by Wilbur Smith
‘I want you to go back to the hotel. The Baluba will have seen the train arrive; they won’t attack in force, we’ll be safe tonight. But they may try and cut a few throats if we leave you out here.’
The two half-breeds gathered together their belongings and set off towards the centre of town, obviously with lighter hearts.
‘Where are the others?’ Bruce asked the girl.
‘The next post is at the pumping station down by the river, there are three men there.’
Bruce followed her directions. Once or twice as he drove he glanced surreptitiously at her. She sat in her corner of the seat with her legs drawn up sideways under her. She sat very still, Bruce noticed. I like a woman who doesn’t fidget; it’s soothing. Then she smiled; this one isn’t soothing. She is as disturbing as hell! She turned suddenly and caught him looking again, but this time she smiled.
‘You are English, aren’t you, Captain?’
‘No, I am a Rhodesian,’ Bruce answered.
‘It’s the same,’ said the girl. ‘You speak French so very badly that you had to be English.’
Bruce laughed. ‘Perhaps your English is better than my French,’ he challenged her.
‘It couldn’t be much worse,’ she answered him in his own language. ‘You are different when you laugh, not so grim, not so heroic. Take the next road to your right.’
Bruce turned the Ford down towards the harbour.
‘You are very frank,’ he said. ‘Also your English is excellent.’
‘Do you smoke?’ she asked, and when he nodded she lit two cigarettes and passed one to him.
‘You are also very young to smoke, and very young to be married.’
She stopped smiling and swung her legs off the seat.
‘Here is the pumping station,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘It’s of no importance.’
‘It was an impertinence,’ Bruce demurred.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Bruce stopped the car and opened his door. He walked out on to the wooden jetty towards the pump house, and the boards rang dully under his boots. There was a mist coming up out of the reeds round the harbour and the frogs were piping in fifty different keys. He spoke to the men in the single room of the pump station.
‘You can get back to the hotel by dark if you hurry.’
‘Oui, monsieur,’ they agreed. Bruce watched them set off up the road before they went to the car. He spun the starter motor and above the noise of it the girl asked:
‘What is your given name, Captain Curry?’
‘Bruce.’
She repeated it, pronouncing it ‘Bruise’, and then asked:
‘Why are you a soldier?’
‘For many reasons.’ His tone was flippant.
‘You do not look like a soldier, for all your badges and your guns, for all the grimness and the frequent giving of orders.’
‘Perhaps I am not a very good soldier.’ He smiled at her.
‘You are very efficient and very grim except when you laugh. But I am glad you do not look like one,’ she said.
‘Where is the next post?’
‘On the railway line. There are two men there. Turn to your right again at the top, Bruce.’
‘You are also very efficient, Shermaine.’ They were silent again, having used each other’s names. Bruce could feel it between them, a good feeling, warm like new bread. But what of her husband, he thought, I wonder where he is, and what he is like. Why isn’t he here with her?
‘He is dead,’ she said quietly. ‘He died four months ago of malaria.’
With the shock of it, Shermaine answering his unspoken question and also the answer itself, Bruce could say nothing for the moment, then:
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There is the post,’ she said, ‘in the cottage with the thatched roof.’
Bruce stopped the car and switched off the engine. In the silence she spoke again.
‘He was a good man, so very gentle. I only knew him for a few months but he was a good man.’
She looked very small sitting beside him in the gathering dark with the sadness on her, and Bruce felt a great wave of tenderness wash over him. He wanted to put his arm round her and hold her, to shield her from the sadness. He searched for the words, but before he found them, she roused herself and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘We must hurry, it’s dark already.’
At the hotel the lounge was filled with Boussier’s employees; Haig had mounted a Bren in one of the upstairs windows to cover the main street and posted two men in the kitchens to cover the back. The civilians were in little groups, talking quietly, and their expressions of complete doglike trust as they looked at Bruce disconcerted him.
‘Everything under control, Mike?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Yes, Bruce. We should be able to hold this building against a sneak attack. De Surrier and Hendry, down at the station yard, shouldn’t have any trouble either.’
‘Have these people,’ Bruce pointed at the civilians, ‘loaded their luggage?’
‘Yes, it’s all aboard. I have told Ruffy to issue them with food from our stores.’
‘Good.’ Bruce felt relief; no further complications so far.
‘Where is old man Boussier?’
‘He is across at his office.’
‘I’m going to have a chat with him.’
Unbidden, Shermaine fell in beside Bruce as he walked out into the street, but he liked having her there.
Boussier looked up as Bruce and Shermaine walked into his office. The merciless glare of the petromax lamp accentuated the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and showed up the streaks of pink scalp beneath his neatly combed hair.
‘Martin, you are not still working!’ exclaimed Shermaine, and he smiled at her, the calm smile of his years.
‘Not really, my dear, just tidying up a few things. Please be seated, Captain.’
He came round and cleared a pile of heavy leatherbound ledgers off the chair and packed them into a wooden case on the floor, went back to his own chair, opened a drawer in the desk, brought out a box of cheroots and offered one to Bruce.
‘I cannot tell you how relieved I am that you are here, Captain. These last few months have been very trying. The doubt. The anxiety.’ He struck a match and held it out to Bruce who leaned forward across the desk and lit his cheroot. ‘But now it is all at an end; I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.’ Then his voice sharpened. ‘But you were not too soon. I have heard within the last hour that this General Moses and his column have left Senwati and are on the road south, only two hundred kilometres north of here. They will arrive tomorrow at their present rate of advance.’
‘Where did you hear this?’ Bruce demanded.
‘From one of my men, and do not ask me how he knows. There is a system of communication in this country which even after all these years I do not understand. Perhaps it is the drums, I heard them this evening, I do not know. However, their information is usually reliable.’
‘I had not placed them so close,’ muttered Bruce. ‘Had I known this I might have risked travelling tonight, at least as far as the bridge.’
‘I think your decision to stay over the night was correct. General Moses will not travel during darkness – none of his men would risk that – and the condition of the road from Senwati after three months neglect is such that he will need ten or twelve hours to cover the distance.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ Bruce was worried. ‘I’m not sure that we shouldn’t pull out now.’
‘That involves a risk also, Captain,’ Boussier pointed out. ‘We know there are tribesmen in close proximity to the town. They have been seen. They must be aware of your arrival, and might easily have wrecked the lines to prevent our departure. I think your original decision is still good.’
‘I know.’ Bruce was hunched forward in his chair, frowning, sucking on the cheroot.
At last he sat back and the frown evaporated. ‘I can’t risk it. I’ll place a guard on the causeway, and if this Moses gentleman arrives we can hold him there long enough to embark your people.’
‘That is probably the best course,’ agreed Boussier. He paused, glanced towards the open windows and lowered his voice. ‘There is another point, Captain, which I wish to bring to your attention.’
‘Yes?’
‘As you know, the activity of my company in Port Reprieve is centred on the recovery of diamonds from the Lufira swamps.’
Bruce nodded.
‘I have in my safe’ – Boussier jerked his thumb at the heavy steel door built into the wall behind his desk – ‘nine and a half thousand carats of gem-quality diamonds and some twenty-six thousand carats of industrial diamonds.’
‘I had expected that.’ Bruce kept his tone non-committal.
‘It may be as well if we could agree on the disposition and handling of these stones.’
‘How are they packaged?’ asked Bruce.
‘A single wooden case.’
‘Of what size and weight?’
‘I will show you.’
Boussier went to the safe, turned his back to them and they heard the tumblers whirr and click. While he waited Bruce realized suddenly that Shermaine had not spoken since her initial greeting to Boussier. He glanced at her now and she smiled at him. I like a woman who knows when to keep her mouth shut.
Boussier swung the door of the safe open and carried a small wooden case across to the desk.
‘There,’ he said.
Bruce examined it. Eighteen inches long, nine deep and twelve wide. He lifted it experimentally.
‘About twenty pounds weight,’ he decided. ‘The lid is sealed.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Boussier, touching the four wax imprints.
‘Good,’ Bruce nodded. ‘I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to it by placing a guard upon it.’
‘No, I agree.’
Bruce studied the case a few seconds longer and then he asked:
‘What is the value of these stones?’
Boussier shrugged. ‘Possibly five hundred million francs.’ And Bruce was impressed; half a million sterling. Worth stealing, worth killing for.
‘I suggest, monsieur, that you secrete this case in your luggage. In your blankets, say. I doubt there will be any danger of theft until we reach Msapa Junction. A thief will have no avenue of escape. Once we reach Msapa Junction I will make other arrangements for its safety.’
‘Very well, Captain.’
Bruce stood up and glanced at his watch. ‘Seven o’clock, as near as dammit. I will leave you and see to the guard on the causeway. Please make sure that your people are ready to entrain before dawn tomorrow morning.’
‘Of course.’
Bruce looked at Shermaine and she stood up quickly. Bruce held the door open for her and was just about to follow her when a thought struck him.
‘That mission station – St Augustine’s, is it? I suppose it’s deserted now?’
‘No, it’s not.’ Boussier looked a little shamefaced. ‘Father Ignatius is still there, and of course the patients at the hospital.’
‘Thanks for telling me.’ Bruce was bitter.
‘I’m sorry, Captain. It slipped my mind, there are so many things to think of.’
‘Do you know the road out to the mission?’ he snapped at Shermaine. She should have told him.
‘Yes, Bruce.’
‘Well, perhaps you’d be good enough to direct me.’
‘Of course.’ She also looked guilty.
Bruce slammed the door of Boussier’s office and strode off towards the hotel with Shermaine trotting to keep pace with him. You can’t rely on anyone, he thought, not anybody!
And then he saw Ruffy coming up from the station, looking like a big bear in the dusk. With a few exceptions, Bruce corrected himself.
‘Sergeant Major.’
‘Hello, boss.’
‘This General Moses is closer to us than we reckoned. He’s reported two hundred kilometres north of here on the Senwati road.’
Ruffy whistled through his teeth. ‘Are you going to take off now, Boss?’
‘No, I want a machine-gun post on this end of the causeway. If they come we can hold them there long enough to get away. I want you to take command.’
‘I’ll see to it now.’
‘I’m going out to the mission – there’s a white priest there. Lieutenant Haig is in command while I’m away.’
‘Okay, boss.’
– 10 –
‘I’m sorry, Bruce. I should have told you.’ Shermaine sat small and repentant at her end of the Ranchero.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Bruce, not meaning it.
‘We have tried to make Father Ignatius come in to town. Martin has spoken to him many times, but he refuses to move.’
Bruce did not answer. He took the car down on to the causeway, driving carefully. There were shreds of mist lifting out of the swamp and drifting across the concrete ramp. Small insects, bright as tracer in the headlights, zoomed in to squash against the windscreen. The froggy chorus from the swamp honked and clinked and boomed deafeningly.
‘I have apologized,’ she murmured.
‘Yes, I heard you,’ said Bruce. ‘You don’t have to do it again.’
She was silent, and then:
‘Are you always so bad-tempered?’ she asked in English.
‘Always,’ snapped Bruce, ‘is one of the words which should be eliminated from the language.’
‘Since it has not been, I will continue to use it. You haven’t answered my question: are you always so bad-tempered?’
‘I just don’t like balls-ups.’
‘What is balls-up, please?’
‘What has just happened: a mistake, a situation precipitated by inefficiency, or by somebody not using his head.’
‘You never make balls-up, Bruce?’
‘It is not a polite expression, Shermaine. Young ladies of refinement do not use it.’ Bruce changed into French.
‘You never make mistakes?’ she corrected herself. Bruce did not answer. That’s quite funny, he thought – never make mistakes! Bruce Curry, the original balls-up.
Shermaine held one hand across her middle and sat up straight.
‘Bonaparte,’ she said. ‘Cold, silent, efficient.’
‘I didn’t say that—’ Bruce started to defend himself. Then in the glow from the dash light he saw her impish expression and he could not stop himself; he had to grin.
‘All right, I’m acting like a child.’
‘You would like a cigarette?’ she asked.
‘Yes, please.’
She lit it and passed it to him.
‘You do not like—’ she hesitated, ‘mistakes. Is there anything you do like?’
‘Many things,’ said Bruce.
‘Tell me some.’
They bumped off the end of the causeway and Bruce accelerated up the far bank.
‘I like being on a mountain when the wind blows, and the taste of the sea. I like Sinatra, crayfish thermidor, the weight and balance of a Purdey Royal, and the sound of a little girl’s laughter. I like the first draw of a cigarette lit from a wood fire, the scent of jasmine, the feel of silk; I also enjoy sleeping late in the morning, and the thrill of forking a queen with my knight. Shadows on the floor of a forest please me. And, of course, money. But especially I like women who do not ask too many questions.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No, but it’s a start.’
‘And apart from – mistakes, what are the things you do not like.’
‘Women who ask too many questions,’ and he saw her smile. ‘Selfishness except my own, turnip soup, politics, blond pubic hairs, Scotch whisky, classical music and hangovers.’
‘I’m sure that is not all.’
‘No, not nearly.’
‘You are very sensual. All these things are of the senses.’
&nbs
p; ‘Agreed.’
‘You do not mention other people. Why?’
‘Is this the turn-off to the mission?’
‘Yes, go slowly, the road is bad. Why do you not mention your relationship to other people?’
‘Why do you ask so many questions? Perhaps I’ll tell you some day.’
She was silent a while and then softly:
‘And what do you want from life – just those things you have spoken of? Is that all you want?’
‘No. Not even them. I want nothing, expect nothing; that way I cannot be disappointed.’
Suddenly she was angry. ‘You not only act like a child, you talk like one.’
‘Another thing I don’t like: criticism.’
‘You are young. You have brains, good looks—’
‘Thank you, that’s better.’
‘ – and you are a fool.’
‘That’s not so good. But don’t fret about it.’
‘I won’t, don’t worry,’ she flamed at him. ‘You can—’ she searched for something devastating. ‘You can go jump out of the lake.’
‘Don’t you mean into?’
‘Into, out of, backwards, sideways. I don’t care!’
‘Good, I’m glad we’ve got that settled. There’s the mission, I can see a light.’
She did not answer but sat in her corner, breathing heavily, drawing so hard on her cigarette that the glowing tip lit the interior of the Ford.
The church was in darkness, but beyond it and to one side was a long low building. Bruce saw a shadow move across one of the windows.
‘Is that the hospital?’
‘Yes.’ Abruptly.
Bruce stopped the Ford beside the small front verandah and switched off the headlights and the ignition.
‘Are you coming in?’
‘No.’
‘I’d like you to present me to Father Ignatius.’
For a moment she did not move, then she threw open her door and marched up the steps of the verandah without looking back at Bruce.
He followed her through the front office, down the passage, past the clinic and small operating theatre, into the ward.