by Wilbur Smith
The case was filled with small packages, each neatly wrapped in brown paper and sealed with red wax. He picked out one package, favouring his injured hand, and read aloud the inscription in Twentyrnan-Jones ornate old-fashioned penmanship:
156 PIECES TOTAL 382 CARATS
He tore open the heavy cartridge paper with his teeth and shook out a sprinkle of gems into the palm of his injured hand. In the white sunlight they had that peculiar soapy sheen of uncut diamonds.
Very pretty, he murmured and dropped the loose stones into his pocket. He packed the torn parcel back into the despatch case and closed the lid.
I knew you were a murderer, she said. I never thought you a common thief. You stole my boats and my company. Don't talk to me about thieves. He tucked the despatch case under his arm and stood up.
He went round to the boot of the Daimler and managed to open it a crack, even though the vehicle was inverted, and he checked the contents.
Good, he said. You've had the sense to bring spare water.
Twenty gallons will last you a week, but they'll find you before then. Abrahams is sending out an escort to meet you. I intercepted the instruction from Twenty-man-jones. You swine, she whispered.
I will cut the telegraph wires before I leave. As soon as that happens they will realize at both ends that something is wrong. You'll be all right. Oh God, I hate you. Stay with the vehicle. That's the first law of desert survival. Don't go wandering off. They will rescue you in about two days, and I will have two days Start. I thought I hated you before, but now I know the real meaning of the word. I could have taught it to you, he said quietly, as he picked the abandoned shotgun out of the sand. I came to know it well, over the years that I was rearing your son. Then again when you came back into my life only to tear down everything I ever dreamed about and worked for. He swung the shotgun like an axe against one of the boulders. The butt shattered but he went on until it was bent and battered and useless. He dropped it.
Then he slung the Mauser over his shoulder and transferred the despatch case to his other hand. He held the injured hand in its blood-wet wrapping against his chest.
Clearly the pain was fierce; he had paled under his deep bronze tan and there was a catch in his voice as he went on.
I tried not to hurt you, if you hadn't struggled-! he broke off. We will not meet again, ever. Goodbye, Centaine. We will meet again, she contradicted him. You know me well enough, you must realize that I will not rest until I have full retribution for this day's work. He nodded. I know you will try. He turned away.
Lothar! she called sharply, and then softened her voice when he turned back. I'll make you a bargain, your company and your boats free of all debt for my diamonds. A bad bargain. He smiled sadly. 'By now the plant and boats are worth nothing, while your diamonds 'Plus fifty thousand pounds and my promise not to report this affair to the police. She tried to keep the edge of desperation out of her voice.
Last time it was I who was begging, do you recall? No, Centaine, even if I wanted, I could not go back now. I have burned my bridges. He thought about the horses, but could not tell her. No bargain, Centaine. Now I must go. Half the diamonds, leave half, Lothar.
Why?
For the love we once shared. He laughed bitterly. You will have to give me a better reason than that. All right. if you take them you will destroy me, Lothar. I cannot survive their loss. Already I am finely drawn. I will be utterly ruined. As I was when you took my boats. He turned and trudged through the sand to the bank, and she stood up.
Lothar De La Rey! she shouted after him. You refused my offer - then take my oath instead. I swear, and I call on God and all his saints to witness, I swear that I will never rest again until you swing by the neck from the gallows., He did not look back, but she saw him flinch his head at the threat. Then cradling his injured wrist and burdened by the rifle and the despatch case, he climbed the high bank and was gone.
She sank down on the sand and a wave of reaction swept over her. She found she was shaking wildly and uncontrollably. Despondency and humiliation and despair came at her in waves like a storm surf battering an unresisting beach, sweeping over it then sucking back and gathering and rushing forward again. She found she was weeping, thick, slow tears dissolving the clots of his drying blood from her lips and chin, and her tears disgusted her as much as the taste of blood at the back of her throat.
Disgust gave her the strength and resolution to pull herself to her feet and cross to the Daimler. Miraculously the water bag was still on its bracket. She washed away the blood and the tears. She gargled the taste of his blood from her mouth and spat it pink into the sand and she thought of following him.
He had taken the revolver and the shotgun was a battered and twisted piece of steel.
Not yet- she whispered, but very soon. I have given you my oath on it, Lothar De La Rey. Instead she went to the boot of the inverted Daimler. She had to scoop away the sand with her hands before she could get it fully open. She took out the two ten-gallon cans of water and the canisters of industrial diamonds, carried them to the shade of the bank and buried them in the sand to hide them and to keep the water as cool as possible.
Then she returned to the Daimler and impatiently unpacked the other survival equipment that she always carried, suddenly deadly afraid that the telegraph tap had been offloaded or forgotten, but it was there in the tool box with the wheel jack and spanners.
She lugged the reel of wire and the haversack containing the tap as she followed Lothar's tracks up the bank and found where he had tethered his horse.
He said he was going to cut the telegraph, She shaded her eyes and peered along the river course. He should have guessed I would have carried a tap with me. He isn't going ge his two days start. She picked out the line of telegraph poles cutting across the road loop and the bend of the river. The tracks of Lothar's horse followed the bank, and she broke into a run and trotted along them.
She saw the break in the wires from two hundred yards off. The severed copper wires dangled to earth in two lazy inverted parabolas and she quickened her pace. When she reached the spot where the telegraph line crossed the river and looked down the bank she immediately recognized the remnants of Lothar's camp. Sand had been hastily kicked over the fire, but the embers still smouldered.
She dropped the coil of wire and the haversack and scrambled down the bank. She found the dugout and realized that more than one man had been living here for some considerable time. There were three mattresses of cut grass.
Three. She puzzled over it for a few moments, and then worked it out. He has his bastard with him. She still couldn't bring herself to think of Manfred as her son. And the other one will be Swart Hendrick. He and Lothar are inseparable. She ducked from the dugout and stood for a moment undecided. It would take time to rig the tap to the severed wires, and it was vitally important to find out which way Lothar had ridden if she was to set the pursuit on him before he got clear.
She made her decision. I'll rig the telegraph after I know which way to send them. It was unlikely he would head east into the Kalahari.
There was nothing out there.
He'll head back towards Windhoek, she guessed, and she made her first cast in that direction. The area around the camp was thickly trodden with spoor of horse and men.
They had been here for at least two weeks, she judged. Only her Bushman training enabled her to make sense of the tangled tracks.
They didn't go out that way, she decided at last. Then they must have headed south for Gobabis and the Orange river. She made her next cast in that direction, circling the southern perimeter of the camp, and when she found no spoor fresher than the previous day, she looked to the north.
Surely not. She was confused. There is nothing out there before the Okavango river and Portuguese territory, the horses will never make it across the wastes of Bushmanland. Nevertheless she made her next cast across that northern segment and almost immediately cut the outgoing spoor, fresh and cleanly printed in th
e soft earth.
Three riders each leading a spare horse, not an hour ago.
Lothar must be taking the northern route after all. He is crazy, or he has worked out something. She followed the fresh spoor for a mile, to make certain that he had not doubled or backtracked. The spoor ran straight and unwavering into the shimmering heat mists of the northern wastes, and she shivered as she remembered what it was like out there.
He must be crazy, she whispered. But I know he isn't.
He's going for the Angola border. That's his old base from the ivory-poaching days. If he reaches the river we'll never see him again. He has friends over there, the Portuguese traders who bought his ivory. This time Lothar will have a million pounds of diamonds in his pocket and the wide world to choose from. I have to catch him before he gets across. Her spirits quailed at the enormity of the idea and she felt despondency come at her again. He has prepared this carefully, everything is in his favour. We'll never catch him. She fought off the beast of despair. Yes, we will. We have to. I have to outwit and beat him. I simply have to, just to survive. She whirled and ran back to the abandoned camp.
The severed telegraph wires drooped to earth and she gathered the ends and clipped the bridging wires from the coil to them, drawing them just taut enough to keep them clear of the earth.
She put her tap into the circuit and screwed the terminals to the pack of dry-cell batteries. The batteries had been renewed before she left Windhoek. They should still be full of life. For a dreadful moment her mind went blank and she could not remember a single letter of the Morse code, then it returned with a rush and she hammered quickly on the brass key.
Juno for Vingt. Acknowledge. For long seconds there was only echoing silence in her headphones, then the startling beep of the reply: f Vingt for Juno. Go ahead. She tried to pick the short word and terse abridged phrase as she told Twenty-man-Jones of the robbery and gave her position, then went on: Negotiate stand-off with strikers as recovery of goods mutually essential. Stop. Take truck to northern tip of O'chee Pan and locate Bushman encampment in mongongo forest. Stop. Bush-leader named Kvii. Stop. Tell Kwi "Nam Child kaleya". Repeat "Nam Child kaleya, and she gave thanks that the word kaleya bore phonetic rendition into the Roman alphabet and required neither the complicated tonals nor the clicks of the Bushman language. Kaleya was the distress call, the cry for help that no clan member could ignore. Bring Kwi with you, she went on and continued with her further instructions; and when she signed off Twenty-man-Jones acknowledged and then sent: Are you safe and unharmed. Query. Vingt. Affirmative. Ends. Juno. She mopped the sweat off her face with the yellow silk scarf. She was sitting in the direct rays of the sun. Then she flexed her fingers and bent once more to the keyboard and tapped out the call sign of her operator in the offices of Courtney Mining and Finance Company in Windhoek.
The acknowledgement was prompt. Obviously the operator had been following her transmission to Twenty-man-Jones, but she asked: Have you copied previous? Affirmative, he tapped back.
Relay previous to Administrator Colonel Blaine Malcomess plus following for Malcomess. Quote: Request cooperation in capture of culprits and recovery of stolen goods.
Stop. Do you have report on large number stolen horses or purchase of horses by one Lothar De La Rey within last three months. Respond soonest. Ends. Juno. The distant operator acknowledged and then continued: Pettifogger for Juno. Abe must have been summoned to the telegraph office the minute they received their first transmission.
Greatly concerned for your safety. Stop.
Remain your present position. Stop. And Centaine exclaimed irritably, I sucked that egg long ago, Abe. But she copied the rest of it.
Armed escort left Windhoek 5 am instant. Stop. Should reach you early tomorrow. Stop. Stand by for Malcomess.
Ends. Pettifogger. The wires were long enough to allow her to move the keyboard into the strip of shade below the bank and while she waited she gave all her concentration to the task ahead.
Certain facts were apparent and the first of these was that they were never going to catch Lothar De La Rey in a stern chase. He had too long a lead, and he was going into country over which he had travelled and hunted for half his life. He knew it better than any living white man, better than even she did, but not better than little Kwi.
We have to work out his route and cut him off, and we will have to use horses. Trucks will be useless over that terrain. Lothar knows that, he is banking on that. He will choose a route that trucks can never follow. She closed her eyes and visualized a map of the northern territory, that vast forbidding sweep of desert called Bushmanland.
She only knew of surface water at two points, one the place she always thought of as Elephant Pan, and the other a deep seep below a hillock of shale. They were secret Bushman places, both of which old O'wa, her adopted grandfather, had shown her fifteen years before. She wondered if she could find either water-hole again, but she was certain that Lothar knew them and could ride directly to them. He probably knew of other water-holes that she did not.
The beep of the telegraph disturbed her and she reached for it eagerly.
Malcomess for Juno. Police report theft of 26 horses from military remount depot Okahandja 3rd of last month. Stop.
Only two animals recovered. Stop. State your further requirements. I was right! Lothar has set up staging posts across the desert, she exclaimed, and she closed her eyes and tried to visualize a map of the northern territory, estimating distances and times. At last she opened her eyes again, and bent to the telegraph key.
Convinced fugitives attempting to reach Okavango river direct. Stop. Assemble small mobile force of desert-trained men with spare horses. Stop. Rendezvous Kalkrand Mission Station soonest. Stop. I will join you with Bushman trackers. Twenty-man-Jones reached her before the escort from Windhoek. O'chee Pan was on his direct route, only a few miles from the road. The company truck came rumbling over the plain and Centaine ran down the tracks to meet it, waving both hands above her head and laughing wildly with relief.
She had changed into breeches and riding-boots from her luggage in the Daimler.
Twenty-man-jones jumped down from the cab and came to her in a long-legged lolloping run. He caught her and held her to his chest.
Thank God, he muttered fervently. Thank God you are safe. It was the first time ever that he had embraced her and he was immediately embarrassed. He released her and stepped back scowling to cover it.
Did you get Kwi? she demanded.
In the truck. Centaine ran to the truck. Kwi and Fat Kwi were crouched in the back, clearly both of them terrified by the experience.
They looked like little wild animals in a cage, their dark eyes huge and swimming.
Nam Child! shrieked Kwi, and both of them rushed to her for comfort, twittering and clicking with relief and joy.
She hugged them like frightened children, murmuring assurance and endearments.
I will be with you now. There is nothing to fear. These are good men and I will not leave you. Think what stories you will be able to tell the clan when you return. You will be famous amongst all the San, your names will be spoken through all the Kalahari. And they giggled merrily at the notion, childlike, their fears all forgotten.
I will be even more famous than Fat Kwi, Kwi boasted, for I am older and fleeter and cleverer than he is, and Fat Kwi bridled.
You will both be famous. Hastily Centaine averted the brewing dispute. For we are going to track evil men who have done me great harm. You will follow them and lead me to them, and afterwards I will give you such gifts as you have seen only in your dreams and all men will say that there were never before two hunters and trackers such as Kwi and his brother Fat Kwi. But now we must hurry before the evil ones escape us. She ran back to Twentyrnan-Jones and the little San stayed close at her heels like faithful dogs.
De La Rey left the industrials. I've buried them in the river-bed. She stopped with surprise when she recognized the two other men with Twenty-man-jones. The
driver was Gerhard Fourie and his companion was Maclear, one of the other members of the strike committee. Both of them looked sheepish as Maclear spoke for them.
Right pleased we all are to see you safe and well, Mrs Courtney. Wasn't a man at the mine who wasn't worried sick about you. Thank you, Mr Maclean Anything we can do, we'll do. We are in this together, Mrs Courtney. That's right, Mr Maclear. No diamonds, no wages. Will you please help me recover the industrials that the thieves left and then we will head for Kalkrand. Have you got enough fuel to get us there, Mr Fourie? I'll have you there by morning, Mrs Courtney, the driver promised. Kalkrand was the end of the line. The track went no further.
The road that Fourie took to bring them to Kalkrand was a wide circle, avoiding the bad land of central Bushmanland.
it headed north and west and then back to the east, so they would be 150 miles north of the point where Lothar had intercepted Centaine but 70 miles farther west when they reached Kalkrand. Their net gain on Lothar would be barely 80 miles, even less if he had taken a more easterly route towards the Okavango river. Of course it was also possible that Centaine's guess was wrong and that he had escaped in some other direction. She wouldn't let herself even think about that possibility.
There has been other traffic on this road within the last few hours, she told Twenty-man-Jones as she peered ahead through the windscreen. It looks like two other trucks. Do you think it could be the police detachment that Colonel Malcomess is sending? If it is, then the man is a marvel to have got them away so quickly. Of course they would have followed the main road north to Okahandja before turning off in this direction. Centaine wanted so badly for it to be so, but Twenty-man-Jones shook his head dubiously.
More likely a supply convoy for the mission station. My bet is that we will have to hang around the mission station waiting for the police and the horses to arrive., The galvanized roofs of the mission station appeared out of the morning haze ahead of them. It was a desolate spot below a low ridge of red shale probably chosen for the subterranean water supply. A pair of gaunt windmills stood like crowned sentinels over the boreholes that supplied the station.