Page 120 of Valour

“I’ll never want to drink beef extract again, in all of my days,” Septimus grumbled, sipping from the mug Hester handed him.

She huffed a laugh. “Beef extract, seal, penguin. Adding them to the list. The dogs were rather good though, weren’t they?”

He shook his head. “You’re joking about that now? I thought you were going to shoot me after that.”

Maybe it was too soon. She felt guilty as soon as she’d said it. Hester snuggled into his side, tugging on the tether between them. She liked to check it was still there every so often. “My mother said you were my mate. What does that mean?” She’d been thinking about it a lot. Replaying the reckoning with Orcus over and over in her mind.

“Like animals have mates?”

“I suppose. The only book we had left at the end was the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It said some animals mate for life.”

He kissed the top of her head, tightening his arm around her. “You can have me for life.”

“We’ll be like a pair of eagles.”

“They mate for life?”

“Yes. The book said they court each other by flying up very high, locking talons, and then falling together as far as they dare. Sounds thrilling, doesn’t it?”

Septimus’s laugh was a rumble in his chest. “Not unlike our courtship.”

Courtship. Is that what he was calling the months of torment and strife? Hester smiled. “I suppose not.”

He looked pensive for a moment. “Are you ready to talk about her? Your mother?”

Hester sighed and tucked herself closer into his side. Was she? She wasn’t sure. “I just found her, or she found me. And now she is gone.” Stating facts was safe. Wasn’t it?

“When my father died…it took a long time. A very long time before I felt like myself again. It was like he took a piece of me with him. Or I let a piece of myself go. I don’t know.”

Hester cocked her head, studying his sombre expression. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

Elephant Island

They just had to be alright. Charlotte stood on the shore, sick to death of the blank, grey horizon. Arnold wrapped an arm around her, kissing the top of her head. Sooty, Romeo, Marjorie and the pups rolled together a little further up the beach, snapping and growling in their game.

Charlotte clasped her hands together. “I wonder if they’ve made it.”

“By now, you’d think so.”

The alternative was unthinkable, but it didn’t stop Charlotte imagining the lifeboat sinking beneath the waves some nights, when she couldn’t sleep for the stench and the noise of the gales that relentlessly battered their hut.

“I was thinking of giving everyone a ration of methylated spirits and asking Rufus to play the banjo.” She was utterly fed up of the low mood. Had been staring at the waves wondering what Hester would do about it.

“I think that’s a fine idea,” Arnold said, kissing her cheek and smiling down at her.

“Let’s go and tell them.” She hurried back to the hut over the shingle and ducked through the canvas tunnel. Heads turned towards her, sullen “Hullos” uttered.

“I thought we could have a little party. A measure of methylated spirit and a rendition on the banjo, Rufus? If you would?”

Rufus’s face lit up. “I would!”

“Hear hear. I’ll go and fetch the meths,” Valerie said. “Let’s hope we don’t need it for any medical matters, eh?” She disappeared out of the hut.

Charlotte smiled and sat on the stony floor. Her idea had gotten the exact reaction she was hoping for; the men and women sitting up, faces a little less miserable.

Rufus pulled out his banjo and began plucking at the strings, a joyful little tune that had Charlotte tapping her fingers. Arnold and Valerie reappeared with the bottle of meths and passed it round, topping up the cups with water.

Charlotte raised her glass in the dim light of the hut. “To loved ones back home, to God, to King and Country, and all of you fine people I have come to call friends. There is nowhere I would rather be than here with you all.”