“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Well, first thing is for you to take this body off our hands,” she said. “He must have a family somewhere.”
“And then?”
Khuwelsa shook her head. “Not really sure. Perhaps you can shed some light on how a bunch of German soldiers came to be slaughtering hippos for ivory.”
Johannes pursed his lips and brought his hands up onto the desk. “In order that Harriet and you can go chasing off to stop them?”
She shrugged. “That’s not my idea of a good plan.”
“You are not Harriet.”
“No, I’m not.”
He sighed and sat back in the chair. He kept glancing at her shoulders, which was quite embarrassing for her. She was never going to do this again.
“I’ll come and look at the soldier.”
“And take him off our hands?”
“I’ll decide what to do when I’ve seen him.”
They left the gatehouse and headed out on to the road. There were sidelong glances from the guards, but they could not say anything and Johannes did not have to justify himself.
They rounded the first corner. “You walk ahead,” he said. “I’ll follow at a discreet distance.”
vi
Harry jerked awake at the hammering on the hatch of the Pegasus. It took her a moment to get her bearings. She had made a nest near the furnace to ward off the cold of the African night, then spent half an hour working her way through the opening chapters of Khuwelsa’s book before falling soundly asleep. She vaguely recalled dreaming in French about Zeppelins and sea monsters.
The banging on the door came again. This time, she came properly awake.
“Come on, Harry,” shouted Khuwelsa. “It’s bloody freezing out here.”
Harry pulled herself stiffly to her feet and staggered over to the door. Her left leg had gone numb; she must have slept on it in a funny way. She unlocked the hatch, nearly tumbling out as Khuwelsa yanked it open. She pushed past Harry, went straight to the furnace, and plastered herself against its riveted iron skin.
“I am never ever dressing like this again, I swear,” she said. “You can do it next time, Harry, and I don’t care if your skin’s not the right colour. We'll use boot black.”
Harry turned her attention to the half-lit figure still outside. “Hello, Johannes. You can come in.”
“No, he bloody can’t!” shouted Sellie. “You can both get out while I get changed into some proper clothes.”
Harry smiled and shrugged. She put her foot down on the outer steps and Johannes offered her his hand to steady her descent. She pulled the hatch closed behind her.
It was very cold. The air was crystal clear and very still. The stars barely twinkled against the blackness of the Void. There was an awkward moment of silence.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“It was very foolish of Khuwelsa to enter the town, Harriet,” said Johannes. “If someone had recognised her I don’t know what would have happened.”
“Nobody looks at the natives,” Harry said quietly as if she was worried Khuwelsa would hear.
“But if she had been recognised—”
“She wasn’t,” said Harry with finality. If Johannes had been going to argue more, he chose not to.
A silver glow on the horizon to the northeast foretold the moonrise.
“Did you get into trouble?” she asked.
“When they discovered you were missing, there was a great deal of shouting and anger,” he said without a trace of emotion. “The gate guards have been returned home and will be punished.”
“What about you?”
“It has gone on my record that you escaped from my custody, but I am not accused or suspected of aiding you.”
“Well, you didn’t,” she said with a hint of warmth in her voice. “Did you?”
“No, I did nothing intentional to aid your escape.”
Like having the Pegasus moved inside the compound, or setting off the first alarm to provide a distraction. And Harry knew he had seen her untying the Pegasus before they took off, and had not raised the alarm at that moment.
“The trick with the lock was very clever,” he said. “And the failure of the WC in the officers’ quarters was not connected to your escape.”
“Sellie’s a magician.”
“What did she do?”
Harry shrugged but realised he couldn’t see her in the dark. “A magician never reveals her secret.”
“You mean you don’t know.” He was teasing her.
“No,” she said. “I have no idea.”
Light flooded out from the Pegasus. They turned and saw Khuwelsa silhouetted against the bright interior. Johannes paused to allow Harry to ascend the steps first and then followed her in. Khuwelsa slammed the hatch behind them.
Harry gestured at the rolled blanket on the other side of the cabin. “There he is, take a look.”
Johannes knelt beside the body and unwrapped the cloth about its face. The taint of death in the air intensified. It made Harry’s stomach turn over.
“I do not recognise him,” Johannes said and then pushed the cloth down to reveal the uniform. “Zeppelin deckhand.”
“Even I knew that,” said Harry. “He’s got a badge on his lapel.”
Johannes checked it and shook his head. “I don’t recognise it,” he said. “Did he have any papers on him?”
“We didn’t find any.”
Johannes pushed the body up on one side to release the blanket tucked beneath it, and unwrapped it further. He reached inside the jacket and went through the pockets. He pulled out a small oval object and held it up.
“Pine cone?” he said.
Harry moved forward and took it from him. “That was us.”
Finally Johannes rewrapped the body and stood up.
“Well?” said Harry.
Johannes shook his head. “I am not sure.”
“But you have an idea.”
“I should not speak of this,” he said. Harry put an innocent expression on her face. Johannes sighed. “There is a vessel that went missing. Three months ago.”
“So you think he’s from that?”
“How can I know?” said Johannes. “Ships disappear from time to time. There was a search but it was not found. It was assumed to have been lost, and we thought perhaps one day we would find it, or perhaps a survivor would appear.”
Harry knew it was true. Vessels were lost over oceans, mountains, deserts, and in the Void, of course. Anywhere that no one would see them fall.
But Johannes was not finished. “You did not report about his wrists.”
Harry frowned. “There was nothing unusual about his wrists.”
Johannes bent down and unwrapped the man again. Harry knelt beside him. He lifted the man’s hand. The uniform slipped back and revealed bruise marks all the way around the wrist; the other was the same.
“They weren’t there before,” Harry said.
“Perhaps it takes time,” said Johannes.
“It looks as if he was tied up,” said Harry, “and must have fallen when he was escaping. Could it be pirates?”
“Pirates are unlikely to attack a military vessel, Harry,” he said. “Nor would they keep a man alive if he did not cooperate.”
“So,” said Khuwelsa, making both of the others jump. “He was cooperating and then found a reason not to. He was tied up, escaped, and fell. With a hippopotamus tooth in his hand.”
They turned. Khuwelsa was behind them with both hands wrapped around a steaming tin mug. “Want a cuppa? Kettle just boiled.”
vii
They only had the two deck chairs so Johannes sat on a toolbox. They all drank from the mugs.
“This is fresh milk,” said Johannes.
“Sellie put together a cold store,” said Harry. “Don’t bother asking her how it works because she’ll start talking about the furnace, which makes no sense to me at all.”
“It make
s perfect sense,” protested Khuwelsa. “Just because you are a complete dunce when it comes to science, you think it’s nonsense.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“No, but you were thinking it, and you were trying to get the Feldwebel-Leutnant to agree with you.”
“Ha, you have a pash for him too,” crowed Harry.
“So you do have a pash for him then,” said Khuwelsa. “I knew it.”
“I am still here, ladies,” said Johannes in a tone probably reserved for admonishing the lower ranks. “And my hearing is in perfect order.”
Harry glanced at him; there was a redness to his cheeks.
Johannes continued. “We must decide what to do about your passenger.”
“It’s really simple,” said Harry. “You have to take him off our hands.”
“I do not think I can have anything to do with him,” said Johannes. “It would be very difficult to explain how he came into my possession.”
“Well, we can’t keep him,” said Harry. “He’s already attracting flies and starting to smell.”
“And what about the hippos?” said Khuwelsa.
Johannes held up his hands to quiet them. “There is only one choice. You must leave him on the road where he will be found by someone. They will come to us and we will collect him in that way. There will be no way to connect him to you or me.
“Once it is established he came from the missing vessel, the authorities will send out ships to search again, and this time they will be looking for a vessel that is flying instead of one that has crashed.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“And what about the hippos?” said Khuwelsa again.
Johannes shrugged. “They are of no importance to me.”
Harry glanced at Khuwelsa fuming in her chair. She looked like she was going to explode. If she did have any feelings for Johannes, they had probably evaporated in the heat of her anger.
“All right, Johannes,” Harry said as she climbed awkwardly to her feet. It was impossible to get out of a deck chair with any degree of elegance. Johannes also stood out of good manners. “You better get back to the town. We’ll put the body out on the road before we leave.”
She went to the door and held it open for him, giving him no choice but to leave. And it would be ill-mannered of him to imply that the dismissal was, to any degree, rude or abrupt.
“Good evening, Miss Edgbaston and Miss Edgbaston,” he said formally. He saluted and clicked his heels. Harry shut the door behind him as he disappeared into the dark.
Khuwelsa’s tin mug flew past Harry’s head and clanged off the door.
“I hate him,” said Khuwelsa. She looked down at her dress and brushed it with her fingers. “I got tea on me.”
“You don’t hate him,” Harry said.
“Germans are stupid, Harry,” said Sellie. “I honestly don’t know what you see in him.”
“He’s a good dancer.”
Khuwelsa harrumphed.
“Let’s get airborne,” said Harry. “Dump this fellow on the road and head home.”
“You have noticed the sun’s not up yet?”
“Full moon, clear sky,” said Harry. “It’ll be as good as daylight. I had a sleep while you were out. You can have a nap once we’re off.”
“When were you thinking of getting some sleep?”
“I just want to get away from here,” said Harry. “I’ll give it a couple of hours and then set down.”
“All right.”
It took Khuwelsa twenty minutes to get the Pegasus up to full pressure. They moved the body to a position beside the hatch and took off. The moon was high enough to provide good illumination across the savannah; across the darker shades of grass, the main road was a distinct grey ribbon.
The Pegasus could take off and land vertically but could not hover, so Harry brought her down steadily. Khuwelsa got the hatch open and pushed the body out. She leaned out to ensure it was on the road—dead centre—then gave two long whistles. As Harry fed full power to the propeller and stroked away from the ground, Khuwelsa slammed and locked the hatch.
* * *
The morning sun poured in through the front window. Harry rolled over away from the brightness and bumped her head on a metal strut. She sniffed; a delicious scent filled the air. Frying bacon.
“Breakfast,” said Khuwelsa.
“What time is it?”
“Half-past eight” came the reply. “I’ve been up for hours.”
A thought struck Harry. “Bacon?”
“Wild boar.”
Harry pushed herself up on her elbows and craned her head round. Khuwelsa was standing by the furnace holding the handle of her coal shovel. The other end was inside. There were hacked strips of meat on the box beside her. Some were cooked.
“I had to improvise.”
“Lucky you found one,” said Harry. “Was it already dead or should I be impressed? Where’s the rest of it?”
“Outside,” said Khuwelsa, then grinned. “You think I actually went out, shot a boar, and then butchered it?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I’m not entirely sure whether I should be flattered you think I did, or insulted that you think I could because of my birth,” said Sellie, and Harry squirmed until her sister grinned. “No, some natives were passing. I bought it.”
Harry got up and stretched, trying to get the kinks out of her muscles and joints. She groaned as she twisted her back but it felt better once she stopped.
“I’m still impressed,” said Harry. “Is it ready?”
They tucked the cooked bacon inside pouches of unleavened bread, took them outside, and sat on the steps of the Pegasus with cups of tea.
“The bacon should keep for a couple of days in the cold store,” said Khuwelsa.
Harry looked round. She had landed the Pegasus in a small dell surrounded by wooded ridges; about thirty yards away was a watering hole. Between the Pegasus and the hole a group of ten warriors sat around a fire, talking and laughing. Harry smiled. People who thought the natives were different from Europeans had no idea what they were talking about.
“Do they know anything about the hippo killers?” said Harry.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Perhaps we should.”
viii
They finished their food and cleaned up. Khuwelsa watched Harry pulling her scarf around her head. She knew that Harry was expecting to run the show as usual, but this time was going to be different. If she chose her words carefully, sticking to facts, maybe Harry’s reaction would be less dramatic than she feared. She hoped so, anyway.
Khuwelsa collected up the plates and placed them just inside the hatch.
“There’s just one thing, Harry,” she said. “I’ll be doing the talking.”
“Of course,” said Harry. “I can’t speak—what? Bantu?”
Khuwelsa stood in front of her. “That’s not exactly what I mean.”
Harry tucked loose strands of her long red hair behind her ears and under the scarf. “What then?”
“I gave the impression I was in charge.”
Harry stopped with the fingers of her right hand pushed up under her headscarf. “Why?”
“You know most natives don’t like Europeans, right?”
“Of course.”
“They’ll be more cooperative.”
Harry shrugged. “That’s fine,” she said. “Doesn’t matter.” She turned back to the ship and made a big show of noticing a dead insect on the glass and wiping it off with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Harry!”
“What?” Harry turned back to her. “I said it doesn’t matter. It’s fine. No reason I should be the one in charge. We’re sisters.”
“But you always are, aren’t you?”
Harry stopped again. “I … don’t mean to be.”
Khuwelsa smiled and put her hand on Harry’s arm. “Of course not. But you can be a bossy cow, you know?”
“Thanks f
or nothing.”
“Honestly, I don’t really care,” said Khuwelsa. “But these are Kikuyu, and they really don’t like the British.”
“Any relation to your tribe?” asked Harry.
“Not really, they’re from further north.”
Harry hesitated. “Am I supposed to be your slave?”
“They aren’t slavers, so you don’t have to grovel. They’re mostly just farmers.”
Harry glanced across at the men; from what she could see they were armed to the teeth. “Farmers?”
Khuwelsa shrugged. “Come on, just stay behind me, and don’t look them in the eye.”
The two of them, Khuwelsa in the lead and Harry following, pushed their way through the long grass. The men saw them coming. There was a quick conversation and then three of them left the group and met the girls halfway.
Even though Harry had said “Bantu” as if it were a single language like English, they both knew there were hundreds of variations. Still, the core remained the same. Those differences should mean the men would not realise she wasn’t good at the language at all. Khuwelsa had started using it again only in recent years, and was very rusty with it.
“Greetings, Bakari, brave warrior of the Kikuyu,” she said in simple Bantu.
“Greetings, Khuwelsa, sky rider of the iron bird,” said the one in front. She smiled at the appellation he had given her when they spoke earlier. Thin but not bony, he had muscles like whipcords. She did not often get close to young men without layers of clothes. He was quite handsome.
“If it is acceptable to you, Bakari, I have questions,” she said. She was sure there were more polite ways of asking, but she had no idea what they were.
“We also have questions, Khuwelsa,” he said. “We shall give — and — .”
Khuwelsa panicked for a moment. She had no idea what he had said; if she agreed, would she be committing them to something that she shouldn’t? Harry would never let her forget.
She pulled herself together. Misunderstandings in communication must happen all the time. Just say so. “I am sorry. I did not understand.”
Harry in the Wild: Astounding Stories of Adventure (Iron Pegasus Book 2) Page 3