The Burning Shore by Wilbur Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

airman.”And probably as randy as any tomcat, She used the word fris, and Centaine flashed at her, You are a disgusting old woman, now come and help me. Anna looked Michael over very carefully, and then conceded reluctantly, He has nice eyes, but I still don’t trust him, oh, all right, but if he so much as, Mevrou, Michael spoke for the first time, your virtue is safe with me, I give you my solemn word. Ravishing as you are, I will control myself. Centaine swivelled in the saddle to stare at him, and Anna reeled back with shock and then guffawed with delight. He speaks Flemish! You speak Flemish! Centained echoed the accusation.
    It’s not Flemish, Michael denied. It’s Afrikaans, South African Dutch. It’s Flemish, Anna told him as she came forward. And anybody who speaks Flemish is welcome in this house. She reached up to Michael.
    Be careful, Centaine told her anxiously. His shoulder - She slipped to the ground and between the two of them they helped Michael down and led him to the door of the kitchen.
    A dozen chefs could have prepared a banquet for five hundred guests in this kitchen, but there was only a tiny wood fire burning in one of the ranges and they seated Michael on a stool in front of it.
    Get some of your famous ointment, Centaine ordered, and Anna hurried away.
    You are Flemish? Michael asked. He was delighted that the language barrier had evaporated.
    No, no. Centaine was busy with an enormous pair of shears, snipping away the charred remnants of the shirt from his burns. Anna is from the north, she was my nurse when my mother died, and now she thinks she is my mother and not just a servant. She taught me the language in the cradle. But you, where did you learn it? Where I come from, everybody speaks it. I’m glad, she said, and he was not sure what she meant, for her eyes were lowered to her task.
    I look for you every morning, he said softly. We all do, when we fly. She said nothing, but he saw her cheeks turn that lovely dusky pink colour again.
    We call you our good luck angel, I’ange du bonheur, and she laughed.
    I call you le petit jaune, the little yellow one, she answered. Theyellow Sopwith, Michael felt a surge of elation. She knew him as an individual, and she went on, All of you, I wait for you to come back, counting my chickens, but so often they do not come back, the new ones especially. Then I cry for them and pray. But you and the green one always come home, then I rejoice for you I You are kind, he started, but Anna bustled back from the pantry carrying a stone jar that smelled of turpentine and the mood was spoiled.
    Where is Papa? Centaine demande&.
    In the basement, seeing to the animals.
    We have to keep the livestock in the cellars, Centaine explained as she went to the head of the stone stairs, otherwise the soldiers steal the chickens and geese and even the milk cows. I had to fight to keep Nuage, even She yelled down the stairs, Papa! Where are you? There was a muffled response from below and Centaine called again, We need a bottle of cognac. And then her tone became admonitive. Unopened, Papa. It is not a social need, but a medicinal one. Not for you but for a patient, here. Centaine tossed a bunch of keys down the stairs and minutes later there was a heavy tread and a large shaggy man with a full belly shambled into the kitchen with a cognac bottle held like an infant to his chest.
    He had the same dense bush of kinky hair as Centaine, but it was woven with grey strands and hung forward on to his forehead. His moustaches were wide and beeswaxed into impressive spikes, and he peered at Michael through a single dark glittering eye. The other eye was covered by a piratical black cloth patch. Who is this? he demanded. An English airman. The scowl abated. A fellow warrior, he said. A comrade-in-arms, another destroyer of the cursed boche! You have not destroyed a boche for over forty years, Anna reminded him without looking up from Michael’s burns, but he ignored her and