especially a lad your age, who could never imagine it happening to him.’
‘A good deal has happened to me already,’ Paul said. ‘I only pulled through by a miracle. They gave me up time and again and I got in the habit of hearing my chances chewed over by doctors and nurses. That can teach you a thing or two if you’ll let it.’
Rudd looked frankly at him and for the first time there was tolerance in his eyes.
‘Exactly what did it teach you that was new, Mr Craddock?’
‘Patience, I suppose, and gratitude for being alive. Also respect for people who seemed to go to a great deal of trouble to improve one’s chances—those kind of things.’
‘I was a pupil at a different kind of school,’ Rudd said. ‘Did you ever hear of the Prince Eugène Napoleon? The “Painted Emperor’s” son, the one killed in the Zulu War?’
‘Certainly. He was killed on June 1st, 1879, whilst on reconnaissance during the advance on the Zulu capital’
‘Now how the devil do you come to know that?’ exclaimed Rudd, and Craddock chuckled. ‘Because it happens to have been the day I was born, so naturally I made a mental note of it when I’d read an account in one of the Strand Magazines we had at home.’
‘Now that’s very odd,’ said Rudd, musing, ‘that’s damned odd! If I was a superstitious man I’d say that was some kind of omen but good or bad I wouldn’t know. Do you recall the circumstances?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Craddock, ‘but I imagine you liked the Prince Imperial as much as you seem to have liked your late employers.’
‘About even I should say,’ retorted Rudd easily,’ for both had a peculiar propensity for winning notoriety at other people’s expense! That young man had nobody but himself to blame for what happened. He off-saddled in shoulder-high grass out of range of the camp, with one wretched lieutenant and six troopers as escort. The Zulus jumped the troop and they had to bolt for it. Everyone got away but the Prince. He was riding a nervous horse and couldn’t get a leg over when the firing started. He had about a dozen assegai wounds when they found him. All in front. Very proper.’
‘How were you involved?’
‘I was sent after the patrol by an officer who should never have sent it out in the first place, and when I met them coming back hell for leather I turned and rode in with them. Was that so odd? What is a man supposed to do when he sees a reconnaissance patrol riding for their lives? Stop them and ask for a written report?’
It was strange, Craddock thought, how time had done nothing to dull the man’s memory of that single moment of panic, now twenty-three years behind him. It was as though, up to that moment, nothing of importance had occurred to him, and after it he had lived a kind of half-life in which the most sensational event came a poor second to a wild gallop across the veldt, with troopers gasping out news that the Prince Imperial was back there, speared through by assegais.
‘Why are you telling me all this, Mr Rudd?’ he asked and Rudd said, ‘God knows! I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else in twenty years! Not that everyone here doesn’t know about it, Sir George and Hubert saw to that.’
‘But they continued to employ you as their agent.’
‘That’s why they employed me and also why I stayed. What kind of future was open to a man who had turned tail and abandoned a Prince Imperial to a few savages?’
They rode silently for a moment and then Craddock said, ‘Very well, now you’ve told me, but as far as I’m concerned I don’t give a damn what bad luck you ran into all that time ago. I’ve done my share of dodging tricky situations and so has every other soldier, unless he’s a fool, or a bit slow off the mark! I was hoping to rely on you for straightforward advice on my chances of making some kind of success with this place; if I decided to buy, that is, but you ought to know right away that it wasn’t my idea
‘A good deal has happened to me already,’ Paul said. ‘I only pulled through by a miracle. They gave me up time and again and I got in the habit of hearing my chances chewed over by doctors and nurses. That can teach you a thing or two if you’ll let it.’
Rudd looked frankly at him and for the first time there was tolerance in his eyes.
‘Exactly what did it teach you that was new, Mr Craddock?’
‘Patience, I suppose, and gratitude for being alive. Also respect for people who seemed to go to a great deal of trouble to improve one’s chances—those kind of things.’
‘I was a pupil at a different kind of school,’ Rudd said. ‘Did you ever hear of the Prince Eugène Napoleon? The “Painted Emperor’s” son, the one killed in the Zulu War?’
‘Certainly. He was killed on June 1st, 1879, whilst on reconnaissance during the advance on the Zulu capital’
‘Now how the devil do you come to know that?’ exclaimed Rudd, and Craddock chuckled. ‘Because it happens to have been the day I was born, so naturally I made a mental note of it when I’d read an account in one of the Strand Magazines we had at home.’
‘Now that’s very odd,’ said Rudd, musing, ‘that’s damned odd! If I was a superstitious man I’d say that was some kind of omen but good or bad I wouldn’t know. Do you recall the circumstances?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Craddock, ‘but I imagine you liked the Prince Imperial as much as you seem to have liked your late employers.’
‘About even I should say,’ retorted Rudd easily,’ for both had a peculiar propensity for winning notoriety at other people’s expense! That young man had nobody but himself to blame for what happened. He off-saddled in shoulder-high grass out of range of the camp, with one wretched lieutenant and six troopers as escort. The Zulus jumped the troop and they had to bolt for it. Everyone got away but the Prince. He was riding a nervous horse and couldn’t get a leg over when the firing started. He had about a dozen assegai wounds when they found him. All in front. Very proper.’
‘How were you involved?’
‘I was sent after the patrol by an officer who should never have sent it out in the first place, and when I met them coming back hell for leather I turned and rode in with them. Was that so odd? What is a man supposed to do when he sees a reconnaissance patrol riding for their lives? Stop them and ask for a written report?’
It was strange, Craddock thought, how time had done nothing to dull the man’s memory of that single moment of panic, now twenty-three years behind him. It was as though, up to that moment, nothing of importance had occurred to him, and after it he had lived a kind of half-life in which the most sensational event came a poor second to a wild gallop across the veldt, with troopers gasping out news that the Prince Imperial was back there, speared through by assegais.
‘Why are you telling me all this, Mr Rudd?’ he asked and Rudd said, ‘God knows! I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else in twenty years! Not that everyone here doesn’t know about it, Sir George and Hubert saw to that.’
‘But they continued to employ you as their agent.’
‘That’s why they employed me and also why I stayed. What kind of future was open to a man who had turned tail and abandoned a Prince Imperial to a few savages?’
They rode silently for a moment and then Craddock said, ‘Very well, now you’ve told me, but as far as I’m concerned I don’t give a damn what bad luck you ran into all that time ago. I’ve done my share of dodging tricky situations and so has every other soldier, unless he’s a fool, or a bit slow off the mark! I was hoping to rely on you for straightforward advice on my chances of making some kind of success with this place; if I decided to buy, that is, but you ought to know right away that it wasn’t my idea
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