Kimberley volunteers

 

“Yes, I was afraid once, child,” Mildred nodded, the tiny cabin pitching in the terrible swells. “Very scared.”

“I bet you couldn’t sleep either?”

“Now, little Molly, you have no reason to fear,” she tried to look stern, “and every reason to get some rest.”

The first class cabins of the RMS Olympic were beautifully provisioned, burnished dark wooden fittings, fine dun leathers, deep burgundy satins, it seemed as safe as the Palace of Westminster. Mildred, by appearance a dowager, by experience a frontiers-woman, was loathe to let the little girl’s imagination win out.

“Tell me gran’mama,” Molly mewed from within her heavy eiderdown. “Tell me about you being afraid.”

“No, my child, now you are beginning to vex me.”

“Oh, gran’mama, I want, you must…”

“Hush now!” scolded Mildred.

Terrible thunder crashed outside, brightening the porthole with stark light sending Mildred’s thoughts back to that dark time.

“I was in Kimberley, in South Africa. My late husband Gerald, may God rest him, was busy making our fortune in diamonds, but the Boers had invaded, they had us surrounded.”

“Who were the boors, gran’mama?”

“Oh, child, they were just settlers, just like us really. There had been trouble for years. War came and they cut off our town. We could have fled of course, but Gerald would not leave his precious mines. ‘It will all be over in a month,’ he said.”

“Did they have guns?”

“What terrible guns…”

*    *    *    *    *

By day, spotters could see the smoke from the howitzers a full seventeen seconds before the shells hit, but by night there was no warning. The people of Kimberley were lowered into the mine tunnels at dusk to avoid the terror.

Mildred sat in the dim glow from the Davy lamp by means of which Gerald was perusing his papers. She was stroking Edwina’s forehead, trying to lull the child’s fears.

“Is John going to fight in the war?” the girl whispered.

“No, dear,” Mildred replied distracted.

“But he joined up. With the volunteers.”

“He’s only sixteen,” she moaned quietly, watching the boy’s sleeping form. “Still a child, still my child.”

She looked across at her husband, calculating his profits and losses.

“Gerald,” she called to him gently. “Gerald!”

“What?” There was a crease of annoyance on his brow, visible even in the half light.

“What are we going to do about John?”

“What about him?”

“How are we to stop him joining the volunteers? He seems so determined.”

“Stop him? What tosh, woman! Why would we want to stop him? Best thing the oaf has ever done.”

“Oh Gerald no, you can’t possibly mean it, you simply can’t!”

He stared at her over the wire rims of his spectacles, dark moustache wrinkling.

“Can’t mean it? In case you had not realised, it is becoming apparent that we can’t rely on General Roberts to lift the siege any time soon. Here is our son offering to do what the damn expeditionary force choose not to. Yet you see it as your task to stop him?”

He turned his back on her and hunched the Davy lamp a little closer to his work. Mildred listened to the distant booming.

*    *    *    *    *

“Oh my!” The little girl, far from being lulled to sleep, was now sitting up, eyes wide. Mildred found that as she spoke the images were more alive to her than ever.

*    *    *    *    *

Crossing the town was a hazardous affair. The ground was split from stray shell blasts leaving muddy puddles. If the spotters yelled out, she would have to throw herself into some makeshift cover, it was no task for a civilised lady. Mrs. Kekewich met her at the front door, there being no servants that were not seconded to the defence effort.

“I’m afraid you might not have come at the best moment,” she said when Mildred arrived.

As if on cue, there came the sound of aggressive shouting from one of the rooms, and next moment a bombastic man, face red from anger, came spitting phlegm as he stormed passed the ladies without acknowledging them. Mildred recognised Cecil Rhodes, one of the founders of De Beers and almost a god in the eyes of her husband.

“Darling,” Mrs. Kekewich rushed into the room, “are you quite alright?”

“Alright now that he is gone, my sweet.”

The General was sitting behind his desk, trembling with fury. His wife poured him a stiff whisky from the mahogany cupboard. Mrs. Kekewich introduced Mildred, explaining that she was here about her son, still just a boy, now signed up for the volunteers. The General listened as he sipped.

“Indeed you must be very concerned, Madame?”

“I am so sorry to be taking your valuable time, General, but yes, I am desperately afraid. I had thought you might… Well, perhaps such a young recruit might be set to some lighter duty, guarding a food store perhaps.”

Kekewich nodded silently then shook his head.

“If I could, madame, be most assured I would. Alas, I am barely in control of my own command. I am afraid that Rhodes and De Beers run all the local militias and police.”

The words struck Mildred’s heart with a cold chill. She could feel tears come to her eyes, but would not let her dignity fail her. Her only hope lay now with Lord Roberts, that his forces might lift the siege before the volunteers were trained.

*    *    *    *    *

The storm outside was still raging, though the thunder was easing.

“What happened, gran’mama? Did they lift the seals?”

“Siege, dear,” smiled Mildred. “Eventually. The tide was turned by force of numbers. But, for us, it was too late…”

*    *    *    *    *

Each afternoon, as the volunteers gathered on the playing fields. Mildred took a deck chair to the pavilion and watched them as they were drilled up and down. Rhodes had refused to even see her, and Gerald would not dream of bothering his employer at a time of financial crisis. She watched boys drilling. If De Beers did one thing well it was spending money; the volunteers had fine horses and martial uniforms. Each day that they reconvened on the parade ground was one more that they were away from the withering gunfire of the Boer Mausers.

One morning they learned there had been a sortie, a small group of regulars on horseback slipped out of the village by cover of the pre dawn gloom, took a nearby kop and destroyed three guns mounted on its heights, escaping back to safety before the sun rose. There was to be a repeat raid the next morning, General Kekewich himself announced to the boys. The regular troops were to storm a series of guns on another kop, the volunteers would guard their retreat.

As he left the ground, Kekewich came to Mildred, but she could not raise her eyes, and she sensed he was unable to speak.

She did not sleep that night, nor did John. She flattened every crease, dabbed at any hint of a stain on his new uniform. She served him tea and porridge though neither could eat. Long before dawn she  watched him ride into the ranks of the Volunteers and fade into anonymity amongst the other uniforms.

Kekewich was in the habit of keeping station each morning on the conning-tower of the De Beers mine. The climb up the ladder was precarious, but this was not going to stop Mildred from sharing the view as the sun rose over the veldt.

In the darkness, they heard the rattling of bridles and the clop of hooves from the edge of the defences, then the hooves became a deep thundering noise which faded to the silence of the night. A horrible time passed before the sound of rifles sprinkled vivid cracks of light across the veldt.

When dawn finally cast its burnt sienna fingers across the plains and between the hills the scene was horrifying. Riderless horses wandered, bodies lay, the Boer guns were intact, and only a handful of the troops had returned, none of the Volunteers.

*    *    *    *    *

“Were you upset, gran’mama?” The girl’s eyes were wide.

“Yes, child, I was devastated. I watched for three days, not daring to shut my eyes in case he might come back. Gerald came to me, he had found grief, realising what he had lost and how little value there was in those cursed diamonds. He carried me down, near unconscious, with a strength that kept me close to him till the end of his days.”

Outside the thunder had ceased, and it seemed to her now as if an armistice had been declared between the heavens and the earth. It was time to remember with sadness all those who had passed. In the great battles that had been fought during her lifetime a terrible number had fallen.

She was disturbed from her reverie by the sudden awareness that they were no longer alone in the cabin. There stood a man, tall, with handsome features, his dinner jacket decorated with five silver medals.

“Daddy,” shouted Molly, throwing herself upon him. “Gran’mama thought you had died in Kimberloo.”

“That old story,” he laughed. “And at this time of night. Why yes I might have died, we were chased by the Boers for days, unable to make a path back to the town. Chance, or fate, took us into the path of General Robert’s cavalry. I rode back into town at the head of the column…”

The warm breeze of the veldt touched Mildred’s cheek as her beautiful son laid his daughter gently down to sleep.

Story acceptance

 

I was delighted to hear that my story “Is this what I am for” has been accepted by MunsterLit for their Southword Journal Online http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword/home.html. Should be appearing there in July.

Twirling down the dark

 

Dream spirits,

Lovely dreams,

They skate around temptation.

Sharp scratch of ice,

White skin gleaming

Until, luscious in desire,

They fall

Twirling down the dark.

Sweat!

Sweet!

Smell!

Slender!

Touch!

Sense!

Sounds!

And, winged by the moment,

Glide on high breezes

To see swollen lands

Too far to imagine.

Then, coming to earth,

Hold hands,

Hold hearts,

Sigh and lie content

Until I wake.

A taste from a parting glass

 

It caught my eye as I was shown into the crowded parlour room. It had been a going away gift. The mirror sat in a dark burnished frame, fine silk screen lettering declared “POWERS WHISKEY – PURE POT STILL” amid ripe ears of grain, ribbons and scrolls. There were memories buried in the craftsmanship, yet what kind of a fool had I been: a bar mirror as a gift? And what had possessed her to keep it?

The reflection showed a crowd, simple folk, the men and women of a quiet country town gathered in grief. I stood in their midst, a fox among chickens. There was a hand on my arm.

 

‘Michael,’ It was Father Ned Gilligan, my best friend from school, though now he looked twenty years my senior.

 

‘Ned!’

 

There was genuine warmth in the way he took my hand. ‘My God, Michael, it’s great to see you. Must be thirty years.’

 

‘More like forty, Ned.’

 

‘You’ve never the once been home?’

 

He began a litany of those from our school who had passed on. I gazed about the parlour, the red velour chairs and burnished oak table; she might have sat here evenings. I wondered if our last night had danced before her eyes, as she drowsed.

 

‘Will you not stay, Michael?’ Mary, beautiful, melodious, pale. The bar in O’Neills was quiet yet, the snug warm from the fire, fragrance of turf mixing seductively with the aroma of cloves.

 

‘Sure, it’ll be no time, and I’ll be sending for you.’

 

‘Ah, you’re all words.’

 

‘I mean it, Mary, I… I…’

 

In the mirror, her eyes, mischievous as two black kittens.

 

‘Oh, Michael. Sure don’t I love you!’

 

I made my fortune in commodities, but not until I had spent twenty five years working eighty hour weeks, too scared to take a holiday in case my positions went south. Mary had written, daily at first, weekly, then monthly.  She understood if I was too busy ever to reply. After ten years she had other news. She sent me an invitation to the wedding, knowing I would not come.

 

The mirror changed again, and I saw Mary and me, as we might have sat on cold evenings in our parlour. I saw our children bringing in tea, neighbours calling for a chat and a drop. Measuring our wealth, not in dollars, but in each other.

 

Ah, Mary… Maybe my fortune was my misfortune?

 

Ellen, her granddaughter, asked if I wanted a drink. She had Mary’s eyes, that little lilt in her voice, as if every day was a carnival.

 

‘A hot whiskey,’ I choked. ‘Powers, if you have it.’

The real and honest secret of successful fiction writing. No really!

 

It is twenty years since I first took a correspondence course in fiction writing. At the time I was playing around with short stories and segments of longer stories. I suffered from two main diseases: first, I was a martyr to lethargy and procrastination. Days would go by, weeks, sometimes months, when my only writing output was a couple of ill conceived lines. The other ailment was simple lack of skill. I would write three pages of the finest prose with powerful emotional undertones, then read it back a week later to find it was awful: dialogue that sounded wooden or was laced with “he said,” “she said,” “he replied,” “she countered.” Magnificent descriptions that turned out to use the word “magnificent” nine times in one paragraph. Characters that changed sex or became forty years older from one page to the next. I expected that the course would teach me all the secrets of strong dialogue and credible characters, and that it would focus my energies in writing as university exams had once focussed me onto the art of memorisation. I was disappointed in both!

For the work element, I found that I was doing no more work than I had before, except that now all my work was towards the course, whatever assignment was set in the latest module, and I was doing no real writing, so getting no creative output. This is the weakness (as well as the strength) of correspondence courses, no deadlines, no compulsion to complete in a given time. As to the skill level, there was no secret list of how-tos, just an interminable set of instructions to go and read how other people do it. Most of the  assignments involved reading short stories from the likes of DH lawrence and answering Leaving Cert style questions: “What is the central theme? How does the author use colours to communicate the theme?” and so on.

I did not finish. Half way through I let it go and focussed on writing novels, finished two fragments, then managed to finish a whole novel. It did not sell. I started several more fragments, then finished a second novel. It also did not sell. One agent, excited by the quality of the PR package I sent her, with graphics, a cd, an animated sequence, took my novel but wrote back that the plot was weak. It was a kick in the teeth, but more importantly, the moment I read it I knew that she was right. I had known it all along but had not acknowledged it. I hid from the truth in the name of keeping my throughput up.

That was when I started into my second correspondence course. Oh my God, more of the same. Read this, read that. Read, read, read. Understand your market. Why is that writer printed, what is this writer chosen for the anthology.

It took me two years, but I finally churned my way through the course, got to the end of it. That was last September, twenty years and still nothing published outside of a dozen odd web sites, and self publishing my second novel. I’m not undermining the web sites, but I’d like to be accepted by somebody who puts out paper! I’m not greedy. I don’t want to earn a fortune, though I would not turn a fortune down should I find one determined to make my acquaintance. All I want is to see my name on a paper publication, one that I have not paid for myself.

That is where the secret of writing comes in. It struck me. A bolt from the blue. An epiphany! I have spent twenty years reading DH Lawrence, James Joyce, Ray Bradbury, Thomas Harris, Edna O’Brien, Douglas Adams, F Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, Dennis Lehane, Dan Brown, Peter F Hamilton, and on and on and on. Read and read and read. What will you find when you read? The answer is there for everybody to see. What is it that separates out a published writer from the rest of the world?

Here it is. Here is the answer. This will save you thousands of euros in correspondence courses and classes and critiques. The answer is: NOTHING! There is nothing, absolutely nothing that links all the authors, all the hundred thousand writers I have read. You can be eloquent or simple, fantastic or plain, devious or straightforward, violent or sweet, steady or capricious, It makes no difference. You will be no closer to getting published. There is nothing that distinguishes published writers from you except that, for reasons unknown, they have been published.

So forget the correct way to do it, just write. Write whatever makes you happy, whatever makes you laugh or cry or anger, or whatever leaves you in a state of divine calm. Don’t worry if you read it back and realise it is unadulterated garbage, send it off to the publishers and magazine editors anyway.

The writing courses can’t tell you that, nor the critiquers, or the self-help book authors. They make their money convincing you they have the secret, then they send you back reading more because the lesson is there for everyone to see: there is nothing that distinguishes your work from published work. Okay, you should always try to improve your work, smooth out your dialogue and develop your characters, but if you think unpolished, poorly conceived work won’t sell, I have only one thing to say: Celia Aherne!

Shortlist

 

My story “To stop from drowning him” has been shortlisted in the latest (March 2012) Writers Forum magazine. Alas didn’t make the last 3 which get published, but I got a by-line. Baby steps….