Legacy of War Page 22

  ‘And then you will go as Marlize Doll, née Marais, and Gerhard will be your husband Herman Doll,’ Joshua said. ‘The documents are being prepared. Your story will be that you met in Belgium during the war, when your husband was part of the German occupation. If you go back before then, under your own identity, how could you then return as someone else?’

  Saffron had accepted the logic. Since she could not go to her cousins, she invited them to stay at Cresta Lodge.

  It had not been easy. Shasa juggled his role as an MP with his business career. Centaine was the owner of the Courtney Mining and Finance Corporation, but Shasa ran the company. He took all the key investment decisions, though not without running them past his mother first, for there was no one whose judgement and business acumen he respected more.

  ‘Nothing would please me more than seeing you again, Saffy,’ Shasa had said when she called his Cape Town office, a couple of minutes’ walk from the parliament building. ‘But I’ve got the minor matter of a new goldmine to think about. It’s only going to cost ten million pounds, nothing serious. But still, I need to spare it a moment or two of my time.’

  Saffron had laughed. She and Shasa had a teasing, bantering way of talking that was more like brother and sister than two distant cousins. Both were the only children of their parents, and he was two years her senior, so they were close enough in birth to be siblings. They had similar features: the dark hair, blue eyes and tall, athletic physiques. Above all, they shared an essential identity that came from their shared Courtney heritage. They were passionate in their enthusiasms, intense in their hungers, but capable of cold, calculating ruthlessness in pursuit of their ends, or defence of their loved ones.

  ‘You’d better spare me more time than that, Shasa, dearest,’ Saffron replied. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be delighted to meet Gerhard. He can show you what a real pilot looks like.’

  As the line fell silent, Saffron wondered whether she’d pushed it too far. Shasa had been forced to leave the Royal South African Air Force early in the war, having lost an eye during the Abyssinian campaign. The feeling of uselessness, when he could no longer fight for his country, had all but broken him. Perhaps those mental scars had never quite healed.

  But Shasa laughed and said, ‘Only you could get away with that! But I’ll have my own back. I’ll show that Hun of yours what a proper fighting aircraft looks like. Mater and I will fly up to see you in my Mozzie. She’s quite a special crate, I can tell you. Had her restored myself.’

  ‘What, Mater or the Mosquito?’

  ‘Oh, you are really going to regret that comment when the Mater hears about it.’

  ‘I was trained to withstand torture by the Gestapo, I can cope.’

  ‘The Gestapo have got nothing on my mother when she’s on the warpath.’

  ‘Hmm . . . you may have a point. I’ll keep a bodyguard of Maasai warriors with me at all times.’

  ‘You’ll need more than that, cuz . . . Listen, I’ve got things to do. But I’ll get my mechanic Dickie to liaise with my personal assistant Janet, who runs the whole show around here. She’ll get in touch with you, with a date when Mater and I can come up to see you and the specifications of the landing strip we’ll need. And, seriously now, I’m really looking forward to seeing you again, Saffy. It’s been far too long.’

  Saffron put the phone down and jotted a couple of notes for Gerhard. He would probably know what needed to be done to make their small private landing strip suitable for a twin-engined RAF fighter-bomber without any of Shasa’s people having to tell him.

  As she was putting her notebook away in her handbag it occurred to her: Shasa didn’t say a word about Tara. I wonder why not.

  The Mosquito pulled to a halt, the engines died and the propellers stilled. The canopy slid open and Shasa emerged in his flying suit. He jumped to the ground, then turned to help his mother get out. Saffron and Gerhard walked across the rock-hard surface of the rolled, compacted earth strip to greet them.

  ‘Shasa looks as piratical as ever,’ Saffron said as her cousin, who wore a black patch over his missing eye, came towards them.

  Centaine shook out her hair, which had been pinned up inside her helmet for the flight. Like her son, she was wearing a khaki flying suit. But hers appeared to have been cut by a Paris couturier, for it skimmed every curve of her slender body and a diamond brooch glinted from her left breast.

  ‘Mein Gott, she is magnificent,’ Gerhard said. ‘Can she really be more than fifty?’

  ‘I told you, she was born on the first day of the twentieth century. That’s why her parents called her Centaine.’

  ‘I know you did. I just can’t believe it.’

  ‘Watch it, mister!’ Saffron warned him. ‘I don’t mind you saying flattering things about my family members. But don’t go too far.’

  Gerhard laughed. ‘You needn’t worry. Yes, she is magnificent. But no one could ever be as magnificent as you.’

  ‘That’s better! Come on, let’s say hello.’

  Introductions were made in a flurry of handshakes and kisses. Saffron and Gerhard had arrived at the airstrip in a Land Rover, with another identical vehicle behind them, driven by their senior houseboy, Wajid, to pick up their guests’ luggage. While Saffron and Centaine complimented one another on their ability to survive childbirth and passing time with their beauty unscathed, Shasa showed Gerhard and Wajid how to open the hold that now replaced the bomb bay with which the Mosquito had originally been fitted.

  ‘She’s a fine aircraft,’ Gerhard said, casting an eye over the sleek lines of the fuselage. ‘I never saw one in action, though of course we’d all heard about the Mosquito. Goering himself said he was yellow and green with jealousy at the British for having such an aircraft.’

  ‘You chaps didn’t have anything that could catch it. Not until you put jet fighters in the air.’

  Gerhard shrugged. ‘I’m not sure about that. The Focke-Wulf was as fast, I think, and some of the later models of the 109. It all depended on altitude, fuel load – you know the kind of thing. Willy Messerschmitt’s jets were much faster, of course, but less manoeuvrable. They could go very fast indeed, but if they overshot their target, they had the devil of a time turning round and coming back again!’

  ‘You said “Willy Messerschmitt”. Did you know him?’

  ‘Oh yes, in fact he let me fly an early 109 prototype.’

  It was not often that Shasa Courtney was genuinely awestruck. But now he felt as a Renaissance artist might if a fellow painter had revealed that he had seen the Sistine Chapel while Michelangelo was working on it.

  ‘No, really?’ he gasped.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Gerhard replied. ‘My family made aviation engines, you see, and his factory in Augsburg was not far from our motor works, maybe two hours’ drive. Less by air.’

  ‘You must tell me about it over a drink or two. Hell of a plane, the 109. Even as an enemy, one can’t deny that.’

  ‘We felt the same about the Spitfire.’

  ‘I don’t think we need worry about the men getting on with one another,’ Centaine said, as she and Saffron watched the two former fighter pilots set off on a detailed inspection of the Mosquito. ‘And to think they would have been trying to kill one another if they’d ever met in the war.’

  The word ever was pronounced evair. Her thes came out as ze. Even now, thirty-five years after she had left her childhood home in northern France, Centaine still spoke with a French accent.

  ‘Gerhard says that fighter pilots have a different attitude to their enemies than soldiers do,’ Saffron replied. ‘He has a story about a dogfight he once had with an American. They tried as hard as they could to shoot one another down, but both ran out of ammunition. Gerhard was running low on fuel, so he turned to go back to base and suddenly he saw the American plane, I think it was a Mustang, flying alongside him. The American looked at him with a grin, waved and flew away.’

  ‘They love the flying itself, more than anything – mayb
e even more than they love us. Michael, Shasa’s father, was the same. It was like a drug to him.’ Centaine had met Michael in France when he was stationed there with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Michael was a fighter pilot. Centaine patted Saffron’s arm. ‘You were lucky, you know, to be parted from your man all through the war. You did not know what he was doing. I used to watch Michael fly away on his missions. Every morning I would ride out on my horse to wave to him. He said I was his lucky mascot.

  ‘One day I was not there, and that was the day he died. Shot down by the Germans. I have never told Shasa this, but when I heard that Shasa had been injured and could never fly in combat again, I thanked God for delivering him from evil. It meant I would not have to go to his grave to visit him. An eye was a small price to pay.’

  Saffron nodded, understandingly. ‘The day I found Gerhard, in a hotel, of all crazy places, by a beautiful lake in the Tyrol, he was so thin it almost makes me cry just thinking about it. Skin stretched tight over a skeleton, covered in red sores. He had typhus. The doctors told me that he was about to die and I should accept the inevitable. But I wouldn’t. I knew he was going to live, I refused to let him die.’

  ‘Look at them, like a couple of schoolboys,’ Centaine said as the two men emerged from behind the Mosquito.

  Shasa was describing a dogfight he’d been in, using his hands to demonstrate the relative positions of his Hurricane fighter and his opponent’s aircraft, while Gerhard looked on in rapt concentration.

  ‘They have no idea how it is for us, do they?’ Saffron said.

  ‘No, my dear, no idea at all,’ Centaine replied. ‘But perhaps that is as well, because if they did, no man would dare risk his neck to do anything. And then where would we be?’

  Hannes de Koch was a mechanic at Weltevreden, employed to look after the family’s cars, as well as all the trucks and machinery. Whenever any of the cars needed work that required either more skill or better equipment than he had at his disposal, he took them to Schultz’s garage. It was the best place in town for high quality repairs and services, particularly for the fancy, money-no-object motors that the Courtneys liked to drive. Schultz himself was a sound man, too, in de Koch’s estimation.

  They’d got talking one day when de Koch had brought Shasa Courtney’s latest toy, a Bristol 402 cabriolet sports car, in for a tune-up. It was an elegant, powerful-looking machine and Schultz had come over to take a closer look at it.

  ‘I’ve not seen one of these before,’ Schultz remarked.

  ‘That’s because it’s the only one in South Africa. The boss had it shipped out from England. The company that makes it used to make aeroplanes. The boss was a pilot, right? Couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘So, what’s he like, this Courtney fellow? I hear he’s made of money.’

  ‘Oh, ja . . . Mummy owns a damn diamond mine – not that you’d know it from what he pays me.’

  ‘Tight with the cash, eh? Well, that’s how the rich stay rich, never spend a single penny that they don’t have to.’

  ‘That’s the truth, all right. But it’s not just that, it’s the man himself.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Schultz had said. ‘But, say, it’s going to take my boys a while to work out what needs doing on that car, what with it being so unusual. Why don’t I get my girl to make us some coffee? We can sit in my office and talk in comfort.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ de Koch had asked, taken aback by Schultz’s hospitality.

  ‘Ja, of course. Hell, man, you’re an important customer. You bring me all that Courtney business. A cup of coffee is the least I can do.’

  So they had talked and de Koch had told Schultz about his boss.

  ‘Look, you know what those English bastards are like, particularly the rich ones. Real plum-in-mouth types who think all Afrikaners are second-class citizens. But Courtney was all right, not a bad man to work for.’

  ‘Was?’ Schultz asked.

  ‘Ja, “was”, because he’s damn well not like that now, I can tell you. His lot have been kicked out of government and his wife is screwing a black man.’

  ‘Ha!’ Schultz had let out a great bellow of laughter. When he’d recovered he said, ‘Are you sure you’re not joking?’

  ‘Hell, no. I heard it from one of the housemaids when I was screwing her!’

  ‘So who’s tupping the missus, one of the farm workers?’

  ‘No, man, a damn Commie! One of those black rights boys!’

  Schultz had guffawed again. ‘That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in years! God in heaven, no wonder Courtney’s sick as a pig. Here, let me put some schnapps in your coffee.’

  They’d talked a bit more, mostly swapping stories about cars, and then Schultz had said, ‘Listen, can you do me a favour?’

  ‘Sure,’ de Koch had replied. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Well, a man I knew years ago, before the war, a German fellow, Gerhard, married a Courtney girl, just as rich as her cousins.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Good old Gerdi, he always was a lucky bastard. Now what was that woman’s name? Rosemary? Ginger? Some kind of spice . . .’

  De Koch thought about it for a moment, his mind a blank, and then he suddenly made the connection and said, ‘Saffron!’

  ‘Ja, that’s the one.’

  ‘Hell, man, she’s a fine-looking piece. Came out here during the war, when I first started working up at Weltevreden.’ He let out a low, appreciative whistle. ‘What I’d give for a ride in that little beauty.’

  ‘Well, I tell you what,’ Schultz said. ‘If she ever comes down to see her cousins again, you tell me, all right? If my pal Gerdi’s in town, I’d like to look him up. You know, have a drink and talk about the old days.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe I could take a good look at that wife of his too, eh? See if she’s as easy on the eye as you claim.’

  De Koch laughed. ‘Oh, she’s that all right!’

  ‘So you’ll help me out, then?’

  ‘Sure, no trouble, I can do that.’

  ‘Good man. And hey, I’ll tell you what,’ Schultz had added. ‘If my pal and his missus come to stay with your boss, you let me know . . . and the next time you bring a car in, I’ll put a hundred pounds in your back pocket. How does that sound?’

  It sounded like more than de Koch earned in a month. He shook hands with Schultz and hoped to God that the Courtney family would have a nice reunion in Cape Town. But of all the rotten luck, he had been the man who drove Shasa Courtney and his mother Centaine out to the airfield where he kept his beloved Mosquito. Overhearing his passengers’ conversation on the way, he realised that they were going to Kenya to visit Saffron.

  De Koch had wondered whether to tell Schultz. But what was the point? The man wanted to have a drink with his old mate. It was no use to him if his mate was five thousand kilometres away to the north.

  Just as they were getting to the airfield, Centaine had said, ‘You know, while we’re there, we must make arrangements for them to come and see us.’

  Fine, thought de Koch. I’ll tell Schultz to expect a visit soon. Maybe he’ll give me a tenner, just to keep me sweet.

  De Koch had dropped by the garage to pass the news on to Schultz, who had seemed very interested indeed.

  ‘Could you advance me some money?’ he’d asked. ‘Ten pounds, maybe?’

  Schultz had beamed. ‘Tell you what, let’s make it twenty. And you make damn sure you let me know, the second they arrive.’

  Saffron had given great thought to Shasa’s and Centaine’s visit and how best to prepare them for its true purpose. Her guests were staying at Cresta Lodge for three nights. But having arrived late one afternoon, they would leave early on the third morning, meaning that there would only be two full days to play with.

  The first day began before dawn, when they walked in silence to a hide to watch the game come down to the waterhole. A small herd of buffalo, no more than twenty strong, was standing in the water like bathers at a municipal pool. As the sun rose above the trees
a line of elephants appeared, backlit by the morning light.

  Led by a mighty bull, with mothers and their young following in his wake, they stopped at the water’s edge, sucked up the water in their trunks and deposited it in their mouths to drink or sprayed it over their dusty grey hides. Beside them, giraffe stood spay-legged so that their necks could reach low enough to drink.

  A pair of black rhinos sauntered through the long grass with ponderous, bleary-eyed deliberation, their oddly porcine ears constantly twitching from side to side. A young buffalo led astray by curiosity wandered towards them, to be greeted by a lunging horn as one of the rhinos reacted with typical irascibility. As the buffalo hastily retreated the two rhinos found a quiet spot and stood knee-deep in the water to slake their thirst.

  ‘Look, over there!’ Shasa whispered. ‘Leopard. Beneath the acacia.’

  Sure enough a leopard was waiting in the shaded grass, observing like a hungry diner at a delicatessen counter, who hasn’t got the price of a meal. Shasa gave a soft chuckle.

  ‘He won’t move, doesn’t fancy the odds.’

  It was only when the buffalo and elephants had moved on that the leopard padded down to lap at the water. They looked at one another with silent, knowing smiles, acknowledgements that the magic of African wildlife had not dimmed, but deepened with the years that they had spent among it.

  The children joined the party for breakfast. Zander had seen the arrival of Shasa’s Mosquito from the playroom window, been awestruck by such a magnificent machine and could not hide his admiration for Shasa as he besieged him with questions about his aircraft and his piratical eyepatch, and begged him for a ride in the wonder-machine.

  ‘I’d be delighted to give you a ride, dear boy,’ Shasa told Zander, ‘but I’m afraid your mater and pater have other plans for me.’

  The grown-ups were soon setting off to drive to the foot of Lonsonyo Mountain, followed by a walk to the top for an audience with Manyoro. As he entered old age, the Maasai chief spent ever more of his time there, where his mother had lived, as if preparing for the day when their souls, parted in life, would be reunited by death. Manyoro’s love for Saffron, as well as the dignity he displayed as the leader of his tribe, were undimmed, and Saffron could see that Shasa and Centaine came away from Lonsonyo understanding why it was an important, magical place for her.