The Fabulous Valley

by Dennis Wheatley

  17

  Kalahari Picnic

  Henry Long could not hear what Patricia and Michael were saying but he could see from their flushed faces and low, angry voices that a first-class quarrel was in progress. He watched it with considerable pleasure. Three nights before, his daughter had accused Philbeach and himself of sending the telegram which had side-tracked the others to Postmasburg. When he admitted it she had given vent to such an extraordinary outburst that it had even shocked him out of his cold impassivity for the moment. She had been brought up in the belief that God delegated a portion of His inscrutable wisdom to all parents. He had never even considered explaining any of his actions to her and was exceedingly annoyed that she should suddenly not only demand full details of his motives, but charge him with dishonesty into the bargain. He had refused to discuss the matter with her and told her that he was not prepared to explain his actions to his own daughter; moreover, that he had never wanted her to come on this expedition and it would obviously be better if she packed up and went home immediately. Patricia had grown sulky then and had continued so all through the trek back from Upington. He was quite indifferent to her moods but furious that after all these years she should suddenly question his integrity. Guessing that her interest in Michael had been the mainspring of her revolt, he was heartily glad to see them quarrelling now.

  As Patricia ran up the steps, leaving his nephew openmouthed at the bottom of the path, Henry followed her into the hotel. He had seen the Bennetts standing in the street and had no desire to face an open altercation.

  Michael’s anger at the way Patricia had just spoken to him swamped all his more tender feelings.

  When he had discovered that Wisdon and Philbeach were the same man, his first thought had been to warn the girl he loved not to venture into the wastes of the Kalahari with such a character.

  Even if she had tricked him over the telegram and some story of a girl called Orkney—he had not allowed his hurt feelings to interfere with his desire to protect her. Either one loved or one didn’t, and nothing could prevent him doing his best to serve her whatever she did.

  Patricia’s own perverseness and her harsh words to him seemed to have finally ended their friendship.

  With a rueful shrug he turned away, but as he approached the group in the street he suddenly began to wonder what Patricia could have meant by saying that it was Sandy’s wife, under the name of Miss Aileen Orkney, who had sent them off to King George’s Falls.

  ‘Mrs. McDiamid,’ he said hesitantly, as he joined the others, ‘did you meet the Longs when they were here a few days ago?’

  Sarie was quick to sense the danger. ‘No,’ she lied glibly. ‘Did the girl you were talking to think she knew me? In the distance she probably mistook me for a girl called Aileen Orkney who was staying at the inn when they were here before. She had the same tow-coloured hair and dolly-blue eyes that Sandy says I’ve got when he’s angry with me.’

  ‘That’s right, Orkney was her name,’ Sandy declared. Then, quick to realise that he had got to get Sarie out of it before they asked her any more awkward questions, he drew her arm through his and added: ‘Come on, darling, we mustn’t stay here talking—it’s time for you to bath the twins.’

  Ernest grinned. ‘Now that’s what I like to see. A real family man, isn’t he?’

  George mopped his red face with a damp handkerchief and nodded, but his small quick eyes held a sudden look of distrust as he shot at Sandy: ‘Queer hour to bath babies—isn’t it? In the middle of the day.’

  ‘Some people might think so,’ Sandy agreed airily, ‘but Sarie has a bee in her bonnet about baby culture. She’s got a little book all about them by an old German called Pumpernickel which she follows religiously and, to make them good South Africans, we play them to sleep every night with records on the gramophone in Afrikaans.’

  ‘Well, just think of that!’ Ernest nodded understandingly. ‘One half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives, and that’s a fact.’

  Sandy seized the opportunity to hurry Sarie away before they became further involved in explaining the matter of Miss Aileen Orkney.

  When they had passed out of the village Sarie quickly withdrew her arm from his. With a frown creasing his forehead, he shot a covert glance at her.

  ‘Sarie, why are you being so beastly to me?’

  ‘Twins!’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘Do you ever expect me to forgive you that?’

  ‘Oh, hang it! I was only joking.’

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s not the sort of humour that I appreciate.’ She eyed him curiously, amused at the quick droop of his sensitive mouth and the wayward lock of hair which had again fallen forward over his eyebrow.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t. And I’ll apologise a hundred times about that kiss. I wouldn’t have done it for worlds if I’d been serious.’

  She halted suddenly in her tracks beneath a big blue-gum tree—swinging upon him with an angry light in her blue eyes.

  ‘So you wouldn’t have done it had you been serious, eh? That’s a pretty compliment, I must say!’

  Sandy halted too. Tall and lean, he looked down at her with a troubled expression in his brown eyes. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked miserably. ‘And what the devil am I to say? You’re sore because I took an unfair advantage to kiss you and now you say it would have been uncomplimentary if I hadn’t.’

  ‘All right,’ she smiled to herself at his crestfallen air. ‘Would you like to make it quits?’

  ‘Yes, I would, though I don’t know what you mean, but I’d do anything to have you smile at me again.’

  ‘Would you?’ she suddenly reached up and slipped her arms about his neck. ‘Then I’ll give it you back,’ and with a sudden smile, she kissed him on the mouth.

  ‘Sarie!’ As she tried to slip away he was too quick for her and caught her to him. ‘Sarie, you’ve asked for this and, by God! you’re going to get it.’ With one strong arm he held her firmly against his chest and tilting her chin with his free hand he pressed his mouth on hers.

  For a moment her eyes showed fright, then she let herself hang, limp and unresisting, until at last he let her go. She laughed again then—a little, uncertain, broken laugh.

  ‘At midday!—really you should be ashamed of yourself!’ But he only pulled her arm through his again as they set off down the track and for the two miles back to camp, though both their hearts were beating furiously, neither of them said another word.

  Cornelius was waiting for them with a midday meal of eggs and fruit already prepared. Sandy told him of their doings in the morning and of Michael meeting Patricia Long at the gate of the inn on their return, in short jerky sentences, while Sarie maintained an unnatural silence and busied herself as much as possible with the service of the meal.

  They decided that now Sarie was suspect it would be inadvisable for her to meet either the Longs or the Bennetts again and that as Sandy also might have to face some difficult questions it would be best if Cornelius kept the other parties under observation. They had no idea that Patricia already suspected Sarie of being a Van Niekerk, so thought it unlikely that any of the visitors at the Zwart Modder inn would recognise the booted, khaki-clad young Dutchman, with his broad-brimmed hat and air of having lived on the veldt all his life, for the smartly-dressed young man that they had met for a few moments in Pretoria, unless he met them face to face.

  About three o’clock, Cornelius set off and Sandy watched him limp away in the direction of the dorp with a happy grin. It was not that he disliked the young Dutchman’s company—far from it—but he wanted to be alone with Sarie.

  ‘How about a stroll down to the river?’ he asked immediately.

  ‘No, I shall be too busy this afternoon,’ she replied, without looking at him. ‘I’m going to make some mebos.’

  ‘What here!—nonsense! It will take days.’

  ‘Of course not, silly—but at the house of a young farmer’s wife whom I me
t at the inn before the place became crowded out by your hordes of relatives.’

  ‘Oh, do it another day,’ he pleaded.

  ‘No.’ Sarie shook her golden head. ‘She started it three days ago and the apricots will be dried by now and ready to crystallise. I promised for this afternoon. Besides …’ she added, looking at him over her shoulder as she moved away, ‘… I’m very fond of mebos.’

  To Sandy’s annoyance she did not return until the evening, by which time Cornelius was already back. He had found out that the Bennett party intended to set out the following morning for Noro Kei, a salt pan around which there were a few bushmen settlements. He had not found it necessary to risk recognition by speaking to any of them but had obtained his information from their head boy—-Johnnie.

  As they sat round the camp fire that night Sandy would have given his eye teeth for ten minutes alone with Sarie, but she curtly rejected his suggestion of a stroll and in her brother’s presence he could say nothing to her. Cornelius, finding them both unresponsive to his talk, suggested making an early night of it as he would have to be up with the dawn to ascertain if the Bennett party actually stuck to their present intention; also, what the Longs would do in the circumstances.

  Sandy left them for a few moments. He had a patch of wild flowers in his mind that grew only a little distance from the camp. With the aid of his torch he managed to find them and, picking a few hastily, ran back with them. When Sarie relaxed her limbs and slipped her short-sleeved shirt over her golden head in her bivouac ten minutes later, she suddenly noticed them arranged in a neat bunch upon her pillow.

  Cornelius left the camp before the first rays of sunlight had come over the eastern hills of their sheltered valley, and returned before Sarie had finished preparing their breakfast. The Bennetts were off, he reported, laughing a little at the discomfort they would experience on the hard seat of their wagon. Michael accompanied them astride a nice little cob, and the Hottentot—Ombulike—together with three nigs—made up their party.

  Half the population of the village had been present to watch their departure on the little-used track towards Noro Kei, but the Longs had not put in an appearance until half an hour after they had gone. Then they, too, had assembled their out-span; Patricia, Wisdon, and his two friends, mounted on horses, the old man perched uncomfortably beside a native driver, and two other natives with them. By that time another quarter of the population of Zwart Modder had turned out, including the rural policeman, to watch them with a vague, silent interest as their wagon took the tracks of the one which had preceded them. Evidently the Longs meant to follow the trail which was to be blazed by the Bennetts.

  ‘What’s the drill now?’ Sandy inquired.

  ‘Sleep,’ declared Cornelius positively: ‘no need for us to start until well into the afternoon. We know the direction they have taken and it will be as easy as winking for us to pick them up from the plane after they have experienced a really jolly day, such as our ancestors had when they decided to do a bit of voor-trekking.’ He swallowed his breakfast and then disappeared into his bivouac.

  Sarie avoided Sandy carefully and a few minutes later she was also lying upon her camp bed, not to sleep, but to think a little about the events of the previous day. She had liked Sandy the very moment that she had set eyes on him. She adored the tall, cavalier swing of his walk and the brown, humorous eyes in his tanned face. She liked his casualness and the gay, devil-may-care manner in which he had rushed her into that absurd situation two nights ago, and his stupid verbiage about her imaginary twins. But did she like him enough? That was the question. Sarie held some wilted, scentless flowers to her freckled nose.

  Sandy meanwhile busied himself with the preparations for their departure. They had come well supplied with watercontainers purchased in Pretoria, and he was careful to see that everyone of these was filled to capacity from the rocky pool of fresh clear water on the banks of the Molopo. After he had re-packed them carefully in the body of the plane beside Sarie’s stock of rice, mealies and tinned goods, he made a journey to the village and procured as much fruit in the way of oranges, grapes, avocados and bananas as he could carry, by which time old Willem announced the midday meal and the other two were roused from their slumbers, real or pretended.

  They waited until an hour before sunset, knowing that they could catch up the OX-spans of the others after a few miles’ flight. Then Cornelius set the plane in motion and they rose gently over the low hills which had been such a convenient shelter to them.

  He climbed up to three thousand feet, not wishing the other parties to be aware of their presence if it could be avoided and, half an hour later, picked them up. The first party was already out-spanned and the other trekking towards it laboriously along the sandy track. They hovered in the heavens far above until a solitary horseman rode forward from the second party to a low bluff and evidently spotted the Bennetts’ camp, for, turning, he galloped back to the Longs, who then out-spanned about a mile in the rear.

  Cornelius brought his plane to rest in a sheltered dip some miles from both camps and an hour later they began their evening meal. Sarie gave them Sasaties which she had prepared the previous day and Sandy exclaimed:

  ‘By Jove, these are good. How in the world do you manage to get such flavour into mutton?’

  ‘It’s the last you’ll get for some time,’ she smiled, ‘but you shall have the recipe if you like it.’ Then, immediately they had finished, to Sandy’s chagrin, she disappeared into her bivie.

  When he crawled into his own a little later he found a sheet of paper pinned to his pillow and written on it in a flowing scrawl:

  SASATIES:

  Ingredients

  1 Fat Leg of Mutton.

  A teaspoonful of sugar.

  2 oz. of good curry powder.

  A cup of milk.

  ½ cup of vinegar, or the juice of 3 lemons (if not to be had, an oz. of tamarind drawn on a cup of water gives a very pleasant acid).

  ½ dozen lemon or orange leaves.

  2 oz. of butter.

  I medium sized onion.

  3 dozen skewers, cut out of a bamboo, or iron skewers.

  Salt to be added when skewered.

  Cut up the leg of mutton in little pieces an inch square, brown the onion, cut in thin slices and fry in a pan in fat or butter. Mix all the ingredients well with the cut-up meat in a deep pan or basin; leave it for a night or longer, and when wanted, place the meat interspersed here and there with fat on the skewers. Place the gridiron on wood coals to get very hot, then grill the sasaties a nice brown. Serve hot with rice. The gravy to be well heated in a saucepan and served with the sasaties. A very favourite picnic dish at the Cape.

  This may interest your wife if you are ever lucky enough to get one who can cook.

  S.v N.

  With a low laugh Sandy thrust the paper inside his shirt and lay down to doze off happily into a sound sleep.

  Early in the morning they were in the air again watching the departure of the two contingents. Then they descended and slept, chatted, or played the radio during the long hot hours of the day, leaving the others to their weary toil. They picked them up again in the evening on the fringe of the wide marshes that spread for many miles about the native settlements at Noro Kei.

  Sandy had little chance, in such surroundings, to be alone with Sarie, but that second night he caught her for a moment beyond the glow of their camp fire, and sized both her hands in his. With no word said, he drew her to him and kissed her feverishly, but she broke away, giving him a violent shove, and the next second was seated beside her brother, laughing and talking just as though nothing had happened.

  After they left Noro Kei they settled into a steady unvarying routine. Each morning, from a high altitude, they watched the two outspans as they crawled laboriously one after the other through the grassy waste to the north-eastward. Then, descending, they whiled away most of the day in their camp, reading, telling stories, and listening to Sarie’s songs or the dan
ce music that was relayed from Johannesburg and Cape Town through their portable wireless. The two men did some mild shooting—enough to keep Sarie supplied with provender for her pot—without unduly wasting ammunition, and she was able to give them a fine variety of good dishes. For their meat course, Tassel, Piggie haspot, stuffed baby marrows or stewed Duiker, and for a sweet—Wentel Jeeftjes, Tameltijes with Naartje peel. Pumpkin Poffertjes, Angels’ Food or Rys Kluitjes with preserve.

  In the evening they would break camp, take the air again to see how far the others had succeeded in hauling their cumbersome wagons during the day, and then descend a few miles farther into that trackless waste to choose a new sleeping place.

  The scene changed little. To the east and more central portion of the desert stretched vast tracts of impassable bush, but the area through which they were journeying consisted of undulating country covered with coarse bushman grass. Occasionally, from the air, they saw large limestone depressions which Cornelius said were believed to have been hollowed out by the action of myriads of elephants indulging in mud baths during past ages. The only vegetation other than the grass consisted of small patches of Tasma, a species of wild melon which grew more infrequent as they advanced. Sometimes during the midday heat other scenery would appear on the horizon but they knew it to be nothing but a mirage.

  Day after day Sandy sought for some opportunity to get Sarie to himself, even for a few moments, but after that one episode at Noro Kei some devil seemed to have entered into her. If Cornelius was not with her, old black Willem who did the chores of the party was. With a fertility of imagination which amazed him utterly she never failed to find some urgent matter which needed her immediate attention whenever he endeavoured to lure her from the camp during the day-time. At night she seemed to take an open delight in covertly mocking him, secure in the knowledge that they dared not move beyond the circle of camp fires for fear of the wild beasts, whose coughing roar, as they padded softly up and down only a few hundred yards away, provided nightly a grim serenade before they slept.