The Burning Shore

The village clock struck two and a little later they heard the officers of the squadron leaving. Some of them were so drunk that they had to be carried by their companions and thrown into the back of the truck like sacks of corn, and then the truck puttered away into the night.

There was a soft tap on the door, and A

Is she awake? Yes, A

May I speak to her?

Enter Sean Courtney came in and stood near Centaine's chair.

She could smell the whisky, but he was steady as a granite boulder on his feet and his voice was low and controlled: despite that, she sensed there was a wall within him, holding back his grief.

I have to leave now, my dear, he said in Afrikaans, and she rose from the chair, letting the quilt slip off her knees, and with the wedding veil over her shoulders went to stand before him, looking up into his eyes.

You were his father, she said, and his control shattered. He reeled and put his hand on the table for support, staring at her.

How did you know that? he whispered, and now she saw his grief come. to the surface, and at last she allowed her own to rise and mingle with his. The tears started, and her shoulders shook silently. He opened his arms to her, and she went into them and he held her to his chest.

Neither of them spoke again for a long time, until her sobs muted and at last ceased. Then Sean said, I will always think of you as Michael's Wife, as my own daughter. If you need me, no matter where or when, you have only to send for me. She nodded rapidly, blinking her eyes, and then stepped back as he opened his embrace.

You are brave and strong, he said. I recognized that when first we met. You will endure. He turned and limped from the room, and minutes later she heard the crunch of wheels on the gravel of the drive as the Rolls with the big Zulu at the wheel pulled away.

At sunrise Centaine was on the knoll behind the chAteau, mounted on Nuage, and as the squadron took off on dawn patrol, she rose high in the saddle and waved them away.

The little American whom Michel had called Hank was flying in the lead, and he waggled his wings and waved to her, and she laughed and waved back, and the tears ran down her cheeks while she laughed and they felt like icicles on her skin in the cold morning wind.

She and A

She hitched Nuage to the churchyard gate, and with her arms full of flowers, went around the side of the mosscovered stone church. A dark green yew tree spread its branches over the de Thiry plot, but the newly turned earth was trampled and muddy and the grave looked like one of A

Centaine fetched a spade from the shed at the far end of the churchyard and set to work. When she had finished, she arranged the roses and stood back. Her skirts were muddy and there was dirt under her fingernails.

There, she said with satisfaction. That's much better.

As soon as I can find a mason I will arrange the headstone, Michel, and IT come again tomorrow with fresh flowers. That afternoon she worked with A

After di

Still A

She came through in her frilled bed-cap and nightdress, carrying a candle. She blew out the candle and slipped under the bedclothes and took Centaine in her arms, crooning to her and holding her until at last she slept.

At dawn Centaine was on the knoll again, and the days and weeks repeated themselves, so that she felt trapped and hopeless in the routine of despair. There were only small variations from this routine: a dozen new SESas in the squadron flights, still painted in factory drab, and flown by pilots whose every manoeuvre proclaimed even to Centaine that they were new chums, while the numbers of the brightly painted machines that she knew dwindled at each return. The columns of men and equipment and guns moving u p the main road below the chateau became denser each day, and there was a building current of anxiety and tension that infected even the three of them in the chateau.

Any day now, the comte kept repeating, it's going to begin. You see if I'm wrong. Then one morning the little American circled back over where Centaine waited on the hillock and he leaned far out of the open cockpit and let something drop. It was a small package, with a long bright ribbon attached to it as a marker. it fell beyond the crest of the hillock and Centaine urged Nuage down the slope and found the ribbon dangling in the hedgerow at the bottom. She reached up and disentangled it from the thorns, and when Hank circled back again, she held it up to show him that she had retrieved it, and he saluted her and climbed away towards the ridges.

In the privacy of her room Centaine opened the package. It contained a pair of embroidered RFC wings and a medal in its red leather case. She stroked the lustrous silk from which the silver cross was suspended, and then turned it over to find the date and Michael's name and rank engraved upon it. The third item, in a buff envelope, was a photograph. It showed the squadron aircraft drawn up in a wide semi-circle, wingtip to wingtip, in front of the hangars at Bertangles, and in the foreground the pilots stood in a group and gri

She placed the photograph in the same silver frame as that of her mother, and kept it beside her bed. The medal and the RFC wings she placed in her jewelbox with her other treasures.

Then every afternoon Centaine spent an hour in the churchyard. She paved the raw grave with red bricks that she had found behind the toolshed.

Only until we can find a mason, Michel, she explained to him as she worked on her hands and knees, and she scoured the fields and the forest of wild flowers to bring to him.

In the evenings she played the Aida recording and pored over that page of her atlas that depicted the horse-headshaped continent of Africa, and the vast red expanses of empire that were its predominant coloration, or she read aloud from the English books, Kipling and Bernard Shaw, that she had retrieved from her mother's upstairs bedroom, while the comte listened attentively and corrected her pronounciation. None of them mentioned Michael, but they were all aware of him every minute; he seemed to be part of the atlas and the English books and the jubilant strains of Ai'da.