‘Right, we’ll get moving. I hope to God these damn thatch roofs don’t become a nuisance.’ He didn’t say it, but I could hear in his voice the phrase, ‘Or the people either’. Not the man to depend on for kindness, but at least his concern for his precious rig would keep him attentive.
I drove the hire car. Atheridge and I were in front and between us a Nyalan nurse. She was not on the rig as she had injured a leg. In the back were four of the walking, or rather riding, wounded, three of them teenage children.
As I pulled out to drive to my allocated place, ahead of the rig and among the troop trucks, I said to the girl, ‘You do speak English, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Will you tell these people behind to yell out if I do anything to hurt them? I’ll try to drive smoothly.’
She half-turned and spoke in Nyalan over her shoulder.
‘What’s your name, honey?’
‘Helen Chula,’ she said.
‘Can you drive a car, Helen?’
‘Yes, I can. But my leg—I would have to go slowly.’
I laughed briefly. ‘Don’t worry, slowly is what we’ll all be doing. If necessary you can take over. Mister Atheridge can’t do much with that arm of his, though I guess he could stand on a foot pedal if he had to.’
Sadiq’s staff car passed us and I remembered something. I hooted and when he stopped I jumped out and ran over to retrieve the shotgun and pack of shells from his car. Walking past us towards his tractor, Mick McGrath stopped dead and looked at the gun with interest.
‘Hey, Mister Mannix. You got yourself a shooter. Now what about me?’
‘Who do you want to kill, Mick?’
He shrugged. ‘Oh hell, nothing like that. It’s just that I feel naked being in a war and me without a gun.’
I grinned. ‘Get your own fig leaves.’
He went on and I got back into my car, feeling another slight ripple of unease. Atheridge also eyed the weapon quizzically but said nothing as I stowed it with some difficulty, down alongside the driving seat. Behind us the whole convoy was breaking into the guttural growls that signified engines churning to life, blue smoke belching from exhaust pipes, I stuck my head out of the car window and listened.
My imagination was irrational. Had there really been cries of pain from the sick and wounded people on the rig, I would never have been able to hear them over the rumbling of the transports. But my stomach clenched in sympathy as I visualized the shuddering, lurching torment of the rig’s movement under their bodies. I caught Helen Chula’s eyes and knew that she was thinking exactly the same thing.
It had to be done. I shrugged, put the car in gear, and moved out. Vehicle by vehicle, the entire procession pulled away from the hospital and the ruins of Kodowa.
THIRTEEN
The road beyond Kodowa continued to switchback but the gradients were slightly steeper and the hills longer. The average speed of the rig dropped; it was slow enough downhill but really crawled up the long reverse slopes. In general the speed was about a walking pace. Certainly the flock of Nyalans in our wake, injured though some of them were, had no difficulty in keeping up. They were a hardy people, inured to the heat, and well used to walking those dusty roads.
But we worried about these refugees. We had discussed the need to provide them with food and Sadiq had told us that it would have to be gathered on the way. But there were too many women carrying babies or helping toddlers, old men, and wounded of all ages. It wasn’t really our responsibility but how else could we look upon it?
As we got going Helen Chula said, ‘If I sleep will you wake me in an hour, please?’ and promptly did fall asleep, her head pillowed on Atheridge’s good arm. I checked on the four Nyalans behind me; two were asleep and the others stared with wary brown eyes. All were silent.
We travelled for nearly two hours, incredibly slowly, and the morning heat began to give way to the fierce sun of noonday. Atheridge and I didn’t talk much because we didn’t want to wake the girl. Around us dust billows clouded the little groups of Nyalans into soft focus, and here and there among them walked soldiers. I began to worry about the car engine overheating.
Suddenly I realized that I was being the biggest damn fool in creation; the heat must have fried my brains. I tapped the horn, cut out of the column and nosed through the refugees who were walking ahead of the rig to avoid the worst of the dust. I caught up with Sadiq’s command car at the head of the column and waved him down. He had two Nyalan women in the back of his car, but his sergeant was still up front beside him.
I said, ‘Captain, this is crazy. There’s no law which says that we all have to travel at the same speed as the rig. I could get up to Kanja in under two hours, dump my lot at their hospital and come back for more. What’s more, so can all the other faster transport. We could get them organized up there, alert them to what’s coming.’
Sadiq shook his head. ‘No, Mister Mannix, that would not be a good thing.’
‘In God’s name, why not?’
He looked up and for a moment I thought he was scanning the sky for aircraft. Then I realized that he had actually looked at a telegraph pole, one of the endless line that accompanied the road, and again I cursed my slow brains. ‘Damn it, you’ve got a handset, Sadiq. We can telephone ahead from here.’
‘I have tried. That is what is worrying me—there is nothing. I can understand not being able to reach back to Kodowa, but the line to Kanja is also dead.’
‘There’ll be a lot of people dead if we keep this pace. There seem to be a hell of a lot more than Doctor Kat reckoned on, and most of them aren’t injured at all.’
‘I cannot stop them, Mister Mannix. They are simply coming with us.’
I felt nonplussed. More mouths to feed? Surely we weren’t obliged to lead the entire remaining population of Kodowa to safety.
‘Well, how about some of us pushing on? There’s my car, the two trucks we found plus your four. Even the tank can move faster than this, and there are six people on board her. The Land Rover has to stay with the rig, but even you—’
‘I stay with the convoy. Also my trucks,’ said Sadiq flatly. ‘Mister Mannix, have you noticed that there is no traffic coming southwards? Have you thought that Kanja might be just like Kodowa?’
I had, and the thought was unnerving. ‘If so, now’s the time to find out,’ I said.
‘I am finding out. I have sent a motorcycle patrol on ahead.’ He checked his watch. ‘They should be back soon with news, perhaps with help too.’
I mentally apologized to Sadiq. I thought he’d been as stupid as me. He went on, ‘If they are not back within the hour then I think it will mean bad trouble at Kanja. They will at least be able to warn us, though; they have one of the radio sets.’
I sighed. ‘Sorry. You win on all points.’
He acknowledged my apology with a grave nod. ‘It is very difficult, sir. I appreciate that you are doing all you can for my people.’
I returned to my car to find Atheridge standing beside it and Helen Chula stretching herself awake. ‘Captain Sadiq’s on the ball,’ I said. But he wasn’t listening to me. Slowly, out of the dust and the crowd, another car was pulling ahead to join us. It was a battered Suzuki. I hadn’t seen it before.
‘Good God, Margretta,’ Atheridge breathed. The car stopped alongside us and a woman climbed out stiffly. She was tall, fiftyish and clad in workman-like khaki shirt and pants. Her grey hair was pulled back in a loose bun. She looked as though she was ready to collapse.
‘Gretta, my dear girl, how did you get here?’ Atheridge asked.
‘You’re not hard to follow, Dan.’ Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.
‘Gretta, this is Neil Mannix—Mannix, I’d like you to meet Doctor Marriot,’ Atheridge said formally.
There were deep wrinkles round her eyes and her skin was leathery; she had the look of a woman who’d had too much sun, too much Africa. I turned and opened the passenger door of my car.
�
�Good morning, doctor. I think you’d better sit down.’
She nodded faintly. ‘Thank you. I think it will be better,’ she said. Her voice sounded Scandinavian.
‘Are you a doctor of medicine?’ I asked.
‘Medical missionaries, from outside Kodowa,’ Atheridge said. He bent over her and said gently, ‘Where’s Brian, Gretta? We all thought you two were in Port Luard.’
Which explained why nobody had mentioned them before. She spoke to Atheridge for some time in a low voice, and then started crying softly. Helen Chula got out of the car and came round to stay with Dr Marriot while I drew Atheridge aside.
‘What is it, Dan?’
‘Pretty bloody, I’m afraid. They drove up from the coast to Kodowa just when the air strike hit us. Brian, her husband, was killed outright. She must have been in shock for over a day, you know. She came out to the hospital and found Sister Ursula still there, and insisted on catching up with us.’
‘Christ, that’s a lousy deal.’ We turned back to her.
‘You look as though you could do with a drink, ma’am. How about a lukewarm Scotch?’ I said.
‘It wouldn’t be unwelcome.’
I got a bottle from the trunk and poured a measure into a dusty glass. Atheridge glanced wistfully at the bottle but made no comment as I screwed the cap firmly back on. From now on this was strictly a medical reserve.
‘I have come to help Doctor Kat,’ she said after downing the Scotch in strong swallows. ‘The Sister says he will need all the help he can get, and we have often worked together. Where is he, please?’
‘Never mind where he is. Right now you need some sleep. Helen, tell her how much better she’ll feel for it.’
Helen smiled shyly. ‘Indeed the gentleman is right, Doctor Marriot. Sleep for an hour, then Doctor Kat will be most happy to have you with him. I am going to help him now.’ She gently lowered the doctor’s head onto the back of the seat.
‘How’s your leg?’ I asked her.
‘I will be all right up there,’ she said, pointing towards the rig. ‘I will wait here until it comes.’
In the car Dr Marriot was already sagging into sleep.
‘Hop in, Dan. We’ll move on slowly. At least moving creates a draught,’ I said. The crawling pace was more frustrating than ever but I had to content myself with the thought that Captain Sadiq was coping very efficiently, better than I had done, and that in Dr Margretta Marriot we had a very useful addition to our staff. The Wyvern Travelling Hospital ground on through the hot African day. The sooner we got to Kanja, the better.
Half an hour later the whole pattern changed again. We seemed to be living inside a kaleidoscope which was being shaken by some gigantic hand. A motorcyclist, one of Sadiq’s outflankers, roared up and said that Captain Sadiq would like to see me. I pulled out of line hoping not to disturb Dr Marriot, though I doubted if anything short of an earthquake would waken her.
Kemp and Wingstead were already with Sadiq, talking to two white men, more strangers. Behind them was a big dreamboat of an American car which looked as out of place in that setting as an aircraft carrier would on Lake Geneva. Atheridge and I got out and joined them.
One of the men was tall, loose-limbed and rangy, wearing denim Levis and a sweat-stained checked shirt, and unbelievably he was crowned by a ten-gallon hat pushed well back on his head. I looked at his feet; no spurs, but he did wear hand-stitched high heeled boots. He looked like Clint Eastwood. I expected him to produce a pack of Marlboros or a sack of Bull Durham tobacco.
By comparison the other guy was conventional. He was shorter, broad-shouldered and paunchy, and dressed in a manner more suitable for Africa; khaki pants and a bush jacket. Both looked dusty and weary, the norm for all of us.
I said, ‘Hello there. Where did you spring from?’
The tall man turned round. ‘Oh, hi. Up the road a way. You folks got the same trouble we have.’
Kemp’s face was more strained than usual.
‘Neil, there’s a bridge down further along the road.’
‘Christ! The one you were worried about, way back?’
Kemp nodded. ‘Yes. It’s completely gone, they’ve just told us. It spans a ravine. And it’s this side of Kanja. It would be.’
Wingstead looked more alert than worried, ready to hurl himself at the next challenge. He was a hard man to faze.
I said, ‘I’m Neil Mannix, British Electric. I guess it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’m not sure yet.’
The tall man laughed. ‘Likewise. I’m Russ Burns and this is Harry Zimmerman. We’re both with Lat-Am Oil. There are some other guys up the road too, by the way—not our lot; a Frenchman and a couple of Russki truckers.’
‘What happened? Did you see the bridge go down?’ Burns shook his head. ‘We were halfway to the bridge when the planes hit Kodowa. Mind you, we didn’t know for sure what the hell was happening but we could guess. We’d seen a lot of troop movement a few days before, and there were stories going round about a rebellion. We couldn’t see the town itself but we heard the bombing and saw the smoke. Then we saw the planes going over.’
His hand went to his shirt pocket. ‘We didn’t know what to do, Harry and me. Decided to push on because we didn’t fancy turning back into all that, whatever it was. Then we met up with the Russkies.’
‘A convoy, like ours?’ I watched with fascination as he took out a pack of cigarettes. By God, they were Marlboros. He even lit one the way they do in the ads, with a long, appreciative draw on the first smoke. He didn’t hand them round.
‘No, just one big truck. The Frenchman’s driving a truck too. He had a buddy he’d dropped off in Kodowa. I guess he must have got caught in the raid. You didn’t see him?’
Nobody had. Write off one French trucker, just like that.
‘I was shoving my foot through the floorboards the first ten miles after that raid,’ Burns said. ‘Even though I knew we couldn’t outrun a jet. Maybe thirty miles from here we turned a corner and damn near ran into this pipe truck. The Soviets. They hadn’t seen or heard anything. Then the Frog guy turned up, him and a nig…a Nyalan assistant.’ He glanced at Sadiq as he said this.
Zimmerman spoke for the first time. ‘We four camped together that night, and the next day we pushed on in our car with one of the Russians. I speak Russian a little.’ He said this almost apologetically. ‘Ten miles on there’s this bridge.’
‘Was this bridge. By God, it’s just rubble at the bottom of that ravine now. Took a real hammering.’
‘Was it bombed?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, I reckon so. We could see the wreckage, five hundred feet down the hillside.’
‘Any chance of getting across?’ I asked, even though I could already guess the answer.
‘No chance. Not for a truck. Not for a one-wheel circus bicycle. There’s a gap of more than two hundred feet.’
Burns inhaled deeply. ‘We all just stuck around that day. Nobody wanted to make a decision. Our radios only picked up garbage. We couldn’t go on, and we didn’t feel like coming back into the middle of a shooting war. The Soviets had quite a store of food and the Frenchie had some too. All we had to put in the pool was some beer, and that didn’t last long, believe me. Then this morning we decided we’d go two ways; the Frenchie was to have a try at Kodowa with the two Reds, and Harry and me said we’d have a go at getting through the gorge on foot and make for Kanja.’
‘Can’t say I was hankering for the experience,’ put in Harry.
‘Then just as we were about to get going, up comes these two guys.’ Burns indicated Sadiq’s riders. ‘We thought at first the rebels had caught up with us. Hell of a note, and us with just a couple of popguns between us. Then they told us what was going on back here. It didn’t sound real, you know that?’
I made mental note. They had weapons.
‘Travelling circus,’ Kemp muttered.
‘Wish it was, buddy. Elephants now, they’d be some use. Anyway, we changed our plans, left the truckers
to wait up ahead, and Harry and me came back to see for ourselves.’
I asked, ‘Is it possible to cross on foot?’
‘I reckon so, if you’re agile.’
I looked at Sadiq. ‘So?’
Wingstead said, ‘What’s the use, Neil? We can’t send the wounded and sick that way and even if the Kanja hospital is still in business they can’t send help to us. You know what we have to do.’
I nodded. One problem out of a thousand raised its head.
‘Basil,’ I said, ‘how do you turn your rig around?’
‘We don’t need to,’ Kemp said. ‘It’ll go either way. We just recouple the tractors.’ His mind was shifting up through the gears and his face looked less strained as he started calculating. There was nothing better for Basil Kemp than giving him a set of solid logistics to chew on.
Sadiq said, ‘What will you do now, Mister Mannix?’ He too looked as though the ground had been pulled from under his feet.
I studied our two new arrivals. ‘What we’re going to do first is get these two gentlemen a beer and a meal apiece. And we have a lady who joined us recently who’d also be glad of something to eat. Geoff, could you get Bishop to organize that? As long as the convoy’s stopped, we may as well all stoke up. We’ll have a conference afterwards. Captain Sadiq, could you pass the word around that we are no longer going towards Kanja? Everyone must rest, eat if they can, and then be ready to move.’
Wingstead said, ‘Who’s the lady?’
‘She’s a medical doctor. She was widowed in the raid on Kodowa, and right now she’s asleep in my car. I’m going to have a word with Doctor Kat and I’ll take her along. As a matter of fact, Dan knows her quite well…’
The Spoilers / Juggernaut Page 46