Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur - Страница 95

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Centaine recognized it as a Puss-Moth, a small single-engined machine. It banked steeply towards the grandstand and came straight at them, no more than head high as it raced across the field. Then, when it seemed it would fly straight into the crowded stand, the nose lifted sharply and it roared over their heads as half the spectators ducked instinctively and a woman screamed.

In the moment that it flashed over her, Centaine saw Shasa's laughing face in the side window of the aircraft's cabin, and the flicker of his hand as he waved, and instantly she was transported back over the years, through time and space.

The face was no longer Shasa's but that of Michael Courtney, his father. In her mind the machine was no longer blue and streamlined but had assumed the gaunt old-fashioned lines, the double deck of wings and wire riggings and the open cockpit and daubed yellow paintwork of a wartime scoutplane.

It banked around in a wide circle, appearing once more over the tops of the oaks, and she stood rigid with shock and her soul was riven by a silent scream of anguish as she watched again the shot-riddled yellow scoutplane trying to clear the great beech trees below the chateau of Mort Homme, its engine stuttering and missing.

Michael! She screamed his name in her head and it was like a blinding flash of agony as once again she watched his mortally wounded machine hit the top branches of the tall copper beech and cartwheel, wing over wing as it fell out of the air and struck the earth to collapse in a welter of broken struts and canvas. Again she saw the flames bloom like beautiful poisonous flowers and leap high from the shattered machine, and the dark smoke roll across the lawns towards her, and the body of the man in the open cockpit twist and writhe and blacken as the orange flames sucked upwards and the heat danced in glassy mirage and greasy black smoke and filled her ears with drumming thunder.

Michael! Her jaws were locked closed, her teeth aching at the pressure, and her lips were rimmed with the ice of horror so that the name could not escape from between them.

Then miraculously the image faded, and she saw instead the small blue machine settle sedately onto the green turf of the polo field, its tail dropping onto the skid, the engine beat dwindling to a polite burbling murmur as it swung around at the far end of the field and then taxied back towards the stand, the wings rocking slightly. It stopped below them and the engine cut out with a final hiccough of blue smoke from the exhausts.

The doors on each side of the cabin were flung open and out tumbled Shasa Courtney and his three grinning teammates. It amazed her that they had all crammed into that tiny cockpit.

,surprise, everybody! they howled. Surprise! Surprise! And there was laughter and applause and whistles and catcalls from the stand. An aircraft was still a marvelous novelty, able to attract the attention of even such a sophisticated gathering as this. Probably not more than one in five of them had ever flown in one, and this unexpected and noisy arrival had created an excited laughing mood so that the applause and comment was loud and raucous as Shasa led his team up to the prize table to accept the silver cup from General Smuts.

The pilot of the blue aircraft climbed out of the left-hand door, a stocky bald-headed figure, and Centaine glared at him venomously. She had not known that Jock Murphy included flying among his assorted accomplishments, but she determined that he would rue this prank. She had always done all she could to discourage Shasals interest in aircraft and flying, but it had been difficult. Shasa kept a photograph of his father in flying gear beside his bed and a replica of the SE5a fighter plane hung from the ceiling of his bedroom; over the last few years his questions about flying and his father's military feats had become more insistent and purposeful. She should have been warned by this, of course, but she had been so preoccupied, and it had never occurred to her that he might take to flying without consulting her.

Looking back, she realized that she had been deliberately ignoring the possibility, deliberately avoiding thinking about it, and now the shock was all the more unpleasant.

With the silver cup in his hands Shasa ended his short acceptance speech with the specific assurance: Finally, ladies and gentlemen, you might have thought that Jock Murphy was flying the Puss-Moth. He was not!

He wasn't even touching the controls, were you? He looked across at the bald-headed instructor, who shook his head in collaboration, 'There you are! Shasa gloated. You see, I have decided that I am going to be a flyer, just like my dad., Centaine did not join in the clapping and laughter.

As suddenly as they had arrived and transformed the life of Weltevreden the hundreds of guests had gone, leaving only the ruined turf of the polo ground, the litter and the mountains of empty champagne bottles and piles Of dirty linen in the laundry. Centaine was left also with a feeling of anticlimax. Her last flourish had been made, the last shot in her arsenal fired, and on the Saturday the mail ship docked in Table Bay and brought them an invited but unwelcome visitor.

Damn fellow reminds me of an undertaker standing in for a tax collector, Sir Garry buffed and took General Smuts off to the gunroom which he always used as a study when he visited Weltevreden. The two of them were immersed in the initial consultations for the biography and did not appear again until lunchtime.

The visitor came down to breakfast just as Centaine and Shasa arrived back from their early morning gallop, rosycheeked and starving.

He was examining the hallmarks on the silver cutlery as they entered the dining-room arm in arm through the double doors, laughing at one of Shasa's sallies. However, the mood was instantly shattered, and Centaine bit her lip and sobered when she saw him.

May I introduce my son, Michael Shasa Courtney. Shasa, this is Mr Davenport from London. How do you do, sir. Welcome to Weltevreden. Davenport looked at Shasa with the same appraising stare with which he had been examining the silver.

It means "well satisfied", Shasa explained. From the Dutch, you know, Weltevreden. Mr Davenport is from Sotheby's, Shasa. Centaine filled the awkward pause. He has come to advise me on some of our paintings and furniture. Oh, jolly good, Shasa enthused. 'Have you seen this, sir? Shasa pointed out the landscape in soft oils above the side board. It's my mother's favourite. Painted on the estate where she was born. Mort Homme near Arras. Davenport adjusted his steel-framed spectacles and leaned over the sideboard for a closer view so that his considerable stomach drooped into the salver of fried eggs and left a greasy splotch on his waistcoat.

Signed 1875, he said sombrely. His best period. It's by a chap called Sisley, Shasa volunteered helpfully, Alfred Sisley. He is quite a well-known artist, isn't he, Mater? Cheri, I think Mr Davenport knows who Alfred Sisley is. But Davenport wasn't listening.

We could get five hundred pounds, he muttered, and pulled a notebook from his inner pocket to make an entry.

A fine dusting of dandruff descended from his lank locks at the movement and sprinkled the shoulders of his dark suit.

Five hundred? Centaine demanded unhappily. I paid considerably more than that for it. She poured a cup of coffee, she had never taken to these huge English breakfasts, and carried it to the head of the table.

That is as maybe, Mrs Courtney. We had a better example of his work on auction only last month, "It Ecluded Marly", and it didn't reach the very modest reserve we placed on it.

Buyer's market, I'm afraid, very much a buyer's market. Oh don't worry, sir. Shasa piled eggs onto his plate and crowned them with a wreath of crispy bacon. It's not for sale. My mother would never sell it, would you, Mater? Davenport ignored him and carried his own plate to the vacant seat beside Centaine.

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