Ballantyne #02 - Men of Men by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9780330472944
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 1932-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

Men Of Men

,”come,” she said. “Mama will be waiting. And there is one thing you will soon learn, Ralph. in this family, nobody keeps Mama waiting.”

They went down towards the church, passing between the beds of growing vegetables.

“You didn’t bring any seed?” Clinton asked, and when Ralph shook his head, “Well, how were you to know?”

and he went on to point out with pride his flourishing crops. “Maize, potatoes, beans, tomatoes do particularly well here.”

“We divide it this way,” Cathy told Ralph, teasing her father. “One for the bugs, two for the baboons, three for the bushbuck, and one for Daddy.”

“Be good to all God’s creatures.” Clinton reached out to niffle her dark hair, and Ralph realized that these gentle people were always touching and kissing one another. He had never experienced anything like it.

Squatting patiently on the shady side against the wall of the church were twenty or more Matabele of all ages and sexes, from a skeleton-thin ancient with a completely white cap of wool on his bowed head and both his eyes turned to blind orbs of milky jelly by tropical oph thalmia to a new-born infant held against its mother’s milk-swollen breasts with its tiny dark face screwed up with the terrible colic of infant dysentery.

Catherine tethered Tom beside the church door, and they all trooped into the cool interior, insulated by thatch and thick walls of unbaked brick from the outside heat. The church smelled of homemade soap, and of iodine. The pews of rough-hewn timber had been pushed aside to make way for an operating table of the same material.

There was a girl at work over the table, but as they came in she tied the last knot in a bandage and dismissed her semi-naked black patient with a word and a pat then, wiping her hands on a clean but threadbare cloth, she came down the aisle of the church towards them.

Ralph was certain that she was Cathy’s twin, for though she was a little taller, she was as slim and as flat-chested; her hair had the same dark brown colouring, though shot through with tones of russet and chestnut, her skin the same youthful lustre, and her nose and chin the same forceful size and thrust.

Then as she came closer, Ralph realized that he had been mistaken and that she was older than Cathy, perhaps even older than Salina, but not much.

“Hello, Ralph,” the girl said. “I’m your Aunt Robyn.”

Ralph felt the blasphemy of surprise leap to his lips again, conscious of Salina’s hand in his he suppressed it.

“You are so young,” he said instead.

“Bless you for that,” she laughed. “You turn a prettier compliment than your daddy ever did.” She was the only one who made no effort to kiss him; instead she turned to the twins.

“Right!” she said. “I want ten pages of copperplate written out before Evensong, and I don’t want to see a single blot., “Oh Mama!

Ralph “Ralph has been your excuse for two weeks. Go, or you will eat in the kitchen hut tonight.

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