by Guy Saville
Burton jumped down to the coupling. Fought to release it.
Fifteen feet. Ten.
Five.
A single gunshot.
Patrick was squeezed in the corner of the locomotive, his rifle pointed towards the helicopter above. Eye squinting down the sight.
Another shot.
Burton watched a crack shoot up the glass bubble of the cockpit. The pilot pulled up sharply.
The stormtrooper next to Uhrig jumped. Almost skidded off the roof. Managed to hold on.
Uhrig’s face was a snapshot of rage. He glanced down, saw his last chance was about to leave him. Let go of the rope.
He crashed on to the roof, his MG48 skittering over the side. He balanced himself, reached for his holster. Above him the troop carrier drew back into the sky. A Walküre swooped in its place.
Patrick fired at Uhrig. The Nazi grabbed the stormtrooper at his side, held him in front as a shield. Burton heard the bullets thudding into the soldier’s chest.
The Walküre roared over, cannons blazing.
Patrick swung round, tailed the helicopter with his rifle. The second remaining gunship was already on its approach.
‘Burton!’ shouted Patrick. ‘I need more firepower.’
Burton released the last carriage’s coupling, scrambled over the coal. The carriage began to fall away.
‘Set it free!’ he shouted at Zuri as he leapt off the tender. He snatched up Patrick’s spare Enfield, took up position on the opposite side of the locomotive. They both fired at the Walküres.
Shells whistled and sparked off the engine. The air was notched with steam.
Neliah reached over to help her sister. Zuri waved her away. ‘I can do it.’
Burton looked for Hochburg as a Walküre soared over. He fired at the tail rotor. Worked the bolt to reload, glanced down at Zuri. She had unwound the rod, was about to unhook the link.
‘Zuri! No!’
She was undoing it from the wrong side. Was still on the tender.
An arm looped around her throat. She cried out, kicked back.
But Uhrig held tight.
His face was grimy with coal and blood. In his fist: a pistol.
Neliah moved to protect her sister.
‘Forget it!’ said Uhrig. He slammed his Luger against Zuri’s skull, then snarled at Burton.
‘Stop the fucking train.’
NELIAH stared into her sister’s eyes. They were red-raw, held a tiny pebble of fear. But mostly rage. Don’t you dare, they said. This is what I want. I’m going to kill him. The rungiro will protect me.
Uhrig’s gun was digging into her head.
Nobody moved.
Either side the savannah rushed by – emerald, yellow, grey. The sky was turning to night. The two whirr-birds hovered above them like buzzards over carrion. Neliah smelt Quimbundo again, the tables of dead. She had forgotten the pain where her shoulder was pulled loose.
‘I said stop the fucking train!’ screamed Uhrig. ‘Or the nigger’s dead.’ His face was streaked black with coal.
Patrick stepped backwards and reached for one of the turninglevers.
‘No!’ said Zuri.
His hand hesitated.
‘Do it, Amerikaner.’
‘No!’
‘Shut the fuck up.’ The Nazista pulled his gun away from Zuri’s head, slammed it hard against her face where the bite mark was. The metal came away with a ribbon of blood.
Neliah was unable to control herself.
She dropped her panga, snatched Burton’s rifle from him. Aimed it at Uhrig.
Suddenly it was as if the breath had been sucked out of the world. Everything moved like in a dream. Slow as slow.
Neliah watched Uhrig pull his pistol away from Zuri’s head, aim it into the train, straight at her chest. The same moment, Zuri heaved backwards, pushed away Uhrig’s gun. Sank her teeth into his arm.
There was an ear-burst bang. But the bullet missed.
She saw Zuri bite harder, Uhrig stagger to his knees. He fired again into the tyndo.
This time something sparked near Neliah’s face. Flicked off the walls. She felt a hot bite in her cheek. Blood. She covered her face and through her fingers saw her sister wrestling with the German. Pride swelled in her heart. Pride … and then horror as she understood what Zuri was about to do.
The two sisters looked each other in the eye. Neliah’s belly turned to flood water.
Zuri kicked against the joining-hook.
Immediately the coal-wagon was free. Began to fall away.
‘Zuri. Jump!’
Her sister struggled forward.
‘Zuri!’
The gap was no more than ten paces – but it might have been a mountain gorge. Neliah rushed towards the edge of the tyndo, wanted to leap after her sister.
Burton grabbed hold of her.
‘Let go!’ she yelled, fighting.
‘You won’t make it.’
‘My sister!’
‘She did it to save you.’
‘Zuri!’
She was falling further and further away.
Uhrig stood, his arm wet and red. But Zuri was faster. She kicked him between the legs, scratched his face. Uhrig swiped her away. Brought his fist smashing down on her collar-bone. Zuri’s left side went slack, she dropped. Then lashed out again, unbalancing the Nazista. His gun fell from his grip. Neliah watched it vanish into the gloom.
Zuri was back on her feet, fighting to climb the coal-wagon.
Uhrig followed.
Neliah felt like her insides were shrinking. Blood ran down her cheek.
Zuri reached the top of the coal, began to crawl towards the far end, her broken side clawing weakly to drag her over.
Jump, sister, thought Neliah. Fly!
Behind her Uhrig got to the top of the ladder. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled a dagger from his belt.
Burton’s arms squeezed closer around Neliah. ‘Don’t look,’ he whispered into her ear.
But she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Uhrig said something, his words whipped away. He was stroking the plait of hair tied around his shoulder. Zuri turned to face him, eyes fearful. And defiant. Uhrig towered over her, careful to keep out of reach of her swiping legs. He licked his finger, ran it over the blade of his knife.
The blood surged through Neliah’s neck.
Zuri grabbed a lump of coal. Threw it at him. Uhrig laughed. She snatched up another, then another. Uhrig lifted his arm to block them. One bounced off his head. He took a step back … stumbled … lost his footing.
Zuri lunged forward. Kicked his shinbones.
For an instant he hung there – shock on his face – then he dropped from the coal-wagon. Fell into the grass below.
Neliah’s heart roared!
‘Jesus H. Christ,’ said Patrick. He slammed himself against the edge of the tyndo, lifted his rifle towards the sky.
The coal-wagon was still slowing, Zuri growing smaller with every heartbeat. The two whirr-birds were circling around it. Neliah saw her sister curled on top, Penhor’s sash whipping round her like a red tail.
Patrick fired a shot. In the wind and smoke it vanished. He fired again.
One of the whirr-birds sank lower till it was the same height as the coal-wagon. Neliah could almost hear the greedy swallow of its guns as it prepared to fire.
‘Zuri!’
Her sister glanced back at her. Stretched out her hand.
Neliah struggled in Burton’s grip. Held out her own hand, fingers reaching across the tracks into nothing. One last touch, that’s all she wanted. To feel the smooth skin of her sister’s cheek. To grasp her hands. Pamue, together.
Neliah wailed.
The Walküre fired all its weapons. A blinding flash of cannon and rockets. A second later the tender was blown from the rails in a ball of fire.
Burton thought he glimpsed Zuri jump free.
Patrick fired a third shot.
Sparks flared around the rotor blades.
Smoke began pouring out of the helicopter’s engine. Patrick fired again and again, his mouth misshapen with rage.
The Walküre spun wildly, its tail jerking towards the ground. It caught the tracks, flipped over. And exploded.
Neliah was wailing in Burton’s arms. He hugged her into him. Crushed her face into his chest. Felt her sobs shake him.
Patrick lowered the rifle from his eye. ‘It’s over.’ His voice was lifeless.
The final Walküre soared over them and away.
Burton followed it, saw Hochburg again. There was a look of intense curiosity on his face, frustration and bloodthirsty rage. His eyes were as black as Burton remembered them as a child. Hochburg gave him a mocking wave.
Then the gunship headed west, into the sinking sun, becoming smaller and smaller.
Burton rested his head against Neliah’s. Her hair felt coarse, skin feverish. She sagged in his arms.
Patrick reached for the control panel, eased the pressure on the engine. They began to slow. ‘The prisoners jumped,’ he said softly. ‘Zuri saved them from the camp … but they jumped.’ The wrinkles round his eyes seemed black in the twilight. ‘What was the point?’
Suddenly he reached back for the controls. Spun them to full pressure. The train surged forward again, smoke roaring from the funnel.
Burton looked up.
Hochburg’s helicopter had turned, was coming back, skimming low over the rails.
Guns blazing.
Bullets screamed round them, a blizzard of scarlet tracer fire. They tore through the metal work. Vents of steam scalded Burton’s arms. There was a tremendous bang. The sound of ripping steel.
The train began to slow.
Hochburg was heading straight for them. The tracks ahead an inferno of cannon fire.
Burton felt his stomach shrivel. ‘We have to jump.’
‘We’ll never make it.’
Even with the train slowing the ground was still a lethal blur.
‘If we don’t we’re dead for sure.’
Burton raised Neliah’s face. Her eyes stared right through him, chin crumpled. ‘We’re going to jump.’
No reply.
‘Neliah! We’re going to jump. Do you understand?’
She nodded blankly.
‘This is fucking crazy,’ said Patrick.
Shells continued to rain down on them. The locomotive glowed with each bullet.
Burton secured his Browning in his belt, then picked up Neliah’s panga and moved her to the edge. Her head was twisted in the direction of Zuri. She was whispering something.
Patrick joined them.
‘On three,’ said Burton, struggling to keep the cassava in his gut from rising to his throat. ‘Like in the Legion.’ He curled his hand into Neliah’s, tightened the other round the panga. Gripped the handle till his knuckles stung.
More gunfire. The train charged forward.
Oh, Maddie, he thought. He could smell the honeysuckle scent of her hair.
‘One.’
The Walküre was almost on them.
‘Two …’
Burton hesitated.
He never got to three.
LOANDA
Hot over African ground, the sun is glowing
Our panzer engines sing their song …
The tracks rattle, the guns roar
Panzers roll in Africa!
AFRIKA KORPS MARCHING SONG
Salazar Railway, North Angola
19 September, 18:10
WHEN Hochburg found her she was still alive.
He had ordered the pilot to search the wreckage of the train for Burton. The remains were strewn along the track: several hundred metres of flame and twisted metal. The helicopter’s spotlight probed the mulberry darkness.
‘There!’ said Hochburg. ‘I see someone.’
The Walküre set down and he strode through the wind of the rotor blades. Smoke stung his eyes. He was in an overgrown cotton field littered with debris and clumps of fire. White tufts whorled around him like he was walking in a snowstorm. There was a reek of scorched metal.
And crawling through the dirt – a nigger.
She was young and from the shape of her skull (the nasal guttering, the angle of the prognathism) most likely Bantu-Herero. There was a red sash tied around her waist soaked in blood.
Hochburg stilled his disappointment at not finding Burton. Rolled her over with his boot to see her better. She was lacerated with wounds, her skin badly burned, leg broken, the femur protruding through the flesh of her thigh. Tears mixed with blood streamed down her face.
When she saw him she struggled to crawl faster. Failed. Curled herself into a crooked ball; she whimpered as her leg scraped the ground.
Hochburg squatted on his haunches next to her. Spoke softly in Bantu.
‘Where’s Burton? What happened to him?’
She seemed startled to hear him speak her own language, but made no reply.
Behind them the rotor blades of the Walküre continued to spin, whipping smoke around the wreckage.
‘Where?’
Again she said nothing. Hochburg put his hand on her thigh, feeling the wet canvas of her trousers. Ran it along to where the bone poked out. Squeezed.
The girl screamed.
‘Where?’
She tried to prise away his fingers, was shaking violently. Blood bubbled from her nostrils. Hochburg released his grip, conscious that such methods rarely worked with the blacks.
Years before, as the boundaries of German Africa swelled, the Reichsführer had become queasy at what Hochburg proposed, especially how the British might react if they discovered the truth. Deporting Jews to Madagaskar was one thing, but this … He therefore tasked him with writing a treatise on the inferiority of the indigenous races of Africa. It would form the legal and moral basis for the Windhuk Decree and their plans in Muspel. Hochburg’s research, drawing on scholars such as de Lapouge and the craniologist Johann Blumenbach, showed that the negroid brain was substantially different to that of Europeans (Slavs obviously excluded). That their understanding of pain was particularly crude – more akin to that of apes or cattle.
He knew no amount of physical persuasion would get the girl to talk.
Hochburg moved his hand from her leg to her face, brushed her cheek with his icy fingers. ‘I can make it go away,’ he soothed. ‘Make it all better, but you have to help me. I need to know where Burton is.’
She pushed him off. Then pointed to her mouth, beckoned him forward so she could speak. Hochburg leaned in till he felt her breath against his face. It was sweet, heavy with blood. She whispered something. He pressed closer.
The movement was slow. The girl grabbed a rock, tried to smash it against his skull.
It glanced off feebly.
Hochburg grabbed her wrist, dug his nails into her tendons. She dropped the stone.
‘Stupid girl!’
‘Quamuis multos necaueris …’
‘What?’
She was saying something. It sounded like Latin.
Hochburg pressed his ear to her mouth. She was too weak to be a threat now.
‘Quamuis multos necaueris … successorem tuum occidere non poteris.’
Hochburg pulled back, caught her eyes: a stare of pathetic defiance.
‘“No matter how many of us you kill,”’ he translated, ‘“you will never kill your successor.” Seneca’s advice to Nero.’
She looked crestfallen.
‘An educated nigger, whatever next.’
His hand returned to her thigh, hovered over the bone. He saw ants teeming around the base of the wound, swimming through a river of blood. ‘Tell me where Burton is.’
But the girl had closed her eyes. Her breathing rapid and shallow. She was murmuring something, over and over.
He leaned in again.
‘I’m scared, Papai … so scared …’
In those whisperings Hochburg heard Eleanor’s final words again. Felt that moment when she freed her hand from
his. Over the years he’d played it endlessly in his mind. What did she fear? The beckoning silence? God’s judgement? That she would never see her son again? He had never felt so powerless.
Nearby Hochburg heard someone crash through the cotton plants, coming towards him.
He reached forward and covered the girl’s nose and mouth with his hand. Her eyes flickered. He pressed harder, crushed her lips. Felt her last tugs of breath. Blood and saliva seeped between his fingers.
‘Shhh, child,’ he said as she struggled. My little black buttons, he used to call them at the orphanage; Eleanor always smiled at that.
He held his hand there till she was dead. Then stood, wiped his palms clean on his trousers.
The crashing was getting closer. Hochburg turned in the direction of the sound: saw a silhouette against the glare of the Walküre’s searchlight. He pulled his pistol.
‘Fucking black bitch!’
Uhrig lurched forward, dagger in hand. His head was a mess of congealed blood; flesh could be seen glistening through the tears in his uniform. The hand without the knife hung limply at his side.
He crashed down next to the girl and drove his knife into her again and again, the blade puncturing every part of her body.
‘Enough,’ said Hochburg.
The frenzy continued.
‘I said: enough!’
Uhrig spun round, his mouth a knot of rage. For an instant Hochburg thought he was going to attack him. Then he lowered the dagger. ‘Yes, Herr Oberstgruppenführer.’
‘I need your energies elsewhere. How are your injuries?’
‘They’re nothing.’ He spat a gob of blood on the dead girl. ‘I can still fight, Herr Oberst.’
Hochburg gave him an indulgent smile. ‘We’ll make a general of you yet, Standartenführer.’
‘And Cole?’
They began walking back to the helicopter. ‘We’ll never find him in the dark,’ replied Hochburg. He felt a calm resignation, that moment of breathless silence before a flame ignites.
‘Then what?’
‘You said it yourself. These tracks lead all the way to Loanda.’
‘But he could go anywhere in the city.’
‘No,’ said Hochburg. ‘The only place that makes sense now is the British consulate.’
‘How do you know he won’t head straight for the docks? Get on a boat.’