by Wilbur Smith
£5000 REWARD £5000
For information leading to the rescue of CENTAINE DE THIRY COURTNEY A SURVIVOR OF THE HOSPITAL SHIP PROTEA CASTLE most barbarously torpedoed by a GERMAN SUBMARINE on the 28th Aug. 1917 off the coast of SWAKOPMUND.
MRS COURTNEY would have been cast ashore and may be in the care of wild TRIBESMEN or alone in the WILDERNESS.
Any information concerning her whereabouts should be conveyed to the undersigned at the KAISERHOF HOTEL WINDHOEK.
LT. COL. G. C. COURTNEY
Five thousand pounds was a fortune, twenty years’ salary for the average working man, enough to buy a ranch and stock it with cattle and sheep, enough to provide a man with a secure living for his entire life, and there were dozens eager to try for the reward, or for any lesser amount that they could wheedle out of Garry by vague promises and fanciful stories and outright lies.
In the Kaiserhof suite he and Anna interviewed hopefuls who had never ventured beyond the line of rail but were willing to lead expeditions into the desert, others who knew exactly where the lost girl could be found, still others who had actually seen Centaine and only needed a grubstake of £1,000 to go and fetch her in. There were spiritualists and clairvoyants who were in constant contact with her, on a higher plane, and even one gentleman who offered to sell his own daughter, at a bargain rate, to replace the missing girl.
Garry met them all cheerfully. He listened to their stories and chased their theories and instructions, or sat around an ouija board with the spiritualists, even followed one of them who was using one of Centaine’s rings suspended on a piece of string as a lodestone, on a five hundred-mile pilgrimage through the desert. He was presented with a number of young ladies, varying in texture and colour from blonde to café au lait, all claiming to be Centaine de Thiry Courtney, or willing to do for him anything that she could do. Some of them became loudly abusive when they were refused and had to be evicted from the suite by Anna in person.
‘No wonder she is losing weight,’ Garry told himself, and leaned over to pat Anna’s thigh as she sat beside him in the open Fiat tourer. The words of the blasphemous old grace came into his mind:
‘We thank the Lord for what we have,
But for a little more we would be glad.’
He grinned at her fondly, and aloud he told her, ‘We should be there soon.’ She nodded and replied, ‘This time I know we will find her. I have a sure feeling!’
‘Yes,’ Garry agreed dutifully. ‘This time will be different.’
He was quite safe in that assertion. No other of their many expeditions had begun in such a mysterious manner.
One of their own reward posters had arrived folded upon itself and sealed with wax, bearing a postmark dated four days previously at Usakos, a way station on the narrow-gauge railway line halfway between Windhoek and the coast. The package was unstamped – Garry had been obliged to pay the postage – and it was addressed in a bold but educated hand, the script unmistakably German. When Garry split the wax seal and unfolded it he found a laconic invitation to a rendezvous written on the foot of the sheet, and a hand-drawn map to guide him. The sheet was unsigned.
Garry immediately telegraphed the postmaster at Usakos, confident that the volume of business at such a remote station would be so low that the postmaster would remember every package handed in for postage. The postmaster did indeed recall the package and the circumstances of its delivery. It had been left on the threshold of the post office during the night and nobody had even glimpsed the correspondent.
As the writer probably intended, all this intrigued both Garry and Anna, and they were eager to keep the rendezvous. It was set for a site in the barren Kamas Hochtland a hundred and fifty miles from Windhoek.
It had taken them all of three days to negotiate the atrocious roads, but after losing themselves at least a dozen times, changing approximately the same number of punctured tyres, and sleeping rough on the hard ground beside the Fiat, they had now almost reached the appointed meeting place.
The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky and the breeze from behind blew eddies of red dust over them as they rattled and rumbled over the stony ruts. Anna seemed impervious to all the heat and dust and hardship of the desert and Garry, gazing at her in unstinted admiration, almost missed the next tight bend in the track. His off-wheels skidded over the verge, and the Fiat teetered and rocked over the yawning void that opened abruptly before them. He hauled the steering over, and as they bumped back into the wheel ruts he pulled on the handbrake.
They were on the rim of a deep canyon that cut the plateau like an axe stroke. The track descended into the depths in a series of hairpin twists like the contortions of a maimed serpent, and hundreds of feet below them the river was a narrow ribbon that threw dazzling reflections of the noon sun up the orange-coloured cliffs.
‘This is the place,’ Garry told her, ‘and I don’t like it. Down there we will be at the mercy of any bandit or murderer.’
‘Mijnheer, we are already late for the meeting—’
‘I don’t know if we’ll ever get out of there again, and God knows, nobody is likely to find us here. Probably just our bare bones.’
‘Come, Mijnheer, we can talk later.’
Garry drew a deep breath. Sometimes there were distinct drawbacks to being paired with a strong-willed woman. He let off the handbrake and the Fiat rolled over the rim of the canyon, and once they were committed, there was no turning back.
It was a nightmare descent, the gradient so steep that the brake shoes smoked, and the hairpin bends so tight that he had to back and fill to coax the Fiat through them.
‘Now I know why our friend chose this place. He has us at his mercy down here.’
Forty minutes later they came out in the gut of the canyon. The walls above them were so sheer that they blotted out the sun. They were in shadow, but it was stiflingly hot. No breeze reached down here, and the air had a flinty bite on the back of the throat.
There was a narrow strip of level land on each bank of the river, covered with coarse thorn growth, and Garry backed the Fiat off the track and they climbed down stiffly and beat the red dust from their clothing. The stream bubbled sullenly over a low causeway of rock, and the water was opaque and a poisonous yellow colour like the effluent from a chemical factory.
‘Well,’ Garry surveyed both banks and the cliffs above them, ‘we seem to have the place to ourselves. Our friend is nowhere to be seen.’
‘We will wait.’ Anna forestalled the suggestion she knew was coming.
‘Of course, Mevrou.’ Garry lifted his hat and mopped his face with the cotton bandanna from around his neck. ‘May I suggest a cup of tea?’
Anna took the kettle and went down the bank. She tasted the river water suspiciously, and then filled it. When she climbed back, Garry had a fire of thornwood crackling between two hearthstones. While the kettle boiled, Garry fetched a blanket from the back of the Fiat, and the bottle of schnapps from the cubbyhole. He poured a liberal dram into each of the mugs, added a heaped spoon of sugar, then topped them up with strong hot tea. He had found that schnapps, like chocolate, had a most tempering effect on Anna, and he was never without a bottle. Perhaps the journey would not be entirely wasted, he thought, as he added another judicious splash of spirits into Anna’s mug and carried it to where she sat in the middle of the rug.
Before he reached her, Garry let out a startled cry and dropped the mug, splashing his boots with hot tea. He stood staring into the bush behind her, and raised both hands high above his head. Anna glanced round and then bounded to her feet and seized a brand of firewood which she brandished before her. Garry edged swiftly to her side and stood close to her protective bulk.
‘Keep away!’ Anna bellowed. ‘I warn you, I’ll break the first skull—’
They were surrounded. The gang had crept up on them through the dense scrub.
‘Oh Lord, I knew it was a trap!’ Garry muttered. They were almost certainly the most dangerous-looking band of cut-thro
ats he had ever seen.
‘We have no money, nothing worth stealing—’ How many of them? he wondered desperately. Three – no, there was another behind that tree – four murderous ruffians. The obvious leader was a purple-black giant with bandoliers of ammunition criss-crossing his chest, and a Mauser rifle in the crook of his arm. A ruff of thick woolly beard framed his broad African features like the mane of a man-eating lion.
The others were all armed, a mixed band of Khoisan Hottentots and Ovambo tribesmen, wearing odd items of military uniform and civilian clothing, all of it heavily worn and faded, patched and tattered, some of them barefooted and others with scuffed boots, shapeless and battered from hard marches. Only their weapons were well cared for, glistening with oil and borne lovingly, almost the way a father might carry his firstborn son.
Garry thought fleetingly of the service revolver he kept holstered under the dashboard of the Fiat, and then swiftly abandoned such a reckless notion.
‘Don’t harm us,’ he pleaded, crowding up behind Anna, and then with a feeling of utter disbelief, Garry found himself abandoned as Anna launched her attack.
Swinging the burning log like a Viking’s axe, she charged straight at the huge black leader.
‘Back, you swine!’ she roared in Flemish. ‘Get out of here, you bitch-born son of Hades!’
Taken by surprise, the gang scattered in pandemonium, trying to duck the smoking log as it hissed about their heads.
‘How dare you, you stinking bastard spawn of diseased whores—’
Still shaking with shock, Garry stared after her, torn between terror and admiration for this new revelation of his lover’s accomplishments. He had heard some great cursers in his life – there had been the legendary sergeant-major whom he had known during the Zulu rebellion; men travelled miles to listen to him addressing a parade ground. The man was a Sunday School preacher in comparison. Garry could have charged admission fees to Anna’s performance. Her eloquence was matched only by her dexterity with the log.
She caught one of the Hottentots a crashing blow between the shoulders and he was hurled into a thorn bush, his jacket smoking with live coals, shrieking like a wounded warthog. Two others, reluctant to face Anna’s wrath, leaped over the river bank and disappeared with high splashes beneath the yellow waters. That left only the big black Ovambo to bear the full brunt of Anna’s onslaught. He was quick and agile for such a big man, and he avoided the wild swings of the log and danced behind the nearest camel-thorn tree. With nimble footwork he kept the trunk between Anna and himself, until at last she stopped, gasping and redfaced, and panted at him, ‘Come out, you yellow-bellied black-faced apology for a blue-testicled baboon!’ Garry noticed with awe how she managed to cram the metaphor with colour. ‘Come out where I can kill you!’
Warily the Ovambo declined, backing off out of reach. ‘No! No! We did not come to fight you, we came to fetch you—’ he answered in Afrikaans. She lowered the log slowly.
‘Did you write the letter?’ and the Ovambo shook his head. ‘I have come to take you to the man who did.’
The Ovambo ordered two of his men to remain and guard the Fiat. Then he led them away along the floor of the canyon. Although there were stretches of open easygoing on the river bank, there were also narrow gorges through which the river roared and swirled, and the path was steep and so narrow that only one man could pass at a time.
These gaps were guarded by other guerrillas. Garry saw only the tops of their heads and the glint of their rifle barrels amongst the rocks, and he noticed how cunningly the site for the rendezvous had been chosen. Nobody could follow them undetected. An army would not be able to rescue them. They were totally vulnerable, completely at the mercy of these rough hard men. Garry shivered in the sweltering gut of the canyon.
‘We’ll be damned lucky to get out of this,’ he muttered to himself, and then aloud, ‘My leg is hurting. Can’t we rest?’ But no one even looked back at him, and he stumbled forward to keep as close to Anna as he was able.
Quite unexpectedly, long after Garry had relapsed into resigned misery, the Ovambo guide stepped around the corner of a yellow sandstone monolith and into a temporary camp site under an overhanging cliff on the river bank. Even in his exhaustion and unhappiness, Garry saw that there was a steep pathway up the canyon wall behind the camp, an escape route against surprise attack.
‘They have thought of everything.’ He touched Anna’s arm and pointed out the path, but all her attention was on the man who sauntered out from the deep shadow of the cavern.
He was a young man, half Garry’s age, but in the first seconds of their meeting he made Garry feel inadequate and foolish. He didn’t have to say a word. He merely stood in the sunlight and stared at Garry with a catlike stillness about his tall elegant frame, and Garry was reminded of all the things he was not.
His hair was golden, hanging to his bare shoulders, streaked white by the sun, yet as lustrous as raw silk, offering a startling contrast to his deeply tanned features. These might once have been as beautiful as those of a comely girl, but all softness had been burned by the flames of life’s furnace, and like forged iron, the marks of the anvil had been left upon them.
He was tall but not gawky or round-shouldered, and he was lean, with hard, flat muscle. He wore only riding-breeches and boots, and the hair on his chest sparkled like fine copper wire. Around his neck on a gold chain he had hung a small gold locket, something that no English gentleman would ever do. Garry tried to feel superior, but under that flat level gaze it was difficult.
‘Colonel Courtney,’ he said, and again Garry was taken off balance. Though accented, it was the voice of an educated and cultivated man, and his mouth altered shape, losing its hard stern line as he smiled.
‘Please do not be alarmed. You are Colonel Courtney, are you not?’
‘Yes.’ It took an effort for Garry to speak. ‘I am Colonel Courtney – did you write the letter?’
He took the poster from his breast pocket, and tried to unfold it, but his hands were shaking so that it fluttered and tore in his fingers. The man’s smile gently mocked him as he nodded, ‘Yes, I sent for you.’
‘You know where the lost girl can be found?’ Anna demanded, stepping closer to him in her eagerness.
‘Perhaps,’ he shrugged.
‘You have seen her?’ Anna insisted.
‘First things come first.’
‘You want money—’ Garry’s voice was unnecessarily loud. ‘Well, I have not brought a single sovereign with me. You can be sure of that. If your intention is to rob us, I have nothing of value on me.’
‘Ah, Colonel,’ the golden man smiled at him, and it was so charming, so unexpectedly exuberant and boyish that he could feel Anna’s stiff and antagonistic stance melt beneath that smile, ‘my nose tells me that is not true.’ He sniffed theatrically. ‘You have something of immense value – Havana!’ he said and sniffed again. ‘No doubt about it, Havana! Colonel, I must warn you that I would kill for a Havana cigar.’
Garry took a hurried step backwards involuntarily before he realized it was a jest. Then he grinned weakly and reached for the cigar case in his hip pocket.
The golden man inspected the long black cigar. ‘Romeo y Julieta!’ he murmured reverently and then sniffed it lovingly. ‘A whiff of Paradise.’ He bit off the tip and struck a match off the sole of his boot. He sucked the flame into the cigar and closed his eyes with ecstasy. When he opened them again, he bowed slightly to Anna.
‘I beg your pardon, madam, but it has been a long time, over two years, since I tasted a good cigar.’
‘All right,’ Garry was bolder now. ‘You know my name and you are smoking my cigar – the least you can do is introduce yourself.’
‘Forgive me.’ He drew himself up and snapped his heels together in the teutonic manner. ‘I am Lothar De La Rey, at your service.’
‘Oh my God.’ All Garry’s new-found courage deserted him. ‘I know all about you. There is a price on your head – they�
��ll hang you when they catch you. You are a wanted criminal and a notorious outlaw, sir.’
‘My dear Colonel, I prefer to think of myself as a soldier and patriot.’
‘Soldiers do not go on fighting and destroying property after a formal surrender. Colonel Franke capitulated nearly four years ago—’
‘I did not recognize Colonel Franke’s right to surrender,’ Lothar interjected contemptuously. ‘I was a soldier of the Kaiser and Imperial Germany.’
‘Even Germany surrendered three months ago.’
‘Yes,’ Lothar agreed. ‘And I have not perpetrated an act of war since then.’
‘But you are still in the field,’ Garry pointed out indignantly. ‘You are still under arms, and—’
‘I have not gone in to give myself up yet for the very good reason that you have so succinctly stated: if I do, your people will hang me.’
As if under Garry’s scrutiny he had suddenly become aware that he was bare to the waist, Lothar reached for his tunic. Freshly laundered, it hung from a thorn bush beside the entrance to the cave. As he shrugged into it, the brass buttons sparkled and Garry’s eyes narrowed.
‘Damn you, sir, your insolence is insupportable. That’s a British military tunic – you are wearing one of our uniforms. That in itself is cause enough to shoot you out of hand!’
‘Would you prefer I went naked, Colonel? It must be obvious even to you that we are reduced in circumstances. It gives me no pleasure to wear a British jacket. Unfortunately there is no choice.’
‘You insult the uniform in which my son died.’
‘I take no pleasure in your son’s death, just as I take no pleasure in these rags.’
‘By God, man, you have the effrontery—’ Garry puffed himself up to deliver a devastating broadside, but Anna cut across him impatiently.
‘Mijnheer De La Rey, have you seen my little girl?’ And Garry subsided as Lothar turned back to her, his features taking on a strangely compassionate cast.
‘I saw a girl – yes, I saw a young girl in the wilderness, but I do not know if she was the one you seek.’