The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) by W. E. Mann Read Free Book Online

lady.”
    Pontevecchio
ran his hand through his hair, deciding whether or not to tell us something. 
    “Look
here,” he said, staring intently at Freddie, “you cannot repeat any of what I
am about to tell you to anyone.  Anyone at all.  Okay?” 
    “I
certainly won’t,” vowed Freddie.
    “Good. 
Well,” his voice dropped to a conspiratorial volume and, looking over his shoulder,
he sat down at desk in front of us, “it’s rather an interesting story actually,
which I was told by some chaps who left the school a couple of years ago. 
Nobody knows exactly what happened and, of course, I can only tell you what
I’ve heard.”
    I
sat down. 
    “It
was out in the Gold Coast, in Africa, just after the Surrender,” began Pontevecchio. 
“Barrington had served out in Africa, you see, with Doctor Boateng, and after
the Axis Victory, the two of them set up a school for war-orphans and children
whose parents had been put in prison.”
    “Gosh!”
said Freddie, “It’s hard to imagine someone like Barrington being interested in
doing something to help other people, especially children.”
    “Well,
Colonel Barrington was a very different man back in those days, you see,”
Pontevecchio said.  I thought of the fresh-faced young man with the jet black
hair in the photo.
    “Anyway,”
continued Pontevecchio...
     
    ***
     
    There
was an occasion after the Colonel had been out there for a year or two when
there was an outbreak of malaria at the school.  Sadly this was not unusual,
but this time it was fateful for Barrington.  Two of the children were so ill
one night that they needed to be rushed to the nearest hospital for immediate
treatment. 
    The
hospital was, of course, in reality, a series of makeshift shelters, sheets of
corrugated iron slung hastily over wooden supports, rows of deflated mattresses
on concrete floors, fatigued doctors rushing pell-mell from one clammy,
anguished patient to another, administering dwindling remedies in strict order
of likelihood of survival.
    But
there, amid the pandemic, Barrington encountered a young and beautiful English nurse,
working as a volunteer.  Her patients believed that her blonde hair gave her a
divine ability to cure them.  So they called her “the Angel of Accra”.   
    The
Colonel, seasoned officer of the British army, was disarmed.  On seeing her, it
was as if someone had applied a defibrillator to his chest, issuing a monstrous
jolt from which his heart could never recover.  The panic of urgent medical
activity, cries of desperate relatives, all echoed distantly around him.
    They
fell adventurously in love. 
    They
married on New Year’s Day with promises to spend the rest of their life in
Africa, growing old and adopting orphaned children.
     
    ***
     
    Freddie
shook his head.  “I still find it hard to believe you are talking about the
same person,” he said.
    “Well,”
said Pontevecchio, his voice darkening, “the next part of the story will
explain that.  But this is where it all gets a bit uncertain.  Nobody, not even
Barrington himself, knows what happened next.  But one of the chaps who told me
about it, his father worked for the Kommissar out there at around that time...”
     
    ***
     
    One
moonless night, there was some kind of raid on the suburb where the school was
situated.  There was confusion and screaming terror.  Nobody knew what the
raiders wanted or who had sent them.  All they knew was that guns were being
blasted and firebrands were shattering through their windows, casting their
belongings in a frenetic, blood red light.  There were people running in all
directions, panicking to find their children or parents.
    The
raiders were single-minded and merciless, as if they were possessed.  As men,
women and children scrambled from the fire and smoke, they were set upon by
these demonic creatures.  Many were bound and gagged and bundled onto the backs
of the horses on which the raiders had arrived.  Many more, those