obey the orders of his superiors. Damn! She really should have curbed her tongue.
She applied herself once more to her story, going back over what she had written and making subtle alterations, painting Kitchener in a less doctrinaire light, making him seem more aware of the potential problems of housing the Boer families. Then, with a curse, she tore up the pages and rewrote again, quoting Kitchener directly and usingher scribbled notes (oh, how she wished she had learnt shorthand!) to transcribe his exact words as best she could. She read what she had written with satisfaction. If this was going to get the general into trouble back home, then so be it. She must report what she had heard. On Kitchener’s head be it.
She finished her story and then re-read it, to ensure that she had presented it in efficient cablese, for the
Morning Post
was careful with its money. Then she tucked it into her hand valise and walked out into the late evening sunshine.
Almost immediately, she was accosted by a tall, casually dressed youngish man – perhaps in his early thirties – who doffed his wide-brimmed hat and half bowed. ‘Miss Griffith, is it not?’ he enquired.
Alice inclined her head. ‘Yes?’
‘May I introduce myself. My name is James Fulton. I am a colleague. Like you, I have just arrived. I shall be covering for the
Daily Mail.
’
Immediately, Alice regarded him with interest. The
Mail
had been launched only four years before by the Harmsworth brothers and had become an immediate, indeed sensational, success. Costing only a halfpenny, compared with the one penny charged by most other London dailies, it was now the first British newspaper to be printed simultaneously in both Manchester and London and its sales were now rumoured to have reached well over half a million copies. Lord Salisbury, the Tory prime minister, had condemned it as ‘a newspaper produced by office boys for office boys’ and it was unashamedly populist in tone, aiming for a readership of the newly literate lower middle-class market resulting from mass education, and setting out its stall with human interest stories, serials, features and competitions. But Alice cordially disliked it for its patriotic line on the Boer war,slavishly supporting the government’s policy. It was thunderously jingoistic. She held out her hand, then, to Fulton, with a degree of reserve.
He took it and held it rather too long. ‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Griffith,’ he said. ‘I have been an admirer of yours for so long.’ His moustache was trimmed unfashionably to a thin line and his good teeth flashed as he smiled, looking up at her through his lashes as he bowed over her hand.
‘How kind,’ responded Alice distantly. The man was tall, with a handsome figure, accentuated by the white shirt opened sufficiently to show a suntanned chest and the beginnings of tightly curled hairs. His breeches were perhaps a little too tight and his hair, bleached by the sun, fell in waves to meet the side whiskers. He was, she concluded, far too handsome for his own good. Nevertheless, she felt a faint stirring of … what? Attraction? Certainly a feeling she had not experienced for many, many years. She shook her head in a tiny movement of self-disgust.
‘But you have Steevens reporting here, surely?’ She knew him to be one of the most experienced of the war correspondents.
‘Ah, you have not heard. He died, I’m afraid, during the siege of Ladysmith. That’s why I am here.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry. I had not heard. I don’t hunt with the pack, you see. I wondered why I had not met him. I respected him.’ Alice cleared her throat and withdrew her hand from his. ‘Tell me, Mr Fulton, have you … er … covered many other campaigns with the army?’
‘No, ma’am.’ He flashed his teeth again. ‘I am very much a new boy at this game, don’t you know. Until now, I have been trying to keep up with the
Daily Mail’
s passion for domestic crime, the strangedoings
She applied herself once more to her story, going back over what she had written and making subtle alterations, painting Kitchener in a less doctrinaire light, making him seem more aware of the potential problems of housing the Boer families. Then, with a curse, she tore up the pages and rewrote again, quoting Kitchener directly and usingher scribbled notes (oh, how she wished she had learnt shorthand!) to transcribe his exact words as best she could. She read what she had written with satisfaction. If this was going to get the general into trouble back home, then so be it. She must report what she had heard. On Kitchener’s head be it.
She finished her story and then re-read it, to ensure that she had presented it in efficient cablese, for the
Morning Post
was careful with its money. Then she tucked it into her hand valise and walked out into the late evening sunshine.
Almost immediately, she was accosted by a tall, casually dressed youngish man – perhaps in his early thirties – who doffed his wide-brimmed hat and half bowed. ‘Miss Griffith, is it not?’ he enquired.
Alice inclined her head. ‘Yes?’
‘May I introduce myself. My name is James Fulton. I am a colleague. Like you, I have just arrived. I shall be covering for the
Daily Mail.
’
Immediately, Alice regarded him with interest. The
had been launched only four years before by the Harmsworth brothers and had become an immediate, indeed sensational, success. Costing only a halfpenny, compared with the one penny charged by most other London dailies, it was now the first British newspaper to be printed simultaneously in both Manchester and London and its sales were now rumoured to have reached well over half a million copies. Lord Salisbury, the Tory prime minister, had condemned it as ‘a newspaper produced by office boys for office boys’ and it was unashamedly populist in tone, aiming for a readership of the newly literate lower middle-class market resulting from mass education, and setting out its stall with human interest stories, serials, features and competitions. But Alice cordially disliked it for its patriotic line on the Boer war,slavishly supporting the government’s policy. It was thunderously jingoistic. She held out her hand, then, to Fulton, with a degree of reserve.
He took it and held it rather too long. ‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Griffith,’ he said. ‘I have been an admirer of yours for so long.’ His moustache was trimmed unfashionably to a thin line and his good teeth flashed as he smiled, looking up at her through his lashes as he bowed over her hand.
‘How kind,’ responded Alice distantly. The man was tall, with a handsome figure, accentuated by the white shirt opened sufficiently to show a suntanned chest and the beginnings of tightly curled hairs. His breeches were perhaps a little too tight and his hair, bleached by the sun, fell in waves to meet the side whiskers. He was, she concluded, far too handsome for his own good. Nevertheless, she felt a faint stirring of … what? Attraction? Certainly a feeling she had not experienced for many, many years. She shook her head in a tiny movement of self-disgust.
‘But you have Steevens reporting here, surely?’ She knew him to be one of the most experienced of the war correspondents.
‘Ah, you have not heard. He died, I’m afraid, during the siege of Ladysmith. That’s why I am here.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry. I had not heard. I don’t hunt with the pack, you see. I wondered why I had not met him. I respected him.’ Alice cleared her throat and withdrew her hand from his. ‘Tell me, Mr Fulton, have you … er … covered many other campaigns with the army?’
‘No, ma’am.’ He flashed his teeth again. ‘I am very much a new boy at this game, don’t you know. Until now, I have been trying to keep up with the
Daily Mail’
s passion for domestic crime, the strangedoings
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