by Wilbur Smith
He pulled André into a sitting position, peered into his face and then spat into his eyes with sudden violence. ‘Bring him! The general will talk to him later.’
They tied André to one of the columns on the front verandah of the hotel and left him there. He could have twisted his head and looked through the large windows into the lounge at what they were doing to the women, but he did not. He could hear what was happening; by noon the screams had become groans and sobbing; by mid-afternoon the women were making no sound at all. But the queue of shufta was still out of the front door of the lounge. Some of them had been to the head of the line and back to the tail three or four times.
All of them were drunk now. One jovial fellow carried a bottle of Parfait Amour liqueur in one hand and a bottle of Harpers whisky in the other. Every time he came back to join the queue again he stopped in front of André.
‘Will you drink with me, little white boy?’ he asked. ‘Certainly you will,’ he answered himself, filled his mouth from one of the bottles and spat it into André’s face. Each time it got a big laugh from the others waiting in the line. Occasionally one of the other shufta would stop in front of André, unsling his rifle, back away a few paces, sight along the bayonet at André’s face and then charge forward, at the last moment twisting the point aside so that it grazed his cheek. Each time André could not suppress his shriek of terror, and the waiting men nearly collapsed with merriment.
Towards evening they started to burn the houses on the outskirts of town. One group, sad with liquor and rape, sat together at the end of the verandah and started to sing. Their deep beautiful voices carrying all the melancholy savagery of Africa, they kept on singing while an argument between two shufta developed into a knife fight in the road outside the hotel.
The sweet bass lilt of singing covered the coarse breathing of the two circling, bare-chested knife fighters and the shuffle, shuffle, quick shuffle of their feet in the dust. When finally they locked together for the kill, the singing rose still deep and strong but with a triumphant note to it. One man stepped back with his rigid right arm holding the knife buried deep in the other’s belly and as the loser sank down, sliding slowly off the knife, the singing sank with him, plaintive, regretful and lamenting into silence.
They came for André after dark. Four of them less drunk than the others. They led him down the street to the Union Minière offices. General Moses was there, sitting alone at the desk in the front office.
There was nothing sinister about him; he looked like an elderly clerk, a small man with the short woollen cap of hair grizzled to grey above the ears and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. On his chest he wore three rows of full-dress medals; each of his fingers was encased in rings to the second joint, diamonds, emeralds and the occasional red glow of a ruby; most of them had been designed for women, but the metal had been cut to enlarge them for his stubby black fingers. The face was almost kindly, except the eyes. There was a blankness of expression in them, the lifeless eyes of a madman. On the desk in front of him was a small wooden case made of unvarnished deal which bore the seal of the Union Minière Company stencilled in black upon its side. The lid was open, and as André came in through the door with his escort General Moses lifted a white canvas bag from the case, loosened the drawstring and poured a pile of dark grey industrial diamonds on to the blotter in front of him.
He prodded them thoughtfully with his finger, stirring them so they glittered dully in the harsh light of the petromax.
‘Was this the only case in the truck?’ he asked without looking up.
‘Oui, mon général. There was only one,’ answered one of André’s escorts.
‘You are certain?’
‘Oui, mon général. I myself have searched thoroughly.’
General Moses took another of the canvas bags from the case and emptied it on to the blotter. He grunted with disappointment as he saw the drab little stones. He reached for another bag, and another, his anger mounting steadily as each yielded only dirty grey and black industrial diamonds. Soon the pile on the blotter would have filled a pint jug.
‘Did you open the case?’ he snarled.
‘Non, mon général. It was sealed. The seal was not broken, you saw that.’
General Moses grunted again, his dark chocolate face set hard with frustration. Once more he dipped his hand into the wooden case and suddenly he smiled.
‘Ah!’ he said pleasantly. ‘Yes! yes! what is this?’ He brought out a cigar box, with the gaudy wrappers still on the cedarwood. A thumbnail prised the lid back and he beamed happily. In a nest of cotton wool, sparkling, breaking the white light of the petromax into all the rainbow colours of the spectrum, were the gem stones. General Moses picked one up and held it between thumb and forefinger.
‘Pretty,’ he murmured. ‘Pretty, so pretty.’ He swept the industrial stones to one side and laid the gem in the centre of the blotter. Then one by one he took the others from the cigar box, fondling each and laying it on the blotter, counting them, smiling, once chuckling softly, touching them, arranging them in patterns.
‘Pretty,’ he kept whispering. ‘Bon – forty-one, forty-two. Pretty! My darlings! Forty-three.’
Then suddenly he scooped them up and poured them into one of the canvas bags, tightened the drawstring, dropped it into his breast pocket above the medals and buttoned the flap.
He laid his black, bejewelled hands on the desk in front of him and looked up at André.
His eyes were smoky yellow with black centres behind his spectacles. They had an opaque, dreamlike quality.
‘Take off his clothes,’ he said in a voice that was as expressionless as the eyes.
They stripped André with rough dispatch and General Moses looked at his body.
‘So white,’ he murmured. ‘Why so white?’ Suddenly his jaws began chewing nervously and there was a faint shine of sweat on his forehead. He came round from behind the desk, a small man, yet with an intensity about him that doubled his size.
‘White like the maggots that feed in the living body of the elephant.’ He brought his face close to André’s. ‘You should be fatter, my maggot, having fed so long and so well. You should be much fatter.’
He touched André’s body, running his hands down his flanks in a caress.
‘But now it is too late, little white maggot,’ he said, and André cringed from his touch and from his voice. ‘For the elephant has shaken you from the wound, shaken you out on to the ground, shaken you out beneath his feet – and will you pop when he crushes you?’
His voice was still soft though the sweat oozed in oily lines down his cheeks and the dreaminess of his eyes had been replaced by a burning black brightness.
‘We shall see,’ he said and drew back. ‘We shall see, my maggot,’ he repeated, and brought his knee up into André’s crotch with a force that jerked his whole frame and flung his shoulders back.
The agony flared through André’s lower body, fierce as the touch of heated steel. It clamped in on his stomach, contracting it in a spasm like childbirth, it rippled up across the muscles of his chest into his head and burst beneath the roof of his skull in a whiteness that blinded him.
‘Hold him,’ commanded General Moses, his voice suddenly shrill. The two guards took André by the elbows and forced him to his knees, so that his genitals and lower belly were easily accessible to the general’s boots. They had done this often.
‘For the times you gaoled me!’ And General Moses swung his booted foot into André’s body. The pain blended with the other pain, and it was too strong for André to scream.
‘This, for the insults,’ and André could feel his testicles crush beneath it. Still it was too strong – he could not use his voice.
‘This, for the times I have grovelled.’ The pain had passed its zenith, this time he could scream with it. He opened his mouth and filled his empty lungs.
‘This, for the times I have hungered.’ Now he must scream. Now he must – the pain, oh, sweet Christ,
I must, please let me scream.
‘This, for your white man’s justice.’ Why can’t I, please let me. Oh, no! No – please. Oh, God, oh, please.
‘This, for your prisons and your Kiboko!’
The kicks so fast now, like the beat of an insane drummer, like rain on a tin roof. In his stomach he felt something tear.
‘And this, and this, and this.’
The face before him filled the whole field of his vision. The voice and the sound of the boot into him filled his ears.
‘This, and this, and this.’ The voice high-pitched and within him the sudden warm flood of internal bleeding.
The pain was fading now as his body closed it out in defence, and he had not screamed. The leap of elation as he knew it. This last thing I can do well, I can die now WITHOUT SCREAMING. He tried to stand up, but they held him down and his legs were not his own, they were on the other side of the great numb warmth of his belly. He lifted his head and looked at the man who was killing him.
‘This for the white filth that bore you, and this, and this—’
The blows were not a part of reality, he could feel the shock of them as though he stood close to a man who was cutting down a tree with an axe. And André smiled.
He was still smiling when they let him fall forward to the floor.
‘I think he is dead,’ said one of the guards. General Moses turned away and walked back to his seat at the desk. He was shaking as though he had run a long way, and his breathing was deep and fast. The jacket of his uniform was soaked with sweat. He sank into the chair and his body seemed to crumple; slowly the brightness faded from his eyes until once more they were filmed over, opaque and dreamy. The two guards squatted down quickly on each side of André’s body; they knew it would be a long wait.
Through the open window there came an occasional shout of drunken laughter, and the red flicker and leap of flames.
– 15 –
Bruce stood in the centre of the tracks and searched the floor of the forest critically. At last he could make out the muzzle of the Bren protruding a few inches from the patch of elephant grass. Despite the fact that he knew exactly where to look for it, it had taken him a full two minutes to find it.
‘That’ll do, Ruffy,’ he decided. ‘We can’t get it much better than that.’
‘I reckon not, boss.’
Bruce raised his voice. ‘Can you hear me?’ There were muffled affirmatives from the bush on each side, and Bruce continued.
‘If they come you must let them reach this spot before you open fire. I will mark it for you.’ He went to a small shrub beside the line, broke off a branch and dropped it on the tracks.
‘Can you see that?’
Again the affirmatives from the men in ambush. ‘You will be relieved before darkness – until then stay where you are.’
The train was hidden beyond a bend in the line, half a mile ahead, and Bruce walked back with Ruffy.
The engine driver was waiting for them, talking with Wally Hendry beside the rear truck.
‘Any luck?’ Bruce asked him.
‘I regret, mon capitaine, that she is irreparably damaged. The boiler is punctured in two places and there is considerable disruption of the copper tubing.’
‘Thank you,’ Bruce nodded. He was neither surprised nor disappointed. It was precisely what his own judgement had told him after a brief examination of the locomotive.
‘Where is Madame Cartier?’ he asked Wally.
‘Madame is preparing the luncheon, monsir,’ Wally told him with heavy sarcasm. ‘Why do you ask, Bucko? Are you feeling randy again so soon, hey? You feel like a slice of veal for lunch, is that it?’
Bruce snuffed out the quick flare of his temper and walked past him. He found Shermaine with four gendarmes in the cab of the locomotive. They had scraped the coals from the furnace into a glowing heap on the steel floor and were chopping potatoes and onions into the five gallon pots.
The gendarmes were all laughing at something Shermaine had said. Her usually pale cheeks were flushed with the heat; there was a sooty smudge on her forehead. She wielded the big knife with professional dexterity. She looked up and saw Bruce, her face lighting instantly and her lips parting.
‘We’re having a Hungarian goulash for lunch – bully beef, potatoes and onions.’
‘As of now I am rating you acting second cook without pay.’
‘You are too kind,’ and she put her tongue out at him. It was a pink pointed little tongue like a cat’s. Bruce felt the old familiar tightening of his legs and the dryness in his throat as he looked at it.
‘Shermaine, the locomotive is damaged beyond repair. It is of no further use.’ He spoke in English.
‘It makes a passable kitchen,’ she demurred.
‘Be serious.’ Bruce’s anxiety made him irritable. ‘We’re stranded here until we think of something.’
‘But, Bruce, you are the genius. I have complete faith in you. I’m sure you’ll think of some truly beautiful idea.’ Her face was solemn but she couldn’t keep the banter out of her eyes. ‘Why don’t you go and ask General Moses to lend you his transportation?’
Bruce’s eyes narrowed in thought and the black inverted curves of his eyebrows nearly touched above the bridge of his nose.
‘The food better be good or I’ll break you to third cook,’ he warned, clambered down from the cab to the ground and hurried back along the train.
‘Hendry, Sergeant Major, come here, please. I want to discuss something with you.’
They came to join him and he led the way up the ladder into one of the covered coaches. Hendry dropped on to the bunk and placed his feet on the washbasin.
‘That was a quick one,’ he grinned through the coppery stubble of his beard.
‘You’re the most uncouth, filthy-mouthed son of a bitch I have ever met, Hendry,’ said Bruce coldly. ‘When I get you back to Elisabethville I’m going to beat you to pulp before I hand you over to the military authority for murder.’
‘My, my,’ laughed Hendry. ‘Big talker, hey? Curry, big, big talker.’
‘Don’t make me kill you now – don’t do that, please. I still need you.’
‘What’s with you and that Frenchy, hey? You love it or something? You love it, or you just fancy a bit of that fat little arse? It can’t be her titties – she ain’t got much there, not even a handful each side.’
Bruce started for him, then changed his mind and swung round to stare out of the window. His voice was strangled when he spoke.
‘I’ll make a bargain with you, Hendry. Until we get out of this you keep off my back and I’ll keep off yours. When we reach Msapa Junction the truce is off. You can do and say whatever you like and, if I don’t kill you for it, I’ll try my level best to see you hanged for murder.’
‘I’m making no bargain with you or nobody, Curry. I play along until it suits me, and I won’t give you no warning when it doesn’t suit me to play along any more. And let me tell you now, Bucko, I don’t need you and I don’t need nobody. Not Haig or you, with your fancy too-good-to-kiss-my-arse talk; when the time comes I’m going to trim you down to size – just remember that, Curry. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Hendry was leaning forward, hands on his knees, body braced and his whole face twisting and contorted with the vehemence of his speech.
‘Let’s make it now, Hendry.’ Bruce wheeled away from the window, crouching slightly, his hands stiffening into the flat hard blades of the judo fighter.
Sergeant Major Ruffararo stood up from the opposite bunk with surprising grace and speed for such a big man. He interposed his great body.
‘You wanted to tell us something, boss?’
Slowly Bruce straightened out of his crouch, his hands relaxing. Irritably he brushed at the damp lock of dark hair that had fallen on to his forehead, as if to brush Wally Hendry out of his mind with the same movement.
‘Yes,’ controlling his voice with an effort, ‘I wanted to discuss our next move.’ He fished the cigarette
pack from his top pocket and lit one, sucking the smoke down deep. Then he perched on the lid of the washbasin and studied the ash on the tip of the cigarette. When he spoke again his voice was normal.
‘There is no hope of repairing this locomotive, so we have to find alternative transport out of here. Either we can walk two hundred miles back to Msapa Junction with our friends the Baluba ready to dispute our passage, or we can ride back in General Moses’s trucks!’ He paused to let it sink in.
‘You going to pinch those trucks off him?’ asked Ruffy. ‘That’s going to take some doing, boss.’
‘No, Ruffy, I don’t think we have any chance of getting them out from under his nose. What we will have to do is attack the town and wipe him out.’
‘You’re bloody crazy,’ exclaimed Wally. ‘You’re raving bloody mad.’
Bruce ignored him. ‘I estimate that Moses has about sixty men. With Kanaki and nine men on the bridge, Haig and de Surrier and six others gone, we have thirty-four men left. Correct, Sergeant Major?’
‘That’s right, boss.’
‘Very well,’ Bruce nodded. ‘We’ll have to leave at least ten men here to man that ambush in case Moses sends a patrol after us, or in case of an attack by the Baluba. It’s not enough, I know, but we will just have to risk it.’
‘Most of these civilians got arms with them, shotguns and sports rifles,’ said Ruffy.
‘Yes,’ agreed Bruce. ‘They should be able to look after themselves. So that leaves twenty-four men to carry out the attack, something like three to one.’
‘Those shufta will be so full of liquor, half of them won’t be able to stand up.’
‘That’s what I am banking on: drunkenness and surprise. We’ll hit them and try and finish it before they know what’s happened. I don’t think they will have realized how badly we were hit; they probably expect us to be a hundred miles away by now.’
‘When do you want to leave, boss?’
‘We are about twelve miles from Port Reprieve – say, six hours’ march in the dark. I want to attack in the early hours of tomorrow morning, but I’d like to be in position around midnight. We’ll leave here at six o’clock, just before dark.’