluttering, a few seconds later. The water came up to his neck.

“Bloody deep,” he said cheerily. “Better warn the men.”

Gabriel jumped in. The water was deliciously warm. He was furious, though, to be completely soaked. He told Gleeson to see the rest of the company off and splashed his way slowly through the moderate surf on to the beach. With a pang of melancholy he recalled that the last time he’d been in the sea was at Trouville. Telling himself to concentrate he looked back and saw a line of his men, rifles held above their heads, following him ashore. He felt his sodden uniform cool in the breeze coming off the sea. The beach was crowded with disembarked men, some of whom were being marched up a gully that led up to the red house on the cliffs. Crowds of native porters and coolies shouted and milled aimlessly in large packs, waiting for the stores and ordnance to arrive.

When most of ‘A’ company was ashore a man with a torch stumped over and shone the beam in Gabriel’s face.

“And who in God’s name are you?” he was asked.

“‘A’ company, 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry,” Gabriel said.

“God Almighty!” the man swore. “You’re not meant to be landing until tomorrow morning.” He consulted the clip board he held. “Beach ‘C’. There’s no room here for another battalion. Stop! Stop!” he shouted as the remnants of ‘A’ company emerged dripping from the waves. Gleeson went splashing back to the lighters to pass on the beach officer’s instructions. A signalling lamp was set up and messages were exchanged with the Homayun. After an hour’s wait a tug appeared and towed the rest of the battalion away from the beach and back to the ship.

“What about us?” Gabriel said.

“Attach yourself to the Rajputs for the night. We’ll sort you out in the morning. See Lt Col. Codrington. He’s in the red house.”

Gabriel formed up his muttering and perplexed troop. Two men were missing, leaving seventy-six in all. They had either drowned or else had never left the lighter. ‘A’ company moved off the beach and up the gully to the cliff top. Here in the moonlight, Gabriel could see a great mass of men, many of them engaged in digging trenches. He stationed his men by a clump of palm trees, told Gleeson not to move, and went in search of Colonel Codrington. As he strode across to the red house he realized he was walking on dry land for the first time in a month. Other impressions added themselves to this: it was enemy soil too; out there were men he regarded as foe. And he was in Africa. The African night was cool, though that may have been due to his damp uniform, and he could hear all about him the strange persistent noise of the crickets and cicadas. He shivered with a kind of exhilaration, and stamped his feet as he walked, happy not to hear the hollow sound of wooden decks returned to him. The land around the red house seemed to have been cleared for cultivation, but beyond that was a darker, higher mass of what looked like thick forest. Everywhere he could see columns of men being marched to and fro, and others settling down as best as they could for the night. There were a great deal of shouted orders being exchanged and somewhere someone was blowing furiously on a whistle. It certainly didn’t look like an invasion force, and there was a complete absence of danger.

Gabriel passed unchallenged into the red house. Staff officers hurried to and fro with papers in their hands. Engineers were installing a telephone line which had been run up from the beach. Gabriel asked for Lt Col. Codrington and was directed upstairs. There he found a room filled with officers, most pressed around a table covered in maps. He saw Brigadier-General Pughe, a small man with a doleful, flushed expression. The force attacking Tanga had been divided into two brigades: on the left was Pughe’s, on the right was the one the Palamcottahs were attached to, commanded by Brigadier-General Wapshore.

Gabriel paused, suddenly feeling a bit foolish. What should he do? Inform Pughe that he was reporting for duty to the wrong brigade? In the meantime he saluted the row of backs that was presented to him. In one corner of the room a major was energetically cranking the handle of a field telephone and shouting ‘hello hello hello hello’ endlessly into the mouth-piece. Gabriel looked about him: there appeared to be half a dozen lieutenant-colonels in the room, all identically dressed in topees, khaki jackets, jodhpurs and knee-length brown leather boots. Then he saw the tall figure of Bilderbeck.

“Hello Bilderbeck,” Gabriel said, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Cobb!” Bilderbeck said loudly. A few people looked round. “What are you doing here? You should be on Beach ‘C’.”

Gabriel explained about the wrong landing and his lost company of troops.

“God,” Bilderbeck said, dropping his voice. “Between you and me this is what I call a fiasco. I should sit tight till tomorrow, get some sleep and then wander over in the morning. Beach ‘C’ is only about a mile away.”

He walked back down the stairs with Gabriel. The scène of noisy disorder outside prompted a bark of ironic laughter. “Think the Huns know we’re here?” he asked rhetorically. He glanced up at the sky which was lightening perceptibly in the east, out over the ocean. He looked at his watch. “The Rajputs are advancing on the town in half an hour,” he said. “I’d better get back.” He grinned, his teeth gleaming in the strong moonlight. Gabriel smiled back uneasily.

“I’ll look by to see how you’re getting on later,” Bilderbeck said. “See if I can get a call through to Santoras. Let him know the score.”

“I say, thanks, Bilderbeck,” Gabriel said sincerely, but Bilderbeck was already striding back to the red house, which now had lights blazing from all its windows.

Gabriel wandered back through the columns of grunting coolies bringing up ammunition and supplies from the beach. He felt strangely depressed, not having had any instructions, and curiously impotent. ‘A’ company was not meant to be where it was, therefore the purposes of strategy and logistics declared it to be non-existent.

He found Gleeson leaning up against a palm tree looking out at the anchored convoy. The men were lying beneath their unrolled turbans and looked ominously like rows of sheeted dead. No rifles had been stacked, packs and provisions had been dropped anywhere.

“Any luck?” Gleeson asked.

Gabriel told him they’d have to wait until the morning.

“What’s going on?” Gleeson asked incuriously. “I saw machine guns being taken up to the perimeter.”

“The Rajputs are attacking Tanga,” Gabriel said listlessly.

“Rather them than me,” Gleeson said. “I’m shattered. Fancy some tea? I’ve got a flask here.”

Gabriel accepted. “How are the men?” he said, knowing he ought to be passing among them, issuing words of calm and comfort. But they weren’t like his company in the West Kents. They seemed total strangers. Gleeson seemed to have some sort of peculiar rapport with them, but that was because he spoke the language. Gabriel supposed he should at least let the Indian officers know what the latest news was, but they all seemed asleep. It wasn’t surprising, he reflected, after five hours in a tilting, swaying lighter.

He heard the whine of a mosquito in his ear. His uniform was nearly dry now. He strolled to the edge of a knoll and looked down on the landing beach. The coolies and native bearers were still hard at work; they formed straggling lines, moving stores up from the beach to the cliff top. Further out the convoy of ships was silhouetted against the gash of grey and citron yellow that was the dawn sky. Gleeson’s tea had left a metallic taste in his mouth: cheap flask, he thought. He turned round and looked in the direction of Tanga. He heard a cock crow. Out there in the bush, he thought, there are columns of men ‘marching unto war’. He hummed a few bars of the hymn tune, trying to take his mind off the sudden pressures and cramps he was feeling in his bowels. He tapped the rhythm on his holster. “Onward Christian so-oh-oh-oldiers…” General Aitken expected no resistance…He laughed at himself. What was so wrong with needing to perform a natural function? He walked over to a clump of bushes, lowered his trousers and squatted down.

♦

Gleeson woke him up at six. He’d managed only to get a couple of hours sleep.

“The show seems to be on,” Gleeson said airily.

Gabriel looked around him at the unfamiliar scène. The early morning sun bounced off the red tiles on the roof of the red house. The terrain looked quite different in daylight. The patch of cleared ground was dusty and covered by straggling clumps of sun-bleached knee-high grass and low thorn bushes. Waist-deep trenches had been dug around the perimeter and from them Indian troops looked out into the comparative lushness of coconut groves and rubber plantations that lay between Ras Kasone and Tanga. By the red house three reserve companies of Pioneers were drawn up. Scattered everywhere were great mounds of boxes, crates and sacks. Gabriel saw brand new signalling equipment, bundies of stretchers and, to his alarm, ranks of coffins. There were also a dozen motorbikes.

From the direction of Tanga came the cracking and popping of rifles and machine guns. It sounded like a fire blazing in distant undergrowth.

“Good grief,” Gabriel said. “That’s damned heavy. I thought this landing was meant to be unopposed.” Everybody around the house had stopped what they were doing and were looking in the direction of Tanga.

“The Rajputs set off about an hour and a half ago,” Gleeson said. “They must be at the town by now. Probably a rearguard.”

But the noise of firing didn’t stop. Soon everyone went nervously back about their business, as if evidence of lack of concern might work some magic. Gleeson took some men down to the beach and came back with a box of ship’s biscuits and fresh water. Gabriel didn’t feel like eating but happily accepted a mug of warm water and rum. The alcohol made him relax.

From time to time, runners would appear from the forest of coconut trees and sprint into the red house. The noise of firing continued and Gabriel reflected that the ‘rearguard’ were certainly putting up something of a fight. He saw General Pughe himself come out of the house and order three reserve companies to march off in support of the Rajputs.

Gleeson went back to sleep, but Gabriel felt agitated. He wandered over to one of the perimeter trenches. The sepoys guarding it looked edgy and fearful. He noticed that there were no English officers. Suddenly about a dozen African potters bolted out of the trees and raced past the outpost guards, whimpering and gibbering with fear. Gabriel turned and watched them disappear over the rise and down on to the beach. Everyone looked at each other in astonishment, then a murmur of alarm spread through the men in the trenches. Some loud arguments ensued and Gabriel saw some native officers raising their swagger sticks to restore order.

“Who were those men running away?” Gabriel asked a jemadar with a fierce moustache.

“Machine-gun bearers, sir. From the Rajputs.”

Gabriel swallowed. Where were the machine guns in that case? A commotion further up the line attracted his attention. It was the first of the stretcher parties returning from the fighting. He ran over. There were four stretcher cases, all white men. Orderlies and doctors fussed over their bodies. Three of the men were very still, their mouths open and their eyes starting. The man on the fourth stretcher was groaning and trying to say something.

“My God,” Gabriel said to no one in particular. “They’re all officers.” He noticed that the groaning man was a Lt Colonel.

“Who’s that?” Gabriel asked one of the doctors leaning over him.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Codrington, 13th Rajputs.”

Gabriel turned away and walked back towards the red house. He felt alarmed and confused at the sight of the wounded men. What was going on? If Bilderbeck were here, he thought, he’d be able to tell me. He took away with him a jumbled hazy impression of the men on the stretchers: he hadn’t noticed any blood, he’d been looking at their faces, their bare heads with once neatly brushed hair now mussed and tousled.

Gabriel rejoined Gleeson and they watched another half battalion, fresh from the beach, march off at once into the coconut groves. Runners arrived at and departed from the red house in ever increasing numbers. A heliograph was set up and soon messages were being flashed from shore to ship.

It grew hotter. By nine a.m. the sun was sufficiently powerful to force Gabriel into the shade. He looked at his company of men, all of whom had now claimed their rifles and packs and were sitting in small silent groups in whatever patch of shade they could find. Gabriel wondered if he should have reported to Brigade HQ in the red house but decided that the last thing they’d want to deal with now was his errant company.

At about half past nine the report of heavy guns could be heard from somewhere in the bay. About six salvos were fired.

“Probably the Fox,” Gleeson said, exposing his yellow teeth in a wide grin. “Shelling Tanga,” he said. “That’ll show ‘em.”

Shortly after, they heard bugle calls and a distant yelling. The sound of firing, which hadn’t stopped since Gleeson had woken him at six, seemed to be drawing closer.

“Are those our bugles?” Gabriel asked.

“Think so,” Gleeson said.

“They don’t sound like them, though.”

Gleeson cocked his head. “No they don’t, do they?”

A staff captain came out of the red house, looking around, and loped over.

“Are you ‘A’ company, 69th Palamcottahs?” he said languidly to Gabriel. Gabriel said they were. “Good. We’ve had a message about you. Seems you’re to stay put for the time being.”

“Stay put? What? Here?”

“That seems to be the idea.” The staff captain removed his sun helmet to reveal a bald and shiny pate which he mopped with a handkerchief. “Filthy hot,” he said.

“How are things?” Gabriel asked. “I mean, what’s the picture?” There were more bugle calls as he spoke.

“Stiffish resistance at the railway cutting,” the staff captain said. “We’re retiring. In good order,” he added hastily. “We’ll wait for the main landing today…Look, I must dash.”

Gabriel watched him bound back to the red house. He went back to Gleeson.

“They’ve had a message about us,” he said authoritatively. “Seems we’re to stay put.”

♦

Gabriel and Gleeson kept their distance as the Rajputs and Pioneers straggled back into camp. The men were either talking with hysterical excitement or else were cowed and dejected. They watched dozens of wounded being carried and helped down to the beach. Soon the area around the red house was thick with exhausted troops.

“Doesn’t look so good,” Gleeson said. “Does it?” At lunch time Gabriel went up to the red house to see if he could get any more information. It seemed that the landing of the main force on beaches ‘B’ and ‘C’ round the headland was proceeding as normal, but the beaches were so congested with men and equipment that the Palamcottahs were still on the Homayun and probably wouldn’t be disembarked until the next day.

“Seems we’re still to stay put,” Gabriel reported back to Gleeson.

♦

In the afternoon it rained for two hours and everyone was soaked again. Normally the men of the Palamcottahs had regimental bearers and servants to cook and care for them, but as these hadn’t been landed with them they had to fend for themselves. Gabriel found that he still wasn’t hungry though he drank some fresh coconut milk — of which there was a plentiful supply — with some relish. Unfortunately, an hour later, this brought on a severe attack of diarrhoea. As a result, as evening approached at the end of his first day on enemy soil, Gabriel was feeling weak and rather seedy as well as damp and dirty. He did, however, manage to have a shave before he went back to the red house to inquire if there had been any further news for ‘A’ company.

“My Christ! Are you all right?” Bilderbeck asked him. “You look dreadful.”

“Tummy upset,” Gabriel confessed. “But listen, what happened today?”

“A bloody shambles, that’s what,” Bilderbeck said fiercely. “A bloody shambles.”

“What have you got there? If you don’t mind my asking,” Gabriel said. Bilderbeck was standing halfway down the stairs that led to the upper floor of the red house. His arms were full of what looked, to Gabriel, like ladies’ underclothes.

“Ladies’ underclothes,” Bilderbeck said. “Courtesy of our absent hostess. They’re going to provide me with a soft bed tonight. You won’t believe this,” he glanced right and left to make sure he wasn’t overheard, “but I’ve lost my pillow.” He gave a great shout of laughter. Gabriel responded nervously. “Help yourself,” Bilderbeck offered, unloading half his bundle. “No sense in sleeping on the ground.”

Gabriel followed him out to the patch of piebald lawn that was on the landward side of the house and watched him construct a bed of palm fronds and petticoats.

“What happened today?” Gabriel asked again. “It didn’t look as if things went as planned.”

“To put it mildly,” Bilderbeck said, adjusting his makeshift couch with the toe of his boot. “Bloody damn fool Navy, that’s what,” he said. “This idiotic truce business. When the Fox sailed into Tanga harbour yesterday morning to abrogate the thing they gave the Germans twenty-four hours warning of our attack. Just enough time for von Lettow-Vorbeck to get his troops down from Moshi by rail.”

“So Tanga was deserted.”

“It was.”

“And now it’s well defended.”

“Getting stronger by the hour.” Bilderbeck’s face was lit up for an instant by a seraphic smile. He dug his tobacco pouch out of his pocket and offered it to Gabriel.

“Pipe?” he said.

“No thanks.” Gabriel took out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette while Bilderbeck got his pipe going.

“We’ll be attacking tomorrow, then,” Gabriel said, aware of a slight hollow feeling in his chest. “Are the North Lancs ashore?”

“Oh yes. They’ll be on the left.”

“Good,” Gabriel said. He felt that a battalion of British troops would make all the difference.

“But what about the right?” Bilderbeck asked, voicing Gabriel’s fears. “Who in God’s name will be on the right? A crowd of bloody catch-me-quicks, that’s who.”

6: 3 November 1914, Tanga, German East Africa

The next morning, the bald staff captain sauntered over and told Gabriel that his company was to be attached to the 13th Rajputs in the centre of the attack on Tanga. Gabriel formed his men up and checked their equipment. He asked subadar Rahman to do his best to instil some fighting spirit into the listless troop. At approximately ten-thirty they were told where to take up their preliminary position. This was the first time Gabriel had moved away from the red house and he was amazed to see thousands of men standing about in rough columns in the assembly area which was between the white house and the red house.

Dirt tracks led away from the beach-head and disappeared into the coconut groves.

‘A’ company took up their position. Looking back at the white house Gabriel could see the three generals and their aides clustered in a group. Orders were clearly being issued and staff officers were running around checking on the placings of different units.

After standing for an hour in mounting heat, Gabriel’s company and the Rajputs in front of them were ordered to advance three hundred yards into the bush. Gabriel followed the backs of the Rajputs and they left the open ground and moved into the welcome shade of the coconut plantations.

As they marched off Gabriel looked back and saw what looked like an entire battalion of the North Lancs wheeling round behind them to take up position on the Rajputs’ left. The British soldiers were in shirtsleeves and looked very red-faced and sunburnt, but Gabriel found it an immense comfort to see them. His own men still seemed taciturn and nervous. Subadar Rahman’s pep talk had done little good. Gleeson seemed quite jaunty, though, to Gabriel’s surprise. He was whistling quietly to himself through his yellow teeth.

As they moved into the trees and the denser undergrowth that grew between the pale grey trunks Gabriel lost sight of everyone except his own men and the tail-enders of the company in front. Somebody called halt and they all stopped. It was a genuine relief to be in the forest and out of the sun. At the Rajput briefing, which he had attended, their instructions had been to offer support to the Kashmir Rifles (who, Gabriel supposed, were somewhere in the trees up ahead) and capture and secure the jetty and customs sheds on the dockside. Tanga town, so they had been informed, was about two thousand yards ahead of them. Between them and the town were the coconut and rubber plantations, a native cemetery, a ditch and a deep railway cutting. Yesterday’s attack suggested that the far side of the cutting was the enemy’s first line of defence.

Gabriel looked at his wristwatch. Twenty to twelve. The advance was ordered for midday. Over to his right and left he could hear orders being shouted and whistles and bugles blowing as the two brigades were cumbersomely formed up. Announced by a cracking of vegetation, a young staff officer thrashed his way out of a thicket and walked up to Gabriel. His tunic was covered in sweat and dust. He consulted a small notebook.

“Are you the 101^st Grenadiers?” he asked.

Gabriel said no and told him who they were. The man looked at his notebook again.

“Lord,” he muttered. Then, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the North Lancs?”

Gabriel said he thought they were somewhere to his left. The Rajputs were ahead and, as far as he knew, the Kashmir Rifles were in the vanguard.

“Oh good,” the staff officer said. “That seems about right.”

“Have you any idea where the Palamcottahs are?” Gabriel asked.

“Beyond the North Lancs, I think,” he said without much confidence. “By the way, could you form up in line rather than column? We’ve decided to advance in line.” He plunged off into the bush as Gabriel and Gleeson effortfully ushered their hot and bothered men into line abreast.

At ten past twelve the bugles sounded the advance. Gabriel waved his men forward and almost immediately the line began to undulate and break up as the men encountered denser vegetation and had to skirt impenetrable thorn thickets and clumps of bamboo. Gabriel and Gleeson, in the centre, found a rough path which took them in the right direction but this soon petered out. After a strenuous half hour they broke into the clearer ground of a rubber plantation. Up ahead Gabriel could just make out the disappearing backs of the Rajputs. “Come on,” he shouted to his men. “Faster.” A perspiring native runner panted up and handed him a note. It was from a captain in the North Lancs who said a gap was opening between them and the Rajputs and he would be obliged if the Rajputs could wheel slightly to the left. Gabriel sent the runner ahead to the Rajput columns and wondered if he and his men should alter course too. He looked about him as they made faster progress through the rubber trees. He couldn’t even see either wing of his own company. He sent Gleeson off to check it was all in order. He realized he was striding along as if he were on a country hike instead of marching into battle. A little self-consciously he unholstered his revolver and held it at the ready.

After the rubber plantation came more thick forest with high grass, creepers and bushes at ground level and their progress slowed again. Gabriel tried to visualize the advance as if from a bird’s-eye view — three thousand men moving on Tanga — but found it impossible. By now he was dripping with sweat. His leggings and trousers were thick with dust and torn from the many thorn hearing plants he’d had to push his way through. He took off his sun helmet and wiped his forehead with a palm. His hair was wet through: as if he’d just plunged it in a basin of warm salty water.

The thought of a basin of water, even warm and salty, reminded him that he was extremely thirsty. He was about to call for a water-chaggal when he realized the company didn’t have any, as the water-carriers had not been landed with them. He looked at his watch. Two o’clock. They’d been struggling through the bush for nearly two hours. He had no idea how far away they were from Tanga. It struck him that ordering the attack during the hottest time of the day wasn’t the brightest of ideas. Gleeson came up to report that the company was maintaining some sort of order. Five men had collapsed from heat exhaustion and he’d sent them back. He saw Gabriel had his revolver in his hand and took out his own.

“Think it’ll go off all right?” he asked with a nervous smile. “The attack, I mean, not my gun.”

Gabriel realized that Gleeson, like himself, had never seen active service. This was their first fight. He was pleased to note in himself no sensations of fear. He glanced at the men on either side of him. They looked tense, but that was scarcely surprising. They held their rifles loosely across their chests, the fixed bayonets flashing in the odd beam of sun that came through the canopy of leaves.

Suddenly they heard the sound of firing from up ahead and a confused shouting and cheering broke out. At this point Gabriel’s company was forcing its way through particularly dense bush and no view of what was going on could be gained.

He could hear sniggering bursts of fire from machine guns, more regular and controlled than the indiscriminate popping sound of the rifles.

“Over here,” Gleeson shouted. “There’s a sort of track.”

“This way,” Gabriel called to the native officers. He waded through thick grass to the track. As he stepped on to it he heard a crashing and trampling noise, the sound of men running. Suddenly, round the corner came a great mob of Indian soldiers, dozens it seemed, running at full speed away from the firing. Gabriel spun round. All at once, everywhere, he could make out figures struggling to escape through the under-growth, darting beneath the trees, flashing through the clearings of sunlight and dappled patches of shade. To his horror he saw some of his own men join the stampede, pausing only to ding away their rifles.

He crouched down behind a tree and aimed his revolver up the track expecting a charge of German askaris to be hard on the fleeing men’s heels. The firing up ahead continued with the same intensity but there seemed to be no pursuit. He stood up. He and Gleeson exchanged mystified glances. What was going on? They gathered the remaining men together and advanced on up the track. Soon the trees began to thin. The track ended at a large field of fully-grown maize which looked as if it had been smashed and trampled on by a giant pair of feet. Here they saw their first dead bodies, which set up a chatter of alarm amongst ‘A’ company’s remaining sepoys.

Enough of the maize stalks were still standing to obscure their view. Gabriel looked to his right. The Kashmir Rifles should be there. On the left were the Loyal North Lancs. Where were the Rajputs? Surely they couldn’t all have run away? He wondered if they’d wandered off course in the coconut plantations. But what lay beyond the maize field? Gabriel waved his men down into a crouch and got out his map. It made no sense at all. He looked aimlessly about him, trying not to let his gaze rest on the numerous dead bodies. Firing was continuing to his right and left but all seemed quiet up ahead.

Gleeson crawled up behind him. “Runner from head-quarters,” he said. Gabriel thought Gleeson didn’t look very well. The runner handed over the note. It was from Brigadier-General Wapshore. It said, “Your men should bring their left shoulders up and march towards this point so as to envelop the enemy’s right.” What point? Gabriel asked himself. He raised his left shoulder experimentally but it seemed no clearer. He turned the note over and saw a crude map with a bold arrow on it. There was no addressee. Surely the note couldn’t be meant for him? He turned round to question the runner but found that the man had gone.

There was nothing for it but to advance. Waving the men forward, Gabriel, followed by ‘A’ company, moved cautiously through the maize field. It seemed to be well provided with a harvest of corpses and the thought crossed Gabriel’s mind that machine guns must have been previously sighted and fixed on this point. At the edge of the field he fell flat on his belly and peered out at the view ahead. The land was clear: dried grass dotted with a few acacia trees and completely flat. Fifty yards ahead he could see the ditch, fringed with greener grass and straggling bushes, and beyond that the railway cutting. To his right was a slight rise and he saw some British troops there, and a machine-gun section firing short bursts in the direction of the town. Beyond the railway cutting the neat white buildings of the town were visible between trees. He could see the sea, away to the right, and two of the transports standing offshore. His view to the left was obscured by a plantation of young rubber trees. But a great deal of firing was coming from that direction. The North Lancs, he guessed, in the thick of things.

“What do you think?” he said to Gleeson who’d snaked up to join him.

“The Rajputs seem to have cleared out completely,” Gleeson said. “Bad show.”

“Yes,” Gabriel agreed. He wondered what they should do. “I suppose we should press on into the town. They must have fired on the Rajputs. Why aren’t they firing on us?”

“Good question,” said Gleeson with a shaky smile.

“Let’s go,” Gabriel said and stood up. He gave a long single blast on his whistle. “Come on!” he shouted to his men.

He set off running in a half crouch towards the ditch, not making the best of progress through the knee-high grass. He dodged round a spindly acacia tree. He thought he saw puffs of smoke beyond the railway cutting. He was being shot at! Suddenly to his utter astonishment the air was ‘thick with bullets’. Unconsciously the expression leapt into his mind. It was a cliché, he was aware, but he never expected it to be literally true: black dots and specks, whizzing erratically through the air. He felt a sudden burning pain in his neck. He was hit! Oh God, he thought, not in the neck. He stumbled, but ran on, clapping a hand to his wound to staunch the blood, bullets buzzing and darting past. But wait, he thought, they weren’t bullets, they were bees! He stopped and turned round. His men were leaping about or writhing on the ground like epileptics as the swarming myriads of bees attacked. He saw Gleeson frantically swatting the air with his sun helmet. The atmosphere shimmered and danced with the irate black objects. With dismay he saw the demoralized remnants of his troops pick themselves up and run hell for leather back to the maize field. Gabriel inflated his lungs and blew the longest shrillest blasts he could on his whistle, in an attempt to check the rout, but they were gone, pursued by the furious bees.

“My God,” Gleeson whimpered as he staggered over. “I’ve been practically stung to death!” The backs of his hands looked lumpy and swollen, his cheeks and neck seemed thickened with incipient carbuncles making him look stupid and loutish. “Look,” Gleeson pointed up. In the acacia tree Gabriel saw what looked like several slim elongated barrels. A few bees still hovered around them. “Bloody native beehives,” Gleeson wept, holding his puffy hands in front of him like a lap dog. They were swelling up at an alarming rate.

Gabriel suddenly realized they were standing in what was meant to be the middle of a battlefield. He looked over to the mound and saw the troops who had been manning the machine gun wildly striking out as if they had been attacked by invisible assailants. Across the railway cutting he could just make out a few German askaris fleeing for shelter in the railway workshops. He looked back at Gleeson who was whimpering in agony over his ravaged hands which now resembled a pair of well-padded cricket gloves. Then little clouds of dust began to kick up out of the grass.

“Come on, Gleeson,” Gabriel said. “Into the ditch.” They rushed the remaining few yards and leapt into the ditch, which was about four feet deep. Gabriel sank up to his ankles into the brackish slimy water which lay in its bottom. With a moan of relief Gleeson plunged his boiling hands deep into the mud. “Put mud on my neck!” he cried, and Gabriel slapped handfuls of the foul-smelling stuff on his cheeks and neck. His own sting was throbbing painfully but he seemed to have escaped lightly.

While Gleeson soothed his hands Gabriel inched up the wall of the ditch and peered back to the maize field. Not a sign of his men. He noticed that the machine gun on the mound had started firing again.

“No trace of them,” he said to Gleeson.

“The swine,” Gleeson swore bitterly. “The cowardly swine!”

“Feel you can move on?” Gabriel asked. “Let’s go on down the ditch. We’ll never cross the cutting here.”

Gleeson nodded his assent, his eyes shut, his bottom lip caught between his yellow teeth.

Bent double, they made their way along the ditch in the direction of the sea, stepping gingerly over the few dead bodies they encountered or rolling them out of the way. Gleeson held his mud caked hands in front of him as if he’d just made them out of clay and they were still fragile. Soon they came to a place where bushes and thorn trees lined the parapet of the ditch and Gabriel took the chance to peer out and get their hearings.

Cautiously, he raised his head. From this position he had a better view of the town. He saw a large stone building with steep tiled roofs and the words ‘Deutscher Kaiser Hotel’ written on it. As he watched, the German flag which was flying from the flagpole was lowered.

“We’re in the town, I think,” he called to Gleeson. “What time do you make it?” Somehow, somewhere, he’d lost his watch.

“Almost four, I think,” Gleeson said. “I can’t see my watch face. It’s covered in mud.”

Gabriel scraped it off. Gleeson’s watch had stopped at ten past three. “I’m afraid your watch has stopped,” he said.

Gabriel looked to his left. He saw white troops moving beyond the railway cutting, dashing from house to house. “The North Lancs are across the cutting,” he reported. Gleeson elbowed himself up to join him.

“What should we do?” Gleeson said. He held his enormous hands before his face, like some grotesque surgeon waiting for his rubber gloves.

“Let’s go on in,” Gabriel said. He couldn’t think of anything else.

“Right.”

They scurried across the patch of ground to the railway cutting and slithered down one side, then stepped across the rails and toiled up the opposite thirty-foot incline, Gabriel with an arm locked in Gleeson’s elbow. Once at the top they ran on through some vegetable plots and fell to the ground heavily in the shelter of a mud-brick house.

“Hoi!” they heard someone shout. “You!” They looked up.

Crouched behind a stone wall up ahead were half a dozen men of the North Lancs.

“You speak Indian?” a corporal was shouting in a thick Lancashire accent. Gabriel and Gleeson crawled over to join them.

“Oh. Sorry, sir. It’s, er, them fooking niggers in t’ Kashmir Rifles. Just down road there. Every time we shows our faces they bloody shoot at us.”

“I speak Hindi,” Gleeson offered. He looked most odd, Gabriel thought, with half his face covered in mud. Gleeson crawled into a nearby house with the corporal and soon Gabriel heard him shouting instructions. Gabriel peered over the wall. He found he was looking up a pleasant street of single-storey, white mud and stone houses. Dead bodies, with their already familiar indecent splay-legged posture, lay in the middle of the road. He couldn’t tell if they were friend or foe.

“Quite a fight here,” he said.

“Yes, sir. We had the signal to fall back. They got jerries in every bloody house. But those daft monkeys keep shootin’ at us. They’re guarding the bridge back across the cutting. None of them speaks English,” he paused. “What happened to the lieutenant, sir? If you’ll excuse me asking.”

“He was stung by bees. My whole company was attacked and driven off.”

“By bees?”

“Yes, millions of them.”

The man shook his head in admiration. “Squareheads, eh? Amazing. They think of everything.”

Gabriel looked over the wall again. The afternoon sun was low in the sky and strong shadows were being cast across the road. Then he saw figures slipping in and out of the houses, moving down the street towards them: three Europeans and about thirty askaris with bayonets fixed to their rifles.

He saw one of the officers — who seemed unaware of their presence — stand for a moment in front of the gable end of a house. Without thinking further, Gabriel levelled his revolver and fired. He saw a big chunk of plaster fall off the wall behind the officer’s head before the man flung himself into a doorway. In immediate response there was a great fusillade of shots and Gabriel ducked down under cover. He cursed his feeble aim: he had had a splendid target. He found himself trembling with excitement, his heart seemed lodged somewhere in his throat. He heard the whup of bullets passing over his head and the charter of a machine gun. Ricochets hummed and pinged off the stonework.

“We want to get out of here, sir,” one of the North Lancs said. “Don’t want to get caught by them jerry niggers.” All the men kept their heads well down.

The corporal scuttled out of the house. “It’s clear now, sir. We can go.”

“Hold on,” Gabriel said. “Where’s Lieutenant Gleeson?”

“He’s been hit, sir. Got him with that last volley.”

“Wait here,” Gabriel ordered and darted into the house. He peered into a couple of rooms. He saw a brass bedstead, cheap wooden furniture. In an end room he found Gleeson lying face down beneath the window from where he’d been shouting to the Kashmir Rifles. The wall behind was pitted with bullet holes. Gabriel was suddenly appalled by the thought that he might have been responsible. If he hadn’t shot at that German…Keeping his head down Gabriel carefully turned Gleeson over and almost collapsed in a faint. One or several bullets had removed Gleeson’s lower jawbone in its entirety, but somehow his tongue had been untouched. It now lolled, uncontained, at his throat like a thick fleshy cravat, pink and purple. Gleeson’s upper lip was drawn back revealing his top row of yellow teeth, his fair moustache was spattered with dried mud and blood. What was most horrifying was the way his eyes boggled and rolled, and his tongue twitched feebly at his neck. With a little moan Gabriel realized Gleeson was still alive, blood welling and pumping gently from the back of his throat. It was extraordinary, Gabriel thought in a daze, how large the human tongue actually was, when its entire length was revealed. He crawled out of the room on his hands and knees and was sick in the passageway. Poor Gleeson, he thought, poor old Gleeson.

After a few moments, Gabriel got to his feet and went back to the side door. There was no sign of the North Lancs. They had all gone without waiting for him. He wondered where the Germans were. He went back inside to the end room, trying not to look at Gleeson. Gabriel lowered himself out of the window. He crossed the back yard and eased himself through the garden hedge. An immense noise of gunfire was coming from the direction of the wharves, but as far as he could see he was alone again. He ran across a dirt road and slid down into the railway cutting. Here and there lay the bodies of sepoys, not all of them dead, as he could hear moans and cries coming from some of them.

He scrabbled up the opposite side. He saw tree-dotted scrub between him and the safety of the forest and the coconut plantations. Head down, he ran across the two hundred yard stretch of clearer ground at full speed, leaping undulations and bushes and the large numbers of dead and dying scattered about. Almost idly he noted how a dead body seems part of the ground, as if the earth were in a hurry to claim it…He told himself he was in shock, poor Gleeson’s horrible injury had unsettled him. He would calm down in the forest, gather his strength and then go back and try to help him. Try to carry him to a casualty clearing station.

He fought his way through the first welcoming thickets, broke through into an open space, tripped and went sprawling. He found a depression in the ground and crawled into it. He lay back, an arm over his eyes, his chest heaving as he struggled to get his breath.

He sat up with a start. He couldn’t believe it, but he seemed to have fallen asleep for a few seconds. He had a pounding vicious headache. His mouth tasted foul with dried saliva. His throat was parched. Still the relentless popping of gunfire came from the direction of the town. He put his head in his hands, suddenly overcome with weariness and the emotions rampaging through his body. He pulled his knees towards him and rested his head on them. He rubbed his forehead on his kneecaps.

He unholstered his revolver. His hands looked like a stranger’s. Black with dirt, scratched, a badly bleeding knuckle (how had that happened?). They felt thick with blisters and callouses. He heard the booming reports of naval guns, and decided to try and make his way in that general direction. Most of the fighting seemed to be coming from the seaward edge of the town. He set off. After some time he came to one of the many rough tracks that lead east to west along the headland from Ras Kasone to Tanga. He debated for an instant whether to return to the beach or go back towards the town. With some reluctance he turned towards Tanga. He hadn’t gone more than twenty yards when he met Bilderbeck running down the path towards him.

“Cobb!” Bilderbeck shouted, “Just the man!” It was as if he and Bilderbeck had met on the steps of his club. Bilderbeck grabbed him by the arm. “This way,” he said and led him a little distance off the track. There, in the shelter of an earth bank were seven Rajput sepoys cowering together.

“Tell them to get up,” Bilderbeck said. “Tell them to take up firing positions up the road.”

“I’m afraid I don’t speak the language,” Gabriel said apologetically.

“What? Oh never mind.” Bilderbeck strode forward and started roughly pulling the sepoys to their feet, yelling “Get up!” and pushing them in the direction of the town and the firing. Two reluctantly obeyed, picking up their rifles and slouching dispiritedly off. The others crouched where they were, wailing and moaning softly. Bilderbeck drew his revolver and threatened them. Then he fired into the bank and there was a flurry of movement as the men leapt panic-stricken to their feet, milling around confusedly in evident terror at this mad Englishman with a gun.

But one man had not moved. He sat in a hunched squatting posture, one arm raised vaguely in protection, muttering distractedly to himself.

“Get up, you filthy coward!” Gabriel heard Bilderbeck roar. But the man wasn’t hearing anything. He was gibbering like a lunatic, high and piping, a loop of saliva hanging from his chin.

“I warn you,” Bilderbeck said. Gabriel couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Bilderbeck levelled his revolver at the sepoy’s head. The gun was only six inches from his head.

“I am ordering you,” Bilderbeck said in an eerily reasonable voice, “to get to your feet and take up a firing position at the end of the road.”

The man stared bleakly at the gun.

“Right,” Bilderbeck said angrily and fired. Gabriel flinched uncontrollably at the noise.

The bullet hit the sepoy just in front of his left ear. The man’s head jerked sharply to one side and he slumped back as if in a deep swoon. There was a delicate spattering sound as bits of expressed brain hit the leaves of the bushes behind the man. Immediately the other sepoys rushed up the track with cries of fear, Bilderbeck running behind them waving his revolver and shouting.

Gabriel looked down. On the toe of his boot was a greyish pink blob, like a wet, peeled shrimp. With a shudder he wiped it off on the earth and ran after Bilderbeck.

Soon they arrived at a semblance of a front line on the more open ground by the sea. Groups of men crouched behind trees and rocks, two machine guns covering a dirt road.

Bilderbeck seemed quite unmoved by his summary execution. He told Gabriel it was his third that day. Gabriel felt his body tingling and trembling, as if any moment he might drop from accumulated shock and exhaustion.

They took up a position behind a jumble of rocks and watched a company of North Lancs drawing back in reasonable order from the customs house and the sheds around the jetty which were just visible. Peering forward Gabriel could just make out German askaris darting across gaps in the alleyway to re-occupy the abandoned buildings. Ragged covering fire broke out from the British lines and one of the Maxims stuttered into life.

“Bloody day,” Bilderbeck said gloomily. “Everybody ran for it. You should see the beaches. Mass panic. People swimming out to the lighters. Disgusting!” He gave Gabriel a fierce smile. “Where are your men?”

Gabriel explained about the bee attack and most of the bizarre and erratic course his day had taken. “What’s going on?” he asked, trying not to think about Gleeson.

“Well, we’ve been well and truly cut to pieces on the left. Fifty per cent casualties in the 101^st Grenadiers. The line’s in tatters, thanks to all the bloody cowards who ran away.” He went on. The town had been far more heavily fortified and defended than anyone had expected. Every building was like a blockhouse. With no organization, with huge gaps in the attack, with the left wing being pushed further and further back, the few gains made in the town had to be yielded.

“It’s all gone wrong,” Bilderbeck said, as if it were a personal insult. “Even our general’s got no spunk for a fight.”

Gabriel felt suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to sleep. “I suppose I should try and get back to my men,” he said vaguely.

“They’ll be on the beach by now,” Bilderbeck sneered. He took out his map from his pocket and smoothed it on the ground. Gabriel thought maps should be banned. They gave the world an order and reasonableness which it didn’t possess. “Coconut groves,” it said in large letters. The phrase sounded pleasant, restful. It gave no indication of the tangled choking undergrowth they had clawed their way through at noon.

Bilderbeck’s finger traced a crescent on the map from the native graveyard up to the ditch then back to the coast. “We’re here now.” Bilderbeck tapped a point ahead of a building marked hospital. “The hospital’s just back there, overlooking the sea. You might find some of your men on the left of the line by the cemetery. There’s a mixed lot of North Lancs and Grenadiers around there. Go back down the road and take the first track on the right that’s marked with a red and white stake. It’ll take you along to the cemetery.”

He and Gabriel crawled away from the front line until they had lost sight of the town. Then they stood up.

“I’d better get back to headquarters,” Bilderbeck said looking glum. “See you later, Cobb.” He went behind a large tree and emerged with a bicycle, which he mounted and rode off down the track.

Gabriel walked slowly down the road behind him, which was now filled with troops making their unauthorized way back to the beach and the morning’s assembly point. As he cycled past each group Bilderbeck delivered a volley of insults and abuse but the dishevelled and exhausted men ignored him completely.

Presently Gabriel came to a track branching off to the right which was marked by a red and white striped pole. The staff officers at least were doing their job. He walked along a narrowing path, half-heartedly brushing creepers from his face. The sun was sinking lower in the sky and there was an orange-ish light hitting the top of the trees. The incessant noise of firing grew louder as he approached the left wing of the British lines but he scarcely gave it any thought. It seemed as much part of the natural landscape now as the chirping of crickets or the calls of the birds.

Soon he came to the graveyard, no more than a large part of cleared ground with a few graves dotted about it, most of them plain cement plinths or crosses, but with the occasional more elaborate Moorish headstone.

He saw an outpost of the British line in the far corner and began to pick his way towards it. Nothing today had been remotely how he had imagined it would be; nothing in his education or training had prepared him for the utter randomness and total contingency of events. Here he was, strolling about the battlefield looking for his missing company like a mother searching for lost children in the park.

He looked up. The outpost was composed of native troops in khaki uniforms and tarbooshes. They seemed to be bent over some wounded men. King’s African Rifles, Gabriel thought; they were the only African troops in the British army. Then he realized there had been no KAR in the expeditionary force.

At once, instinctively, he turned on his heel and started to run, a ghastly leaping fear in his heart. He heard shouts come from behind. He started to run like a sprinter, as he’d been taught at school, arms pounding and pulling at the air, lifting the knees high. He thumped heavily across the uneven ground, throwing his sun helmet off his head. Faster, he told himself, faster, get to the forest, just get back to the forest. He shut his ears to the pursuit, the drumming of feet behind him. “Don’t want to get caught by those jerry niggers,” the North Lancs soldier had said. So: faster, faster.

They caught up with him about twenty yards from the shelter of the trees. They even ran alongside him for a pace or two, far speedier than him in their bare feet, even when encumbered by their rifles and bayonets.

Gabriel ran on regardless, it was all he could do. Then he felt the first bayonet slice into his leg, a slashing, tearing stroke that severed the big rectus femoris muscle in the middle of his thigh. He crashed to the ground, squirming and rolling over and over to avoid the pronging, skewering blades. They missed once or twice but they eventually got him. He saw the bayonet coming as he spun round. Watched it spear through his tunic. Felt an icy coldness which wasn’t really painful travel the length of his coiled intestines. He saw the blade withdraw, with a squirt of his own dark blood, looked up in horrified disbelief as another man stepped into place for his turn, felt his mouth full with hot, salty blood. He wriggled desperately in an attempt to get out of the way, saw the second blade slice in just above his hip bone, glancing inward off the pelvis, feeling the rasp and judder of the point on the bone. He thought he heard faint cries of ‘Halt’ And that was all.

7: 6 November 1914, Tanga, German East Africa

“The North Lancs put up a good fight. So did some of the Kashmir Rifles,” von Bishop heard Hammerstein say to the English officer Bilderbeck. Hammerstein was von Lettow’s chief of staff. They were all riding on mules towards Ras Kasone, two days after the battle. Hammerstein spoke just as they were passing a burial party heaving British corpses onto a wagon. It seemed, von Bishop thought, a tactless thing to say. But Bilderbeck appeared not in the least put out.

“Thank goodness,” he said. “At least someone did.” He gave a cackle of laughter. Hammerstein exchanged a covert glance with von Bishop.

It was half past nine in the morning. The day was growing hot and humid. Bilderbeck was the officer sent by the British to supervise the removal of the wounded and to hand over the large quantities of abandoned stores. Von Bishop rode a few paces behind him and Hammerstein who were chatting away about the war like old friends. Hammerstein’s English, he had to admit, was really of quite a high Standard.

Von Bishop took off his peaked cap and shook his head. On the afternoon of the fourth, shortly after the Schütztruppe had driven the British out of Tanga, the battleship Fox had bombarded the town for half an hour, doing great damage. Von Bishop had been knocked senseless for a few minutes when a six-inch shell exploded nearby. He had suffered only mild concussion but it had left him with a high-pitched singing sound in his ears, soft but persistent, and it refused to go away. This morning he had bent down, placed his hands on his knees and had shaken his head to and fro so severely that he had fallen over from the effort. But still it remained: a quiet eeeeeeeee going on in the background.

He looked at the thick undergrowth in the coconut groves on either side of the road and thought it little wonder that the British had taken so long to attack. He himself had arrived by rail from Moshi shortly after noon on the fourth and had ordered his company of askaris into the attack on the British left flank against the Indian troops of the 101^st Grenadiers. It had been exhilarating to see the machine guns cut down the advancing troops and then to follow in with the charge. That exhilaration had been sustained throughout the day as the British had been routed, until the unfortunate incident with the exploding shell. Now all he could think about was this noise in his ear. Eeeeeeeee. It was driving him mad.

Soon they emerged from the coconut groves and into the trampled open spaces above the beaches. The British fleet lay at anchor about a quarter of a mile offshore, tugboats, launches and lighters plying to and fro between the transports. The red house had been converted into a hospital and was full of British wounded. They were to be evacuated to the fleet under conditions of parole, namely that none of them would serve again for the duration of the war.

Von Bishop let Hammerstein and Bilderbeck go into the red house to administer the parole. He left the mules with the askari guard and walked over to the headland to get a better view of the English ships. There was a pleasant breeze blowing off the sea and he allowed himself to experience the complacent satisfactions of a victor as he surveyed the vast piles of abandoned stores stacked among the mangroves on the beach. Sixteen machine guns, someone had said, half a million rounds of ammunition — even new motorbikes — all left behind by the British when they hastily re-embarked yesterday morning.

However, von Bishop was extremely surprised to see a British officer — clipboard in hand — emerge from behind a pile of packing cases. Hurriedly von Bishop ran down to the beach. The man, who was a major, looked up casually as he approached.

“Hello there,” the major said.

“Who the hell are you?” von Bishop said excitedly. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

The major, an elderly man, was very neatly dressed in gleaming Sam Browne and riding boots. He had curious sagging, fleshy cheeks which trembled when he spoke.

“The name’s Dobbs,” he said, a little nervously now, as if he sensed he shouldn’t be where he was. “Quartermaster General, Expeditionary Force. I’m making an inventory of all these stores we’re handing over. For my records,” he added plaintively. “I’ve got to make a report, you see.”

“But this is ridiculous!” von Bishop said, waving his arms about. “Stay here!” He ran back to the red house, past the long lines of stretcher cases that were now being taken down to lighters on the beach. Von Bishop reported the matter to Bilderbeck, who rolled his eyes in exasperation and accompanied him back down to the beach.

“Quite extraordinary,” von Bishop explained to Hammerstein who’d strolled down to join them. “The man was just walking around, calmly making notes.”

Bilderbeck apologized to Hammerstein and ordered Dobbs to get off the beach and back to the fleet at once.

Hammerstein shook his finger at the very red-faced Dobbs. “No flag of truce,” he chided. “By rights you should be taken prisoner.” Dobbs hung his head and meekly went to board one of the lighters.

Hammerstein took out some cheroots and passed them around. They stood smoking on the beach watching the wounded being loaded on board the lighters. This job was nearly complete when Hammerstein spotted two lifeboats full of men rowing into shore from one of the transports. The boats grounded a little way down the beach and the men on board took off their clothes and jumped into the shallows and began to swim and splash about in the surf. Some of them had cakes of soap and began to wash themselves.

“Look, I’m dreadfully sorry,” Bilderbeck said. “I don’t know what they think they’re playing at.” He ran down to the boats. “Who’s in charge here?” he called angrily.

A very white naked man sloshed out of the water and saluted. “Sergeant Althorpe, sir. Loyal North Lancs. Ablutions detail, sir.”

Hammerstein and von Bishop joined the group. “I really must protest, Bilderbeck,” Hammerstein said suavely, flicking his cheroot stub into the sea. “If they don’t go back at once I shall have to order my men to open fire. Really, you know, this is a war. It’s not some kind of sporting event.”

Bilderbeck, looking — von Bishop thought — extremely ashamed, ordered the men back to the transports. The naked men complied, but with extreme reluctance. There was much resentful muttering, and, as the two lifeboats pulled away from the shore, von Bishop heard foul insults being shouted at them.

Once the last of the wounded men had been taken offshore, Hammerstein invited Bilderbeck for breakfast at the German hospital. They rode back through the hot and steamy forest to the large white building of the hospital. The fighting had raged around this building during the battle on the fourth and for most of the day it had been behind British lines, tending wounded from both sides. The imposing stone building was set in its own beautifully laid-out park of gravel pathways and low clipped hedges. Wooden benches were set in the shade cast by two huge baobab trees.

On the ground floor was a wide verandah where a long linen-covered table was laid and where they all enjoyed breakfast in the company of Dr Deppe, the senior physician, and some other Schütztruppe officers. They had iced beer, eggs, cream and asparagus, and talked amicably about the previous days’ battles trying to work out if Bilderbeck had been opposite any of them during the fighting. Von Bishop remained silent; he wasn’t entirely sure if he approved of this sort of fraternization. After all, wasn’t it exactly the sort of thing Hammerstein was criticizing on the beach? Von Bishop had his reservations about Hammerstein too, even more so when he saw him exchanging addresses with Bilderbeck, promising to get in touch after the war.

Hammerstein eventually took his leave and asked von Bishop to see Bilderbeck to his boat (moored by the shore just below the hospital) when he was ready. Von Bishop didn’t hear at first as he had his little fingers thrust down both ear-holes in an attempt to alter the pressure in his inner ear. A whispered consultation with Dr Deppe had produced this as a possible diagnosis of the irritating whine.

Bilderbeck, however, didn’t want to leave before seeing those British officers and soldiers in the hospital who were too seriously wounded to be moved.

“Come up to the wards,” Deppe invited. “You too, Captain von Bishop. I can have a look in your ear.”

“What’s wrong with your ear?” Bilderbeck inquired, with a wide smile.

“I’ve got a whine. Eeeeeeeee. You know, going on all the time in my ears.” He found the man’s mannerisms most strange. It was nothing to smile about.

“Pour some oil down them,” Bilderbeck advised, now narrowing his eyes suspiciously, as if he suspected von Bishop of malingering.

They arrived at the ward. It was on the first floor, very high-ceilinged with large French windows giving on to a generous balcony. Everyone in the beds was lying ominously still. Many bandaged limbs were in evidence and nobody spoke except in whispers.

Deppe handed Bilderbeck a list of names which Bilderbeck began to copy down.

“Let me look in your ears,” Deppe said to von Bishop and shoved the cold snout of an ophthalmoscope into the nearest moaning orifice. Von Bishop winced.

“Ah,” said Deppe. “Um. Ah-ha. Yes, I can see nothing.”

Bilderbeck interrupted. “Captain Cobb,” he said to Dr Deppe, pointing to a name on the list. “How is he?”

Deppe looked at the list. “Captain Cobb. Oh, yes. Very bad. Two bayonet wounds in the lower abdomen. And a severely injured leg. In that bed over there.”

Deppe inserted his instrument in the other ear. Out of the corner of his eye von Bishop watched Bilderbeck go over to a bed and speak to the injured man lying in it.

“See anything?” von Bishop asked Deppe, who was now making clicking noises with his longue.

“Your ears are full of wax,” Deppe said. “I can’t see anything. Come back tomorrow and I’ll clean them out. Maybe I can get a better view.”

Von Bishop walked with Bilderbeck down to the small launch that was moored at the jetty below the hospital. Four very bored naval ratings were sitting in the stern smoking, oblivious of the two German askaris that stood guard over them.

“Goodbye,” Bilderbeck said, and shook hands. He grinned.

“Goodbye,” said von Bishop, annoyed to find that he’d smiled back. He watched the launch pull away. He tugged at his right ear lobe. That fool Deppe’s probing seemed to have made the whine go up a tone or two. He had no intention of allowing the man to clean out his ears. He would ask Liesl to have a look; after all, he thought, she used to be a nurse, she might as well put her training to some use.

He walked thoughtfully back to Tanga thinking of his wife. The trip to Europe had been a great mistake. She had changed utterly, in almost every respect, and, what was worse, she seemed to be in a permanent bad mood. She was getting so fat, too. All she wanted to do was eat. As he had boarded the train in Moshi, rally armed, off to repel an enemy invasion, she had kissed him briefly good-bye and made him promise to buy her some Turkish Delight in Tanga.

“Tanga!” He had forced a laugh, extremely irritated. “It may be a smoking ruin for all we know. And you want me to buy you sweets.”

“Promise,” she said. “Try to get some.”

He had eyed her broadening figure, the well-padded shoulders, the horizontal creases in her neck, the freckled creaminess of her cheeks. He found it almost impossible to imagine her as she had been before: tall and lean from the hard work they put in on the farm.

“Don’t you think you had…?” he began, then thought better of it. “As you wish, my dear,” he said.

Now he shrugged his shoulders in resignation as he strolled through the mined town, kicking at a stone, trying to ignore the noise in his head. Where would he get Turkish Delight in Tanga?

8: 16 March 1915, Oxford, England

The first thing Felix remembered when he woke up was that he’d failed Pass Moderations in History. He turned over in his narrow bed and looked at the gap of sky he could see between his badly drawn curtains. Dark. And the pattering on the window told him that Oxford was experiencing its fifth day of continuous rain. He turned on his side and looked up at his de Reske poster, which he’d framed and now hung on the wall in his bedder.

“Morning, darling,” he said as he had done on waking each day of his two terms at Oxford. Holland didn’t approve of the de Reske poster. Well, that was one thing he was not going to abandon for Holland.

“Morning, darling,” he said again, stretching. “Tipping down as usual.”

“Morning, sir,” came an unexpected reply from his sitter, the sitting room that made up his quarters in college. The voice was loud and possessed of a rich Oxfordshire burr. It belonged to Sproat, his scout. Felix heard the rattle of cutlery as Sproat laid out his breakfast on the table. He heard the sitting room door open and there was a dull watery clang as his tin bath, containing two inches of water and lugged up three flights of stairs by Sproat’s boy Algy, was set down.

“Get that foyr lit, Algy,” Felix heard Sproat say, then louder “Foyr blazin’ in a minute or two, sir. Eight o’clock now. First chapel at half past the hour. If you’ve a mind, that is.”

“Thank you, Sproat,” Felix shouted. He and Sproat hated each other, a feeling no less intense on Sproat’s side than Felix’s. What he couldn’t understand was the way Sproat contrived to see as much of him as possible. He had a whole staircase of rooms to attend to but somehow he seemed to organize his rota so as to spend most of his time with Felix.

Felix got out of bed, put on his slippers and pulled on his dressing gown. He went over to the window. It was still dark, the rising sun making little impact on the thick, pewtery clouds. His bedder window looked onto the kitchen of a neighbouring college. He saw a kitchen skivvy dash out and empty a pail of slops into a dustbin. Felix drew the curtains closed. Time to face Sproat. He went into his sitter.

“Morning, sir,” said Sproat again, smiling broadly. His servility was his most effective goad. He was a thin, balding man with wispy gingery hair. He had very large teeth, like a horse’s, with prodigious gaps. These were now on display between parted lips. From some reason the sight of Sproat’s teeth each morning removed Felix’s appetite for breakfast. He looked out of the sitter window at the sodden college quad. He saw a dressing-gowned figure holding an umbrella dash across from a stairway entrance towards the college lavatories.

“Morning,” Felix said. “Morning Algy,” he added automatically. Algy was crouched in front of the recently made-up fire, holding a sheet of newspaper over the chimney in an attempt to get the fire to take. He was reputed to be Sproat’s son, a spindly taciturn lad of about twelve years old with a permanent cold. He never spoke in Felix’s hearing, and Felix suspected that Algy had sent him to Coventry. The boy had only uttered one question in Felix’s two terms. One morning he’d said, in Sproat’s absence, “Woi in’t you fightig, zur?” and received a cuff about the ears for his insolence. On the chimney-piece Felix had a small vase, pointedly displaying the five white feathers the good ladies of Oxford had seen fit to present him with over the weeks. Holland had only been handed two and professed himself extremely jealous.

Sproat, however, had no such qualms about conversing. “Doesn’t seem much better this morning, sir,” he said.

Felix glanced out of the window. “Typical March weather,” he said.

“Oh no. I wasn’t talking about the weather, sir. I was meaning your sore, sir.”

Felix’s hand leapt up to the corner of his mouth. He winced. He had a large cold sore on his bottom lip, about the size of a sixpence. It had started off on the bottom left hand corner of his lower lip. An itch, then a blister, then a crop of blisters that soon spread onto the skin below. These had burst, crusted and formed a scab which never seemed to heal. He’d had it for over two months. It had sprang up within days of the news of Gabriel’s capture. No matter how dutifully he applied lotions and ointments and resisted the urge to pick at it, it refused to disappear.

“Seems to ‘ve had some kind of suppurations in the night,” Sproat observed, rising on his toes and leaning forward to get a closer look. “Some sort of transparent oozings, I would say.”

“Would you, Sproat,” Felix said, and went immediately back to his bedder to confirm this diagnosis in his looking glass. Sproat was right. Felix now recalled that he’d spent a troubled, restless night after drinking a great deal of whisky punch in Holland’s rooms.

The dark crust had broken and now gleamed with fissures of fresh blood. The furze of bristles that surrounded it — Felix had to be careful while shaving — made it seem even more of a disfigurement.

“I’ve got a friend who swears by this lotion, sir,” Sproat called through the door. “Says he could get it for me cheap, like. Round about two shillings for a small bot—”

“No thank you, Sproat,” Felix interrupted firmly. The man had persistently cheated him since the day Felix had arrived in Oxford — hence their enmity, though it was now fuelled by every potential disagreement. Sproat had sold him a commoner’s cap and gown, ‘new’ curtains, fire irons, a dozen sporting prints and a kettle within ten minutes of showing a nervous Felix up to his rooms, and all at vastly inflated prices. Furthermore, he claimed to be on especially good terms with certain Oxford tradesmen who would grant Felix a discount if he did all his ordering through Sproat. Felix bought a thousand cigarettes, a case of claret and one of hock, tea, jam, tobacco and half a dozen pipes before he’d grown wise. The ensuing row, bitter accusations and wounded protestations of innocence had soured things irreparably. Felix’s Fabian leanings would not allow him to prosecute Sproat any further but he counted it sufficient punishment to let Sproat — a devout Tory — know that in future he would be supplying himself from the new co-operative stores in the High Street. Sproat, though, had ardently sustained the feud and derived great satisfaction from any discomforts that came Felix’s way — gatings, JCR fines, poor academic performance and the like. The cold sore had been like a gift from the Gods.

“No thank you, Sproat,” Felix repeated as he walked back into the sitter, a false smile on his face. The fire was now lit and burning and a large brown kettle had been placed on the hob to boil up water for his bath and his tea pot. Felix lifted the tin cover from the plate that contained his breakfast and saw two gelid, rapidly cooling poached eggs on a piece of toast.

Sproat removed a copy of the Oxford Magazine from his jacket pocket. Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. Here was another Sproat torment: the ‘butcher’s bill’, as Holland termed it. Pointed reproach directed at Felix in the guise of pious reminiscence.

“Bad weeks, sir,” Sproat said, opening his magazine. “Harold Albert Talbot. Exhibitioner of the college. Nice chap. Quick, thoughtful sort of person. Died of wounds at a place called Neuve Chapelle.” Sproat shook his head sadly. There was nothing Felix could do: to interrupt the college roll of honour would be playing into Sproat’s hands, the ultimate sacrilege. He nodded in commiseration.

Sproat read on. “Noel Muschamp. Dear dear dear. Died in an accident at the aviation school. Fine man, fine man. Staircase six. Lord, here’s another. Thomas Percy Gruby. Rowed in the First Eight in 1904 if I’m not mistaken. Got a fourth in Literae Humaniores…”

Sproat continued. Felix sat and listened and felt the depression settle securely on him. Sproat closed his magazine.

“Well, sir,” he said, not bothering to conceal the note of triumph in his voice. “if that’ll be all?” He left.

Felix opened his coffee jar and found it empty, so contented himself with a pot of tea. He looked distastefully at the two inches of water in the tin hip bath and decided to forgo the dubious pleasures of a wash this morning. He stood at the window with his cup of tea and looked down on the deserted quad. In a normal term of a normal year it would have been full of bustling figures on their way to lectures or off to breakfasts with friends, but owing to the war the college was now half-empty, and even those numbers had been supplemented by men from other colleges which were being used as temporary barracks for various army units of yeomanry and territorials.

Felix sat down in front of his staring poached eggs and blinded one with an aggressive stab of his knife. The wound in the congealed yolk reminded him of his cold sore and he felt the familiar sensations of what he now termed his Oxford mood descend on him.

Oxford had been a terrible disappointment. It wasn’t so much Oxford’s fault, though, as the war’s. By the beginning of the first term two thousand undergraduates had volunteered for service. Felix and Holland — both turned down at the OTC recruiting office: Felix for his weak eyes, Holland for chronic myopia and a bronchitic chest — had arrived to find a university filled only with the very young, old or infirm. Life went on, lectures were taken, exams were sat, but there was no trace of the spirit they expected to find. It was made worse at the turn of the year when a black-out was imposed and all the bells in the clock towers were silenced after dark. Only a few dim red lights glowed at important junctions. If Holland hadn’t been there Felix was sure that he would have re-volunteered out of a sense of sheer self-pity and disillusionment.

Holland was disappointed with Oxford too, but it didn’t affect him so badly. The war would be over in a matter of months, he said. The European powers simply couldn’t afford to fight on any longer; economists had established this. They had done their duty in volunteering: it wasn’t their fault if they weren’t required. They should make the best of the opportunities Oxford presented. In the first term Holland had formed a group called Les Invalides, consisting of himself, Felix, Taubmann — another consumptive — and two of the more agreeable American Rhodes scholars. They met once a week to discuss anything that was unconnected with the war. But despite the energetic debates on futurism, emancipation of women, the Ballet Russe and Strindberg (Holland’s new idol) and the copious amounts of alcohol they consumed, it was clear that all their efforts amounted to little more than a despairing gesture.

Then had come the news of Gabriel’s capture. First a telegram with black borders saying he was missing in action. This had thrown the entire household into total hysteria, Cressida told him later. Happily, it was swiftly followed by a cancelling telegram. A state of ignorance persisted for a further ten days before the news came that Gabriel had been taken prisoner. Henry Hyams, through his connections at the War Office, managed to ascertain that Gabriel was in fact in a German hospital. During the Christmas vacation a letter arrived from one Major Bilderbeck GSO II (Intelligence), informing them in minute and immaculate handwriting that Gabriel had been severely bayonetted in the abdomen and would have to spend many months under intense medical care if he was to pull through. There was something about the tone of the letter that convinced everyone at Stackpole that it contained nothing but the truth: no hopes raised, none dashed. At least they knew Gabriel was alive (just) and where he was. But for some reason, discovering the details of Gabriel’s plight had an adverse effect on the major. His shock at what he thought was the death of his son was transformed by the news of his wounds into a bleak despair rather than relief. Life in the house became well-nigh intolerable. Many sullen and poisonous looks were directed at Felix as if he were somehow responsible for Gabriel’s dreadful plight. As a result Felix had chosen voluntarily to return to Oxford a week before the start of term where he’d paced the damp January streets in a mood of some depression himself. One morning he numbly accepted two white feathers from a group of stern old ladies in the High without even a glance. He found himself standing some ten minutes later in the Botanic Gardens looking moodily at the swollen brown river, the white feathers still clutched in his hand as if he were posing for some late Victorian painting entitled ‘A Coward’s Remorse’. An old gardener had woken him from his dream when he edged up and reassuringly said, “Don’t you go minding them daft women, sir.”

Holland’s return had boosted his spirits but by then the cold sore had fastened its mysterious but implacable grip upon his face. However, this term Holland seemed less preoccupied with Oxford life as his London one had acquired a new dimension in the shape of a ‘mistress’. She was, according to Holland, an artist’s model, a morphineuse in addition, and someone who made his life hell. She didn’t give a damn for polite society, Holland said, and he was writing some excellent poetry.

With a sigh Felix pushed away his untouched poached eggs. Nothing in his life was going as planned; all his hopes of the past summer had proved vain and ephemeral. University was boring and lifeless. Gabriel was at death’s door in an enemy hospital, the girl he loved didn’t care for him, he was heavily in debt, he had no interest in his studies, he had failed his exams, his family regarded him as a subversive malingerer and his face was disfigured by a loathsome suppurating ulcer.

Dwelling on these misfortunes in turn, Felix slowly got dressed. He had a tutorial at ten with Jock Illiffe, his tutor, an ancient and decrepit don whose rooms were unbearably overheated and stank of cat. There were two of these creatures, fat and fluffy, who had scattered their hairs over every seat and cushion in the room. One week, as an experiment, Felix read to the dozing Illiffe, and the cat that warmed his lap, the same essay he’d declaimed the week before. As on the prior occasion, when Felix had finished reading, Illiffe had opened his eyes, leant back and said, “Well, yes, that seems pretty much to be the ticket.”

Felix still had half a translation to do for the morning’s tutorial but decided there and then that he was going to cut it. Illiffe only realized he was due to take a tutorial if the tutee actually went to the trouble of presenting himself. It was the sole blessing that the war had conferred, Felix admitted: the college had become very slack. It was not difficult to ignore the innumerable petty regulations that cluttered up and interfered with one’s life.

What should he do then? There was a leccer — he corrected himself—lecture in All Souls. Holland deplored Oxford slang. He had ridiculed Felix one day when he’d inadvertently talked about going to a debate in the Ugger, as the Union was commonly known. But the lecture was as unappealing as Illiffe’s tutorial. He could read a novel in the Junior Common Room? Very dull. He’d been doing that all term anyway. What about a walk? Up the Banbury Road to Marston. There was a barmaid there in a pub that had caught his and Holland’s eye the other week. But no, it was still raining. Perhaps he could go and stare at the nurses who were billeted in Merton? Perhaps he should pack up his gear? Term ended the day after tomorrow. This thought depressed him even further. Reading between the lines of his mother’s regular letters, it seemed that his father was taking Gabriel’s capture very hard indeed. God alone knew what kind of Easter vac. he would have.

He belted his overcoat and stood undecided at his door. He walked slowly down the staircase. On the first landing a voice called out. “Hey, Cobb. Hang on a tic. Want a word.” Felix waited outside the room from where the summons had issued. It belonged to a man called Cave-Bruce-Cave, who had joined up immediately war was declared and had his left hand blown off within hours of arriving in France. Reluctantly he’d returned to Oxford to complete his degree. Gave, as he was known for convenience’s sake, was a large fresh-faced man who with limited resources did his utmost to preserve the atmosphere of mindless ragging and frivolous high jinks that had thrived in Oxford’s pre-war days. His missing hand had been replaced by a crude wooden one, and his favourite trick was to set fire to it in restaurants.

“Yes, Cave,” Felix said.

“Look what I’ve got,” Cave said. On his table was a wire cage containing what looked like half a dozen rats squirming and cheeping.

“Rats,” Felix said. “So what?”

“Rat hunt, Cobby. Bit of fun for the end of term. Let ‘em loose in the quad and hunt them down with hockey sticks. I’ve got some of the chaps from the OTC coming over. Fancy a bash?”

“No thanks,” Felix said. “I’m busy.”

“Oh. Where are you off to?”

“Going to see Holland,” Felix improvised.

“Great stuff. Can I come along too?”

“No,” Felix said. Holland liked to use Cave as butt and victim of his jokes. Cave seemed to enjoy being teased by him. “See you later.”

He stepped out of the college doorway and wandered down to Broad Street. The rain had stopped but it was a cold raw day. At the cab stand in the middle of the Broad the cab horses stood with heads bowed and manes dripping. The small wooden stand was covered in posters. “IF YOU CANNOT JOIN THE ARMY TRY AND GET A RECRUIT”

Felix felt a guilty unease which he knew Holland would scold at. He agreed with Holland’s views on the war, he just didn’t have his single-minded conviction about them. In the past he had found that a strong belief in something had proved no impediment to a sudden recantation if and when it proved more convenient. It wasn’t his fault that the army was being so fussy. He only had a slight astigmatism in one eye that manifested itself whenever he was tired or read for more than ten minutes without the aid of his glasses. Hardly a major disability, but it was enough to disqualify him. He had done his duty but he still felt his family’s suspicion: his father’s hatred — it wasn’t too strong a word — and the doubt of his brothers-in-law.

He turned morosely away and walked back up the Turl. The earth that was regularly strewn over Oxford’s paved streets had, over the last few sodden days, turned into a fluid mud that spattered up the back of his trouser legs as he walked. He turned left into Brasenose Lane and thrust his hands deep into his pockets as he moved down the narrow alleyway between Brasenose and Exeter colleges. At the bottom lay Radcliffe Square, the squat bulk of the Camera guarded by its high spiked iron railings. Felix crossed the square and came to the High. By now the street was busy with horse-drawn drays and carts serving the shops. The gutters ran with frothy brown water, the road was covered in two inches of mud. Felix picked his way carefully across it and went down another alley to the rear gate of Christ Church, to which college Holland had been recently moved since his own had been occupied by officer cadets. As it was, half of Christ Church had been given over to a battalion of Oxford yeomanry. Felix passed through the gate and into Peckwater quad. Like almost all of Oxford’s buildings the stone was now black and scrofulous with crumbling decay. The steady rain and the dark clouds heightened the impression: the colleges looked as if they were suffering from some particularly unpleasant wasting disease. Felix looked up to the top windows. The light was on in Holland’s room. Uniformed soldiers seemed to be everywhere.

Felix knocked and walked in to Holland’s rooms. They had been stripped of all decoration, a new purity and austerity which Holland thought better suited his character. The wooden panelling on the walls had been painted white, on the floor was a plain grey carpet and the settee and armchairs were covered in black cretonne. At the window overlooking the quad stood a baby grand piano on which was set a bowl of narcissi — the room’s sole decorative touch — on the point of coming into bloom. Here Holland sat picking out a tune from the score propped in front of him. He waved Felix to a chair.

Since coming up to Oxford Holland had grown a small Van Dyck beard and exchanged his gold-rimmed, almond-shaped spectacles for a pair of the fashionable new tortoiseshell ones. This had the effect — deliberately sought for — of removing his air of boyish absentmindedness and replacing it with a strong sense of a formidable, uncompromising intellect.

Felix watched him struggling with the score. Holland was, without doubt, the most remarkable person he’d met. Felix reminded himself of this fact regularly, as Holland’s edicts and advice had such a heavy and usually infelicitous influence on his own life; there had to be a good reason, he thought, why he so persistently got himself into trouble by following them.

“On the table,” Holland called, not looking up from his music. “What do you think?”

Felix went to the table and glanced through the pile of papers which were scattered there. He looked at the title-page: “After Strindberg: whither the English stage?” It was evidently for The Mask, a quarterly magazine on the theatre to which Holland had recently begun contributing: another accomplishment which Felix envied him for. He pretended to read the article, but he didn’t feel like concentrating on Strindberg this morning.

“Jolly good,” he said.

Holland’s sway over Felix had been established in their final year at school, and Felix had accepted it with the zeal of a disciple acknowledging the messiah. It gave him a vital focus and expression for his own half-thought rebellious instincts and discontents, but he had come to realize, even while they were at school together, that he did not want to emulate Holland. In fact he had no great desire to be like Holland at all. What he really envied about his friend was his home life, its almost unbelievable difference to his own: the social circles Holland’s family moved in, the exciting freedoms and opportunities which didn’t have to be secretly fought for but which were rather served up to him on a plate, almost as if they were his birthright, and not seen, as they were chez Cobb, as depraved and seditious habits.

Holland’s father was an illustrator, a corpulent and lazy man whose talents were sought by magazines like Naslis, The Strand, Pall Mall and Vanity Fair. They lived in Hampstead in a large untidy house which was always full of the most interesting people, old and young, of very ‘advanced’ views, mainly belonging to the literary and artistic worlds.

There was another reason why Felix allowed himself to be dominated by Holland: his sister Amory. Felix was in love with Amory, passionately in love. As far as he knew, he was the only person who was aware of this fact. Not even Amory, he was sure, guessed at the ardour she had prompted. She was twenty years old, an art student. She had a thin face and a slim, bony body. But it wasn’t so much her appearance that attracted Felix as her opinions: she was very modern. She shared a small flat with a girlfriend, she smoked, she drank alcohol (Felix had seen her do both — under the eyes of her parents!), there seemed to be a distinct possibility that Amory would be modern enough to take a lover. Sex no longer existed in some vague, unrealizable, dream-like state. Amory was the first girl he’d met, the first he could claim to know, with whom it became a potentiality, something tantalizingly feasible.

Holland crashed a discord on the piano. “Damn Dohnanyi,” he said and closed the lid. “Did the militarists bother you, Felix?”

“No,” Felix said. “I think they’re used to me by now. I’m not interrupting am I, Philip?”

Holland had decreed that on entering university they should abandon the public school habit of addressing each other by their surnames. However, ‘Philip’ still sounded uneasy on Felix’s tongue.

“I was bored rigid,” he said. “I cut Jock’s tutorial, couldn’t stand the thought. I wondered if you felt like a walk.”

“Why not,” Holland said. “Marston? Shall we oblige the wench with our presence at luncheon?”

Holland put on his overcoat, selected a walking stick, and they set off. Back to the High Street, along Commarket and into the broad but lopsided avenue of St Giles — young plane trees on the left, fully grown elms on the right. As if to compensate, the plane tree side was balanced with row upon row of parked army lorries.

Holland took off his glasses. He was almost blind without them but hoped that by displaying no obvious infirmity he might attract accusations of cowardice from passersby. This did occasionally happen and gave Holland an unrivalled opportunity for a violent exchange of views. Felix, on his own, often went to the other extreme, wearing his glasses all the time, sometimes slipping a pebble in a shoe to promote a bad limp. When he passed through London he often wore a black eye-patch, to place his non-combatant status above question, or else a silk mourning band on his sleeve, another useful way of avoiding embarrassing remarks. Holland, of course, remained ignorant of these ploys.

“Cave-Bruce-Cave is organizing a rat hunt in the quad this afternoon,” Felix said. “He invited me to join in.”

Holland laughed. “He’s priceless that man. He’ll be debagging you next or ragging your rooms. Shall we have him round for tea?”

“Let’s not,” Felix said. “I don’t think I’m up to Cave today.”

They walked on up the Banbury road. The horse chestnuts showed some tiny green buds but it still could have been the middle of winter. There were few people out on the road so Holland put his glasses back on.

“Thank God for the vac.,” Holland said. “I can’t wait to get back to London.” This gave rise to talk about Enid, Holland’s morphineuse. Holland was worried in case she was having an affair with the artist she was currently posing for. “In the nude,” Holland added. “You can see it would be difficult to fight off any advances.”

“Doesn’t she mind?” Felix asked. “About, you know, taking her clothes off in front of a complete stranger?” Felix found it impossible to imagine how an artist could simply stand there calmly drawing or painting while a naked woman posed six or eight feet away.

“She gets paid for it, Felix,” Holland reproached him. “It’s her job.”

“I know. But I still can’t see…”

“My dear Felix.” Holland laughed a little patronizingly. “Not everyone is as frustrated as you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Felix replied sharply. Then he grinned. “No, perhaps not.”

“It’s a point, though,” Holland frowned. “It’s almost the done thing for an artist to have an affair with his model. Oh yes,” he said. “Talking about artists, I got a note from Amory this morning.” He drew out a crumpled letter from his pocket.

“Yes, she’s having an exhibition at her art school and she’s giving a little party, at her flat and then on to a club. Why don’t you come along? Twenty-ninth of March. Come and stay. You’ve been bellyaching about your dreadful family. Come up to the bright lights — or rather, come up to the blackout.”

Felix found it hard to imagine better news. It was remarkable how quickly the future could change. “Thank you, Philip,” he said, his voice thick with gratitude. “I’d love to. In fact, it’ll be wonderful. The twenty-ninth? Are you sure?”

“Of course. You can meet Enid.”

A thought crossed Felix’s mind, a glowing coal of a thought.

“Did, um, Amory, actually, you know, ask you to, to invite me? In particular, I mean?”

“What? Oh no. No, she wrote to ask me, in fact. But don’t worry. I’m sure she won’t object if I bring a friend — she has met you before, after all, hasn’t she?”

9: 18 March 1915, Stackpole Manor, Kent

Felix took off his eye-patch and stepped out onto the platform at Ashurst Station, blinking furiously in the weak early after-noon sun. His compartment had contained two lieutenants and a major all the way down from Charing Cross and he’d had no opportunity to remove his disguise. He had also buried his head in a book to forestall any embarrassing questions (where and how was he injured?) and the effort of reading with one eye unaided by spectacles had given him a dull headache. He had heard, nonetheless, a lot of talk about a victory at Neuve Chapelle and yet again felt annoying stabs of guilt, until he assuaged them with some of Holland’s arguments which had been directed at Cave-Bruce-Cave.

“But surely,” Gave had once said, “we’re fighting for our freedom?”

“Wrong, my dear Gave,” Holland had said. “We are fighting for our golf and our weekends. We went to war to prevent an Austrian and German pacification of Serbia, that’s all. The French allied themselves with Russia because they were terrified there would be a revolution and Russia would default on all the money they owe to France. Now we’re fighting to keep a tyrannical czar on his throne. Now you tell me. Are those causes worth dying for?”

Holland’s logic seemed incontrovertible. Even Gave had gone off troubled and perplexed. Felix ran through the arguments again as he waited for his right eye to adjust to the unaccustomed light. He called a porter over.

“There’s a cabin trunk in the guard’s van. Would you get it for me, please?”

“Sorry, sir. Pm a parcel porter, sir. Can’t fetch luggage.”

Felix unloaded his trunk himself, then went in search of another porter who, when found, wheeled his trunk into the station yard. Felix had cabled the time of his arrival to his mother but, as usual, there was no one to meet him.

He had smoked three cigarettes before he recognized the Humberette turning into the yard. He was extremely surprised to see Charis at the wheel. She stopped the car and got out.

“Hello, Felix,” she said cheerily. “I had to go into Sevenoaks and your mother asked me to collect you. I do hope you haven’t been waiting long. Oh,” she pointed to the cigarette butts. “You have. I am sorry. Anyway, welcome home.”

She put out her hand and leant forward automatically as if for a kiss. Felix took her hand, but hadn’t thought of kissing her, or anybody, come to that, because of his cold sore, so held back for a moment. By the time he thought, really, he should kiss her, she was family, and leant forward himself, she had withdrawn her face. They see-sawed this way for a brief while until their cheeks eventually brushed. Felix kissed mid-air and felt the touch of her lips on his ear. It made him shiver but he covered it up with a nervous laugh. They both got into the car with red faces, then got out again because they hadn’t loaded the luggage. Felix found that the Humberette was too small to take everything and realized that he’d have to leave the cabin trunk.

“Don’t worry,” he said, as he packed in his two suitcases. “Leave the trunk here. I can pop back down to the station and pick it up later.”

To his consternation he saw a look of intense grief cross Charis’s face and her eyes fill with tears.

“Good Lord,” he said. “What did I say?”

Charis rubbed her forehead. “No, it’s silly me. You just reminded me of Gabriel then. Something you said. It was when we were in Trouville. I am sorry. I just can’t help it. It happens all the time. People think I’m an awful noodle.”

They got into the car, Felix taking the wheel, and drove off.

“Has there been any news?” Felix shouted over the noise of the engine. “About Gabriel?”

“No. But all his things have been sent back. They arrived last week. There’s a letter for you.” She paused. “I’ve got everything at the cottage. Would you like to come down and have tea later?” She shot a glance at him. “I wanted to ask you something. About Gabriel.”

He could see she was about to go sad again. “Of course,” he said quickly. “About half four?”

Charis’s spirits picked up and she prattled on in what Felix recognized as her usual bright but fairly mindless way for the rest of the drive back to Stackpole. Felix dropped her at the cottage and drove on up to the house. The bare trees and the untended lawns and borders amplified the familiar depressing effect the sight of his home had on him. His mother had heard the car and came running to the front door and folded him in a powerful two-minute embrace.

They went into the hall where he greeted Cressida. A boy whose face seemed vaguely familiar took his cases up to his room. They were walking down the passageway to the inner hall when a squat figure in a dressing-gown came hurrying towards them.

“Hello, Father,” Felix said, offering his hand. “Good to see you. You’re looking well.” It wasn’t true. His father’s face was as sallow as ever, but the flesh seemed to have lost its firm rotundity and now hung from the bones. His side whiskers were long and untrimmed, his dressing-gown carelessly tied. He looked like some demented Victorian cleric, Felix thought.

His father stared at him, ignoring his proffered hand. “I know your type,” he said malevolently, “I suppose you think this is…this is some kind of health spa!” he shouted, and hurried on his way.

“What on earth is he on about?” Felix said, astonished, as his mother ushered him into the inner hall. “Is he all right?”

“He’s been terribly upset, my darling. About poor Gabriel. I think it’s to do with the nature of the wounds…you know. The bayonets seem to bother him awfully. Says he dreams about it — can’t get it out of his mind. Anyway, here we are, home again.” There was a huge fire roaring in the hearth. “Sit down, darling. Now, tell me. Are you well? What’s that dreadful sore? Don’t you think he looks a bit pale, Cressida? Darling, promise me you’re eating properly.”

♦

Felix stepped over the eve-gate, crossed the bridge above the stream that led to the fishponds and set off through the beech wood towards the cottage. He carried a torch with him for the walk back. There was a gloomy, metallic quality to the late afternoon light and a cold wind had sprung up that made the heavy branches sway and thrash above his head.

Charis opened the door and showed him in. The small sitting room had been nicely and neatly furnished, though there were rather too many bits of brass and pewter around for Felix’s taste. There was a photograph of Gabriel in his uniform on the window ledge. Laid out along the settee as if for kit inspection were bundies of clothing, a pillow, a thermos flask, a collapsible canvas sink and other items that Felix recognized as belonging to Gabriel. The sight of these brought an unfamiliar pressure to his throat. The thought of Gabriel without these bits and pieces of his made whatever ordeal he was currently undergoing seem poignantly immediate.

“He left all this on board his troopship,” Charis said. “I’ve not, I’ve not got anything that he actually had with him.”

“I see,” Felix said.

“Do sit down,” Charis invited. Felix smiled at her. She was wearing an apple green dress with a darker green cardigan over it. She had a long string of pearls around her neck with a knot tied at the end. Her dark hair was held up loosely by a finely worked tortoiseshell comb. Felix sat down at the table on which the tea service was already laid out. Charis took a kettle from in front of the fire and set about making a pot of tea in a large silver tea pot. She held it up.

“Wedding present,” she said and gave a rueful smile.

Felix noticed a pile of letters beside her place. Presently Charis sat down and they drank their tea. Felix toasted some buns in front of the fire, which they then ate with some thick strawberry jam. They chatted inconsequentially about this and that. Felix told her he’d failed Pass Moderations in History. Charis provided details of her work with Belgian refugees. Eventually she picked up the letters.

“Have a look at these, Felix,” she said. “I don’t mind. One of them is addressed to you. They were all loose sheets. None had been posted.” She handed him the first sheet.

Felix took it. A pale blue leaf of writing paper. The letterhead said SS Homayun. The date was the twenty-first of October 1914. He read:

Dear Felix,

We are on our way! Do you remember our talks about the European war? I never thought I would be fighting on the ‘dark continent’. I’ve been at sea for weeks. We had to sit sixteen days in harbour before the convoy sailed. Life on a troopship is extremely boring but I have become quite an expert at deck quoits!

I was sorry to hear that your eyesight let you down with the OTC. Never mind! Keep trying. As the war in Europe progresses we are sure to need every ‘man jack’. I hope to see you soon. We should sort everything out here by Xmas.

Love to all at Stackpole Your affec. bro.

Gabriel Cobb.

Felix felt unaccountably moved by this bland letter. He remembered Gabriel the day before his wedding, swimming in the willow pool. Felix kept his eye off the photograph. He forced a chuckle.

“Old Gabe wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest letter writer, was he?”

Charis didn’t reply. She handed him the other sheets. Felix accepted them with sudden misgivings. He had always made a point of not thinking of Gabriel and Charis as man and wife, had never speculated on the nature of their relationship. He wasn’t sure if this invitation to share their privacy was something to be welcomed. There were a dozen sheets of paper all from the Homayun, all undated.

My darling Charis,

Our ship is still in Bombay harbour. Sorry not to have written before but if

That was all. Felix turned to the next.

Darling,

How I miss you! This war

And the next,

My darling darling Charissimus,

I do hope

Felix quickly riffled through the others. They were all the same. The greeting, the beginnings of a line and then blank. On one sheet the ‘g’ of darling’ had been slashed down the length of the page.

“What do you think it means?” Charis asked quickly. “I wrote to him every day. I never had a single letter in reply.”

Felix felt himself stiff with embarrassment. This was exactly what he wanted to avoid. He tried to be light-hearted.

“You know Gabriel. He…he probably couldn’t express himself. He may have been terribly busy. You just can’t tell.”

“But he wrote to you. Your father had a letter. Sammy Hinshelwood got a postcard from Bombay. Why couldn’t he write to me?”

“He wanted to, clearly,” Felix said. “At least he started to write. He probably wasn’t sure of—” To his alarm he saw Charis had covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders began to shake. Felix made a grimace. The stupid girl; she should have spoken to his mother about this, or Cressida. He had no idea what the proper procedure was on this sort of occasion. He rose from his seat. Hesitantly he placed his hands on Charis’s shoulders. He felt them trembling and shivering beneath his palms, felt the hard line of her collar-bone on his finger-tips. Now he was close to her he smelt the same odour of rosewater that he’d noticed at the wedding.

“There, there,” he said, feeling foolish, wishing she’d stop sniffing. He noticed, almost absentmindedly, the nacreous inlay on her hair slide, the small mole in front of her right ear, the shininess of her fingernails.

“Gabriel wasn’t the most articulate of people,” he improvised. “He’d probably never given thought as to how to express his feelings — in written form,” he added. “If you’re going into battle and you’re not used to organizing your, your innermost thoughts on paper, that sort of letter can be, well…” He left the sentence unfinished. It was the best he could do at short notice.

Charis looked round at him. She wiped away a tear with a knuckle. “I’m sorry,” she said more brightly. “I’d sworn I wouldn’t cry.” She sat up. Felix removed his hands from her shoulders and wondered, absurdly, what to do with them. He shoved them in his pockets and went over to the fire.

“Thank you, Felix,” Charis said.

He spun round. “Oh. Nothing.”

“You’re right about Gabriel. That’s what I thought too. But you know how it is: you need to hear it from someone else.”

“Yes, quite.” Felix looked down at his shoes. He wanted to squirm under the assault of her sincerity and gratitude. Why on earth should he know why Gabriel couldn’t write? He couldn’t even understand why he’d married this girl.

“He was extremely fond of you. Is. Is extremely fond of you,” Charis said.

“I’d better be getting back,” he said uncomfortably. Any talk like this about him and Gabriel stirred up his emotions. He found himself suddenly wondering what it must have been like for Gabriel. A bayonet. Bayonet wounds in the abdomen…

Charis saw him to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow probably,” she said. “I’m always over for luncheon.” She put her hand on his arm. “Thanks again, Felix. I’ve been so miserable, you know. I feel a bit better tonight.”

♦

“Ecclesiastes!” Major Cobb shouted. “Chapter six, verse eleven.” There was a rustle of paper as the assembled servants found their places in their bibles. The major stood in front of a large map of Africa. Red and black pins faced each other across the borders of British and German East.

“‘For who knoweth what is good for man in his life’,” the major called out in a clarion voice, his eyes fixed on the library ceiling. He obviously knew the text by heart. “‘All the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow’.” Here the small eyes descended and his gaze danced around the room. Felix pretended to be reading over his mother’s shoulder. “‘Spendeth as a shadow’,” the major repeated. “‘For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun’.” As he read the last line the major’s voice got simultaneously slower, deeper and harsher. Despite himself, Felix shivered. What a horrible old man, he thought.

“He’s obsessed with this East Africa place and Gabriel,” his mother had whispered as they filed into the library for morning prayers. “He’s been like this for weeks now. He keeps reading the same lessons from Ecclesiastes and Job. The servants have complained to me, but there’s no telling him.”

“Let us pray,” commanded the major.

Afterwards Felix went out into the garden for a walk to calm himself down. He’d only been back twenty-four hours and already he felt like leaving. Thank God Amory’s exhibition wasn’t far away. He wondered how soon he could leave for London. Holland had said he should stay. Amory…

He walked down the avenue of pleached limes. They were looking a bit out of control, green twigs and new shoots springing up all over the place. He cut across the lawn towards the fishponds and met a small boy who was lugging a bucket of corn and breadcrumbs in the same direction. It was the same boy who had carried his cases up to his room when he arrived.

“Hello there,” Felix said, trying to recall his name. His face was smooth, bullet-shaped.

“I remember you,” Felix said. “You’re Cyril’s boy.”

“Thas right, sir.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Feeding the carp, sir. In the ponds.”

They walked down to the ponds together. The boy slung the grain out into the middle and almost immediately the water began to boil as the heavy fish powered up from the depths to fight for the food.

“Some big ones there, eh?” Felix said. He smiled to himself. Fuckin giants, was the way Cyril had described them. Big fuckin beggars.

“Thas right, sir,” the boy said.

“How’s your dad?” Felix asked taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

“Oh my dad’s dead, sir.”

Felix felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He dropped his cigarette and bent to pick it up. It was soaked from the dew in the grass. He threw it away.

“What happened?”

“Don’t righty know, sir. Killed in the war. For King and Country my mam says. In France, like.” He picked up the bucket and walked off back across the lawn to the kitchen.

Felix watched the big fish cruising slowly to and fro just below the surface, searching for any remaining grains.

“Hello.” He heard a voice and looked round. It was Charis. “Just been fed, have they?” She looked up at the clouds. “Not much of a day. Where’s the spring? That’s what I want to know.”

“Did you know Cyril was dead?”

“Cyril? Who’s Cyril?”

“The gardener. Chauffeur at your wedding. Used to live in your cottage.”

“Oh yes. About a month ago, I think. Um, Arras. No. Ypres, wasn’t it?”

“Why in God’s name wasn’t I told?” Felix exclaimed angrily. “He was a friend of mine.”

He saw the look of surprise on her face. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve just found out. It’s come as a shock.” He shook his head in bitter disbelief. He apologized again. “Mother should have told me. But I expect she had a lot on her mind. Poor old Cyril. God, he was excited about going.” He paused. “Is it all right if I smoke?”

Charis said yes and he lit another cigarette.

“Oh God, God,” Felix said, running his hand around the back of his neck. “Holland’s right.”

“Holland?”

“He’s a friend. You remember? I stayed with him last summer.”

“You were at school together.”

“Yes.” He turned away from the pond and they walked back up the ramp of lawn to the house. “I shall be seeing him soon, I’m glad to say. He’s asked me up to London.”

“Oh.” Charis stopped walking.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Didn’t your mother write to you? No, she couldn’t have. It’s my birthday on the twenty-ninth. She’s having a dinner party for me, perhaps a little dance.” She suddenly sounded very downcast.

“I, we, were expecting you’d be here. I think a lot of the family are coming.” She looked him directly in the eye.

“Couldn’t you postpone your visit to your friend?” she said. “Just until after the party?” She was making a direct appeal, he saw, and a personal one. She had a nerve, he thought. He felt thoroughly uncomfortable. Why were people always forcing duties on him?

“We thought,” Charis said, “that you could act as my partner. Gabriel not being—”

“I’m so sorry,” Felix said firmly. “But I can’t. I’m afraid it’s impossible for me to change my plans.”

10: 29 March 1915, The Café Royal, London

The Domino Room at the Café Royal was full to capacity. All the seats around the marble-topped tables were occupied. The babble of conversation was deafening. The rich gilt and plaster mouldings of the ceilings and pillars were almost invisible through the swirling clouds of cigarette smoke. Condensation formed on the huge mirrors that lined the walls. A warm rug of beer, cheap perfume, wet overcoats and cigar smoke enfolded the excited patrons.

Felix leant back and puffed on his cigarette. He was trying to look extremely relaxed, but in reality he was entranced. He’d never seen so many louche women. Had never sat beside couples who embraced and caressed each other in public. Had never counted so many red lips and blackened eyes. The entire room seemed to tingle with the electric potentiality of sex.

“I can’t think where Enid is,” Holland said. “Look,” he pointed out a tall man with a bushy beard and crumpled suit. “That’s the artist chappie who’s painting her.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’ll turn up at Amory’s.”

“This is an extraordinary place,” Felix said. “Who are these women?”

“Oh, art students,” Holland said nonchalantly. “Models, quelques putains.”

“Lord,” breathed Felix. The night before they had been to a show at the Criterion. Coming out into Shaftesbury Avenue Holland had pointed out, one by one, all the prostitutes wandering among the crowds of theatre-goers. They had counted more than three dozen by the time they reached the underground station at Piccadilly Circus. With an air of world-weary languor Holland told him about London’s more notorious thoroughfares: the Strand and New Oxford Street commanded the highest prices, Bloomsbury and Charing Cross were distinctly less reliable, and as you went further east price and quality dwindled away to desperation level.

“Shall we go?” Holland suggested. They rose and edged their way out through the mass of bodies. After the heat and press of the Café the night air outside was deliciously cool and fresh. A fine drizzle was falling. The blackout made it hard to distinguish anything and at first all Felix was aware of was the astonishing noise of London’s traffic.

A cab tout procured them a four-wheeler which took them down to the Embankment via Piccadilly Circus. The inside of the cab smelt of polish and old leather. Felix gazed out of the window — rubbing a face-sized porthole in the condensation — at the crowded streets.

The cab stopped outside a rather drab tenement in Cheyne Walk. Holland paid off the driver and Felix stood on the pavement outside a grocer’s shop. His cheeks felt hot and he held his face up to the cool spray of the drizzle, closing his eyes for a moment. His pulse seemed to be beating unreasonably fast and he wanted to make sure he was calm. He heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves as the cab moved away. He felt himself swaying and opened his eyes again, before he lost his balance. Perhaps the three brandies and water in the Café Royal had been a mistake. He touched his cheeks and forehead with the back of his hands. Still hot.

“Where’s Amory’s flat?” he asked Holland, who was wiping drops of rain from his spectacle lenses.

“Two up,” he said. “Above the grocer’s.”

They went through the small door beside the shop. There were no lights on the stairs and there was a strong smell of apples and decaying vegetable rinds. They climbed up two flights. From behind a door they could hear the noise of conversation and what sounded like a guitar.

“Here we are,” Holland said, and made to knock at the door.

“Just a second, Philip,” Felix said, moving to the grimy landing window. “Over here.” Holland came over. “What does my cold sore look like?” Felix asked, presenting his face to whatever faint light managed to cheat the dirt and cobwebs on the window pane.

“It doesn’t look too bad, does it? Not too obvious?” To his joy the sore showed some signs of clearing up. A dark and crusty scab had formed. At least it didn’t look like some moist and repulsive canker even though the scab had been a dominating feature in the looking-glass earlier that evening.

“Hardly see it,” Holland said. Felix wasn’t sure if this referred to the absence of illumination or the insignificance of the sore, but was happy to stay with the ambiguity: he couldn’t afford to over-burden the frail raft of his confidence any further.

Holland knocked on the door. It was opened by a burly young man with a heavy pipe dragging down the corner of his mouth. “Ha ha,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Le petit frère has arrivayed.” Holland moved past him without a word, Felix bestowed a nervous half-smile.

Like the Café Royal the small sitting room of the flat was crowded with people in a fog of cigarette smoke. Felix noticed a dangerously sagging ceiling blackened at one end with old soot from the fire. One window gave on to a view of untidy back lots. The other overlooked the Embankment gardens and the Chelsea Jelly Factory across a glimmering stretch of the Thames. The room was dark (Felix breathed a sigh of relief), lit only by a few candles. In a corner on a wooden chair was a girl with a guitar, with a small audience sitting raptly at her feet. Other shadowy people perched on a horsehair settee or leant against the walls and spoke to each other in very loud voices. An open door revealed a room with two beds which was occupied by the overflow from the sitting room. On a gatelegged table — half open — in front of the Thames window was a cut glass punch-bowl, a basket of oranges, plates of nuts and a half-dozen straw-cupped flasks of Chianti. There was no sign of Amory.

Holland and Felix moved with some difficulty towards the table, stepping over legs, ducking between conversations.

“Chianti or punch?” Holland asked.

“Ooh. Chianti please.” Felix felt his eyes stinging from the smoke. He lit a cigarette and took a gulp of wine. It tasted harsh and vinegary.

“Hey! Filippo!” came a great shout. Felix whirled round in alarm. He saw Holland being embraced by a large bearded man dressed entirely in black. Behind this person stood Amory. Entirely naked. The shock lasted a second or two until Felix realized she was wearing a skimpy dress of flesh-coloured tulle. Her brown hair was piled on top of her head in a complex fir-cone effect and secured by a thick jewel-studded ribbon. Her thin face was heavily powdered, her heavy-lidded eyes touched with kohl. Felix felt his legs tremble with desire, love and anticipation. The tulle dress hung from thin satiny straps revealing a large expanse of her hard chest. Her bosom was noticeable by its absence, but Felix didn’t care. It was those half closed eyes that drove him wild, as though the effort of keeping them open was proving too much for her.

The dark bearded fellow was still pounding Holland’s back and uttering cries of ‘Hey!’, ‘Wah!’ and ‘Yes!’ Amory brushed past him and refilled her glass with punch. She smiled at Felix.

“Hello,” she said. “Have you come with Philip?”

“Yes. I—,” Felix began but she had already turned away.

“Philip, I think it’s most rude of you not to introduce your friends. Oh do leave him alone, Pav.”

Holland broke away from Pav’s embrace. “This is Felix Cobb. But you’ve met him, Amory. And, Felix, this is Pavelienski something or other. The great artist. We all call him Pav.”

“Wahey!” exclaimed the great artist and punched Holland in the arm.

“Hello, Pav,” Felix said. He exhaled cigarette smoke in what he hoped was a firm, nonchalant-looking stream.

“Hello,” he said to Amory. “We met last summer once or twice.”

“Oh yes?” Amory said, pouring more Chianti into his glass. “We did?” She moved away, summoned by a distant conversation. Felix gulped more Chianti. Pav accepted one of his cigarettes. The artist had long black hair and a thick beard with spirals of grey in it. And all the more revolting for that, Felix added to himself uncharitably. He sensed he was in the presence of his rival. He gazed at the wine in his glass. A single hair floated on the surface. He wondered if it were one of Amory’s. He decided not to fish it out: he’d drink it down, digest this small particle of her being.

Pav made a sudden movement, a grab at Felix’s face and he flinched reflexively, his wine splashing over his sleeve, taking the hair with it.

Pav’s extended fingers were inches from Felix’s eyes, and the man was scrutinizing him intently. He turned his hand to and fro, as if he were unscrewing the lid from a large jar.

“You hef a spendid sroat,” he said in his heavily accented mid-European voice. “I am liking to draw it.”

Felix shot a glance at Holland, but he was staring at other people in the room.

“Oh,” Felix said, embarrassed. “Yes. Thank you very much.”

“Look, there’s Enid,” Holland said. “Come and meet her, Felix.”

♦

Felix forced himself to be attentive. He had been speaking to Enid for the last half hour. He could safely say that the fabled morphineuse was one of the most boring people he’d ever met. Holland said she was twenty-eight but she looked at least a decade older. She was a small, broad woman with a great shelf of bosom and wild straw-dry black hair. She wore a jarring futurist dress and was draped with beads and jewels. Her face was haggard and her eyes were ringed with purple. Felix switched his attention back to the monologue.

“…He’s got mumps, believe it or not.Yes, he’s got mumps. Terrible mumps. And he had a horrible discharging from one ear. Horrible. Eugh! One side of his face was all swollen from the mumps…”

Felix looked distractedly about the room. Where had Holland and Amory got to? The guitar player had quite a sing-song going—‘My Little Grey Home in the West’—and consequently only a near shout ensured that one’s half of the conversation was heard. Some of the guests actually had sketch books out and were drawing each other. Perhaps Pav would like to attempt his throat this evening, Felix thought scornfully. But these were artists, he reminded himself; they weren’t burdened with his self-consciousness.

“I must get some more wine,” he shouted at Enid, and swiftly weaved his way through the packed room to the table. There was no Chianti left so he moved on to the punch. He stood by one of the now opened windows and breathed in the night air. He leant against the wall and ran his fingers between his neck and his stiff collar. As far as he could make out only he and Holland were wearing evening dress.

Beside him was the door into the bedroom. Some people were standing just inside it having a heated discussion. The singers were now giving a full throated rendition of ‘Give Me Your Smile’ and it was some time before Felix realized that the two speakers were Amory and Holland and that they were talking about him.

“…he’s not coming to the Calf,” he heard Amory insist.

“He has to,” Holland asserted plaintively. “I told him he could.”

“Well you jolly well should have told me first. I’ve got a table for sixteen. Where’s he going to sit, for Heaven’s sake?”

“He can squeeze in,” Holland said. “I can’t tell him to go away.”

“Oh God! You and your wretched friends!”

Felix told himself he’d misheard the last remark. He launched himself off the wall and made straight for the punch bowl. The final chorus of ‘Give Me Your Smile’ was in full swing. Under such noisy conditions it wasn’t surprising that your ears would play tricks on you, he reasoned. Anyway, he thought, as he drained a glass of punch, hostesses always panicked about seating arrangements, numbers and that sort of thing.

By the time they arrived at the Golden Calf, as he’d heard the night club referred to, Felix was — he recognized — fairly seriously drunk. Unsteadily he handed over his coat, scarf and gloves in the tiny vestibule. He aimed himself at, and cautiously descended, three or four steps and looked about him. The dark cellar was filled with round tables at which people were eating late suppers. Waiters weaved to and fro with trays of food, ice buckets and bottles. At one end was a small dance floor in front of a low stage on which sat an immaculately turned-out nigger band. The ceiling was supported by huge white wooden caryatids carved in the shape of hawks, cats and serpents, with details — a tongue, a beak, eyes or scales — picked out in scarlet. The clientele, though it contained many uniformed men, seemed raffishly elegant and lively. The atmosphere, to Felix’s befuddled mind, oozed licence and vice.

Amory was greeted by a cadaverous-looking woman in a black fur coat, loosened to reveal pale shoulders and décolleté. The group was led through the cluttered tables to a pink alcove, a cabinet particulier, in which was set a large round table. Felix had been staring fascinatedly at the orchestra — he’d never seen so many negroes grouped together before — and was the last to arrive. No place had been set for him and he stood smiling foolishly while one waiter fetched an extra chair and another set a new place between Enid and a young man in khaki uniform whom Felix had not met. He sat down. Amory and Pav were across the wide table from him. His arrival had caused everyone to be squeezed uncomfortably together.

“Hello,” said Enid, her plump arm squashed against his side. “I don’t think we’ve met. What do you think of this coon music? I adore it.”

Felix looked wistfully across the table at Amory. Hairy Pav was whispering in her ear and she laughed at whatever it was he was saying, throwing her head back and exposing her long throat. Now there was a splendid throat. He’d give anything to cover it in kisses, Felix thought, the pain of his impotence suddenly spearing through his chest. He shut his eyes and immediately his head began to spin. He opened them and seized the glass of Moselle that he had just been poured, as if it were some crucial hand-hold. Waiters were arriving with food. Felix realized that he was by now dangerously drunk. A plate of prawn sandwiches was deposited in front of him. The faint fishy smell wafting up made his stomach heave. He plugged his mouth with his napkin, leapt to his feet and raced to the cloakroom.

♦

Felix offered up a silent prayer to the inventor of the tango, as he and Amory glided jerkily about the dance floor. His hand was pressed into the small of her back. From time to time the movements of the dance obliged him to lean up against her or roll his pelvic area across hers. He thanked God also for providing him with the foresight to learn the hideously complicated steps the summer before.

Amory was slightly taller than him and looked fixedly over his right shoulder as they danced. Every now and then a soft collision or clumsily executed turn would cause their eyes to meet and she would flash him an automatic smile. Felix’s spine was humming like a tuning fork with ecstatic love and adoration, but it was clear to him that Amory wasn’t enjoying herself as much as he was.

They bumped into Holland and Enid.

“Feeling better?” Holland called.

“Fine,” Felix answered airily, hoping no trace of his vomit lingered on his breath. In fact he did feel better. Infinitely more so. He wondered if Holland knew how stupid he appeared with his ridiculous little beaver. He looked like a bargee, dancing with that ludicrous woman. This novel sense of superiority elated him and he whirled Amory around with more gusto, exerting extra pressure with his hand on her back, bringing his face entrancingly close to hers.

“Shall we sit down?” Amory said into his ear, the warm breeze of her words causing that side of this body to erupt in goose pimples. He allowed his fingers to touch her elbow as he ‘guided’ her to the table, which was deserted, all the other guests being fully employed on the dance floor.

The pink lamp cast a glowing rubescent light, softening Amory’s hard features, which had reminded him forcibly — he now banished the uncharitable thought from his mind — of one of the more predatory caryatids supporting the cueing. They sat down beside each other. Felix poured out two glasses of wine. He had long ago exceeded his limit but the zenith of confidence to which the alcohol had driven him made this prudent observation seem laughably unimportant. He took out his cigarette case. It was electro-plated nickel-silver, one of the more useful product of the family enterprise in Wolverhampton.

“Will you smoke?” he asked. A waiter approached with matches and lit their cigarettes. Felix gazed at Amory and ordered one half of his mouth to turn up in an intimate smile.

“This has been a marvellous evening,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Can you see who Pav is dancing with?” Amory snorted thin smoke streams from her nostrils.

Felix leant forward, supporting his chin with one hand, allowing the other — with his cigarette — to rest on the chair back behind him, exactly like the man in the de Reske poster, he calculated.

“You have a charming…ah, pied a tem,” he said.

“What?” Amory’s cigarette was tapped sharply. Ash fell obediently into the marble ashtray.

“Pied a… your flat. It’s charming.” Felix allowed smoke to coil and wreath from his mouth.

No reply. Her fingernails marshalled breadcrumbs on the pink damask table cloth.

“I’ve been looking forward to this evening for a long time.” Felix’s hand left his chin and disappeared beneath the table.

“Honestly! Where can that man have gone to?”

Felix glanced down at the slim length of tulle-clad thigh inches away from his own. He felt a sudden breathless — almost insupportable — excitement take hold of him. His hand descended on Amory’s knee.

“Oh Amory,” he said, more feebly than he’d intended.

“Oh for God’s sake!” She got to her feet with tired exasperation. “You silly, boring little boy!”

♦

When he got outside into the street the first thing Felix did was actually punch himself in the face. He made a fist and struck himself a blow in the face, such was his self-loathing and bitter frustration. It wasn’t particularly hard, but it caused him surprising pain.

“Bloody hell!” he swore. He followed this up with some of Cyril’s richer vocabulary. He felt disgusted with himself. He looked down at his clenched and trembling fist and was surprised to see one white knuckle spotted with blood. Exploring fingers soon established that his cold sore was now scabless. He laughed scornfully, but silently into the night sky. That effectively removed any chance of rejoining the party. He dabbed at his weeping sore with his handkerchief, printing it with red polka-dots, as he wandered miserably off down the dark street.

Amory had stalked away from the table, presumably in search of Pav. Felix had remained immobile, head hanging, for a few seconds, his hand resting forlornly on Amory’s abandoned seat until the faint sensation of warmth that rose from her imprint in the recently vacated cushion died away. Felix tried to get his burning cheeks and the funfair of emotions that jangled in his body under control. This partially achieved, his one thought had been to flee, and without further deliberation he strode out of the night club, pausing only to collect his things from the cloakroom.

Now as he walked down the road he sardonically vilified himself, his puny lovemaking, his grossly inflated sense of his own worth. He called himself an ignorant schoolboy, a naïve conceited fool, a scrofulous impostor. How could he hope to attract anyone with this huge scab perched on his bottom lip? He walked on unheedingly, going through the night’s scenes again with punitive disregard for his badly damaged self-esteem. His self-laceration halted, however, when he looked about him and realized he was lost. Where was he? How long had he been aimlessly walking? He turned a corner. Fitzrovia? Bloomsbury? Night workers were hosing the streets down. Other gangs of men shovelled the dirt and horse shit into glutinous, yard-wide mud pies.

Felix crossed the road to a coffee stall and joined the queue of customers. He looked at his watch. Five past one. The public houses had been shut for half an hour. Standing in front of the coffee stall were a mixed bunch of soldiers, navvies and cabmen. There were two tarts with the soldiers and all of them seemed the worse for drink. Clearly he wasn’t in the city’s most salubrious district. Felix handed over his penny ha’penny and received his mug of steaming coffee. He warmed his hands around it and moved a little way off to the side.

“Hot potato, sir?” came a voice. Parked beside the coffee-stall was a costermonger’s barrow carrying a glowing brazier. Felix bought a hot potato, suddenly ravenously hungry, remembering also that he’d deposited his supper in the cloakroom basin at the Golden Calf. He wolfed down one potato, then bought another which he ate more slowly, salting it liberally with the potato man’s salt shaker. He began to feel slightly less disgusted with himself, enjoying the sensation of being out so late in London’s dark streets. He felt alone, pleasantly sad, but secure and, somehow, terribly wise.

“Where are we?” he asked the potato-man.

“Just off Bloomsbury Square, guv,” the man said.

Felix saw a woman in the queue looking him up and down. She wore a loose green coat and a tatty fox fur around her neck. A large picture hat with brown artificial roses stuck in it cast a shadow over her features. She left her place in the queue and wandered over. Felix stared at her.

“Hello, darling,” she said flirtatiously. “I can tell you’re a naughty boy.”

Why not? Felix suddenly thought. Why on earth not?

♦

Felix followed the woman’s broad hips up a dark flight of stairs. A hot burning feeling — not unlike acute indigestion — filled his throat and chest in anticipation of the transaction that was about to take place. His bravado overrode any sense of reluctance that had attempted to interpose itself in the course of their brief walk from the coffee stall to this gloomy Bloomsbury tenement.

The woman opened a door off a landing and went into a small bed-sittingroom. A gas lamp on the wall was turned down low. Felix’s nervous glance took in a single unmade cast iron bed, a table with a jug and ewer on it, a small fire place. In front of the fire was an orange box over which was laid a pair of trousers.

“Get the spuds?” came a voice from the bed.

Felix jumped with alarm. A man sat up in the bed. The woman said nothing.

“Oh,” the man said. “I see. Right you are, then.”

“Is it—,” Felix began.

“He’ll be gone in a minute,” said the woman. Felix wondered if she was referring to him or her partner. He stood close to the wall while the man, who had been sleeping in a collarless shirt and combinations, pulled on his trousers. Felix stood motionless, watching the man lace up his boots. He looked like a waiter, Felix thought. The man unhooked his coat from the back of the door and put a faded bowler hat on his head.

“Enjoy yourself,” he said as he went out of the door.

Felix looked at the rumpled bed. The woman removed her hat. Her face was heavily powdered, her dull hair secured in a loose bun.

“What do you want?” she said.

“What? Oh. Just, em, ordinary sort of—”

“That’ll be two pound,” she said. “Put your clothes on that box.”

Felix struggled to breathe. He handed over two notes. It left him with a handful of change. Holland had told him that a pound was the most he’d have to pay, but somehow he didn’t feel like haggling. Anyway, he told himself in compensation, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could fix a price on.

The woman went to a wardrobe that stood in a corner and opened it. She put the money inside and started taking off her clothes. Felix felt his entire body begin to tremble and shake. It felt as if his lungs had been filled with scalding steam. He turned away and began numbly to undress, laying his clothes deliberately on the orange box. He undressed down to his long sleeved woollen vest and knee-length drawers. He wondered if he should take off all his clothes. As a compromise he removed his vest. Should he ask her name?

“Gas up or off,” the woman said.

Felix turned round. This was the first naked woman he’d seen. She stood by the gas tap, one arm raised. Small flat breasts with curious bulbous nipples, a plump, creased stomach and heavy buttocks and thighs, a thick triangular bush of dull brown hair. His astonished gaze fixed on the hair. He’d known of its existence, of course, but he’d never given it much thought, it had never really played a part in his fantasies. There was so much. She had more than him. A great turfy clump.

“Up,” Felix said. The woman climbed into the bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin. Felix joined her. His knee bumped her thigh.

“Sorry,” he said, wondering what to do. He felt paralysed with ignorance.

Her face was unpleasant, with puffy cheeks and a thick nose. Tense with apprehension he bent his head to kiss her on the lips.

“None of that,” she said harshly.

“Sorry,” Felix said again.

He brought his hand up to her shoulder and quickly ran it down the length of her body until it touched the extraordinary crinkly brown hair. It was wiry, not as soft as his.

“Just a minute,” she said. “What you got on yer mouth? Ain’t diseased or anything, is yer?”

Felix recoiled suddenly, his movements pulling the blankets away from her body.

“Sorry,” he said for the third time, as she snatched them back. He had to stop apologizing, he told himself.

“No,” he said. “It’s just a cold sore. You know. A cold sore.”

“Oh…yes,” she said dubiously. The hissing gas lamp illuminated the wrinkled sheets and set greasy highlights in her hair. Felix thought uncomfortably about the nameless man who had been occupying the bed minutes before.

Urging himself on, Felix lay down and hunched his body up against the woman. She shifted her weight and he found himself lying on top of her, her legs spread wide. He could feel the prickling furze of her hair against his belly. For some reason itches sprang up all over his body in response. There was a faintly damp moist feel to the woman’s skin, and various smells, not unpleasant, but unsettlingly alien, assaulted his nostrils. He wished vainly he were down in the street eating a third potato.

He felt the woman’s hands tugging at the fly buttons on his drawers. His cock, he realized, was wholly inert.

“Gawd, bloody hell,” the woman muttered. She pushed him off and thrust her hand into his drawers. He felt a surge of prim outrage at the touch of a strange hand.

She grabbed his cock in her fist. “Get you hard,” she said and began to pump it vigorously up and down. Felix looked up at the ceiling, feeling his stubborn anatomy at once respond to such forceful stimulation. The woman was still muttering to herself. Felix shut his eyes. It was better, he found, if he couldn’t see anything.

“Ach, you dirty little bugger!” she swore. She sat up, holding her sticky hand out distastefully, as if she’d just been clearing a blocked drain. “All over the bloody blankets. Go on. That’s yer lot. Go on, fuck off out of it!”

Felix crawled out of the bed and crouched over to his warm clothes. He put them on quickly, shutting his ears to the insults that were coming his way. He fumbled with his stiff collar, his fingers mysteriously transformed into stubby strengthless growths. A collar stud dropped to the ground and rolled away somewhere. He thrust his collar and bow tie into a pocket and tied his scarf around his neck. He hauled himself into his overcoat, flinging a last glance at the woman who was rubbing at the blankets with a cloth.

“Can you tell me how I get to Charing Cross from here?” he asked in a high, hoarse voice.

“Fuck off, you dirty little squirter,” she said vengefully. “Clear off out of it.”

♦

A fine wet mist hung over the Kent countryside. A uniform grey dawn light emphasized the absolute stillness of everything. It seemed to Felix that he was the only moving object in the landscape. The only sound was the squelching his sodden shoes made as he trudged up the lane towards Stackpole Manor. It had been a mistake to cut across the fields. The dew was so thick he might as well have been wading through water. An early morning mail train had taken him to Ashurst Station but the price of the ticket had used up the last of his money. There had been nothing for it but to walk home.

He opened the main gate at the bottom of the drive and closed it behind him quietly. He didn’t want to wake anyone in the lodge. They would be naturally surprised to see him out and about at this time of the morning in evening dress. He sloshed up the drive. He couldn’t really understand why he’d come back to Stackpole. A vague attempt to flee the scène of his mortifications, to put the maximum possible distance between himself and London. He still had his clothes at the Holland house, he realized. He’d have to send for them or else go back. Go back? Never, he thought, never. What would Holland think of him now? Would Amory tell the company about his appalling behaviour? Would they all laugh and condescend? “You silly, boring little boy!” He groaned out loud. He could hear her voice in his ears now. And then the tart…At least nobody but himself knew about the tart. What a disastrous night: disaster on a truly epic scale. This realization caused his soggy pace to slow. He stopped. He passed a shaking hand over his eyes. He sank down on his haunches and rapped his forehead with his knuckles. He knew why he had come back to Stackpole. There was nobody in London whom he could turn to. At least here they knew nothing of his shame.

He got to his feet again. He saw the turning that led down to Gabriel and Charis’s cottage, and, for no particular reason, went down it. To his surprise he saw a light shining from a downstairs window in the cottage. He went up and looked in. Charis sat on a low footstool in front of a newly lit fire. She was wearing a long navy blue dress and her hair was down. She held a steaming cup of something in her hand.

Felix rapped on the window pane. Charis turned round so sharply she almost fell from her stool. Then she recognized him and looked up in relief, a hand over her heart. She got up and moved out of his vision to open the front door.

“Felix! Gracious. I practically died of shock. What on earth are you doing? Come in, come in.”

Felix went in to the small sitting room and warmed his hands in front of the fire.

“I’ve just walked from the station,” he said.

“Oh. London not all you expected?” she asked sympathetically.

“You could put it that way.”

“Have some tea,” she said. “You look miserable.”

“If you don’t mind I’ll take off my shoes. They’re sopping.”

“Go ahead.” She went to fetch another cup and saucer.

“How was your party?” he asked. “I wish I’d stayed.”

“It was all right,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep. Which is why I’m still dressed, if you’re wondering. I went for a walk.”

“Who was there?”

“The Hyams. Some people from around and about. And Sammy Hinshelwood.”

“Oh? How was Sammy?”

Charis handed him a cup of tea. “That’s why I couldn’t sleep. Sammy was…How shall I put it? I think the kindest way would be ‘over-gallant’.”

“Good Lord,” Felix said, genuinely shocked as he understood the implication. “Sammy Hinshelwood? I mean, he was Gabriel’s best man!”

“He had a bit too much to drink. I think he just meant to be comforting. Anyway, no harm done. He apologized. Said he was fearfully sorry.”

Felix shook his head in outraged mystification. He looked at his bare toes. They were very white from the wetness, the nails yellow, as he imagined a dead person’s would be. Sammy Hinshelwood…who would have thought? Charis sat on the edge of the sofa. Felix glanced at her. She was wearing a shoulderless, very dark blue full-length gown. She looked as if she had been dipped in ink up to her armpits so sharp was the contrast between her white skin and the blue. Her long hair fell almost to her waist. This informality suddenly seemed overpoweringly intimate. He could see little creases at her armpit where her skin bulged slightly over the reinforced top of the dress. She had a string of jet and amber beads around her neck. He tried to imagine her naked body. He imagined it firm and smooth, hairless like a girl’s or a statue’s. Nothing like the one he’d seen a few hours previously.

She looked up and caught his eye.

“Did you cut yourself?” she asked.

He touched his cold sore. “It’s not a cut,” he said. “It’s that cold sore. You know, I’ve had if for months. Can’t seem to get it to go away.”

She got to her feet. “You stay here,” she said. “I’ve got just the thing for it upstairs. TCP. You’ll see, it’ll be gone in no time.”

She left. Felix heard her footsteps above his head. He sipped his tea and stared into the fire. A notion had come into his head, unbidden and nasty. Don’t think that sort of thing, he commanded himself, but the order had no effect. Remember Gabriel, he said again. “Gabriel,” he repeated the name out loud, as if it were some kind of shibboleth. A few coals collapsed on the fire.

11: 17 june 1915, Nanda, German East Africa

“Thank you,” the Englishman said, as Liesl von Bishop handed him his crutches. He smiled at her. He had a broad face. Square, as if his jaw muscles were overdeveloped.

“Danke schön,” he repeated.

“Excellent, Mr Cobb,” cried Dr Deppe. “An accent of first class quality!”

Liesl suppressed the usual stab of irritation. Deppe was so smug about his English. Who did he think he was? She was married to someone who was half-English, after all. She had even visited the country. Deppe thought he was so wonderful.

Liesl watched the English officer totter to his feet. His arms and shoulders began to shake with the effort of keeping himself upright. Liesl and Deppe ran to his side and eased him back onto the bed again.

“Gosh,” he said. “Still a bit rocky.”

“It’s not astonishing,” Liesl said. “You are very weak, yet.” The Englishman was surprised to hear her speaking English.

“Frau von Bishop is a linguist too,” Deppe said patronizingly, as he propped the crutches beside the bed. “A good effort,” he said. “Little by little, that’s how we do it. Tomorrow, one step. The next day, two. And so on.”

Liesl moved to the window. Life had been tolerable until Deppe had arrived from Tanga with his wounded and the sick Englishman. A double amputee, a man with one lung, and this one with the bayonet wounds. Remarkable recoveries, Deppe had said. He was keeping notes on them for some article he planned to write in a medical Journal after the war. Liesl saw him now, sitting hunched over a book in the corner of the big ward, scribbling away. She sighed, pulling the damp sweaty material of her makeshift nurse’s uniform away from her body.

Outside the window her view consisted of a wide compound of stamped earth that sloped down to a fenced-off stockade containing a jumble of wooden and grass huts that was Nanda’s prisoner-of-war camp. There were about eighty English and South African prisoners there who had been captured in the numerous small engagements that had made up the war in East Africa since the great victory at Tanga. Not that she knew much about it. When Erich came to her on his rare leaves he would tell her how things were going, but she only paid scant attention. To be honest she didn’t care, now that she was denied the comfort of living in her own home. She was waiting only for it to finish.

She had been moved from the farm at Moshi soon after war had been declared: too close to the fighting, they had said. She had stayed in Dar for two months and out of sheer boredom had offered her nursing services to the large hospital there. But she had been sent further south to Nanda where a new hospital had been established for more seriously wounded men whose convalescence would be lengthy and who were unlikely to return to the fighting. Erich had encouraged the move. He didn’t like her living alone in Dar, and besides, he said, Nanda was safer. The British were sure to bombard Dar before long, he claimed. Nanda was far in the south, a smaller hospital, generally more tranquil.

In that respect Erich had been right. Liesl had found herself in effective charge of the hospital until Deppe arrived. The building had once been an agricultural research station and was situated at one end of the small town. Liesl had a wood and tin bungalow to herself — and Erich, whenever he came on leave.

The prisoner-of-war camp had been set up shortly after her arrival and there was a small garrison of troops based there to guard it. The rest of the population was made up of the wives and families of the rubber planters whose extensive plantations surrounded the town.

To Liesl’s surprise she had found herself quite happy to take up her nursing duties once again. She was even secretly grateful to the war for making this possible. When she returned from Europe in 1914 the first few weeks had been among the worst of her life. Every morning on waking, she was instantly overcome by a mood of poisonous irritation that made her days a misery. Nothing satisfied her, nothing pleased her. She detested the country, the malevolent climate, the demands of the farm. She took out her unhappiness on Erich.

She couldn’t say she was exactly happy now, but at least she wasn’t miserable any more. That is, until the wretched man Deppe had arrived with his text book cases, turning everything upside down, altering tried and tested routines and rotas, busying about like some officious little bureaucrat…

She picked at the wooden sill, prising away a splinter.

“Excuse me. Entschuldigung.”

She turned round. It was the soldier, Cobb, calling from his bed.

“Wasser. Kann ich, um, Wasser haben. Bitte.”

She brought him a glass. “I speak English, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to speak German.”

She remembered when this Cobb had arrived. The journey from Tanga had almost been too much for him: Deppe’s precious case history almost prematurely closed. He had a fever which lasted a week. She remembered sponging his body with damp cloths. He was very thin, his body unreally pale. There were knotted purple weals on his white belly and the huge gash in his thigh, still with its stitches in. Deppe said the dressings on the thigh wound had to be changed every twenty-four hours. More work for everybody. His double amputee as well, both legs gone almost at the hip. Deppe congratulated himself for keeping these people alive. At least Cobb was entire, even though he would always walk with a bad limp. She took the glass for him.

“Thank you,” he said. “How come you speak such good English?”

“My husband’s father was English. He lived in Leamington Spa, near Stratford-on-Avon. Have you been there?”

“No, I can’t say I have. Where’s your husband now?”

“He’s fighting.”

“Against the Germans?” A puzzled but sympathetic look crossed his face.

“No no. He’s a German now. For many years. He’s fighting against you.” Liesl made no attempt to excuse his embarrassment.

“Perhaps you could teach me German?” he suggested in an attempt to regain his composure.

Liesl looked down the ward. In the morning it was quite cool. Later in the day it became unbearably hot.

“Why do you want to learn German?” she asked. But she had already lost interest in his reply. She thought about the ‘bath’ waiting for her in an hour when she went off duty. Every day she got her maid, Kimi, to pour buckets of cold water over her while she stood in a tin bath. Then she would eat. Then she would sleep.

“Well,” Cobb said. “I might as well make some use”—he waved his hands about—“of all this. Get something out of it, at least.”

♦

Liesl wearily climbed up the wooden steps that led on to the rickety stoop of her bungalow. It was small with two rooms — a bedroom and a sitting room — and had belonged to one of the bachelor managers of one of the plantations. It was sparsely furnished. The manager had been called up by the Schütztruppe and was now in the Kilimanjaro region, billeted, for all Liesl knew, in her own large and spacious farmhouse.

For ten months now the war had been little more than stalemate but this, according to Erich, was exactly what von Lettow wanted. He knew that the Schütztruppe could never finally defeat the British but at the same time a well-fought and protracted campaign could ensure that more and more men and materials would have to be supplied, diverting them from the more crucial battlefields of the Western Front.

Now the German army at Moshi and Taveta faced the British at Voi. There had been skirmishes at Jasin on the coast, the Belgians were advancing tentatively from the Congo, but little more. Since the debacle at the battle of Tanga in November of 1914 the British had done nothing. Nothing that is, Liesl corrected herself, apart from sinking the Königsberg in the Rufiji delta.

She remembered the Königsberg. It had been moored in Dar-es-Salaam harbour, bright with flags on the day she had arrived back from Germany. She tried to imagine it scuttled in some jungle tributary and an image of rusting steel, river weeds and creepers slid obligingly into her head. She thought of their farmhouse, the neat garden and the banana groves all destroyed, razed and blackened by war and gunfire…She shrugged and went over to a rear window. She saw her maid Kimi lounging against the kitchen shack chatting to the cook.

“Kimi,” she shouted. “Bring the water.”

She went into her bedroom and sat on the bed while Kimi and the cook staggered in with four buckets of water. Outside the African dusk was nearing the end of its brief life. A red sun, just below the tree line, a smell of woodsmoke and charcoal fires, the first crickets beginning to trill and hum.

Kimi stood obediently in silence as Liesl undressed. As her clothes came off Liesl began to feel pleasantly relaxed. Kimi stepped behind her and unlaced the worn cotton corset. Liesl told her to wash it. She needed new clothes but they were becoming impossible to buy. She stood there for a moment, quite naked, slumped in an archetypal pose of tiredness and resignation. Ten hours in the hospital. She weighed her heavy breasts with a forearm and holding them out from her body wiped beneath them with the corset, then used it to rub her armpits. She did nothing but sweat in this country. She looked down at her creamy freckled body. Freckled all over. Pale as an abbess, Erich had once said a long time ago. Only now the paleness was marred by red rashes of prickly heat; a belt beneath her navel, smears at her sides too, where her clothes chafed. She arched her back, stretched and stepped into the galvanized iron bath that lay in the middle of the floor. Kimi climbed onto a chair that stood beside it. Liesl reached down and, with a grunt of effort, passed her one of the brimming buckets.

“Where’s the soap?” Liesl demanded.

“No soap left,” Kimi said.

Liesl sighed. She would bring some over from the hospital tomorrow. Never mind, it was the water that mattered. A few seconds of delight.

“Go on,” she said.

Slowly Kimi emptied the pail over Liesl’s broad white shoulders. The coolness of the water made her gasp but the shock wore off disappointingly quickly. The water slid down her body. Absentmindedly Liesl went through the motions of washing herself, her hands guiding the trickling water to every nook and crevice, passing over her arms and belly, raising one leg and then the other. Kimi’s face was locked in a frown with the effort of keeping the heavy buckets aloft. As one emptied, Liesl would pass her another.

Finally clean, Liesl dried herself with a thick cotton towel, very patched and frayed, and put on fresh clothes. Then she ate and went to bed. Unless she was being visited by one of the other women in Nanda, with whom she had made casual acquaintance, for a game of cards, some coffee or speculation about the course and consequences of the war, she always went to bed early.

This routine had been quickly established and had not changed for the five months she had been in Nanda. It had altered only on Erich’s two brief leaves, when he set his camp bed up in the narrow bedroom, and was always there on the stoop to greet her when she came home from work.

12: 21 November 1915, Voi, British East Africa

Temple stood outside the post office at Voi, checking and rechecking his uniform. He felt slightly ashamed at the way his gleaming new Sam Browne belt defined rather than restrained his paunch. Another hole had been pierced at the very end of the belt and the short tip now refused to stay beneath the buckle. The slightest movement caused it to flip out.

Patiently Temple waited for his summons to meet Brigadier-General Pughe, commanding officer of the brigade currently massed at Voi in preparation for the impending attack on the German army, just a few miles across the plains at Taveta.

Temple pulled at his moustache and looked at the ceaseless procession of troops, donkeys, mules, and motor vehicles, carts and wagons of every shape and size, that passed up and down the main street of Voi in front of the post office, now acting as forward HQ for Pughe’s brigade. Temple thought back to the time a year before when he and his family had arrived here as refugees, early victims of this ‘war’. Mentally he added the quotation marks. He’d done nothing since he’d joined the East African Mounted Rifles after Essanjee’s tragic death. Nothing except gradually acquire, over the months, separate pieces of his uniform, and endlessly drill and canter across the countryside around Nairobi. From time to time small units went out on scouting parties and sneaked across the border with German East but they rarely encountered any Germans.

In Temple’s case even this surrogate form of action had been denied him as he’d been cross-posted to the 3rd Battalion of the King’s African Rifles as a scout, where his local knowledge of the ground in the vicinity of Taveta was held to be of considerable use.

Arriving at Voi six months ago he had been astonished to find the tiny railway junction and administrative centre transformed into a massive army camp. Neat rows of tents stretched out in every direction as huge contingents of troops from South Africa arrived to swell the battered remnants of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’. Indian sepoys, local Africans, South African Cape Coloureds and Whites and British troops only just maintained cordial relations in the makeshift garrison town.

Temple had watched the army assemble first with fevered anticipation, then with wild hope, followed by deepening disappointment, culminating in utter boredom. They waited and waited, as the vast motor pool grew, mountains of stores piled high, cavalry regiments wheeled and manoeuvred, mountain batteries drilled and fired blank shells and the men grumbled and bickered at each other.

The thought of Smithville just an hour or two’s ride away made Temple want to weep with frustration. Many times he’d been out along the road he’d taken with Essanjee and Wheech-Browning until he came in sight of Salaita Hill, and many times he’d peered through his binoculars at the rise of ground that obscured his home and the farm buildings.

He wondered what condition the farm was in, whether the Germans had demolished everything he’d worked so hard to build up. The house, the barns, the drying racks, the crops, the Decorticator…But somehow his imagination refused to picture the Decorticator as a wreck: a rusted, broken-down shell. It seemed too large and potent, too massy and fixed to be destroyed. Perhaps the webbing drive-belts would need replacing, the steam engine decaulking and overhauling, but somehow the Decorticator itself, the mighty iron wheels, the grinding teeth, the threshing chains seemed as permanent as any man-made object could be.

It was a source of some pain to him that his family seemed not to share his anguish and concern. They were happily ensconced in a bungalow at the Reverend Norman Espie’s mission. Matilda had been delivered of a healthy baby girl and even the other children, to Temple’s disgust, referred to the mission as home.

“Smithville’s your home,” he had rebuked them angrily one day in Nairobi when they had been tired and said they wanted to go ‘home’ to the mission. He had been astonished at their blank looks. “Smithville. The Farm. The Decorticator.”

“There, there,” Matilda had said. “Don’t confuse them, dear.”

“Home is where the heart is,” intoned the Reverend Norman Espie piously.

“Yes,” Temple agreed. “You bet. Exactly.” Espie looked hurt for a second but then hastily assured Temple that he understood precisely how he felt.

Temple rubbed the toe of his boot on his neatly wound gaiters. Pughe had kept him waiting outside now for over half an hour. His stomach was beginning to rumble in anticipation of lunch. He took off his sun helmet and inspected the brim. He flicked away some specks of dust.

An orderly appeared at the door. “Mr Smith? You can go in now.”

Temple was led through into what had been the post master’s office. Pughe and his brigade major stood in front of a table on which was laid a large map. Pughe had an empty glass in his hand and, as he turned to greet Temple, Temple saw the marginally unfocused gaze of someone in a well-advanced stage of intoxication.

“Ah, Smith, isn’t it?” Pughe said. “Want”—he swallowed air—“benefit of your local knowledge. Expertise, what have you. Take a gander at the map.”

Temple stood beside him. Pughe was a small man, bald, with a round, rosy, cherubic face which made his little toothbrush moustache seem wholly inappropriate. Brandy fumes exuded from him as if he’d been marinated in alcohol.

Temple looked at the map. Voi, then the blank space until Taveta. The long line of the Usambara Hills running west from the coast ending at the magnificent full stop of Kilimanjaro.

“Broadly, it’s going to go something like this,” Pughe said. “We attack south and north of Kili-whatsit. Meet up on the other side then trundle down the Northern Railway to Tanga pushing the Germans in front of us. That should just about do it. Now General Stewart with the 1^st Division is taking the northern attack, while we want to move through the pass behind Taveta.” He drained his glass. “Splash a touch more in that, would you?” Pughe said to the brigade major.

“Colonel Youell of the KAR told me you’d farmed around Taveta. He thought it might be useful if we could get through the Usambara Huls a bit further down. He seemed to think we could cut through from Lake Jipe to Kahe directly. What d’you say? Oh, thanks,” he accepted his drink from the brigade major.

“Can’t be done, sir,” Temple said, suddenly consumed with homesickness on hearing Lake Jipe mentioned. He pointed to the map, at the pass between the end of the Usambara Hills and Mount Kilimanjaro.

“On this area here, sir, there are several small hills. There’s Salaita in front of Taveta; behind the town the road goes between two hills called Latema and Reata. They command the ground completely. It would be very hard to move people off those hills.”

“Oh.” Pughe looked surprised. “Are you sure? Are you expecting any problems there, Charles? What do our people say?”

“I doubt it very much,” the brigade major said. “Remember we’ve got Stewart and the 1^st Division coming down behind Kilimanjaro. They won’t want to make a stand at Latema — Reata. No, we’re pretty sure they’ll pull back down the railway to Tanga.”

“Well, Smith,” Pughe said cheerfully. “Looks like you’re wrong. Thanks anyway.”

“Yes, sir,” Temple said. He put on his sun helmet and saluted.

“By the way,” Pughe said. “Curious accent you’ve got. Where are you from? Devon? Cornwall?”

“No sir. I’m from New York City. United States of America.”

“I see,” Pughe looked at his drink. “Smith. Seems an unusual name for an American. Long way from home, eh?”

“No, sir,” Temple said pointing to Smithville on the map. “My home’s there.”

Pughe shot a glance at his brigade major. “Yes. Mmmm. Right you are. Well, jolly good to have you chaps alongside us. Good luck.”

Temple stepped out from the porch into the sun, adjusted his sun helmet and sighed audibly. The British. He shook his head in a mixture of rage and admiration. A general who was an alcoholic, an army resembling the tribes of Babel, and everyone milling around on this and plain without the slightest idea of what they were meant to be doing…

He walked slowly up the road towards the area of the huge camp where his tent was pitched. He undid the top buttons of his tunic and, with a gasp of relief, unbuckled his Sam Browne. Happily, uniform regulations in this theatre of war were lax, to say the least. Shirtsleeves and shorts had become the order of the day.

Temple skirted a company of drilling sepoys and moved down behind an immense open stable of mules and donkeys. The rich smell of manure was carried to him on a slight breeze. The air above the tethered animals juddered with a million flies. He watched some sweating, half-naked syces drag away a dead pony. The death toll among the horses and mules was staggering, tsetse fly claiming dozens of victims each day, but there seemed to be an inexhaustible source of pack animals; fresh trainloads were constantly arriving.

Beyond the lines of tethered mules lay the sprawling, tatter-demalion encampment of what were euphemistically called support troops, meaning all the thousands of bearers, coolies and servants and their wives and families required to keep this swelling army in anything like working order. Temple imagined that this must have been how the Israelites appeared after wandering around the Sinai desert for forty years. A huge, heterodox mass of people, a sizeable township, without houses, institutions or sanitation but with all the mundane dramas — births, deaths, marriages, adulteries — that any town contained. He had never been into the bearer camp. Initially some soldier had attempted to impose a semblance of militaristic neatness and order on the mob, making them erect their shambas, shanties, thorn shelters and rag tents in neat rows, but it disappeared without trace in days. Looking down on the bearer camp from a slight rise the original grid plan could just be made out, like medieval strip fields since covered by a layer of scrubby vegetation. But from ground level it merely appeared a swarming, pestilential mess.

Temple crossed a flimsy wooden bridge that had been laid across a wide gully. Facing him was a sizeable open space, recently cleared of its thorn bushes and boulders and trampled flat by the feet of thousands of coolies, which now did duty as Voi’s aerodrome. On a spindly varicose pole a windsock hung like an empty sleeve. Over to the right were temporary hangars, little more than canvas awnings, that provided some shade for the two frail biplanes — BE2 Cs — which at the moment constituted the presence of the Royal Flying Corps in East Africa.

As he watched Temple saw one of the machines being pushed out onto the strip. Curious, he walked over to get a better look. He had seen aeroplanes twice before. Once in Nairobi and once — a seaplane — at Dar-es-Salaam. It wasn’t the fact that such machines could fly that astonished him so much as their fragile delicate construction. He-was an engineer and the mechanical contraptions he had dealt with — locomotives, Bessemer converters, threshers, the Decorticator — were robust powerful artefacts, somehow asserting their right to function well through the very strength and size of their components. Forged iron, steel plate, gliding pistons. When you saw the Decorticator at full steam, you saw a symbol of the potential in human ingenuity. No task, however fantastical, seemed impossible when this kind of strength could be created, this kind of energy generated, harnessed and controlled. But the aeroplanes…? Patched canvas, broken struts, loose rigging wires. Temple felt he could pull one apart with his bare hands, punch it into rags and kindling.

As he approached Temple recognized, to his dismay, a familiar lanky figure. Wheech-Browning. He wore a faded khaki shirt, loose knee length shorts and plimsolls without socks. On his head he had a tweed cap — reversed — and aviator’s goggles pulled down over his eyes. Wheech-Browning was the last person Temple wanted to see. He couldn’t stand the man. It was Wheech-Browning who had recommended his posting to the 3rd KAR at Voi, for which action Temple bore him a potent grudge. But the sad demise of Mr Essanjee had, as far as Wheech-Browning was concerned, established a bond between them which Wheech-Browning felt was now impossible to sunder. He treated Temple as a dear friend, a comrade-in-arms whose shared exposure to enemy fire had brought about an indissoluble union. This amity might just have been tolerable if Wheech-Browning had not at the same time pursued the matter of the unpaid duty on his coffee seedlings with the same vigour as he sought Temple’s friendship. Temporarily relieved of his duties through military service, Wheech-Browning had put the matter in the hands of the District Commissioner — one Mulberry-at Voi. The latest meeting with Mulberry had ended with Temple being threatened with prosecution for non-payment of debts. Temple turned on his heel and began walking in the other direction.

“Smith! I say, come and have a look.”

Reluctantly Temple returned to the aeroplane, now being fussed over by mechanics. Wheech-Browning stood by the side of a very young, blond-haired pilot who looked, to Temple’s eyes, to be about twelve years old.

“Do you know flying officer Drewes? He’s going to fly me over to Salaita. See what Jerry’s up to. Good idea, yes?”

Temple thought. “Say, could you fly over to Smithville? It’s not far. You could—”

“Sorry, old boy,” Wheech-Browning smiled. “Fuel problems. That’s right, Drewes, isn’t it? But I’ll tell you what, I’ll have a squint through the old binocs. See if the place is still standing.” Wheech-Browning tapped the stretched canvas side of the aeroplane. “Amazing machines. Wonderful sensation when you’re up in the sky. Feel like a god. You should try it, Smith.”

“You’ve been up before?” Temple asked.

“Who me? No, No. First time for everything, eh Drewes? No, I read about it in some magazine. Drewes here was going up on a flight so I asked if he’d take—”

There was a farting sound as a mechanic swung the wooden propeller and the engine caught. The aeroplane began to shake and shudder.

“All aboard the Skylark,” piped Drewes in a high voice.

Wheech-Browning pushed his goggled face up to Temple’s. “See Mulberry?” he bellowed above the noise. Temple nodded. “Jolly good,” Wheech-Browning shouted. “He seemed in a bit of a wax about this customs duty business.” It never ceased to astonish Temple how Wheech-Browning failed to see that the customs-duty business might jeopardize their ‘friendship’.

Wheech-Browning gave him a thumbs up sign, pulled his cap down and clambered with difficulty into the small observer’s cockpit behind the pilot. Drewes revved up the engine, throwing up a towering plume of dust behind the aeroplane. Two mechanics at either wing tip pushed and heaved the plane into position for take off.

Temple suppressed his irritation at the news of Mulberry’s ‘wax’ and moved to a sheltered position at the side of a hangar where he could get a good view without being blinded by dust. He saw Drewes look at the limp windsock, then he saw Wheech-Browning stand up in his seat, lick his forefinger and attempt to hold it above the propeller’s back draught. Some decision must have been reached because the biplane then moved very slowly over the uneven ground to the other end of the runway. Wheech-Browning leapt out of his seat, grabbed a wing and dug his heels into the ground to allow Drewes some purchase to pivot the plane round so it was facing the way it had come.

Wheech-Browning resumed his seat in the cockpit and the tinny note of the engine grew angrier as it was accelerated. Then the plane began to run forward, imperceptibly picking up speed, dust billowing behind it, the tail skid kicking up stones and gravel. As it passed the hangars, Temple saw Wheech-Browning give a cheery wave. Suddenly the tail lifted, and with a bump or two the little plane was in the air, three feet, six feet, twenty feet. It climbed with agonizing slowness.

“Too hot,” somebody said in the watching group. “It’s too hot today. They’ll never get up.”

As if in response to his words the plane began to descend, even though the engine seemed to be straining harder. Ten feet, eight feet, two feet. There was a cloud of dust as the trolley undercarriage hit the ground.

“Told you,” the knowledgeable voice said. “They’ll have to wait till the evening.” Nobody seemed concerned.

“Oh my Christ,” someone gasped. “The gully!”

The aeroplane sped merrily along the ground, the tail cheekily lifted until it seemed suddenly to stand on its nose and plunge beneath the level of the earth. There was a crumpling sound, as of a flimsy chair giving way. For an instant the tail plane pointed vertically in the air, then it slowly keeled over.

Temple and the others sprinted over towards the site of the crash, coughing and choking as they ran through the clouds of dust that hung in the air. Because of his girth Temple was soon outpaced by the others. By the time he arrived Drewes’ broken body had already been lifted from the splintered and torn remains of the aircraft, and he had been lain on the floor of the gully. Wheech-Browning, Temple assumed, must be trapped in the mangled wreckage. It served the stupid bastard right! Temple swore. The damned fool. But then he saw a plimsolled foot stamp its way through the canvas side of the fuselage. Willing hands soon tore a larger gap and Wheech-Browning slithered and eeled his long frame out onto the ground. His cap was missing but he still wore his goggles, one lens starred crazily where the glaze had been shattered. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his face from a cut.

“Good God,” he said. “That was hairy. Forgot about the damned gully. Thought we’d made it.”

“Are you all right?” Temple asked.

Wheech-Browning gave an experimental wriggle, as if a cold penny had been dropped down his back. “No bones broken,” he said. “Bit wobbly though. Drewes kept shouting something about it being too hot. How is he, anyway?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Wheech-Browning took off his goggles and rubbed his eyes. “Oh dear. I am sorry. Great shame.” He looked directly at Temple. “What is it about us, Smith?” he said, with a kind of mystified sadness. “Every time you and I get near a machine it seems some poor so-and-so dies.”

Temple looked at him in blank amazement. He was too astonished to reply.

13: 10 December 1915, The King’s Arms, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

Charis watched Felix swing himself to the side of the bed. The pale expanse of his pyjama jacket glowed in the dark room. She felt the bed vibrate as he shivered. She reached out and pressed the palm of her left hand against his back.

“You’re awake,” he said. “Sorry.” He leant back and kissed her on the cheek. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” She heard him fumbling for his glasses on the bedside table.

“It’s early,” he said. “Just gone six.” He stood up and put on his dressing gown. He smiled at her. “It’s hardly worth going back to sleep, is it? We have to be at the station in a couple of hours. I’ll just be a minute.” He left the room.

Charis got out of bed and walked over to the window. A pale silvery light shone on the boring winter fields in the distance. Tasteless colours, she thought. Dark brown and green. Like the chocolate sauce and pistachio ice-cream she and Gabriel had one afternoon in Trouville. She noted, with mixed feelings, that the thought of Gabriel made her feel as guilty as ever. She wasn’t any more accustomed to betrayal. Was that good or bad? She tried a hard, grim smile but it felt affected and wrong for her, like too much red lip-salve. She rubbed her arms through her night dress, beginning to sense the chill in the hotel room. She crouched before the ashy fire and poked at the remains of the charred logs with the fire tongs. No embers left.

She went to the dressing table and took some things from her Gladstone bag and placed them on the top. A saucer, a small bottle with a clear liquid inside it, and a tiny piece of sponge — slightly larger than a lump of sugar — to which an eighteen inch length of cotton thread was securely tied.

With a little grunt she lifted up the ewer of water from its basin and splashed a few drops in the saucer. Then she added a little fluid from the bottle. She mixed the two together with her finger, wishing the water was warm. Then she dipped the sponge in the solution, letting it soak there for a while.

She pulled up her night dress and put one foot on the chair, then, wincing from the cold, she pushed the little piece of sponge into her vagina as far as it would go. The thread dangled between her thighs. Felix, she was sure, had never noticed it in the eight times their ‘bodies had mingled’ since that first evening in August.

She replaced the saucer and bottle in her bag and offered up a silent prayer of thanks to Aunt Bedelia with her little handbooks and pamphlets and their commonsensical advice. Did Felix ever think of taking precautions, she wondered? Was it something that ever crossed his mind? Did he ever wonder what would happen if—?

But this train of thought made her feel suddenly weak — almost faint — at the risks they were taking. She shut her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose. Why was she so weak? Why couldn’t she obey the dictates of her reason? She saw everything with utter clarity and understood with no ambiguity the absolute wrongness of what she was doing. That should have been sufficient, she told herself. If these things were so evident, self-restraint should be automatic. But even as she ran through the catalogue of her sins, in her mind some perverse illogic exerted a more powerful impulse. The answer was simple. She wasn’t deluded, she wasn’t out of control: in some sort of way she must want to do what she did.

“The flesh is weak,” she said to herself, in partial expiation. As if to prove her point she slipped off her night dress and stood naked in the cold room for an instant. She felt her body break out in goosepimples. Glancing down she saw her nipples redden and pucker.

“Brrrr!” she exclaimed and jumped into the still warm bed.

Felix came back.

“Nobody stirring,” he said. He saw her night dress on the bedpost and his smile broadened.

“Have I kept you waiting’ long?” he asked facetiously, as he took off his dressing-gown and pyjama jacket. “Ooh, it’s cold,” he said and hurried in beside her. They huddled close to each other.

“I should resist you,” Charis said, half-seriously. “But I’m so weak.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” he said, making a joke of it. “I’m irresistible.” She thought his smile was a little forced. They tried never to talk about Gabriel. She had no real notion of how Felix felt, if he felt as she did or not. By a kind of unspoken agreement they had arrived at a position where they didn’t mention his name if they could help it. It was safer. On the few occasions when some reference was made Charis found the feelings of shame and guilt burnt through her, her mind filled with images of their last days together. She would tremble with the effort of self-control; it seemed almost impossible to breathe. Felix showed nothing as far as she could see; he just became silent for a while. Was he wresting with his feelings? Or just respecting hers? She felt she desperately needed to know sometimes, but she didn’t dare ask for fear of what might be unleashed, of what would be for ever spoiled.

As she lay now in his arms she knew, though, that sometime soon they had to talk about Gabriel. They had to. It seemed to her they only got by because their meetings were so infrequent. When they were together for any length of time the spectre of Gabriel inevitably intruded on them, like Banquo’s ghost.

“Charis?”

“Oh sorry, Felix.”

“You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?” He kissed her neck. She ran her hand down the back of his head, her fingers seeking the top bump of his vertebrae.

“Just dreaming,” she said. She felt his hand on her breast above her heart, taking the nipple between thumb and forefinger.

“Dreaming of your demon lover,” he said.

“Thinking about last summer,” she lied.

“Oh. The ponds.”

Charis reached down and took his cock in her hand, holding it lightly, as if weighing it. It was very soft, like that, surprisingly so, she thought. She squeezed it gently, feeling it slowly thicken and firm, filling out her fist. Felix rolled on top of her. Her hand went back to his shoulders searching for a small mole, rubbery, slightly raised above the surface of his skin, a familiar map reference on his body, like the small scar on his thigh, the baby softness of his underarms.

♦

In the summer of 1915, during fine evenings, Charis often left her cottage and went to a stone seat by the middle fishpond which was obscured from the big house by a large clump of Portuguese laurel and rhododendron.

It was a little classical arbour which had been constructed by Felix’s mother. There was a sizeable piece of broken fluted column set in a border and beside the marble bench was a bust of the Emperor Vitellius on a slim octagonal plinth.

As the evening cooled the water the big carp would come up from the dark and weedy bottom of the pool and nose at flies, or cruise slowly to and fro. Charis began to take some bread crumbs with her to feed them and soon, she fancied, they came to expect her arrival, the first crumbs thrown bringing a dozen or more fish up from the depths.

One evening Felix joined her; he had seen her from his room, he said. They had become more friendly since their meeting after her party when, unaccountably, he’d turned up at her front door in his dripping evening dress. The distrust and caution on his part that had seemed to lie between them disappeared, and consequently, when Felix was at Stackpole, life there became noticeably more enjoyable. The bizarre gloom that emanated constantly from the major had been added to by the return of Nigel Bathe from Mesopotamia. During a bomb-throwing instruction course he’d been attending, a bomb had exploded in his hands and both arms had been amputated at the elbow. He came with Eustacia to convalesce at Stackpole. The air of lugubrious tragedy that permeated the house became almost palpable. Felix’s return from Oxford for the summer vacation brought welcome relief.

The evening meetings by the fishpond began naturally and easily to extend themselves, weather permitting. Some days Charis found him there before her, waiting. He told her about his life in Oxford, how boring it was, and his friend Holland. They argued about pacifism, Charis attacking Felix’s anti-war stance out of a sense of loyalty to Gabriel rather than through any firm conviction of her own. The presence of Nigel Bathe and news of disasters at the Dardanelles and Suvla Bay made her arguments harder to establish, but she persisted, and in talking this way with Felix came to understand something of his hatred for the soldiers in his family, the powerful need he felt to be different from his father and brothers-in-law. But what about Gabriel, she would ask, playing her trump card. Ah, Gabriel was different, the exception that proved the rule. But slowly Gabriel’s name came up less and less frequently. Sometimes they simply sat and looked at the cruising fish, not talking for minutes at a time.

One evening it was unnaturally hot. A dull static heat that seemed to promise thunderstorms a day or so ahead. Clouds of midges dithered above the pool. There was no breeze and the air was clinging and felt over-used, as if, Felix said, it was composed of exhalations only. All the people of the world breathing out at once. Charis wore an old straw hat in which she’d stuck cornflowers and poppies. She took it off and fanned her face, looping damp tendrils of hair back behind her ears. She glanced at Felix but he was staring fixedly at the pond, tapping out a rhythm on his knee. Confident he wasn’t looking at her Charis pulled forward the V of her blouse and fanned air down her sticky front, shutting her eyes and throwing her head back. When she opened her eyes Felix was looking at her. She blushed.

“Phew,” she said. “It’s so hot. Beastly hot. Do you think it’s as hot as this in Africa?”

“Charis,” Felix said, with visible effort and a strained formality, “I have to say. I can’t…” and to her utter astonishment he lurched forward, put his arms around her and tried to kiss her. For a moment she did nothing, stunned, perplexed and amazed to feel the pressure of his hand on her shoulders and his lips squashed against hers. She pushed him away.

“Felix,” she cried. “Really!” She picked up her hat which she had dropped. To her vague discomfort she didn’t feel outraged or disgusted as she had with Sammy Hinshelwood.

Felix then seemed to curl up inside himself on the seat. He covered his face with his hands, then snatched them away and stared up at the hazy evening sky.

“I’m so sorry,” he said fiercely. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know it’s disgraceful. Please forgive me. I couldn’t help myself.”

“Well,” she said. “Well,” noticing that her cheeks were now hot and her heart was thumping noisily in her chest, “let’s forget it. All about it. Too much sun,” she laughed with too much gaiety. “Too much in the sun. Driving you mad.” She threw some bread into the pond and there was swirl and burble of water as the carp fought for the pieces.

“Look at those fish,” she said a little wildly. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to be a fish today, all cool and wet at the bottom of the pond? Swimming around without a care in the world.”

♦

Charis opened her eyes and looked at the electric light fixture in the ceiling. Felix still lay on top of her, his weight pressing her spread-eagled body down into the soft mattress. The whole of the lower half of her torso seemed to be humming still, a feeling of delicious sensitivity at the base of her spine. She heard Felix’s breathing slowing down. He gave a small groan. Nine times now. With Gabriel it had really only happened twice. But nothing like this. She clenched her fists.

♦

The embarrassment of that first lunge passed away in a day or so. Felix returned, she thought, to his normal self, friendly and amusing. But all the changes had been wrought in her. Try as she might she couldn’t re-consign him to his old role of companion and welcome distraction. Feelings had been unleashed, emotions aired: she found these facts impossible to ignore. In a subtle way everything had changed. The past became different too. All through the summer, she now realized, he had been looking at her in ways she was innocent of: seeing her not, as she thought, as sister-in-law or new friend, but as someone desirable. She started reliving the months of their friendship, going back to that dawn visit in late March, running through her innocuous memories for signs and clues that would explain his amazing outburst. Felix, of all people. How extraordinary! Felix harbouring these thoughts about me through all these months…

She was — she had to be honest — pleased in a way, and vaguely flattered. And, suddenly aware, she became conscious of the effect her presence and appearance had on him: covert glances, inexplicable tensions and strange expressions on his face she would have missed before. It was nothing serious, she told herself. Very young men like Felix often indulged in these ‘crashes’. It was amusing, something to smile about privately and tolerate, not condemn or proscribe.

But then, another evening at the fishpond, he seized her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. An absurd romantic gesture that she supposed he must have seen in a play or some musical revue.

“Felix,” she rebuked jokingly, pulling her hand away. “Some-one might see. Now stop it.”

It was the wrong thing to have said, she realized later, in the wrong tone of voice. His adoration now moved into a new phase. From being something private and inconceivable it became now an enjoyable secret that they shared and acknowledged. Their flirtation was something that they could both allude to and that she could tease him about.

On another day she suggested a walk and a picnic.

“Ah,” Felix said. “But I might not be able to control myself.”

“You shall only come if you promise to behave.”

“I swear, I swear.”

The fact that it all took place beneath the innocent eyes of the Cobb family made the summer weeks tinglingly illicit. There was nothing that anyone could find remotely improper about brother and sister-in-law finding some harmless pleasure in each other’s company, and for the first time since Gabriel had gone away she found that life at Stackpole held something for her.

Then late one evening Felix came round to the cottage with some old blankets which he said his mother had asked him to deliver. Charis offered him a cup of cocoa and they sat and chatted in the small parlour for an hour. When Felix took his leave it was in the tones of mock-medieval romance which he sometimes employed to ridicule his infatuation but which also allowed him to air it.

“I must to horse,” he said, striking a dramatic pose. “Farewell, sweet maiden.”

“Fare thee well, gentle knight,” Charis laughed, dropping a curtsey. She showed him to the door. It was nearly dark. Felix melodramatically folded up his jacket collar.

“Egad, the night is wondrous wild,” he said. “When shall we two meet again?”

“Ah me,” Charis said, clasping her hands on her heart and expiring against the door jamb. “Luncheon tomorrow?”

They both laughed at the bathos. But then suddenly Felix was kissing her again and reflexively Charis had her arms round his neck for an instant before she came to her senses and struggled herself free.

“Felix,” she said seriously. “You must stop. You mustn’t do that.”

He looked very unhappy. “I know,” he said. “I should. But it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Somehow, because it’s Gabriel, it seems to make it all right.” He looked at her. “Does that make any sense?”

It didn’t, but she ignored him. “But you must stop. Don’t you see, you have to. You’ve got to.”

He went away but came back later after eleven ‘to apologize’. Charis had been in a state of real agitation after he’d left, angry with herself for not censuring him more and for not having checked this state of affairs before. Felix started to kiss her again and her attempts at resistance only seemed to make his ardour more intense. Nothing she said had any effect. It was easier, she found, to give in. He left after midnight. He half-heartedly beseeched her to let him stay, but she bundled him out of the door.

♦

Charis watched Felix knot his tie. He was whistling to himself, ‘Lily of Laguna’, she recognized.

“A happy man,” she said, hunching the blankets over her shoulder. He caught her eye in the glass.

“Of course,” he said. “You too?”

“Of course.”

“Want breakfast?” he asked. “They’ll be serving by now.”

“No. I’ll just have a pot of tea.”

“Sent up?”

“No, I’ll be down soon.”

After that first night Charis suffered some remorse. But she still couldn’t understand how it had all come about. The facts were irrefutable: she and Felix were having a love affair.

Everything would be all right, she told herself, if it could be maintained at this level of kissing and hand-holding. She knew that many women — respectable married women like herself — indulged in this sort of thing. It was no more than a flirtation, a pastime, nothing serious. If only Gabriel, she told herself in moments of irritation or when her conscience bothered her unduly, had acted more like a husband. If only she’d had more of a married life before the war claimed him then she was sure she would never have yielded. It was hardly her fault, after all, What could anyone expect; married for a week, then a year of separation. And who knew how long that would last? It was like giving a child a bag of sweets, watching her open the bag and then snatching it away. She couldn’t be blamed for wondering what they would have tasted like.

Her casuistry satisfied her temporarily. She put Gabriel out of her mind while she and Felix stole moments for kisses and caresses and enjoyed the complicity of being lovers while the world signed its approbation and happily surveyed them in its ignorance.

But Felix soon began to chafe under the restraints that living at Stackpole imposed. He began to introduce the idea of getting away for a day or two, just to be ‘free’ and ‘natural’ together for a span of longer than a couple of hours. Besides, he reminded her, the new term was starting at Oxford in a matter of weeks. The summer was nearly over.

And so the plan had evolved with a mysterious momentum of its own. Felix was to go to London, ostensibly to visit Holland. Charis would go to Bristol to spend a few days with her aunt. On her way back she would stop at a small hotel that Felix knew in Aylesbury. He would meet her there. Under the guise of husband and wife they would spend a weekend at the hotel. Then Charis would return home. Felix would go back to Holland’s for another brief visit. His return to Stackpole would occur some days after Charis’s to allay all possible suspicions.

The plotting and the anticipation, Charis had to admit, had been exciting. No reference was made to what would happen that weekend in Aylesbury.

♦

Charis dressed slowly. She felt unusually agitated and troubled. This was their second visit to the King’s Arms in Aylesbury, a pre-Christmas visit to Aunt Bedelia coinciding with the end of the Michaelmas term in Oxford. A shaft of unkind watery sun shone through the windows on to the crumpled bed. Felix seemed more sure of himself and composed this visit. Certainly, the pleasure had been more acute…She held her hand out in front of her and watched it tremble. By contrast, her nerve was going alarmingly fast, she felt. The same questions rose inexorably up in her mind. How was it, when she loved Gabriel so, that she could become the mistress of his brother? The same answer came as inexorably in return. She had not been driven to anything, she was not under compulsion, she could exercise her free will. Somewhere inside her, somewhere bidden, she must have wanted it to happen.

It was this thought that made her miserable. She felt confused and baffled. For a second she experienced a shocking sensation of leaping, jostling panic in her chest. Was this true guilt? she asked herself. Were these the symptoms? Trembling hands and breathless turmoil? But it wasn’t so much ‘guilt’ that she was feeling as a kind of fear. She felt dazzled and giddy from the pressures she was under. She went over to the bed, and pulled back the blankets and looked at the still damp stains on the sheets. But it was so nice to be loved, she told herself, to be held by someone, not to sleep alone all the time. She needed that.

Feeling slightly stronger, she went downstairs to the hotel dining room. It was a cheerless room at the best of tunes, walls a pale mustard yellow with waist-high wooden panelling. It was almost empty at this early hour; apart from Felix there were only two other guests at breakfast. Commercial travellers, she thought, by the look of them. One sleepy waitress was on duty.

“Hello,” Felix said as Charis sat down. “Everything fine?”

She smiled. In public he lost some of his assurance, became more boyish and anxious. “Of course.” She reached out and patted his hand in what she imagined as a wifely way.

Felix was eating a kipper. She poured herself a cup of tea and watched him finish it. He had his spectacles on, the better to fillet the fish, she supposed. He wore a tweed suit. He looked older with his glasses on, certainly old enough to be her husband. But she needn’t worry, she told herself, no one at the hotel had ever seemed remotely suspicious.

“Sure you won’t have something?”

She shook her head. He really was so different from Gabriel. Thin-faced where Gabriel was broad, dark not fair. He had none of Gabriel’s unreflecting, stolid contentment. Felix seemed always bothered with life, suspicious of the cards it was dealing him, always weighing things up and criticizing. In many ways he was rather a ruthless person, she thought, but not in the ways he imagined he was. A good person to have a love affair with, she concluded, a little ruthlessly herself. At least one person should be impatient with moral conventions, have no time for social norms, be able to scoff at the predictable judgements of conscience.

Felix put his knife and fork together. “What time’s our train?” he asked.

“A quarter past eight.”

He glanced at the clock on the wall. “I suppose we should be getting along to the station.”

♦

The London train was running late. Charis and Felix stood on the deserted platform and watched the thin sleet fall on the railway lines. Behind them the waiting room windows were fogged with condensation.

“I don’t mind if it’s cold,” Charis said, rubbing her gloved hands together. “It’s when it’s cold and wet that I can’t stand it.”

Felix nodded gloomily, and stamped his feet to restore the circulation.

“Cheer up,” Charis said. “I know the weekend’s over but you are going to be home for six weeks.”

“I know,” Felix said. “But it’s not the same. Christmas last year was bloody. Now what with Nigel and Eustacia too, I…oh, I don’t know.”

Charis slipped her arm through his. After all, they were husband and wife until Marylebone.

“But it’ll be different this year,” she said. “Last year we weren’t together.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Felix agreed. “It’s not just this filthy weather. Oxford’s ghastly these days. It’s empty. Or rather the colleges are full of soldiers. Drilling in the parks, nurses wheeling wounded men about in the college gardens. OTC this, yeomanry that. And this wretched war going on and on.” He looked down at his feet. “Philip’s changed too. He’s talking about joining an ambulance unit in France. He wants me to come too. Something he read in Nietzsche, about subjecting the soul to all possible torments.” He gave a wry smile. “I read Nietzsche last year. Philip dismissed him: ‘a salon philosopher’. I ask you. And the train’s late.”

Charis laughed and squeezed his arm. “Oh, gloomy old thing. Don’t worry, it’ll be spring before you know it. And this war won’t go on for ever—”

She wished she hadn’t said that. She knew that the thought of the war meant only one thing to both of them. Gabriel’s return. Sometimes she forced herself to think about what would happen when peace arrived and Gabriel came back. Her mind acknowledged the broad truths: that he would come back, that he would be ill or maimed, that he may be changed in some way. But it refused to go into details, details such as how it would be possible for life to return to normal.

When the train arrived, they managed to find an empty compartment at the front. Felix sat with his back to the engine, Charis sat opposite him. The train chuffed off. Felix opened a newspaper. Charis watched the passing countryside, the mesmeric peak, trough, peak, trough of the telephone wires, and tried to tangle and lose her thoughts in the rhythmic clatter and rumble of the wheels on the railway lines. But gradually she felt her early morning panic return. She picked a thread loose from a seam on her glove. The end of the war. It seemed an appalling nemesis, not a moment for rejoicing. How could she live with both Gabriel and Felix at Stackpole? She knew instinctively and confidently that this current state of affairs would never have arisen if Gabriel had been present. Felix had once implied as much to her, joking that in the beginning he had resented her for stealing Gabriel’s affections away. Felix would have to leave, that was all there was for it, she told herself, conscious of the note of hysteria. She could never dissemble in front of Gabriel. Something would happen; he would know, she’d be sure to give herself away. She felt her mouth go dry, heard her pulse resounding in her head.

Felix put down his newspaper and took off his glasses and leant forward to take her gloved hands. Charis smiled at him, his serious face, the pink marks on his nose where his spectacles had rested. She felt a love for Felix, of a different order from the one she felt for Gabriel. It was a kind of gratitude, really. A gratitude for showing her alternatives. In his own very different way, she thought, he is just as strong a person as Gabriel.

“Charis,” Felix said, staring at their linked hands. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Ask away.”

“About. About Gabriel.”

It was as if the train was suddenly speeding along the edge of a precipice. She felt the sucking, empty feeling inside her that happened when a motor car went too fast over a humpbacked bridge.

Felix glanced at her face, then looked back at the hands. Then he took his hands away and rubbed his forehead.

“I get these terrible dreams, you see,” he said, screwing up his eyes. “About Gabriel. Nothing threatening. No…no accusations. It’s as if everything is normal. Like we were before the war. We’re just doing things together. Ordinary things. In a very normal, natural way. Quite happy too, in an unreflecting way. And then when I wake up, you see, I feel terrible. I feel this awful — I feel I’m…wrong. That I’m disgusting and corrupt.” He looked out of the window, but carried on speaking. “I know I shouldn’t feel this. I know I’m not ashamed about us.” He paused. “But then I think: what if Charis feels this? What if she’s tormented too? And I’m somehow forcing her? You see, if I felt that was true, then I don’t think I could somehow go on. That it would be terribly wrong to carry on.”

He looked back at her for an instant. “I need to know how you feel, I think. I think that’s what I’m saying.”

Charis forced herself to reach forward and take his hands. Tons of evasions seemed to sit on her shoulders. Through the shrill ringing noise in her ears she heard her calm, reassuring voice saying, “I think about it too, Felix. Dear Felix. But Gabriel’s not here, that’s the difference. He’s away. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He never will. We’ll never hurt him. He’s not a part of our world. It’s only because he’s away that our own world came into existence, that we created our world.” She checked herself momentarily: she was beginning to babble. “Our love,” she said slowly, “is a separate thing. It’s not,” she, improvised wildly, “it’s not part of the world we knew before the war. It’s on its own. Enclosed. Quite distinct.”

She saw his features relax. She’d said enough. A deep, infinite sense of disappointment gripped her like clinging ivy. “Don’t worry any more Felix, darling. I don’t worry, I don’t even think about it.” Fleets of regrets hemmed her in.

He was smiling. “Thank you,” he said. He leant forward and kissed her gently on the lips.

14: 11 March 1916, Salaita Hill, British East Africa

On the twelfth of February 1916 the British Army in East Africa finally opened their offensive against the Germans. Temple watched two thousand brawny South Africans assault the gentle slopes of Salaita hill after a four-hour artillery barrage. He sensed the depression and disconsolate moods of the last eighteen months lift miraculously from him as the innocuous hill was pounded with high explosives. He felt sure he’d be at Smithville within a matter of days. The South African troops had loudly vowed to sort out any ‘bleddy kaffirs’ they found that happened not to have been blown apart. Two hours later six hundred of them were dead as they ran away from the withering fire coming from German trenches.

On the twenty-first of February the German Army of the Western Front — in a completely unconnected response — attacked Verdun, thereby initiating a four-month siege.

Temple only had to wait three weeks until a second attempt on Salaita was made, but he found the delay cruelly frustrating, nonetheless. In the interim the British Army was presented with a new commander-in-chief in the shape of General Smuts. Smuts modified the British tactics. Headlong attacks were to be abandoned. The advance on Taveta and the German border was to be co-ordinated with a series of flanking movements through the foothills of Kilimanjaro as well as the previously planned drive from the north under General Stewart. The Germans would be trapped in a pincer at Moshi, their escape routes down the Northern Railway cut off.

But this time Temple found his mood alternating between elation and scepticism. Staff officer friends of Wheech-Browning told him that the war would be over in a few weeks. The possibilities of returning to the farm provided many hours of enjoyable speculation. But whenever Temple looked at the rag-bag army that was meant to bring this about, at the vain and bickering generals, his innate pragmatism would advise him not to raise his hopes too high.

So on the ninth of March Salaita was attacked again and found to be deserted, the Germans having stolen away in the night. Two days later Temple rode his mule down the main street of Taveta, back in the familiar little township after an absence of eighteen months. Thus far everything had been achieved without too much difficulty (the six hundred dead South Africans excepted), the Germans content to pull back without offering a fight whenever it looked as if the forces massed against them were overwhelmingly superior. But up ahead lay the Taveta gap and the twin hills of Latema and Reata. Temple rode out of Taveta to scout them for the KAR who were due to be involved in the first attack. At the foot of the hills the ground was thick with a dense, shoulder-high thorn scrub which seemed to continue all the way up to the top. Temple dismounted and moved a few yards into the scrub. Soon he could see nothing, not even the summit of the hill he was meant to be climbing and upon which the Germans were well entrenched.

He reported as much to his battalion commander, Colonel Youell, a brave weather-beaten man who felt he’d been personally let down by the Germans’ refusal to contest Salaita hill. Temple said that it was his considered opinion that the two hills would be extremely difficult to take without massive casualties; that it would be a good idea to wait until the thinking movement made its way round Kilimanjaro, at which point the Germans, seeing the danger of being cut off, would surely yield their ground.

Youell ignored him. “It may sound sensible to you, Smith, but with respect it’s obvious that you’re not a professional soldier. We don’t want them to fall back. We must force von Lettow to stand and fight. We’ve got to engage him here precisely so that he doesn’t realize he’s being cut off until it’s too late.”

Temple acquiesced, and asked for permission to visit his farm, just to see how everything was. Permission was refused.

“I need you with me,” Youell said benignly. “You’re to be attached to battalion HQ. This is your country around here, Smith. I need your advice.”

Why don’t you take it, then? Temple thought. Nobody in this army listened to a word he said.

♦

On the eleventh of March Temple stood uneasily with Youell’s battalion staff as the first wave of troops drew up on the flat plain some three miles beyond Taveta. There was Youell’s KAR battalion and the 2nd Rhodesians who were going to attack Reata hill, and the 130th Baluchis whose objective was Latema. The sky was clear and the morning haze had dispersed round Kilimanjaro, whose incurious snowy summit shone brightly in the distance.

General Pughe was supervising the battle from a grove of trees on the outskirts of Taveta. He sat in a deck chair in a patch of shade with his boots off, feet propped on an empty ammunition box in front of him. Temple watched the troops marching off across the plain of corn-yellow grass towards the smooth contours of Reata hill. Youell and battalion head-quarters followed some way behind.

As soon as the advancing files of men entered the brush at the foot of the hill the German machine guns opened fire. Youell soon caught up with his men who were pinned down on the lower slopes huddling and crouching at the roots of the thorn bushes. Progress was impossible. A runner was sent back to ask for an artillery bombardment, and soon the field batteries began to pound the slopes in front of them.

Temple knelt beneath the flimsy shelter of the thorn bushes as the sun rose higher in the sky. About fifty flies seemed to be buzzing around him. Perspiration dripped from the end of his moustache. The constant crash and boom of explosions filled his ears. Battles, he thought, were unbelievably noisy places.

Youell and his adjutant had a map spread on the ground and were trying to work out the positions of the battalion’s other companies and the 2nd Rhodesians. Temple felt an urge to perform a natural function but thought Youell might object to him lowering his trousers in what was in effect temporary battalion HQ. He certainly had no intention of crawling off into the bush for the sake of privacy.

Presently the barrage lifted and the advance continued, making somewhat better progress through the openings and pathways cleared by the heavy shelling. Temple stuck close to Youell as they clambered, puffing, up the slope. All around him Temple could hear the pop-gun reports of rifles, and the yelling and shouting of the KAR askaris. The noise of gunfire was continuous and Temple assumed that at least some proportion of it must be coming in his direction, but so far there had been no sign of the enemy.

They halted, gasping for breath, at a rock outcrop. Some KAR soldiers occupied the uppermost boulders. Temple calculated that they couldn’t be far away from the summit. He felt exhausted from the climb. Youell took off his sun helmet to reveal surprisingly boyish wavy hair.

“Are we near the top, Smith?” he asked.

“I think so, sir,” he said.

“Let’s take a look.” Youell began to clamber up the rocks. He glanced back. “Come on, Smith.”

Temple followed him up. They crouched behind the boulders. The firing seemed to have died down somewhat on their section of the hill. Youell spoke some words of encouragement to the askaris.

“Have a look, Smith,” Youell said.

“Me, sir?”

“Yes,” Youell said. “Find out where we are.”

Temple took off his sun helmet. Although it was only cork and canvas it gave the illusion of affording some protection. Now he felt the sun warm the top of his head. His brains seemed to heat up. He had an unpleasant sense of the fragility of his skull, as if it could be as easily shattered as an eggshell. Cautiously he raised his head above the rocks. The summit was a mere fifty yards away. He could see a battered redout, crumbled earthworks, scattered sandbags and boulders. There was heavy firing somewhere to his right. It all seemed quiet ahead. Perhaps the Germans had pulled back again?

Temple told this to Youell in a whisper.

“Why are you whispering, Smith?”

“Sorry sir.”

“Can you see anyone at the summit? Are the Rhodesians there?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Well have another look, dammit.”

Temple looked again. He thought he saw some figures moving behind the earthworks. He ducked down and put on his sun helmet.

“The summit’s definitely occupied, sir.”

“Us or them?”

“I couldn’t make out, sir.”

Youell called down to his adjutant to see if there had been any word from the Rhodesians. The adjutant said he’d heard nothing and sent off a runner.

Then they heard someone shouting from the summit. In English.

“Hey! You down there. The Germans have gone.”

Youell smiled in triumph. “You see, Smith. We’ve done it.”

He stood up. “Well done you men!” he called. “KAR here. Coming up to join you.”

“Sir,” Temple cautioned. “If I were you I wouldn’t—”

The fusillade of shots slapped through the air, pinging and buzzing off the boulders. Colonel Youell was spun round and toppled backward off the outcrop. Temple scrambled after him, the air suddenly loud with firing once again. The shocked adjutant turned his colonel’s body over. Temple saw the blood pumping strongly from a wound below his ear, pouring down his neck and congealing in the dust.

“Oh God,” the white-faced adjutant said, looking up at Temple. “Do you think he’s going to die?”

With the help of two askaris Temple dragged and carried Youell’s dead body down through the mangled thorns to the bottom of the hill. There they found a stretcher and tramped back through the knee-high yellow grass towards Taveta. The firing grew more distant as they moved away. A steady stream of injured men were stumbling or being helped across the plain. Temple looked back at Reata, its outline blurred by dust clouds, the firecracker sounds of the battle faint in the warm pleasant afternoon.

At the casualty clearing station, the harassed medical orderly indicated a row of dead men laid out like game-birds after a shoot. Temple felt he couldn’t leave a colonel with the corpses of ordinary soldiers, so he had him taken back to Taveta in a motor ambulance. Once there they joined the procession of stretcher cases being ferried towards the field hospital, set up in the stable block of the police barracks. Their route took them in sight of Pughe’s brigade HQ. Temple ordered his stretcher bearers to change course. Youell’s death should be reported to the General.

Pughe left his group of staff officers, who were all surveying the hills through binoculars, and limped over. He was smoking a cigar.

“Yes? It’s, um, the American chappie, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. Smith, sir.”

“Well, who’ve.” He started again. “Wha’s th’matter. Matter.”

“Colonel Youell, sir. He’s just been killed on Reata hill.”

“Good God! Eddie Youell? How the hell did that happen?”

“Bullet in the head, sir. He stood up.”

Pughe winced. He seemed to be swaying gently. He changed his stance slightly. “My God. Good God. Brave man, Eddie. God.” He puffed on his cigar. “What’s it like up there? Damned hard to make out. They’ve got the Baluchis well pinned down on Latema.”

“They’re still on the summit, sir.”

Pughe nodded, waved his cigar vaguely in Temple’s direction, turned round very cautiously and rejoined his staff.

Temple left Youell’s body at the field hospital and dismissed the two askaris. He then went back to the KAR tents and got his mule-handler to saddle up his mule. The town was milling with troops, wagons, oxcarts and motor lorries as three South African battalions were brought in as reinforcements for the beleaguered men on the two hills. No one challenged or questioned him as he rode out of town and took the track that branched off to Smithville.

♦

It was three in the afternoon as Temple approached the familiar surroundings of his farm. Away in the distance he could see the placid peak of Kilimanjaro, the white snows reflecting back the afternoon sun. He could hear, very faintly, the distant pattering sound of gunfire as the assault on the two hills continued. Behind him rose clouds of dust on the road between Taveta and the new railhead as supplies and fresh troops were brought in. He seemed to be completely alone in the landscape. He had come across no pickets or patrols of either side. However, the thought crossed his mind as he drew near Smithville that it might still be occupied, being far enough away from the main British advance. He dismounted and tied his mule to a tree.

He left the track and struck out into the bush in a wide semi-circle which would eventually bring him up behind the house. He realized that he had left his rifle somewhere on Reata hill. He was unarmed, apart from a large penknife he always carried. He took it out of his pocket and opened the blade. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d do if he encountered anyone but he felt marginally less ill at ease now that he flourished some sort of weapon.

He crept through the tall grass as quietly as possible. Soon he saw the remains of the shamba that had stood behind the house. It had obviously been burnt down some considerable time before. He paused, crouching behind the knobbled bole of a euphorbia tree. Across a forty yard gap of broken ground lay the house. He felt a sensation of enormous relief to have made it back to Smithville again. It was followed by an equally forceful sensation of tiredness, all the tension of the day, which somehow he’d been holding off, descended on him. If he lay down and shut his eyes he knew he would fall asleep immediately.

From his position the bulk of the house obscured most of the view. He could see nothing of the other farm buildings — hidden anyway by the rise on which the house stood — and nothing of the sisal fields beyond. From what he could make out the linseed plots that led down to Lake Jipe were not the scorched wasteland he’d been expecting. He felt suddenly elated. Perhaps Smithville had escaped largely unscathed? Just the waggons and livestock, the trolley lines and the sisal crop the price he’d had to pay?

He stirred himself into action and scampered from his sheltering tree into a small grove of dead banana trees nearer the house. He noticed that the tops of the trees had been neatly cut off to prevent them bearing any further fruit. Someone had been thorough.

He peered through a gap between the fibrous trunks. He felt a little foolish, a fat sweaty man, trying to run as light-footedly as he could, a tiny blade gripped in his fist. But nothing, and no one stirred. He broke cover again and ran up to the house, flattening himself against the wall. He inched forward towards the kitchen door. The windows on this side were securely shuttered, a hopeful sign that the place was abandoned. He tried the kitchen door. It swung open. Still no sound. Everything was completely quiet in the afternoon heat.

He stepped in. And stepped out again immediately, hacking and coughing loudly. The smell! He felt his stomach heave. He spat on the ground, and wiped his brow. Jesus, he swore. Shit. The house smelt like a giant’s shit hole. It was humming with flies too. Millions of flies, the air seemed solid with them. One thing was certain though. There was nobody in the house. Nobody with a functioning nose could last more than a few seconds.

He calmed himself down. He took a huge breath and, holding it in, re-entered the kitchen. It was dark and all the shutters were closed. He blundered over to the windows and flung them open, then leapt outside to recharge his lungs. He peered cautiously in through the door. Every surface — shelves, table, chairs, cooking trough — was decorated with coils of human faeces, as was the floor. The air danced with black sated flies. Streaming plumes of them escaped through the newly opened windows. Taking a deep breath, and watching where he placed his feet, he went into the dining room and flung open the shutters there, before clawing his way outside again. He was like a swimmer bringing up treasure from a river bed. He could only do it little by little, as his breath lasted. It took him twenty minutes to open up the house. Not a single room had been spared. It looked as if a battalion had marched in, lowered their trousers and, on the given command, had shat where they stood.

Temple felt exhausted and mystified. What was going on? He felt his head throbbing and pounding from all the breath-holding he’d done. He took a few paces back and leant dizzily against a banana tree trunk, overcome from his exertions. Who had fouled his home? Why had it been done? Unanswered questions tumbled in his brain.

Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He gave a bellow of alarm and flung himself madly round onto the interloper, his hands clawing for the stranger’s throat, beating him to the ground.

“Bwana!” came a terrified croak. “It is me, Saleh!” Temple released his grip. Sure enough, it was Saleh on whom he was now sitting. The little man seemed in unspeakable agony, his head jerking to and fro, his mouth gagging for breath.

“Saleh,” Temple cried. “What’s wrong?” Salelis hands plucked weakly at Temple’s sleeves. “Bwana,” he gasped. “Get off. I beg you. I can’t breathe.” Apologizing profoundly, Temple got to his feet. Saleh lay motionless on the ground, limbs askew, as he fought to regain his breath. He sat up groggily. Temple helped him to his feet, and stood patiently while Saleh dusted off his ragged tunic. “Bwana,” he said finally. “A terrible thing has happened.”

“I know,” Temple said. “I’ve just been inside.”

“No bwana,” he said soberly. “This way.” He led Temple some way off to the side. As they walked away from the house the farm buildings came into view. To Temple’s relief they were still standing. A bit ramshackle but no serious damage was visible. The sisal fields had disappeared under weeds and grass but he could see the great spiky leaves poking through the vegetation. Reclaimable certainly, with some hard work. He was beginning to feel his luck had held out. Von Bishop, it seemed, had been as good as his word. He felt a pang of guilt over Mr Essanjee’s death. Had there really been a need to bring him all this way to make the assessment?

Thoughtfully he followed Salelis thin body. Where was the man taking him? To his village? Perhaps the German askaris had laid it waste? But Saleh had stopped. With a sudden shock Temple realized they had reached his baby daughter’s grave.

It had been crudely opened. The mound of stones scattered and the remains of the little coffin and its contents were strewn haphazardly around as though some larger beast had been digging there. On the wooden cross was set a tiny skull the size of an apple.

Silently Temple and Saleh garnered the bits and pieces — brittle ribs like thin claws, vertebrae the size of molars — and replaced them in the hole. Temple picked up the skull. It was bleached and dried, it hardly weighed anything in his hand, a gust of wind might have blown it away. He laid it in the hole. With his boots he shovelled the earth in and then they rolled back the rocks.

“When did they do this?” Temple asked.

Saleh told him it was just before the soldiers left, two days ago. There were always soldiers billeted at Smithville, Saleh said, sometimes as many as a hundred. Two days ago they had all left. Temple felt his exhaustion returning. The sun was heavy in the sky. He thought it was time he was getting back.

“Don’t worry, Saleh,” he said, moved by the man’s woebe-gone expression. “It’s just bones.” He tried to say something comforting. “The baby’s soul has gone to heaven.” He thought he sounded like the Reverend Norman Espie. “Anyway,” he said, remembering, “Mrs Smith has a new baby girl now.” He patted Salelis shoulder. “A new baby.” He hitched up his trousers and let out a great sigh of breath.

“We’ll all be back here soon,” he said, talking in English. “You’ll see, this war is nearly over. We’ll get the farm going. Yes?” He tried to cheer up the morose Saleh, who was now struggling to comprehend. “Farming again, Saleh, farming. Plenty of work. Get the Decorticator going and—”

He turned abruptly on his heel and ran down the slope towards the Decorticator shed. Behind him he heard Saleh shouting, but he paid no attention. As he approached the wooden building a feeling of ghastly premonition built up in his chest. He stopped short, gasping for breath before the large double doors. He paused for a moment, willing everything to be all right. Then he swung the doors open.

Temple walked disbelievingly into the large empty shed, his boots ringing out on the concrete floor. He moved uncertainly about the vacant space as if expecting any moment to make contact with some ghostly machine. Orangey wands of sunlight sectioned the floor, squeezing through slits and gaps in the plank walls. Temple looked at the archipelago of oil stains, the fixing bolts set in the concrete, a few inches of tattered canvas drive-belt.

“No!” he bellowed. “Bastard!” He shook his head, pacing out the four walls, trying to come to terms with the disappearance of something so immutable and massy, so incontrovertibly there.

Saleh arrived timidly at the door. “Bwana,” he said apologetically. “They took it a long time ago.”

“When?” Temple said.

“After you and madam went away.”

Temple whirled round. Saleh backed off.

“I could not stop them, Bwana,” he protested. “Many men came. For five days they were working.”

“Who was it?” Temple demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Who took it?”

“Many men,” Saleh repeated. “The Germani.”

Temple swallowed. He knew who had taken it. Von Bishop. The man had tried systematically to defile his home. Erich von Bishop had stolen his Decorticator. He would have to pay. It was as simple as that.

15: 24 June 1916, Nanda, German East Africa

Wincing slightly, Gabriel removed the grubby, worn bandages from his thigh. A pad of bloodstained lint was stuck to the scab. Gritting his teeth he pulled it away. The six-inch scab that was revealed glistened and oozed. Gabriel’s eyes watered with the stinging pain. Deppe couldn’t understand why his leg was taking so long to heal. Gabriel smiled to himself. He hopped to the doorway of the lean-to shed he lived in at the back of the hospital. A piece of blanket hung from the lintel. Pulling it to one side he should see the hospital kitchens and the dusty vegetable plots. There was no sign of Deppe or Liesl. If they ever found out what he was doing he’d be sent away at once, he was sure. Liesl might not send him away, but Deppe would. Deppe would never forgive him.

Gabriel limped back to his bed and sat down. The constant re-infection of his leg wound was easier to explain now that all the medical supplies were running out. They were washing and re-using all bandages now, most wounds got infected these days. Automatically he touched the puckered scars on his abdomen. He would always be grateful to Deppe; it was a shame he had to frustrate his best efforts with his leg.

Gingerly with his fingernail, Gabriel prised up an inch of the scab. His eyes started to water again. With his other hand he took a pinch of dirt from the floor and sprinkled the grains onto the glistening wet wound beneath, like salt on underdone meat. He pushed the scab back into place, and carefully rewound the bandage on. In a day or so, if past performances were a reliable guide, the wound would become itchy, then inflamed and putrid. Liesl would have to clean it out, use some of the dwindling supplies of disinfectants, wash the bandages and replace them. He tied the final knot. It was a risk of course. If it didn’t get treated the consequences could be most serious. But that was the advantage of working in the hospital: you were always well looked after.

He pulled the tattered hem of his shorts down over the bandage. He sat for a while staring at his thin knees. He had lost so much weight over the months of recovery. He couldn’t understand why: he ate as much as anyone else — better even than the other prisoners had. But he was just skin and bone now: skin, bone, muscle and cartilage. Deppe said that was another reason why his thigh wound was taking so long to heal.

Gabriel got to his feet and went outside. He squinted up at the sun trying to guess the time. Four o’clock, four-thirty maybe. Perhaps he should go back to the ward and see if there was anything Liesl wanted him to do. There was always work to be done. Usually it meant helping the dysentery cases. Sometimes he helped feed the very sick men, or wash them. When Liesl was on duty he did all sorts of fetching and carrying jobs. Deppe wasn’t so happy about employing him. He said that it was against regulations to compel prisoners to do menial work. But Gabriel always reminded him that he wasn’t being compelled. He wanted to help, he told Deppe; wanted to do his bit to relieve suffering. But Deppe wouldn’t listen and always frowned heavily when he saw Gabriel giving assistance.

Fortunately Deppe spent less and less time at the Nanda hospital. As the war went on and the casualty list inevitably grew, his expertise was required at other hospitals, makeshift clinics and convalescent homes. “Deppe’s just an old woman,” Liesl had said when Gabriel told her about the doctor’s reservations. “Anyway, he is never here.” It was this conspiracy against the fussy doctor that had encouraged their curious friendship, that had broken down the formal restraints that exist between nurse and patient, captor and captive.

Gabriel smiled to himself as he went into the hospital, not that you’d expect Liesl to pay much attention to customs or conventions. He’d never met such a strong-minded woman.

It seemed that as the war dragged on so Liesl’s attitude had become more indifferent and resigned. In his months as her patient Gabriel had been well placed to notice this transformation. She did her job as thoroughly and efficiently as the conditions allowed, but she didn’t seem particularly to care one way or another about anything. Only Deppe had the power to irritate her. She didn’t despair, but she didn’t hope either. When Gabriel put his plan into operation and made his first tentative offers of help — holding a man above an enamel basin while she attended to an emergency further down the ward — she hadn’t even said thank you. She seemed to take it as just another event in the undifferentiated flow that constituted her day. Gradually — almost without effort on his part — Gabriel’s role in the ward increased. There were servants who worked in the ward but they couldn’t be expected to do the more sensitive tasks, and also a lot of the soldiers resented any more intimate contact with them. So Gabriel bathed feverish patients, spread ointment on chafing stumps, supported the dysentery cases as they trembled and shuddered during their burning evacuations, and, sometimes, he changed the simpler dressings. Soon he was a familiar figure in the one long ward that made up Nanda hospital. He would chat to the English soldiers, he even learnt a smattering of German, enough for the rudiments of conversations with the German wounded who, steadily, came to form the largest portion of the patients.

But now there were no English prisoners in Nanda. A week ago the eighty men and their garrison had been moved near the coast. No one knew why. One theory was that the effort of guarding and feeding them was proving too costly and that they were going to be returned on parole to the advancing British. Gabriel was thankful he had discovered that after they’d left. If he’d known in advance it would have been very hard to justify his staying on. As it was his conscience, was satisfied by a plea of ignorance.

He thought of this now as he stood at the end of the long ward. The heat was stifling. Over sixty beds had been crammed into the former storeroom-cum-warehouse of the research station. The windows were open, cane blinds hanging in them to minimize the heat of the afternoon sun. An old African servant came past with two heavy slopping buckets. “Jambo Bwana,” he said. Everyone knew Gabriel.

At the other end of the ward he saw Liesl taking a pulse. She looked up, saw him and made a smoking gesture with her hand. Gabriel turned and went into the small room that served as a dispensary. He sat down at the table in the middle of the floor and set about rolling two cigarettes from the crude, locally cured tobacco and their dwindling supply of paper. They were using a copy of Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers, a small, nicely bound book that Liesl said belonged to her husband. One leaf was sufficient for a single cigarette. They had reached page forty-eight.

Gabriel had become quite an expert at rolling cigarettes; it was as if, as his hands got bonier and the knuckles more evident on his fingers, they acquired a new dexterity. He took time over it, packing the tobacco tightly, rolling the paper up in a neat, even cylinder. Often he’d spend a day making a dozen or so cigarettes and offer them to Liesl as a present. She smoked a lot. Fortunately there was plenty of tobacco. Paper was the problem. If the war continued, Herr von Bishop’s small library wouldn’t last very long.

Gabriel finished the cigarettes and waited for Liesl to return. Outside the oppressive weight of the afternoon sun seemed to have stunned the world into silence. Gabriel stood up and looked out of the dispensary window whose view gave on to the deserted prison camp.

When the prisoners had been marched off he had kept out of their way. Had he done the right thing? He consoled himself with Major du Toit’s remarks. It had been Major du Toit who had initiated the plan. Major du Toit was the senior British officer in the POW camp; it was he who had encouraged him to try and stay within the hospital and who had urged him to give his parole, convinced that Gabriel’s injuries would debar him from ever fighting again.

In the hospital, Major du Toit had argued, he was in an ideal position to smuggle items of food and medical supplies to the men behind the wire. Also, as he soon found out, he could pick up news of the war far more easily. Nanda was a military camp. In the civilian camps prisoners who gave an oath not to try and escape were allowed to wander freely around whatever village or town the camp was set in. But for the captured soldiers such an oath also contained the undertaking not to fight against Germany or her allies for the duration of the war. Du Toit had forbidden any of his men — apart from Gabriel — to take such an oath and consequently they spent their time behind the barbed-wire stockade. As it turned out, having Gabriel on the outside proved most useful. And this was what Gabriel told himself too. He pilfered professionally from the German stores — especially from the efficient quinine substitute they had developed — and was able to pass on the news of the attack on Taveta in March, the invasion of German East and the advance down the Northern Railway to Tanga. For the last few weeks the Schütztruppe had been in constant retreat and the fall of Dar-es-Salaam was expected any day.

But then the prisoners had left, a long straggling line of tattered troops with their little bundies of personal possessions, and with them had gone the garrison of native askaris — effectively emptying Nanda of three-quarters of its population. Gabriel had watched the column go with decidedly mixed feelings. The hospital was now full exclusively of sick and wounded Germans. He was the only Englishman in Nanda.

Gabriel ran his fingers through his hair. The problem was that, now the prisoners had gone, there was really no excuse — no reasonable excuse — for his remaining in the hospital, for so selflessly re-infecting his leg wound. He rubbed his forehead. What reason could he give himself for staying on?

Liesl came into the room. Gabriel turned and smiled. She wore an old blue calico dress that had faded from navy to an uneven pale blue. She had a white cotton scarf tied over her gingery hair. She sat down heavily on the wooden seat with an audible sigh, the thump making her large breasts shiver under the material, and Gabriel felt the familiar tugging in his guts.

“Deppe is coming back tomorrow,” she said in English, lighting her cigarette. “But for only one day, thank you God. Do you want your cigarette?” She held it up.

“No.” Gabriel cleared his throat. “You have it.”

“Thank you.” She coughed. “It’s so strong, this tobacco.” She patted her chest and coughed again, pressing her breast with a forearm. Gabriel stood motionless by the window. He found it extraordinary how every movement this woman made — the slightest gesture — seemed loaded with sexual potential. He watched her now wiping her creamy freckled neck with a handkerchief, the action revealing the dark patches of perspiration in the armpits of her dress.

“Hammerstein is going,” she said matter-of-factly. “An hour or two, I think.”

“Anything I can do?” Gabriel asked.

“No,” she said. “Nothing.”

♦

Hammerstein took longer to die than estimated, so Liesl didn’t leave the hospital until quite late. Outside it was dark and the familiar noises of the African night — the crickets, the bats, the hootings and the howlings — were everywhere about her. Gabriel watched her pause for a moment in the doorway and then set off down the main street of Nanda towards her bungalow. The street was dark, lit only by a few glimmering lanterns set outside the doorways of the mud shops and houses and the glow that spilled from some windows. Gabriel watched her go. Then he turned and went round the back of the hospital, through the kitchen gardens and into the rubber plantations beyond. He set off down an avenue between the trees. This was another, more discreet, route he had found to Liesl’s bungalow.

He knew his way instinctively now, ducking under the low branch of a mango tree, squeezing through a gap in a thorn barrier, cutting through a dark copse of cotton trees. He paused as he came in sight of Liesl’s bungalow, waiting until he saw her enter. Then he moved forward across a patch of waste ground and past the huge stand of bamboo that towered over the house at the back, the dried knife-leaves of the bamboo crackling softly under his feet. He moved more slowly now, as he entered the thicket of bushes directly behind the house, praying silently to himself that the shutters would be open. It had been a hot day, surely the maid would have opened them in the evening in an attempt to cool the house?

He heard Liesl call “Kimi!” as he took up his position. The shutters were open, an oil lamp was already lit in the room, rilling it with its damp yellow light. Gabriel stood there, breathing shallowly, his heart beginning to beat faster as he mentally rehearsed the routine he now knew so well.

He had stumbled on it quite by chance some weeks before. Liesl had left some cigarettes he had made her in the hospital. He had taken them round to her bungalow only to be told by her maid that Frau von Bishop couldn’t see him as she was busy. Gabriel said it wasn’t important and had left the cigarettes. Going by the side of the house he had seen the light cast on to the bushes from the back window. Guiltily he’d made his way into the thicket to spy, for some reason suspecting a lover. But there he saw the sight that had proved his undoing. A magnificent pale Bathsheba, heavy-breasted and full-thighed, glistening palely in the lamplight as the buckets of water were tipped over her, while he looked on, captivated, an impotent David in the shadows outside.

He stood there now, well screened by the bushes and bidden by the darkness, peering through the leaves into her bedroom. Liesl came into view, framed for a moment by the window. Then she moved out of vision while she undressed. He heard faintly the tinny scrape of the bath being shifted into the middle of the floor and the mutter of some words she exchanged with her maid. It was only a matter of moments now.

♦

For some reason Gabriel felt the acid bite of his guilt more strongly that night than before. He lay on his hard bed in the fetid heat of his hut unable to get to sleep, tormented and entranced by the remembered images of Liesl. Sometimes the desire he felt seemed to prove too much for him and he thought his chest would burst, his ribs springing apart like staves from an old barrel. The ache of his longing hit him with full force. He wanted desperately to bury his head in those pillowy enveloping breasts, set his forehead in the soft junction of her neck and jawbone, feel her strong arms about his body…

He turned over. It was only since he’d started spying on Liesl that the other dreams had left him. The dreams of Gleeson’s shattered face, of Bilderbeck’s shot, the steaming brain on his boot. Then the horrific race through the graveyard, the thumping feet of his pursuers. The writhing on the ground, the skewering, pronging jabs of the bayonets. He always woke up with the one that had glanced off his pelvis: when he felt the nail grating of the metal point juddering on the fresh bone, skidding off into his vitals.

He told Deppe about these dreams, how they came almost every night. Could that be why, he suggested, he was so weak and emaciated? Nonsense, Deppe replied confidently, dreams can’t have that effect.

Gabriel touched his throat, felt his bobbing, trembling Adam’s apple then trailed his fingers down his chest, touching a nipple, then through the damp chest hairs. He dragged a fingertip over the ridges of his ribcage, like rattling a stick on park railings. Then he flattened his palm over his belly, pressing down on the weals and distorted flesh of his two scars. Lower still he touched his penis, cupped and lifted his sweaty balls, feeling instantly more comfortable as he did so. It was curious, he thought, how the touch of your own hand on your genitals was so reassuring.

His mind began to wander. A soldier had been brought in with bayonet wounds the other day. Much worse than his, half his intestines on show. They had turned a peculiar carroty colour. He didn’t last long, even though Deppe was up all night operating, with Liesl and two of the other nurses. He’d worked hard that night too: they had been glad of his assistance. When the man died he brought everyone hot tea, got the cooks out of bed to make some food. Where had the dead man come from? someone had asked. From Morogoro, Deppe had said. The Central Railway. There’s heavy fighting there. We’re pulling back. It was surprising, Gabriel thought, how much you learnt from the war from casual conversation in a hospital. Injured men coming in from battlefields, cured ones going to new postings. Names were always being mentioned. He had quite a clear idea of the main troop dispositions, exactly as Major du Toit had said.

He sat up, shaking his head to wake himself. He suddenly saw what he had to do. Du Toit had been right all along. His position in the hospital was valuable. It was still valuable. He still had a job to do here. He would continue to gather information. He would conduct innocent conversations with the men in the wards, piece disconnected remarks together, build up a picture of the campaign. He felt suddenly elated by this. It was a kind of authorization of his continued presence. He would stay on in his present role for as long as he could: unassuming, ubiquitous, unsuspected. He would become an ‘intelligenter’, keep notes, plot positions on a map. And then? Then he would escape.

He lay back with a smile of satisfaction, and stretched his hands out to touch the sheet of butter muslin he used as a mosquito net. He wouldn’t think about escape just at the moment, though. He would stay on a few weeks and allow his store of information to accumulate. He felt his wound itching slightly, and he scratched at it through the bandages. Good, he thought, it’s beginning to fester again. He gritted his teeth and pressed his knuckles into the bandages, feeling the pain jolt along his leg. Deppe was coming tomorrow. It should look bad enough to get him back in the ward again.

16: 25 June 1916, Stackpole Manor, Kent

Charis wrote to Gabriel every month. They were chatty, inconsequential letters about life at Stackpole and the family, but they now suddenly became almost unbearably hard to write. She had no idea if he ever received them because she never got a reply. All they knew was that he was wounded and a prisoner. She had asked Henry Hyams about letters and he had told her to send them care of Divisional Headquarters, Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’, Nairobi. He said that supplies and provisions for the care of British POW’s were passed on to the Germans, which they were trusted to distribute, along with any personal letters. “That’s the general idea,” Henry Hyams had said. “Not that you can necessarily trust the huns to comply. But have a go, Charis my dear, have a go.”

So she wrote every month with an increasing sense of unreality, staring at Gabriel’s photograph, trying to summon up an image of him and their brief life together. It wasn’t very successful, and she had to keep stopping as, all too often, she ended up thinking of Felix.

But she hadn’t written for over six weeks now. For some reason she became suddenly convinced that all her letters had got through, that over the almost two years they had been separated they had come to represent — for Gabriel — his sole contact with the world he’d left in 1914. And as the days passed and the terrifying prospects of the future closed in, it was this personal failure that manifested itself as the most shameful sign of her guilt, the one thing that would ultimately condemn her and, even worse, lead Gabriel to guess that there was something terribly wrong.

But equally appalling in its way was the fact that there was nobody in the world to whom she could turn or confess. Not even Felix. He had written from Oxford saying that, as usual, he had booked them into the hotel in Aylesbury. She had invented a cousin in London and a visit there that would coincide neatly with the end of the summer term in Oxford. But everything had changed. She had written to Felix saying that she wasn’t well and wouldn’t be able to meet him. It was no lie.

But he wouldn’t leave her alone. Because she’d missed Aylesbury, he had started coming to the cottage in the middle of the night. And for the first time they had sex at Stackpole. This too had been enormously upsetting. She couldn’t use the bedroom — its associations with Gabriel were too intense — and so they made do with the sofa in the front room. But there was none of the conjugal intimacy of their hotel encounters. They couldn’t lie in each other’s arms and talk. When they finished they got dressed again, and Felix would sneak back to his room.

This improvisation — with its echoes of clandestine suburban adultery — proved doubly depressing. One night she’d broken down, crying into her hands. When Felix asked what was wrong she blamed it on the shabbiness of the way they were now forced to carry on. It was his total inability to console her, to say anything beyond a feeble. “Don’t worry,” or “It doesn’t matter,” that finally showed her Felix wouldn’t be — couldn’t be — any help. It wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could do. It was simply the dreadful, final nature of her predicament.

Yet a solution did suggest itself with a kind of quiet, childlike logic one afternoon as she sat by the fishpond. She wasted no time. That evening she wrote to Gabriel. What she imagined would be the hardest letter of her life turned out to be simple and straight-forward. She told him everything, only leaving out the name and identity of her lover, and begged his under-standing and forgiveness.

She had sealed the letter and kept it in a drawer for several days, running through the futile options once more for form’s sake. Then the previous afternoon she had walked briskly into Stackpole village past the church where she’d been married, bought sufficient stamps at the post office and, without any pause, had placed it in the pillar box.

This done, a sort of cheerful calm had descended on her which was punctuated by brief moments of dreadful panic. These were quelled swiftly by an invocation to consider the future, which brought in its train such a sense of misery and guilt that the absolute rightness and inevitability of the course of action she planned to initiate established the comforting indifference again.

By such methods she had managed to get through the day. She had gone for a walk up the river and stood and gazed at the slowly flowing water for a long time. In the evening she had prepared a meal as usual, set it out, and eaten it down heartily. Half an hour later she found she was hungry again. She had banked up the fire and sat in front of it on a low stool, hugging her knees to her, watching the dance of the flames and the collapse of the coals in a benign mesmerized trance.

Shortly after midnight Felix tapped on the window. She fixed a smile on her face and let him in. They kissed.

“Is everything all right, Charis?” he asked. “I missed you at luncheon.”

“I went for a walk. I’m fine. I lost track of the time.”

Satisfied, Felix launched into details of his latest plan. Oxford was so terrible that he and Holland couldn’t face the prospect of another year there. Holland felt that it was perfectly acceptable for them to volunteer as ambulance drivers, as long as they were posted to France together.

“I say, Charis, are you listening?”

“Sorry. I was dreaming. You were saying?”

“I might be going to France as an ambulance driver. At the end of the summer.”

“Oh.”

“What do you think? Don’t you mind?”

“I shall miss you.” The deeper truth that this statement contained caused tears to brim on her eyelids. Felix was touched and put his arm around her.

“Don’t worry about me Carrie,” he said. “I shall be miles from the front.”

Their embrace led to a kiss and thence to a partial undressing and an uncomfortable union on the small sofa. They had become more adept and assured in making the necessary manoeuvres. Charis saw this confidence make itself daily more evident in Felix. He was twenty now; he seemed finally to be leaving the last traces of his boyishness behind.

He didn’t stay for long. Shortly after one o’clock he started yawning and said he’d better get off to bed. Charis saw him to the door, remembering to switch off the light in the hall so he wouldn’t be seen leaving. His complete obliviousness to everything she was suffering was, paradoxically, her greatest support. If he had sensed anything badly amiss, if he had questioned and probed, she doubted if she could have sustained the minimal poise and control she possessed. As it was it required very little effort on her part to convince him that everything was normal.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, kissed her on the nose and was gone.

Charis sat for an hour running through her plan in her mind. She couldn’t avoid causing grief and pain, she knew. But it would be nothing to the consequences that would fall on all their heads if the truth came out.

Eventually she sat down at the writing desk and wrote briefly to Felix.

My darling Felix,

I have been thinking things over and have decided to go away. Under the circumstances it seems the only possible thing to do. Any sort of compromise would be intolerable. I have written to Gabriel and told him everything.

It seemed a bit terse and ambiguous, but that gave her a vague satisfaction. She thought of adding some phrase like ‘I am sorry’ or ‘Don’t have any regrets’, but decided against it, signing only her name.

She sealed the letter in an envelope and addressed it. She felt determined and businesslike, she gladly noted, not morose or self-pitying. She was going to get rid of all her doubts and dilemmas, shames and disappointments, all the pains and grief that stood ranked in the future waiting for her. An interminable hellish gauntlet that she would no longer have to run. Her skilful evasion seemed suddenly profoundly satisfying. The choice she made now was, she thought, as bold and intelligent as any stoical decision to endure.

She picked up Felix’s letter and put on her heaviest tweed coat. It was a golfing coat with an attached cape and big buttoned skirt that came down to her ankles. She put her hand on the doorknob, she had everything she needed.

Outside it was a dark cool night, cloud-free, with the stars shining up above. She walked briskly up the drive to the big house. It was just cold enough for her breath to condense for a second or two. She slipped Felix’s letter into the letter box in the front door. A faint wind moved through the rhododendrons, causing the thick shiny leaves to clatter drily. She took a deep breath. All the worries and fears were dwindling into insubstantiality as swiftly as her condensed breath was hurried away by the breeze. It seemed to her that she faced only an avenue of bright tomorrows. She turned on her heel and set off down the path she had chosen.

17: 26 June 1916, Stackpole Manor, Kent

“Job,” cried Major Cobb. “Chapter twenty-eight, verse twelve.”

“Oh dear, no,” breathed Mrs Cobb, standing beside Felix. “Not again.” She pressed her fingers into her cheeks as if her teeth were aching. “Not again.”

Felix stared at the map of Africa, then squinted slightly so that the reds and greens went hazy and elided. The holiday before he had deliberately missed family prayers one morning, thinking he was old enough to absent himself without having to ask permission. His father had gone, in Felix’s opinion, raving mad. He had exploded with wrath at the breakfast table when Felix eventually appeared, accusing him of being a worthless atheist, a snivelling coward, a disgrace to the family name and, moreover, exhibiting a callous disregard of his brother’s noble sacrifice. It was the last insult that had stirred his conscience and so now he thought it worth it — for the quiet life that everyone was after — to comply with his father’s whims.

“But where shall wisdom be found?” the major intoned. “And where is the place of understanding?” His fat features had slackened, the puffy cheeks sagged, the double chins now bristly dewlaps which were never properly shaved. But he was as obsessive as ever, and Felix could see him shaking slightly as he loudly repeated the words of the daily lesson.

“Where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.” He prodded the open bible in front of him with a stubby forefinger. “Neither is it found. In. The land. Of. The living.”

His mother stopped Felix, with a gentle pressure on his arm, as he was filing out of the library to go to breakfast.

“Darling,” Mrs Cobb said, a worried look on her face. “I’m a little concerned about your father.”

“I’m not surprised,” Felix said. “Shouldn’t he be in hospital?”

“Really! Felix. He’s just so upset.”

“We’re all upset, Mother. That doesn’t mean we have to behave like…”—he indicated the map—“Like that.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs Cobb said, taking her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “Oh dear. What is happening with this dreadful war? It’s most unfair.”

Felix went into the dining room. His father was sitting at the end of the table reading a newspaper. Beside him was Cressida, trying to ignore his constant mutters and exclamations. Felix’s empty place was next to hers. Opposite them sat Eustacia and Nigel Bathe. Nigel Bathe wore a tweed jacket, the two empty sleeves of which were pinned up just below his elbows. Beside him Eustacia cut up a plate of bacon and eggs, loaded up a forkful and popped it in his mouth.

“Morning,” Felix said. “Nigel, Eustacia, Cressida…Father.”

Felix felt as he always did these mornings a surge of pity for Nigel Bathe, whom he’d never liked. Nigel still grumbled and complained as of old — about the size of his disability pension, the inefficacy of the artificial limbs he was learning to use — but Felix didn’t grudge him it now. The rest of the family seemed quite accustomed to his presence at meals, his being spoon-fed by Eustacia, but Felix found it a most unsettling start to each day.

“Ah-ha!” shouted the major, causing everyone to look up sharply, and a section of fried egg to jerk off Eustacia’s extended fork and splat on the shiny table top.

“Here we are, here we are.” The major cleared his throat. “‘On June the nineteenth British forces in German East Africa occupied the important town of Handeni.’ Where’s my map?” He sprang up from the table and marched out of the room.

Everyone pretended nothing had happened. Felix opened the chafing dishes on the sideboard and helped himself to a large plate of kidneys, scrambled eggs, fried bread, bacon and sausage. He found that keeping his head down while he shovelled in food was the best way of avoiding the pathetic sight of Nigel Bathe across the table.

He sat down. “Well,” he said vacuously, “looks like it’s going to be a pleasant day.” He turned round in his seat and craned his head to see out of the window. His guess seemed accurate enough. The lawn was bright with sun, the fishponds were blue, only a few small indolent clouds occupied the sky above.

There were three letters by his place. A catalogue from a bookseller, confirmation of an appointment with his optician and one, unstamped, in a plain white envelope. He recognized Charis’s writing at once, and with a frown of curiosity tore it open. Nobody paid any attention.

He read the letter.

“Oh God. Jesus Christ,” he said in a shocked voice, getting up from his place.

“Felix!” Cressida and Eustacia said in unison.

He ran out of the room, stuffing the letter in his pocket. He rushed outside, sprinting across the sunlit lawn, the heels of his shoes biting deeply into the dew-damp turf. He vaulted over the eve-gate, skidding on a patch of mud beyond and falling over. He picked himself up and pounded through the wood towards the cottage. The back door was locked. He ran round to the front and let himself in. He knew at once the cottage was empty. He stood in the little parlour, looking at the grate of the fire, the ashes of the night before still there. His eyes passed uneasily over the sofa and he saw that the lid of the writing desk was folded down.

He went upstairs. The bed was unslept in. He opened the wardrobe. It was filled with hanging clothes. On the chest of drawers he saw Gabriel’s photograph. The strong square face, the simple smile. He felt an awful turmoil in his body, a sudden sickening awareness of just what he and Charis had done. He recalled the words of the letter: “I have written to Gabriel and told him everything.”

He sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. His brain was refusing to work. He realized one trouser leg was thick with mud, also the sleeve of his jacket and his left hand. He stood up. The bedspread was smeared and dirty.

He walked shakily down the stairs. Think, he told himself, think. She seemed to have walked out of the house without taking anything. No clothes, no suitcase…He tried to ignore one explanation which was shouting persistently in his head.

Not Charis, he said to himself. She wouldn’t. The sense of his own responsibility, so successfully evaded for so many months, hit him with full force. He sat down again, on the bottom stair, trembling all over. He patted his pockets for a cigarette, then realized he’d left them in his bedroom.

He got to his feet. The police would have to be informed. Perhaps she’d gone to Aunt Bedelia’s, just fled in a panic for whatever reason? It sounded plausible. But what was wrong? he asked himself. Why should she do it? Why now? She said she hadn’t been feeling well lately, perhaps that could have been a contributing factor. He turned a few more thoughts over in his head. But her note? He took it out of his pocket and spread it on his knee. It was so terse and final. Almost hostile. But why should she write to Gabriel too? This new factor made his head reel. He felt the blood thumping at his temples, he found it difficult to swallow. His stomach heaved and he gagged. He put the back of his hand to his mouth and leant against the wall for support. His mouth was full of fresh saliva, like thick water.

At once he pushed himself off the wall and rushed out of the house. Back through the wood, over the eve-gate, across the bottom of the lawn towards the fishponds. He saw his mother and Cressida standing agitatedly on the terrace. They called his name as he ran into view, but he ignored them.

He leapt down the steps to the seat by the middle pond. His first feeling was one of immense relief as he saw its vacant, glassy surface. The lilies, the reeds, the ornamental bulrushes, all as it always was, sunlit and undisturbed. He stood panting at the edge trying to peer beneath the reflections and the glare of the sun. He could see nothing. But the carp, prompted by his shadow on the water and expecting a feed, began to rise up from the depths. The water swirled, fish bodies coiled and swerved, thick lips and blunt snouts tested the surface.

“Blasted bloody fish!” he swore. He turned round to find a stone to throw — to make them scatter.

Then he saw the pedestal. The marble bust of the Emperor Vitellius was missing.

Felix kicked off his shoes and struggled out of his jacket. His mother and Cressida had reached the upper pond and were awkwardly descending the wide steps, their skirts held up in their hands.

“Felix!” his mother wailed in evident distress. “What’s happening, my darling? What’s wrong?”

He ignored them.

He jumped into the pool. It was deep, eight feet or more, and very cold. He allowed his momentum to take him down to the bottom, feeling the pressure in his ears, and the faint sound of his mother screaming. He opened his eyes, paddling furiously with his hands to keep himself down. Through the murk, all about him, he sensed the carp darting away into their hiding places.

Then one of his beating hands struck something soft. He spun round. Charis’s body was close in to the side. He’d been looking too far out. She was in the attitude of a dive or plummeting fall, her feet trailing up behind her, her head held down, tied in grotesque familiar proximity to the Emperor Vitellius.

Felix felt his lungs were on the point of bursting, but he forced himself closer. A length of twine was tied round her neck, its ends in turn wrapped and secured with many knots about the marble head. Through the drifting clouds of mud and sediment he saw that her eyes and mouth were open, her face relaxed and expressionless. Her hair had loosened itself and streamed weedily about her features, stirred by the currents of water caused by his beating, flailing hands.

18: 1 July 1916, Sevenoaks, Kent

“It seems she tied herself — round the neck — to the bust. She just had enough strength to lift it off the pedestal on her arms, take two steps to the edge and fall in. The weight dragged her straight down to the bottom.” Felix paused and took another cigarette out of his case.

“She had tied a lot of knots. She couldn’t even have got free if she had wanted to. She didn’t leave herself any room for second thoughts.”

Felix lit the cigarette. He was sitting with Dr Venables in the saloon bar of a hotel not far from the magistrates’ court in Sevenoaks where the inquest had been held. Dr Venables had been called to give evidence too, as he had performed a post-mortem on Charis’s body. Felix was the only member of the Cobb family who had attended. He was still feverish and agitated from all the lies he’d told.

The inquest had been a mere formality. Felix had told his edited story. He said he’d lost the letter in his panic and confusion. It had simply said, he swore, that Charis intended to go away. No reason had been given. A police constable from Ashurst read out his version of events and then Dr Venables had been called to confirm the cause of death. “A tragic case,” the magistrate had concluded. “Mrs Cobb is as much a victim of the war as our young men who have bravely given their lives in France.”

Afterwards, Dr Venables had invited him for a bracing drink. Felix said he didn’t want one but the doctor was very insistent. He sat opposite Felix now, his unnaturally dark hair shilling damply in the gloom of the bar. He pulled regularly at his earlobes while Felix talked.

Felix was acutely uneasy. For the last few days he had lived — he felt — constantly on the edge of a breakdown. The sense of his own appalling selfishness and lack of insight was a consistent tormenting rebuke. Sharp beaks of guilt stabbed at him. He felt a sense of overpowering, frustrating anger at her death. But somewhere deep inside, like an unfamiliar noise in a sleeping house, a more persistent trouble nagged.

He tried to focus on Charis’s death, on the powerful sense of loss which he knew he felt, in the hope that some expression of grief might relieve or overwhelm the massive doubts and guilts that were building up explosively within him. But, try as he might, impugn himself as he might, it was Charis’s dreadful legacy that obsessed him all his waking moments.

The letter. The letter to Gabriel. What in God’s name had possessed her to send it? He felt grossly ashamed that this was all he could think of. He despised and utterly condemned his highly-developed instincts of self-preservation. He could live with his guilt — just — as long as it remained a secret which he alone knew. The thought of Gabriel ever learning about Charis and him was horrific, the most potent of fears, and it left him weak and trembling.

He had telephoned Henry Hyams at the War Office on the pretext of wondering how the news of Charis’s death could best be conveyed to Gabriel. Did letters, he asked, ever get through? There was a reasonable chance, Hyams said, though it would probably take months, and now, with the British Army well inside German East there was really no telling.

This was both good and bad news. Clearly there was a possibility nothing would happen. Who knew the potential accidents and delays that could befall a single letter on such a perilous journey? But, then again, Hyams had implied that some letters did arrive…He forced himself to stop. His self-disgust was making a nerve tremor in his cheek.

He drained his brandy and soda. Dr Venables called for another. Felix glanced at his epicene features. He looked very grim and serious.

“A terrible business,” Dr Venables said. “Such a charming girl. I’d grown very fond of her, you know, in our work together.”

“I know.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

“Why she did it?”

“No. No.”

“What’s that, then?”

“Why did she write to you, Felix? I hope you don’t mind my asking.”

Felix looked up, startled. He stubbed out his cigarette, his mind racing. “We’d become good friends,” he said slowly. “Of sorts. Since, that is,” he cleared his throat. “Gabriel’s capture.”

“What did her letter say?”

“Well, exactly what I told the magistrate, as far as I can remember. That, um, she was going to go away, and that she was sorry.”

“Those were the words she used?”

“I think so. To be honest I can’t recall exactly. That’s the general drift. I was shocked.”

“Quite so.”

“I’ve looked everywhere for the letter.” Felix took a sip at his brandy. “But I was frantic, running through the woods like that. Perhaps when I dived in the pond…?” Felix left his sentence unfinished. What was Venables driving at?

“That’s another thing.”

“What?”

“Why you went straight to the pond. That pond.”

“I didn’t go straight there. I went to the cottage first.”

“But when that was empty…”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It was something she said once. I suddenly remembered. It was her favourite place. We often used to sit and chat there. I had this feeling. I don’t know. I can’t explain.”

Dr Venables leant forward. He placed the tips of his fingers together and looked at his large clean hands. Felix stared at them too. He noticed they were quite hairless.

“I want to ask you something, Felix,” Dr Venables said. “And I want your honest answer. Depending on your answer I will then give you some information. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Felix glanced round the bar. It was almost empty and quiet. This wasn’t like Venables at all.

“Total honesty, Felix.”

“Of course.” He felt dizzy with the pressure.

“This is what I have to ask you, Felix. Were you and Charis having a love affair?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Were you and Charis having a love affair?”

“No.”

Dr Venables caught his eye. The question was repeated telepathically.

“No,” Felix repeated. The massive effort it took to force his gaze not to waver was exacting an immense toll.

“You were not having a love affair.”

“That’s correct.”

Venables seemed to relax ever so slightly.

“Let me ask you another question, then. Do you know if Charis was having an affair with another man?”

“Another man?” Felix felt his head loud with clattering, unaskable questions. What was Venables trying to prove? “No,” he said. “Not as far as I’m aware.”

“I see.” Venables placed his hands on the table. “Thank you, Felix. I had to ask.”

Horrible suspicions seemed to be squirming in sockets of Felix’s brain.

“Why do you think she was? Having a love, um, affair.”

“Simply seeking for a reason, Felix.” The doctor’s eyes were candid. “Trying to find an explanation.”

Felix’s fingers lightly touched his lips, chin, nose as if discovering his features for the first time. He stood up, and said with absurd formality, “Would you mind if I took a breath of fresh air?” Venables moved his seat to let him get by.

Outside the streets were busy. Motor cars tooted warnings as they reached the sharp bend in the road to the left of the hotel. A barefoot boy, wheeling a costermonger’s barrow full of cabbages, whistled loudly as he trundled his load along the pavement, turning down an alleyway to the hotel kitchens. Felix stood on the little gravelled forecourt in front of the hotel, keeping his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He looked for a while at the passing traffic and sauntering pedestrians.

He went back into the saloon bar and sat down.

“You said,” he began carefully, “that depending on my answer you would give me some Information. What was that?”

“It’s irrelevant now,” Venables said. “You gave the right answer.”

“But what if I’d given another one?”

“But you didn’t.”

“Yes.” Felix looked at Venables. Did he know? Was he guessing? What made him ask now?

“I think we should forget about all further speculations,” Venables said. “This conversation should not be reported or reopened again outside this saloon bar. There is no need to — what shall I say? — give rise to unnecessary suffering in your family. I think you’ll agree that there are problems enough to deal with at Stackpole.”

“Yes,” Felix said, “you’re right.” A thought kept darting elusively through his head like a minnow. It didn’t bear contemplation, or rather something would not allow it to be contemplated. Other more atavistic impulses seemed to be denying it access to his understanding. He let it go. Venables’ sleek, waxy features gave nothing away.

“Can I offer you a lift home?” Venables asked. “I’ve left my motor by the court room.”

“No thank you,” Felix said. “I’ve a return ticket for the train.”

They left the bar and went outside. Somewhere, behind the hotel, the costermonger’s boy was still whistling.

“Somebody’s happy anyway,” Dr Venables said with a sad smile. “Not that many of us have got much to be happy about in this day and age.” He held out his hand. “Well, Felix. Remember what I said.”

Felix shook his hand. “I shall.”

“And if you ever feel in the need of a talk, come and see me. I used to enjoy our discussions.”

“Of course,” Felix said. Dr Venables still held his hand firmly.

“What are you going to do now, Felix?” The question seemed to be innocent, but Felix realized you could be sure of nothing with Venables.

He decided to be innocent too. “I shall get the train straight back.”

“No. I meant with your future. What are you going to do with yourself?”

Felix had been wondering the same thing. He had come to some sort of decision.

“I’ve been thinking about that myself, Dr Venables.” He knew, but he was not going to tell Venables. “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer at the moment.”