The Sands of Kalahari

by William Mulvihill

  THE SANDS OF KALAHARI

  A Novel by WILLIAM MULVIHILL

  Cover and kindle version copyright © 2015 by NightHawk Books, Steve W. Chadde, Series Editor. All names, characters, and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance which may seem to exist to real persons is purely coincidental.

  The Sands of Kalahari was originally published in 1960 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.

  NightHawk Books

  NightHawk Books are a collection of noir detective, mystery, and adventure stories, largely forgotten on dusty bookshelves but often surprisingly well-written—and always entertaining! We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoy making them available once again as kindle ebooks.

  Each book in the series is meticulously reviewed to ensure a quality reading experience either on paper or on your kindle device.

  * * *

  Novels by William Mulvihill

  THE SANDS OF KALAHARI

  THE MANTRACKERS

  FIRE MISSION

  * * *

  For Nancy and Mary Ann

  FOREWORD

  Fly over South-West Africa and you will see desert: a third of a million square miles of sand. From the Angolan border south to the Orange River no water runs regularly into the sea; the beach stretches a hundred miles inland and there is almost no rain: the Namib Desert.

  In the interior great escarpments rise and there are nameless bleak mountains and great empty savannas, desolate and dry. Then another desert, the Kalahari, the Great Thirstland, larger than Texas. Southward is five hundred square miles of parched bushveld.

  In all this vastness there are towns, ranches, mines and settlements but they are far apart, like atolls dotting a vast ocean.

  CHAPTER I

  DURING the night Detjens died and the rest of them were almost glad. The crash had broken his back and fractured his skull and he had died without once gaining consciousness. Now there were six of them, five men and a woman, standing around the blanket-wrapped body in the early morning heat.

  When the plane crashed the day before, Detjens was the only one hurt. He was unknown to the rest of them as they were to each other, but his slow dying had drawn them together around him. Now they felt that they had known each other for a long, long time. They had nursed him, prayed for him, sat with him through the long black night. Because of him they had stayed near the wrecked plane, not moving; because of him they had not tried to reach the low black mountain off on the horizon. He was dead now and they were free and they stood around the body, waiting. They were nervous, strained, aware of each other’s impatience. Some of them stared at the body and then at the distant hills. Sturdevant, the pilot, cleared his throat.

  “I think we should bury him here,” he said without looking up. “Right by the plane. No sense in going off anywhere else.” They agreed. If Detjens was buried where he lay it meant that Sturdevant was planning to move, to reach the hills, the black mountain far away. And he was their leader. They studied him for an instant: a tall rangy man in his late thirties with a sharp, tough face. He was a redhead, an ex-fighter pilot, a South African. A few days ago they hadn’t known him; now their lives depended upon his judgment. He looked up and past them, studying the awesome desert, slowly rubbing the red stubble that covered his lean jaw. He adjusted his peaked cap and slapped at a fly that settled on his bare leg. He wore a brown sport shirt, khaki shorts and rubber-soled shoes. They waited for him to speak but he turned and walked away studying the pieces of debris that lay around the smashed plane. He picked up a curved piece of aluminum and came back to them, knelt in the sand and began to dig. The semicircle broke up. The woman turned away, walked wearily to the tilted fuselage and went through the low door. The men found cans and pieces of metal and joined Sturdevant.

  The pilot studied the other four men as the grave grew deeper. His responsibility …

  Grimmelmann was the eldest, old enough to be the father of all of them, a white-haired German who walked with a slight limp and carried a heavy, rubber-tipped cane. He was in his seventies but still strong. When they got on the plane back in Mossemedes he had been wearing a heavy, belt-in-the-back European suit and a stiff white collar. Instead of a suitcase he had carried a cheap bulging brief case, which Sturdevant always associated with Germans and refugees and displaced persons. The old man was heading for Windhoek, seeking a brother who owned a vast sheep ranch. He spoke English in a slow, precise manner like an old schoolmaster. Digging in the sand now he was in his shirt sleeves and from the depths of the brief case he had found an old peaked hat of military cut which almost covered his wispy white hair.

  Jefferson Smith was the youngest, probably in his late twenties. He was an American, a Negro, a professor and a scholar doing some kind of research on Africa. Tall and graceful with an easy smile. When Sturdevant had first seen him he was carrying two heavy suitcases and his light seersucker suit was damp with sweat. He was alert and talkative, his voice deep and pleasant. Sturdevant wasn’t used to him yet; the other Negroes who had been in his plane were mine boys, laborers. It was difficult to realize that Smith was an American with a lot of money and a lot of education.

  Next to the Negro, scooping dirt out of the hole with a tin can, was Mike Bain, another American, in his late thirties. A good guy, Sturdevant mused, but one he’d have to watch. He was flabby and soft and there was a nonchalance in his movements and remarks. Grimmelmann was old but he was strong and high-spirited; Bain was neither. He was shorter than Smith, under six feet, and good-looking in a haggard way: a face that had seen a lot of good times and a lot of bad times. Sturdevant knew he was an American engineer who’d been knocking around in West Africa for some years.

  The last man was O’Brien, big, handsome, capable. He stabbed into the earth with a sharp piece of metal, loosening it for the others and then scooping it out himself with a flat piece of plywood. He was hatless and the heavy stubble of his beard merged with his raven-black hair. He, too, was American, close to Sturdevant’s age, and he had come to Africa to hunt. Along with a big leather suitcase he had carried two expensive hunting rifles and a pair of binoculars. He was taller than the pilot and heavier through the chest and shoulders. When they had met back in Angola the big man had been wearing a bush jacket and a wide-brimmed hat. When they shook hands Sturdevant had sensed a latent strength, a power surpassing his own. He was glad O’Brien was with them.

  The grave grew deeper. They did not speak, for there was nothing to say; a man had died and he had to be buried. They dug and grunted and were silent. At last they broke through the gravel-filled hardpan and the earth became softer.

  Sturdevant brushed away a trickle of sweat from his upper lip. Very soon now, unless they found water, they too would be shriveled and dead. There was water in the plane, almost two tins of it, but when that was gone …

  There wasn’t going to be any search plane.

  He told them a few hours after the crash. It had been a private flight, unrecorded. He had agreed to take them to Swakopmund and they had left Angola without ceremony, a lone plane winging south over the dry, barren land. There would be no search plane, for no one knew that they were lost. They had to save themselves and they had already wasted one precious day.

  People died in deserts. It was a strange way to die in the twentieth century but it happened. The world was still filled with great blank spaces where men died for uncomplicated reasons: thirst, hunger, heat, cold. Not long ago he’d read in a newspaper about a party of geologists who had come upon an awesome sight in the Libyan desert. A World War II American bomber sitting on its belly in the drifting sand. It had sat there undisturbed for over fifteen years; the logbooks and clothing and guns were untouched; some water jugs were still full. There
was no sign of the crew but investigators believed that they had left the plane seeking water and died in the endless desert, four hundred miles from the sea.

  All at once they stopped digging.

  “It’s deep enough,” Sturdevant said.

  They stood up and arched their backs to take out the stiffness. Sturdevant and O’Brien picked up the corpse and placed it into the shallow grave. They all knelt down again and began to push the soil back into the hole.

  Grace Monckton sat inside of the plane in a deep bucket seat, eyes closed, half-asleep. She had been up most of the night with the dying man and she was dizzy now with shock and fatigue.

  Her face was aristocratic; even in half-sleep there was alertness in it, an indefinable assurance. She was a young and beautiful woman with heavy golden hair. She groaned and murmured; as terror came into her dream, she shivered; she was young and she did not want to die. She reached out and pulled a faded raincoat about her, for the night chill was still with her. When she got on the plane she’d been wearing madras shorts and a light blouse. During the night one of the men had given her a great bulky sweater. Now, wrapped in the raincoat, she fell into a fitful sleep.

  The men left the mound of earth and walked to the battered stump of the plane, to the shade, to hide from the rising sun.

  Sturdevant was last. Like the others he ducked through the low doorway and lowered himself into one of the tilted seats. He closed his eyes. He was a fool. He had killed little Detjens and wrecked his plane and made a final mess of his life. And he had the lives of five others in his hands, lives for which he was responsible. If only the plane would shiver and roar and roll forward, take off and fly away, get them out …

  “I think,” said Grace Monckton, “that we should try to do something now. I think some of us or all of us should try to look for help.”

  Sturdevant nodded, his eyes still closed. It was cooler here than outside and he was grateful.

  “We will,” he said. “When the sun goes down we’ll all head for that mountain.”

  “Will we find water?” she asked.

  Sturdevant’s hands rose and fell in a limp gesture of ignorance. “Who can say?”

  “We don’t have any choice,” O’Brien said. “We can’t stick with the plane any longer.”

  The others listened and agreed and remained silent, sitting in the same seats they had occupied during the flight. Grimmelmann began to snore quietly.

  “Let’s all try to get as much rest as we can,” the pilot said. “We’ll be walking all night.”

  Mike Bain smoked his last cigarette. He recoiled from the thought of moving. The walk to the black mountain would be tough, maybe too tough for him. It might be better if he stayed. When the plane crashed he’d been thrown around like the rest of them and he’d cut his thumb. Now it was beginning to throb and bother him; he’d have to look after it when he felt better; there had to be something left in Sturdevant’s medical kit. He should do it now but the seat was too comfortable and he was too tired.

  The cigarette burned his fingers. He had saved it for hours and thought about it and finally smoked it, sucking the pleasure from it, knowing there were no others. The reality of it frightened him. For years and years he had smoked two packs a day.

  He flicked the tiny butt out of the shattered window and watched it die in the sand. He closed his eyes, slept.

  There was still some food in the plane, and the water that Sturdevant always carried. Africa is a dry land and the plane was his home and he kept it well supplied. One of the tins had burst open when they crashed and they had drunk another; now there were two left, almost ten gallons.

  Sturdevant’s bellylanding had been something of a miracle. They had glided over the table-flat desert for an eternity, noiseless, the ground closer each instant. The wheels touched at last and were ripped off—then the screech of tearing metal as the tail went, the left wing. They swerved and spun around, almost turned over. Then silence. They had survived.

  Jefferson Smith had made a HELP sign. He picked up pieces of the smashed plane and started on the first letter. The other men joined him until they ran out of manageable debris and then, exhausted and dizzy, they sought the shade and darkness inside the battered fuselage, gratified that they had worked for the common salvation.

  And they did other things. O’Brien set fire to one of the wheels, which had been snapped off and was three hundred yards from the fuselage. He poured oil on the rubber and touched a match to it and they watched the black column of smoke rise higher and higher into the still air; they added debris to the pyre, but in the end it died down and no one came to save them. Just before dawn they burned the other tire, hoping the glow might attract someone.

  O’Brien took one of his rifles and fired three shots in quick succession but there was no one to hear and he stopped. It was a waste of time. They were utterly alone in a great sand sea.

  When they left, the sun sat on the flat line of the horizon. Several plans had been proposed and rejected. O’Brien had wanted two groups; one of the younger and stronger to go first as a scouting party. The others would follow at a slower pace, carrying most of the water and the other things they would need. Some of them had thought this a good plan but

  Sturdevant vetoed it. He didn’t want the group to break up.

  It wasn’t easy to leave. They stood around the smashed plane adjusting the nondescript packs and bundles they would take, making petty decisions, discarding one thing for another. They would warn each other of the danger of carrying too much and a moment later would point to the value of some other object and hope that it would not be left behind. O’Brien knew clever ways to make tight serviceable packs with a blanket and a few pieces of twine and he helped them all. Grimmelmann walked among them urging them to be sure to take all the shoes they had; in the desert shoes were almost as important as water. O’Brien’s rifles and ammunition were distributed among the men and Sturdevant decided to carry the two water tins himself. He had always carried plenty of water in the plane and now it was keeping six people alive. In three or four days it would be gone.

  The old man was the first to leave. He stood for some time watching the others, impatiently leaning on his heavy alpenstock. Then he turned and walked off into the desert, looking toward the far mountains. There was a faint chance that there might be something on the far side of them—a mining settlement, a railroad line. There might be a spring; they might run into some Bushmen or Berg Damaras or even some good German sheep ranchers. It was all a matter of luck.

  And the others followed him, one by one. Grace Monckton came striding forward, confident, optimistic. Then O’Brien, strong and purposeful, a huge pack on his back, a rifle in each hand. Then Jefferson Smith hurrying to catch up.

  Sturdevant stood, hands on hips, surveying the remains of his airplane. They were all gone now, all except Mike Bain, who was still inside, rummaging among the things the rest of them had abandoned. It had been a good plane and now it was gone, like so many he had flown during the war. It was gone and Detjens was dead and not a soul in the world knew where they were. It was difficult to walk away from the plane, for now it was the only familiar thing; it was a machine and it was broken and around it stretched the prehistoric desert. He picked up the two water cans and walked away.

  Mike Bain saw Sturdevant leave. He was alone. He cursed and gave up the search. He’d been looking for cigarettes. There might have been a stray pack in one of the suitcases or in some forgotten pocket. But there wasn’t. He ducked through the doorway and stepped outside. He looked at the wrench in his hand and dropped it on the sand, a big open-end wrench he’d found in the end of the plane. It was over two feet long but it was well balanced and he’d used it to pry among the discarded things.

  He turned and walked after Sturdevant, hurrying, trying to fix the pack that kept slipping from his back. He was suddenly afraid. He turned and ran back to the plane, picked up the wrench and then hurried after the others.

  The sun w
ent down but the heat did not go; it was in the sand and in the air and in their memory. They walked across the barren land, closer together now, talking little, their shoes grinding in the sand, crunching in the gravel. Darkness came and they were suddenly cold. Far ahead was the mountain and from time to time they would look up and study it and wonder how far away it was and when they would reach it.

  It was not a night of blackness; the moon was clear and the clouds were light. They walked on steadily, stopping occasionally to rest and draw together and sip water. They were tired but they did not speak of it. They could not halt and sleep, for the sun would return and trap them on the sand and they might never reach the mountain. And whatever the mountain held for them, even if it was only shade to die in, they must reach it.

  Suddenly dawn came. They looked and saw the mountain very far away and Grace Monckton’s stamina gave way and she wept openly from fatigue and despair. They had tried so hard, walked so long, yet it was as if they had not moved from the smashed plane. The others saw her and looked away and said nothing. I’d cry too, Mike Bain thought; if I were a woman I’d cry.

  They hurried on, faster now, for the memory of the sun came and they grew afraid. They stumbled more often, sometimes falling but always rising again and going on; and little by little the group fell apart, the unity of the night was lost; soon it was no longer a group but a mile-long line of solitary figures stumbling toward the black mountain.

  When dawn came the baboons moved down from their cave and sat blinking in the light; they scratched and grimaced and yawned. Only the young were frisky.

  It had been another quiet night for the clan. Back in the cave they had clustered close together in a giant ball, clutching each other in sleep to ward off fancied danger and the chill of the night. They had squirmed and pushed sleepily in the darkness; some on the outside of the group grew cold and fought others to get close to the center and the warmth; others dreamed of snakes and leopards and grew excited until they were cuffed awake.