A Sparrow Falls

  At first he was like a bull, charging with a mindless energy and strength. It frightened her, for she had not expected such strength from that slim and graceful body. She rode with his strength, little by little controlling and directing it, changing its course, and then she began gently to teach.

  Long afterwards, Mark would think back on those five incredible days and realize his great good fortune. So many young men must find their own way into the uncharted realms of physical love-making, without guide, accompanied usually by a partner making her own hesitant first journey into the unknown.

  ‘Did you know that there is a tribe in South America, Mark, that have a rule that every married woman must take one young warrior of the tribe and teach him to do what we are doing?’ she asked, as she knelt beside him in one of the intervals of quiet between the storms.

  ‘What a shame,’ he smiled lazily. ‘I thought we were the first two ever to think of it.’ He reached out for the pack of Needlepoint cigarettes on the bedside table and lit two of them.

  Helena drew upon hers and her expression was fond and proud. He had changed so swiftly and radically in the last few days, and she was responsible for that. This new assurance, this budding strength of purpose. The shyness and reticence were fading. He spoke now in a way that he had never spoken before, calmly and with authority. Swiftly he was becoming a full man — and she had had a hand in it.

  Mark believed that each new delight was the ultimate one, but she proved him wrong a dozen times. There were things that, had he heard them spoken of, might have appalled and revolted him, but when they happened the way Helena made them happen, they left only wonder and a sense of awe. She taught him a vast new respect for his own body, as it came at last fully alive, and he became aware of new broad reaches and depths of his own mind.

  For five days neither of them left the cottage; then on the sixth day there was a letter brought by a uniformed postman on a bicycle and Mark, who accepted it, recognized immediately Fergus MacDonald’s cramped and laboured hand. Guilt hit him like a fist in the stomach; the dream shattered like fragile crystal.

  Helena sat at the newspaper-covered table in the kitchen with the now soiled peach gown open to the waist and read the letter aloud, mocking the writer with the inflection of her voice as he reported a string of petty achievements, applause at party meetings where a dozen comrades had gathered in a back room, messages of loyalty and dedication to bring back to the Central Committee, commitment to the cause and promises of action when the time to strike was ripe.

  Helena mocked him, rolling her eyes and chuckling when he asked after Mark — was he well and happy, was Helena looking after him properly.

  She drew deeply on the stub of the cigarette and then dropped it into the dregs of the coffee cup at her elbow, where it was extinguished with a sharp hiss. This simple action caused in Mark an unnatural reaction of revulsion.

  Suddenly he saw her clearly, the sallow skin wrinkled finely in the corners of her eyes as her youth cracked away like old oilpaint; the plum-coloured underlining of the eye sockets, the petulant quirk of her lips and the waspish sting to her voice.

  Abruptly, he was aware of the squalid room, with the greasy smell of stale food and unwashed dishes, of the grubby and stained gown and the pendulous droop of the big ivory-coloured breasts beneath the gown.

  He stood up and left the room.

  ‘Mark, where are you going?’ she called after him.

  ‘I’m going out for a while.’

  He scrubbed himself in the stained enamel bath, running the water as hot as he could bear it so that his body glowed bright pink as he towelled himself down.

  At the railway booking office he stood for nearly half an hour, reading the long lists of closely printed timetables pasted to the wall.

  Rhodesia. He had heard they needed men on the new copper mines. There was still a wilderness up there, far horizons and the great wild game, lakes and mountains and room to move.

  He moved to the window of the booking office and the clerk looked out at him expectantly.

  ‘One second-class single to Durban,’ he said, surprising himself. He was going back to Natal, to Ladyburg. There was unfinished business there, and answers to search for. An unknown enemy to find and confront.

  As he paid for the ticket with the old man’s sovereigns, he had a vivid mental picture of the old man on the stoep of Andersland – with his great spiky whiskers and the old terai hat pulled low over his pale calm eyes. Mark knew then that this had been only a respite, a hiatus, in which he had found time to heal and gather courage for the task ahead.

  He went back to collect his belongings. There was not much to pack, and he was in a consuming hurry now. As he swept his few spare shorts and clean socks into the cardboard suitcase, he was suddenly aware of Helena’s presence, and he turned quickly.

  She had bathed and dressed and she stood in the doorway watching him, her expression too calm for the loneliness in her voice.

  ‘You are going.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered simply, turning to snap the catches on the case.

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No. I’m going alone.’

  ‘But, Mark, what about me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Helena. I’m truly sorry.’

  ‘But don’t you see, I love you—’ her voice rose in a low wail of despair. ‘I love you, Mark darling, you can’t go.’ She spread her arms to block the doorway.

  ‘Please, Helena. We both knew it was madness. We both knew there was nothing for us. Don’t make it ugly now, please let me go.’

  ‘No.’ She covered her ears with both hands. ‘No, don’t talk like that. I love you. I love you.’

  Gently he tried to move her from the doorway.

  ‘I have to go. My train—’

  Suddenly she flew at him, vicious as a wounded leopard. He was unprepared, and her nails raked long bloody lines across his face, narrowly missing his eyes.

  ‘You bastard, you selfish bastard,’ she shrieked. ‘You’re like all of them,’ and she struck again, but he caught her wrists.

  ‘You’re all the same, you take – you take—’

  He turned her, wildly struggling, and tipped her back on to the unmade bed. Abruptly the fight went out of her and she pressed her face into the pillow. Her sobs followed Mark as he ran down the passage, and out of the open front door.

  It was more than three hundred miles to the port of Durban on the coast, and slowly the train huffed up the great barrier of the Drakensberg Mountains, worming its way through the passes until at last it plunged joyously over the escarpment and ran lightly down into the deep grassy bowl of the eastern littoral, dropping less steeply as it neared the sea, and emerged at last into the lush semitropical hot-house of the sea-board with its snowy white beaches and the warm blue waters of the Mozambique current.

  Mark had much time to think on the journey down, and he wasted most of it in vain regrets. Helena’s cries and accusations echoed through his mind while the cold grey stone of guilt lay heavily in the pit of his stomach, whenever he thought of Fergus MacDonald.

  Then, as they passed through the town of Pietermaritz-burg and began the last leg of the journey, Mark put aside guilt and regret, and began to think ahead.

  His first intention had been to return directly to Ladyburg, but now he realized that this was folly. There was an enemy there, a murderous enemy, a hidden enemy striking from cover, a rich enemy, a powerful enemy, who could command a bunch of armed men who were ready to kill.

  Mark thought then of those bloody attacks that he and Fergus had made in France. Always the first move had been to identify and mark the enemy, locate where he was lying, find his stance and assess him. How good was he, was his technique rigid, or was he quick and changeable? Was he sloppy, so that the hunters could take risks, or were risks suicidal?

  ‘We got to try and guess the way the bastard’s thinking, lad—’ was Fergus’ first concern, before th
ey planned the shoot.

  ‘I’ve got to find who he is,’ Mark whispered aloud, ‘and guess the way the bastard is thinking.’

  One thing at least was clear, a hundred pounds was too high a price in blood money for such an insignificant person as Mark Anders, the only thing that could possibly make him significant in any way was his relation to the old man and to Andersland. He had been seen at Andersland by both the Hindu babu and the white foreman. Then he had brazened into the town asking questions, perusing documents. Only then had they come after him. The land was the centre of the puzzle, and he had the names of all the men who had any interest in the sale.

  Mark lifted his suitcase down from the luggage rack and, holding it on his lap, hunted for and found his notebook. He read the names: DIRK COURTNEY, RONALD PYE, DENNIS PETERSEN, PIET GREYLING and his son CORNELIUS.

  His first concern must be to find out all he could about those men, find out where each was lying, find his stance and assess him, decide which of them was the sniper. While he did this, he must keep his own head well down below the parapet. He must keep clear of enemy country, and enemy country was Ladyburg.

  His best base would be Durban city itself; it was big enough to absorb him without comment, and, as the capital of Natal, he would have many sources of information there, libraries, government archives, newspaper offices. He began making a list of all possible sources in the back of the notebook, and immediately found himself regretting bitterly that Ladyburg itself was closed to him. Records in the Lands Office and Company Registers for the district were not duplicated in the capital.

  Suddenly he had a thought. ‘Damn it, what was her name!’ Mark closed his eyes, and he saw again the bright, friendly and cheerful face of the little girl in the Companies office in Ladyburg.

  ‘Mark, that’s a strong romantic name—’ He could even hear her voice, but the train was sliding into the platform before her name came to him again.

  ‘Marion!’ and he scribbled it into the notebook.

  He climbed down on to the platform, carrying his case, and joined the jostling throng of travellers and welcomers. Then he set out to find lodgings in the city.

  A penny copy of the Natal Mercury led him through its small advertisements to a rooming house in Point Road, down by the docks. The room was small, dark and smelled of those gargantuan cockroaches that infest the city, swarming up from the sewers each evening in shiny black hordes, but the rental was only a guinea a week, and he had the use of the lavatory and shower room across the small enclosed yard.

  . That night he wrote a letter:

  Dear Marion,

  I don’t suppose you remember me, my name is Mark Anders, the same as Mark Antony! I have thought of you often since I was compelled to leave Ladyburg unexpectedly before I had a chance to see you again—

  Tactfully he avoided any mention of the research work he wanted undertaken. That could wait for the next letter. He had learned much about women recently, and he addressed the letter simply to ‘Miss Marion, Company Registrar’s Office, Ladyburg.’

  Mark started the following morning at the City Library, walking up Smith Street to the four-storied edifice of the Municipal Buildings. It looked like a palace flanked by the equally imposing buildings of the Royal Hotel and the cathedral, with the garden square neatly laid out in front of it, bright with spring blooms.

  He had another inspiration as he approached the librarian’s desk.

  ‘I’m doing research for a book I intend writing—’ Immediately the grey-haired lady who presided over the dim halls and ceiling-high racks of books softened her severe expression. She was a book person, and book people love other book people. Mark had the key to one of the reading rooms given him, and the back copies of all the Natal newspapers, going back to the time of the first British occupation, were put at his disposal.

  There was immediately a temptation for Mark, voracious reader that he was, to lose himself in the fascination of history printed as urgent headlines — for history had been one of Mark’s favourite subjects both at Ladyburg School and at University College.

  He resisted the temptation and went at once to the drawers that contained the copies of the Ladyburg, Lantern and Recorder. The first copies were already yellowing with age and tore easily, so he handled them with care.

  The first mention of the name ‘Courtney’ leapt at him in thick black headlines on one of the earliest copies from 1879.

  Ladyburg Mounted Rifles massacred at Isandhlwana.

  Colonel Waite Courtney and his men cut down to a man.

  Blood-crazed Impis on the rampage.

  Mark guessed that this must refer to the founder of the family in Ladyburg; after that the name cropped up in nearly every issue, there were many Courtneys and all of them lived in the Ladyburg district, but the first mention of Dirk Courtney came in 1900.

  Ladyburg welcomes one of its Favourite Sons.

  Hero of the Anglo-Boer War Returns.

  Colonel Sean Courtney purchases Lion Kop Ranch.

  Ladyburg welcomes the return of one of her favourite sons after an absence of many years. There are very few of us who are not acquainted with the exploits of Colonel Sean Courtney, D.S.O., D.C.M., and all will recall the major role he played in the establishment of the prosperous gold-mining industry on the Witwatersrand …

  A long recital of the man’s deeds and reputation followed, and the report ended,

  Colonel Courtney has purchased the ranch Lion Kop from the Ladyburg Farmers Bank. He intends making this his home and will plant the land to timber. Major Courtney is a widower and is accompanied by his ten-year-old son, Dirk.

  The ancient report shocked Mark. He had not realized that Dirk Courtney was the son of his old General. The big, bearded, hook-nosed man he had met that snowy night in France, the man whom he had immediately respected and liked – no, more than liked. The man whose vital force and presence, together with his reputation, had roused in him an almost religious awe.

  His instant reaction was to wonder if the General himself was in any way involved in the murderous attack he had survived on the escarpment; and the thought disturbed him so that he left the library and went down to the palm-lined esplanade and found a bench overlooking the quiet sheltered waters of the bay, with the great whalebacked mountain of the bluff beyond.

  He watched the shipping, as he pondered the tangled web that was centred .in Ladyburg, where the hidden spider sat. He knew that his investigations were going to take time. The reading was a slow business and it would be days before he could expect to have a reply to his letter to Marion.

  Later, in his dingy room, he counted the remaining sovereigns in his money belt, and knew that living in the city they would not last him long.

  He needed a job.

  The floor manager had the beer belly and flash clothing that seem always to go with salesmen in the motor industry; Mark answered his questions with extreme politeness and a false cheerfulness, but with despair below the surface.

  He had trudged the city for five days, from one faint prospect of work to another.

  ‘Times are hard,’ almost every prospective employer told him at the beginning of the interview, ‘and we are looking for a man with experience.’

  Mark had no time to pursue his quest at the library. Now he sat on the front edge of his chair waiting to thank the man and say goodbye as soon as he was dismissed, but the man went on talking long after he should have closed the interview. He was talking about the salesmen’s commission, and how it was so generous that there was plenty for two.

  ‘— if you know what I mean.’ The man winked and fitted a cigarette into his ivory holder.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Mark nodded vehemently, having absolutely no idea what the man meant, but eager to please.

  ‘Of course, I’d be looking after you personally. If we came to some sort of arrangement, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Mark agreed, and only then did he realize that the manager was soliciting a kick-back off Mark’s c
ommission. He was going to get the job.

  ‘Of course, sir.’ He wanted to leap up and dance. ‘I’d like to think we were equal partners.’

  ‘Good.’ Fifty per cent of Mark’s commission was more than the manager had expected. ‘Start Monday, nine o’clock sharp,’ he said quickly, and beamed at Mark.

  Mark wrung his hand gratefully, but as he was leaving the little cubicle of the office the manager called after him.

  ‘You do have a decent suit, Anders, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mark lied quickly.

  ‘Wear it.’

  He found a Hindu tailor at the Indian market who ran up a grey three-piece suit overnight, and charged him thirty-two shillings.

  ‘You wear clothes beautiful, sir. Like a royal duke,’ the tailor told him, as he pointed Mark at the fly-blown mirror in his fitting-room, standing behind him and skilfully holding a fold of surplus material at the small of Mark’s back to give the front of the suit a fashionable drape. ‘You will be an extremely first class advertisement for my humble skills.’

  ‘You can drive a car, of course?’ the manager, whose name was Dicky Lancome, asked him casually as they crossed the showroom floor to the glistening Cadillac.

  ‘Of course,’ Mark agreed.

  ‘Of course,’ Dicky agreed. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have applied for a job as a car salesman, would you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Hop in then,’ Dicky invited. ‘And whip us around the block.’

  Mark reeled mentally, but his tongue was quick enough to rescue him.

  ‘I’d prefer you to point out the special features first. I’ve never driven a Cadillac before.’ Which was for once the literal truth. He had never driven a Cadillac, or any other motor vehicle, before.