Ghosts of the Past

CHAPTER 5

40 CHAPTER 5

Sabie River, eastern Transvaal, South Africa, 1902Too many things were not right for Blake’s liking, and when things weren’t right, the wrong people died.

Blake had never mastered a trade back home in Australia, but three years in South Africa had taught him how to kill and, more importantly, how to survive. He was skilled at his work; he was still alive.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said to the English officer.

‘When I want your opinion, Sergeant Blake, I’ll ask for it,’ Captain Walters replied in a whisper. The binoculars were fixed to his eyes now that the first glimmer of pale orange light was peeking from behind the stark, treeless hills.

Blake was cold, and wet from the dew. The thin horse blanket draped over his back and shoulders had kept his Lee Enfield rifle dry and helped disguise his silhouette, but it had not kept him warm. His sodden khaki uniform and damp undershirt clung to his skin.

Blake had inherited the rifle from a dead English comrade and he considered the protection of his weapon more important than his personal comfort. The Lee Enfield had a smoother, faster bolt 41action than the older-model Lee-Metford he had been issued with when he first came to South Africa. In Blake’s line of work a split second less spent chambering a round could mean the difference between life and death.

Captain The Honourable Llewellyn Walters lay on a waxed cloak with black silk lining and wore a tailored overcoat – the same colour as the Australian sergeant’s uniform, but that was where the similarity ended. Walters’ shirt was new and starched; his tie done in a perfect Windsor knot; his tunic freshly laundered and ironed; his riding breeches spotless and his boots buffed. Blake’s clothes were patched and worn and the leather soles on his boots would soon need replacing. Steinaecker’s Horse didn’t go in for full dress inspections and it was more important how a man shot and acted in the bush than what he wore.

‘Where are the sentries?’ Blake whispered.

‘Just thank the Lord there aren’t any, Sergeant,’ Walters replied.

A British sergeant would not have questioned his commander and would have addressed him properly, as sir, but Blake knew Walters had not picked him for this job because of his manners or his deference to superiors. There was very little of that military bullshit carry-on in Steinaecker’s Horse, the unit Blake had wound up in after two years of fighting the Boer. The war had changed over the past three years and so had British tactics, thankfully. Walters seemed to belong to the time when ramrod-straight Tommies marched in neat columns towards what they thought were going to be set-piece battles, only to be shot to hell by cunning Boers, lying in ambush in the koppies or running circles around them on their hardy ponies. Steinaecker’s, and many other irregular horse units, had been set up to play the Boers at their own game and the war had become one of mobile patrols, hunting the enemy and ferreting him out. Blake’s unit was slightly more sedentary, its mission to patrol the border of neutral Portuguese East Africa to stop arms and ammunition and other supplies reaching the increasingly isolated Boers from the outside world via the Indian Ocean sea ports to the east.

42Blake had seen a good deal of death in his time in South Africa, but the experience had not hardened his heart towards the Boers. If anything, he viewed them more as fellow human beings now than when he had first arrived on this blood-soaked continent.

In the beginning he had believed the tales of the Boers as merciless villains who fired on ambulances and executed prisoners – greedy Dutchmen out to fleece the empire of the gold that rightfully belonged to the mother country. Now, he saw them for what they were: simple farmers in the main, fighting for their right to self-determination. He didn’t necessarily agree that the country should split from the empire, but nor did he see his enemy as devils incarnate. Yet, as his understanding of his foes grew, so did his skills at dispatching them.

‘If this bloke is such a senior Boer officer you’d expect him to have an escort, and to post sentries,’ Blake said, softly but firmly voicing his concerns. ‘It’s wrong. Maybe an ambush.’

‘I wouldn’t have brought you along if I’d known you were a coward, Sergeant Blake.’ Walters stared straight ahead through the field glasses.

‘All right. Let’s get on with it then,’ Blake said. He rolled to one side, slung the Lee Enfield over his shoulder and withdrew the Mauser C96 pistol from the holster at his waist. The Mauser, nicknamed the Broomhandle because of its long wooden handgrip, was a semi-automatic pistol sold by the Germans to the Boers. The officer who had originally owned it didn’t need it any more – he was in a grave near Bloemfontein. Blake liked the Broomhandle for close-quarter fighting, such as clearing buildings, because it had a ten-round magazine – four more bullets than a Webley revolver – and if he needed to use it in open country it had a longer effective range than the standard British service pistol. Despite his misgivings about the raid he was buggered if he would let some Pommy officer show him up.

‘Remember, I want the colonel alive.’ Walters stood and brushed a stalk of grass from his immaculate cavalry breeches. ‘I have information the American may be keeping company 43with a woman. She is to be taken into custody as well.’

Bert Hughes, another Australian Blake had picked to come on the mission, had their three horses on the other side of the hill and knew to come as soon as he heard firing.

Blake would have preferred at least half-a-dozen more men, but Walters had insisted that the Boer colonel would be alone. Just what the colonel was doing galloping around the bushveld virtually on his own, and maybe with some female company, Walters had refused to reveal. These days, encounters with Boer commandos were rare for Steinaecker’s Horse and their biggest threats usually came from the tough country – riddled with fever and inhabited by man-eating lions, unpredictable buffalos and cunning crocodile – but there had been no sightings of the enemy along this part of the river for months.

‘He is an enemy of the crown, who has pledged his allegiance to the Boers, and that is all you need to know, Sergeant.’

Blake left his slouch hat with the blanket. The distinctive silhouette of the turned-up brim would give him away in an instant if they were spotted by a lookout. They moved forward, slowly, and paused behind a stable at the rear of the whitewashed pole and dagga house. Blake looked inside through an unglazed window and saw three horses, all unsaddled. He held up three fingers to Walters, who nodded in comprehension.

Walters re-holstered his Webley revolver and reached into the polished brown leather map case that hung from his shoulder. He withdrew a silver cigarette case, popped a tailor-made cigarette into his mouth and lit it with a match.

Blake shook his head. The bloke was a bloody upper-class i***t, but he did have style. He wondered again how he had landed this ridiculous caper.

Walters replaced the cigarette case and matches and then withdrew a stick of dynamite from a canvas bag slung around his neck. ‘Shall we?’

Walters’ accent and the aquiline features of his face marked him as a member of a caste and a country Blake would otherwise 44never have encountered. But the eyes were cold and hard. They could have been Blake’s eyes.

‘Ready when you are, old boy,’ Blake said, doing his best impersonation of a toff.

Walters frowned at the impertinence, and drew his pistol again. They walked to the front of the trader’s house, crouching as they passed the shuttered windows, just in case.

The Englishman raised the wick of the dynamite to the glowing tip of his cigarette. The fuse sputtered into life. He placed the explosive at the base of the solid black-painted wooden door of the farmhouse and he and Blake both retreated around the corner of the building.

After the blast Blake was first in, kicking aside the shattered remnants of the door. Acrid smoke and a fog of dust filled the small house.

Blake moved with the Mauser held high, his arm swinging as he entered the first room. A chair was on its back, fragments of a blue and white china vase littered the floor, along with a clutch of sodden wildflowers.

He turned and entered the hallway. A tall thin man in the simple threadbare clothes and crossed bandoliers of a Boer emerged from a room into the hallway. He raised the shotgun in his hands to his shoulder and swung the barrel towards Blake.

All Walters had told Blake about their quarry, Nathaniel Belvedere – other than his name and rank, the equivalent of a colonel in the British Army – was that the man had long, pale-blond hair and a beard. Blake fired twice, both shots hitting the dark-haired man in the chest. The Boer crashed into the doorframe and landed on his back on the floor. Blake followed the body through the door and saw that the room was empty. He returned to the hall, but Walters was in front of him now, charging towards the next doorway.

Walters kicked the closed door and it flew open.

‘Get down!’ Blake yelled as a bullet whizzed past Walters’ head and smacked into the wall.

45Walters dropped to one knee. Both he and Blake now levelled their pistols at the stocky blond man who stood naked before them, a Mauser rifle clutched in his hands. He started to work the bolt, but realised he was cornered and dropped the weapon on the mattress of the four-poster bed that dominated the room.

‘At least let me cover myself up, partner?’ the man said, smiling at Walters.

The man’s blond hair reached almost to his shoulders and he sported a goatee beard. The American smiled as he reached for the trousers hanging over the railing at the foot of the bed.

‘Slowly does it,’ Walters said. ‘Search the other building, Sergeant Blake.’

‘Where’s the woman?’ Blake asked the prisoner.

‘What woman?’ the man asked as he buttoned his moleskin trousers.

‘Indentations in both of the pillows, three horses in the stable.’

The man shrugged. ‘You’re mistaken. There’s no one else in the house.’

Blake noticed that the bedroom window was open. The calico curtain billowed as a chilly gust of wind caught it.

‘Hurry, Blake,’ Walters said, following his gaze. ‘Find her!’

‘We’ve got our prisoner. He’s the one you were after, isn’t he?’

Walters turned red in the face as he turned to Blake. ‘I said find the f*****g woman, Sergeant!’

Blake was surprised at how quickly the officer’s demeanour had changed, not to mention his profanity. He nodded and strode out of the bedroom and back up the hallway.

From the front porch of the farmhouse – the Boers called it the stoep – Blake could see Bert galloping over the crest of the hill, their two other horses trailing behind him.

He looked to the whitewashed stables and a horse burst through the open door.

Blake raised his pistol and fired two snap shots. One missed completely, and the other plucked at the rider’s grey woollen overcoat.

46The rider wore trousers and a wide-brimmed Boer hat. The rider held a revolver in one hand, and half turned in the saddle to fire a wild shot in reply. The horse galloped away. Blake cursed himself for hesitating and arguing with the officer. There had obviously been a third man hiding nearby and he had slipped into the stables while they were searching the house.

Blake holstered his pistol and unslung his Lee Enfield. He raised the butt of the rifle to his shoulder, leaned into the weapon, anticipating the familiar kick, and wrapped his finger around the trigger. The horse and rider were about a hundred yards off. He aimed for the centre of the rider’s back.

He started to squeeze.

As the horse reached full stride the rush of passing air snatched the hat from the rider’s head. A shock of bright red hair tumbled out in a streaming wake.

‘s**t,’ said Blake. It was the woman.

He lowered the barrel of the rifle.

The sound of another shot rolled across the hills. Blake turned and saw Bert working the bolt of his rifle, chambering a fresh round.

‘Cease fire!’ Blake called.

Bert’s bullet caught the stallion in his left rear leg and the sleek black animal faltered. The rider was pitched forward as her mount fell. She landed hard on the rocky ground.

Blake ran towards the motionless rider. He cursed out loud. He hated seeing horses injured, but at least Bert had not shot a fleeing woman in the back.

‘Get up,’ he said as he approached the woman. She was lying face down.

The horse whinnied as it fought repeatedly to stand. Blake brought his rifle back up into his shoulder and fired once. The horse’s agony was over.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said.

‘Get up,’ he said again to the woman. He was angry about the death of the animal. He kept the rifle hard against his shoulder. 47The pistol she had been carrying, an American Colt .45, was lying in the grass a few feet from her, where she had dropped it.

The woman rolled over, as fast as a startled leopard, and her arm flashed up. Blake instinctively dodged to one side and dropped to his knee when he saw another weapon, a tiny pistol, in her hand.

She fired and he felt his left upper arm burn with pain.

The rifle spun in his hands as he brought it down from his shoulder and reversed it in one fluid motion. He struck down hard on the woman’s right arm with the butt of the rifle.

‘Ow!’ the woman said as she dropped the one-shot pocket Derringer in the dirt and clasped her injured arm with her good hand. ‘That hurt. You might have broken my bloody arm.’

‘Get up or I’ll shoot you.’ Keeping her covered, Blake stooped to pick up first the Derringer, then the Colt. The words and her accent didn’t sound Afrikaner to him.

He glanced at his own arm. The bullet had only nicked the skin, but he would need to patch the tunic and undershirt again.

‘Go to hell, you goddamned murdering baby-killing British bastard,’ the woman said.

‘I resent that. I’m an Australian.’ He reached down, grabbed her forearm and pulled the woman to her feet. She struggled against him.

‘Quite a looker you’ve found yourself there, Sarge,’ Bert said as Blake marched the woman at gunpoint back to the front of the farmhouse.

The woman cradled her bruised forearm with her left hand. Blake grabbed her shoulder and turned her around. Looking at her again face-on he saw that Bert was right. She had smooth fair skin and her green eyes were flecked with gold. The eyes were ablaze with pure hatred, and her cheeks were as pink as twin African sunsets. Her long red hair cascaded nearly down to her waist.

‘What’s your name?’ Blake asked.

‘I’m Claire Martin and I’m an American citizen. You have no right to assault me or hold me captive.’

48‘What do you reckon, Bert?’ Blake asked.

‘She put that hole in your tunic?’ Bert asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Then she’s a Boer,’ Bert said. ‘Just like that one the Queenslanders captured last month. She was dressed like a man and all. Swedes, Irish, the German Brigade, men or women, matters not to me, Sarge. They’re all Boers and they’d all f*****g kill us as soon as look at us.’

‘There’s no need for profanity in front of a lady, Bert, even if she was trying to kill us,’ Blake said. ‘We’re taking you into custody, Mrs Martin.’

‘It’s Miss Martin, you British lackey.’ She spat on the ground in front of him. ‘And you can kiss my arse.’