A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  "Malaria," said Sean, and squatted beside the child. "She's riddled with it."

  "We've got chloroquine in the medical pack." Claudia reached for it briskly.

  "This is madness!" Sean growled. "We can't lumber ourselves with this bunch. It's a nightmare!"

  "Do shut up!" Claudia snapped. "How many chloroquine do I give her? The instructions say, "For children under six years, consult a physician." Thanks a lot, we'll try two tablets."

  As they worked over the child, Claudia asked Miriam, "What are their names? What do you call the children?"

  The answer was so long and complicated that even Claudia looked daunted, but she recovered quickly. "I'll never pronounce that," she said finally. "We'll call them Mickey and Minnie."

  "Walt Disney will sue," Sean warned, but she ignored him and wrapped Minnie in her own blanket.

  "You'll have to carry her," she told Sean matter-of-factly.

  "If the little bugger pees on me, I'll wring her neck," he protested.

  "And Alphonso can carry Mickey."

  ts were thor Sean could see that Claudia's maternal inst inc additional burden that oughly aroused, and his resentment of this had been thrust upon them was tempered by seeing how the new responsibilities had changed her. Claudia had sloughed off her exhaustion and lethargy and was more vigorous and incisive than she had been since Job's death.

  Sean lifted the child's almost weightless little body onto his back and strapped it there with a strip of the blanket. The heat of the fever soaked through the blanket as though she were a hot-water bottle. However, it was a familiar experience to the child, who had been carried since infancy in this fashion, and she was immediately quiet and somnolent. "I still can't believe what's happening to me," Sean muttered. "A goddamned unpaid nursemaid at my age." But he plunged into the swamp once more.

  Before the night had h#ll run out, Miriam proved to be an asset that far outweighed the additional burden she and the two children had placed on them. She knew the river area with the intimacy of a swamp creature. She went ahead with Matatu and guided him through the labyrinth of islands and lagoons, picking out the secret pathways that saved them hours of wearisome exploration.

  A little after midnight, when Orion the great hunter stood directly overhead with his bow at full draw, Miriam led them out onto the bank of the Rio Save and pointed out the ford through which a man could wade to the far bank.

  They rested, and the women tended the children and fed them morsels of leguan meat. The chloroquine had taken effect, and the little girl was cooler and less fretful. After a hurried meal the men concealed themselves in the reed beds and stared out across the black waters in which the stars were reflected like drowning fireflies.

  "This is the most dangerous point," Sean whispered. "China was patrolling the river all day yesterday in the Hind, and he'll be back at first light. We don't dare waste time here. We have to get across and get clear before sunrise."

  "They'll be waiting on the far side," Alphonso demurred.

  "They'll be expecting us."

  "That's right," Sean agreed. "They are here, but we know they are here. We'll leave the women on this side and go across to clear the far bank. We can't use firearms, it will have to be knives and wire. It's wet work tonight." He used the old Scout term for it.

  "Sebenza enamanzi. In more ways than one, it will be wet work tonight."

  Sean's wire was a four-foot length of stainless steel, the single strand he had cut from the winch cable of the Hercules aircraft before abandoning it. Job had carved two hardwood buttons and fixed them to either end of the wire to form grips. It rolled into a coil the size of a silver dollar and slipped easily into the grenade pocket of his webbing. Now Sean fished it out and unrolled it. He tested it, settling the wooden buttons between his fingers and jerking it tight, grunting with satisfaction at the familiar tension in the single resilient strand. Then he recoiled the wire and slipped it over his left wrist like a ban e.

  The three of them stripped completely naked; wet clothing dripped water to alert an enemy or give him a hold in a hand-to hand struggle. Each of them wore his knife on a short cord around his bare neck.

  Sean went to where Claudia waited with the children in the reeds. When he kissed her, her lips were soft and warm and she clung to him briefly.

  "Have you forgiven me?" he asked. As answer UM again.

  "Come back soon," she whispered.

  The three men slid into the water soundlessly, keeping close contact, and dog-paddled quietly out from the bank, letting the current carry them well down below the ford.

  They landed in a bed of papyrus on the south bank and slid ashore on their bellies. Sean's naked white body gleamed in the starlight. He rolled in the sticky black swamp mud until it coated every inch of his skin, then scooped a double handful and rubbed it over his face.

  "Ready?" he asked quietly. He freed the trench knife in its sheath at his throat. "Let's go!"

  They moved out away from the river and circled back upstream toward the ford. The swamps were confined to the north bank, while this side of the river was drier and the forests grew almost to the river's edge. They stayed in the shadows beneath the trees for concealment. As they drew closer to the ford they moved more cautiously, spreading out, Sean in the middle and Alphonso and Matatu on the flanks.

  Sean smelled Renamo before he saw them, an odor of stale native tobacco smoke and dried sweat in unwashed clothing. He froze, listening and staring ahead with all his soul concentrated on it.

  A little ahead of him in the darkness, a man coughed softly and cleared his throat, and Sean placed him accurately. He sank down and touched the earth, sweeping a clear spot with his fingertips for his next footstep, so no twig or dry leaf would betray him. One step at a time he moved forward until he had the Renamols head silhouetted against the starry sky. He was sitting behind an RPD machine gun on its bipod, staring out across the river.

  Sean waited and the minutes drew out, five, then ten, each one a sep orate age. Then someone else yawned and stretched out on the left flank, and immediately an angry whisper cautioned him to silence.

  "Three of them." Sean memorized each position and then withdrew as quietly and cautiously as he had come in.

  On the edge of the forest Alphonso was waiting for him, and minutes later Matatu crept back to join them.

  "Three," Alphonso whispered.

  "Yes, three," Sean agreed.

  "Four," Matatu contradicted them both. "There is another one just below the bank." h4latu missed nothing, and Sean accepted his estimate without reservation.

  Only four Renamain the ambush. Sean was relieved. He had expected more, but China must be spreading his men thinly to cover every path and every ford of the river.

  "No noise," Sean warned them. "One shot and we'll have the entire army doing a war dance on our backs. Matatu, you take the one you found below the bank. Alphonso, the one in the reeds who spoke. I'll take the two in the center." He slipped the wire bangle off his left wrist and unrolled it, once more stretching and testing it between his hands to get the feel of it.

  "Wait until you hear my man blow before you strike yours." He reached out and lightly touched their shoulders, the ritual benediction, then they separated and drifted away into the night, back toward the river.

  The machine gunner was exactly where Sean had left him, but as Sean moved in behind him a few scattered clouds obscured the stars, and Sean had to wait for them to clear. Every second's delay J increased the chance of discovery, and he was tempted to work only by sense of touch, but he restrained himself. As the sky cleared he was glad he had done so. The sentry had removed his cap and was scratching the back of his head; that raised hand would have blocked the wire and prevented a clean kill. There would have been a scream, gunshots, and every Renamo within miles would have come down on him.

  He waited while the sentry relieved his itch and readjusted his cap. Then, as he dropped his hands, Sean reached forward and looped the wire noose around
his throat in one swift wrap. In the same movement he hauled back with the full strength of both his arms and shot his right knee between the man's shoulder blades.

  The wire sliced through flesh and windpipe as though they were Cheddar cheese. Sean felt the momentary check as the wire came up hard against the vertebrae of the neck, but he sawed with both hands, keeping all his weight on the wire, pushing with his knee.

  The wire found the gap between the vertebrae and snicked clearly through it. The man's head fell forward and tumbled into his lap, and the man blew. The air from his lungs rushed out through the open windpipe in a soft sigh. It was the sound he had told Matatu and Alphonso to wait for. He knew they would be taking their victims at this moment, but there was no sound until the man Sean had killed flopped forward and his carotid artery discharged onto the earth with a regular hiss like milk from the teat jetting into a bucket under a milkmaid's practiced fingers.

  The sound alerted the fourth Renamo, the only one still alive, and he called out in a puzzled tone, "What is it, Alves? What are you doing?"

  The question guided Sean to him, and he had the knife out of its sheath, holding it underhand so the point went up at an acute angle under the man's fibs. Sean pinned Win down with his left hand, holding his throat closed to prevent him screaming, working the knife with his other hand, opening the wound, twisting and turning the blade with all the strength of his right wrist.

  In thirty seconds it was over. The last tremors shook the body beneath him, and Sean released him and stood up. Matatu was already beside him, his skinning knife at the ready. The knife and his hands were wet. His own work was done and he had come to help Sean, but it was not necessary.

  They waited for a full minute, listening for any alarm; perhaps there was another sentry even Matatu might have overlooked, but apart from the croaking of the frogs in the reed beds and the whine of mosquitoes there was no sound.

  "Search them," Sean ordered. "Take whatever we can use."

  One of the rifles, all of the ammunition, half a dozen grenades, spare clothing, all the food. They gathered it up swiftly.

  "That's it," Sean said. "Dump the rest of it." They dragged the bodies down the bank and pushed them out into the current, then dropped the heavy machine gun and the rest of the discarded equipment into the deep water beyond the reeds.

  Sean glanced at his watch. "We are running out of time. We must bring the others across."

  Claudia, Miriam, and the children were still in the reed beds on the south bank where they had left them.

  "What happened? We didn't hear anything." Claudia hugged Sean's naked wet chest with relief.

  "Nothing to hear," Sean told her, and picked up the sleeping children, one on each arm.

  They formed a human stanchion across the current, locking arms together, bracing each other against the heavy pull of the water that was as deep as Claudia's chin. Without this support the women would have been swept away. Even with it the crossing was arduous, and they dragged themselves onto the south bank near exhaustion.

  Sean would not let them rest longer than the few minutes it took to dry Minnie and wrap her in a jacket they had looted from one of the dead Renarno; then he had them up again and chivvied them onward into the forest.

  "We have to get clear of the river before sunrise. China will be back as soon as it is light."

  General China picked out the group of men on the riverbank at two hundred feet. As the helicopter slanted in toward them, the downdraft of its rotors furred the surface of the Save River with a dark ruffle.

  The Portuguese pilot set the machine down at the edge of the forest on the south bank. China clambered out of the weapons cockpit and went striding down toward the river. Although his face was an expressionless mask, his anger boiled behind it and glinted in his eyes. He took the dark glasses from his breast pocket and concealed his eyes behind the lenses.

  The circle of men opened respectfully, and China stepped through and looked down at the disembodied human head that lay on the muddy bank. It had been washed up among the reeds, the freshwater crabs had nibbled at it, and the water had leached the exposed flesh white and clouded the open eyes to opaque marbles, but the clean cut that had severed the neck was as unmistakable as a handwritten signature.

  "That's the white man's work," China said softly. "His Scouts called it "wet work'; the wire was their trademark. When did it hap penT "Last night." Tippoo Tip tugged at his beard with agitation.

  There had been no survivors of the ambush party, no one of whom to make an example.

  "You let them get through," China accused coldly. "You promised me they would never cross the river."

  "These dogs!" Tippoo Tip snarled. "Those useless pigs!"

  "They are your men," China pointed out. "And men take after those who command them. Their failure is your failure, General."

  It was said in front of Tippoo Tip's own staff, and he growled with humiliation. He had made the promise and failed, and he shook with anger. He glared around at his men, loo a victim, but they dropped their eyes and their faces were abject and obsequious. There was no relief there.

  Suddenly he drew back his foot and swung a vicious kick at the severed head. The steel toecap of his boot crushed in the pulpy waterlogged nose.

  "Dog!" he shouted, and booted the head again, sending it rolling down the bank. He followed it, shouting with anger, aiming wild kicks at it, until it bounced like a football and plopped over the bank into the river.

  He came back to General China, panting with rage.

  "Very good, General." China applauded him ironically. "Very brave. What a pity you could not do the same to the white man."

  "I had every crossing of the river guarded," Tippoo Tip started, then broke off as he noticed the crudely stitched gash on China's cheek for the first time. He grinned viciously. "You have been wounded. What misfortune. It wasn't the fault of the white man, was it? Surely not. You are too cunning to let him injure you, General China-apart from your ear, of course."

  It was China's turn to bridle with fury. "If only I had my own men here. These stupid dogs of yours couldn't wipe their own backsides."

  "One of your men is a stooge"" Tippoo Tip roared back at him.

  "He's running with the white man. My men are not traitors. I have them in my hands." He showed those great paws, shaking them in China's face, and China closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath. He realized they were on the brink of an irrevocable breach. A few more words like these and he would have no further cooperation from this great bearded ape. One day he would kill him, but he needed him today.

  Today the most important thing in General China's world was getting his hands on the white man, alive if possible but dead if it had to be. Without Tippoo Tip's help, there was no chance of that.

  His anger and retribution must wait for another time and opportunity.

  "General Tippop Tip." His tone was conciliatory, almost humble. "Please forgive me. I let my disappointment run over my good sense. I know you did your best for me. We are both of us victims of our own people's incompetence. I ask you to ignore my bad manners."

  Tippoo Tip was taken off balance as China had intended, and the angry words died in his open mouth.

  "Even though these fools were unable to stop them, now at last we know exactly where they are. We have their fresh spoor and a full day in which to follow it. Let us make the most of this opportunity. Let's get this tiresome business over with. Then I, and my helicopter, will be entirely at your disposal for the more important task ahead of us."

  He saw he had picked the right words. Tippoo Tip's rage gradually gave way to t at s Y, avaricious express n so well.