The Eye of the Tiger

by Wilbur Smith

  “She did it, Harry.” Lorna Page was chatting animatedly to Manny Resnick. Her carefully lacquered hairstyle resisted the efforts of the breeze to ruffle it, and her face was meticulously made up with expensive cosmetics. Her lipstick was moist and glossy and her eyelids were silvery green, with long mascaraed lashes around the cat’s eyes.

  “They held me - and she pulled out my fingernails.” She shuddered again, and Lorna Page laughed lightly. Manny cupped his hands around a gold Dunhill lighter for her while she lit a cigarette. “They kept asking me where the treasure was - and each time I couldn’t answer she pulled a nail with the pliers. They made a tearing sound as they came out.” Sherry “broke off and held her injured hand protectively against her stomach. I knew how near she was to breaking completely and I held her close, trying to transmit strength to her by physical contact.

  “Gently, baby, gently now,” I whispered, and she pressed a little closer to me. I stroked her hair, and tried once again to control my anger, bearing down hard upon it before it clouded my wits.

  The motorboat ran in and grounded on the beach. We climbed out and stood on the white sands while the guards ringed us with levelled weapons.

  “Okay, Harry,” Manny pointed- “There’s your boat all ready for you.” The whaleboat was drawn up on the beach. “The tanks are full and when you’ve shown us the goods you can take off.”

  He spoke easily, but the girl beside him looked at us with hot predatory eyes - the way a mongoose looks at a chicken. I wondered what way she had chosen for us. I guessed that Manny had promised us to her for her pleasure without reservations - just as soon as he was through with us.

  “I hope we aren’t going to play games, Harry. I hope you’re going to be sensible - and not waste our time.”

  I had noticed that Manny had surrounded himself with his own men.

  Four of them, all armed with pistols, one of them my old acquaintance who had driven the Rover on our first meeting. To balance them there were ten black seamen under a petty officer, and already I sensed that the opposition was divided into two increasingly hostile parties. Manny farther reduced the number of seamen in the party by detailing two of them to stay with the motorboat. Then he turned to me, “If you are ready, Harry, you may lead the way.

  I had to help Sherry, holding her elbow and guiding her up through the grove. She was so weak that she stumbled repeatedly and her breathing was distressed and ragged before we reached the caves.

  With the mob of armed men following us closely, we went on along the edge of the slope. Surreptitiously I glanced at my watch. It was nine o’clock. One hour to go before the case of gelignite under the crash boat blew. The timing was still within the limits I had set.

  I made a small show out of locating the precise spot where the chest was buried, and it was with difficulty that I refrained from glancing up the slope to where the fold of ground was screened by vegetation.

  “Tell them to dig here,” I said to Manny, and stepped back. Four seamen handed their weapons to a comrade and assembled the small folding army-type shovels they had brought with them.

  The soil was soft and freshly turned so they went down at an alarming speed. They would expose the chest within minutes.

  “The girl’s hurt,” I said to Manny, “she must sit down.” He glanced at me, and I saw his mind work swiftly. He knew Sherry could not run far and I think he welcomed the opportunity to distract some of the seamen - for he spoke briefly to the petty officer and I led Sherry to the palm tree and sat her down against the stem.

  She sighed with weary relief, and two of the seamen came to stand over us with cocked weapons.

  I glanced up the slope, but there was no sign of anything suspicious there, although I knew Chubby must be watching us intently. Apart from the two guards, everyone else was gathered expectantly around the four men who were already knee-deep in the freshly dug hole.

  Even out two guards were consumed with curiosity, their attention kept wandering and they glanced repeatedly at the group forty yards away.

  I heard quite clearly the clang as a spade struck the metal of the chest - and there was a shout of excitement. They all crowded around the excavation with a babble of rising voices, beginning to pull and elbow each other for the opportunity to look down on to it. Our two guards turned their backs on us, and took a step or two in the same direction. It was more than I could have hoped for.

  Manny Resnick-shoved two seamen aside roughly, and jumped down into the hole beside the diggers. I heard him shouting, “All right then, bring those ropes and let’s lift it out. Carefully, don’t damage anything.”

  Lorna Page was leaning out over the hole also. It was perfect.

  I lifted my right hand and wiped my forehead slowly in the signal I had arranged with Chubby, and as I dropped my hand again, I seized Sherry and rolled swiftly backwards into the shallow rain-washed runnel.

  It caught Sherry by surprise, and I had handled her roughly in my anxiety to get under cover. She cried out as I hurt her already painful injuries.

  The two guards whirled at the cry, lifting their machineguns and I knew that they were going to fire - and that the shallow trench provided no cover.

  “Now, Chubby, now!” I prayed and threw myself on top of Sherry to shield her from the blast of machinegun fire and I clapped both hands over her ears to protect them.

  At that instant Chubby switched the knob on the electric battery blaster, and the impulse ran down the insulated wire that we had concealed so carefully the night before. There was half a case of gelignite crammed into the iron pay chest - as much explosive as I dared use without destroying Sherry and myself in the blast.

  I imagined Chubby’s fiendish glee as the case blew. It blew upwards, deflected by the sides of the excavation - but I had packed the sticks of gelignite with sand and handfuls of semi-precious stones to serve as primitive shrapnel and to contain the blast and make it even more vicious.

  The group of men around the hole were lifted high in the air, spinning and somersaulting like a troupe of insane acrobats, and a column of sand and dust shot a hundred feet into the air.

  The earth jarred under us, slamming into our prone bodies - then the shock wave tore across us. It knocked sprawling the two guards who had been about to fire down on us, ripping their clothing from their bodies.

  I thought my eardrums had both burst, I was completely deafened but I knew that I had saved Sherry’s ears from damage. Deafened and half blinded by dust, I rolled off Sherry and scratched frantically in the sandy bottom of the trench. My fingers hit the machinegun buried there and I dragged it out, pulling off the protective rags and coming swiftly to my knees.

  Both the guards nearest me were alive, one crawling to his knees and the other sitting up dazedly with blood from a burst eardrum trickling down his cheek.

  I killed them with two short bursts that knocked them down in the sand. Then I looked towards the broken heap of humanity around the excavation.

  There was small, convulsive movement there and soft moans and whimpering sounds. I stood up shakily from the trench - and I saw Chubby standing up on the slope. He was shouting, but I heard nothing for the ringing buzzing din in my ears.

  I stood there, swaying slightly, peering stupidly around me and Sherry rose to her feet beside me. She touched my shoulder, saying something, and with relief I heard her voice as the ringing in my ears subsided slightly.

  I looked again towards the area of the explosion and saw a snw*e and frightening sight. A half-human figure, stripped of clothing and most of its skin, a raw bleeding thing with one arm half torn loose at the shoulder socket and dangling at its side by a shred of flesh rose slowly from beside the excavation like some horrible phantom from the grave.

  It stood like that for the long moment which it took me to recognize Manny Resnick. It seemed impossible that he should have survived that holocaust, but more than that he began walking towards me.

  He tottered step after step, closer and closer, and I
stood frozen, unable to move myself. I saw then that he was blinded, the flying sand had scorched his eyeballs and flayed the skin from his face.

  “Oh God! Oh God!” Sherry whispered beside me, and it broke the spell. I lifted the machinegun and the stream of bullets that tore into Manny Resnick’s chest were a mercy.

  I was still dazed, staring about me at the shambles we had created when Chubby reached me. He took my arm and I could hear his voice as he shouted, “Are you okay, Harry?” I nodded and he went on, The whaleboat! We have got to make sure of the whaleboat.”

  “I turned to Sherry. “Go to the cave. Wait for me there,” and she turned away obediently.

  “Make sure of these first,” I mumbled to Chubby, and we went to the heap of bodies about the shattered iron chest. All of them were dead or would soon be so.

  Lorna Page lay upon her back. The blast had torn off her outer clothing and the slim pale body was clad only in lacy underwear, with shreds of the green slack suit hanging from her wrists and draped about her torn and still bleeding legs.

  Defying even the explosion, her hairstyle retained its lacquered elegance except for the powdering of fine white sand. Death had played a macabre joke upon her - for a lump of blue lapis lazuli from the jewel chest had been driven by the force of the explosion deep into her forehead. It had embedded itself in the bone of her skull like the eye of the tiger from the golden throne.

  Her own eyes were closed while the third precious eye of the stone glared up at me accusingly.

  They are all dead,“grunted Chubby.

  “Yes, they’re dead,” I agreed, and tore my eyes away from the mutilated girl. I was surprised that I felt no triumph or satisfaction at her death, nor at the manner of it. Vengeance, far from being sweet, is entirely tasteless, I thought, as I followed Chubby down to the beach.

  I was still unsteady from the effects of the explosion, and although my ears had recovered almost entirely, I was hardpressed to keep up with Chubby. He was light on his feet for such a big man.

  I was ten paces behind him as we came out of the trees and stopped at the head of the beach.

  The whaleboat lay where we had left her, but the two seamen detailed to guard the motorboat must have heard the explosion and decided to take no chances.

  They were halfway back to the crash boat already, and when they saw Chubby and me, one of them fired his machinegun in our direction. The range was far beyond the accurate limits of the weapon, and we did not bother to take cover. However, the firing attracted the attention of the crew remaining aboard the crash boat - and I saw three of them run forward to man the quick-firer in the bows.

  “Here comes trouble,” I murmured.

  The first round was high and wide, cracking into the palms behind us and pitting their stems with the burst of shrapnel.

  Chubby and I moved quickly back into the grove and lay flat behind the sandy crest of the beach.

  What now?” Chubby asked.

  “Stalemate,” I told him, and the next two rounds from the quick—firer burst in futile fury in the trees above and behind us - but then there was a delay of a few seconds and I saw them training the gun around.

  The next shot lifted a tall graceful spout of water from the shallows alongside the whaleboat. Chubby let out a roar of anger, like a lioness whose cub is threatened.

  “They are trying to take out the whaleboat!“he bellowed, as the next round tore into the beach in a brief spurt of soft sand.

  “Give it to me,” I snapped, and took the FN from him, thrusting the short-barrelled AK47 at him and lifting the strap of the haversack off Chubby’s shoulder. His marksmanship was not equal to the finer work that was now necessary. “Stay here,” I told him, and I jumped up and doubled away around the curve of the bay. I had almost entirely recovered from the effects of the blast now - and as I reached the horn of the bay nearest the anchored crash boat I fell flat on my belly in the sand and pushed forward the long barrel of the FN.

  The gun crew were still blazing away at the whaleboat, and spouts of sand and water rose in rapid succession about it. The plate of frontal armour of the gun was aimed diagonally away from me, and the backs and flanks of the gun crew were exposed.

  I pushed the rate of fire selector of the FN on to single shot, and drew a few long deep breaths to steady my aim after the long run through the soft sand.

  The gun-layer was pedalling the traversing and elevating handles of the gun and had his forehead pressed hard against the pad above the eye-piece of the gunsight.

  I picked him up in the peepsight and squeezed off a single shot.

  It knocked him off his seat and flung him sideways across the breech of the gun. The untended aiming handles spiralled idly and the barrel of the gun lifted lazily towards the sky.

  The two gun-loaders looked around in amazement and I squeezed off two more snap shots at them.

  Their amazement was altered instantly to panic, and they deserted their posts and sprinted back along the deck, diving into an open hatchway.

  I swung my aim across and up to the open bridge of the crash boat.

  Three shots into the assembled officers and seamen produced a gratifying chorus of yells and the bridge cleared miraculously.

  The motorboat from the beach came alongside, and I hastened the two seamen up the side and into the deckhouse with three more rounds. They neglected to make the boat fast and it drifted away from the side of the crash boat.

  I changed the magazine of the FN and then carefully and deliberately I put a single bullet through each porthole on the near side of the boat. I could hear clearly the shattering crack of glass at each side.

  This proved too much provocation for Commander Suleiman Dada. I heard the donkey winch clatter to life and the anchor chain streamed in over the bows, glistening with seawater, and the moment the fluked anchor broke out through the surface, the crash boat’s propellers churned a white wash of water under her stern and she swung round towards the opening of the lagoon.

  I kept her under fire as she moved slowly past my hiding, place lest she change her mind about leaving. The bridge was screened by a wind shield of dirty white canvas, and I knew the helmsman was lying behind this with his head well down. I fired shot after shot through the canvas, trying to guess his position.

  There was no apparent effect so I turned my attention to the portholes again, hoping for a lucky ricochet within the hull.

  The crash boat picked up speed rapidly until she was waddling along like an old lady hurrying to catch a bus. She rounded the horn of the bay, and I stood up and brushed off the sand. Then I reloaded the rifle and broke into a trot through the palm grove.

  By the time I reached the north tip of the island, and climbed high enough up the slope to look out over the deep-water channel, the crash boat was a mile away, heading resolutely for the distant mainland of Africa, a small white shape against the shaded greens of the sea, and the higher harsher blue of the sky.

  I tucked the FN under my arm and found a seat from where I could watch her further progress. My wristwatch showed seven minutes past ten o’clock, and I began to wonder if the case of gelignite below the crash boat’s stern had, after all, been torn loose by the drag of the water and the wash of the propellers.

  The crash boat was now passing between the submerged outer reefs before entering the open inshore waters. The reefs blew regularly, breathing white foam at each surge of the sea as though a monster lay beneath the surface.

  The small white speck of the crash boat seemed ethereal and insubstantial in that wilderness of sea and sky, soon she would merge with the wind-flecked and current-chopped waters of the open sea.

  The explosion when it came was without passion, its violence muted by distance and its sound toned by the wind. There was a sudden soft waterspout that enveloped the tiny white boat. It looked like an ostrich feather, soft and blowing on the wind, bending when it reached its full height and then losing its shape and smearing away across the choppy surface.

&nbs
p; The sound reached me many seconds later, a single unwar-like thud against my still-tender eardrums, and I thought I felt the flap of the blast like the puff of the wind against my face.

  When the spray had blown into nothingness the channel was empty, no sign remained of the tiny vessel and there was no mark of her going upon the wind-blown waters.

  I knew that with the tide the big evil-looking albacore sharks hunted inshore upon the flood. They would be quick to the taint of blood and torn flesh in the water, and I doubted that any of those aboard the crash boat who had survived the blast would long avoid the attentions of those single-minded and voracious killers. Those that found Commander Suleiman Dada would fare well, I thought, unless they recognized a kindred spirit and accorded him professional privilege. It was a grim little joke, and it gave me only fleeting amusement. I stood up and walked down to the caves.

  found my medical kit had been broken open and scattered during the previous day’s looting, but I retrieved sufficient material to clean and dress Sherry’s mutilated fingers. Three of the nails had been torn out. I feared that the roots had been destroyed, and that they would never grow again - but when Sherry expressed the same fears, I denied them stoutly.

  Once her injuries were taken care of I made her swallow a couple of codeine for the pain and made a bed for her in the darkness of the back of the cave.

  “Rest,” I told her, kneeling to kiss her tenderly. “Try and sleep. I will fetch you when we are ready to leave.”

  Chubby was already busy with the necessary tasks. He had checked the whaleboat and, apart from a few shrapnel holes, found her in good condition.

  We filled the holes with Pratleys putty from the toolchest, and left her on the beach.

  The hole in which the chest had been buried served as a communal grave for the dead men and the woman lying about it. We laid them in it like sardines, and covered them with the soft sand.

  We exhumed the golden head from its own grave with its glittering eye still in the broad forehead, and staggering under its weight we carried it down to the whaleboat and padded it with the polythene cushions in the bottom of the boat. The plastic packets of sapphires and emeralds I packed into my haversack and laid it beside the head.