CHAPTER TWO
The subaltern caught another fly. He watched one hover close within reach, then snatched it out of the air, quick as a mamba. He cupped the blue-bottle buzzing in his fist, stepped over to the high window, and threw it to freedom between the bars.
After four weeks’ practice, Harry Lanyard was getting good at fly-catching. The un-glassed window let every kind of winged pest come swarming in, day and night. Maybe they were attracted by the warmth and smells. The square three-storey blockhouse was put up only a month ago, an afterthought to protect the railway station long after there was much danger. Its offices, barracks rooms, and cells alike were filled with the stink of creosote, sawn wood, and fresh concrete baking in the unseasonably high temperatures.
Late April, autumn here, but summer heat hung on, baking the dusty streets. After the morning train arrived, there was not much sound outside, just the occasional rattle of a supply-wagon or crunch of boots when a platoon marched by. Belfast was a dead-and-alive hole. ‘Bit like me, Harry thought.
He caught the despair seeping in, and glanced at the narrow army cot, but started to pace the room instead. Back and forth, nine steps between the outside wall and the barred corridor. He did this a few times every hour, a break from lounging in stupefying boredom. He scratched his brownish hair, kept cropped short against lice for a year, but growing in now he was off patrol. His ordinary-looking face was losing its deep tan, too; more like the tennis-court sunburn on the scores of young officers who lounged around town.
Harry stopped pacing, but resisted lying down for a spell. When he was first put in here, he used the bunk a lot. After living rough on the veld, he rediscovered the simple pleasures of a comfortable bed and sleeping undisturbed all night. Pent-up combat strain and exhaustion, followed by arrest, had knocked him out, so that he slept twelve hours at a time. Even then, he tossed and twitched, shouting himself awake, holding his ears in pain at explosions still heard, cheeks wet with tears he could never admit.
When rest eased his shell-shocked nerves and he finally caught up on sleep, the hopeless brooding began. He lay on the bunk by the hour, hands behind his neck, staring at the raw ceiling. He saw the faces of dead friends; over a score more comrades gone during the year since Gat had been killed. Even Molly was taken from him, probably ridden to death by now. The remorse came back; that young Boer, Beth lost forever, concern for his mother and father in Victoria when they eventually heard of his disgrace. Word had not reached Canada yet, though. He could tell that from today’s routinely nasty letter from his sister in Montreal.
“You should be ashamed to be a soldier there,” Dora wrote. “Every day, we hear evidence of the horrid atrocities you Imperialist marauders are committing in South Africa. Burning the roofs over those innocent housewives’ heads, disgraceful accounts of mass assaults on women’s virtue, and deliberate extermination of helpless mothers and babies in your concentration camps. All just to protect those mittel-European mine-owners who exploit slaves to gouge wealth out of the Rand’s native soil.”
Speaking of which, Dora, he thought, Britain’s stated aim was to abolish racist laws in the Transvaal’s Constitution which forbade any equality between blacks and whites, either in church or state or employment. Once, he had tried to explain to her there was more to the Afrikaners’ cause than a romantic crusade for independence. They were also fighting to keep foreign immigrants excluded from citizenship, claim a larger share of goldmine profits, and preserve Boer tyranny over the natives. That view only infuriated Dora even more, and in the end he stopped replying to her angry letters.
This time, his sister’s passionate idealism engraved her blue pencil-point into the paper. “Eye-witnesses from South Africa address our public meetings of the Friends Of The Boers, showing lantern-slides of children like little skeletons. They display ground glass and fish-hooks they swear had been discovered in prisoners’ rations. Surely proof that British doctors are waging genocide against the Boer nation.” There was a lot more along the same lines, but he had just crunched Dora’s letter and thrown it in the bucket.
Boots clattered upstairs, and a Cockney voice bawled instructions across the orderly-room; the army unable to even push paper without making a noise. Harry pulled the wool undershirt over his head, and started doing some Swedish drill. Twenty-five knee-bends. Stand hands on hips, swivel left and right repeatedly. Flop down, body and legs stiff, sideways one-arm pushups. Up, down.
“Well, wonders never cease!” Acting First Lieutenant Glendon Scayles, Army Provost Corps, called ahead through the outside door. That big Regimental Police corporal was behind him as usual, the faithful pit-bull. The Redcaps strode down the corridor, firm-heeled, in perfect step, uniforms crisply starched.
“Up and about for a change.” They cracked to a halt in front of the cage. “Healthy exercise is good for a chap.” Scayles waited, expecting some response to his rare approval. Harry ignored them, flipping to change arms so he faced away. Up, down.
“Dammit, Lanyard, get to attention when I address you!” The lieutenant was a beefy, rugby-playing sort of young man, not used to being defied. “Or should I just knock some respect into your thick Canadian skull?”
Harry stopped in mid-press, still not looking. He had enough trouble already, but couldn’t resist saying, “You could try, I guess.” Transferring his weight to tips of his fingers on one hand, he held the body-slant and twisted to look up. “Two of you.” He glanced at the big Webley in the corporal’s holster. “Armed.”
The two-striper screamed, “No insolence when you talks to an officer!”
Harry got up. “I could say the same to you, Corporal.” He toweled his armpits, and pulled on his tunic. The RP glanced at the single pip of a second lieutenant on the jacket shoulder, but sneered anyway.
Scayles sounded a mock-groan. “Corporal Gudger has too much regular army service to respect a Colonial amateur like you. In a scallywag mob of irregulars at that. And it’s well known you Canadians are the worst looters in the entire army.”
He nodded at Gudger to use his keys. “Likely be losing that pip soon, Lanyard, anyway. You’re due for the firing-squad, like those murdering Australians.”
“Morant was English. Like you.”
“Well, he lived Down Under long enough to act like an Aussie. Finally wrote a confession note to Reverend Canon Fisher just before he was executed. Morant was guilty as sin!”
The recent executions of two Australian officers in the British-run Bushveld Carbineers had caused an uproar. Three lieutenants were tried by court-martial and found guilty of killing 12 Boer prisoners and a German missionary who witnessed things. Their defence was that General Kitchener himself had ordered any Boers caught disguised in British uniforms be shot out of hand. Truth be told, Lieutenant “Breaker” Morant had gone on a rampage of revenge, half-crazed with grief after his best friend had been kicked to death by Boers while their prisoner.
General Kitchener was already in political trouble at home over reports of other excesses by anti-commando units, mainly Colonials, and he refused to commute the death sentences of Lts. Morant and Hancock. The other accused, Lt. Wilton, was sent to serve a long term in Gosport Military Prison, where he confessed that Morant had in fact ordered the killing of PWs. But pride was wounded in the newly-formed country of Australia. Most Diggers started to believe the executed men were scapegoats, sacrificed as a sop to soft-hearted critics of the war in Britain.
Now, Lanyard was facing a similar charge, but it was obviously being kept quiet, judging by the silence from Canadian authorities. He could expect no help from them, anyway, as they probably considered it best to leave his predicament as a British affair. His only hope was that Kitchener’s fury over yet another undisciplined Colonial would be curbed by reluctance to face some more criticism.
The barred gate clinked open, but Scayles gestured for the prisoner to stay well back. “For some reason, I was told to personally keep a special lookout on you. Can’t imagine why. I’ve put in to go back to the Mounted MPs, and wish I was out on the veld, again. Troops’re getting away with too much there. Insolence, desertion, looting.”
“Not to mention burning.”
“You’ll laugh on the other side of your face, soon! The brass have come for you at last.”
“Can’t say I’ll miss your company, bud.”
“I’m your superior officer, Lanyard, and you’ll address me as ‘sir’!”
“Respect goes both ways — Scayles.”
The MP glowered and rubbed his heavy jaw, shaved pink and smooth. He looked around the barely furnished cell with a jailer’s distaste. The cement floor was swept clean, and there was nothing on the walls but a 1902 calendar with black mourning-crepe around Queen Victoria’s picture. “Pigsty. You’ll see nobody until you get that unmade bed squared away.”
He stood at the cell gate while Harry took apart the three mattress biscuits, stacked them at the bed-end, and folded blankets tightly around the sides. Scayles wrinkled his nose, and snarled at Gudger to have the sanitary bucket changed. A barefoot Basuto fetched a replacement from the storeroom next door, and sidled out with the used one. The native cringed each time he passed Gudger.
Lt. Scayles eyed the taut bedding. “Bit of an improvement. Now if you’re smart, you’ll mind your manners for once.” The policemen stamped away.
A few minutes later, Scayles led in two men, one in a new-looking uniform and carrying a dispatch-case, the other a middle-aged civilian. They stood in Harry’s cell, looking around for a place to sit. There was only two chairs beside the small table, and the civilian indicated the officer should take one.
The captain said, “Do, sit down, Mister, er, Lanyard.” He looked at the policeman hovering in the passage. “Thank you, er, Lieutenant.”
“This officer’s still under close arrest, sir. I’ll post a man just outside, in case.”
A crumpled green packet of Wild Woodbines was on the table. Harry pulled the remaining fag out and tapped it on his thumbnail. “I’m not allowed matches.” He looked meaningly at the captain. The man did not offer a light, just frowned, but Harry didn’t feel like asking for permission. This wasn’t the regimental dining room. Besides, he suspected now would be an appropriate time to smoke his last cigarette.
The civilian leaned over and flicked a gold lighter. Harry nodded thanks, the pair of them weighing each other up through the smoke. The older man was immaculate in a well-cut suit of gray barathea, with a high stiff collar, striped tie, and a monocle dangling from his lapel.
The captain said, “My name is, er, Barlow. I’m with the, ah, Judge Advocate General.” He had thick glasses, a moon face, and a small slit of a mouth. “This is Mister, er, Smith. An, ah, observer.” He waved at the smoke. Woodbines were five for tuppence and they smoked awful, but Gudger claimed no other brand was available.
Harry blew out another long plume and tapped ash into his palm. “Are you my Prisoner’s Friend, defence attorney, or whatever they call it?”
“Good God, no!” Barlow looked shocked. “I’m here only to be sure you fully appreciate the gravity of your, ah, legal situation.”
Harry spat a tobacco flake off his lip, “Near as I figure, my situation is I get a fair trial then be taken out and shot.” The legal officer leafed through a buff file. “You are facing very serious charges. Pretty, ah, beastly ones.” He paused when the Basuto padded in silently, carrying an extra chair. Smith remained standing, watched the black leave, then nodded for Barlow to go on.
“Your alleged offences include murder of a wounded enemy prisoner, contrary to the rules of war.” Barlow’s mouth went tight as a hen’s arse. “Committed in a barbarous manner. What puts a particularly bad light on things, the alleged incident was witnessed by two Belgian military attaches.”
“In the middle of all that shellfire? Even if they’d been close enough to see what I did, they could never hear why.” Harry walked over and threw his fag-end into the bucket.
“Have a care!” Barlow stammered. “It’s best you don’t make any, er, incriminating comments at all. This isn’t a privileged conversation, so we could be called to witness against you.”
“Won’t make much difference, with everybody else so keen to swear my life away.”
“No question, you are in very difficult circumstances, indeed. Facing summary court-martial for a capital offence. With apparently overwhelming evidence, unbiased believable witnesses, and past association with similar, ah, proclivities.”
Harry knew the lawyer meant those prisoners rumoured to have been lynched by his old regiment. He was about to point out that nothing had ever been proved about the incident, when Barlow went on. “And of course, the unfortunate, er, blood oath you took.”
“That was in the heat of the moment. Christ, we’d just found our C.O. shot out of hand!” He tried to get the man in civilian clothes to say something. “You’d understand, sir.” Despite the Burlington Bertie get-up, Smith had British Army written all over him.
The stubble mustache twitched, and he spoke for the first time, “It’d be helpful if you let Captain Barlow finish.” His voice was quiet, precise, but with a steely edge of command.
“I want to make clear just how strong the case is against you.” The lawyer would look anywhere but at Harry. “Most of your original regiment have returned to Canada, and you subsequently served in two different units.” He glanced at the file and frowned suspiciously, “After you received a commission, Howard’s transferred you to Rimmington’s Scouts for some, ah, reason.”
“Normal procedure. The army doesn’t like new officers to stay in the same outfit where we’ve served in the ranks. Afraid the men might act too familiar.”
“Ah, I daresay, but both units have been re-organized since. So, any defence lawyer would be unable to locate character witnesses in your favour.”
“Hell, just call Charlie Ross up from Cape Town! He knows I never condoned his reprisals.”
“Captain Ross has also returned to Canada”, Barlow cut in. “Rather quickly. To avoid prosecution on charges of stealing Crown property, um, cattle-rustling.”
Loud mechanical noises jangled outside, as the morning train from Komati Poort passed close by the cell window. In the quiet that followed, Mister Smith strolled to the gate and looked left and right along the corridor. He came back and offered a black-lettered cigarette tin. “Perhaps you’d prefer one of these.” Harry took it, a Balkan Sobranie. He nodded thanks, and the pair of them lit up.
Smith, or whoever he was, sat down and pushed the round tin of fifty close to Harry, along with a box of Swan Vestas. The lawyer turned his attention to straightening papers in the dispatch-case.
“I hear you were engaged to a nice young local gel, Lieutenant.” This cool Englishman seemed hardly the type for idle conversation, but Harry decided to just enjoy the rich tobacco.
“Almost, but it didn’t come off in the end.”
“Oh, too bad. Someone mentioned you used to visit her father’s place every spare moment.” Smith turned the lighter end over end on the table, and said casually, “Enormous spread, near the Mauchberg Range. What was it called, now?”
Harry said, “Farm Vincennes.”
“Ah, yes. I understand you were based around there for some time, chasing Johnny. Probably know the ground well.”
He flicked ash towards the bucket, and went on in a harder tone. “Lieutenant, we wanted you to know first how badly it could go for you at any field court, before we offered a possible alternative.”
Harry nodded slowly, “I catch your drift. Something to save Kitchener the embarrassment of executing another Colonial. Maybe I agree to plead guilty, and get off with a mere ten years’ hard labour in Gosport?”
“Listen to me, man. I’m offering you a chance to avoid the firing-squad!” Smith bit each word for emphasis.
Despite himself, Lanyard felt the hope rising inside. This guy seemed straight enough, and anything would be better than being shot at dawn for a shameful crime. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to show his sick, almost squirming, relief at the possibility of reprieve. To gain time to think, he carefully stubbed out the Sobranie on his boot-sole. Nothing came to him, though, so he met Smith’s waiting stare.
“Well, okay, what is the offer, sir?”
Barlow answered instead, speaking formally. “Er, all charges to be dropped, contingent upon you being reduced to the rank of private, and guiding one last patrol.” He read wording carefully from a slip of paper. “Also, should you, er, return, you will be released from His Majesty’s service and, ah, repatriated to Canada without delay.”
“That’s it, your wonderful deal?” Somehow, Harry felt more disappointment in Smith than he did about the shabby terms. “Bust me, deport me, after I do some dirty-work?”
“Perhaps we could look at things more from a soldier’s perspective.” Smith’s comradely tone excluded the legal officer. “Consider, the patrol we propose could help save a lot of lives, on both sides. And you’re best equipped to pull it off.”
“Yeah, as a private, facing dishonorable discharge!” The scorn in Harry’s voice made Barlow recoil. “Listen, I volunteered to get into this war, remember? All the way from Victoria, British Columbia. A pokey little corner of the Empire you probably never even heard of!”
His outburst seemed to embarrass Barlow more than anything, but Smith took in every word when Harry went on. “I even signed up with a new British unit, Strathcona’s Horse, when his Lordship’s recruiting agents came over to Canada. Our regiment cost him half a million as his personal donation to the British Army.”
“A fine regiment, of course.” Smith jerked an approving nod. “Hear one of your Strathcona chaps got a VC at Wolve Spruit.”
“Yeah, and he’s back home in bed, now!” Harry laughed shortly. “If I’d wanted a short war, I could have just joined the Victoria Field Artillery for a one-year tour. When the Canadian contingents left, I stayed on instead, and joined Howard’s Scouts. I’ve been in the thick of it for over two years, and I Goddam-well earned my lieutenant’s commission!”
“No-one denies you’re a good soldier, Lanyard,” Smith said quietly. “Though you made a bit of a black mark when you did away with that prisoner.”
“Speaking of which, Kitchener’s own orders for shooting prisoners are posted on the orderly-room wall upstairs.”
“Ahem,” Barlow chimed in. “They specifically refer to the lawful, er, execution of enemy caught disguised in British uniform, or with expanding bullets in their possession.”
“Yeah, sure, circumstances alter cases. Except for me.”
“Not entirely,” Smith said. “Hear me out, and perhaps it’ll change your mind.”
“Sure, when pigs fly!” Then Harry stopped himself, sat down, and reached for another fancy fag.
Smith laid something on the table with a hard click. “Know what this is?”
Harry turned it over idly in his hand, a small smooth disc that looked like gold. It could have been a coin, except for its lack of any embossed design. “Haven’t the foggiest.”
“Kaal ponde, the Boers call ‘em. Naked pounds, because they’re unmarked.” Smith bounced the disc in his palm. “Thousands of these have started turning up all over Europe, then recently in South Africa. First clear signs we’ve had of Kruger’s gold. You were out here when he did a bolt. ‘Must have heard all the talk at the time.”
“Yeah, Oom Paul’s treasure.” Harry sucked his cheek mockingly. “That story’s so old, it’s got hairs on it.”
“His gold’s real enough, Lieutenant!” Smith snapped. “Filched all along his escape-route. President Kruger cleaned out the Jo’burg mines, the National Mint, and every bank vault between Pretoria and Machadodorp. A fortune in blank sovereigns like these, plus veld ponde stamped coins, bullion bars, and paper currency.”
“Sounds like a ton weight. How much dough are we talking about?”
“All indications are, he decamped with well over three million pounds Sterling aboard his private train.”
Harry blew a silent whistle. “Fifteen million dollars!” A huge sum of money; nigh impossible to even imagine when ten dollars a week was considered a good wage.
“Quite. You can imagine our interest.” Smith said dryly. “We ferreted out a chap who rejoices in the name of P.J. Raubenheimer, one of the ex-train guards. He turned over to us a receipt signed by Senhor Machado, the Portuguese station-master at Lourenco Marques. It was dated the twentieth of May, Nineteen-Hundred, acknowledging the import into Mozambique of three million in Transvaal state gold. For a goodish time, we assumed it all went with Kruger aboard the Gelderland, that cruiser the Dutch sent to take him into exile.”
Harry shrugged, “So it’s long gone.” He wondered where this conversation was headed.
“Most. But by no means all.” Smith held up his hand for a moment, ear turned towards the corridor, before continuing. “A German ship-chandler in Delagoa Bay now informs us that around the same time up to fifty cases of gold were also put aboard two German liners there, consigned to Dresdner Bank in Hamburg.”
“Rhodes’ financiers, how about that. Cashing in from both him and the enemy.”
Smith ignored the comment. “Granted a million quid’s worth of the loot’s been spent in Europe for Boer military supplies. And though Kruger’s living comfortably enough in Europe, he has just fifty thousand in his own bank account. So we asked, where’s the rest, pray?”
He lowered his voice to a half-whisper. “From what Intelligence has pieced together, perhaps half the total loot was left behind, hidden here and there before his train passed through Komati Poort.”
“Could be the Boers’re pulling somebody’s leg. They do that a lot.”
The flinty eyes glinted with irritation, but Smith managed to go on calmly, “Last week, our agents located a chap called Schwartz, who was Kruger’s personal coachman. He boasted that while the Presidential train was at Nelspruit, Kruger personally ordered him to take two ox-wagons loaded with gold and bluebacks and bury the lot somewhere near the Devil’s Knuckles.”
Smith paused for emphasis. “Schwartz refused to say exactly where, and he’s managed to disappear on us again, before we could, ahem, question him a little more forcefully. Best indications are, though, it’s hidden on or near that Vincennes place. Your old staging-grounds.”
“Anyone who thinks those crafty locals wouldn’t have sniffed it out long ago must be pretty stupid.” Harry didn’t care about military courtesy anymore. What else could they do to him now?
Smith waved impatiently. “They haven’t, yet. More to the point, imagine the ramifications if President Burger, say, or General De Wet, got their hands on even a fraction of that much money. It could prolong the war for Lord-knows how long. Help them buy new weapons and provisions, not to mention bribing politicians and newspapers for Boer support all over the shop.”
“If.”
The unruffled way Smith kept taking all Harry’s lip hinted there was still something left unsaid. “Plenty of German and French arms salesmen certainly think it exists. Including some British scum, too. Just the hint of new Boer funds has brought them all flocking back to Mozambique in hopes of profit from smuggling supplies across the frontier.”
He rubbed a tiny mopane fly out of his eyelid, then said reasonably, “You know every mile of the region where the treasure is. You can find it if anyone could, and help knock Johnny out of the war.”
“How big a patrol would a private command?”
“Over-large a force would draw too much attention. Eighteen men with two officers should do it. We’ve rounded up some chaps who were in the Scouts with you. Pick anyone else you think’ll be useful as well.”
Smith cleared his throat. “You’ve already met your assigned patrol leader. Lieutenant Scayles.”
Harry slapped the table hard, and scraped to his feet so fast the chair went flying. “So that’s the nigger-in-the-woodpile you’ve been hiding!”
Not looking into Harry’s angry face, Barlow explained primly. “With, ah, so much money involved, this must be an army police matter, kept entirely under Provost Marshal protection.”
“Yeah, and entirely madness! I get busted down to a shilling-a-day private to guide a patrol into the mountains where every Boer’s out to plug me personally, while Scayles of all people gives me orders?” Lanyard forced a laugh, and jerked his thumb towards the gate. “Let’s call it a day, gentlemen. Even a court-martial offers better odds!”
The civilian shook his head slowly, then Barlow threw up his hands. “Very well, C.M. proceedings will start against you tomorrow morning.” He looked Harry up and down. “If you have a more, er, presentable uniform, you’d be well advised to wear it in court.” He snapped his briefcase shut and walked out.
Smith turned stiffly in the gateway, “I do wish you’d re-consider, my boy, if only for your own sake.” He sounded genuine. “By the by, Lieutenant Scayles was not told of our plans for him. Best keep it that way, now.”
He left the Sobranies and matches on the table.