I'm shocked, Sean told himself again, still amused at himself but this time keeping his face impassive. And yet Michael himself was your own love-baby, the fruit of one of your escapades. Your first-born- The pain of Michael's death assailed him again, but he drove it back.
Now, the girl. He began to think it out. Is she really pregnant, or is this some elaborate form of blackmail? It did not take him more than a few seconds to decide.
I can't be that wrong in my estimate of her. She truly believes she is pregnant. There were areas of the female anatomy and the feminine mind that were completely alien terrain to Sean. He had learned, however, that when a girl believed she was pregnant, she sure as all hell was.
How she knew escaped him, but he was prepared to accept it. All right, she's pregnant, but is it Michael's child, and not some other young- Again his rejection of the idea was swift. She's a child of a decent family, carefully guarded by her father and that dragon of hers. How she and Michael managed it beats me- He almost grinned again as he recalled how often and how adroitly he had managed it in his youth, against equally fearsome odds. The ingenuity of young love He shook his head. All right, I accept it. It's Michael's child. Michael's son! And only then did he allow the joy to rise in him. Michael's son! Something of Michael still lives on. Then he cautioned himself quickly. Steady on now, don't let's go overboard. She wants to come out to Africa, but what the hell are we going to do with her? I can't take her in at Emoyeni. For a moment the image appeared in his mind of the beautiful home on the hill, The place of the wind in Zulu, which he had built for his wife. The longing to be back there with her came powerfully upon him.
He had to fight it off and apply himself to the immediate problems again.
Three of them, three pretty girls, all of them proud and strong-willed, living in the same house. Instinctively he knew that this little French girl and his own beloved but lovingly indulged daughter would fight like two wild cats in a sack. He shook his head. By God, that would be the perfect recipe for disaster, and I wouldn't be there to turn them over my knee. I've got to come up with thing better than that. What in the name of all that is holy do we do with this pregnant little filly? Sir! Sir! one of his officers called, and offered Sean the head-set of the field telephone. I've got through to Colonel Caithness at last. Sean snatched the set from him. Douglas!
He barked into it. The line was bad, the background hissed and rushed like the sea, so Douglas Caithness's voice seemed to come from across an ocean.
Hello, sir, the guns have just come up-'Thank God, Sean growled.
I have deployed them- Caithness gave the map reference. They are hammering away already and the Huns seem to have run out of steam. I am going to raid them at dawn.
Douglas, be careful, there are no reserves behind you, I won't be able to support you before noon All right, I understand, but we can't let them regroup unopposed. Of course not, Sean agreed. Keep me informed. In the meantime I'm moving up four more batteries, and elements of the Second Battalion, but they won't reach you before noon. Thank you, sir, we can use them. Go to it, man.
Sean handed the instrument back, and while he watched the coloured pins rearranged on the map, the solution to his personal problem came to him.
Garry- He thought of his twin brother, and felt the familiar twinge of guilt and compassion. Garrick Courtney, the brother whom Sean had crippled.
It had happened so many years ago and yet every instant of that dreadful day was still so clear in Sean's mind that it might have taken place that very morning. The two of them, teenage scamps, arguing over the shotgun that they had stolen out of their father's gunroom and loaded with buckshot, as they trotted through the golden grass of the Zululand hills.
i saw the inkonka first, Garry protested. They were going out to hunt an old bushbuck ram whose lair they had discovered the previous day.
I thought of the shotgun, Sean told him, tightening his grip on the weapon, so I do the shooting. And, of course, Sean prevailed. It was always that way.
It was Garry who took Tinker, their mongrel hunting dog, and circled out along the edge of thick bush to drive the antelope back where Sean waited with the shotgun.
Sean heard again Garry's faint shouts at the bottom of the hill, and Tinker's frantic barks as he picked up the scent of the wary bushbuck. Then the rush in the grass, and the long yellow stems bursting open as the inkonka came out, heading straight up to where Sean lay on the crest of the hill.
He looked immense in the sunlight, for in alarm his shaggy mane was erected and his dark head with the heavy spiral horns was raised high on the thick powerful neck. He stood three foot high at the shoulder and weighed almost two hundred pounds, and his chest and flanks were barred and spotted with delicate patterns, pale as chalk on the dark rufous ground. He was a magnificent creature, quick and formidable, those horns were sharp as pikes and could rip the belly out of a man or slice through his femoral artery, and he came straight at Sean.
Sean fired the choke barrel, and he was so close that the charge of buckshot struck in a solid blast, and tore through the animal's barrel chest into lung and heart.
The bushbuck screamed and went down, kicking and bleating, its sharp black hooves clashing on the rocky ground as it slid back down the hill.
I got him! howled Sean, leaping from his hiding place. I got him first shot. Garry! I got him! From below Garry and the dog came pelting through the coarse golden grass. It was a race as to which of them could get to the dying animal first. Sean carried the shotgun, the second barrel still loaded, and the hammer at full cock, and as he ran a loose stone rolled under his foot and he fell. The gun flew from his grip. He hit the ground with his shoulder and the second barrel fired with a stunning thump of sound.
When Sean scrambled up again, Garry was sitting beside the dead bushbuck, whimpering. His leg had taken the full charge of buckshot at almost point blank range.
it had hit him below the knee, and the flesh was wet red ribbons, the bone white chips and slivers and the blood a bright fountain in the sunlight.
Poor Garry, Sean thought, now a lonely one-legged old cripple. The woman whom Sean had put with child, and whom Garry had married before she gave birth to Michael, had finally been driven insane by her own hatred and bitterness and died in the flames she herself had set.
Now Michael, too, was gone, and Garry had nothing nothing except his books and his scribblings.
I'll send him this bright pert girl and her unborn infant. The solution came to Sean with a flood of relief. At last I can make some retribution for all I have done to him. I will send him my own grandchild, the grandchild I should so dearly love to claim as my own; I'll send to him in part payment. He turned from the map and limped quickly back to where the girl waited.
She rose to meet him and stood quietly, her hands clasped demurely in front of her, and Sean saw the worry and fear of rejection in her dark eyes, and the way her lower lip trembled as she waited for his judgment.
He closed the door behind him, and he went to her and took her small neat hands in his great hairy paws and he stooped over her and kissed her gently. His beard scratched her soft cheek, but she sobbed with relief and flung both arms around him.
I'm sorry, my dear, he said. You took me by surprise.
I just had to get used to the idea. Sean hugged her, but very gently, for the mystery of pregnancy was one of the very few things that daunted and awed Sean Courtney.
Then he settled her back in the chair.
Can I go to Africa? She was smiling, though the tears still trembled in the corners of her eyes.
Yes, of course, that's your home now, for as far as I am concerned, you are Michael's wife. Africa is where you belong. I'm so happy, she told him softly, but it was more than merc happiness. It was a vast sense of security and protection, this man's aura of power and strength was now held over her like a shield.