There was a deafening crash and a sudden sharp cry. The torch bounced. Its light blinked once and went out. And then there was silence. It rang like the report of the gun in their ears, a strange quivering stillness that hummed and vibrated about them, rising and falling like the trilling of a million forest insects.
‘Come out!’
The Leopard’s cold order cut through the silence; but none of them moved.
‘Come out now or we’ll burn down the hut.’
Still the children lay there. The blackness around them was complete, but Bat could feel Muka trembling beside him. She was squeezing his hand so hard in her own that it hurt.
‘Stay,’ hissed Gulu. ‘Stay where you are.’ His voice was harsh as a threat. He was a soldier now. He knew how to deal with it. He had gone back to the army and he had been trained for this.
Inching his way to the edge of the crawlspace, he threw out his gun and then started to clamber out himself. With hands raised in the air, he walked across the clearing, coming to a halt only when he was standing directly in the head-beam of the jeep. He waited, a frail outline against its harsh light.
‘And your friends?’ the Leopard spat.
‘They went that way,’ Gulu said. ‘My foot was too bad. They left me behind.’ He must have pointed towards the forest because a torch beam leaped briefly in the direction of the bush.
‘They left you?’ The question was disbelieving. From under a peaked cap, a pair of sharp eyes prowled around Gulu’s face.
‘Guard him!’ the Leopard ordered, darting a glance at Lobo.
In a few quick paces, he crossed to the hut. The dark shape of the ranger lay slumped by the entrance of the crawlspace. He prodded it casually with the toe of his boot. There was no movement. The man was dead. Calmly, he stooped to retrieve his dropped gun.
‘You’ll soon be wishing you’d died as quickly,’ the Leopard spat. ‘We’ll be making a lesson of you,’ he growled as, returning, he gave Gulu a kick that sent him crumpling without a cry to his knees. ‘We’ll cut you up into bits as big as a grasshopper.’
Then, raising his head, he turned his attention once more to the cabin. ‘You two can come out from that hole now,’ he said coolly.
Neither Bat nor Muka moved. Was he bluffing? Did he know they were there?
‘I’m losing patience,’ he snarled.
Still, the two children waited. They were shaking so hard they could hardly have got up if they had wanted to. A cigarette lighter flared. They smelled smoke. A bundle of smouldering grasses was carried over to the cabin.
‘We’ll fume you out like stuck porcupines.’ The sneer curled through the dark. The first tongues of flames flickered out of the kindling. They started to lengthen and lap at the wood.
The smoke began to filter down into the crawlspace. Muka coughed and clamped a hand to her mouth. The dry leaves were curling, crackling in the heat. This time nothing could save them. The two terrified children crept out of the hole. And the Leopard was waiting. His eyes were no more than dark holes in his face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A blow on the back of the neck sent Bat staggering. He fell to the ground. It felt as if his skull had cracked. His thoughts were leaking like water from a broken clay pot. He lay completely still. He couldn’t tell for how long. It felt like time had stopped. When he opened his eyes again he didn’t know where he was. Had he fallen asleep beside a forest pool? The trees seemed to be floating upon mirroring depths. Where’s Meya? he wondered blearily. Where was his little elephant?
Suddenly, he felt himself seized round the ankle. He was being dragged along, an arm twisted painfully underneath him, his head bumping and thumping over the hard ground. He dug his nails deep as he could into the earth; but there was nothing to catch hold of, nothing to keep him. Fistfuls of grasses tore away in his clutch. The whole world wheeled about him. Fire and sky spun in a whirl of dark and light, and suddenly everything that for so long he had kept locked up tight inside him was escaping. He had so much fright in him that he could no longer stop it coming out. ‘Help!’ he screamed at the top of his voice. The cry hardly sounded human. It spilled from his lungs like the shriek of an animal in a snare.
‘Help!’ The plea rang through the darkness. It echoed through the trees. ‘Help! Help!’ he yelled.
A boot thumped down on his back. There was a low dry laugh. ‘There’s no help here,’ the Leopard growled.
And Bat was back in reality. His cries, swallowed up by the forest, slowly faded as his last struggles died in the Leopard’s ruthless grip. A picture flashed onto his brain. He was watching the crickets that, as a herd-boy, he used to see among the grasses, flailing pathetically in clumps of poisonous foam, their serrated legs sawing ever more faintly and feebly until eventually they slowed to a final stop. It was strange how images popped into his mind at such inappropriate moments, he thought.
Yanked back to his feet now, he stood legs akimbo to try and control their shaking. He needed time to knit his nerves back together again. Muka was pushed over beside him. The tears ran down her cheeks but she made no attempt to hide them. They gathered on her eyelashes and dropped glittering down her cheeks. Gulu stared stonily. He looked as if he would never feel anything again.
The Leopard lounged back against the bonnet of the jeep. He gazed at his prisoners: three ragged children blinking blindly into the headlights, Lobo behind them, holding them at gunpoint. ‘Well, well,’ he said coolly. ‘So here we all are again.’ He lit a cigarette. Its tip glowed red as the eye of a demon in the night. He inhaled and then puffed the smoke back in their faces.
‘Let’s get going,’ he said eventually. ‘It’ll soon be dawn.’ He took a last glance at the body of the dead ranger. ‘The jackals can have him,’ he muttered. ‘He’s no good to us now.’ And then he laughed. ‘At least we have his jeep,’ he said and, pivoting on the heel of his boot, he swung himself into the driving seat. ‘Throw them into the back,’ he commanded. Turning the key, he started the engine up.
‘Move!’ Lobo shouted. His eyes skidded from their faces. He found it far easier to keep his gun at their backs. Bat stumbled forward. His kneecaps cracked against metal as he was shoved into the back of the jeep. ‘This is the last little trip you’ll be making,’ he heard the Leopard snarl.
The door slammed behind them. A lock was yanked into place. With a lurch, the vehicle was off, bumping down the track. The children clung tight to the roof struts as the incline suddenly steepened. The engine groaned with the effort; the wheels spun but couldn’t grip. The commander swore loudly as he rammed down through the gears. Bat peered through the wire-meshed partition. The pale light of the dawn was creeping into the sky. He glanced back at his companions. Muka, head dropped between her shoulders, hung limp as she clenched her two fists round a roof bar, while Gulu, one foot braced against the wheel arch, was lost in a far distance that lay deep within himself. They were almost at the end of their journey, Bat thought.
The Land Rover braked sharply to a halt. The windscreen turned dark. The next thing Bat knew, the vehicle was squealing and groaning and sliding backwards. The children were thrown against the tailgate in a bone-jagging heap.
They heard Lobo yelp as they jolted to another abrupt stop but they couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Bat heard a furious scream. It sounded, he imagined for one moment, like an elephant. But how could it be? His mind was playing tricks. Then, through a hole in the smashed windscreen, he glimpsed for one fleeting moment a huge animal thundering towards them, trunk coiled and ears flapping, amid a cloud of red dust. It was an elephant, he realized in stunned amazement. Was he dreaming? Then the bonnet of the vehicle bore the full brunt of the charge. The jeep skidded backwards with a demented howl.
The next thing Bat knew, the entire vehicle was lifting. It was about to turn over. The children were hurled across the back. They landed in a stunned tangle. A bottle of alcohol had broken. Its giddy fumes filled the air.
Clawing at the mesh
that partitioned off the cab, Gulu gazed up. A single great eye was looking down upon him. The monster was using the full weight of its head to flatten down the roof. He heard Lobo shrieking as the metal crumpled like paper. The cab’s whole structure slewed. Letting go, Gulu slid down the tilted bed of the vehicle, hurling his body with all its force at the lock. It was already damaged. The bent door was gaping. The catch snapped under the strain. The tail-gate clattered open, spilling the three children down the slopes of a mountain. They skidded and scrabbled. Gulu grabbed at a tree root and snatched out for Muka who, in her turn, stretched out a desperate hand for Bat.
For a moment they hung. The drop plummeted away below them. Then, little by little, spread-eagled against the incline, they scrambled their way back up. Plants came out in clumps where the soil was crumbling; rocks dislodged by their feet bounded away out of sight, but eventually they hauled themselves back over the lip where, scuttling for the safety of a nearby bush, they clung to each other in a terrified dazed heap.
Through the leaves of their hiding place they could see the avenging animal, Lobo squirming below it in the flattened cab. He was wriggling his way out of an open window. He collapsed in a tangle on the track. Blood was pouring from his head. Sitting up unsteadily, he glanced about, frowning and smiling simultaneously. Then, staggering to his feet, he started to lope off.
‘Sergeant!’ The Leopard roared from the cab.
Lobo glanced nervously back.
‘Sergeant!’ the scream came again. But Lobo ignored it. The Leopard was trapped. The steering wheel, rammed inwards, had pinned his slumped body. The arm that dangled through the open window looked broken. The barrel of an unreachable rifle sliced a dark line across the back of his neck.
The elephant drew back. The morning sun edged its way over the horizon and the first rays of light flared across the crushed jeep. The Leopard was squirming like a creature whose spine has been smashed. Bat saw the glitter of his watch as a sunbeam danced over it. But now it was counting down the last seconds of his life.
The elephant flared its great ears and, with a bellow of sheer rage, rolled up its trunk for a third and final charge. A huge bony brow smashed headlong into the mangled jeep. The vehicle rocked for a moment on the edge of the cliff. Then, with a grinding of metal, the Land Rover tipped over. It looked almost like a toy as it fell through the trees. It bounced off the rocks, glass spraying all around it, winking and glinting in the brightness of morning before vanishing away into the shadow far below.
A scream of animal triumph echoed through the forest. The children no longer dared look. At any moment the next attack could be launched on them. Shrinking back into the bush, they squatted on their haunches, heads between knee-bones, hands clasped behind necks. They steeled themselves: they didn’t know for what.
The leaves around them were parting. Something brushed Bat’s cheek. It felt warm and damp. Still he didn’t move. There was a low rumbling growl. Bat’s whole body trembled. It was as if a great wave was rising up inside him, surging right through his body, pushing him to his feet. He stumbled out. An elephant reared up like a rock-face before him. He could not have run even if he had meant to. It just has to know it can trust us, he thought. It just has to know that we mean it no harm. And he stood there, eyes screwed tight shut as he tried to muster his courage. Willing himself into calmness, he started to hum.
He heard the animal shifting. It leaned towards him. A current of warm air wafted across his face. He inhaled the heavy musk. It smelled so familiar . . . so very familiar. Tears bleared his eyesight as slowly he lifted his head.
‘Meya?’ he whispered. ‘Meya, is that you?’
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
How often Bat had dreamed of this magical moment: how often he had reached out in the darkness of the night thinking that his elephant was standing before him, only as he woke to find nothing but a vast emptiness. Could his dream this time be true?
He stretched out a hand. His fingertips brushed rough hide. Hundreds of wrinkles were criss-crossed about it. For a moment he traced them like lines on a map. A trunk reached tentatively towards him. An eye looked into his face. He could see his reflection: small as a fly trapped for ever in amber. It was Meya! He knew now. The certainty flooded him. It was Meya. And she had held him, held him there in her memory. She had come back for him. He felt so light-headed that he thought he would float.
Sobbing, he flung his arms around the animal. A trunk, strong and safe, curled about his back.
‘Muka,’ the boy cried, his voice choking with happiness. ‘It’s Meya! It’s Meya! Muka! It’s Meya! Our elephant’s come back.’
With a cry of pure joy the girl ran towards the animal. She threw her arms in a circle around the broad trunk. A deep growl of greeting was rumbling through its body. It slowly unfurled until it filled the whole air and, for a while, as they clung to this great creature, the two children felt as if the entire world had stopped moving. They were enfolded in a moment of perfect happiness.
But where was Gulu? They both turned. Their friend had vanished completely. They looked about: but no trace. Could he have fallen? Their eyes darted to the precipice. Their two hearts skipped a beat.
And then, suddenly, Bat spotted him, shrinking back into the bushes, staring outwards with a mixture of terror and astonishment, unable to believe what his eyes were now telling him, unable to trust in what he thought he now saw. A few moments ago this animal had been a bellowing monster, madly attacking the men in the jeep. Now it stood there as peaceably as a tame cow. Was he dreaming? He shot a furtive glance over the edge of the cliff. The morning sun glinted on a wreckage of metal. It caught a broken mirror with a sudden blinding flash. So, it really had happened: the Leopard really was dead.
Gulu felt dazed. And now he could see Bat and Muka, who were pointing and laughing; laughing so hard that they doubled over and clutched at their ribs. All the terror and sadness and pain was pouring out of them, and the sound he was hearing was an over-spilling flood of unbridled merriment. And the longer Gulu just squatted there gaping, the louder and louder the bright clatter broke out, until even the dumbfounded boy found himself caught up by its currents. Shyly, he ventured a hesitant smile. It was the first time Bat had seen his face light up.
They could easily have stayed there for ever, explaining and talking and hugging each other in relief; but it was Meya the elephant who remembered that they were not out of danger, and now, with a low grumbling growl, she took the lead, setting off down the track at a hasty pace, kicking up clouds of red dust in her wake.
‘Where’s it going?’ asked Gulu.
‘She’s not an “it”, she’s a she.’ Muka smiled.
‘Where’s she going then?’ Gulu asked. His eyes swept the landscape that fell away below them. The forests rolled away endlessly, an unbroken swell of green.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bat as he turned to follow her. ‘We have to trust her. Just let her lead.’
For a while they continued down the track until eventually, where it grew less steep, the elephant shoved her way straight through the dense undergrowth and down a slope.
‘Where’s she going?’ cried Gulu a third time. The sisal leaves raked his skin. ‘We can’t follow her through this.’
‘We just have to trust her,’ Bat again assured him. ‘Elephants know ancient ways. They have paths which their herds have trodden for centuries and Meya will know how to find them. And then . . .’ He paused. And then what? He did not really know much more than Gulu. He didn’t know how Meya had found them. Was her herd in the forest? Would she take the children to them? Or was she alone? Had she heard Bat shouting for help in the clearing and come looking?
‘Do you think she heard you screaming?’ asked Muka as if reading his thoughts. ‘Do you think she knew we were in danger? Has she come to take us back home?’
But Bat had no answers. He was as confused as she was. ‘Elephants have powers far greater than we can ever know
,’ was all he could murmur. It was what Bitek the fisherman had always said.
The three ragged children pushed on. Spiny things scratched them. Branches sprang back and smacked them. Hanging vines blocked their paths. Sometimes they had to lie flat and wriggle under thickets that the elephant could just barge through. Sometimes they all had to scramble and climb until, suddenly, just as Bat had predicted, they found themselves standing upon a narrow track through the trees. It was easy to follow. The ground had been trampled to softness by hundreds of huge cushioned soles. This was the path they would now follow for days.
In the mornings the children were so weary that they could scarcely rise to their feet. Meya had to nudge them gently up from their beds, encouraging them onwards with her soft ‘let’s go’ rumble. Washing their faces in dew, they would follow her, step by endless step. There was only one pace, and Meya set it with her ponderous stride. Bat walked behind her, and next in line was Muka, silent as a forest creature. Her once springy step had long since lost its bounce. Gulu limped always at the end of the file, fists clenched and eyes darting restlessly about him. He was trained as a soldier to keep constant watch.
They glided like ghosts through the silver-trunked caverns. High above them, the sun glittered through the foliage, catching the brilliance of butterflies as they fluttered and floated; it sparkled on spiders’ webs and glinted across leaves; but where they were walking there was only green shade. Sometimes the path narrowed to a long gloomy tunnel. Occasionally, where some great tree had fallen, a dense tangle of smaller plants made a mad dash for the light. A few of the creepers had poisonous spines; they raised hot itching welts on the children’s bare skin, but others were edible. Gulu would follow their stems down to sweet-tasting roots.
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