A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  There was a long, suspicious silence during which Sean kept his right arm cocked back ready to throw the grenade. He had seen too many good men called out to die in a false truce.

  "Renamo!" a voice from the front reiterated. "Friends!"

  "All right!" Sean shouted back in Shangane. "Stand up, Renamo. Let us see your beautiful friendly faces."

  Somebody laughed, and a grinning black face under a tiger striped camouflage cap popped up out of the grass and ducked back immediately.

  After a few seconds, when there was no more firing, another man stood up cautiously, and then another. Sean's Shanganes came to their feet and moved forward, slowly at first and with weapons cocked, and then they were meeting on open ground, shaking hands and laughing and slapping each other's backs. They had run into the sector held by the battalion under the command of Major Takawira. He recognized Sean immediately, and they shook hands with mutual pleasure.

  "Colonel Courtney! What a relief to see you alive! We heard on the news from the BBC and Radio Zimbabwe that your aircraft had been shot down in flames with you and all your men wiped out."

  "I need your help, Major," Sean told him. "I've left twenty cases of missiles cached out there in the bush. I want you to send a detachment of a hundred men to fetch them in. One of my men will guide them to the cache."

  "I'll send my best men. I'll pick them out personally," Takawira assured him.

  "How far are we from General China's HQT" Sean asked.

  "The Frelimo helicopters have forced him to pull back. His new HQ is only six miles upstream. I have just spoken to the general on the radio, and he is most anxious to see you."

  Their progress was a triumphal march, for news of their success flashed through the Renamo lines ahead of them. Men in tiger stripes turned out to cheer them, shake their hands, and thump their backs as they passed. The porters bore the cases of missiles aloft as though they were the ark of Jehovah and they the priests of an arcane religion. They sang Renamo battle songs as they trotted along proudly under their burdens.

  General China was waiting to greet them at the entrance to his newly constructed command bunker, resplendent in crisply laundered battle dress and decorations, his maroon beret cocked jauntily over one eye.

  "I knew you would not fail me, Colonel." For the first time in their acquaintance, Sean had the feeling his smile was genuine.

  "We lost almost thirty men under Sergeant Alphonso," Sean told him brusquely. "We were forced to abandon them."

  "No! No, Colonel!" General China clasped his shoulder in an unparalleled display of goodwill. "Alphonso got out safely. He lost only three men in reaching the mission at Saint Mary's. I have just had radio contact with them. They will be in our fines by tomorrow evening at the latest. The entire operation was a brilliant success, Colonel." He dropped his hand from Sean's shoulder.

  "Now let us see what you have brought me."

  The porters laid the wooden cases at his feet. A black Caesar receiving the spoils of war, Sean thought ironically.

  "Open them!" China beamed. Sean had never expected such childlike excitement from one usually so cold and contained.

  China was actually performing an ecstatic little jig and scrubbing his hands together as he watched the junior officers on his staff Iding jimmies and bayonet blades in an attempt to prize up the wie lid of the first crate. The steel strapping frustrated their efforts.

  In the end China could no longer control himself. He pushed his officers away, snatched a jimmy bar out of the hands of one of them, and attacked the case himself. He was sweating profusely with excitement and exertion when at last the lid yielded, and there were obsequious cries of congratulation from his staff as the contents were revealed.

  The Stinger launcher was fully assembled with loaded missile tube.

  The IFF interrogator was packed separately in a transparent glassine envelope, ready to be plugged into the console head by its short coil of cable. The-additional four disposal tubes, each containing a single missile nestled in the molded white polyurethane foam packaging. After firing the missile, the empty tube would be discarded and replaced by a fresh tube containing its own sixteen pound missile.

  The laughter and cheering gradually subsided and the general staff crowded forward to examine the contents of the case, albeit with a marked reserve as though they had discovered a nest of poisonous scorpions under a rock and expected a fanged tail to whip out at them at any second.

  General China slowly went down on one knee and reverently lifted the assembled launcher out of its foam nest. His staff watched in awe as he settled the clumsy weapon on his shoulder.

  The missile tube extended behind him and the console with its antenna, looking as mundane as a plastic milk crate, almost totally obscured General China's features. He peered studiously into the aiming screen of the console and gripped the triggered pistol stock.

  He aimed the Stinger skyward, and his staff uttered small sounds of encouragement and admiration.

  "Let the Frelimo hen shaw come now," China boasted. "We will see them burn." And he began to make helicopter and machine gun noises like a small boy at play, pointing the missile at flocks of imaginary Hind gunships that circled overhead.

  "Pow! Pow!" he cried. "Vroom! Swish! Boom!"

  "Kapow!" With a straight face, Sean joined in, and the general's staff howled with delight and tried to outdo each other with the sounds of exploding and crashing helicopters.

  Somebody began to sing and they all picked up the refrain, clapping their hands to the rhythm of the Renamo, battle anthem, swaying and stamping their feet. Now there were two hundred men singing, their voices blending and rising into the beautiful melodious sound of Africa that made the goose pimples rise on Sean's forearms and the hair on the back of his neck prickle. General China stood in the midst of them with the missile on his shoulders, leading the chorus. His voice soared above the rest, amazing Sean with its range and clarity, a magnificent tenor that would not have disgraced any of the world's great opera houses.

  The song ended with a great shout of defiance, "Renamo!" and the men's dark faces were lit by a fierce patriotic ardor.

  4"In this mood, they'll be hard men to beat," Sean thought.

  General China handed the launcher to one of his men and came to shake Sean's hand. "Congratulations, Colonel." He was earnest and happy at the same time. "I think you have saved the cause. I am grateful."

  "That's fine, China. f9 Sean was ironic. "But don't just tell me how grateful, show me."

  "Of course. Forgive me." China put on a little show of repentance. "In the excitement I almost forgot. There is somebody very anxious to see you."

  Sean felt his breathing shorten and his chest constrict. "Where is she?"

  "in my bunker, Colonel." General China indicated the carefully concealed entrance to the dugout among the trees.

  Sean elbowed his way roughly through the ranks of excited soldiers. When he reached the entrance to the bunker, he could restrain himself no longer, and he went down the rough stop three at a time.

  Claudia was in the radio dugout, sitting on a bench along the far wall with her two war dresses flanking her. He spoke her name when he saw her and she came to her feet slowly, staring at him, white-faced with disbelief. The bones of her cheeks threatened to burst through the almost translucent skin, and her eyes were huge and dark as midnight.

  As he crossed to her, Sean saw the marks on her wrists, livid weals crusted with fresh scab, and his anger matched his joy. He swept her into his arms, and she was as thin and frail as a child.

  For a moment she stood quiescent in his embrace, then fiercely she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. He was surprised by her strength, and she shivered in convulsive spasms as she pressed her face into the hollow of his neck.

  They stood locked together, neither moving nor speaking for a long time, until Sean felt the wetness soaking through his shirt front.

  "Please don't cry, my darling."

  Gently h
e lifted her face between his hands and with his thumbs wiped the tears away.

  "It Is just that I'm so happy now." She smiled through the last of her tears. "Nothing else matters anymore, now that you're back."

  He took her hands and lifted them to his lips, kissing the broken, scabbed skin on her wrists.

  "They can't hurt me anymore, not now," she said. Sean turned his head and looked at the two uniformed war dresses who still sat on the bench. "Your mothers rutted with the stinking dung-eating hyena," he said softly in Shangane, and they flinched at the insult.

  "Get out! Go! Before I ri out your ovaries and feed them to the p vultures!"

  They glowered apd hung their heads until Sean dropped his hand onto the butfof his pistol. Then they moved with alacrity, jumping up from the bench and sidling to the dugout steps.

  Sean turned back to Claudia and for the first time kissed her mouth. That kiss lasted a long time, and when they drew unwillingly apart Claudia whispered, "When they took off the handcuffs and let me wash, I knew you were coming back."

  pict of the degradation and brutal Her words conjured up a ure ity she had come through, and Sean's reply was bitter.

  "The bastard. Somehow I'm going to make him suffer for what he has done to you. I swear that to you."

  "No, Scan. It doesn't matter anymore. It's over. We're together again. That's all that matters."

  They had only a few more minutes alone before General China came bustling into the radio dugout at the head of his staff, still smiling and elated. He ushered Sean and Claudia through into his private office and seemed not to notice that they both treated his affable hospitality with icy reserve. They sat close together in front of his desk, quietly holding hands, not responding to his pleasantries.

  "I have prepared quarters for you," General China told them.

  "In fact, I have evicted one of my senior commanders and given you his dugout. I hope you will find it adequate for your needs."

  "We aren't planning on a long stay, General," Sean told him. "I want to be on my way back to the border with Miss Monterro tomorrow morning at the very latest."

  "Ah, Colonel, of course I want to accommodate you. From now on, you are an honored and privileged guest. You have certainly earned your release. However, for operational reasons that happy moment must be delayed for a few days. Frelimo are moving in large concentrations of troops."

  Reluctantly Sean conceded. "Fair enough. But in the meantime we expect five-star treatment. Miss Monterro needs new clothes to replace these rags."

  "I shall have a selection of the best we have sent to your dugout from our stores. However, I cannot promise either Calvin Klein or Gucci."

  "While we are at it, we'll need a team of servants to do our laundry and cleaning and cooking."

  "I haven't forgotten your colonial origins, Colonel," China answered slyly. "One of my men was an under chef at the President Hotel in Johannesburg. He understands European tastes."

  Sean stood up. "We'll inspect our quarters now."

  "One of my junior officers will escort you," General China suggested. "If there is anything further you need, please let him know. He has my personal orders to give you whatever he can to make you comfortable. As I have said before, you are honored guests." "He gives me the creeps," Claudia whispered as the subaltern ushered them out of the dugout. "I don't know when he frighten more, when he's being charming or menacing."

  M!" It won't be for much longer." Sean put his arm around her shoulders and led her into the open air, but somehow the sunlight lacked warmth and despite his assurances to Claudia, the chill of General China's presence persisted.

  The dugout to which the subaltern led them was in the bush above the riverbank, not more than three hundred yards from the general's HQ.

  The entrance was screened with a piece of tattered camouflage net and the interior was freshly dug out of the hard red clay of the riverbank.

  "It's so new that it probably hasn't yet acquired a permanent population of bedbugs and lice and other wild game," Sean remarked.

  The clay walls were damp and cool, and there was ventilation through the spaces between the roof poles. The only furnishings were a table and two stools of mo pane poles against one wall, and opposite that a raised bedstead, also of mo pane poles, and a mattress of combed elephant grass covered with a sheet of faded canvas. There was, however, one extraordinary luxury, a mosquito net hung above the bed.

  The subaltern who was escorting them summoned the domestic staff, and the three of them lined up in front of Sean and Claudia.

  The two camp boys would take care of their laundry and cleaning under the supervision of the chef.

  The chef was an elderly Shangane with a pleasant lined face and silver-frosted hair and beard. He reminded Claudia of a black Santa Claus. They both liked him immediately.

  "My name is Joyful, sir."

  "So you speak English, Joyful?"

  "And Afrikaans and Portuguese and Shana and-"

  "Enough already." Sean held up a hand to stop him. "Can you cook?"

  "I'm the best damned cook in Mozambique."

  "Joyful and modest." Claudia laughed.

  Okay, Joyful, tonight we will have Chateaubriand," Sean tealsed him.

  Joyful looked doleful "Sorry, sir, no filet steak."

  "All right, Joyful@" Sean relented. "You just make us the best dinner you can.""

  "I'll tell you when it's ready, sir and madam."

  "Don't hurry," said Claudia. She lowered the netting across the doorway, summarily dismissing all of them.

  They stood hand in hand and studied the bed thoughtfully.

  Claudia broke the silence. "Are you thinking what I am thinking?"

  "Before or after dinner?" Sean asked.

  "Both," she replied, and led him by the hand.

  They undressed each other with aching deliberation, drawing out the pleasure of truly discovering each other's bodies. Though they were already lovers he had only had one Rating glimpse of her, and she had never well ban naked. She studied him ynth big, solemn eyes, not smilin& taking her time until he was forced to ask, "Well, do I get the Monterro seal of approval.P"

  "Oh, boy!" she breathed, still deadly sen ious and he lifted her onto the bed.

  it was darkening outside the dugout when Joyful coughed politely beyond the screen doorway. "Dinner is ready, sir and madam."

  They ate at the table of mo pane poles by the light of a paraffin lantern that Joyful had scavenged from somewhere.

  "Oh, MY God!" Claudia cried when she saw what Joyful had provided for them. "I didn't realize how hungry I was."

  It was a casserole of plump green pigeons and wild mushrooms, with side dishes of steamed yellow yams, cassava cakes, and banana fritters.

  "General China sent this for you," Joyful explained, and set cans of South African beer on the crowded table.

  "Joyful, you are a paragon." le at each They ate in dedicated silence, smiling across the tab other between mouthfuls. At last Claudia groaned softly.

  "I think I can just waddle as far as the bed, but definitely no further.

  "Suits me fine," he said, and reached across to take her hand.

  The mosquito net was a tent over them, creating an intimate and secret temple for their loving. The light from the lantern was soft and golden. It washed subtle tones and shadings across the planes of her face and the rounds and hollows of her body. The texture of her skin fascinated him. It was so fine-pored as to seem glossed like warm wax. He stroked her shoulders and arms and belly, marveling at the feel of her.