1999 - Ladysmith Read Online Free PDF

to look at one of the paddle-boxes, a great fairground wheel of a thing criss-crossed by struts. Then he glanced back down at the stokers. The pile of coal on the dock had gone down somewhat, but they would not be done till dusk. Only then, when the sun came down over the island, would the furnace be red again, its beastly maw secure of its black food for 2,000 tons’ worth of nautical miles.
    “Hullo,” shouted a smart voice from above him. “You—down there.”
    The Biographer raised himself from the canvas chair and looked up. Sticking out from under the white rail of the deck above was a pair of brown calfskin boots. Tucked into these were faded khaki trousers and above them a tunic of the same fabric, the collars of which framed the eager, button-nosed face of Mr Winston Spencer Churchill, correspondent of the Morning Post .
    “You’re the Biograph fellow, yes?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, Atkins spoke to me about your plight. I’ve arranged for you to join us at Captain Rigby’s table tonight. No more slumming.”
    “That’s very kind of you.”
    “Six o’clock sharp.”
    The brown boots were suddenly gone, and the Biographer found himself looking into the sky. He felt a rush of gratitude towards Atkins and Churchill. Perhaps he might be taken seriously after all. Then he twigged that Churchill probably just wanted to get himself on film; he was said to have a genius for self-publicity. He had lately been a parliamentary candidate for Oldham, and apparently wanted to follow his father, Lord Randolph, into politics. What lives these people led; a different world from the Birmingham tenement in which the Biographer had grown up. Still, it was his early apprenticeship in the watchmaking quarter of that city that had taken him, by roundabout routes, into the photography business, a trade in which he found great satisfaction. The nobs could keep their glamorous careers; they were already outmoded.
    The sound of a whinny caught the Biographer’s attention. He turned to see Perry Barnes taking up the hind leg of a horse, the last of the line, between his own legs. It struck him that it would make a good picture, and he went off to his cabin to fetch his tripod and camera.
    On the dock below the Biographer’s empty canvas chair, Perry Barnes watched as another sliver of browny-blue hoof fell to the ground in front of him. He liked clipping horses; it reminded him of home. The farm at Radford. Lizzie , his sister—she had a passion for horses. Anything was better than coaling, anyway. But that was the last one. He put the heavy clippers into the pocket of his tunic and went over to pick up the big shoe pincer, which was leaning like a layabout against the clapboard wall of the marine office. He pushed a hand through his hair and looked at the wall, its white paint smeared with coal-dust. Layabout: Tom had called him that once when they were pitching hay and he’d sat down under the yellow stook for a swig of lemonade. His brother was already out in the Cape, having been in India. A garrison town called Ladysmith. He had followed in Tom’s footsteps—too many brothers for thirty acres, with Arthur the eldest as well—but hadn’t managed to get into the same regiment. Bloody Army.
    “You couldn’t just clip another horse for me?”
    Perry looked up to see the photographer fellow he had talked to on the train, struggling with a bundle of outlandish equipment.
    “They’re all done, I’m afraid.”
    “Can’t you just go through the motions?”
    Perry squinted up at him. “I can’t really. We’ve got to get moving. Anyway, what would be the point?”
    “Never mind,” said the Biographer.
    Once the coaling was over, the decks were swabbed to rid them of dust, and the coalers queued up for showers. Perry joined them. The water coming down over his creamy, adolescent flesh smelt of the tank, and the young blacksmith suddenly missed the butt of fresh rainwater under the downpipe on the farm. They