We began to swing round more slowly and the white caps were missing. My trunk thumped into another log and then into a second one. I thought I could see other timber swirling about and reckoned we must have struck an eddy and consequently could be close to the bank. I didn't do anything to guide the log but let it pick up its own momentum again. I considered that the direction from which came the least thrust of current would be the shore. When I thought I had established this I paddled and thrashed but it was a poor effort as I was so cold and stiff. I knew that should I be swept out again into mid-stream I wouldn't be able to hang on much longer. I fought the water and pushed at the log and then felt thorns across my face. I ducked to keep my eyes clear and at the same time reached up and found a firm branch. It was rough and solid and I realized I was ashore. But I was too weak to pull myself out of the water and hung at full stretch with a sensation of nausea in my stomach and pains in my chest. I rested, then began to vomit sour water. My feet were still hanging into the water; but when I felt strong enough I pulled myself hand over hand along the branch and at last my feet touched ground. I could no longer feel my toes and lower legs and my hands were being torn on the thorny branch. But I went on until I banged into the trunk of the tree itself, standing firm and upright in the water. I pushed on until I was quite clear of the river and fell down among some wet grass and bushes.
I lay there until the ache in my chest and arms subsided then sat up to take off my boots and get the blood flowing again in my feet. This wasn't easy: the leather seemed to have shrunk and the laces were impossible. As I sat fumbling with them the rain became colder and changed to a flurry of graupel or soft hail pellets. I crammed a handful of it into my mouth and the sweet taste washed away the sourness which had stuck like a wad at the back of my throat. I managed to get the boots off at last, emptying them of water; but as my exposed feet now felt even colder I put them on again. The sound of water was everywhere. I tried to make out where it wasn't coming from, arguing that in that direction would would be solid land; but I couldn't manage to pinpoint it. I explored, and found water near by, on every side: my island was about the size of two tennis courts. I found my way back to my original starting point, which I recognized from a scatter of the same tussocky grass I had encountered when first I'd cut the fence surrounding The Hill. When I lay down in the grass my imagination began to play tricks, and I fancied it was Nadine's drowned hair that I held between my fingers. The cold and fatigue made me lose control and I buried my face in the wet grass and wept, finally passing into a nightmare between waking and sleeping.
It rained all night.
I lost all count of time and must have really slept because I remember jerking awake at the roaring. It was the flood and it seemed much nearer to me in the dark than it had been when I first landed. I thought the water lapping at me was rain, but when I crawled a little way away from the tussocky patch I found it was the river and that very soon my refuge would be under water.
I stood up and knew daylight was near because there was a grey smudge in one part 'of the sky. The wind was down and the downpour had changed to a drizzle. I decided to stay in my safe place amongst the grass and wait for the day. I stood there while the sky changed to a pale shade between brick and rose and the water level reached my ankles and then my shins. There was the extra cold which always comes with the dawn. When it was light enough I faced east and could make out in the distance a kind of flattening-out of the low hills on the northern bank which I guessed must ,be Rhodesia. Between me and the visible shore line was an apparently endless expanse of bucking dirty water. It was too dark to see the other side. I guessed from the geography that I was about six or seven miles down-river from The Hill.
There was no sign of the boat.
I realized I would have to vacate my perch and decided to select the best log that came floating past. When the water was nearly up to my knees I got a big one. It was only after I'd grabbed it that I was struck by the significance of the direction in which it was travelling. I was facing east, downriver, in the same direction as a flood might be expected to flow. But the way the log came was from the east - in other words, it was travelling west, upriver. I hadn't time to speculate because the water was about to sweep me off my feet. I was dead tired and frozen and dreaded another log journey because I didn't think I could hang on. The growing light showed nothing but that faraway shoreline.
The sun showed rosier through the hazy rain and the great lake looked soft in its light. I propped myself up by the armpits on a fork of my log and pushed off When the current took strong hold and swung me away from the east I knew my previous hunch had been right. I was being carried west on the current. I could scarcely credit it at first but when my direction stayed I knew that it was so. I lost sight of the shore and after a while the waves began to steepen and slap. The rain let up a little but the air was still so full of moisture it was soggy as a wet towel. The glow in the east became more brick-red and visibility lengthened. I tried to counteract the physical effects of the cold by concentrating my mind on the puzzle of the current. I was losing feeling in the entire lower half of my body and the skin on my hands was taking on a puckered look from the water. Then I sighted and positively identified a hilltop which I knew was a few miles down-river from The Hill itself, and the solution came to me. I wasn't suffering from hallucinations. I was being carried in the opposite direction to the normal run of the current – back towards The Hill. The answer was that I was caught up in a situation similar to that of two rivers I'd heard about in the adjacent territory of Botswana, where, in its northern part, there is an odd geographical feature known as the Selinda Spillway. Two great rivers, the Zambezi and the Chobe, converge at this point as do the Limpopo and Shashi at The Hill. The gradient of the Chobe's bed is shallow and that of the Zambezi's steep. Under heavy flooding the Chobe reverses its course when the bigger Zambezi takes over and forces its water up the shallow-sloping Chobe bed and as a result great areas of the countryside are swamped. In my case the Limpopo, in full flood, was taking me back towards the Shashi channel and consequently The Hill.
The solution gave me a momentary shot in the arm but it was short-lived. The pale sun filtering through the fine rain had no warmth in it. I became frightened of losing my grip, so I struggled out of the poncho and tied myself to the trunk with it. Soon I was glad I had done so because the waves became sharper and started splashing into my face. Because of this I kept my eyes closed for long periods while trying to fight off my growing lassitude and sleepiness. As a result I was almost swept past the boat without seeing it. I thought I was dreaming when I saw it riding near an island behind a little enclosure of debris which had banked up against a reef. I shouted but my voice was so weak that I knew that even if she were still alive she wouldn't hear me above the sound of the rushing water. The deck was deserted.
As I came closer I saw, from the way the other timber was being carried, that I should miss the island. I thought of swimming but knew I couldn't make it. I slipped free of the poncho and, pushing the tree-trunk end-on, thrashed and paddled until a blue haze came across my vision from the effort. I didn't see the whole tree floating on the current before it had crashed into me. The bump sent my log off into a kind of cannon towards the boat. At the end of its impetus and before the river caught it again I let go and splashed a few strokes to the debris piled over the reef. I went from log to log until I reached the boat and then fell into the water just short of it, but I managed to get a hand over the gunnel and started to knock feebly at the hull.
I knew no more until I found myself lying, stripped, on a blanket on the cabin floor with Nadine bending over me, massaging my chest and throat with warm oil.
'I came back,' I said.
She didn't stop rubbing but switched her fingers lightly to my mouth and face.
'My darling - my poor, poor, stupid darling!,
Her eyes were misty and I knew the drops on my chest were tears: they were warmer than the oil.
I reached up to kiss her but everything span round and the effort brought on an uncontrollable convulsive tremor in my frozen muscles.
Tie quiet,' she murmured. 'Quiet, with me. Not alone. Not like all last night. That long, long night.'
She took off her clothes and put her warm breasts against my chest and her body over me and her lips against mine as if she were reviving a drowning person until the rigors died down. I thawed and her warmth drew the sweet smell of oil from our skins. Then all at once I wanted to cry and stay like that forever And I tried to tell her so but it was she who did the comforting, with those warm breasts of hers bringing the life back into me.
A bump on the hull brought us back to the reality of the flood danger.
'We must get out of here fast,' I said. 'Your island's being submerged, as mine was. All the stuff is starting to break away from the reef and soon this little cove will disappear. Then we'll be at the mercy of the current. I don't like the look of the waves either – they seem to be getting steeper. My guess is too that they'll get worse when we approach The Hill .. The Hill?'
'You'll understand when I tell you how I got here . . She sat up and her slim body looked very lovely in the pinky sunrise showing through the porthole.
'Not a word before you have something hot inside you.'
'I'll disobey orders, however attractive they may be,' I grinned back. 'We're not out of the wood yet and when the current switches back to normal we'll never stand a chance of getting near The Hill.'
Briefly I explained the phenomenon of the back-flowing current while we dressed and I ate a hasty breakfast, which included good hot coffee made by Nadine.
'Bless the crazy current,' she said when I had finished. 'Bless it because it brought you back to me.'
'That current is also our golden opportunity. We can ride with it right to The Hill. Then if we are lucky we can finish exploring the isifuba board where we left off. The whole situation's playing clean into our hands.'
Her eyes were full of lovely things. 'I've still got the "King's Messenger" safe.'
'Splendid. And don't forget about Praeger. If he's marooned in Rankin's cave we can investigate safely and get away before he can do anything about it. On the other hand, if we don't take a chance we could wait days or weeks until the water goes down and then Praeger will be back in the game. Have you seen the lake that has formed?'
We went on deck. The rain had almost stopped and it was quite still. The redness had gone out of the east and visibility was a mile or more. We were alone in a sea of muddy water. I started the engine because the island was becoming more and more submerged; soon, too, the barrier of debris which had built up on the reef would disappear entirely on the rising water.
'There'll soon be enough depth over the reef to break out,' I said. 'What happened last night when she jumped over it?'
'There were several heavy bumps, then she rode free. I didn't pay much attention: I'd lost you and the rest didn't matter.'
In the stronger light the evidence of her ordeal showed plainly on her face and eyes. After waiting a while we decided to risk the attempt to get clear. There wasn't much room for manoeuvre and I was afraid of damage to the screw if it caught in the reef, but I took it gently and she pulled nicely into the current. I brought her head round and we headed in the direction of The Hill.
Our hearts lifted with the morning and the thrust of screw and current combined to send the boat along at a spanking clip. She was light and rode easily though I had to watch carefully the water racing up from astern, to prevent her being pooped. There was no damage to the hull that I could discover. The sky lightened for a while behind the fine drizzle and we could make out the broken country on the approaches to The Hill. It was impossible to gauge the extent of the great shallow lake but it was grand and impressive and dotted with little islands; and in the shallower parts the tops of large trees still stuck out above the waves.
When we neared our objective we spotted a long headland jutting out with the current sweeping round its base. I recognized it immediately.
'K2!' I exclaimed. 'I'm damned if I thought I'd ever see it looking like that!'
'The water can't be very deep, Guy.'
'Twenty feet, maybe - what does it matter? It's enough to keep von Praeger bottled up.'
'If he's at the cave.'
'If he's not, I could almost feel sorry for him. Something came floating belly-up past me in the night. It could have been him, or Koen, or a dead croc.'
'Or Dika.
I pulled her close. 'I couldn't bear it. I kept telling myself it wasn't you. But I couldn't be sure. Each hour after that was its own private hell.'
'I tried to draw your face with the "King's Messenger" but I couldn't remember how you looked. I couldn't remember! I went round touching all your things to try and bring you back. Are you warm now, darling?'
'Splendid. A little stiff.'
I pointed. 'There it is. The Hill.'
'The Hill - and our future.'
We were coming in fast from the east, a quarter from which we couldn't spot the crevasse. The Hill looked gaunt and muddy but apparently the same, standing up out of the surrounding water which wasn't much higher than the foot of the secret stairway.
'This will be tricky,' I said. The current's wrong for us on this side of The Hill. It must be pretty rough too where the terrace used to be.'
The Hill was perhaps a mile and a half away by this time and the drizzle seemed to be more concentrated in its vicinity.
'There's certain to be a lee with slack water near the crevasse where we came down, Nadine.'
'We can probably walk up comfortably.
'Then we'll try there for a start.'
The surroundings looked odd, being partially submerged; and where the wadi began the current split, one half sweeping through between K2 and The Hill and the other round the extremity of The Hill itself. The waves there looked dangerous against the rocks and I couldn't prevent the boat from being carried close in but we skidded past successfully and managed a sharp turn around this point which took us into calmer water. I kept the boat close in against the cliffs and the engine's noise echoed off them. We came in sight of the fatal wedge-shaped crevasse only when we rounded another small point and were almost upon it. The underlying rock had been swept virtually free of soil by the storm and an easy gradient ran from the water's edge to the tabletop.
We were heading towards a landing spit here when an aircraft engine started up.
Our eyes naturally went to the sky and so I lost valuable moments holding my course – and by the time I'd jammed the rudder hard over to make a break for open water it was too late.
A prop rider – a twin-hulled, shallow draught boat driven by an airscrew rigged on deck–shot into sight from behind The Hill and came creaming across the water straight at us.
'Oh God! It's Praeger!'
Nadine was right. He was wearing bright yellow oilskins and a sou'wester. He stood steering the craft from a forward cockpit and the propeller spun in a kind of enclosed wire cage astern. Too late I realized that this is what I'd seen on the river; not an aircraft propeller turning in the wind.
I yanked the throttle wide open and tried to reach broken water where the light-hulled skimmer would have to reduce speed in the waves but von Praeger anticipated my move and swept in a wide circle, effectively cutting off the escape.
'Duck, Nadine!'
I pushed her down before he fired: I only heard the report of the shot and didn't see where it went.
'Guy, Guy! He'll go for you, not me . . . !'
'He'll be a marvel if he can shoot straight from a bucking boat!'
I gave the boat full helm towards another escape route - the one we'd used to approach The Hill from the east ―but the current was against us and cut the boat's speed and a bullet thumped into the hull somewhere for'ard.
We were caught like rats in a trap, but the trap had one opening left: the crevasse. I swung and headed for it and hoped it woul
d not prove impossible. Praeger followed and as we found the entrance another shot ricocheted off the rocks flanking it. Once I felt the strength of the current sweeping through I knew we had lost. The boat slowed and Praeger guessed he had us because he didn't shoot again but came up stream gunning the airscrew in short bursts, the Mauser held ready until he should catch up with us.
Both boats were hanging against the current and in the confined space the racket from the engines was deafening. As a last resort I was about to cut my motor and let the boat crash stern-first into von Praeger's in the hope of damaging his craft's fragile hull, when he pulled out his automatic and held it on me. It was the look in his eyes which made me obey his gesture to kill my engine and make fast to the shore. They seemed sightless, as I imagined an executioner's eyes would look.
I jumped ashore and tied up the boat. Praeger then brought the prop-rider close astern and signalled me to secure it to us because the crevasse was too narrow for two boats alongside each other and the current race was very strong.
Dika was next to him in the cockpit and after he cut his engine we four stood and faced one another until the prop stopped spinning and it was possible to hear again. His voice was harsher and higher pitched than before.
'I'm coming aboard! Dika!'
While he held the pistol on us the hyena jumped lumpishly on to our decked-in stern and stood there snarling. Praeger followed.
'Where is the hyena's blanket?'
His eyes were blank and remote and terrifying. He then glanced involuntarily down at his hands the way he had done before he had tortured Rankin and I knew that he meant to kill me.
'You haven't got long, Bowker. I knew you'd come back to The Hill, that's why I waited.
'See here, Praeger . .
'When you're out of the way I'll make the girl tell. Take your choice.'
I knew he wasn't bluffing. Nadine held on to me. '
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