by Wilbur Smith
In the center, Matatu whistled. At that moment he was out of Sean's line of sight. Even though it was not a warning signal, Sean fell flat and carefully checked his front and both flanks before he stood up again and went to join him.
Matatu was squatting beside the trail with his loincloth drawn up modestly between his legs, but his expression was worried. He stabbed a finger at the' spoor without speaking. Sean saw immediately what was trdtibling him.
"Where the hell did they come from?" It was a protest more than a question. The original band of Renarno had been reinforced by an even larger group; at a glance it looked like a full company of infantry. The odds against them had just been multiplied many times, and for the first time Sean felt the lead weight of despair on his shoulders.
"How many" he demanded of Matatu. This time, even he could not give an exact figure. The tracks were overlapped and confused.
Matatu took a little snuff, using the ritual to disguise his uncertainty. He sneezed, and his eyes ran with tears that he wiped away with his thumbs. Then he held up the spread fingers of both hands and shut them four times.
"Forty?"
Matatu grimaced apologetically and showed another set of fingers.
"Between forty and fifty." Sean unscrewed his water bottle and took a mouthful. The water was hot as soup, but he gargled with it before he swallowed.
I will count them later," Matatu promised, "when I have learned them all, but now. He spat on the trampled earth, mortified by his failure.
"How far behind are we?" Sean demanded, and Matatu used his forefinger like the hour hand of a clock to indicate a segment of the sky.
"Three hours," Sean translated. "We'll never catch them before nightfall."
When it was dark Sean said, "We'll eat while we wait for the moon." But when it rose, it was only a sliver of silver, soon blotted out by cloud, and there was not enough light to follow even that broad clear spoor. Sean thought of keeping going blindly through the night, trying to get ahead of them and then shadowing them, hoping for some fortuitous opportunity to reach Claudia and Job and release them.
"That's dreaming in Technicolor," he told himself They had been going hard for days now and were all tottering on the edge of exhaustion. Blunderin around in the dark, they would either run on top of the Renamo night guards or miss them completely.
"We'll sleep now." He was forced to give up at last. As Renarno knew they were being followed, they might send a detachment back to try and surprise them.
Sean went into laager for the night well off the trail, in a thicket of thorn that would snag an attacker attempting to sneak up on them. They all desperately needed rest, and he would rely on the thorn rather than postin sentries. The night was icy cold, and they lay in a huddle, sharing each other's body warmth. Sean was already sliding into the black hole of exhaustion when Matatu's whisper called him back.
"There is one of them," Matatu began, then broke off.
Sean opened his eyes with resignation. "Tell me," he invited drowsily.
"There is one of these Renamo I have seen before."
"You know one of them?" Sean came fully awake.
"I think so, but it was long ago, and I cannot remember where."
Sean was silent as he considered that simple statement and what it really entailed. Sean would have had difficulty remembering the face of every person he had met in, say, the last ten years. Here was Matatu bemoaning the fact that he could not instantly recognize a single set of footprints, which he had last seen years previously, out of a jumble of other tracks.
Even though he had seen Matatu Perform similar feats so many aim times before, he felt a creep of doubt at Matatu's el mil darkn "Go to sleep, you silly little bugger." He s ed in the ess, by the scruff of the neck, and shook his woolly took the little man head with rough affection. "Perhaps You'll dream his name in your sleep. she was running naked through a Sean dreamed of Claudia.
dark forest. The trees were black and leafless, with crooked limbs.
A pack of wolves pursued her. They also were black as night but glistening white fangs and red lolling tongues. Claudia called with his name as she ran, and her skin was pale and luminous as the moon. He tried to go to her, but his legs dragged as though he waded through a pool of treacle. He tried to call her name, but his tongue was lead in his mouth and no sound came from his throat.
He awoke with a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. He tried to shout again, but it came out in a garbled slur. t6wake up!" Matatu shook him. "You were crying and moaning. Renamo will hear You!"
He sat up quickly. The cold seemed to have frozen the muscles n him. it took in his legs, and the terror of the dream was still upO him seconds to focus on reality and remember where he was.
"You're getting past it, boyo." He was humiliated. A Scout slept ess or had his throat soundlessly and awoke to immediate aw aren cut while he was grunting and snoring- whispered. Already the "It win be light enough soon," Matatu dawn chorus of bird cab tinkled and chirruped through the forest and he could make gut the latticework of thorn branches against the sky.
"Let's go." Sean stood up.
While the sun was still low and the dew was on the grass, they up to the dry river-bed in which Renarno had bivouacked for came the night.
The band had moved on again at first light but could not be far ahead.
matatu picked Claudia's footprints Out Of the ruck in the soft sand of the river-bed. she moves with less pain," he told Sean-The leg is healing, but Job and Dedan are still carrying her. Here she climbed into the litter."
Matatu left the distinctive feminine prints and hovered over another set of larger male tracks that to Scan were indistinguishable from all the others, except that whoever had made them wore boots with a double herringbone pattern on the sole. " Im him"
aw Matatu whispered. "I know the way this one walks." He shook his head in frustration and turned away.
They went forward with extreme caution now. e trail led them T'h directly toward the higher ground along the escarpment of the valley, and soon they entered the foothills. Whoever was commanding the Renamo column knew exactly where he was headed.
Sean was expecting at any moment to make contact with the rear guard of the column. He dreaded the thought that the first warning they might receive could be the wicked crackle of an RPD light mi'e gun, filing at a rate of six hundred rounds a minute.
Here in the hills every boulder, every fold of ground was a possible enemy redoubt and had to be minutely inspected before W they could move on. Sean fretted with impatience but forced himself to gear his advance to the difficult terrain.
i They turned the corner of another low hill and through a frieze Of graceful lusm trees an open vista stretched ahead to where the massif of the central escarpment rose above its foothills.
"There it is," Sean murmured. "That's where they'll be laying for us."
The spoor was pointed directly at a pass through the escarpment. The entrance was guarded by chffi of red stone. The gut of the pass was almost devoid of trees or cover and yet the sides were heavily hushed. It was a natural trap, a perfect killing ground.
Matatu whistled in the center. Sean doubled over, keeping Off the crest as he ran down to join him. From the center, there was an Unimpeded view up the gut of the valley and Sean saw movement against the scree and yellow grass. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes, and the line of dark moving specks resolved through the lens into a column of men.
They were toiling up the incline in single file. Most of them wore tiger-striped camouflage and jungle hats, although a few were dressed in a motley of denim and khaki. The front of the column was already into the bush at the head of the valley at least three miles distant, but through his binoculars Sean counted twelve men The litter was in the center. Four of them were carrying it t I was men on the front poles and two on the back. Sean tried to pick out Claudia's form, but before he could refocus his binoculars the litter and the bearers had reached the tree fine and disappeared.
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Sean lowered his binoculars and polished the lens with his handkerchief. Pumula had come in from the other flank, and now he and Matatu crouched in the junibolme of rock and coarse bush and
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studied the lie of the land in gloomy silence. Again Sean raised the rfec glasses and studied the steep bushy sides. It was ape t site for an ambush; they could catch Sean's party in enfilade and crossfire as they tried to climb the valley.
"How many did you see?" Sean asked without lowering his binoculars. "Have they all gone to the trees at the head of the in valley?"
"I saw only a few," Pumula murmured.
"Masesh, " Matatu spat unhappily. He was referring to the lees of millet beer that, after fermentation, the Batonka fishermen use as a ground bait to lure the shoals of bream into Lake Kariba's shallows.
He spat again. "That valley is the mouth of the crocodile. They want us to put our heads into it."
Sean studied the sides of the valley, taking his time, every few minutes lowering the binoculars to rest his eyes and then lifting them again. He began at the top of the slope and swept gradually downward. when he reached the bottom, he began at the top again, going over the same ground time and again. He tried not to think of that sighting of the litter or the tiny figure he thought he had seen upon it. He concentrated entirely on his search, and ten minutes later he was rewarded.
It was a single flash of sunlight reflected from the lens of a wristwatch or the lens of a pair of field glasses' Yes Matatu, "There they are." He lowered his own glasses.
you are right. They have put out the bait, now they are waiting for US. 99 He sat down behind the boulder and tried to think it through logically, but Claudia's memory kept intruding and deflecting his reasoning. There was only one certain conclusion, and that was that it was hopeless to continue the pursuit. He looked up. Matatu and Pumula were watcl&g him with expressions of blind faith. In almost twenty years he had never seen him at a loss. They waited patiently for himtdperform the miracle yet again.
Sean found it "infuriating. He jumped up and went back down upon him. He found the hill to think without those trusting eyes a spot that was well concealed and yet had a good all-around view so that nobody could sneak up on him. He settled down with the.577 across his lap to consider his options.
The first one he crossed from his mental list was an attack on the Renamo column. Even leaving aside the puny forces he had available, he had to consider the hostages they had in their hands. Even with a company of fully armed Scouts, he would still have been unable to attack.
"SO what can I hope to achieve by following them?" he asked himself "Apart from gratifying this new and mawkish desire to be as close as possible to Claudia Monteffo."
Probably the best chance of release of the captives from Renarno clutches was not his own intervention but diplomatic negotiations through Renarno's reputed allies, the South African vernment in Pretoria However, even the South Africans would not be able to achieve anything if they were unaware an American citizen had been captured by Renamo.
"Okay." Sean made his first firm decision. 161 have to get a message back to the American embassy in Harare, immediately he realized that this took care of his other major worry. Matatu and Pumula were his re risibility. Up to n SPO aw he had been leading them into a suicidal situation. They had been more and more on his conscience the closer they drew to the Renamo column. This was the excuse he had been looking for.
"I'll send both of them back to Chiwewe with a message for Reerna." He opened the flap of his backpack and found his small leather-covered notepad. He began to compose the message.
Reema had all Riacardo,s and Claudia's personal details on the safari files, everything from their physical descriptions to their passport numbers. Riccardo was an important and influential man. Sean did not tell her he was dead, but implied in his message that both father and daughter were captives of Renamo. The U.S.
embassy could be relied on to react swiftly, and it would be in contact with Pretoria within hours of receiving the news.
Of course, since the imposition of U.S. sanctions on that country the relations between Washington and Pretoria were at a historically low ebb, and the influence Of the United States in southern Africa was no longer the overriding factor it had once been. Nonetheless, the South Africans could be relied on to intercede with Renamo on the simplest humanitarian unds.
"Okay, that takes care of Matatu gro and Pumula. " Sean signed the message, tore the Pages out of his notepad, and folded them. As an afterthought he filled another Page of instructions for Reerna covering the $500,000 that Riccudo's estate owed them. She was to Pass these on to Sean's lawyer.
At last he had to make his own decision. He could run back across the border, carrying the message himself, and within two or three days he could be drinking Castle lager in the Meikles Hotel and working out how to spend Capo's half-million bucks. That was the sensible and logical thing to do, but he had already dismissed the idea before he considered it.
"So I'll follow the column and wait for an opportunity." He grinned at the absurdity of his decision. "What opportunity?" he wondered. "A chance to shoot my way into an encampment of fifty-plus tells with the old.577, free the three prisoners, and with one mighty bound whip them a hundred miles to the border, carrying Claudia with her injured leg on my back!"
He stood up, resettled his pack between his shoulders, and crept back up to the slope where Matatu and Pumula were lying watching the escarpment. He dropped down beside Matatu.
"Anything?" he asked. Matatu shook his head. They were silent for many minutes while Sean plucked up his courage to tell the little man he was sending him back.
While he did so, he scowled through the binoculars at the spot up the long valley where he knew Renamo, had set their ambush.
Matatu seemed to sense that something unpleasant was brewing.
He kept glancing at Sean with a troubled expression, but when Sean finally turned to him, he burst into a sunny, ingratiating grin and wriggled his entire body in his eagerness to please and to stave off whatever was coming.
"I remember," he said eagerly. "I remember who he is."
Sidetracked for the moment, Sean frowned at him in Puzzlement. "Who? Who are you talking about?"
"The leader of the Renamo," Matatu told him happily. "I told you yesterday I knew his footprints. Now I remember who he is."
"Who is he, then?" Sean asked suspiciously, ready to reject the information.
"Do you remember when we jumped from the bideki to attack the training camp at the fork of the rivers?" Matatu twinkled at him and Sean nodded guardedly. "Do you remember how we killed them in the river-bed?" Matatu chuckled with the delightful memory of it. "Do you remember the one we caught while he was trying to burn the books? The one who refused to march, and you blew his ear in?" Now he giggled at that fine joke. "The blood came out of his earhole4and he squeaked like a virgin."
"Comrade China?"
"China." Matatu had a little difficulty with the pronunciation.
"Yes, that is the one."
"No!" Sean shook his head. "It isn't China. That's not possible!"
Now Matatu had to cover his mouth to muffle his delighted squeals of laughter. He loved it when he was able to confound and astound his master. There was no better joke than that.
"China!" He spluttered with mirth and stuck his forefinger in his own ear. "Pow!" he said, and it was so funny he almost choked.
"Comrade China."
Sean stared at him unseeingly while he adjusted his mind to this extraordinary intelligence. All his instincts were to reject it out of hand, but Matatu didn't make mistakes of that nature.
"Comrade China!" Sean breathed softly. "That changes the odds a little."