The Burning Shore c-8 Read online

  Bless you, my little one, your Papa loves you. Between them they sat him up and dropped his nightshirt over his head, then let him collapse back on to the bolster. His decency preserved by the nightshirt, they removed his breeches and rolled him into the bed.

  May angels guard your sleep, my pretty, the comte mumbled, as they spread an eiderdown over him and Anna blew out the candle.

  Under cover of darkness, Anna reached out and caressed the tousled wiry brush of the comte's head. She was rewarded by a reverberating snore and followed Centaine from the room, softly closing the door behind her.

  Centaine lay and listened to the old house groan and creak around her in the night.

  Wisely, she had resisted the temptation to climb fully clothed beneath her bedclothes, for Anna made one of her unannounced visits just as Centaine was about to extinguish her candle. She sat on the edge of the bed, garrulous with wine, but not so befuddled that she would not have known if Centaine had not been in her nightclothes. By yawning and sighing Centaine tried telepathically to make her feel sleepy, but when that didn't work, and she heard the distant chimes of the church clock at Mort Homme strike ten o'clock, she herself feigned sleep.

  It was agony to lie still and regulate her breathing, for she burned and itched with excitement.

  At last Anna realized that she was talking to herself, and she moved around the tiny chamber, picking up and folding Centaine's discarded clothing, and finally stooping over her to kiss her cheek and then pinch out the wick of the lamp.

  As soon as she was alone, Centaine sat up and hugged herself in a ferment of anticipation and trepidation.

  Although it was very clear in her mind what the final outcome of this meeting with Michael must be, the precise mechanics were at this stage still tantalizingly obscure. A process of logic had suggested to her that the broad concept could not differ too widely from what she had witnessed countless times in field and barnyard.

  She had received confirmation of this one drowsy summer afternoon, when a mild commotion in one of the disused stables had attracted her attention. She had climbed into the loft and through a chink watched Elsa, the kitchenmaid, and Jacques the undergroom with amazement, until gradually it had dawned upon her that they were playing rooster and hen, stallion and mare.

  She had thought about it for days afterwards, and then eavesdropped with more attention upon the gossip of the female servants. Finally, she had taken her courage in both hands and gone to Anna with her questions.

  All these researches had left her confused and puzzled by the contradictions. According to Anna, the procedure was extremely painful, accompanied by profuse bleeding and dire danger of pregnancy and disease. This conflicted with the unrestrained glee with which the other female servants discussed the subject, and with the giggles and muffled cries of delight that she had heard coming from Elsa as she lay beneath Jacques on the straw of the stable floor.

  Centaine knew that she had a high threshold of pain, even the good doctor Le Brun had remarked upon it after he had reset her broken forearm without benefit of chloroform. Not a cheep out of her, he had marvelled. No, Centaine knew she could bear pain as well as any of the peasant girls on the estate, and apart from her monthly courses she had bled before. Often, when she was certain that she was unobserved, she would take the cumbersome side-saddle from Nuage's back, tuck up her skirts and ride him astride. The previous spring, riding bareback, she had put the stallion to the stone wall that bordered North Field, jumping him from the low side and dropping down seven feet to the deep side of the wall. As they landed, she had come down hard on Nuage's withers, and a pain like a knife blade had shot up through her body. She had bled so that Nuage's white shoulders were stained pink and she was so ashamed that despite the pain she had washed him off in the pond at the end of the field before limping home, leading Nuage behind her.

  No, neither pain nor blood frightened her. Her trepidation had another source. She was deadly afraid that Michael might find her disappointing, Anna had also warned her of that.

  Afterwards men always lose interest in a woman, les cochons. If Michael loses interest in me, I think I will die, she thought, and for a moment she hesitated. I will not go I will not take that chance.

  Oh, but how can I not go? she whispered aloud, and felt her chest swelling with the strength of her love and her wanting. I must. I simply must. In an agony of impatience she listened to the sounds of Anna preparing for bed in the chamber next door. Even after there was silence, she waited on, heard the church clock strike the quarter and then the half hour before she slipped from under the eiderdown.

  She found her petticoats and cami-knickers where Anna had folded them away, and then paused with one foot in the leg of the knickers.

  What for? she asked herself and smothered a giggle with her hand as she kicked them off again.

  She buttoned on the thick woollen riding skirts and jacket, then spread a dark shawl over her head and shoulders. Carrying her boots in her hand, she slipped into the passage and listened outside Anna's door.

  Anna's snores were low and regular and Centaine crept down into the kitchen. Sitting on the stool before the fire she buckled on her boots and then lit the bull's-eye lantern with a taper from the stove. She unlocked the kitchen door and let herself out. The moon was in its last quarter, sailing sharp-prowed through wisps of flying cloud.

  Centaine kept to the grassy verge, so that the gravel would not crunch under her boots, and she did not open the shutter of the lantern, but hurried down the lane by the moon's faint silvery light. In the north, up on the ridges, there was a sudden brilliance, a dawn of orange light, that subsided slowly, and then came the rumble of the explosion muted by the wind.

  A mine! Centaine paused for a moment, wondering how many had died in that monstrous upheaval of earth and fire. The thought spurred her resolve. There was so much death and hatred, and so little love. She had to grasp at every last grain of it.

  She saw the barn ahead of her at last, and started to run. There was no light showing within, no sign of the motor-cycle.

  He has not come. The thought left her desperate with desire. She wanted to scream his name. She tripped at the threshold of the barn, and almost fell.

  Michel! She could restrain herself no longer, she heard the panic in her own voice as she called again, MicheW

  and opened the shutter of the lantern.

  He was coming towards her, out of the gloom of the barn. Tall and broad-shouldered, his pale face beautiful in the lantern light.

  Oh, I thought you were not coming.

  He stopped in front of her. Nothing, he said softly, nothing in this world could have kept me away. They stood facing each other, Centaine with her chin lifted to look up at him, staring at each other hungrily and yet neither of them knowing what to do next, how to bridge those few inches between them that seemed like the void of all eternity. Nobody saw you? he blurted. No, no, I don't think so. Good. Michel? Yes, Centaine. Perhaps I should not have come, perhaps I should go back? It was exactly the right thing to say, for the implied threat galvanized Michael and he reached out and seized her, almost roughly.

  No, never, I don't want you to go, ever. She laughed, a husky breathless sound, and he pulled her to him and tried to kiss her, but it was a clumsy attempt. They bumped noses and then their teeth clashed together in their haste, before they found each other's lips. However, once he found them, Centaine's lips were hot and soft, and the inside of her mouth was silky and tasted like ripe apples. Then her shawl slipped forward over her head, half smothering them both and they had to break apart, breathless and laughing with excitement.

  Buttons, she whispered, your buttons hurt, and I am cold. She shivered theatrically.

  I'm sorry. He took the lantern from her and led her to the back of the barn. He handed her up over the bales of straw, and in the lamplight she saw that he had made a nest of soft straw between the bales and lined it with grey army blankets.

  I went back to my tent to get
them, he explained, as he set the lamp down carefully, and then turned to her again, eagerly.

  Attends! She used the familiar form of address to restrain him, and then unbuckled his Sam Browne belt.

  I'll will be covered in bruises. Michael tossed the belt aside and seized her again. This time they found each other's mouths and clung together.

  Great waves of feeling washed over Centaine, so powerful that she felt giddy and weak. Her legs sagged but Michael held her up and she tried to match the flood of kisses that he rained on her mouth and her eyes and her throat but she wanted him to go down on to the blankets with her. Deliberately she let her legs go and pulled him off balance, so that he fell on top of her as she tumbled into the blanket-lined nest in the straw.

  I'm sorry. He tried to disentangle himself, but she locked one arm around his neck and held his face to hers.

  over his shoulder she reached out and pulled the blankets to cover them both. She heard herself making little mewing sounds like a kitten denied the teat, and she ran her hands over his face and into his hair as she kissed him. His body weight on top of her felt so good that when he tried to roll off her, she hooked her ankle into the back of his knee to prevent him.

  The light, he croaked, and groped for the lantern to close the shutter.

  No. I want to see your face. She caught his wrist and pulled his hand back, holding it to her bosom as she looked up into his eyes. They were so beautiful in the lamplight that she thought that her heart might break and then she felt his hand on one of her breasts, and she held it there while her nipples ached with the need for his touch.

  It all became a delirium of delight and wanting, becoming more and more powerful until at last it was unbearable , something had to happen before she fainted away with the strength of it, but it did not happen, and she felt herself coming back off the heights and it made her impatient and almost angry with disappointment.

  Her critical faculties that had been dulled by desire returned to her, and she sensed that Michael was floundering in indecision, and she became truly angry. He should have been masterful, taking her up there where she longed to go. She took his wrist again and she drew his hand downwards, at the same time she moved beneath him so that her thick woollen skirts rode up and bunched about her waist.

  Centaine, he whispered. I don't want to do anything that you don't want. Tais-tai! she almost hissed at him. Be quiet! , and she knew that she would have to lead him all the way, she would have to lead him always, for there was a difference in him that she had not been aware of before, but she did not resent it. Somehow it made her feel very strong and sure of herself.

  They both gasped as he touched her. After a minute, she let go his wrist and searched for him and when she found him she cried out again, he was so big and hard that she felt daunted. For a moment, she wondered if she was capable of the task she had taken upon herself, then she rallied. He was awkward above her, and she had to wriggle a little and fumble. Then abruptly, when she was not expecting it, it happened, and she gasped with the shock.

  But Anna had been wrong, there was no pain, there was only a breathtaking stretching and filling sensation, and after the shock abated, a sense of great power over him.

  Yes, Michel, yes, my darling. She encouraged him as he butted and moaned and thrashed in the enfolding crucifix of her limbs, and she rode his assault easily, knowing that in these moments he belonged to her completely, and revelling in that knowledge.

  When the final convulsion gripped him, she watched his face, and saw how the colour of his eyes changed to indigo in the lamplight. Yet although she loved him then with a strength that was physically painful, still there was a tiny suspicion in the depths of her consciousness that she had missed something. She had not felt the need to scream as Elsa had screamed beneath Jacques in the straw, and immediately after that thought she was afraid.

  Michel, she whispered urgently, do you still love me?

  Tell me you love me. I love you more than my own life. His voice was broken and gusty, she could not for an instant doubt his sincerity.

  She smiled in the darkness with relief and held him close, and when she felt him going small and soft within her, she was overcome with a wave of melting compassion.

  My darling, she whispered, there, my darling, there, and she stroked his thick springing curls at the back of his head.

  It was a little time before her emotions had calmed enough for her to realize that something had changed irrevocably within her during the few brief minutes of that simple act they had performed together. The man in her arms was physically stronger than she was but he felt like a child, a sleepy child, as he cuddled against her.

  While she felt wiser and vital, as though her life up until that moment had been becalmed, drifting without direction, but now she had found her trade winds and like a tall ship she was at last bearing away purposefully before them.

  Wake up, Michel. She shook him gently and he mumbled and stirred.

  You cannot sleep now, talk to me.

  What about? Anything. Tell me about Africa. Tell me how we will go to Africa together. I've told you that already. Tell me again. I want to hear it all again And she lay against him and listened avidly, asking questions whenever he faltered.

  Tell me about your father. You haven't told me what he looks like. So they talked the night away cuddled in their cocoon of grey blankets.

  Then, too soon for both of them, the guns began their murderous chorus along the ridges, and Centaine held him to her with desperate longing. Oh, Michel, I don't want to go! then she drew away from him, sat up and began to pull on her clothes and refasten the buttons.

  That was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, Michael whispered as he watched her, and in the light of the lantern and the flickering glow of the guns, her eyes were huge and soft, as she turned to him again. We will go to Africa, won't we, Michel? I promise you we will.

  And I will have your son in the sunshine, and we will live happily ever after just like in the fairy stories, won't we, Michel? They went up the lane clinging together under Centaine's shawl, and at the corner of the stables they kissed with quiet intensity until Centaine broke out of his grip and fled across the paved yard.

  She did not look back when she reached the kitchen door, but disappeared into the huge dark house, leaving Michael alone and unaccountably sad when he should have been joyous.. . .

  Biggs stood over the cot and looked down fondly at Michael as he slept. Biggs's eldest son who had died in the trenches at Ypres a year ago, would have been the same age. Michael looked so worn and pale and exhausted that Biggs had to force himself to touch his shoulder and wake him.

  What time is it, Biggs? Michael sat up groggily.

  It's late, sir, and the sun's shining, but we aren't flyin& we are still grounded, sir. Then a strange thing happened.

  Michael grinned at him, a sort of inane idiotic grin, that Biggs had never seen before. It alarmed him. God, Biggs, I feel good. I'm glad, sir. Biggs wondered with a pang if it might be fever. How's our arm, sir? Our arm is marvelous, bloody marvelous, thank you, Biggs. I would have let you sleep, but the major is asking for you, sir. There is something important that he wants to show you. what is it? I'm not allowed to say, Mr Michael, Lord Killigerran's strict instructions Good man, Biggs! Michael cried without apparent reason, and bounded from his cot. Never do to keep Lord Killigerran waiting Michael burst into the mess and was disapointed to find it empty. He wanted to share his good spirits with somebody. Andrew for preference, but even the mess corporal had deserted his post. The breakfast dishes still cluttered the dining-table, and magazines and newspapers lay on the floor where they had obviously been dropped in haste. The adjutant's pipe, with malodorous wisps of smoke still rising from it, lay in one of the ashtrays, proof of how precipitously the mess had been abandoned.

  Then Michael heard the sound of voices, distant but excited, coming through the open window that overlooked the orchard.

  He hurri
ed out and into the trees.

  Their full squadron strength was twenty-four pilots, but after the recent attrition they were down to sixteen including Andrew and Michael. All of them were assembled at the edge of the orchard, and with them were the mechanics and ground staff, the crews from the antiaircraft batteries that guarded the field, the mess servants and batmen, every living soul was on the field, and it seemed that all of them were talking at once.

  They were gathered round an aircraft parked in the No.

  1 position at the head of the orchard. Michael could see only the upper wings of the machine and the cowling of the motor over the heads of the crowd, but he felt a sudden thrill in his blood. He had never seen anything like it before.

  The nose of the machine was long, giving the impression of great power, and the wings were beautifully raked yet with the deep dihedral which promised speed, and the control surfaces were full, which implied stability and easy handling.

  Andrew pushed his way out of the excited throng around the aircraft and hurried to meet Michael with the amber cigarette-holder sticking out of the corner of his mouth at a jaunty angle.

  Hail, the sleeping beauty arises like Venus from the waves. Andrew, it's the SE 5 a at last, isn't it? Michael shouted above the uproar, and Andrew seized his arm and dragged him towards it.

  The crowd opened before them and Michael came up short and stared at it with awe. At a glance he could see it was heavier and more robust than even the German Albatros, and that engine! It was enormous! Gargantuan!

  Two hundred gee-gees! Andrew patted the engine cowling lovingly.

  Two hundred horsepower, Michael repeated. Bigger than the German Mercedes. He went forward and stroked the beautifully laminated wood of the propeller as he looked up over the nose at the guns.