by Tony Park
He remembered radioing a distress call from the Harvard when he’d realised the awful truth, that the engine was cooking, and that it wasn’t just a faulty temperature gauge. How had it happened?
He’d been flying low – stupidly, he now realised. He’d caught sight of movement in the bush below and dropped from ten thousand feet to two thousand to watch a herd of zebra running across an open vlei. Idiot, he said to himself. How often had he reminded the instructors to ram home to their student pilots the foolishness of low flying for fun?
He had been too low to turn back to the grassy flood plain, or to glide to the north-south road, which would have made a good emergency landing field. He’d glimpsed the twin strips of Tarmac as he called for help, so he knew he wasn’t far from the main route between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls.
He’d had to make the decision in an instant. His heart pounded now, as he hung from the branches of a mopani tree and remembered it. Ahead of him and past each wingtip were acres and acres of bush. There was nowhere for him to make a forced landing with a dead engine. There’d been an eerie silence after the engine finally died, the incongruous sight of the still propeller, the rush of wind on his face as he’d slid open the cockpit. At fifteen hundred feet he’d climbed out and jumped. He saw again, in his mind’s eye, the Harvard gliding, pilot-less, into the bush below. He’d not even had time to tighten the parachute straps, and the ache in his armpits and crutch was from the violent tug of the harness as the white silk canopy blossomed above him. The ride to earth – well, almost to earth – had taken no more than forty seconds. Not enough time to look for landmarks, barely enough to get himself into a landing position. He’d crashed through the dry canopy of the trees and prayed he would make it to the dusty ground below. No such luck.
He looked down. About twenty feet, he reckoned. ‘Shit,’ he said aloud.
Bryant checked himself out. Apart from the bruising from the opening shock of the parachute, his hands and arms had been shredded by bark and branches. His right shirt sleeve was ripped and blood stained the khaki material. He made a fist and flexed his arm muscles. No serious damage. He ran his fingertips over his cheek and forehead and felt wetness. There was fresh blood and he winced as he touched the cut by his left eye again. Lucky not to lose half his sight, he thought. He felt groggy as well as nauseated, and wondered if he had suffered a concussion. His head throbbed with a dull ache, as it did when he was hungover. His tongue felt swollen and sore and he realised he must have bitten it during his landing. His left trouser leg was torn and the skin felt badly scratched.
The tree creaked and he looked up. The branch his parachute canopy had snagged on was bent at an alarming angle. The drying winter sun had turned the once green leaves of the mopani, and those all around him, the colour of dull copper.
Birds chattered around him and, in the distance, he heard the mournful whoop of a spotted hyena. He felt for the pistol at his belt and was reassured when he touched the handgrip. Behind and to the right of him, he heard a rustling of leaves. He looked over his shoulder and flinched.
The leopard lay on a thick branch of a neighbouring tree, one front paw tucked under its chin, the other dangling lazily on the other side of the bough. It fixed him with cold yellow eyes and slowly raised itself until it was crouching on all fours. Its curled, white-tipped tail flicked once.
Bryant looked away from the cat again and fought to steady his breathing. It was no more than fifteen feet from him, and he presumed the predator could cover the distance in a single bound. He slowly took another look at the branch he was suspended from. It was narrow and protested again at his weight. The sharp movement of his head before, when he saw the leopard, had caused his body to swing a little. There was nowhere within easy reach of him for the animal to land safely, and still be able to get to him.
He knew next to nothing about wildlife, but vaguely recalled Catherine telling him that lions hunted by sight and sound, rather than smell, and that they were more likely to be attracted to prey that was moving. Hence, people on safari in the bush were always told to stay still if they came across a lion. To run was to encourage the beast to give chase. He wondered if the same principle held true for leopards. He risked another slow glance over his shoulder. Ordinarily he would have been impressed by the beauty of the beast, the bunched neck muscles, the snow-white fur beneath its chin and chest, the black rosettes encircling the golden fur on its flanks, the pink triangular nose. Now he was just plain terrified.
‘Nice kitty,’ he whispered. The leopard emitted a rasping noise, like a sharp saw cutting through wood. ‘Fuck,’ he said.
The cat started to move, backing its way down the branch to the main trunk of the tree.
Bryant slowly moved his hand to the canvas holster at his waist, unbuttoned the flap and drew out the heavy Webley revolver. In the distance he heard a sound the same as the one the leopard had just made, the sawing cough. Two of them, he thought. Great.
The leopard ran down the trunk of the tamboti tree it had been resting in, rushing headlong towards the ground, then landed silently at the bottom, its four paws raising tiny clouds of dust. It looked up at Bryant, then lowered itself so that its belly was nearly touching the dirt. It started to move and Bryant lost sight of it.
He hoped the animal was leaving and that his movements had scared it out of the tree and sent it on its way. He looked down between his legs and saw he was wrong. It slunk along the ground to the base of the tree he was hanging from. He drew back the hammer of the pistol with his right thumb and raised his arm to a firing position.
The leopard craned its neck and then stopped at the metallic click. It looked up at the dangling human and, in a blur of black, white and yellow, was in the tree before Bryant could let loose a shot. It surged up the trunk, paw over paw, scaling the vertical surface effortlessly, but on the opposite side to the human.
Bryant swung wildly in his harness, to try to take aim, but all he saw was a flash of dappled fur. He fired anyway, the crash of the bullet sending a flock of birds squawking noisily out of the upper branches. His movement brought a cracking sound from the branch above him. He looked up and saw it give, too late to brace for the fall.
Leaves, twigs and bark rained down on him as he hit the dirt and landed painfully on his right side. He tried to sit up, but found the air had been knocked from his lungs. His chest protested as he tried to suck in air and stand. He fell to the ground and rolled over onto his back. He looked up at the tree and saw the leopard staring down at him, the annoyance plain on its face. He raised his arm again and fired another shot. The cat, uninjured, leaped to another branch and then eyed him from around the thick trunk. He fired again and then, still gasping for air, managed to stand.
Bugger standing still, he thought. He undid his parachute harness, shrugged it off and started to run. His ankle hurt and the ribs on his right side felt like they’d been kicked by a horse. Every breath caused so much pain that he thought he might pass out from it. Still he ran, stumbling blindly through the descending gloom.
The leopard called again, and was answered with more sawing.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Bryant gasped as he glimpsed a fleeting shadow off to his left. He looked over his shoulder and saw the first cat bounding down out of the tree. It was coming after him. He half turned and fired the pistol again, but the leopard was running now, all four paws off the ground with each graceful bound. Not watching where he was running, he missed a tree root and stumbled. He fell hard again and cried with pain as his cracked ribs connected with the earth once more. His right arm shot forward as he fell. His palm hit a half-buried rock and the pistol flew from his hand.
The leopard saw its chance and leaped. Bryant rolled hard to the right and yelled in pain as he felt the claws dig into his back. It was on him now. It stank of feline urine and rotting meat and he felt its hot breath.
The dappled cat straddled him and tried to find the neck, where it could bite down and silently choke its victim. As strong
and deadly as it was, the solitary leopard would be unable to fight off a pack of hyenas or a pride of lion if the dying noise of its prey alerted other nearby predators to its plight. Even if its mate arrived after answering its call, the pair of cats would be hard-pressed to defend the kill.
Bryant groped blindly in the dirt. He felt the incredible force and weight of another round paw pinning his left arm. His fingers touched the wooden grip of the pistol. He grasped it and half rolled, this time towards the leopard, until they were facing each other, their eyes barely a foot apart.
The leopard lowered its sleek head and opened its jaws wide, revealing yellowed fangs as long as Bryant’s little finger. He thrust the barrel up into the cat’s ribs and its eyes suddenly widened in pain and surprise. He pulled the trigger.
The fur, skin and internal organs muffled the sound of the gunshot, but Bryant felt the terrible weight rise off him for a fraction of a second as the force of the bullet lifted the animal. The leopard growled in pain and writhed above him, its claws lashing at him as it tried to escape the burning in its guts. Blood frothed from its mouth and hot red spittle stung Bryant’s face. He pushed his free hand up and into the leopard’s chest and heaved it away from him. Finally free of the flailing paws he rolled out of its reach and turned. The leopard lunged back towards him, but its steps were less sure than before and each movement caused bright blood to spurt from the entry and exit wounds in its body. It was still a deadly creature, though, and as its forepaws were almost in swiping range of him once again, Bryant lay on his back, held out his firing hand and fired again. The bullet smashed up through the cat’s mouth and out the top of its brain. Bryant sagged, his whole body exhausted and protesting with pain, as the animal gushed its last bloody breath beside him.
Bryant’s left arm was dripping blood and his back felt wet and ripped from another gash. He sat up and stared at the dead cat. He shook his head. The shock and terror of the last few moments were too much for his pain-racked body to bear. He turned his head to one side and vomited a mouthful of bitter bile. He snapped his head around again, though, when he heard a twig snap.
There, across a small clearing, at the base of a tree, was the second leopard. It looked at him, and then at its dead mate. It sniffed the air and then lowered its body, the same way as the first cat had before pouncing.
Bryant raised his gun hand again, the pistol feeling like a hundred pounds of lead. The foresight wavered as he tried to take aim. He pulled the trigger and the hammer clicked down into an empty chamber. He tried four more times, but the weapon was empty. The leopard readied itself to pounce and Bryant, the fight gone from his body with nearly the last of his strength, drew back his arm and hurled the useless gun at the cat.
The second leopard, a comparatively small female, lacked the confidence of its dead mate and gave a short, sharp yelp as the thing hit its snout. It turned and fled into the darkened bush.
Bryant started to shiver. He drew himself painfully to his feet and stood in the clearing, looking at the dead predator. After a few moments he hobbled to where his pistol had bounced off the other animal, and picked it up.
He tried to think. It would be madness to attempt to find the main road in the dark and he was disorientated now the sun had set. He had no compass on him, but the morning light would be all he needed to guide him. He knew the best thing he could do now was to get a fire going, in order to discourage other predators, and wait for the dawn, when the smoke would hopefully act as a signal to searching aircraft.
There was wood and kindling all around him, and he suddenly remembered the newspaper clipping stuffed in the pocket of his uniform trousers. It would help get the fire started. He tore the double page of newsprint in half and wadded one section into a ball. He’d wanted to read about the fate of Catherine’s husband, but he wanted to survive this night in the African bush even more. He gathered a pile of dried twigs and yellowed grass over the paper and pulled his cigarettes and lighter from his pocket.
First things first, he said to himself, lighting a cigarette and drawing deeply. He felt the welcome buzz of nicotine on an empty stomach. The tremor in his hand slowed enough for him to hold the remaining section of newsprint. By the light of the small flame he started to read as he crouched and then held the lighter to the balled paper.
He winced from the gouges in his back and arm and wished he had water to clean the wounds. God knew what bacteria lived on the claws of a leopard. The newspaper article was detailed and he kept the lighter lit in order to read. It had been written some days after the shooting accident, it seemed, and went into detail about the ill-fated buffalo hunt.
The hunter who fired the fatal shot was yesterday identified as Mr Hendrick Du Pleiss, of Vryburg, South Africa, Bryant read. The story recapped the details, which Catherine had once told him, of how the party had gone searching in a thicket for a wounded buffalo. When the wounded animal had charged them, the South African had dropped his rifle and it had accidentally discharged.
He read on. Mrs Catherine De Beers, an eyewitness to the tragic accident, was also interviewed by police at length. She corroborated Mr Du Pleiss’s account of the incident. Visibly distressed on leaving the police station, she declined a request by this newspaper to recount her version of events.
Not surprising, Bryant thought. He disliked newsmen, considering them little more than leeches who fed on people’s misery and swallowed any old guff they were dished out about the war, no matter how inaccurate. According to the English press, Bomber Command had all but pulverised Nazi Germany. Funny, then, how the Germans were still able to field swarms of night-fighters and keep the Ruhr ringed with deadly flak batteries.
He touched the lighter’s flame to the wadded second page. He knew how the story ended, but he continued reading. Mr Du Pleiss could not be contacted by the Chronicle. Police said he had been released and would be returning to South Africa at the first opportunity and . . .
The paragraph was broken in midsentence at the bottom of the page. Bryant looked down at the growing fire and saw the rest of the article slowly uncurling as the flames took hold. There was a portrait photograph of a man.
He crouched close to the fire, its growing heat warming his face. He took a closer look at the picture. He reached out and snatched the paper, burning his thumb and forefinger in the process, then dropped the sheet on the ground and stamped out the flames.
Suddenly the pain in his fingers, and from the multiple wounds he had suffered in the parachute landing and the fight with the leopard, were the last things on his mind.
16
The settlement of Gwaai River, if it could be called that, was about as far away from England as a place could be, but that’s what Constable Roger Pembroke was thinking about when the door to the police hut creaked open.
Gwaai River, halfway between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, consisted of a hotel called, not surprisingly, the Halfway House, a few outlying cattle farms, a forestry officer and a policeman.
Roger looked up. ‘What is it?’ he asked the elderly African man who stood before him, dressed in tattered trousers and a threadbare white shirt.
‘I saw an aeroplane, boss,’ the older man said.
‘Plenty of them about these days.’
The African ignored the implied insult. He had seen the murungu policeman about, passing through his village. He thought the man was too young to be taken seriously, but he knew no other white man to whom he could report what he had seen. ‘It fell from the sky, boss.’
Roger sat up straight. ‘The crash? You saw the plane come down yesterday?’ He’d received a telephone call from Pip Lovejoy in Bulawayo the afternoon before, alerting him to the Harvard’s last known position, and advising him that its pilot was wanted for murder. Roger had saddled his horse and ridden ten miles up and down the main road in the hope of spotting smoke, but had seen nothing. Pip, who had a rather attractive-sounding telephone voice, had told him the air force would be conducting a full-scale search the next da
y. Today. He’d heard aero engines sporadically during the morning, and these had fuelled his daydreams about becoming an ace RAF fighter pilot.
‘Yes, boss. I saw it fall. And a man.’
‘A man?’ Roger opened his police notebook. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Last. Last Mpofu, boss.’
‘All right, Last. Tell me again. You saw a man.’
‘He flew, boss. Slowly to the earth.’
‘Ah!’ Roger drew a crude sketch of a stick-figure man under a parachute and held up his notebook. ‘Is this what you saw, Last?’
The older man looked at the picture. ‘Yes. A parachute.’
Roger frowned. ‘Did you go to him?’
‘It was dark. There are lion and leopard in the bush, boss.’
‘The crash happened early yesterday afternoon. You took your time reporting this.’
‘It was a long walk.’
‘I see. Well, you did the right thing coming here. Do you remember where it was that you saw the man land?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘And the aeroplane. You said you saw it crash?’
‘I saw it fall, boss. Not crash. I heard it, though, and saw the smoke.’
This was big news. With a bit of luck he’d get to meet his first pilot – and his first murderer – today. He flipped back through his notebook, past the reports of stolen cattle, a lion attack on a native farm worker, and a drunken brawl in the hotel, and found the entry he’d made yesterday after being advised of the missing aircraft and wanted man. He picked up the telephone and dialled the number he’d written. Shirley, the receptionist, answered and he asked to be put through to Pip Lovejoy.
‘Is it about the missing flyer? The murderer?’
‘You bet it is. I’ve got an African chap here who says he saw the plane and the pilot come down. He bailed out.’ Roger couldn’t hold back a smile as he used the air force jargon.