Fire on the Horizon by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Thrillers, Historical, Romance, General
ISBN: 9781838779740
Google: 5AOo0AEACAAJ
Amazon: 1838779744
Publisher: Zaffre
Published: 2024-11-18T22:00:00+00:00

Part III

T

he camp around Estcourt was a quagmire. Even with the prodigious fortune at his command and his contacts in the higher echelons of the British military, Ryder Courtney had struggled to find passage to Natal. They had found space, eventually, on a battered steamer that was running the coast from Cape Town to Durban. It had been decommissioned years earlier, but with the trains requisitioned by the army, an enterprising group of businessmen had brought the Dunkeld out of retirement. It had been a dreadful journey – the boat was flat-bottomed and rolled heavily in the dirty weather off the Cape. Eventually they had been forced to put in at East London and find another vessel to take them to Durban. Not until well into the third week of November did they reach the town which had become a staging point for the British troops.

Saffron was desperate for any news of Leon. Up to their ankles in mud, swilling through the streets in the summer rains, Ryder caught hold of her wrist. ‘Saffron, for God’s sake, look at us! I shall get us a room. You haven’t slept properly for days. In the morning, we shall make Kitchener see us, and if he cannot give us information, then no one can.’

‘Go if you want, Ryder!’ Saffron said, forcefully shaking his hand from her arm. ‘I need word about my son now.’

He took a step back, seeing the anger building in her face. ‘You look like an insane woman, Saffron. Do you have your revolver?’

‘I am an insane woman. Yes. And yes, of course I have my revolver, and it’s fully loaded.’

He stared at her intently. ‘Then go. I am not going with you. You know where to find me.’

For a second he thought she was going to relent and join him at the hotel, but she did not. Instead, she turned away from him and set off up the street without glancing back.

Ryder made his way to the only hotel in the town, the mud sucking on his boots with every step, and paid the manager a month’s wages to give up his own room and provide a tin hip bath, a platter of cold roast beef and potatoes, whisky, cigars and a dressing gown.

Once he had washed and eaten, he ordered the bath refilled again with hotter water and waited. Saffron came to the room an hour later. She was alone and desolate. Ryder’s breath caught in his chest, seeing her pain, the distress on her face.

He sprang to his feet and went to her.

‘You found something out? God, Saffy, what did you learn?’

She began to sob. ‘Oh, Ryder, we missed him by a whole week. I should have let you shoot that clerk in East London, the one who wouldn’t let us on the boat!’

He held her close, and for the first time since they had left Cape Town, she relaxed into his arms. He could feel her anxiety, her exhaustion, as if it was his own.

‘There’s more.

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