Two Moons by J. Raymond Ractliffe - Chapter 12

Two Moons is a new novel by J. Raymond Ractliffe that explores the inner spirit life of Africa, her people and their powerful faith in the world of the Unseen.

The Mark of the Two Moons
Chapter 12

     Claire had not moved from the wide veranda that surrounded the home of the Bauldwin estate. A wicker chair freshly painted white with hand-stitched cushions had been her long night's companions. A deep blue shawl hand woven by her mother and shipped to her from England had barely kept the night chill at bay. Her bones and spirit shivering from the African night. Her long blond hair now streaked with coming , hung down to her shoulders, tired from the long darkness and prayers to the stars.

Born and bred a Brighton girl, she had fallen in love with a dashing man, home from the terrible war of goose-stepping Nazis who had overrun Europe with their anger, lime filled trenches filled with the now silent innocent bodies of Jews, Gypsies and political enemies of the Reich.

It could not be measured the ever silent suffering. Not of those unable to return home but of those that did. Beds empty at night with sweating men and women walking endless wooden passageways away from their memories.

Blood and dreams left poured in the dry sands; from the disaster and miracle that was Dunkirk, Canadians slaughtered and sacrificed at Dieppe preparing for Normandy, Rommel's fast Panzers against Montgomery's hesitant and over cautious counter strikes in North Africa. English, Czech, Free French and Polish, Norwegian. All had come to fight the fascist madness. Every uniform known to the Free World was found polishing a rifle and gear or mock parading up and down the coastal ways and green fields, keeping German and Irish sympathizers busy collecting details of death dreams for their masters. Whole divisions moving in the night only to be found parading miles away the following morning. The true numbers defending the besieged Parliament lead by Churchill and the proud people of Shakespeare and King Arthur never known to Berlin.

Here in the heartland of Africa, the sound of cocked thunder, the reverberating slap of leather on a stone parade ground and the sound of the air raid sirens never penetrated the long blue empty skies.

The Baldwin's had come to the edge of the modern world. Where the colonies lay in smoldering ruins after the wars, the indigenous peoples readying themselves for democratic self-rule that was to devastate a continent more than the English silk handkerchief and the Italian, French and German jackboots could have ever accomplished. The plundering of an entire people by the white tribes from the north would be imitated by their new African Marxist masters and black political and hereditary chiefs. It would be long until true voices could be found to finally liberate the people with voices of hope than with guns.

Africa contained a silence and beauty rarely found. Gone from its heart the industrial wounds of the north, she had not yet given up her rare soil and precious minerals. She lay in essence untouched by the endless yellow bulldozers and roaring machines that would eventually cart away entire mountains.

The long railway had already come. Laid by men of vision like Rhodes; who with the glint in their eyes for Imperial Glory and History, their winding silver lines connected the far ends of an Empire. From the Cape Winelands, to the diamond and gold mines of Kimberly and the Rand, through the heartland of Africa up all the way to Khartoum, finally lost by the great Gordon, the distinguished robber barons cut their way through Africa on roads of cold steel and warm blood of her peoples.

The Baldwin's had come for lasting peace and prosperity, away from the tall rubble and broken dreams. The silence they had come to love, so much the new blood coursing in their own veins. Their laughter and desires intricately connected to this new red land they had deeply dug their new roots and dreams. Smiling new children born here in this wilderness, their laughter and shouting in their play filling the wide rooms and corridors of their home.

They had paid for this serenity with their blood and sweat. Wagons loaded with their all, they had come led by yoked multi coloured oxen and glistening men at their sides under noontime sun with cracking long whips to lead them, for the tarred roads that carried the glistening lorries never cut through the vast lands beyond the hills. The long steamer lines had arrived at Mombasa two years after the war with the cut crystal, their LeMogue, fine bone china and sterling silver complete with family crests. The steamer trunks lined with colourful travel stickers from around the world, filled with English tweed never worn in the heat of this new land, replaced with simple Khaki and high leather riding boots or veltskoone and open short sleeved shirt. Treasured books from old home libraries at first closely guarded, enjoyed by a bright fire after a long day breaking ground, then later swapped at the church bazaars and county fairs, they seemed to live on forever, clutched tightly by the ever homesick and lost souls.

Africa asked little in return for her wealth and endless beauty. She welcomed all and brought all to her breasts. She was a land teeming with the sound of many tongues and cultures. Her great silence and majesty could only come with the sacrifice of the innocent, the lame and the foolish.

Africa was paid for, simply, in blood. Survival was not a matter of luck or singular prowess or courage, she alone decided on her own terms on what alter the price for her love was to be paid. No one came to this place without leaving a white bone on the horizon.

Claire knew the blood price of this beautiful land. The land's raging stark beauty masked the utter harshness, sometimes brutality and cruelty she often felt stalked indiscriminately the red land. It made no distinction between man and beast as to the severity and vengeance it could wreck on a herd, a family or people.

She feared now as she stood looking out over the cool veranda, this was finally her time to pay for the love and endless full coloured sunsets they had enjoyed.

A part of her nodded silently, her eyes watering up and spilling out down her cheeks. Her soul bowing to the spirits of this land that was now her home. All had come and paid for their time here with dreams and blood spilled to satisfy the ancestors and wild Spirit Walkers of Africa.

Jeremy had come home from the war, after several long campaigns where he had been promoted to Captain, up through the ranks as the terrible death toll of war thinned out the path before him. The same broad smile and devilish playfulness that she had found so attractive had somehow remained.

In the silences of the night, when the home staff had left and the sounds of the night dimmed, she found him pacing and sweating on the veranda, body tense and weary, his shoulders hunched over as he carried his memories. Never talking of the time of the war. She had accepted his silences and distractions made during such conversations with others. Wild flaming sunsets that rose up from one end of the horizon to the next seemed to gather these memories from behind the guarded mental doors where they were kept safely out of the present life, of burning cities and razed villages, of comrades lost and loves never forgotten.

He was always a happy man, loving and good humoured. Serious about his family and the daily goings on of each, he worked hard to see them well in their days. His black fringe of hair always blowing across his face, dimpled cheeks ready for a smile. Deep in his eyes, as a woman she knew, he had seen enough of the evil of man to dim the light, the scar covering wounds to the spirit hardening until the scar itself became part of the wound.

The sun had risen this morning, beautiful as ever, yet the chill of this morning could not be warmed with coffee or hot milk. A roaring fire in the living room, adorned with and completed with a majestic set of cape buffalo horns and photos detailing the stories of their odysseys here, could not take her away from the open aired veranda, her eyes glued on the blue hazy horizon that was materializing out the night's darkness that had taken her love.

Something must have happened, so much so that Jeremy could not send Konjaru back to let her know what had happened. The three of them had set off in the morning. Matthew, with his eyes full of young courage and zest for the hunt, his daydreams of the spoils and bragging rights of his hunt already formed in his mind. ready for the evening's customary "sun downers" on the veranda.

They had left walking out into the new sunlight, yellow and orange glows spreading wide, trees swaying in a gentle wind that had come from the mountains and seas beyond, a high wave of a khaki hat held above when distance made farewells soundless, the three of them left in the direction of the lower lands, where the wild game was still thick and free roaming, not yet afraid of man. The steel plough had not broken the red land there at the widest part of their estate; it was mostly stone and rugged field, untouched since God had laid its foundations. She could not remember Jeremy going to that part of the farm for years. The rough land there had been included in the original purchase from the Crown. Useless as it was for agricultural or pastoral purposes, they believed the untamed land would keep the wildlife and spirit of the farm for later generations of Bauldwin clan.

It was to this direction she had directed Thomas, the cattle overseer and Kashezwe, who worked tending the fields of coffee to go and find the men. They had already left before the coming sunrise, heading down the long entrance road. Claire watched until their small bodies were lost in the last of the night's darkness. Not even the Kikuyu compound of round mud and thatched huts and cattle, with its dogs and early rising chorus of pecking chickens and hungry children had begun their day. Fires lay cold with the previous nights' embers drawing their last breath.

Here Claire would wait. Still in her night clothes and blue shawl, nothing distracting her away from seeing the first signs of them all reappearing up the path with long smiles and dusty stories, explaining away her tears of gratitude.

A white tea cup silently appeared and was left by her side. The sounds of the house dim and cushioned against the day, all mindful that they might be approaching a time of bitter and sorrowful mourning.

Women begin their silent weeping when warm beds are suddenly cold and empty without warning. There would be no time for anything else other than hope and silent prayers for their young foolish sons and men to return. Claire settled again into her creaking whicker chair and soft cushions, drawing close over her shoulders, her night time shawl, not knowing how the fine tea cup now warming her hands had got there. Her eyes focused straight down the dusty road lined with gently swaying trees to where they had all left marching towards their hunting honours, carrying with them, all her dreams.

High above the blue gum trees a lone falcon watched the steam rising from her morning tea, it turned after a while and rode the morning winds back down to the slopping hills to the east.