Read Online Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge - Free Book Online Page B

Potter, what exactly is the situation of the young man Miss Hardy is to marry?’
    ‘Situation...?’
    ‘Position. What is his business?’
    ‘War,’ I said. ‘He’s a captain in the llth Hussars.’
    Then he did leave me, for who could compete with a peacock of the dazzling Light Brigade, however imaginary?
    We sailed into Valletta harbour thirteen days on. Nothing would induce Beatrice to stay on board during the twenty-four hours required for the refuelling and restocking of the steamer. She was adamant that she must sleep on dry land, and failed to see the humour in my remark that, should she do so, she would find it somewhat strewn with boulders.
     ‘There isn’t a speck of soil on the whole island,’ I informed her.
    ‘Nonsense,’ she said, pointing at the glowing fields above the harbour.
    ‘Not natural soil,’ I said. ‘It was carted in from Sicily and elsewhere. The Knights of Malta allowed ships into the harbour only if they could pay their dues in grit and dirt.’
    ‘What nonsense,’ she said again. ‘There is never any shortage of dirt, wherever one goes,’ and she insisted I find her and Annie an hotel.
    That afternoon our party wandered about the town, the women captivated by the jumble of peoples thronging the narrow thoroughfares. I found the place greatly altered since my visit two decades before. What, to a young man’s eyes, had appeared an ancient stronghold, full of quaint architecture and exotically attired Arabs, Nubians and Jesuit priests, now presented itself as decidedly modern and raffish, the English influence being much in evidence. Time and again the women were forced to gather up their skirts to avoid the careless splatterings of the numerous red-coats who staggered out of the wine-shops and relieved themselves in the streets. I found this alteration disconcerting, and felt the burden of my years.
    ‘When I first came here,’ I told Beatrice, ‘my hair was carroty -’
    ‘I know it,’ she replied. ‘There were vestiges when we first met. The grey is a great improvement.’
    We hired donkeys before dinner, plodding up the winding paths beside gardens splendid under foliage of date and palm, until we reached fields of barley winking gold in the sunlight. The children, lifted down, tottered round in the dust, swaying to the constant and pretty ringing of church bells floating up from the town. Their mother, safe from prying eyes, rained kisses on their baby cheeks and sang them nursery rhymes.
    I spent the night in the hotel with Beatrice and Annie. It was a needless expense, but I don’t sleep well without the warmth of Beatrice at my back.
    We sailed the following morning, the talk at breakfast being that war was unavoidable. In two days’ time no fewer than three French transports would enter the harbour en route for Gallipoli, their arrival to be greeted by a turn-out of the Guards and Rifle Brigade - this information from Naughton, who the night before had been up to the batteries-for his supper. One of the engineers, whose word could be trusted, had confirmation that in our absence from England a siege train of eighty heavy guns had been assembled at Woolwich. Though to be expected, I found the news depressing; it is my belief that grim-grinning death is the only victor in war.
    I passed the third night of our voyage to Constantinople on deck, having bullied a reluctant Beatrice to keep me company. She grudgingly admitted, when I tickled her from sleep at dawn, that a mattress and covers beneath the stars were in many ways preferable to the cramped confines of our cabin.
    It was not a sudden longing to return to nature that caused me to shift us up-top, rather a desire to gaze once again upon the site of the hermit of Malea, a bearded solitary who, fifty years before, had built a shelter upon a promontory on the Cape, from which vantage point, cross-legged, he proceeded to contemplate the heave of the ocean. Twenty years ago it had been the practice of ships and