To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 (20 page)

‘Who are you, young man?’ he asked bluntly in excellent English without turning to greet his visitor.

‘Private Saul Rosenblum, sir,’ the Queenslander answered with his slouch hat in his hand. ‘I am a friend of your daughter. We met in Bloemfontein.’

The older man ceased pruning his shrub and straightened to turn so he could fully appraise the soldier standing in his garden. Isaacs was tall and his face reflected a quiet intelligence. Although his hair was thinning it had not lost its colour and he wore a three-piece striped suit with a gold chain running into the fob pocket of his trousers.

‘You have a Jewish name,’ Isaacs stated, now mildly curious. ‘I had friends in London by the name of Rosenblum. A wealthy and respected merchant. Are you related to them by any chance?’

‘Doubt it, Mr Isaacs. I’m from the Colony of Queensland. Not many of us Rosenblums out my way. But I do have an uncle who came from England as a convict many years ago. His name was Solomon Cohen. Did you know him?’

Isaacs smiled at the tall young man wearing the dusty uniform of his enemy. The young colonial had a quick intelligence and a gentle sense of humour.

‘I am afraid not, Mr Rosenblum, and I must apologise for my lack of manners to one who is a friend of my daughter. I should offer you something to drink as I suspect, from the look of you, your march on our town has been a somewhat trying ordeal. A cool drink possibly?’

‘I won’t say no to a drink. I’d kill for a beer if you have any.’

‘That I do.’

Isaacs called to the African servant to fetch two bottles of English beer and gestured for Saul to take a seat on the back verandah of the house.

‘I suppose that you have come to inquire about
my daughter?’ the older man asked carefully as they sipped on the ale. ‘As you are a friend of hers.’

‘I am, Mr Isaacs. When I last spoke to her she said she was intending to return to Pretoria, to be with you.’

‘When did you last see my daughter?’ Isaacs asked softly.

‘About four weeks ago. But I guess she is still in Bloemfontein if she is not here.’

‘She is not in Bloemfontein, Mr Rosenblum,’ Isaacs stated quietly. ‘Nor is she in Pretoria.’

Saul felt a terrible shadow fall on him. It chilled his soul with a crippling uncertainty. ‘Could she be elsewhere?’ he asked weakly.

‘No,’ Isaacs answered with a slump of his shoulders. ‘She could not be anywhere else.’

‘How can you be sure? Couldn’t she be visiting friends or something?’ Saul asked with a rising note of concern in his voice. ‘Maybe she has gone back to Bloemfontein.’

‘No. I wish that were so but I know in my heart that something has happened to my beloved Karen. I cannot tell you why I know this, Mr Rosenblum. Some things it is better that you do not know.’

‘What things? What shouldn’t I know about your daughter?’

‘To tell you might involve more than you could understand,’ Isaacs said, looking away into the shadows of the garden. ‘Are you in love with my daughter?’

‘I am, Mr Isaacs. Karen would often tell me about you and the plans you have of going to Palestine
when the war is over. She wanted me to come with you.’

‘Then she loved you very much,’ he sighed sadly. ‘You must be a man of great honour to have earned my daughter’s love.’

Saul bowed his head. ‘She has to be alive,’ he said in a firm voice, attempting to convince himself. ‘I cannot believe anything could have happened to her. There are no reasons why any harm could come to her. She wasn’t fighting in this war like her brothers.’

‘Maybe you should know the truth,’ the older man said quietly. ‘I think under the circumstances I must trust you, even if you are an enemy. My daughter was fighting for the Boer cause in her own way. She was to deliver a consignment of diamonds to me here in Pretoria. Her mission was vital for our war effort against the British invaders.’

Saul sat stunned. The woman whom he had loved with his whole body and soul was an enemy agent working against him!

Isaacs saw Saul’s expression of utter shock and disbelief. He had not really known the enigmatic young woman who was his daughter as much as he thought. He reached over and grasped Saul on the arm.

‘Sadly, love does not recognise political agendas. It is an emotional weakness of human kind,’ he said sympathetically.

Saul remained silent staring out at the garden. A tiny bird flitted from flower to flower seeking the nectar of the buds with its long beak.

‘I . . .’ He shook his head and found that he could not reply. He was choked with a turmoil of emotion.

Isaacs let go his arm and the two men sat in silence, contemplating the terrible tragedy that most likely had occurred.

‘I should go, Mr Isaacs,’ Saul finally said as he rose from his chair and picked up the rifle by his side. ‘I have to return to my squadron before they find me missing.’

‘Go with God, young man. Maybe we will meet in better times.’

Saul took the hand offered to him. ‘I hope so,’ he replied in a choked voice. He turned on his heel to leave the house, fighting his fears. He could not accept that the woman he loved could be dead. And yet her father had.

In a daze he stumbled back to the campsite of the Queenslanders. No, Karen was just missing. She would turn up somewhere.

Two days later his burning hope would be shattered. The message came to him at his squadron camp via Mr Isaac’s African servant. She had walked to the camp and sought out the soldier she had met two days earlier with the verbal message carefully memorised.

Saul received curious glances from his comrades when she called to him in the lines where he was combing down his horse. She drew him aside and he listened carefully to her instructions.

Saul waited until dark and last post was bugled, signalling lights out in the rows of white tents. He knew the layout of the lines and the positions of sentries and was able to slip past them.

He walked in the night along a narrow, faintly
marked wagon trail until he came to the
kopje
the servant girl had described. It stood out against the night sky like a stubby, broken finger pointing at the stars. He was unarmed as he had been instructed and felt very vulnerable away from the heavily guarded perimeter of his own forces. This was Boer country where the commandos were far from beaten, despite the fall of their capital.

‘Halt, Englisher!’ a guttural voice came out of the dark. ‘Hands up.’

Saul obeyed and prayed that this was the man with whom he was to make his rendezvous. If not, he had walked into a trap and become not only guilty of deserting his post, but also of surrendering to the enemy.

‘Private Saul Rosenblum, of the Queensland Mounted Infantry,’ he called out and stood with his hands in the air.

A figure rose on the skyline about fifty yards from him. ‘You are alone?’ the figure called back.

Saul could see the shape of a rifle in the man’s hands pointed at him. ‘I’m alone. I’ve come to meet Field Kornet Isaacs.’

The figure disappeared below the skyline and in a short time reappeared beside him. Saul could see that he was a big, bearded man about his own age. The rifle was no longer pointed at him so he dropped his hands.

‘I am Field Kornet David Isaacs,’ the man said gruffly with a trace of an Afrikaans accent. ‘My father has told me you are a man of honour. If this is true, I have something that should interest you. Come. We
will go up to the
kopje
and have some Cape brandy together.’

Saul followed him up the hill where he was startled to find four other heavily armed men sitting and watching the track. Karen’s brother was obviously a cautious man. They hardly gave Saul a glance but peered intently into the night, alert to roving patrols of colonial troopers.

Field Kornet David Isaacs produced a bottle of the fiery liquid and took a swig before passing it to Saul, who politely followed his host’s example. They both sat down amongst the rocks to prevent being silhouetted against the night sky.

‘My sister is dead,’ the Boer commander said bluntly. ‘She was murdered by one of our people – and one of yours.’

‘How do you know?’ Saul froze, still holding the bottle which Isaacs took from him.

‘Our agents in Bloemfontein informed us that a man called Bronkhurst had fallen under suspicion for his activities with the British. He was brought to us and questioned when he returned from a patrol with a
rooinek
sergeant. He was reluctant to talk so he was left to me personally,’ the big Boer officer said with a quiet vehemence that left Saul in no doubt as to how Bronkhurst had been questioned. ‘After a while he told me the truth about my sister, and how she had died. He said that the Englisher sergeant had killed her against his wishes. But I knew he was lying.’

‘Where is Bronkhurst now?’ Saul asked.

The Boer commander flashed him a savage smile.
‘He is hyena food. An eye for an eye. I killed him myself.’

‘Where is Karen?’ Saul asked quietly, his expression stricken with pain and sorrow.

Her brother turned to stare south in the direction of Pretoria. ‘Another commando found her body on the
veldt
. They buried what was left of her,’ he added bitterly, taking a long swig from the bottle.

A silence fell between the two men. Finally Saul spoke. ‘I was told by your father’s darkie girl that you wanted my help.’

Isaacs turned to stare, contemplating the Australian trooper before replying. ‘You and I are enemies in this war, Rosenblum. But we shared a love for my sister. I believe that love . . . how is it that you say . . . transcends even this war. My sister was murdered, not killed like we expect to die as soldiers. Bronkhurst gave me the name and unit of the English sergeant who was with him when she was murdered. I have . . . as you say . . . executed one of our own for that murder. Now you must execute one of yours to avenge her death. Can you do that?’ he asked, leaning forward and staring into Saul’s eyes with an intensity as hot as fire. ‘Can you deliver justice for her murder?’

Saul kept his unwavering stare. ‘What is his name?’ he replied and the field kornet nodded as he passed the bottle to him.

‘Sergeant Temple. He is with the Third London Yeomanry now occupying Pretoria. He is the man you must kill.’

‘Then it will be done. I swear this to you on my love for your sister.’

‘I believe you, Englisher.’

‘I’m not a bloody Englisher,’ Saul growled. ‘I’m an Australian.’

‘Then why are you fighting us,
Uitlander
? This is not your war. You are fighting for Cecil Rhodes and men like him. Not for anything else.’

Saul stared at the brother of the woman he had loved. ‘I’m fighting just to stay alive when your bloody pompoms and artillery blast us. I’m fighting now just to get out of here and go home. Does that answer your question?’

The big Jewish Boer nodded and rose to his feet. ‘Ja. I understand. It is just a pity that one day we might meet again on the battlefield where you will have to kill me – or I kill you. Then one day the war is over and all the politicians shake hands at some conference. Except you and I are not around to do the same. That is war.’ He extended his hand to Saul and added sadly. ‘Goodbye, my friend. I hope in God’s name we never meet again in this war.’

Saul took the offered hand and their grips were firm. ‘So do I. I hope you and your father live to see your sister’s wishes of you going to Palestine one day come true. It meant a lot to her.’

The two men parted and Saul watched the small party of Boers disappear down the side of the
kopje
. He listened to the regular pounding of horses’ hooves as they galloped away into the night and then made his way back to his squadron.

As he trudged along the bullock wagon track his thoughts were only on one subject: how to find and kill the man who had murdered Karen. That was the
easy part. How to get away with the execution was another matter.

Major Patrick Duffy returned the guard’s salute at the entrance to Lord Roberts’ Pretoria headquarters. He stepped inside the building that had once housed the Boer seat of government and was met by the famed colonel’s aide, a young captain sporting a waxed moustache and the diffident manners of one used to dealing with British aristocracy. The captain eyed the big colonial major with some disdain until his eyes fell on the ribands he wore on the left side of his tunic. The major might be a colonial but the decorations indicated his extensive service to Her Majesty.

‘Colonel Hay Williams will see you in just a moment, sir,’ he said in the accent of an Oxford graduate. ‘He is rather busy at the moment.’

Patrick nodded and stood with his hands behind his back as the captain disappeared into a room that had a wooden plaque with the title
Orderly Room
over the door. He did not have to wait long before the captain ducked back and led him to another door marked with the colonel’s name. The captain knocked lightly and a voice boomed to enter.

The white painted room contained a large desk, hat stand and fireplace over which a leopard skin and crossed assegais – the short, stabbing spear of the Zulu warrior – were displayed. The colonel grunted his welcome when Patrick saluted and indicated a chair in the corner of the room. Patrick sat as the
colonel continued to browse through a report which Patrick recognised as his own, submitted to the headquarters. Finally he closed the papers and stared hard at the colonial major.

‘I have read the report that you have submitted, Major Duffy, on this fellow Rosenblum and his actions at the Modder, some weeks back,’ he said in an intimidating manner that made Patrick aware all was not well. ‘And frankly, I find the circumstances of the report rather bizarre.’

Patrick frowned. He could not find anything bizarre in being snatched from certain death or imprisonment. ‘What do you find bizarre, sir, if I may ask?’ he questioned, puzzled.

‘Well, the fact that you – as the officer being rescued – should recommend this man for the award of the Victoria Cross. I have no other precedent in this war for such a procedure.’

‘I will grant you, sir, that the circumstances were unusual in that I made the recommendation, but Private Rosenblum’s actions, in returning into a hail of enemy fire at great risk to his own life, more than warrants such a recommendation. Courage is courage under any circumstances.’