Khuwelsa came through and unscrewed a panel in the floor. It was not that Harry was disinterested in how the Pegasus worked; she knew how her baby behaved in the air and what the Faraday could and could not do. But she was not interested in the details of the science. With the panel lifted off, Khuwelsa lowered the gas light into the hole.
Harry craned her neck to see in. There was a criss-cross mesh of fine copper wires connected to larger ones that carried the power. These in turn were wrapped around small white towers. They reminded her of something.
“What are those?” she asked.
Khuwelsa looked round. “What are what?”
Harry pointed. “The white things.”
Confused, Khuwelsa looked back into the hold and pointed her screwdriver at the nearest small tower. “These?”
Harry nodded. “What do they do?”
“Insulators,” said Khuwelsa. “The Faraday needs a lot of power; you need thick cables to carry it.” She pointed at the copper wire almost a quarter of an inch thick that ran from tower to tower and wrapped round each. Grooves kept the wires from slipping. “These do the opposite of the lightning conductor, they won’t carry electricity.”
“Are they china?”
Khuwelsa tapped the metal of the screwdriver against the top. The sound was like a teaspoon against a cup.
“A bit fragile, isn’t it?”
Khuwelsa hit it harder; Harry cringed, expecting it to crack or smash. “Not really. It’s thicker than you’d get in a teapot.”
“But it could shatter?”
“I suppose.”
“What about hippo teeth?” said Harry. “Would they do the same job?”
Khuwelsa frowned in thought. “I don’t think so,” she said. “The tooth would burn if it got too hot, I think. Ceramics can get very hot without any damage.”
But Harry would not be put off. “How hot does it get?”
“Not very, usually.”
“Does it ever get hot?”
Khuwelsa shook her head reluctantly. “No.”
“So you could use a hippo tooth as one of those insulating towers?”
“I suppose you could.”
Harry looked up with a pleased expression on her face and realised three things in quick succession: She and Khuwelsa were alone in the Pegasus; the rain had stopped and light was pouring in through the windows; and someone outside was shouting Khuwelsa’s name.
xii
Harry got up awkwardly; her damp clothes were stiff and held her in a vicelike grip. Ahead of her, Khuwelsa reached the door. She called something in Bantu, waited for the reply, and then turned back.
“Bakari’s found something he thinks will interest us.”
Harry stretched her arms, trying to loosen her underthings.
“You know it wouldn’t bother them if you took some of those off,” said Khuwelsa with a grin. Harry knew she was just teasing her, getting her own back for having to pretend to be a native—or go back to being a native, whichever it was.
“Yes, well, I’m not going to.”
Harry stepped out and looked around in confusion. Despite what she had thought when they landed, this was not the same place as where they had found the hippos before—yet it looked the same. More dead hippopotamuses: these too had gunshot wounds, but they had suffered more from the depredations of the carrion eaters. They had been dead longer by one or two days at least.
And there were more of them, perhaps a hundred.
Harry’s heart sank. She knew she was right. The Germans were not seeking teeth to be carved into ornaments for sale. This had something to do with Faraday grids. She guessed, from what she had seen, the Pegasus must have fifty of those insulator towers under the deck, let alone the small ones in the feathers.
How many would the soldiers have collected now? Reluctantly she examined the broken jaw of the nearest carcass. She counted twelve teeth sliced off at the front; the ones further back were smaller and untouched. Just to be sure she checked another, and it was the same. Twelve each from a hundred and fifty animals: nearly two thousand. Enough for forty ships like the Pegasus.
If that’s what they were doing. But what other reason could they have?
“Harry!”
She looked up. Khuwelsa was standing with their passengers a short distance away, waving Harry over.
Fighting with the wet clothes, Harry strode in their direction.
“What?” she said as she drew closer. Khuwelsa was pointing at one of the bodies. Harry scowled; she couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. She rounded the body of one particularly large hippo and saw what Khuwelsa was pointing at.
A native arrow protruded from the chest of one of the hippos. It was buried deep but probably hadn’t caused the animal’s death. Killing a river horse took a lot; the line of bullet holes was more likely the reason.
“Bakari says it’s an arrow belonging to their man,” Khuwelsa said. “He must have joined up with the Germans.”
“As a guide?” Harry was not convinced that was likely. They did not need a guide; all they had to do was fly around following rivers until they found a herd. It wouldn’t be hard. Maybe they wanted a translator.
How many other groups of animals had they murdered and pillaged? Two thousand teeth might be a low estimate.
“Perhaps,” said Khuwelsa. “But what about this?” She held out a necklace. Harry remembered that Bakari had been wearing it. It was composed of what might be snail shells strung on a cord, with an egg-sized polished green mineral as the pendant. The stone had a network of white veins running through it, like marble.
“Did your boyfriend give it to you?” said Harry.
Khuwelsa’s face dropped. “What’s wrong with you? He’s not my boyfriend, though the way you’re behaving he might be better company.”
Harry wasn’t sure what the problem was. She tried to shake herself free of the vague feeling of annoyance hanging around her. “Sorry. What about it?”
“It’s malachite.”
“If you say so.”
“You get copper from malachite.”
“As in copper wires?”
Khuwelsa nodded.
“And your friends come from the north.”
“Our friends.”
“If you say so,” said Harry. “And the Zeppelin was heading north after picking up this fellow.”
“Yes.”
“Do we know if he had any of this malachite on him?”
Khuwelsa did not answer but pointed to the other warriors in turn. They all wore ornaments containing the green mineral.
“So they have thousands of insulators and a source of copper,” said Harry. “They could be building a huge Faraday device.”
“Yes,” said Khuwelsa. “Or perhaps going into the ivory trade in a big way making necklaces.”
“Either way we had probably better stop them,” said Harry.
“Yes.”
Harry hesitated and glanced at the men, who watched the girls talking without any comprehension or impatience. “Do your friends want a lift home?”
“Our friends.”
“Do they?”
Khuwelsa turned and spoke to Bakari. There was a lot of gesturing, pointing at the Pegasus and then north to the distant mountains. Harry did not need an interpreter to see the initial reluctance, then the realisation of how much faster they would get home coupled with the fact they might catch up with their quarry.
Bakari bowed his head, first at Khuwelsa and then at Harry. He turned back to Khuwelsa and gave a long speech, occasionally looking over at Harry as he did so.
“Bakari says that he would be honoured to ride in the metal bird and he wants to apologise to both of us. He did not understand when I called you sister and thought I had used the wrong word. Now he understands that we are sisters and wishes to honour you equally with me.”
“So he’s a boyfriend to both of us now?”
Khuwelsa broke into a grin. “Probably. They practice plural marriage an
d he’s a chief’s son. I imagine he’s allowed several wives.”
“Lucky us,” said Harry.
“He’s particularly impressed with your red hair.”
“You can tell him I’m taken.”
“He might challenge Johannes to a fight to the death.”
“Messy,” said Harry. “Come on.”
They headed back to the Pegasus with Harry and Khuwelsa walking together in the lead and the men following behind.
“Just as well they agreed to come with us,” said Harry.
“Why?”
“Because we haven’t the slightest clue where we’re going.”
xiii
“How’s the coal situation?” Harry asked Khuwelsa.
The Pegasus was high over the southern Usambara Mountains once again. Harry had taken them up to five thousand feet but she still had to pay attention to avoid some of the peaks. Khuwelsa, standing beside her, had not had to stoke once. Bakari had a couple of his men do it. The machine fascinated them.
“Bakari says that their chief says they must learn the ways of the European to throw him out of Africa.”
“Wise man,” Harry said and glanced at Khuwelsa. She was grinning. “What?”
“I’m their ideal African,” said Khuwelsa and giggled.
“Oh great,” said Harry. “Well, don’t let it go to your head. And you do realise”—she added with a malicious grin—“they’ll be queueing up for your hand in marriage.”
Khuwelsa made a rude noise. “If that’s the case I’ll be able to pick and choose, won’t I?”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Harry. “You know what these things are like. It’ll be a cattle market with you as the prize cow.”
Khuwelsa slapped Harry across the top of her head.
“Anyway,” said Harry. “How is the coal?”
“We’ll need some if we’re going up to Lake Victoria.”
“And that’s where we’re going, is it?”
“Apparently.”
The storm had veered off to the east, visible now as darkness covering the mountains on the horizon, occasionally lit from within by its powerful lightning.
Harry gave their course some thought. Once they were north of the mountains they would be in the British protectorate where—at least theoretically—no one would cause them any trouble. There was, of course, also the fact they had not got back home last night. If they chose to set down in a big enough town they could write a letter. There might even be a telegraph.
“We better send a message to Dad,” said Khuwelsa as if reading Harry’s thoughts.
“Better not say why we’re away.”
“Or that we went to see Johannes.”
“Or where we’re going.”
Khuwelsa hesitated. “Perhaps we should stick to having a lovely time wish you were here.”
“We could lie.”
“We probably will.”
Khuwelsa dug out a map of the Horn of Africa. Bakari became very interested as she unrolled it across the floor and held down his side. It was a square about a yard on each side, and covered Africa from the Red Sea down to Zanzibar. The printing in the corner indicated it had been created by the Ordnance Survey.
She ran her fingers over it, locating the town of Dodoma where Johannes was stationed, the location of their private valley, and the places where she thought they had encountered the dead hippos. As she described the places out loud to Bakari in Bantu there was a moment of realisation, and all the men gathered round to look.
“We can stop in at Ndungu,” said Khuwelsa to Harry. “It’s about a hundred miles north by northwest. There are good roads so we should be able to spot those even if we miss the town first time.”
Harry checked the compass and brought the Pegasus round on a new heading. Khuwelsa spoke to Bakari again. The map did include the east coast of Lake Victoria. Harry heard him talking excitedly, and she could imagine him pointing at the map.
“Their village is not on the map,” said Khuwelsa. “But it’s near the coast, so if we stick to it he will be able to recognise the landmarks.”
Less than twenty minutes later the mountains fell away beneath them and they were once more cruising across green valleys and hills below escarpments with steep cliffs. Harry angled the Pegasus into a gentle descent and reduced power to the propeller in order to save on coal.
It was one of Bakari’s men who spotted the town from a starboard porthole. He called to Bakari, who relayed the message to Khuwelsa, and she informed Harry. Harry brought the ship round. The town was about twenty miles away but seemed be surrounded by some sort of haze.
“How are we for coal and pressure, Sellie?” Harry asked.
“Should be fine as long as we don’t have to do any clever acrobatics.”
“The sky’s clear,” said Harry. “Not a Zeppelin in sight.” Or anything else, come to that, even the storm was now no more than a memory.
She studied the town and realised the sky was not clear after all. The haze was due to smoke rising from the town itself, smoke that went up several hundred feet before dissipating. She aimed the Pegasus at the town and accelerated slightly.
“What’s wrong?” asked Khuwelsa.
“I don’t know, how likely are all the buildings to be burning fires in their hearths in the middle of the day?” said Harry. “Just being careful.”
“You?”
“Careful is my middle name.”
Khuwelsa snorted in an unladylike fashion but went back and spoke to Bakari, returning moments later. “Bakari says it looks like a grass fire.”
“Except there’s not a lot of grass in a town.”
It took them less than ten minutes to cover the distance. Every moment as they approached, the situation became clearer. It seemed as if the entire town was on fire.
As Harry brought the Pegasus in a wide loop around the buildings they could see great blast holes in the ground. At least three buildings had collapsed. As they came around the east side a tremendous cloud of smoke and flame shot into the sky as something exploded and another building collapsed in on itself.
The flames were out of control but townsfolk stretched in a chain from the river to the edge of the fire, passing buckets one to the next in a vain effort to put out the conflagration.
Bakari shouted again. Khuwelsa disappeared from Harry’s side but was back in a moment. “There’s a group of people trapped in a square of buildings, Harry.”
Harry glanced at the steam pressure. They could land but they wouldn’t be able to lift again. Without hesitation she turned in towards the middle of the buildings. Smoke obscured her vision but Bakari came up and pointed slightly to the right. She shifted her angle again and saw the target. They were only two storeys high but completely engulfed in flame.
She guided the Pegasus through the buffeting currents, smoke, and flames. Above the square she glimpsed the group of perhaps ten people. With strong strokes she arrested the ‘thopter’s motion and came down. The gusts of air from the wings pushed back the flames and people dodged out from under the beast as she landed.
Harry noted the steam pressure was almost depleted. They did not have enough to lift. What on earth would they do now?
xiv
Khuwelsa dashed to the hatch and flung it open. The heat from the burning buildings was like a pressure on her skin. The air was filled with the roaring of the flames and the constant crack of snapping timbers.
Heat didn’t bother her; she faced the Pegasus’s furnace every day. She kicked the steps out and down, then descended into the square. A dozen people stood between the ship and the conflagration, unsure which was worse: being burned alive or risking the unknown ship.
“Everybody inside!” Khuwelsa shouted, but her voice was lost in the noise. She gestured wildly but the townspeople barely shuffled towards them. Khuwelsa tutted. It was because she was black.
She turned and saw Bakari standing in the hatch door. He was not helping; the people were probably terrifie
d at the very sight of him. She thought quickly, beckoning to him and shouting in Bantu. “You and your men need to get out now!”
He hesitated.
“Come on! Quick! Or they will burn.”
He disappeared for a moment. Khuwelsa looked round, squinting against the sun and the flames, looking for the townsperson that seemed to have the most authority.
The people shrank back even further towards the flames. She turned and saw that all five warriors had emerged. Bakari was at her shoulder. She had heard nothing above the crashing.
“They are afraid of you,” said Khuwelsa.
“They should be.”
“No, that’s not what—” She thought of trying to explain but her knowledge of the language really didn’t stretch that far. “You go to the other side; if there are people there, you must make them come around this side.”
He nodded and stalked off around the front of the ship with his men in tow. Khuwelsa dreaded to think how they would persuade people, but if it meant they were rescued then ‘how’ didn’t matter.
Her eyes lit on a woman sheltering two small children from the heat. Better than some officious man who would be bound to argue. Khuwelsa set off at a trot across the dirt, trying to avoid the sizzling embers that floated down.
The woman realised Khuwelsa was heading for her and looked round in panic. Nearby, a man moved to cut her off. Khuwelsa slowed to a walk and showed her hands as empty. Her frustration was about to boil over. Why did people act so stupidly when they were being rescued?
“We’re here to help!” she shouted. “You need to get on board and we’ll take you to safety.” Surely the fact she spoke perfect English would allay their fears.
“Who are you?” shouted the man.
At that moment the building behind them collapsed in on itself with a thunderous crash. A cloud of sparks and burning wood thrust into the air and rained down on them. Khuwelsa pulled something hot from her hair. The cries from the children increased to screams.
Harry in the Wild: Astounding Stories of Adventure (Iron Pegasus Book 2) Page 5