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  Hopefully, later today she would get some.

  After we had been under way for a while she stirred and

  leaned against me, the side of her head resting lightly on my

  shoulder and her arm looped through mine. As I turned my

  head to look at her she swivelled her weary eyes at me. They

  seemed large and blue, but unlike earlier there was now a hint

  of calm in them. It was obvious she was happy with our

  closeness. Was this an informal peace offering? Today was

  certainly a day for surprises.

  Yesterday, she was my boss, or at least she thought she

  was. Today, she may have finally realised she was helpless in

  the face of problems she could not influence or control. Out

  here, her pedigree and her title were meaningless appendages

  from a civilization that may as well not exist. Metaphorically,

  we were adrift in a sea of misfortune and I was the only thing

  left to cling to.

  Today, she was all humility and willingly deferential to me.

  I was all masculine, all-powerful; a position I may add, which

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  may not be entirely unattractive to her femininity. Of course,

  one must also take into account that the last thirty hours had

  savagely drained her emotional and physical strength. Her

  spirit was too tired and bruised to fight.

  Another hour later, she stirred and began to divest herself

  of the blankets I had so carefully wrapped her in as the heat of

  the sun began to filter through. She drank some water and

  made herself comfortable. We talked.

  “You’re very brave,” I said for openers. “Yesterday you

  saved my life. I was only seconds away from getting killed

  when you intervened.” She smiled deferentially. “An awful lot

  of women could not have done that. Beneath your feminine

  exterior, you evidently have strength of character. That

  pedigree of yours definitely counts for something and I have

  great admiration for you.”

  She smiled coyly. “I’m British. We British don’t scare

  easily.” Then she laughed. “Actually, I was terrified. If I had

  stopped to think about what I was doing, I probably wouldn’t

  have done it.” It occurred to me that it was probably good for

  her to unburden herself. Then she turned serious.

  “I couldn’t just stand by and see you killed. I had to protect

  you.” There she went again. Did she mean what I think she

  meant, or was she hinting of something else? I leaned towards

  her and kissed her cheek. She made no attempt to evade me.

  She sat perfectly still, even though she saw me coming, her

  blue eyes watching me all the way to contact. I pulled away

  slightly. She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

  There was a degree of confusion in there, as well as

  resignation, but for once it was not a look that said no, so I

  leaned towards her again. This time her eyes closed. She was

  waiting for me. I kissed her mouth gently, lingeringly.

  “That’s for you. That is all I can give you as a token of my

  appreciation.”

  For a second she blushed and looked away, but she was not

  angry with me. There was a smile fixed on her face and to date

  I hadn’t seen many of those.

  “You are abominable,” she said quietly. There was no

  malice in her voice; it was more like a compliment. I knew I

  had stepped over the line – it didn’t do for common men to

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  kiss m’ladies, married or otherwise. That was the reason for all

  those retainers she talked about. It wouldn’t do to have the

  prime breeding stock of the realm polluted by contact with

  inferior males. But I knew she’d wanted me to. Now I had and

  that was that.

  We continued along in silence. It was just a simple

  flirtation really. For me, Sarah was a substitute for someone I

  loved. I wanted to feel those feelings again. For Sarah, I

  suspect that I too was a substitute for someone she loved.

  Someone who was not her husband, I’d bet on that. Someone I

  reminded her of. I looked at her again.

  “Forgive me?”

  She smiled. “Of course.” She looped her arm back through

  mine.

  We emerged onto another plain so I stopped the wagon and

  pulled out the map. After checking, I decided we must be ten

  miles from Duntroon and if that was so, then there was not

  much probability of running into any more Boers.

  Nevertheless, it would be foolish to let our guard down now.

  We moved out into the open and almost immediately, I

  spotted a column of horsemen a few miles to the south. They

  were travelling on a converging course, so it was safe to

  assume that they had seen us, too. I stopped the wagon and

  found the binoculars. After adjusting the focus I could make

  them out enough to know that they were either New

  Zealanders or Australians. Could they be my boys? I counted

  them. There were seven, only seven of them. Where was

  Blenky? I scanned for any sign of a Wolseley helmet, but there

  was none.

  When the range had dropped to a mile, I stopped the

  wagon again and we waited. They changed tack and came

  straight towards us. They were my boys all right. Through the

  glasses I could see Steele, Collins, Carter, Fitzy, Walsh,

  Emmett and Milsom. Ominously, Blenkinsop and Jones were

  missing. The boys looked tired and their horses plodded along,

  one foot in front of another, heads and tails hanging. They

  came up to the wagon and surrounded it, wearily slumping out

  of their saddles. It had been twenty-four hours since we last

  saw them and by the look of them, they had plenty to report.

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  “’ello men, you look all in.”

  “Morning Ritchie, m’lady.” Their voices sounded weary.

  “I can see you’ve been pretty busy. What happened to

  Jones and Blenkinsop?”

  “Jones and Blenkinsop didn’t make it,” mumbled Steele.

  “We’ve had a pretty torrid time of it, I tell you. We sure as hell

  are pleased to see you.”

  “How come you are still out here?” queried Walsh. “I’d a

  thought you might have reached Duntroon last night.”

  “We’ve had some trouble ourselves since we last saw you

  lot.”

  “M’lady’s lookin’ pretty beat. You must have.”

  “Okay, tell me what happened to you.”

  “We went to the hill with Blenkinsop and after hiding our

  horses around the back, we took up positions and waited,” said

  Steele.

  “Yeah,” added Walsh, “an’ about thirty of the blighters

  soon swept into view, so we opened fire on ’em to get their

  attention, so you and m’lady could get away. Soon they began

  to flank us, so we got the hell out of there before we were

  surrounded.”

  “That’s right,” interrupted Collins. “We had to sprint to

  keep ahead of ’em. We only just made it too. We got to the

  next hill and repeated the performance. As soon as it was

  obvious they were flanking us, we jumped back on our horses

  and beat it out of there. At
about this point they must have

  realised that the express wagon was missing, so some of ’em

  peeled away and disappeared in the direction that you and

  m’lady had taken.

  “That had evened the odds up a bit. Then they decided to

  charge our hill. Ten of ’em tried to race around one side of our

  flank, while the rest of ’em kept a covering fire going.

  Blenkinsop took four of us and we raced over the top of the

  hill to meet ’em comin’ up the other side. He took them

  completely by surprise, springing out at point-blank range into

  their midst brandishing that revolver of ’is and got two of ’em.

  Boy, were they in disarray. They split in panic before some of

  ‘em rallied and done for ’im. He was hit three times, poor

  blighter.

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  “After that they beat a retreat, but we got another one

  before they got out of range. After that it was stalemate. They

  didn’t have the numbers to ferret us out, so they resorted to

  long range sniping until dark. That’s when Jones got it. A

  sniper bullet bounced off a rock and whacked him in the

  swede. That did for ’im, I’m afraid.”

  “Yeah,” chipped in Walsh. “An’ after dark we put our

  saddles on the spare horses and skedaddled out of there. We

  were concerned about you and m’lady here, but even with the

  moon up we knew we wouldn’t find you in the dark. We also

  realised that there was every reason to think you ’ad run into

  trouble, so after a while we decided to stay where we were an’

  look for you come mornin’ – an’ ’till now, that’s what we’ve

  been doin’. We cut across this road ’ere about ten mile back

  and noticed that there were skinny wheel marks, like an

  express wagon makes, so we took a shortcut overland to catch

  you up an’ ’ere we are.”

  We were so engrossed in our conversation that Sarah had

  climbed down from the wagon and none of us had noticed.

  Quietly, she had moved into our circle with her arms folded

  across her chest and as the lads told their story she absorbed

  every word, her eyes following each speaker in turn.

  “What about you, Ritchie, how come there’s a bloodstain

  on your trouser leg?”

  “Yeah,” said another, “where’d you get that revolver in

  your pocket?”

  “Well boys, you won’t believe this. Lady Sarah saved my

  life.” All eyes swivelled towards her. No one spoke. Evidently

  embarrassed by this swell of male attention she cast her eyes

  downward and clasped her hands, so to divert their attention I

  told them our story.

  Except for a couple of details, I recited it just as everything

  had happened. They stood and stared in silence. Then slowly,

  they began to clap.

  “Three cheers for Lady Sarah,”

  “Hip hooray, hip hooray, hip hooray – for she’s a jolly

  good fellow, for she’s a jolly good fellow,” and they finished

  up clapping and whistling. She just stood there and looked

  from face to face, her own expression one of barely suppressed

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  tears. For a brief second she looked at me. It was a look that

  said ‘thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

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  Chapter Sixteen

  WHANGANUI, New Zealand. April 1899

  It was a nerve-wracking three days that followed my meeting

  with Rachel’s father. Through the day I could throw myself

  into my work and try not to think about any potentially

  negative outcome, but at night there was no escaping it. I

  would sit alone in my room, or go for a walk, but there was no

  getting away from the trepidation I felt.

  Then on Thursday, Reggie hove into view. Evidently the

  fire in the office was too warm for comfort, for he had

  removed his jacket, loosened his tie and partly rolled-up his

  sleeves, although this time around he had remembered to do all

  of the buttons on his waistcoat up.

  “It’s getting like a bloody post office around here,” he

  rasped, looking disgruntled and red-faced. A cigarette still

  hung from the corner of his mouth and ash fell from the tip as

  he spoke.

  “Here’s another bleedin’ love letter from Miss Purdue.”

  My dearest Richard, meet me at the post office corner at five

  past twelve.

  Please, please, don’t be late!

  Love me, Rachel

  When I got there I could see her coming, grinning like

  mad.

  “Yes, yes!” she screamed. “Father says you can court me!”

  I lifted her off her feet and spun her round and round. We

  found a bench seat and sat down.

  “What did he say about me?”

  “He said you have a way with words. He also said he

  thought you were honourable.” I doubted that I had been

  allowed to court Rachel on the basis of that alone and I

  wondered how much Rachel and her mother had influenced his

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  decision; I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the

  Purdue house during the last few days.

  In the months that followed I would sometimes visit her in

  the evenings and on weekends I would stay all day. Alistair

  was polite, although distant, but Rachel blossomed and you

  can bet he noticed. All of the older boys were at university or

  boarding school; only Wilmot, the youngest sibling, remained

  at home. Sometimes, I wondered how Albert would react if he

  came home one day and found me there.

  On Saturdays, we would while away the hours by walking.

  If Emily Ellen chaperoned we didn’t wander far, but if Wilmot

  were coerced to ‘play gooseberry,’ we would wander for half

  the day. We would walk along the riverbank hand in hand, or

  gaze at the mountain from a seat at Queens Park.

  Sometimes, we would dawdle along the Avenue, where we

  could gaze in shop windows and rest in a teashop. There were

  occasions when Rachel’s old friends would sit and talk with us

  at our table. Of course, they were curious about me and in this

  way I made many new friends. On sunny days we would see

  other couples out walking and they would smile and say hello.

  Rachel’s exile was diminishing and her gradual return to social

  acceptance did wonders for her self-esteem.

  One Sunday, we went for a boat ride to South Beach.

  Alistair was busy at the office, so the four of us, Emily Ellen,

  Rachel, Wilmot and I, would go. We arrived at the Hatrick &

  Co wharf at ten in the morning and joined the hundred or so

  others who had queued to go. The boat was the P.S. Manuwai,

  an all roofed, two-deck, stern-wheeler of significant

  proportions; its safety valve blowing as men, women and

  children laden with food all jostled for seats. There were

  women in long coats with large hats and girls in smocks and

  white linen dresses, while the boys were dressed in waistcoats,

  jackets and trousers.

  The crew on the lower deck were coiling rope as Manuwai

  pulled into the current. Up in the bow, the anchor engine

  rattled and hissed while steering chains clinked and
slid slowly

  back and forth in their blocks. Fresh coal was shovelled into

  the boiler and in an instant, thick black smoke billowed up as

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  we turned and headed for the town bridge, which had been

  opened to allow us through.

  As we cruised by the town wharf we passed ship after

  ship, where sailors waved to our passengers and the passengers

  waved enthusiastically back. Later, I made my way to the stern

  of the lower deck where I stood in front of the slowly

  revolving paddle, which reared up above me, dipping and

  dripping, churning the water behind us while the long steel

  rods from the engines moved slowly back and forth. It was my

  first trip on a riverboat and I was thoroughly enjoying the

  sounds, smells and the panoramic vistas of the river, as

  Manuwai eased through the current that was heading for the

  sea.

  Another day, we boarded the train to Castlecliff and made

  ourselves comfortable while Puffing Billy pulled us along.

  Initially, the tracks followed the river and gave us lovely vistas

  of shimmering green water from the incoming tide, while a

  peaceful Putiki Marae could be seen in the sun on the opposite

  shore. Then the track hooked inland, skirting some swamps

  before it journeyed past the all brick hospital; on past a row of

  wool stores and mercantile warehouses to continue along to the

  end of the line. Once there, we were required to disembark and

  walk to where a broad sweep of sandbar made a pleasant spot

  to paddle and swim, where the mouth of the river spilled into

  the sea.

  There were social occasions as well. Eleanor would invite

  us around for morning or afternoon tea, or sometimes Sunday

  dinner, which Rachel always enjoyed. Eleanor was always

  kind to Rachel, so the two of them became friends in spite of

  the difference in age. In this way, Rachel’s mother was

  introduced to Eleanor and they got along too.

  The months went by, but all was not quite as right as it

  might have been. Alistair decided there would be no

  engagement for at least two years and no talk of marriage for a

  year after that. That frustrated Rachel and even though I

  explained that they were at least amenable to the idea that we

  would be engaged, she was not pacified. The other problem

  was me – how I longed for the creak of saddle leather and the

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  smell of gun oil; the warmth of a campfire and the fragrance of