Dark Moonless Night

by Anne Mather

  Miranda’s lips quivered. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to go to the Mission,’ she exclaimed.

  Caroline sighed. ‘Miranda darling, we can’t go to the Mission and leave David here—not when Mummy’s not available.’

  ‘I could go to Sandra’s,’ said David, at once. ‘I like going there. Besides,’ he brightened considerably, ‘Gareth might be there and he might take us out with him. I’d like that.’

  ‘I doubt very much whether Gareth will be down in La Vache this morning,’ retorted Caroline dampeningly, trying to bear the agonising shaft of jealousy that tore through her without flinching.

  ‘Why? He might be.’ David was indignant. ‘Anyway, that’s what I’d rather do.’

  Caroline shook her head. ‘David, you can’t simply go and wish yourself on—on Sandra.’

  ‘Why not? She said I could go there—any time!’

  Miranda wrinkled her small nose. ‘Well, I don’t want to go to Sandra’s. I’d rather go to the Mission with Caroline.’

  Caroline got to her feet. ‘Look, this is silly. David, you’ll have to come with us.’

  David clenched his small fists. ‘Why? Why should I? You can’t make me.’

  ‘I have no intention of making you, as you put it. It’s simply that—well, Sandra probably has things to do.’

  ‘But can’t I ask her?’ David changed his tactics. ‘Can’t I? I mean, she only has to say yes or no.’

  Caroline hesitated. ‘You’d better ask your mother first.’

  David hunched his shoulders. ‘Oh, can’t you do that, Caroline? She’ll only get angry if I go to her door.’

  Caroline thrust her hands into the waistline pockets of her jeans. ‘Oh, all right, I’ll ask her. But if she says no you’ll have to come with us.’

  ‘All right,’ David nodded.

  Much against her better judgement, Caroline knocked at Elizabeth’s door. There was no immediate answer, and with lowering spirits she knocked again.

  There was silence for a moment, and then Elizabeth’s petulant voice called: ‘Who is it? What do you want?’

  ‘It’s me! Caroline!’

  ‘Oh, you’d better come in, then.’ Elizabeth could be heard sliding out of bed and pattering to the door on bare feet to unlock it. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘Has something happened?’ She looked beyond Caroline hopefully. ‘Has Charles come back?’

  ‘No. No, it’s nothing like that, Elizabeth.’ Caroline licked her lips. ‘I’ve offered to take the children to the Mission in the car, but David doesn’t want to go—’

  ‘He can’t stay here with me—’

  ‘I know that.’ Caroline ignored Elizabeth’s selfishness. ‘He wants to go and ask Sandra if he can remain with her. Would you mind if he did?’

  ‘What? Ask Sandra Macdonald if he can stay there?’ Elizabeth considered. ‘I don’t see why not. Why? Do you have any objections?’

  Caroline flushed. ‘No, of course not. So long as you’re agreeable, it’s all right with me.’

  ‘Good.’ Elizabeth looked pointedly back towards the bed. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all,’ Caroline nodded. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you.’

  Elizabeth caught a trace of sarcasm in her voice. ‘There’s no need to be like that, Caroline. I know you think I’m behaving childishly, but this has been a pretty rotten holiday so far, and I for one shall be glad to go home.’

  ‘I see.’ Caroline half turned away.

  ‘Actually, I’m thinking of going sooner than I expected,’ went on Elizabeth. ‘You might as well know, I think a month is quite long enough to expect us to stay in these conditions.’

  ‘But that means we’ll be leaving in less than a week!’ Caroline was horrified.

  ‘That’s right,’ Elizabeth nodded. ‘You think about it, Caroline, and if you’re enjoying yourself, make the most of it while you can.’

  Caroline walked back to the lounge feeling numb and strangely bereft. Although she had thought she had resigned herself to returning to England and giving up all thoughts of seeing Gareth again, now that the opportunity presented itself the enormity of what it meant to her was frightening. It was one thing to consider leaving in the light of several more weeks before the day came, and quite another to consider returning to England in only a few days.

  Sandra Macdonald saw the car as soon as it stopped near their bungalow. She was at the front of the building, tending some plants she had obviously cultivated, but she came down the path to the road looking at Caroline with scarcely concealed dislike. However, when David jumped out of the vehicle her expression changed.

  ‘Hello, David,’ she greeted him warmly. ‘Have you come to see me?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Caroline, choosing her words carefully, ‘Miranda and I are going to the Mission and David doesn’t want to join us. He’d like to stay with you instead. Would you mind?’

  Sandra’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and then she looked down at the small boy. ‘You want to stay with me, David?’ she asked, with apparent satisfaction. ‘Then of course you can.’

  David whooped with excitement. ‘See, Caroline!’ he enthused boastfully, ‘I told you Sandra wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Did—Caroline think I would?’ Sandra spoke to the child.

  ‘Well, she didn’t want to ask you—’ began David, when Caroline intervened.

  ‘The word was bother, David,’ she stated impatiently. ‘I said not to bother—Sandra.’

  ‘It’s no bother.’ Sandra turned to her. ‘And it will be easier for you with just Miranda, won’t it?’

  Her meaning was evident, and Caroline’s fingers were taut about the wheel. ‘I’ll be back about one o’clock,’ she said briefly.

  ‘There’s no need,’ returned Sandra, patting David’s head. ‘We can have lunch together. There’s no need for you to hurry back on David’s account.’

  Caroline put the car into gear. ‘Thank you,’ she said, between clenched teeth, and drove away.

  Helen and Laurie Barclay were delighted to see them and when they discovered that Caroline had no reason for hurrying back they insisted that they stayed for lunch. Miranda was quite happy to potter around after Helen, and when Helen made some pastry for lunch and gave Miranda a little to work with, she was in seventh heaven. She eventually produced a peach pie which everyone had to have a taste of and clearly enjoyed being the centre of attraction in David’s absence.

  Caroline drove back to La Vache in the late afternoon. It had been an unusually pleasant day in spite of this morning’s unpleasantness, and she thought that Helen Barclay would be one person she would miss when she got back to England.

  She stopped at the Macdonalds’ bungalow and directing Miranda to remain in the car she walked up the path to the door. Sandra answered the door, her eyes cool and calculating. ‘Yes?’

  Caroline frowned. ‘I’ve called for David,’ she said.

  ‘David?’ Sandra moved her shoulders dismissingly. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Not here?’ Caroline couldn’t take it in. ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘He went home just after lunch.’

  Caroline was annoyed. ‘But you said I had no need to hurry back. That David could stay here as long as he liked—’

  ‘He wanted to go home, so he went.’ Sandra was indifferent.

  ‘But you knew I expected him to stay here!’ Caroline exclaimed frustratedly. Then: ‘Thank you!’ and she marched back to the car.

  ‘Where’s David?’ asked Miranda in surprise as she got in.

  ‘He’s gone home,’ answered Caroline shortly, and stalled the car in her annoyance.

  Thomas was in the living-room when Caroline entered the bungalow and he nodded smilingly to her, a gesture which she was not in the mood to appreciate. But before she could say anything, he said: ‘Massa Lacey, he said to tell you that he and Mrs. Lacey have gone to Luanga, Miss Caroline.’

  Caroline’s heart almost stopped beating. ‘Charles and Elizabeth have gone to Luanga,
’ she echoed. ‘Then where’s David?’

  ‘David?’ Thomas shook his head. ‘David with you.’

  ‘No.’ Caroline shook her head. ‘No, David’s not with me. He came home.’

  ‘From the Mission?’ Thomas was clearly mystified.

  ‘No.’ Caroline tried to remain calm. ‘No, Thomas, not from the Mission. He stayed with Miss Macdonald—Sandra Macdonald, you know?—and he left there and came home here soon after lunch. Haven’t you seen him?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Caroline’s head pounded. ‘Look, Thomas, are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, miss. He never came here.’

  Miranda started to cry. ‘David’s lost,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Miranda,’ exclaimed Caroline, unnecessarily brusque. ‘Of course he’s not lost!’ But she was less than confident of that fact. ‘He must have gone somewhere else.’ But where?

  Trying to think calmly, Caroline took Thomas back over everything that had happened with deliberate slowness, trying to establish some clue to David’s whereabouts.

  ‘Could he possibly have gone with Charles and Elizabeth?’ she asked, and then answered herself by shaking her head. If he had either Thomas or Sandra would have known about it.

  Sandra! Caroline walked to the door. Perhaps she might be able to shed some light on to his whereabouts. She recalled David once telling her about two boys who lived near Sandra. Could he possibly have gone there? And if he had, wouldn’t their parents have made some attempt to inform the Laceys of their son’s whereabouts?

  But Sandra was in the shower, informed the houseboy, when Caroline again knocked at the Macdonalds’ door and she turned away frustratedly. The shadows of evening were beginning to cast pools of darkness beneath the trees, and with the sinking of the sun darkness would fall like a cloak over the settlement. David had to be located before then, or any manner of accident might befall him.

  Caroline returned to the bungalow where Thomas was waiting with Miranda, unaccountably chilled by a sudden thought that had occurred to her. She was recalling David’s disappointment at not going to Nyshasa. Surely he couldn’t have got bored at Sandra’s and decided to try and reach the river on foot, could he? The idea wasn’t feasible, it wasn’t reasonable, but it was—possible.

  ‘Thomas,’ she said at last, ‘I want you to remain here with Miranda while I take the car and have a good look round for David. He’s sure to be somewhere close by. He may even be hiding to give us a fright. So if you’re here, you’ll be able to deal with anything that happens, won’t you?’

  Miranda started to cry again. ‘I don’t want to stay with Thomas, Caroline, I want to come with you.’

  ‘Darling, you can’t.’ Caroline dared not suggest to the little girl that her brother might have been foolhardy enough to venture away from the settlement alone. ‘Don’t you see? I need you to stay here with Thomas to explain to Mummy and Daddy if they should get back before me.’

  Miranda rubbed her knuckles over her eyes. ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ she repeated. ‘I want to come and find David.’

  ‘And what if David’s here all the time?’ Caroline tried to tease her. ‘What will he think if you go looking for him? Do you want him to laugh at you for being a scaredy-cat?’

  Miranda looked a little brighter. ‘You think he might only be playing a game?’

  ‘I—not exactly. I said he might be.’ Caroline sighed and looked at Thomas. ‘You’ll do as I say?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ Thomas’s amiable face was reassuring.

  Outside, it was much darker, and Caroline switched on the car’s headlights before moving away from the bungalow. She was acting automatically, refusing to allow blind panic to govern her actions. Panicking would help no one, least of all David, but it was hard to accept the thought of him wandering somewhere in the jungle, at the mercy of every snake and predator the area had to offer.

  There were lights in a bungalow near Sandra’s and on impulse Caroline went to the door. The woman who answered was slim and attractive, and two small boys stuggled to get past her as she asked what Caroline wanted. This obviously was the mother of the boys David had talked about, but unhappily she had no information to give her.

  ‘He was here earlier,’ she volunteered. ‘He told Joseph he was having lunch with Sandra.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he did.’ Caroline swallowed her disappointment. ‘Well, thank you very much. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘Oh, not at all.’ The woman looked concerned. ‘As soon as my husband comes home I’ll have him institute a search if you haven’t found him by then.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’ Caroline managed a faint smile. ‘I’ll let you know if I have any luck.’

  It was quite dark by the time she had circled the settlement and only the roads beyond left any hope. She knew he was not likely to turn in the direction of the Mission, therefore he had to have set off for Nyshasa.

  She drove slowly, stopping the car every now and then to get out and shout: ‘David!’ at the top of her voice. But apart from the raucous protest of some night animal, there was no answer to her appeals. In addition to which it started to rain, huge globules of water which spattered on to her bare arms, reminding her that it was much cooler now and she had not brought a jacket. Even so, her own personal comfort was of so much less importance than David’s that she paid little attention to the fact that her continual sallies into the wet were soaking her to the skin.

  The road seemed so much less navigable at night, dark and unfamiliar, without even the comfort of cat’s eyes to keep her in a steady course. Eyes did wink at her from the sides of the road, but she tried to pay no attention to them, refusing to speculate what their owners might be. Monkeys, probably, or deer, she consoled herself, dismissing the possibility that such timid animals probably did not venture out at night.

  The rain came down more heavily and the windscreen wipers had to work at full pressure to keep the steady stream of water from blocking her vision completely. It would have been easier to walk, she thought, but she had no coat or covering of any kind, and it would be crazy to leave the station wagon and possibly lose her way altogether. She had no torch, no light other than the headlights, and they were not brilliant in this kind of weather.

  She wondered where David could be, anxiety finally surfacing in spite of her determination not to give in to it. How could he have been foolish enough to leave the settlement? His father would be so angry, and she dared not think how Elizabeth would react. It was her own fault, of course. She should have insisted that David came with her to the Mission, or if not made sure that she was back in case something like this happened. But how was she to know that Charles would succumb to his wife’s urgings and come back to take her out leaving the bungalow unattended. Except for Thomas…

  She frowned. Thomas had said that he hadn’t seen him, so that meant that David hadn’t gone back to the bungalow at all. But Sandra had said he left just after lunch…Caroline put a hand to her head. Surely Sandra wouldn’t have allowed him to leave her without making sure he went home? Surely that was her responsibility? Besides, David liked her, he liked playing with the boys next door. Why had he left the bungalow in the first place?

  It was all confusing, but one thing was emerging from the rest—she was wasting her time going any farther. She had already covered more than five miles. David could not have got any farther, not without help, and sticking to the road as she was, she would never find him if he was in difficulties elsewhere. But what could she do? It was raining so hard, there was no moon, and she had shouted herself hoarse.

  Bringing the station wagon to a halt, she looked around. The jungle closed about her, dark and menacing and she shivered. She would have to go back. That was all she could do. She must just pray to God that it had all been some terrible mistake and that David was safely back home.

  She swung the steering wheel round to its farthest point and then put the veh
icle into reverse. The station wagon skidded backward, responding to her acceleration, and with swift movements she thrust it forward into first gear, swinging the wheel quickly back in the opposite direction. The station wagon started forward at a rush, but she was afraid that if she was hesitant, the wheels would skid on the muddy surface of the road and she would be stuck. As it was, the front wheels went out of control, sliding sideways, and although she fought desperately to right them, it was no good. The acceleration she was using drove her forward and sideways, and with a terrifying speed the nearside wheels encountered the sliding edge of a ditch. The weight of the station wagon propelled it down and Caroline was trying helplessly to keep the vehicle upright when its wheels encountered the spreading roots of a baobab tree and stopped dead. Caroline was thrown forward, her head encountered the steering wheel, and she knew no more.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CAROLINE came round reluctantly, blinking in the light of a lantern suspended somewhere close at hand. She was aware of hands running in an exploratory fashion over her body, smoothing the thick weight of her hair from her face, wiping her forehead with something cold and wet. There was a voice, too. A strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar voice, murmuring her name over and over again in a curiously agonised fashion: ‘Caroline! Caroline, for God’s sake, speak to me!’

  Her eyes flickered open and she stared uncomprehendingly at Gareth, kneeling on the seat beside her, his face pale and drawn, his eyes dark and glittering.

  ‘Gareth,’ she managed unsteadily. ‘Wh—what happened?’

  ‘Oh, God, Caroline!’ he muttered, with obvious relief, ‘I thought I wasn’t going to be able to bring you round.’

  Caroline moved her head slightly and was immediately conscious of a distinct throbbing in her temple. She put a dazed hand to her forehead, trying to think, and her fingers came away stained with blood. She looked down at the redness without consciously realising it was her own blood, and Gareth uttered an imprecation and gently wiped her forehead again with his handkerchief.