by Wilbur Smith
yet for hundreds of years it served the purpose of uniting the community
of monks and drawing Christians from all over this land. Now that it is
gone, the very existence of the monastery is threatened.
They have lost their reason for continuing."
"So you are tempting them with a false promiseP Royan was still angry.
"The body of Mamose is every bit as authentic as the one they lost. What
does it matter if it is the body of an ancient Egyptian rather than that
of an ancient Christian, just as long as it serves as a focus for the
faith and if it is the means by which the monastery might survive for
another five hundred years?"
"I think Mek is making sense." Nicholas gave his opinion.
"Since when have you been an expert in Christianity?
You are an atheist," Royan flashed at him, and he held up his hands as
if to ward off a blow.
"You are right. What do I know about it anyway?
You argue it out with Mek. I am going to discuss the theory of
dam-building with Sapper Webb." He sauntered up to the head of the file
of men and fell in beside his engineer.
From time to time he heard heated voices raised behind him, and he
grinned. He knew Mek, but he was also beginning to understand the lady.
It would be fascinating to see who would win this argument.
They reached the head of the chasm in the middle of the afternoon, and
while Mek 6.. searched out a campsite Nicholas took Sapper immediately
to the narrow neck of the river just above where it plunged over the
waterfall. While Sapper set up the theodolite, Nicholas took the
graduated levelling staff.
Sapper ordered him up and down the face of the cliff with peremptory
hand signals, all the while peering into the lens of the theodolite,
while Nicholas teetered on insecure footing and tried to keep the staff
upright for Sapper to take his sightings.
"Okay!" Sapper bellowed, after taking his twentieth shot. "Now I want
you on the other side of the river."
Tine!" Nicholas bellowed back. "Do you want me to fly or swim?"
Nicholas hiked three miles upstream to the ford where the trail crossed
the Dandera river, and then fought his way back through the tangled
river in undergrowth to the point on the bank opposite which Sapper lay
in the shade smoking a soothing cigarette.
"Don't rupture yourself, will you?" Nicholas yelled across the water at
him.
It was almost dark before Sapper had made all the shots he wanted, and
Nicholas was still faced with the long return trip over the ford. He
covered the last mile in almost total darkness, guided only by the
flicker of the campfires.
Wearily he stumbled into the camp and flung down the levelling staff.
"You had beer tell me that it was worth it," he tt growled at Sapper,
who did not look up from his slide rule.
He was working over his revised drawings by the glaring light of a small
butane lantern.
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"You weren't too far out in your estimates," he congratulated Nicholas.
"The river is forty'one yards wide at the critical point above the
falls, where I want to site the structure."
"All I want to know is if you will be able to throw a dam across it."
Sapper grinned and laid his finger down the side of his nose, "You get
me my ruddy front-ender, and I'll dam the bleeding Nile itself."
had eaten their dinner - another of the packs - Royan glanced across
the fire at cholas. -When she caught his eye she inclined her head in
invitation. Then she stood up and casually drifted out of camp, looking
back once to make sure he was following her. Nicholas lighted the path
with his torch as they picked their way back to the dam site and found a
boulder overlooking the water on which to sit.
He switched off the torch and they were silent for a while as their eyes
adjusted to the starlight, and then Royan whispered, "There were times
that I thought we would never return here - that it was all a dream, and
that Taita's pool never existed."
"For us perhaps it never will, without the help of the monks from the
monastery." There was a note of enquiry in his voice.
"You and Mek Nimmur win," she chuckled softly. "Of course we have to
accept their help. Mek's arguments were very convincing."
"So you agree that their reward should be the mummy of Mamose?"
"I agree that they may take whatever mummy we discover, if we discover
one at all," she qualified. "For all we know, the true mummy of Mamose
may be the one that Nogo stole."
Quite naturally he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and after a
moment she relaxed against him. -oh, Nicky, I am afraid and excited.
Afraid that all our hopes are vain, and excited that we might have found
the key to Taita's game." She turned her face to his, and he felt her
breath on his lips.
He kissed her, tenderly. Then he drew back with the warmth of her
lingering on his lips and studied her face in the starlight. She made no
movement to pull away from stead she swayed towards him, and kissed him
back., him. In At first it was a staid sisterly kiss, with her mouth
tightly losed. He brought his right hand up behind her head and weaved
his fingers into her hair, holding her face to his.
He opened his mouth over hers, and she made a little sound of dissent
through her closed lips.
Slowly, voluptuously, he worked her lips apart, and her protests died
away as he probed her mouth deely with his tongue. She was making a
contented little mewling sound now, like a kitten nursing on the teat,
and her arms went around him. She kneaded his back with strong supple
fingers, her mouth wide open to his kiss, her tongue sinuous and
slippery as it twined around his.
He slid his other hand up between their bodies and unhooked the buttons
of her shirt down as low as her belt.
She leaned back slightly in his embrace to make it easier for him. With
a delicious shock he discovered that her breasts were naked under the
thin cotton shirt. He cupped one of them in his hand: it was small and
firm, only just filling his hand. When he pinched the nipple gently , it
stiffened between his fingers like a tiny ripe strawberry.
He broke off the kiss and bowed his head to her bosom.
She moaned softly, and with one hand guided him down.
When he sucked her nipple into his mouth she gasped and hooked the nails
of her other hand into his back, like a cat responding to a caress. Her
whole body undulated in his embrace, and after a while she pulled his
mouth away. He thought for a moment that she was rejecting him, but then
she moved his head across and placed her other nipple in his mouth. Once
again she gasped as he sucked it in.
Her movements became mote abandoned, keeping pace with his own arousal.
He could restrain himself no longer and he reached up under her khaki
culottes and laid his hand on the plump mound of her sex. Then with one
swift lithe movement she broke away and sprang to her feet. She stood
back from him, smoothing down her culottes and buttoning her shirt with
>
fingers that trembled
"I am so sorry, Nicky. I want to, oh God, you will never know how much I
want to. But-' she shook her head and she was panting wildly, "not yet.
Please, Nicky, forgive me. I am caught between two worlds. One half of
me wants this so very much but the other half will not allow me He stood
up and kissed her chastely. "There is no hurry. Good things are worth
waiting for," he told her with his mouth just touching hers. "Come! I
will take you home now."
while it was still dark the next morning, the first levy of priests that
Mai Metemma had promised came filing up the valley. Their chanting awoke
the camp, and everyone came sleepily out of their thatched lean-to
shelters to welcome the Ion column of holy men.
"Sweet heavens," Nicholas yawned, "it looks as though we have started
another crusade. They must have left the monastery in the middle of the
night to get here at this hour." He went to find Tessay, and when he did
he told her, "You are hereby appointed official translator. Sapper
speaks not a word of either Arabic or Amharic. Stick close to him."
As soon as it was fully light, Mek and Nicholas left camp to reconnoitr
the drop site. By noon they had agreed that there was only one
possibility: they would have to use the valley itself Compared to the
rocky ridges that surrounded them, the floor of the valley was level and
fairly free of obstructions. It was imperative that the drop should take
place as close to the dam site as possible, for every mile that the
stores must be manhandled would add immeasurably to the time and effort
needed for the work.
"Time is the major factor," Nicholas told Mek as they stood in the
chosen drop zone the following morning.
"Every day counts from now until the rains break."
Mek looked up at the sky. "Pray God for late rains." They marked out
their drop site a mile down from the river, along the stretch where the
valley was widest and there was a clear approach through a gap in the
hills.
Jannie would need to fly straight and level for five miles under full
flap and with the loading ramp down.
"Cutting it fine," Mek remarked, as they surveyed the rugged slopes and
frowning peaks that surrounded them.
"Can your fat friend fly?"
"Fly? He is half-bird,'Nicholas told him.
They moved down the valley to check the placement of the flares and the
markers, The markers consisted of crosses of quartz stones laid out down
the centre of the valley floor, and they would be highly visible from
the air.
Sapper was up at the head of the valley. They could see him there on the
skyline as he moved around, setting out his smoke flares to mark the
approach to the drop zone.
When Nicholas turned around and looked in the opposite direction, he
could see the two women sitting on a rock together at the far end of the
valley. Sapper had already helped them to set up their flares. These
would mark the far limit of the zone, and give Jannie a mark for his
climb out of the valley.
Nicholas then turned his attention back to Mek's men as they finished
laying out the stark white quartz markers.
Once these were all in place, Mek ordered the area to be cleared. Then,
lugging the radio, they climbed up to join Sapper on the high ground at
the head of the valley. Mek helped Nicholas string out the aerial. Then
Nicholas switched on and adjusted the gain carefully before he thumbed
the microphone.
"Big Dolly. Come in, Big Dolly!'Nicholas invited, but the static hummed
and whined.
"They must be running late." Nicholas tried not to let his disquiet
show. Jannie will be coming straight in from Malta on this run. After
the first drop he will go back to your base at Roseires and pick up the
second load. With luck, both loads should all be dropped before noon
tomorrow.
"If the fat man comes at all," Mek remarked.
Jannie is a pro," Nicholas grunted. "He will come." He held the
microphone to his lips, "Big Dolly. Do you read?
Over."
Every ten minutes he called -out into the empty echoing silence. Each
time his call went unanswered he had visions of Sudanese MiG
interceptors racing in with their missiles cocked and locked, and the
old Hercules plunging earthwards in flames.
"Come in, Big Dolly!" he pleaded, and at last a thin, scratchy voice
floated into his headset. "Pharaoh. This is Big Dolly. ETA forty-five
minutes. Standing by." Jannie's transmission was terse. He was too much
of an old hand at the smuggling game to give a hostile listener time to
fix his position.
"Big Dolly. Understand four five. Pharaoh standing by." Nicholas grinned
at Mek. "Looks like we are in business after all."
Mek heard it first. His ear was battle-tuned. In this i land, if you
wanted to go on living it paid to pick up any aircraft long before it
arrived. Nicholas was out of training, so it was almost five minutes
later that he picked up the distinctive drone of the multi-props echoing
weirdly off the Cliffs of the gorge. It was impossible to be certain of
the direction, but they shaded their eyes and stared into the west.
"There she is." Nicholas redeemed himself as he spotted the tiny dark
speck, so low as almost to blend into the background of the escarpment
wall. He nodded at Sapper.
Sapper ran out to his flares and fussed over them briefly. When he
backed away they bloomed into clouds of dense marigold-yellow smoke that
drifted out sluggishly on the light breeze. The smoke would give Jannie
the strength and direction of the wind, as well as his orientation for
the drop zone.
Nicholas lifted his binoculars and gazed towards the other end of the
narrow valley. He saw that Royan and Tessay were busy with their flares.
Suddenly crimson smoke billowed from them, and the women ran back to
their original position and stood staring up at the sky.
Nicholas called softly into the microphone. "Big Dolly.
Smoke is up. Do you have it visual?"
"Affirmative. You are visual. For what you are about to receive may you
be truly thankful." Jannie's South African accent was unmistakable as he
uttered the cheerful blasphemy.
They watched the aircraft grow in size until its wings seemed to fill
half the sky, and then its profile altered as the great wing flaps
dropped and the ramp below its belly drooped open. Big Dolly slowed her
flight so dramatically that she seemed to hang suspended on an invisible
thread from the high African sun. Slowly she came around, banking
steeply as Jannie tined her up on the smoke flares, dropping lower and
still lower, headed directly at where they stood.
With a savage roar that made all three of them duck, she passed so low
over their heads that it seemed she would wipe them off the crest.
Nicholas had a glimpse of Jannie upwarliov peering down at him from the
cockpit, a fat smile on his face and one hand raised in a laconic wave,
and then he was past.
Nicholas straightened up and watched B
ig Dolly sweep majestica Ily down
the centre of the valley. The first pallet dropped out of her and
plunged earthwards, until at the last moment its parachutes burst open
like a bride's bouuet. The fall of the heavy container was arrested
abruptly.
It. dangled and swung, and seconds later struck the floor of the valley
in a cloud of yellow dust and with a crash they could hear up on the
ridge. Then two more loads dropped from her, and they too hung for a
moment on their chutes before they slammed in.
Big Dolly's engines howled under full throttle and her nose lifted as
she bored for height while she passed over the crimson smoke clouds, and
then climbed out of the deadly trap of the valley. She came round in
another wide turn and lined up for the second run. Once again the
pallets dropped out of her as she roared over the quartz markers and
then climbed out over the end wall of the valley, skimming the rocky
spikes that would have clawed her down.
Six times Jannie repeated the dangerous manoeuvre, and each time he
dropped three of the heavy rectangular loads. They lay strewn down the
length of the valley, shrouded by the tumbled white silk of their own
parachutes.
As Jannie climbed away from the last pass, his voice echoed in
Nicholas's earphones. "Don't go away, Pharaoh!
I will be back." Then Big Dolly lifted her belly ramp like an old lady
hoisting her knickers and headed away westwards.
Nicholas and Mek ran down into the valley, where the monks were already
jabbering and laughing. around the pallets. Quickly the two of them took
control, sorting the men into gangs and directing them as they broke
down the loads and carried them away.
Nicholas and Sapper had planned that the pallets should be dropped in
the order that their contents would be needed. The first pallet
contained canned and dried food, all their personal effects and camping
equipment, along with those other little creature comforts that Nicholas
had allowed, including mosquito nets and a case of malt whisky. He was
relieved to see that there was no leakage from the precious case: not
one of the bottles had been broken in the drop.
Sapper took charge of the building material and heavy equipment. With
Tessay relaying his orders, it was dragged and manhandled away to the
ancient quarry where it would be packed and stored until needed on site.