Wilbur Smith - Shout At The Devil

by Shout At The Devil(Lit)

  Earth. The pain buzzed in his ears like cicada beetles, but through it he heard Mohammed's voice.

  Fini. It was not wise." He opened his eyes and saw Mohammed's monkey face puckered with concern.

  "Call Rosa," he croaked. "Call Little Long Hair. Tell her to come." Then he closed his eyes again, and rode the pain. The tempo of the. pain changed constantly first it was drums, torn-toms that throbbed and beat within him. Then it was the sea, long undulating swells of agony. Then again it was night, cold black night that chilled him so he shivered and moaned and the night gave way to the sun. A great fiery ball of pain that burned and shot out lances of blinding light that burst against his clenched eyelids. Then the drums began again.

  Time was of no significance. He rode the pain for a minute and a million years, then through the beat of the drums of agony he heard movement near him. The shuffle of feet through the dead leaves, the murmur of voices that were not part of his consuming anguish.

  "Rosa," Flynn whispered, "you have come!" He rolled his head and forced his eyelids open.

  Herman Fleischer stood over him. He was grinning. His face flushed as a rose petal, fresh sweat clinging in his pale eyebrows,

  breathing quickly and heavily with exertion as though he had been running, but he was grinning.

  "So!" he wheezed. "So!" The shock of his presence was muted for

  Flynn by the haze of pain in which he lay. There were smears of dust dulling the gloss of Fleischer's jackboots, and dark patches of sweat had soaked through the thick grey corduroy tunic at the armpits. He held a Luger pistol in his right hand and with his left hand he pushed the slouch hat to the back of his head.

  "Herr Flynn!" he said and chuckled. It was the fat infectious chuckle of a healthy baby.

  Mildly Flynn wondered how Fleischer had found him so quickly in the broken terrain and thick bush. The shot would have alerted him,

  but what had led him directly to the grove of fever trees?

  Then he heard a rustling fluting rush in the air above him, and he looked upwards. Through the lacework of branches he saw the vultures spiralling against the aching blue of the sky. They turned and dipped on spread black wings, cocking their heads sideways in flight to look down with bright beady eyes on the elephant carcass.

  "Ja! The birds. We followed the birds."

  "Jackals always follow the birds, whispered Flynn, and Fleischer laughed. He threw back his head and laughed with genuine delight.

  "Good. Oh, ja. That is good." And he kicked Flynn. He swung the jackboot lazily into) Flynn's body, and Flynn shrieked. The laughter dried instantly in Fleischer's throat, and he bent quickly to examine

  Flynn.

  He noticed for the first time how his lower body was grotesquely twisted and distorted. And he dropped to his knees beside him. Gently he touched Flynn's forehead, and deep concern flashed across his chubby features at the clammy cold feeling of the skin.

  "Sergeant!" There was a desperate edge to his voice now.

  "This man is badly injured. He will not last long. Be quick!

  Get the rope! We must hang him before he loses consciousness."

  Rosa awoke in the dawn and found that she was alone. Beside Flynn's personal pack, his discarded blanket had been carelessly flung aside.

  His rifle was gone.

  She was not alarmed, not at first. She guessed that he had gone into the bush on one of his regular excursions to be alone while he drank his breakfast. But an hour later when he had not returned she grew anxious. She sat with her rifle across her lap, and every bird noise or animal scuffle in the ebony thicket jarred her nerves.

  Another hour and she was fretting. Every few minutes she stood up and walked to the edge of the clearing to listen. Then she went back to sit and worry.

  Where on earth was Flynn? Why had Mohammed not returned? What had happened to Sebastian? Was he safe, or had he been discovered?

  Had Flynn gone to assist him?

  Should she wait here, or follow them down the draw?

  Her eyes haunted, her mouth hard set with doubts, she sat and twisted the braid of her hair around one finger in a nervously restless gesture.

  Then Mohammed came. Suddenly he appeared out of the thicket beside her, and Rosa jumped up with a low cry of relief. The cry died in her throat as she saw his face.

  Mohamed said. "He is hurt. The great elephant has broken his bones and he lies in pain. He asks for you." Rosa stared at him,

  appalled, not understanding.

  An elephant?"

  "He followed Plough the Earth, the great elephant,

  and killed him. But in dying the elephant struck him, breaking him."

  "The fool. Oh, the fool!" Rosa whispered. "Now of all times. With

  Sebastian in danger, he must..." And then she caught herself and broke off her futile lament. "Where is he, Mohammed? Take me to him."

  Mohammed led along one of the game paths, Rosa ran behind him. There was no time for caution, no thought of it as they hurried to find

  Flynn. They came to the stream of the Abati, and swung off the path,

  staying on the near bank. They plunged through a field of arrow grass,

  skirted around a tiny swamp and ran on into a stand of buffalo thorn.

  As they emerged on the far side Mohammed stopped abruptly and looked at the sky.

  The vultures turned in a high wheel against the blue, like debris in a lazy whirlwind. The spot above which they circled lay half a mile ahead.

  "Daddy!" Rosa choked on the word. In an instant all the hardness accumulated since that night at Lalapanzi disappeared from her face.

  "Daddy!" she said again, and then she ran in earnest.

  Brushing past Mohammed, throwing her rifle aside so it clattered on the earth, she darted out of the buffalo thorn and into the open.

  "Wait, Little Long Hair. Be careful." Mohammed started after her.

  In his agitation he stepped carelessly, full on to a fallen twig from the buffalo thorn. There was a worn spot on the sole of his sandal,

  and three inches of cruet red tipped thorn drove up through it and buried in his foot.

  For a dozen paces he struggled on after Rosa, hopping on one leg,

  flapping his arms to maintain his balance and calling, but not too loudly.

  "Wait! Be careful, Little Long Hair." But she took not the least heed, and went away from him, leaving him at last to sink down and tend to his wounded foot.

  She crossed the open ground before the fever-tree grove with the slack, blundering steps of exhaustion. Running silently, saving her breath for the effort of reaching her father. She ran into the grove,

  and a drop of perspiration fell into her eye, blurring her vision so she staggered against one of the trunks. She recovered her balance and ran on into the midst of them.

  She recognized Herman Fleischer instantly. She had run almost against his chest, and his huge body towered over her. She screamed with shock and twisted away from the beanlike arms outspread to clutch her.

  Two of the native Askari who were working over the crude litter on which lay Flynn O'Flynn, jumped up. As she ran they closed on her from either side, the way a pair of trained greyhounds will course a hare.

  They caught her between them, and dragged her struggling and screaming to where Herman Fleischer waited.

  "Ah, so!" Fleischer nodded pleasantly in greeting. "You have come in time for the fun." Then he turned to his sergeant. "Have them tie the woman." Rosa's screams penetrated the light mists of insensibility that screened Flynn's brain. He stirred on the litter, muttering incoherently, rolling his head from side to side, then he opened his eyes and focused them with difficulty. He saw her struggling between the Askari and he snapped back into full consciousness.

  "Leave her!" he roared. "Call those bloody animals off her.

  Leave her, you murderous bloody German bastard."

  "Good!" said Herman

  Fleischer. "You are awake now." Then he lifted his voice above Flynn's bell
ows. "Hurry, Sergeant, tie the woman and get the rope up." While they secured Rosa, one of the Askari shinned up the smooth yellow trunk of a fever tree. With his bayonet he hacked the twigs from the thick horizontal branch above their heads. The sergeant threw the end of the rope up to him, and at the second attempt the Askari caught it and passed it over the branch. Then he dropped back to earth.

  There was a hangman's knot fixed in the rope, ready for use.

  "Set the knot, said Fleischer, and the sergeant went to where

  Flynn lay. With poles cut from a small tree they had rigged a combination litter and splints. The poles had been laid down Flynn's flanks from ankle to armpit, with bark strips they had bound them firmly so that Flynn's body was held rigidly as that of an Egyptian mummy, only his head and neck were free.

  The sergeant stooped over him, and Flynn fell silent, watching him venomously. As his hands came down with the noose to loop it over

  Flynn's head, Flynn moved suddenly. He darted his head for-ward like a striking adder and fastened his teeth in the man's wrist. With a howl the sergeant tried to pull away, but Flynn held on, his head jerking and wrenching as the man struggled.

  "Fool" grunted Fleischer, and strode over to the litter.

  He lifted his foot and placed it on Flynn's lower body. As he brought his weight down on it Flynn stiffened and gasped with pain,

  releasing the Askari's wrist.

  "Do it this way." Fleischer lunged forward and took a handful of

  Flynn's hair, roughly he yanked Flynn's head forward. "Now, the rope,

  quickly." The Askari dropped the noose over Flynn's head and drew the slip-knot tight until it lay snugly under Flynn's ear.

  "Good." Fleischer stepped back. "Four men on the rope," he ordered. "Gently. Do not jerk the rope. Walk away with it slowly. I

  don't want to break his neck." Rosa's hysteria had stilled into cold horror as she watched the preparations for the execution, and now she found her voice again.

  "Please," she whispered. "He's my father. Please don't.

  Oh, no, please don't."

  Hush, girl,"

  "You'd not shame me now by " pleading with this fat bag of pus."

  roared Flynn.

  He swivelled his head, his eyes rolled towards the four Askari who stood ready with the rope end.

  "Pull! You black sons of bitches. Pull! And damn you. I'll beat you to hell, and speak to the devil so he'll have you castrated and smeared with pig's fat."

  "You heard what Fini told you," smiled Fleischer at his Askari. "Pull!" And they walked backwards in single file,

  shuffling through the dead leaves, leaning against the rope.

  The litter lifted slowly at one end, came upright and then left the ground.

  Rosa turned away and clenched her eyelids tight closed, but her hands were bound so she could not stop her ears, she could not keep out the sounds that Flynn Patrick O'Flynn made as he died.

  When at last there was silence, Rosa was shivering. Bar spasms that shuddere&through her whole body.

  "All right," said Herman Fleischer. "That's it. Bring the woman.

  We can get back to camp in time for lunch if we hurry." When they were gone, the litter and its contents still hung in the fever tree.

  Swinging a little and turning slowly on the end of the rope. Near it lay the carcass of the elephant, and a vulture planed down slowly and made a flapping ungainly landing in the top branches of the fever tree.

  It sat hunched and suspicious, then suddenly squawked and launched again into noisy flight, for it had seen the man coming.

  The little old man limped slowly into the grove. He stopped beside the dead elephant and looked up at the man who had been his master and his friend.

  "Go in peace, Fini." said Mohammed.

  The alleyway was a narrow low-roofed corridor, the bulkheads were painted a pate grey that glistened in the harsh light of the electric globes set in small wire cages at regular intervals along the roof.

  At the end of the corridor, a guard stood outside the heavy watertight door in the bulkhead that led through into the handling room of the forward magazine. The guard wore only a thin white singlet and white flannel trousers, but his waist was belted in a blanc oed webbing from which hung a sheathed bayonet, and there was a Mauser rifle slung from his shoulder.

  From his position he could look into the handling room, and he could keep the full length of the alleyway under surveillance.

  A double file of Wakarnba tribesmen filled the alleyway, living chains along one of which passed the cordite charges; along the other the nine-inch shells.

  The Africans worked with the stoical indifference of draught animals, turning to grip the ly cylindro-conical ug shells, hugging a hundred and twenty pounds" weight of steel and explosive to their chests while they moved it on to the next man in the chain.

  The cordite charges, each wrapped in thick paper, were not so weighty and moved more swiftly along their line.

  Each man bobbed and swung as he handled his load, so it seemed that the two ranks were sets in a complicated dance pattern.

  From this mass of moving humanity rose clouds of warm body odour,

  that filled the alleyway and defeated the efforts of the air-conditioning fans.

  Sebastian felt sweat trickling down his chest and back under the leather cloak, he felt also the tug of weight within the folds of the cloak each time he swung to receive a fresh cordite charge from his neighbour.

  He stood just outside the door of the handling room, and each time he passed a charge through, he looked into the interior of the magazine where another gang was at work, ac king the charges into the shelves that lined the bulkheads, and easing the nine-inch shells into their steel racks.

  Here there was another armed guard.

  The work had been in progress since early that morning, with a half-hour's break at noon, so the German guards had relaxed their vigilance. They were restless in anticipation of relief. The one in the magazine was a fat middle-aged man who at intervals during the day had broken the monotony by releasing sudden ear-splitting posterior discharges of gas.

  With each salvo he had clapped the nearest African porter on the back and shouted happily.

  "Have a bite at that one!" or, "Cheer up it doesn't smell." But at last he also was deflated. He slouched across the handling room,

  and leaned against the angle of the door to address his colleague in the alleyway.

  "It's hot as hell, and smells like a zoo. These savages stink."

  "You've been doing your share."

  "I'll be glad when it's finished."

  "It's cooler in the magazine with the fans running you are all right." Jesus, I'd like to sit down for a few minutes."

  "Better not,

  Lieutenant Kyller is on the prowl." This exchange was taking place within a few feet of Sebastian. He followed the German conversation with more ease now that he had been able" to exercise his rusty vocabulary, but he kept his head down in a renewed burst of energy. He was worried. In a short while the day's shift would end and the

  African porters would be herded on deck and into the launches to be transported to their camp on one of the islands. None of the native labour force were allowed to spend the night aboard Blucher.

  He had waited since noon for an opportunity to enter the magazine and place the time charge. But he had been frustrated by the activities of the two German guards. It must be nearly seven o'clock in the evening now. It would have to be soon, very soon. He glanced once more into the magazine, and he caught the eye of Walaka,

  Mohammed's cousin. Walaka stood by the cordite shelves, supervising the packing, and now he shrugged at Sebastian in eloquent helplessness.

  Suddenly there was a thud of a heavy object being dropped to the deck, and a commotion of shouts in the alleyway behind Sebastian. He glanced round quickly. One of the bearers had fainted in the heat and fallen with a shell in his arms, the shell had rolled and knocked down another man. Now there was
a milling confusion clogging the alleyway.

  The two guards moved forward, forcing their way into the press of black bodies, shouting hoarsely and clubbing with the rifle butts. It was the opportunity for which Sebastian had waited.

  He stepped over the threshold of the magazine, and went to Walaka beside the cordite shelves.

  "Send one of your men to take my place," he whispered, and reaching up into the folds of his cloak he brought out the cigar box.