A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  "How long have you been herer"

  "Since yesterday." Matatu looked apologetic. He pointed to the sky where the Hinds were circling. "Since those machines attacked yesterday. I was watching when you jumped into the river. I followed you along the bank when you used the tree as a boat. I wanted to come to you then, but I saw crocodiles. Then in the night the bad men, the shifts, came in the boat and brought you back here. I waited and watched."

  "Did you see where they took the white woman?" Sean demanded.

  "I saw them take her away last night." Matatu showed little interest in Claudia. "But I waited for you."

  can you find out where they took her?" Sean asked.

  "Of "I course." Matatu's grin faded, and he looked indignant.

  can follow them anywhere they took her."

  note Sean unbuttoned his tunic pocket and pulled out his new book. Crouched in the bottom of the shell scrape with an air raid de ring overhead, he composed the first love letter he had thun Ming the single tiny sheet of cheap notepaper written in years. F with all the assurances and comfort and cheer he could muster, he ended it, "Be strong, it won't be for much longer and remember I love you. Whatever happens, I love you."

  He ripped the page out of the notebook and folded it carefWly.

  "Take this to her." He handed it to Matatu. "See that she gets it and then come back to me."

  Matatu tucked the scrap of paper into his loincloth and waited expectantly'INd you see the hole in which I slept last nightr" Sean asked.

  "I saw you come from there this morning." Matatu nodded.

  "That will be our meeting place," Sean told him. "Come to me there, when the shifts are asleep." Sean looked up at the sky. 11w raid had been fierce but short-lived. The sound of engines and gunfire was dwindling, but dust and smoke drifted over their shelter.

  "Go now," Sean ordered. Matatu jumped to his feet, eager to obey, but Sean took his arm. It was thin as a child's, and Sean shook it affectionately. "Don't let them catch you, old friend," he said in Swahili.

  Matatu shook his head and twinkled with amusement at the absurdity of that thought. Then, like a puff of smoke from a genic's lamp, he was gone.

  They waited a few minutes to let Matatu. get clear, then climbed out of the shelter. The trees around them were torn and shattered with shell and rocket fire; across the river an ammunition store was burning. RPG rockets, and phosphorus grenades were exploding, sending dense white smoke towering into the sky.

  General China came striding down the path to meet them. There was a sooty stain on the sleeve of his uniform and dust on Ins knees and elbows. His expression was furious.

  "Our position here is totally compromised," he fumed. "They raid us at will and we have no response."

  "You'll have to pulWour main force back out of range of the Hinds." Sean shrugged.

  6hI can't do that. 17China shook his head. "It will mean we can no longer maintain our stranglehold on the railway. It will mean conceding control of the main road system to Frelimo and inviting them to come on the offensive."

  "Well then." Sean shrugged again. "You are going to take a hammering if you remain here."

  "Get me those Stingers," China hissed. "Get them, and get them quickly!" And he strode away down the path.

  ex on the river Sean and Job followed him to the bunker com pl bank, where a company of forty guerrillas, obviously forewarned of the general's approach, were drawn up in a makeshift parade ground of beaten earth the size of a tennis court. They seemed oblivious of the air raid damage, the smoke and debris, and the scurrying first aid parties and damage control teams around them.

  Sean recognized Sergeant Alphonso and his Shanganes in the first rank. He came forward and saluted General China, then wheeled and gave the order for the detachment to stand easy.

  General China wasted few words and little time. He raised his voice and addressed them brusquely in Shangane.

  "You men are being given a special task. You win, in future, take your orders from this white officer." He indicated Sean beside him. "You will follow those orders strictly. You all know the consequences of failing to do so." He turned to Sean. "Carry on, Colonel Courtney," he said, then strode away back up the path toward the command bunker. Instinctively Sean almost saluted him. Then he checked himself.

  "Screw you, China," he muttered under his breath, and then gave his full attention to his new command.

  Of course, he already knew Sergeant Alphonso's squad well, but the additional men China had found for him were as likely looking a bunch as he had seen in the Renamo ranks. China had given of his very best. Sean moved slowly down the front rank, inspecting each of them. They were all equipped with AKM assault rifles, the more modern version of the venerable AK-47. In places the bluing was worn from the metal with long usage, but the weapons were meticulously clean and well maintained. Their webbing was in first-class order, and their uniforms, although again well worn, were neatly patched and repaired.

  "Always judge a workman by the state of his tools," Sean thought. These were top soldiers, proud and hard. As he came level with each of them he stared into his eyes and saw it there. Of all the people of Africa, Sean felt the greatest rapport with the Zuluoriginated tribes, the Angonis and Matabeles and Shanganes. Had he been given a choice, these were exactly the type of men he would have chosen for this assignment.

  Once he had finished the inspection, he went back to the front and addressed them for the first time in Shangane. "You and I together are going to burst the balls of the dung-eating Frelimo," he said quietly. In the front rank Sergeant Alphonso grinned wolfishly.

  Her hands still manacled behind her back, Claudia Monterro was marched through the darkness, over a rough track, by the two female war dresses and an escort of five troopers. Often she stumbled, and when she fell and sprawled full length, she was unable to use her hands to protect herself from the rocky surface. Soon her knees were raw and bleeding, and the march became a torturous nightmare.

  It seemed without end, hour after hour it went on and every time she fell the tall sergeant harangued her in a language she could not understand. Each time it required more of an effort to regain her feet, for she was unable to use her hands and arms to balance herself.

  She Was So thirsty her Saliva had turned to a sticky paste in her mouth. Her legs ached, and her hands and arms, held so long in such an unnatural position, were numb and cold. Sometimes she heard voices in the darkness around her and once or twice she smelled smoke and saw the glow of a camp fire or a feeble paraffin lantern, so she knew she was still within the Renamo lines.

  The march ended abruptly. She guessed they were still near the river; she could feel the "of its waters in the air and see the taller riverine trees silhouqted against the stars. She could smell humanity around her: stale lash of cooking fires and woodsmoke, human sweat in unwashed clothing, and human body wastes and the sour odors of garbage.

  At lot they led her through a barbed wire gate into another prison compound and dragged her toward one of a row of dugouts.

  The two war dresses took her arms, hustled her down a set of earthen steps, and Pushed her into the darkness so she tripped and fell once more on her injured knees. Behind her she heard a door the darkness was absolute.

  being closed and barred, and After a short struggle she regained her feet, but when she tried to stand full height, she bumped her head on the low roof It felt like a roof of undressed wooden poles still in their bark. She shuffled backward, stretching out her fingers behind her, until she touched the door. It was of hand-sawn planks, rough and sharp with splinters. She pressed her weight upon it, but it was solid and unmoving.

  Bent over to protect her head, she shuffled around her prison.

  The walls were made of damp earth. Her cell was tiny, about six feet square, and in the far corner she stumbled over the only furnishing it contained. It was metal, and she explored it with her foot and found that it was an iron bucket. The ripe stench emanating from it left no doubt of its pu
rpose. She completed the circuit of her cell and came back to the door.

  Her thirst was an agony now, and she called through the door.

  "Please, I need water." Her voice was a harsh croak and her lips felt tight and dry, ready to split. "Water!" she called. Then she remembered the Spanish word and hoped it was the same in Portuguese: "Agua!"

  It was futile. The earthen walls seemed to swallow and deaden the sound of her voice. She shuffled to the far corner and sank down to the dark floor. Only then did she realize just how physically exhausted she was, yet the manacles on her wrists prevented her from lying on her back or side. She tried to find a position in which she could rest comfortably and at last, by wedging herself upright in a corner of the cell, she succeeded.

  The cold and something else woke her, and she was confused and disoriented. For a moment she believed she was back in her father's home in Anchorage and she cried out for him.

  "Papa! Are you there?"

  Then she smelled the damp and the sewage bucket, felt the cold in her joints and her pinioned arms, and she remembered. Despair swept over her like a black wave and she felt herself drowning in it. Then she heard again the sound that had awakened her, and she went rigid and felt the cold sweat burst out on her neck and forehead.

  She knew what it was instantly. Claudia had none of the more usual feminine phobias-she had no terror of spiders or snakes, there was just one unnatural terror that afflicted her. She sat rigid and listened to the scampering sounds of a creature moving about her cell. That sound was the stuff of her nightmares, and she stared into the darkness, trying to will it away from herself.

  Then suddenly she felt it on her, the sharp little claws pricking her skin, the cold touch of paws on her flesh. It was a rat, and by the weight of it on her, it must have been huge, as big as a rabbit.

  She screamed wildly, lunged to her feet, and kicked out blindly at It. when at last she stopped screaming, she shrank into the corner and found she was trembling in wild spasms.

  "Stop it!" she told herself. "Pull yourself together!" And by an enormous effort of will she regained control. There was complete silence in the darkness. Her screams had frightened the creature away for the time being, but she still could not bring herself to sit on the dirt floor again, for she was terrified it would return.

  Despite her exhaustion she stood propped in the corner and waited out the rest of the night. She dozed, almost fell asleep on her feet, then jerked awake again. That sequence happened many times, and then, as she came awake for the last time, she realized that the darkness was no longer total and she could see.

  Light was filtering into the cell, and she blinked and found the source of it. There were slits and gaps between the poles of the low roof. These had been daubed with clay and grass, but in one or two places the dried clay had fallen out of the cracks, allowing chinb of light through. Stems of coarse elephant grass hung down untidily from the cracks.

  Fearfully she looked around the cell, but the rat had th pea red it must have squeezed through one of the gaps between the poles.

  Claudia stumbled across to the reeking galvanized sewage bucket, and only as she stood over it she did realize her predicament. Her hands were locked behind her back, and with that realization her need became irresistible.

  Her fingers were almost devoid of feeling, but in desperate haste she was able to grip her leather belt and gradually work it through the loops of her trousers until the buckle was at the small of her back. Whimpering with the effort of self-control needed to delay her bodily functions, she clumsily unclasped the belt.

  She had lost so much weight that as soon as her belt was 1008ened her trousers fell avQ;und her ankles and she was able to hook a thumb under the eWtic of her panties and drag them down as far as her knees.

  Always fastidious, Claudia experienced the worst hardship of her captivity when her efforts to cleanse herself properly failed. She found herself sobbing with humiliation as she finally managed to dress again. Her wrists were rubbed raw and her arms ached from the strenuous efforts needed to perform this simple task. She huddled in the corner of her cell and the stench of the bucket seemed to permeate the very depth of her soul.

  A single ray of sunlight shot through a chink in the roof Poles and pinned a brilliant silver coin on the far wall. She watched it Tom move infinitely slowly down the earthen wall, and somehow it seemed to warm and cheer her enough to dull the cutting edge of her despair.

  Before the coin of light reached the floor of the cell, she heard a scraping at the door as the bars were drawn and the door was forced open on its primitive hinges. The tall sergeant stooped into the cell and Claudia scrambled to her feet.

  "Please," she whispered. "You must let me wash," she said in her schoolgirl Spanish, but the wardress showed no sign of having understood. In one hand she carried a metal billy can of water and in the other a bowl of stiff maize cake. She placed the billy can on the floor, then tipped the lump of maize cake into the dirt beside it.

  Claudia's thirst, which she had managed temporarily to subdue, returned with even greater agony, and she almost whimpered at the sight of the billy. It contained almost two liters of clear water.

  She sank down on her knees before it like a worshiper and looked up at the wardress.

  k "Please," she said in Spanish. "I must use my hands, please."

  The wardress chuckled, the first animation she had shown, and she nudged the billy dangerously with the toe of her boot; a little water slopped over the rim.

  "No," Claudia croaked. "Don't spill it."

  On her knees she bent over and tried to reach the water with her tongue. She thrust it out as far as it would reach and felt the blessed wetness on the very tip, but the rim of the metal billy was cutting into her face.

  She looked up again. "Please help me."

  The wardress laughed again and leaned against the wall, watching Claudia's efforts with amusement.

  Claudia stooped again and gripped the rim of the billy between her teeth. Carefully she tilted it, and a few drops trickled between her lips. The pleasure was so intense that her vision clouded. She drank a sip at a time until the level in the billy had fallen to where the liquid could no longer flow into her mouth. However, the vessel was still more than half full and her thirst seemed only to have been aggravated by what she had managed to drink.

  Still holding the rim between her teeth, she carefully raised her head and tilted it backward. It was too quick. She choked as the water flooded into her mouth, and the billy slipped from between her teeth and water splashed down her chest and puddled on the floor, to be quickly absorbed into the dirt.

  The wardress let out a shrill shriek of laughter, and Claudia felt tears of despair fill her eyes. She only just managed to smother the sob that came up her throat.

  The wardress deliberately stepped onto the white maize cake, smearing it into the dirt. Then, with another snort of laughter, she snatched up the empty billy and left the cell. Claudia heard her still giggling as she re barred the door of the cell.

  She could judge the passage of time by the angle of the sunlight through the chinks in the roof. The first day seemed interminable.

  Despite the discomfort of the manacles, she was able to sleep fitfully, but while she was awake she occupied herself by plan to increase her chances of survival.

  Water was her most pressing need. The little she had drunk might just see her through this day, but she knew she was already suffering from dehydration.

  "I have to find some method of drinking from that billy," she told herself, and spent most of that afternoon wrestling with the problem. When the solution came to her, she lurched to her feet so hastily she bumped the back of her head on the log roof. She ignored the hurt and examined the untidy tufts of elephant grass that hung down from between the chinks of the roof. She selected one of the grass stems and took it carefully between her teeth, worried it loose, and let it drop to the floor. She knelt over it and, by straining backward, managed to get a hand
to it. Fortunately it was dry and brittle and snapped readily between her fingers. She broke it into four equal lengths each about nine inches long and, once again by backward contortions, planted them upright in the loose earth of the floor. She turned round, knelt, and picked up the first of them between her lips. She tried to blow through it, but it was blocked with pith and dirt. She discarded it and went on to the next.