by Wilbur Smith
Suddenly there were distant cries of dismay from the direction of the swamps and I guessed that the pursuit had blundered into. the glutinous mud. That would discourage them fairly persuasively, I thought, and grinned.
“Okay, Chubby, let’s get on,” I whispered, and as we stood there was a new sound from a different direction.
The sound was muted by distance and by the intervening heights of the ridge, for it came from the seaward side of the island, but it was the unmistakable ripping sound of automatic gunfire.
Chubby and I froze into listerung attitudes and the sound was repeated, another long tearing burst of machinegun fire-. Then there was silence, though we listened for three or four minutes.
“Come on,” I said quietly, we could. delay no longer and we ran on up the slope towards the southernmost peak.
We climbed quickly in the fast-growing morning light, and I was too preoccupied to feel any qualms as we negotiated the narrow ledge and stepped at last into the deep rock crack where I had arranged to meet Sherry.
The shelter was silent and deserted but I called without hope, “Sherry! Are you there, love?”
There was no reply from the shadows, and I turned back to Chubby.
“They had a good lead on us. They should have been here,” and only then did that burst of machinegun fire we had heard earlier take on new meaning.
I removed the binoculars from the haversack and then thrust it away into a crack in the rock.
“They’ve run into trouble, Chubby,” I told him. “Come on. Let’s go and find out what happened.”
Once we were off the ledge we struck out through the jumble of broken rock towards the seaward side of the island, but even in my haste and dreadful anxiety for Sherry’s safety, I moved with stealth and we were careful not to show ourselves to a watcher in the groves or on the beaches below us.
As we crossed the divide of the ridge a new vista opened before us, the curve of the beach and the jagged black sweep of Gunfire Reef. I halted instantly and pulled Chubby down beside me, as we crouched into cover.
Anchored in a position to command the mouth of the channel through Gunfire Reef was the armed crash boat from Zinballa Bay, flagship of my old friend Suleiman Dada. Returning to it from the beach was a small motorboat, crowded with tiny figures.
“God damn it,” I muttered, “they really had it planned. Manny Resnick has teamed up with Suleiman Dada. That’s what took him so long to get here. while Manny hit the beach, Dada was covering the channel, so we couldn’t make a bolt for it like we did before.”
“And he had men on the beach - that was the machinegun fire.
Manny Resnick sailed Mandrake into the bay to flush us, and Dada had the back door covered.”
What about Miss. Sherry and Angelo? Do you think they got away?
Did Dada’s men catch them when they crossed the saddle?”
“Oh Godv I groaned, and cursed myself for not having stayed with her. I stood up and focused the binoculars on the motorboat as it crawled across the clear waters of the outer lagoon to the anchored crash boat.
“I can’t see them.” Even with the aid of the binoculars, the occupants of the dinghy were merely a dark mass, for the morning sun was rising beyond them and the glare off the water dazzled me. I could not make out separate figures, let alone recognize individuals.
“They may have them in the boat - but I can’t see.” In my agitation I had left the cover of the rocks, and was seeking a better vantage point, moving about on the skyline. Out in the open I must have been highlit by the same sun rays that were blinding me.
I saw the familiar flash, and the long white feather of gunsmoke blow from the mounted quick-firer on the bows of the crash boat, and I heard the shell coming with a rushing sound like eagles” wings “Get down!” I shouted at Chubby, and threw myself flat amongst the rocks.
The shell burst in very close, with the bright hot glare like the brief opening of a furnace door. -Shrapnel and rock fragments trilled and whined around us, and I jumped to my feet.
“Run!” I yelled at Chubby, and we jinked back over the skyline just as the next shell passed over us, making us both flinch our heads at the mighty crack of passing shot.
Chubby was wiping a smear of blood from his forearm as we crouched behind the ridge.
“Okay?” I asked. “A scratch, that’s all. Bit of a rock fragment,“he growled. “Chubby, I’m going down to find out what happened to the others. No point both of us taking a chance. You wait here.”
“You’re wasting time, Harry, I’m coming with you. Let’s go.” He hefted the rifle and led the way down the peak. I thought of taking the FN away from him. In his hands it was about as lethal as a slingshot when fired with his closedeyes technique. Then I left it. It made him feel good.
We moved slowly, hugging any cover there was and searching ahead before moving forward. However, the island was silent except for the sough and clatter of the west wind in the tops of the palms and we saw nobody as we moved up the seaward side of the island.
I cut the spoor left by Angelo and Sherry as they crossed the saddle, above the camp. Their running footsteps had bitten deep into the fluffy soil, Sherry’s small slim prints were overlapped by Angelo’s broad bare feet.
We followed them down the slope, and suddenly they shied off the track. They had dropped the water-can here and, turning abruptly, had separated slightly, as though they had run side by side for sixty yards.
There we found Angelo, and he was never going to enjoy his share of the spoils. He had been hit by three of the soft heavy-calibre slugs. They had torn through the thin fabric of his shirt, and opened huge dark wounds in his back and chest.
He had bled copiously but the sandy soil had absorbed most of it, and already what was left was drying into a thick black crust. The flies were assembled, crawling gleefully into the bullet holes and swarming on the long dark lashes around his wide open and startled eyes.
Following her tracks I saw where Sherry had run on for twenty paces, and -then the little idiot had turned back and gone to kneel beside where Angelo lay. I cursed her for that. She might have been able to escape if she had not indulged in that useless and extravagant gesture.
They had caught her as she knelt beside the body and dragged her down through the palms to the beach. I could see the long slide marks in the sand where she had dug her feet in and tried to resist.
Without leaving the shelter of the trees, I looked down the smooth white sand, following their tracks to where the marks of the motorboat’s keel still showed in the sand of the water’s edge.
They had taken her out to the crash boat, and I crouched behind a pile of driftwood and dried palm fronds to stare out at the graceful little ship.
Even as I watched she weighed anchor, picked up speed and passed slowly down the length of the island to round the point and enter the inner lagoon where Mandrake was still lying at anchor.
I straightened up and slipped back through the grove to where I had left Chubby. He had laid the carbine aside and he sat with Angelo’s body in his arms, cradling the head against his shoulder. Chubby was weeping, fat glistening tears slid wearily down the seamed brown cheeks and fell from his jaw to wet the thick dark curls of the boy in his arms.
I picked up the rifle and stood guard over them while Chubby wept for both of us. I envied him the relief of tears, the outpouring of pain that would bring surcease. My own grief was as fierce as Chubby’s, for I had loved Angelo as much, but it was down deep inside where it hurt more.
“All right, -Chubby,” I said at last. “Let’s go, man.” He stood up with “the boy still in his arms and we moved back along the ridge.
In a gully that was choked with rank vegetation we laid Angelo in a shallow grave that we scraped with our hands, and we covered him with a blanket of branches and leaves that I cut with my baitknife before filling the grave. I could not bring myself to throw sand into his unprotected face, and the leaves made a gentler shroud.
Chubby wiped away his tears with the open palm of his hand and he stood up.
“They got Sherry,” I told him quietly. “She is aboard the crash boat.” “Is she hurt?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, not yet.”
“What do you want to do now, Harry?” he asked, and the question was answered for me.
Somewhere far off towards the camp, we heard a whistle shrill, and we moved up the ridge to a point where we could see down into the inner lagoon and landward side of the island.
Mandrake lay where I had last seen her and the Zinballa crash boat was anchored a hundred yards closer to the shore. They had seized the whaleboat and were using her to land men on the beach-They were all armed, and uniformed-They set off immediately into the palm trees and the whaleboat ran back to Mandrake.
I Put the binoculars on to Mandrake and saw that there were developments taking place there also. In the field of the glasses I recognized Manny Resnick in a white opens neck shirt and blue slacks as he climbed down into the whaleboat. He was followed by Lorna Page. She wore dark glasses, a Yellow scarf around her pale blonde hair and an emerald green slack suit. I felt hatred seethe in my guts as I recognized them.
Now something happened that puzzled me. The luggage that I had seen loaded into the Rolls at Curzon Street was brought out on to the deck by two of Manny’s thugs and it also was passed down into the whaleboat.
A uniformed crew member of Mandrake saluted from the deck, and Manny waved at him in a gesture of airy dismissal.
The whaleboat left Mandrake’s side and moved in towards the crash boat. As Manny, his lady friend, bodyguards and luggage were disembarked on to the deck of the crash boat, Mandrake weighed anchor, turned for the entrance of the bay, and set out in a determined fashion for the deep-water channel.
“She’s leaving,” muttered Chubby. “Why is she doing -,that?”
“Yes, she’s leaving,” I agreed. “Manny Resnick has finished with her. He’s got a new ally now, and he doesn’t need his vwn ship. She’s probably costing him a thousand nicker a day, - and Manny always was a shy man with a buck.”
I turned my glasses on to the crash boat again and saw -Manny and his entourage enter the cabin.
“There is probably another reason,” I muttered. “What’s that, Harry?”
“Manny Resnick and Suleiman Dada will want as few witnesses as possible to what they intend doing now.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,“grunted Chubby.
“I think, my friend, that we are about to be treated to the kind of nastiness that will make what they did to Angelo seem kind, by comparison.”
“We’ve got to get Miss. Sherry off that boat, Harry.” Chubby was coming out of the daze of grief into which Angelo’s killing had thrown him. “We’ve got to do something, Harry.” “It’s a nice thought, Chubby, I agree. But we aren’t going to help her much by getting ourselves killed. My guess is that she will be safe until they get their hands on the treasure.”
His huge face creased up like that of a worried bulldog. “What we going to do, Harry?”
“Right now we are going to run again.”
“What do you mean?” “Listen,” I told him, and he cocked his head. There was the shrill of the whistle again and then faintly we heard voices carried up to us on the wind.
“Looks like their first effort will be brute strength. They’ve landed the entire goon squad, and they are going to drive the island and put us up like a brace of cock pheasant.”
“Let’s go down and have a go,” Chubby growled, and cocked the FN- “I got a message for them from Angelo.”
“Don’t be a fool, Chubby,” I snapped at him angrily.
“Now listen to me. I want to count how many men they have. Then, if we get a good chance, I want to try and get one of them alone and take his piece off him. Watch for an opportunity, Chubby, but don’t have a go yet. Play it very cautious, hear!” I didn’t want to refer to his markmanship in derogatory tones.
“Okay,” Chubby nodded.
“You stay this side of the ridge. Count how many of them come down this side of the island. I’ll cross over and do the same on the other side.” He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the spot where the crash boat shelled us in two hours.”
“What about you, Harry?” He made a gesture of handing me the FN - but I didn’t have the heart to deprive him.
“I’ll be okay,” I told him. “Off you go, man.”
It was a simple task to keep ahead of the line of beaters for they called to each other loudly to keep their spirits up, and they made no pretence at concealment or stealth, but advanced slowly and cautiously in an extended line.
There were nine of them on my side of the ridge, seven of them were blacks in naval uniform, armed with AK47, assault rifles and two of them were Manny Resnick’s men. They were dressed in casual tropical gear and carried sidearms. One of them I recognized as the driver of the Rover that night so long ago, and the passenger in the twinengined Cessna that had spotted Sherry and me on the beach.
Once I had made my head count, I turned my back on them and ran ahead to the curve of the salt marsh. I knew that when the line of beaters ran into this obstacle, it would lose its cohesion and that it was likely that some Of its thembers would become isolated.
I found an advanced neck of swampland with stands of Voting mangrove and coarse swamp grass in dense shades of fever green. I followed the edge of this thicket and came upon a spot where a fallen palm tree lay across the neck like a bridge - offering escape in two directions. It had collected a dense covering of blown palm fronds and swamp grin which provided a good hide from which to mount an ambush.
. I lay in the back of this shaggy mound of dead vegetation and I had the heavy baitknife in my right hand ready to throw.
The line of the beaters came on steadily, their voices growing louder as they approached the swamp. Soon I could hear the rustle and scrape of branches as one of them came directly down to where I lay.
He paused and called when he was about twenty feet from me, and I pressed my face close to the damp earth and peered under the pile of dead branches. There was an opening there and I saw his feet and his legs below the knees. His trousers were thick blue serge and he wore grubby white sneakers without socks. At each step his naked ankles showed very black African skin.
It was one of the sailors from the crash boat then, and I was pleased. He would be carrying an automatic weapon. I preferred that to a pistol, which was what Manny’s boys were armed with.
Slowly I rolled on to my side and cleared my knife arm. The sailor called again so close and so loud that my nerves jumped and I felt the tingling flush of adrenalin in my blood. His call was answered from farther off, and the sailor came on.
I could hear his soft footfalls on the sand, padding towards me.
Suddenly he came into full view, as he rounded the fall of brushwood. He was ten paces from me.
He was in naval uniform, a blue cap on his head with its gay little red pom-pom on the top, but he carried the vicious and brutal-looking machinegun on his hip. He was a tall lean youngster in his early twenties, smooth faced and sweating nervously so there was a purple black sheen on his skin, against which his eyes were very white.
He saw me and tried to swing the machinegun on to me, but it was on his right hip and he blocked himself awkwardly in the turn. I aimed for the notch where the two collarbones meet, that was framed by the opening of his uniform. at the base of his throat. I threw overhand, snapping my wrist into it at the moment of release so the knife leapt in a silvery blur and thudded precisely into the mark I had chosen. The blade was completely buried and only the dark walnut handle protruded from his throat.
He tried to cry out, but no sound came, for the blade had severed all his vocal chords as I intended. He sank slowly to his knees facing me in a prayerful attitude with his hands dangling at his sides and the machinegun hanging on its strap.
We stared at each other for a moment that seemed to last for e
ver.
Then he shuddered violently and a thick burst of bubbling blood poured from his mouth and nose, and he pitched face forward to the ground.
Crouched low, I flipped him on to his back and withdrew the knife against the clinging drag of wet flesh, and I cleaned the blade on his sleeve.
Working swiftly I stripped him of his weapon and the spare magazines in the bandolier on his webbing belt, then, still crouching low, I dragged him by his heels into the gluey mud of the creek and knelt on his chest to force him below the surface. The mud flowed over his face as slowly and thickly as molten chocolate, and when he was totally submerged I buckled the webbing belt around my waist, picked up the machinegun and slipped back quietly through the breach that I had made in the line of beaters.
As I ran doubled over and using all the cover there was, I checked the load on the AK47. I was familiar with the weapon. I had used it in Biafra and I made sure that the magazine was full and that the breech was loaded before I slipped the strap over my right shoulder and held it ready on my hip.
When I had moved back about five hundred yards I paused and took shelter against the trunk of a palm while I listened. Behind me, the line of beaters seemed to have run into trouble against the swamp, and they were trying to sort themselves out. I listened to the shouts and the angry shrill of the whistle. It sounded like a cup final, I thought, and grinned queasily, for the memory of the man I had killed was still nauseatingly fresh.
Now that I had broken through their line I turned and struck directly across the island towards my rendezvous with Chubby on the south peak. Once I was out of the palm groves on to the lower slopes, the vegetation was thicker, and I moved more swiftly through the better cover.
Halfway to the crest I was startled by a fresh burst of gunfire.
This time it was the distinctive whipcracking lash of the FN, a sharper slowerbeat than the storm of AK47 machinegun fire that answered it immediately.