by Wilbur Smith
at the abrupt halt, striking his shoulder and forehead painfully on the
steel visor.
The engine shrieked in the frenzy of high revolutions and lifting
valves before Jake recovered himself, then slammed the throttle
closed.
He dragged himself from the turret to signal a halt to the following
vehicles, and then mournfully clambered down to inspect the heavily
bogged vehicle. Gareth walked out across the snowy surface of the
pan,
and stood beside him surveying the damage silently.
"Let him make one crack " Jake thought through the mists of his anger
and frustration. He felt his hands curling into big bony hammers.
"Cheroot?" Gareth offered him the case, and Jake felt his anger
deflate slightly.
"Good place to camp tonight," Gareth went on. "We'll see about hauling
her out in the morning." He clapped Jake's shoulder. "Come on,
I'll buy you a warm beer."
"I was waiting for you to say something,
anything but that and I would have swung on you. "Jake shook his
head
grinning with surprise at Gareth's perception.
"You think I didn't know that, old son?" Gareth grinned back at him.
Vicky woke in the hours immediately after midnight when human vitality
is at its lowest, and the night was utterly silent except for the
gentle sound of one of the men snoring. She recognized the sound from
the previous evening, and wondered which of them it was.
something like that could influence a girl's decision, she thought,
imagine sleeping every night of your life in a saw mill.
It was not that which had woken her, however. Perhaps it was the cold.
The temperature had plunged in that phenomenal temperature range of the
desert, and she drew her blankets tighter over her shoulder and settled
to sleep ,again when the sound came again and she shot upright into a
rigid sitting position.
It was a long-drawn rolling, rattling sound, quite unlike anything she
had ever heard before. The sound rose to a pitch which clawed her
nerves, and then ended in a series of deep gut-shaking grunts. It was
so fierce and menacing a sound that she felt the slow ice of terror
spreading through her body. She wanted to shout to the others, to wake
them, but she was afraid to draw attention to herself and she sat
frozen and wide-eyed in the next silence waiting for it to happen
again.
"It's all right, Miss Camberwell." Vicky started at the quiet voice.
"It's miles away. Nothing to worry about." And she looked round to
see the young Ethiopian, still wrapped in his blankets watching her.
"My God, Greg what on earth is it?"
"A lion, Miss Camberwell,"
Gregorius . explained, obviously surprised that she did not recognize
such a commonplace sound.
"A lion? That is a lion roaring?" She had not expected it to sound
anything like that.
"My people say that even a brave man is frightened three times by a
lion and the first time is when he hears it roar."
"I believe it,"
she whispered. "I truly do." And she picked up her blankets and went
to where Jake and Gareth slept on, undisturbed. She lay down carefully
between them, and felt a little easier that the lion had now a wider
choice, but still she did not sleep, Count Aldo Belli had retired to
his tent with the sincerest and firmest resolve that in the morning he
would press forward to the Wells of Chaldi. The General's pleas had
touched him. Nothing would check him now, he decided, as he composed
himself to sleep.
He woke in the utter dark of the dog hours to find that the
Chianti he had drunk at dinner was now exerting internal pressure.
Where a lesser man might have slipped without ceremony from his bed to
deal with this problem, the Count did things in greater style.
He lay back on his pillows and let out a single loud bellow, and
immediately there was the frantic activity in the night, and within
minutes Gino had arrived with a bull's-eye lantern, hastily dressed in
a camel-hair gown, and tousle-haired and owl-eyed with sleep. He was
followed by the Count's personal valet and his galloper, all in the
same state of freshly awoken bewilderment.
The Count stated his physical needs, and the dedicated group gathered
around his bed solicitously. Gino helped him up as though he were an
invalid, the valet held a dressing gown of quilted blue Chinese silk,
embroidered with ferocious scarlet dragons, and then knelt to place a
calf-skin slipper on each of the Count's feet, while his aide hastened
to kick the Count's personal guard awake and fall them in outside the
tent.
The Count emerged from the tent and a small procession, well armed and
lighted, filed down to the latrine which had been dug exclusively for
the Count's personal use. Gino entered first and checked the small
thatched edifice for snakes, scorpions and brigands. Only when he
emerged and declared it safe did the Count enter. His escort stood to
attention and listened respectfully to the copious outpouring taking
place within until they were interrupted by the sky shaking
earth-rattling, heart-stopping roar of a male lion.
The Count shot from the latrine, his face a startled glistening white
in the lantern light.
"Sweet and merciful Mother of God!" he cried. "What in the name of
Peter and all the saints is that?" Nobody could answer him, in fact
nobody showed any interest in the question whatever, and the Count had
to move swiftly to catch up with his armed escort which had already
started back towards the bivouac in a sprightly fashion.
Once within the security of his own brightly lit tent, and surrounded
by his hastily assembled staff, the Count's pulse rate returned to
normal, and one of his officers suggested that the native
Eritrean guides be sent for and questioned on the terrible night sounds
that had plunged the entire battalion into consternation.
"Lion?" said the Count, and then again, "Lion!" Instantly the
formless terrors of the night evaporated, for by this time the first
light of dawn was gleaming in the east, and the Count's breast swelled
with the fierce instincts of the huntsman.
"It appears, my Colonel, that the beasts will be feeding on the
antelope carcasses that you left lying out on the desert," the
interpreter explained. "The smell of blood has attracted them."
aGi no snapped the Count. "Fetch the Mannlicher and have the driver
bring the Rolls-Royce to my tent immediately." My Colonel,"
protested
Major Luigi Castelani. "The battalion, by your own orders, is to march
at dawn."
"I Countermanded!" snapped the Colonel. Already he imagined the
magnificent trophy skin spread before his Louis XIV desk in the library
of his castle. He would have it prepared with wide open jaws,
flashing white fangs and fierce yellow glass eyes. The picture of open
jaws and fangs suddenly reminded him with considerable force of his
nerve racking brush with the beisa oryx. "Major," he ordered, "I
want twenty m
en to accompany me, a truck to transport them, full battle
order, and one hundred rounds of ammunition each." The Count was not
about to take any more silly chances.
The lion was a fully mature male, six years of age, and, like most of
the desert strain of leo panthers, he was much larger than the forest
lions. He stood well over three feet high at the shoulder, and he
weighed in excess of four hundred pounds. The late sun enhanced the
sleek reddish ochre of his skin and transformed his mane into a glowing
halo of gold. The mane was dense and long, framing the broad flattened
head, reaching far back beyond the shoulder, and hanging so low under
his chest and belly as almost to sweep the earth.
He walked stiffly, head held very low and swinging heavily from side to
side with each laborious step. His breathing came with a low explosive
grunt at each exhalation, and occasionally he stopped and swung his
head to snap irritably at the buzzing blue cloud of flies that swarmed
about the wound in his flank. Then he would lick at the small dark
hole from which pale watery blood oozed steadily.
The long pink tongue curled out and, rough as shagreen, rasped against
the supple hide. The constant licking had away the hair around the
wound, giving it a pale worn shaven appearance.
The 9.3 Marmlicher bullet had caught him at the instant he had begun to
turn away to run. It had angled in from two inches behind the last
rib, striking with a force of nine tons that had bowled the lion down,
rolling him in a cloud of pale dust. The copper-jacketed bullet was
tipped with soft expanding lead, and it mushroomed as it raked the
belly cavity, lacerating the bowels and tearing four large abdominal
veins. The slug had passed close enough to the kidneys to bruise both
of them severely, so now, when the lion stopped, arched his back and
crouched to pass a spattering of bloodstained urine, he groaned like
the roll of drums at an execution. Then, finally, the bullet had
struck the arch of the pelvic girdle and lodged there against the
bone.
After the first massive shock of impact, the lion had rolled to his
feet and flattened into a dead streaking run, jinking away below the
level of the coarse scrub. Although a dozen more bullets had thrown up
soft jumping spurts of dust around him, one so close as to throw grit
into his eyes, not another touched him.
There had been seven lions in the pride. Another older, heavier,
darker-maned male, two younger daintier breeding females, one with her
lithe-wasted body thickened with the heavy bearing of young in her
womb, and three immature animals still dappled with their cub spots and
boisterous as kittens.
The younger male was the only one to survive that long shattering roll
of rifle fire, and now as he moved on he felt the thick jelly-like
weight of congealing blood sloshing back and forth across his belly
cavity at each step. There was a heavy lethargy slowing his
movements,
but thirst drove him onwards. Thirst was a scalding agony that
consumed his whole body, and the lower pools of the Awash River were a
dozen miles ahead.
In the dawn Priscilla the Pig was heavily bogged down on her belly with
all four wheels helpless in the porridge of pale salt mire below the
crust of the pan.
Jake stripped to the waist and swung the long two handed axe
relentlessly, while the others gathered the piles of thorny scrub he
mowed down, and, cursing at the pricks and scratches, carried them out
across the snowy surface of the pan.
Jake worked with a self punishing fury, angry with his lack of
attention which had bogged the car and was going to cost them a day at
the least. It was no valid excuse that exhaustion and heat had clouded
his judgement that he had not recognized the treacherous smooth white
surface of the pan for Gregorius had warned him specifically of this
hazard. He worked with the axe from an hour before sunrise until the
heat had climbed with the sun and a small mountain of cut branches
stood beside the car.
Then Gareth helped him build a firm foundation of flat stones and
thicker branches under the engine compartment of the car. They had to
lie on their sides and grovel in the dust to get the big screw jack set
up on the base and they slowly lifted the front of the car, turning the
handle between them.
As the front wheels rose an inch at a time, Vicky and Gregorius packed
the wiry scrub branches under them. It was slow and laborious work
which had to be repeated at the rear of the car.
it was past noon before Priscilla the Pig stood forlornly balanced on
four piles of compacted branches but her belly was clear of the surface
"What do we do now?" Gareth asked. "Drive her back?"
"One spin of the wheels will kick that trash out and she'll bog down
again," Jake grunted, and wiped his sweat glistening chest on the
bundled shirt in his hand. He looked at Gareth and felt a flare of
irritation that after five hours" work in the sun, after grovelling on
his belly in the dust, and heaving on the jack handle, the man had
barely raised a/
sweat, his clothes were unmarked and final provocation his hair was
still neatly combed.
Working under Jake's direction, they cut and laid a corduroy of
branches back to the hard ground at the edge of the pan. This would
distribute the weight of the vehicle and prevent it breaking through
the crust again.
Then Vicky manoeuvred and reversed Miss Wobbly down to the edge of the
pan and lined her up with the causeway of branches. The men joined
three coils of the thick manila line and carried it out to the stranded
vehicle, unrolling it behind them as they went, until at last the two
cars were joined by that fragile thread.
Gareth climbed in and took the wheel of Priscilla while Jake and
Gregorius, armed with two of the thickest branches, stood ready to
lever the wheels.
"You any good at praying, Gary? "Jake shouted.
"Not my strong suit, old son."
"Well, stiffen the old upper lip then. "Jake mimicked him, and then
let out a bellow at Vicky who acknowledged with a wave before her
golden head disappeared into the driver's hatch of Miss Wobbly. The
engine beat accelerated and the line came up taut as Miss Wobbly rolled
forward up the incline above the pan.
"Keep the wheels straight," shouted Jake, and he and Gregorius threw
their weight on the branches, giving just that ounce of leverage
sufficient to transfer part of the vehicle's weight on to the
corduroyed pathway.
Slowly, ponderously, the cumbersome vehicle rolled back across the pan,
until she reached the hard ground and the four of them shouted with
relief and triumph.
Jake retrieved two celebratory bottles of Tusker beer from his secret
hoard, but the liquid was so warm that half of it exploded in a fizzing
gush from the mouth of each bottle as it was opened, and there was only
a mouthful for each of them.
"Can we reach t
he lower Awash by nightfall?" Jake demanded, and
Gregorius looked up and judged the angle of the sun before replying.
"If we don't waste any more time," he said.
Still on a compass heading, and giving the salt-white pans a wide
berth, the column ground on steadily into the west.
In the mid afternoon they reached the sand desert, with its towering
whale-backed dunes throwing lovely lyrical shadows in the hollows
between. The colour of the sand varied from dark purple to the softest
pinks and talcum white, and was so fine and soft that the wind blew
long smoke-like plumes from the crest of each dune.
Under Gregorius's direction they turned northwards, and within half an
hour they had found the long narrow ridge of ironstone that bisected
the sand desert and formed a narrow causeway through the shifting
dunes. They crept following its winding course slowly across this
rocky bridge, for twelve miles, while the dunes rose on each side of
them.
Vicky thought that this was much like the passage of the Red Sea by the
fleeing Israelites. Even the dunes seemed like frozen waves that might
at each moment come crashing down to swamp them and she despaired that
she could ever adequately describe the wild and disordered beauty of
this multicoloured sea of sand.
They emerged at last and with startling suddenness into the dry flat
grasslands of the Ethiopian lowlands. The desert proper was at last
behind them and although this was a harsh and and savannah,
there was, at least, the occasional thorn tree and an almost unbroken
carpet of se red grass the grass was so amongst the low thorny scrub.
Altho fine and dry that all colour had been bleached from it by the
sun, it shone silver and stiff as though coated with hoar frost.
Most cheering of all was the distant but discernible blue outline of
the far mountains. Now they hovered at the edge of their awareness,
a far beacon calling them onward.
Over the short crisp grass, the four vehicles roared forward joyously,
bumping through an occasional ant-bear hole and flattening the clumps
of low them that stood in their way as they plunged ahead.
In the last glimmering of the day, just when Jake had decided to halt
the day's march, the flat land ahead of them opened miraculously and
they looked down into the steep boulder-strewn gorge of the Awash
River fifty feet below them. They climbed out of the parked vehicles