Thunder over the Grass Read online

  She could see Amita’s dress and wondered why any man would want to be a woman. She had always found being a woman so very hard.

  She was brought from the lift and the pressure returned. She got the impression they were in the hotel and not a hospital by the colours of the walls.

  Maliha’s voice drifted through the baffles in her ears. She sounded like she was crying. Barbara wanted to tell her to stop, that she would be right as rain in a day or two, but her mouth would not obey her.

  She felt herself being manhandled again, and she was in a bed. Maliha sat beside her and had taken her hand. Barbara could barely feel it. She tried to say how much she loved Maliha but the words would not come.

  The movement in the room ceased.

  viii

  “Can we afford all this?” asked Valentine.

  He and Maliha stood at the side of the room watching the engineers connecting up the Faraday boards that had been placed under Barbara’s bed. She had fallen asleep again after a few minutes of lucid wakefulness but she did not seem to be able to speak.

  Valentine found it unnerving. He was sympathetic, of course; he liked Mrs Makepeace-Flynn very much. She had been a complete ogress when he first met her, but her months with Maliha had changed her. And now this. It was so difficult being around someone so ill they were completely incapacitated. It was hard to know what to do.

  Now it had happened—a heart attack, the doctor had said, but not a serious one—it was easy to recall, with perfect hindsight, how she had been losing her strength over the past few months. But she always put on a brave face and kept going regardless. It was the British way.

  Everything had turned backwards.

  Amita had banged on Maliha’s door and then walked in without any invitation, told them what was happening with a force he had never seen in her before.

  Maliha had gone to pieces and looked as if she was going to collapse then dashed out into the hall to find Barbara. He had half-expected Amita to push little Baba into his arms and chase after her but instead she wanted to know who Ray was and then told him in no uncertain terms to get out and when Amita leaned over him, he did.

  Then she turned on Valentine. “Go to Maliha, Valentine, she needs you. I take care of other things.”

  She used their Christian names, and somehow he did not mind. The world had gone topsy-turvy.

  He had arrived as they were putting Barbara into her bed. She looked awful, like a ghost of herself. No longer the strong woman she had been but thin and drawn. Maliha sat holding her hand and crying.

  Valentine stood by the window until the doctor arrived. He went outside during the examination but Maliha refused to leave. She wanted to know everything. Valentine thought that she probably knew it all already but, he was beginning understand, while Maliha knew more facts than he would ever know, she had no experience to hang them on.

  That was why she did what she did. Why she put herself through things that no one else would even consider. She had to understand the reality.

  He sighed and put his arm around her shoulders. The hotel was fully equipped with electric in every room but a Faraday required more power than was normally supplied. They were running a line all the way down to the generator room in the cellar.

  The Faraday would reduce the strain on Barbara’s body and aid the healing. So the doctor said.

  “How can you ask if I can afford it?” she snapped. “It’s Barbara.”

  “Because, my love, there will come a time when we have to pay the bill.”

  “I can afford it,” she hissed.

  She had spent the night with him. They had not made love. He held her and she cried a lot of the time.

  It took another hour before they got everything hooked up and functioning. The men wouldn’t switch the machine on until the doctor returned, which ended up being lunchtime.

  The Faraday was engaged and Valentine saw an immediate improvement in Barbara’s breathing. Or perhaps he was imagining it. The doctor had been monitoring her pulse during the switch on and after a short time he nodded to himself. He checked Barbara’s breathing and frowned.

  “Clear the room please.”

  Valentine gave Maliha a comforting hug. She probably regretted sniping at him because she reached up and squeezed his hand. He released her and followed the engineers from the room.

  One of them gave him his business card. “Should be all right, but just in case.”

  Amita came out of Maliha’s room with little Baba in her arms. “Mr Crier, we must discuss matters.”

  It seemed the new dominant Amita was not going away. He went after her and they sat at the table.

  “I will discuss staff,” she said without preamble.

  “Staff?”

  “The maid of Mrs Makepeace-Flynn not needed but nurse needed.”

  “That makes sense.”

  She nodded. “Little Baba also need a nurse now.”

  “What about you?”

  “I am Miss Maliha’s maid. She need me.”

  “Yes, all right. I suppose.”

  He was concerned that it would be a lot of messing about managing the staff.

  “I manage staff,” she said decisively.

  He acquiesced. It seemed like a good plan.

  “Very well,” he said. “Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Not now. I will deal with these matters.”

  For which he was grateful; he had no experience with running any kind of household.

  He knocked on the door to Barbara’s room, taking care not to trip on the cable that snaked under the door and along the corridor to the stairwell.

  Maliha opened the door. Her face was wet from crying again. Valentine went in and closed it behind him. She went back to the bed and sat. Barbara was asleep. Valentine didn’t know what to say. He got a chair from the other room and sat near the window so he could look at Maliha.

  “Amita says that black children from the poorest families are going missing regularly,” she said.

  “Do you really want to talk about this now?”

  “What else is there to do?”

  He had no answer. “Any idea who’s doing it?”

  “An evil spirit, apparently.”

  “I see.”

  She glanced over at him. “But I don’t think it’s slavers—although it wasn’t clear the implication is that they disappear one at a time with a gap between.”

  He suddenly had a morbid thought which made him feel as if he had been around Maliha too long. “They are getting used up and replaced.”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 3

  i

  Maliha had refused to leave Barbara’s side. Valentine wondered whether it had something to do with her not being there when her parents died in the fire. Though if she had been she would be dead too. Everything about this place seemed depressing.

  He had hired a horse-drawn cart, and not a machine, and was making his way to the Ouderkirk farm south of Johannesburg. He was under strict instructions not to mention the baby.

  “These are Boer farmers, Valentine. They don’t marry blacks and a child born out of wedlock—well, it just doesn’t happen. Officially.”

  “I thought that was why we came here?”

  She had sighed. “Yes, it was. And I thought that it would be a simple matter. Then we had trouble getting a baby into a hotel just because of its inheritance.”

  “So why am I going?”

  “Completeness. And I thought you wanted to track down Timmons and Marten Ouderkirk is a possible lead. You need to follow it.”

  So here he was. Chasing down a possible lead, driving through the open countryside of the Transvaal. Cultivated grassland with cows and sheep roaming across. It could almost be England except for the trees. And the sun so high in the sky.

  He had asked the last person he had met on the road: a man of about forty which meant he had probably fought against the British during the war. And been on the losing side. He had not been very fort
hcoming but said the Ouderkirk farm was about a mile further on. And that had been twenty minutes ago.

  He reached an unmarked but well-used track lined by fencing in good repair. Why would you bother signposting a farm when everyone hereabouts knew who was who and where they lived?

  He brought the cart round and followed the track through an orchard of mixed fruit trees and round a rise to the farm. There was a pack of sandy coloured dogs lying out under a tree in the middle of the loop for carts to turn at the front of the stone-and-brick built hut with the ubiquitous corrugated iron roof.

  Parts of the building looked recent while the main chimney stack seemed older and had burn marks up the outside. Valentine sighed. The work of Kitchener and his scorched earth policy. The British had burnt everything to prevent the farms supplying the Boers with food.

  He somehow doubted he would be very welcome but perhaps his news, such as it was, it would improve his welcome.

  He climbed down from the cart. A few of the dogs glanced up at him but did not come to investigate. They were bigger than a Labrador but much leaner. One of them got to its feet and stretched; it was proportioned like a greyhound but with a lot more muscle. Fast and powerful. They must be hunting dogs of some sort. He noticed they each had a dark strip along the spine.

  “If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”

  Valentine turned. The man, somewhere in his late 40s, wore a sturdy leather coat over a checkered shirt and grey trousers tucked into solid boots. He had pushed back his coat to make it clear he had a gun.

  “What breed are they?”

  “Breed? Not a breed, they hunt lions.”

  Valentine glanced at them again, he could believe it. He turned back to the man; the way he stood made Valentine sure that walking up to him with his hand outstretched was not going to work. There was a movement at the window; they were being watched from inside as well.

  “My name is Valentine Crier.”

  “Valentine Crier, is it? Interesting name.”

  “Are you Mr Ouderkirk?”

  “I am Dirck Ouderkirk, Mr Crier,” he said. “What does the British Government want this time?”

  Valentine didn’t bother denying it. “Do you have a son called Marten?”

  There was a cry from inside the house. A woman in dowdy dress and a headscarf burst from the door. “Where is he? Where is Marten?”

  The man put out his arm and she came to a stop at the bottom of the steps up to the front door. The look on her face was a combination of hope and fear. Valentine knew he was not going to satisfy either.

  “That would be an answer for you, Mr Crier,” said the farmer. “Yes, we have a son called Marten. What have you to tell us of him?”

  “I will tell you all I know, which is not much,” said Valentine. “But I would be grateful for some water perhaps.”

  The farmer seemed to deflate as if his bravado and strength were leached away. “Very well, Mr Crier. Marjit, prepare some tea for our guest.”

  Within a few minutes they were seated in a big kitchen. A picture of the Madonna and Child sat on one wall. There was a big cooking range and a huge table with ten chairs around it.

  “You have other children?”

  “Marten had four brothers before the war, Mr Crier, and four sisters. After the war he had three of each.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Everyone is sorry, Mr Crier,” he said. “But sorry doesn’t bring them back.”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever lost anyone, Mr Crier, anyone close?”

  He thought of how Maliha had thrown him out, and Barbara lying like death. He knew what that felt like. “Yes.” He wasn’t going to give the man the righteous satisfaction he wanted.

  From where she worked at the cooking range Marjit said quietly. “The loss of people we love is not a game to be won or lost.”

  She walked across the room and set a cup down in front of Valentine and one for her husband. Then she took a seat beside him, but stayed back as if she were only an observer.

  The farmer glared at him. “Tell me what you know of my son, Mr Crier.”

  ii

  “As I said, I don’t know a great deal.”

  “Is he dead?” The words fell out of Marjit Ouderkirk as if she could not prevent them.

  “I don’t know,” Valentine said. “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “Be still, Marjit. Let him tell his tale.”

  Valentine took a deep breath. “Your son used to go into Johannesburg, is that right?”

  “I knew it was a mistake, but he insisted,” said the farmer. “It’s a place of deep sin.”

  “He did meet a woman. As far as we can tell they were in love.”

  “Love is a word they use to hide the sin of lust.”

  “Yes, well,” said Valentine. He could imagine how the man would view his relationship with Maliha. “And he just disappeared one night.”

  “He left a note saying he had gone to Australia with a woman,” said the farmer.

  “Australia?”

  Marjit got up and went to a drawer. She took out a piece of paper, brought it back and handed it to Valentine. He tried to read it but it wasn’t in English, but the word Australia was clear enough, as was the name Riette.

  “Yes, the woman’s name was Riette.”

  “Did they go to Australia?” asked Marjit.

  Valentine shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. The story about Australia was a lie created to trap people. Riette turned up in India as a slave and was murdered.”

  Marjit crossed herself to ward off the horror. Dirck’s face was hard and fixed.

  “And Marten?”

  “We don’t know,” Valentine held his hand up to the question Marjit was about to ask. “I am certain he did not get taken to India. We were able to capture the slavers in India, and their records did not have Marten’s name.”

  “So he may not be dead,” said Marjit, her face lighting up with the hope he had seen earlier. Dirck’s face remained expressionless.

  “I am trying to track down who took them and perhaps where they were taken. Can you help?”

  Dirck looked thoughtful then nodded. “I believe there is someone who may be able to help you.”

  Marjit looked at her husband in horror. “You knew something and you did not tell me?”

  “Enough, woman, I did not tell you because I did not think it had value,” he said. “But now it may.”

  “Anything you know could help.”

  “There is a man, lives in the town, he is a drunk. Before Marten disappeared this man claimed he would be taken to a far-off land where he would be king. Afterwards he spoke less and drank more.”

  “You think he might have been planning to take that trip and missed it?” said Valentine. “Can you tell me where I might find him?”

  “I will take you, Mr Crier,” said the farmer. “You will need me for translation and also protection. There is little love for you British in these parts.”

  * * *

  Valentine drove the cart while Ouderkirk rode beside him.

  “You fought in the war,” said Valentine.

  “You did not, or I think you would not ask.”

  “I have never been a soldier.”

  Ouderkirk looked out across the undulating landscape. “I fought in the war along with my three older sons.”

  “The Boers fought bravely.”

  “The soldiers are always brave,” said the farmer. “It is the generals that keep themselves away from danger. And your generals that burned our lands and homes, and killed our wives and children.”

  Valentine knew he was referring to the concentration camps. The men were taken off to India, Australia and other places and most had a reasonably decent life of it. The women were put into camps in South Africa subject to disease and starvation. Thousands died. The only point in Britain’s favour was the effort put into changing the situation when it was discovered. It had been Winifred Churchill who h
ad written the news article that shocked Britain into action. But it had been too late for so many.

  “If I could take back what happened,” said Valentine.

  “Everyone has regrets, Mr Crier, but judgement is for the Lord.”

  They went on in silence, passing farms and pastures. After fording a wide but shallow river they came up into a small town. Unlike the farm it did not look to have been burned down, but there were still scars from bullets and artillery in the wood and stone. Some had been painted over but their nature could not be hidden.

  They passed through a block of residential buildings, mostly stone built with corrugated iron roofs. People stared at them as they passed, some nodded to Ouderkirk.

  The market square was lined with shops—bakers, butchers, cobblers and more. Even a shop for women’s clothes though Valentine was sure Marjit Ouderkirk, like most, had been wearing clothes she made herself.

  They tied up the horses outside a public house and went inside. It smelled of tobacco and stale beer. It was clean but years of occasional spillages had seeped into the wood. It was a comforting smell as if every pub was, in some way, a reminder of home.

  There were a few men drinking—a group of two, another of three—all talking in low voices. One man slumped at a corner table with a half-empty glass in front of him.

  The smiling barman said something in Afrikaans. Ouderkirk responded in barely more than a growl and jerked his thumb at Valentine. The barman’s face dropped and he stared at Valentine for a moment before finding a glass that needed cleaning.

  The other men glanced up at Ouderkirk’s words, watched Valentine for a moment then continued their conversations.

  “Hey, Ten.” Ouderkirk approached the man sitting on his own and swatted him around the head. The man groaned and said something in Afrikaans. It did not sound friendly. His face had the red and bloated look of someone who had long ago stopped worrying whether they drank too much.

  “My friend here only speaks English, so you speak English.” Ouderkirk turned to Valentine. “This is Ten Eyck Noecker. Ten Eyck this is Mr Valentine Crier.”