A Twist of Sand

by Geoffrey Jenkins

It wasn't water. It was thousands of zebra.

  They came through the rock-lined gap at full gallop, packed so close together that they sprayed out like water as the river bed widened. The thunder of thousands, tens of thousands, of hoofs on the rock, was deafening.

  "It's a mass migration," I yelled above the uproar. "It happens once in a lifetime. They'll tear on for scores of miles. Fifty years ago a magistrate in South West Africa saw the same thing happen with springbok. They threw themselves into the sea and drowned by the thousand. Mass suicide—"

  Look!" screamed Anne.

  The huge sentry-lion dropped like a stone off the rock on to the mass of animals below him. His victim staggered under his weight, but was borne remorselessly clear of the narrow section by the impetus of the herd behind. Almost without effort, it seemed, the black-maned brute struck the zebra across the head and together they tumbled into the sand. Terrified, those behind opened out around the lion and the prostrate zebra. Another huge lion dropped among the herd from above and was carried out into the sand by the flood. Like experienced paratroopers, lion after lion catapulted himself into the mass of thundering animals passing below. Soon the white sand was dotted, black and white stripes on the ground and huge black forms kneeling over them. Once the thundering zebra overran a lion and his victim. He rose savagely and struck out. I heard the dull sickening thud even above the other noise. I saw the outline of his gigantic paw across the rib-cage of one crazed creature which had overrun him, the mark outlined against the black and white stripes in scarlet blood. It was so swift and sudden that the zebra ran for fully thirty yards before it pitched head over heels in the sand, a shattered, bloody corpse.

  The slaughter went on for half an hour. Then, like magic, the thunder of the hoofs stopped. The white bed of the river was red as the lions ripped at their victims. There must have been more than a hundred, each with his own kill. The nearest was perhaps fifty yards from our tree. He tore open the zebra's stomach and pawed among the bowels, still quivering with latent life. We watched fascinated, sickened. He scraped them on one side and then plunged his whole head into the hole in the carcass. The black mane emerged, soaked in blood. The black and scarlet looked like a flamenco singer's costume. He chewed some inner delicacy with gusto, uttering that same low purring.

  The silence, except for the chewing noises like tearing sacking, was complete.

  Stein's voice broke it.

  "Down, all of you!" he rapped.

  He was sitting on a branch below us. I looked at him incredulously.

  "Hurry!" he went on.

  "I'm staying," I said. Anne nodded in agreement, white-faced.

  He made a faint gesture with the Luger and smiled.

  "This is our moment," he said. "This sort of thing happens once in a generation. You said so. I'm playing my luck on this migratory compulsion complex of the zebra, as our American friends would call it. For once the rock passage is clear. All the lions are feeding. We can get through — now. There's nothing to stop us."

  He was right. Dead right.

  But he'd forgotten something.

  "How about the return?" I asked.

  His eyes gleamed.

  "That's my problem," he replied shortly. "Get down!" he rapped.

  We climbed down silently to the foot of the tree. Anne took my hand and her fingers were shaking. There was no avoiding the great beasts. Stein took the lead. I give him full marks for his guts. We passed within twenty-five yards of one of the huge animals, but it didn't even look up. Clear of the carcass-scattered sand, we broke into a run. We kept it up right through the gloomy tunnel with its overhanging ledge of death. The stench was unbelievable. I could set-that the water never reached quite as high as the ledge, but when the river foamed through the gap, it must have been a stupendous sight.

  We ran on, panting and slipping.

  Then we were through. In front the mountains drew back their fangs and I could see that we were not far from the Nangolo Flats, our turn off point into the forbidding mountains.

  It froze that night when we made camp among the high peaks at an altitude of nearly seven thousand feet. As if relenting, the going had been easy all day. We left the river where the broad shelf of the combined Kapupa and Otjijange rivers meet the Cunene, striking south now instead of east. The view of the Baynes Mountains on our left as we rose steadily upwards, following the course of the Kapupa, was superb. About twelve miles from the river the Kapupa strikes down from the heart of the massive Baynes range and joins the Otjijange, which steps out from behind a huge dun peak, isolated, at the head of the valley. We followed the lead of the Kapupa — dry like all rivers in this territory — into the heart of the Otjihipo peaks, which are not ten miles from the Cunene as the crow flies. But between lies such an inextricable tumble of peaks and valleys, fretted with razor-edged kranzes and unscaleable cliffs, that it would be quite impossible to venture through them.

  Stein pushed on eagerly. At the sharp easterly swing of the Kapupa into the mountains I would have liked to have had time to have studied a great fissure running south and east from the sentinel peak at the head of the valley, but Stein would not even pause. If the gap persisted, it must run roughly towards the Kandao Mountains which could — might — lead to the Orumwe valley where the caravel lay. I took careful mental bearings on the key peaks. It might be a way of escape. Even as sunset came and we were all panting at the unaccustomed altitude, Stein pushed on. Superb in all its primitive wonder, the great seven-thousand-rive-hundred-foot Baynes Mountain, dusted chalk-rose by the flaring sunset at our backs, stood as magnificently captain of the peaks as the huge lion at the rock tunnel entrance.

  Even Stein was moved by the splendid panorama.

  "We'll be right at the spot, or very nearly there, tonight," he enthused. "We'll start looking for Onymacris to-morrow."

  Anne had scarcely spoken all day. She shrugged.

  Now, with the coming of night, it was bitterly cold. The easterly wind, blowing in our faces all afternoon, had dropped. Anne sat by my side. Orion hunted over the Baynes Mountains and the Southern Cross hung lopsidedly over the Onjamu peaks towards Walvis Bay.

  A slow light trailed across the frosty sky.

  "Meteor or sputnik?" asked Anne. She felt for my hand. There was premonition in the cold flesh. Stein sat immobile, staring into the leaping flames. Half a dry tree was burning. It was the loneliest fire in the world. Anne and I sat close, scarcely exchanging a word. There were no words for what we felt, anyway. Her face was drawn in the light, not with fatigue, but with some inward tumult. Occasionally she glanced at me and smiled.

  I rolled out her bedroll next to mine, our feet pointing at the flames. She squeezed my hand and pulled the blankets round her hair. I did likewise.

  In about ten minutes she called softly.

  "Geoffrey!" she said.

  "Yes, Anne?"

  The voice dropped until I could scarcely hear.

  "Remember, I forgave you — everything?"

  I reached out, but she had withdrawn her hand.

  Stein took Anne away with him after an early breakfast. I was left in the care of the sullen Johann. My usefulness seemed to have come to an end as far as I could see. Except that Stein might not feel himself able to find Curva dos Dunas again. My plans were complete, now that I was alone with Johann. He was target number one. I occupied myself about the camping-spot, finding more wood, washing up dishes. Anne and Stein set off to go higher up the steep path — obviously a game track — round the shoulder of the mountains, below which the camp was pitched on an open, flat clearing. As she reached the turning she turned and waved.

  The next two hours were a torment. The tension inside me knotted every nerve. It was far worse than waiting for a depth-charge attack to start. I kept myself from glancing at Johann. When I struck, it must be as swift and deadly as a black mamba. There would be no second chance. Therefore I waited until I could be sure that Stein was well clear of the camp in case there was a shot. The so
und would carry far among the echoing peaks. He and Anne were lost to view since the path wound steeply upwards.

  I was dumbfounded when Stein appeared, alone, before ten o'clock.

  "Captain Peace!" he shouted as he turned the last bend in the path. "Captain Peace! Onymacris! Onymacris! We found it! Look! Look!"

  He came forward at a slight run, holding his hand outstretched.

  My hopes regarding Johann fell to the ground.

  "What is it?" I asked dully.

  "The Onymacris!" he said, scarcely able to contain himself. "Right where I said it would be! It's the biggest scientific find of the century! Look, man, look — pure gold!"

  He was obviously speaking metaphorically, for the two dead beetles in his hand were an undistinguished off-white. To me they looked no different from any common beetle crawling round a suburban backyard in Windhoek or Cape Town.

  "The Gobi, North Borneo and now the Skeleton Coast — living!" he cried. "Congratulate me, Captain Peace! I congratulate myself. I am rich, richer than my wildest dreams!"

  Two putty-coloured beetles didn't seem worth all that.

  He slapped me on the shoulder.

  "Congratulations to you, too, Captain Peace! The navigator of my hopes! Congratulations to Johann, the watchman! You have all played your part nobly! You shall be rewarded as is your due! And now," he turned to me and I was again struck by the ray-like gash of the mouth and jaw, "you must go and congratulate Miss Nielsen. She is waiting up the path for you. She asks if you will go and join her — soon!"

  There was a curious inflexion about his last words. But if Anne wanted me to join her alone, there it was.

  I set off up the steep track, which narrowed to a spine across the back of a huge, eroded peak; it ran clean across the summit. It was well defined. There was no other way, for the ground fell away on both sides to a colossal drop. On the left it must have been every bit of fifteen hundred feet, and slightly less on the right. The wind tugged at me as I strode forwards. Thank God there was less sand, although I could still feel the rasp of it on the wind's breath.

  The path struck across the peak and converged at two great boulders. There was no sign of Anne. She must have remained pretty far up, I thought. I strode between the two boulders and in passing my eye caught something on. my right.

  Anne was sitting with her back against one of them.

  "Anne…" I started. Fear ran like ice down my spine.

  She was dead.

  The eyes were half shut and her face had a curious look of resentment — resentment as if she had been taken away from something which meant more than the loss of her life.

  I could scarcely distinguish the bullet hole from the bright scarlet of her sweater.

  I wrenched up the sweater and saw the neat surgical incision of the Luger bullet. There was scarcely any blood. It had crushed in the left nipple. A few strands of ragged nylon from her brassiere fringed the hole. It might have been passion, not death, which stared at me. She was sitting neatly. Stein must have shot her as she sat.

  There was almost no violence about the whole scene. Only the expression of resentment. Only the puckering of the right eyelid. I knelt down and kissed the rumpled lid. I pulled the sweater down and straightened the unseemly dent on the outside. Only then, a great, blind rage overwhelmed me. I have killed men with weapons — with torpedoes, with fire, with machine-guns — but now I longed for the feel of killing with my fingers, the gurgle of life being choked out, of hot blood reeling under pressure to make it eternally cold. It was so overpowering that it made me icy-cool in caution. I saw it all — she had found his precious beetle, and, her work done, he had killed her with as little compassion as he had had for the Kroo boy. Why murder for a blasted beetle? It kept going through and through my mind. He had sent me up here to be killed. He wouldn't do that himself, not only because I think he was frightened, but because of Johann. Johann would kill me and Stein would kill Johann. Then he would beat it for Curva dos Dunas with enough food and water and a plausible story. There couldn't be any search — not in this forbidden country. John Garland's hands would be tied. He might be as suspicious as hell, but he'd never be able to prove anything.

  I edged forward on my knees and peered round the rock. As sure as clockwork, there came Johann. He was coming quickly, the Remington under his arm. His head was swaying like a hound's on the scent.

  I drew back farther, sheltering half behind a huge boulder. I had no plan. I was as kill-crazy as he.

  Johann rounded the rock and stopped short when he saw Anne's body. He wasn't fifteen feet from me. Now or never.

  I sprang forward. In a flash Johann covered me with the rifle.

  "She died very easy," he said. "I died very hard all those years with the little black men; I died. I died over and over. You will die slowly, Captain Peace." He swung the Remington back without taking his burning eyes off me and threw it sideways over the cliff. I felt a brief feeling for him; I, too, wanted to kill with my hands. He pulled a sailor's knife from his belt and we faced each other like wrestlers. He wasn't afraid. He was fearful only lest he would do it too quickly.

  I moved so that the rock was on my left and slightly behind me. He saw I was unarmed and grinned, a fiendish, satisfied grin. He was going to enjoy the fight, like a sailor fights a harlot in bed. As he reached forward with the knife, I whipped my right hand out of my pocket and extended the palm. It was my faintest hope. As he saw Trout's little mascot hand he blenched and I whipped forward and grabbed his knife hand with my left and slipped my right under his armpit. It was the same grip which had torn Hendrik's arm out of its socket. Johann struck punily at my kidneys with his left, but there was no force in the blows — there never can be, with that fearful hold.

  I twisted his arm. He held on with the strength of a maniac, but he said nothing. I felt one tendon start to tear. The knife moved back from three inches from my right eye to six. ' I threw myself against his weight. I felt his muscles tear. But he wasn't going to get away with it as Hendriks did. I forced the arm still farther back. His eyes were frantic with terror. I marched him remorselessly back past the dead woman towards the precipice at his back. The knife now hung back over his right shoulder in a grotesque parody of a strike. I knew exactly what I was going to do. Like a released spring, I ducked back, freeing my arm and shoulder, in one movement and kicked him in the stomach. I give him credit. Any other man, with the bite of that heavy seaboot in his vital parts, would have fallen over backwards. Johann stood swaying, his face grey-green with terror and pain. For a second we stood panting in great gasps facing one another. Then I stepped forward and administered the coup de grace. I hit him twice with my right forearm across the side of the neck. He pitched and rolled dustily backwards. I never heard the final crump of the body far below. The dead woman gazed at me sightlessly.

  I picked up the knife from the path and sagged down on a rock, my breath coming in frantic inhalations. I felt no remorse, no sorrow, no triumph even. My mind kept saying: Stein! Stein!

  What had she said? "I would like to be buried there."

  It came to me like fire amid the icy clarity of my lust to kill. I looked down at the quiet face and eyes whose pupils I would never see again. I'll carry you there, I vowed. You'll lie forever beside those other lovers. And then, like a scream of taut nerves: but I'll kill Stein first! Give him time, and he would come looking for either Johann or myself. He came, hours later. I withdrew up the narrow path, flanked with boulders. There was simply no way of deviating from it. I caught the glimpse of sun on metal before I actually saw Stein himself. He was making sure. He had the Luger out. I crouched down as low as I could and withdrew from boulder to boulder until eventually on my right I found a slight cleft, wide enough to take a man's body. I balanced the heavy knife. At least I had something on my side. I stood sweating between the hot rocks. I reckoned he'd take another half an hour to reach Anne's body. I'd lost my cap in the struggle and the sweat poured off me, as much reaction and anticip
ation as heat.

  I'd never thrown a knife before, and it's a tricky business at the best of times. He'd see me yards before he reached the cleft, and there was no hope of an ambush from above. I forgot all about that. I clutched the knife until my fingers ached.

  I flicked a glance down the path and then jerked my head back. Stein was coming on like a cat, holding the Luger, There was a jagged boulder which I had judged would be my best marker for a throw before he saw me.

  I whipped out of the cleft and cast the heavy knife. The shot followed simultaneously. I reeled back streaming blood as the bullet tore through my right shoulder.

  I bit down the searing pain.

  Then Stein's voice came. It was strained.

  "Step out of that hole, Captain Peace, unless you want me to come and ferret you out."

  I remained where I was. But he had courage, had Stein.

  He came forward until he could see me propped against the hot stone wall.

  The knife projected from his left arm. It must have bitten deep, for his face was grey, but it was low and anything but fatal. That fact passed through my mind with quick, bitter realisation.

  In the other hand he pointed the Luger steadily at me.

  "So you killed Johann at last," he said. "At least I presume you did?"

  There was no point in denying it. I nodded.

  The voice gained some of its earlier sneering quality.

  "Brave, resourceful Captain Peace!" he said. "No histrionics on my part about shooting you, I assure you, Captain. No confessions, no deathbed gloating."

  He raised the Luger and fired. But I saw him flick the barrel aside from me as his finger whitened on the trigger. I saw his face contort and he fired again and again and again.

  The first zebra galloping down the path stumbled as the heavy bullets struck home, but its impetus swept both itself and Stein over the precipice beyond. It was a small group of about fifty and they thundered by without a pause. How many of them went over the edge with Stein I do not know. In less than a minute the path was clear and the dust was filtering down into the red-gold hair by the rock. The animals had not touched her as she sat back from the pathway. I could hear their clatter down the mountain towards the camp.