Nevertheless, Sean was aware that his officers found his informal behaviour and his habit of arriving suddenly in the front lines, unannounced and unattended by his staff, more than a little disconcerting.
The contents of the kitbag would be some small compensation for the shock, for it included half a dozen bottles of pinch bottle Haig and a fat goose. At this moment the Colonel and officers of the.Ģnd Battalion were completely unaware of the impending honour, and Sean grinned in wicked anticipation at the panic that his unannounced arrival would create.
In addition to his service rifle and webbing, he carried a canvas kitbag across his shoulder, for General Courtney was on his way to dine as a mess guest of the 2nd Battalion. It will snow tonight, he grunted, and Lieutenant Nick van der Heever, his orderly officer, glanced back at him over his shoulder. At the bottom of the mystery is Sean's son Dirk, the jealous, violent and power-crazed genius whose allconsuming hatred can only end in blood.Ī sky the colour of old bruises hung low over the battlefields of France, and rolled with ponderous dignity towards the German lines.īrigadier-General Sean Courtney had spent four winters in France and now, with the eye of a cattleman and a farmer, he could judge this weather almost as accurately as that of his native Africa. Mark Anders the courageous young South african whom he has come to regard as his own son, returns to nothing, his grandfather murdered, his property seized by an unknown company. The earth opened before him, and as he fell there was the sensation of being ingulfed in a swirling vortax of blacknessand he knew for just a fleeting instant of time that he was dead.įrom the trenches of France, General Sean Courtney comes back to fame fortune and a seat in the Government. There was only the massive shock in the upper part of his body, and then he was hurled backwards with a violence that drove the air from his lungs.
Mark never heard the Mauser shot for the bullet came ahead of the sound.
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