by Wilbur Smith
‘You going to take the Ford?’ asked Hendry.
‘Yes, it may come in useful.’
‘And it will be more comfortable for you and your little French thing.’ Heavy sarcasm in Hendry’s voice.
‘That’s right,’ Bruce answered evenly. ‘Can you drive?’
‘What you think? You think I’m a bloody fool?’
‘Everyone is always trying to get at you, aren’t they? You can’t trust anyone, can you?’ Bruce asked softly.
‘You’re so bloody right!’ agreed Hendry.
Bruce changed the subject. ‘André had a message for you before he died.’
‘Old doll boy!’
‘He threw that grenade. Did you know that?’
‘Yeah. I knew it.’
‘Don’t you want to hear what he said?’
‘Once a queer, always a queer, and the only good queer is a dead queer.’
‘All right.’ Bruce frowned. ‘Get a couple of men to help you. Fill the trucks with gas. We’ve wasted enough time already.’
They buried their dead in a communal grave, packing them in quickly and covering them just as quickly. Then they stood embarrassed and silent round the mound.
‘You going to say anything, boss?’ Ruffy asked, and they all looked at Bruce.
‘No.’ Bruce turned away and started for the trucks.
What the hell can you say, he thought angrily. Death is not someone to make conversation with. All you can say is, ‘These were men; weak and strong, evil and good, and a lot in between. But now they’re dead – like pork.’
He looked back over his shoulder.
‘All right, let’s move out.’
The convoy ground slowly over the causeway. Bruce led in the Ford and the air blowing in through the shattered windscreen was too humid and steamy to give relief from the rising heat.
The sun stood high above the forest as they passed the turn-off to the mission.
Bruce looked along it, and he wanted to signal the convoy to continue while he went up to St Augustine’s. He wanted to see Mike Haig and Father Ignatius, make sure that they were safe.
Then he put aside the temptation. If there is more horror up there at St Augustine’s, if the shufta have found them and there are raped women and dead men there, then there is nothing I can do and I don’t want to know about it.
It is better to believe that they are safely hidden in the jungle. It is better to believe that out of all this will remain something good.
He led the convoy resolutely past the turn-off and over the hills towards the level crossing.
Suddenly another idea came to him and he thought about it, turning it over with pleasure.
Four men came to Port Reprieve, men without hope, men abandoned by God.
And they learned that it was not too late, perhaps it is never too late.
For one of them found the strength to die like a man, although he had lived his whole life with weakness.
Another rediscovered the self-respect he had lost along the way, and with it the chance to start again.
The third found – he hesitated – yes, the third found love.
And the fourth? Bruce’s smile faded as he thought of Wally Hendry. It was a neat little parable, except for Wally Hendry. What had he found? A dozen human ears threaded on a pencil?
– 19 –
‘Can’t you get up enough steam to move us back to the crossing – only a few miles.’
‘I am desolate, m’sieur. She will not hold even a belch, to say nothing of a head of steam.’ The engine driver spread his pudgy little hands in a gesture of helplessness. Bruce studied the rent in the boiler. The metal was torn open like the petals of a flower. He knew it had been a forlorn request.
‘Very well. Thank you.’ He turned to Ruffy. ‘We’ll have to carry everything back to the convoy. Another day wasted.’
‘It’s a long walk,’ Ruffy agreed. ‘Better get started.’
‘How much food have we?’
‘Not too much. We’ve been feeding a lot of extra mouths, and we sent a lot out to the mission.’
‘How much?’
‘About two more days.’
‘That should get us to Elisabethville.’
‘Boss, you want to carry everything to the lorries? Searchlights, ammunition, blankets – all of it?’
Bruce paused for a moment. ‘I think so. We may need it.’
‘It’s going to take the rest of the day.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Bruce. Ruffy walked back along the train but Bruce called after him.
‘Ruffy!’
‘Boss?’
‘Don’t forget the beer.’
Ruffy’s black moon of a face split laterally into a grin.
‘You think we should take it?’
‘Why not?’ Bruce laughed.
‘Man, you talked me right into it!’
And the night was almost on them before the last of the equipment had been carried back from the abandoned train to the convoy and loaded into the trucks.
Time is a slippery thing, even more so than wealth. No bank vault can hold it for you, this precious stuff which we spend in such prodigal fashion on the trivialities. By the time we have slept and eaten and moved from one place to the next there is such a small percentage left for the real business of living.
Bruce felt futile resentment as he always did when he thought about it. And if you discount the time spent at an office desk, then how much is there left? Half of one day a week, that’s how much the average man lives! That’s how far short of our potential is the actuality of existence.
Take it further than that: we are capable of using only a fraction of our physical and mental strength. Only under hypnosis are we able to exert more than a tenth of what is in us. So divide that half of one day a week by ten, and the rest is waste! Sickening waste!
‘Ruffy, have you detailed sentries for tonight?’ Bruce barked at him.
‘Not yet. I was just—’
‘Well, do it, and do it quickly.’
Ruffy looked at Bruce in speculation and through his anger Bruce felt a qualm of regret that he had selected that mountain of energy on which to vent his frustration.
‘Where the hell is Hendry?’ he snapped.
Without speaking Ruffy pointed to a group of men round one of the trucks at the rear of the convoy and Bruce left him.
Suddenly consumed with impatience Bruce fell upon his men. Shouting at them, scattering them to a dozen different tasks. He walked along the convoy making sure that his instructions were being carried out to the letter; checking the siting of the Brens and the searchlights, making sure that the single small cooking fire was screened from Baluba eyes, stopping to watch the refuelling of the trucks and the running maintenance he had ordered. Men avoided catching his eye and bent to their tasks with studied application. There were no raised voices or sounds of laughter in the camp.
Again Bruce had decided against a night journey. The temptation itched within him, but the exhaustion of those gendarmes who had not slept since the previous morning and the danger of travelling in the dark he could not ignore.
‘We’ll leave as soon as it’s light tomorrow,’ Bruce told Ruffy.
‘Okay, boss,’ Ruffy nodded, and then soothingly, ‘you’re tired. Food’s nearly ready, then you get some sleep.’
Bruce glared at him, opening his mouth to snarl a retort, and then closed it again. He turned and strode out of the camp into the forest.
He found a fallen log, sat down and lit a cigarette. It was dark now and there were only a few stars among the rain clouds that blackened the sky. He could hear the faint sounds from the camp but there were no lights – the way he had ordered it.
The fact that his anger had no focal point inflamed it rather than quenched it. It ranged restlessly until at last it found a target – himself.
He recognized the brooding undirected depression that was descending upon him. It was a thing he had not experienced for a long time, nearly two
years. Not since the wreck of his marriage and the loss of his children. Not since he had stifled all emotion and trained himself not to participate in the life around him.
But now his barrier was gone, there was no sheltered harbour from the storm surf and he would have to ride it out. Furl all canvas and rig a sea anchor.
The anger was gone now. At least anger had heat but this other thing was cold; icy waves of it broke over him, and he was small and insignificant in the grip of it.
His mind turned to his children and the loneliness howled round him like a winter wind from the south. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against the lids. Their faces formed in the eye of his mind.
Christine with pink fat legs under her frilly skirt, and the face of a thoughtful cherub below soft hair cropped like a page boy.
‘I love you best of all,’ said with much seriousness, holding his face with small hands only a little sticky with ice cream.
Simon, a miniature reproduction of Bruce even to the nose. Scabs on the knees and dirt on the face. No demonstrations of affection from him, but in its place something much better, a companionship far beyond his six years. Long discussions on everything from religion, ‘Why didn’t Jesus used to shave?’ to politics, ‘When are you going to be prime minister, Dad?’
And the loneliness was a tangible thing now, like the coils of a reptile squeezing his chest. Bruce ground out the cigarette beneath his heel and tried to find refuge in his hatred for the woman who had been his wife. The woman who had taken them from him.
But his hatred was a cold thing also, dead ash with a stale taste. For he knew that the blame was not all hers. It was another of his failures; perhaps if I had tried harder, perhaps if I had left some of the cruel things unsaid, perhaps – yes, it might have been, and perhaps and maybe. But it was not. It was over and finished and now I am alone. There is no worse condition; no state beyond loneliness. It is the waste land and the desolation.
Something moved near him in the night, a soft rustle of grass, a presence felt rather than seen. And Bruce stiffened. His right hand closed over his rifle. He brought it up slowly, his eyes straining into the darkness.
The movement again, closer now. A twig popped underfoot. Bruce slowly trained his rifle round to cover it, pressure on the trigger and his thumb on the safety. Stupid to have wandered away from the camp; asking for it, and now he had got it. Baluba tribesmen! He could see the figure now in the dimness of starlight, stealthily moving across his front. How many of them, he wondered. If I hit this one, there could be a dozen others with him. Have to take a chance. One quick burst and then run for it. A hundred yards to the camp, about an even chance. The figure was stationary now, standing listening. Bruce could see the outline of the head – no helmet, can’t be one of us. He raised the rifle and pointed it. Too dark to see the sights, but at that range he couldn’t miss. Bruce drew his breath softly, filling his lungs, ready to shoot and run.
‘Bruce?’ Shermaine’s voice, frightened, almost a whisper. He threw up the rifle barrel. God, that was close. He had nearly killed her.
‘Yes, I’m here.’ His own voice was scratchy with the shock of realization.
‘Oh, there you are.’
‘What the hell are you doing out of the camp?’ he demanded furiously as anger replaced his shock.
‘I’m sorry, Bruce, I came to see if you were all right. You were gone such a long time.’
‘Well, get back to the camp, and don’t try any more tricks like that.’
There was a long silence, and then she spoke softly, unable to keep the hurt out of her tone.
‘I brought you something to eat. I thought you’d be hungry. I’m sorry if I did wrong.’
She came to him, stooped and placed something on the ground in front of him. Then she turned and was gone.
‘Shermaine.’ He wanted her back, but the only reply was the fading rustle of the grass and then silence. He was alone again.
He picked up the plate of food.
You fool, he thought. You stupid, ignorant, thoughtless fool. You’ll lose her, and you’ll have deserved it. You deserve everything you’ve had, and more.
You never learn, do you, Curry? You never learn that there is a penalty for selfishness and for thoughtlessness.
He looked down at the plate in his hands. Bully beef and sliced onion, bread and cheese.
Yes, I have learned, he answered himself with sudden determination. I will not spoil this, this thing that is between this girl and me. That was the last time; now I am a man I will put away childish things, like temper and self-pity.
He ate the food, suddenly aware of his hunger. He ate quickly, wolfing it. Then he stood up and walked back to the camp.
A sentry challenged him on the perimeter and Bruce answered with alacrity. At night his gendarmes were very quick on the trigger; the challenge was an unusual courtesy.
‘It is unwise to go alone into the forest in the darkness,’ the sentry reprimanded him.
‘Why?’ Bruce felt his mood changing. The depression evaporated.
‘It is unwise,’ repeated the man vaguely.
‘The spirits?’ Bruce teased him delicately.
‘An aunt of my sister’s husband disappeared not a short throw of a spear from my hut. There was no trace, no shout, nothing. I was there. It is not a matter for doubt,’ said the man with dignity.
‘A lion perhaps?’ Bruce prodded him.
‘If you say so, then it is so. I know what I know. But I say only that there is no wisdom in defying the custom of the land.’
Suddenly touched by the man’s concern for him, Bruce dropped a hand on to his shoulder and gripped it in the old expression of affection.
‘I will remember. I did it without thinking.’
He walked into the camp. The incident had confirmed something he had vaguely suspected, but in which previously he had felt no interest. The men liked him. A hundred similar indications of this fact he had only half noted, not caring one way or the other. But now it gave him intense pleasure, fully compensating for the loneliness he had just experienced.
He walked past the little group of men round the cooking fire to where the Ford stood at the head of the convoy. Peering through the side window he could make out Shermaine’s blanket-wrapped form on the back seat. He tapped on the glass and she sat up and rolled down the window.
‘Yes?’ she asked coolly.
‘Thank you for the food.’
‘It is nothing.’ The slightest hint of warmth in her voice.
‘Shermaine, sometimes I say things I do not mean. You startled me. I nearly shot you.’
‘It was my fault. I should not have followed you.’
‘I was rude,’ he persisted.
‘Yes.’ She laughed now. That husky little chuckle. ‘You were rude but with good reason. We shall forget it.’ She placed her hand on his arm. ‘You must rest, you haven’t slept for two days.’
‘Will you ride in the Ford with me tomorrow to show that I am forgiven?’
‘Of course,’ she nodded.
‘Good night, Shermaine.’
‘Good night, Bruce,’
No, Bruce decided as he spread his blankets beside the fire, I am not alone. Not any more.
– 20 –
‘What about breakfast, boss?’
‘They can eat on the road. Give them a tin of bully each – we’ve wasted enough time on this trip.’
The sky was paling and pinking above the forest. It was light enough to read the dial of his wristwatch. Twenty minutes to five.
‘Get them moving, Ruffy. If we make Msapa Junction before dark we can drive through the night. Home for breakfast tomorrow.’
‘Now you’re talking, boss.’ Ruffy clapped his helmet on to his head and went off to rouse the men who lay in the road beside the trucks.
Shermaine was asleep. Bruce leaned into the window of the Ford and studied her face. A wisp of hair lay over her mouth, rising and falling with her breathing. It tickled her
nose and in her sleep it twitched like a rabbit.
Bruce felt an almost unbearable pang of tenderness towards her. With one finger he lifted the hair off her face. Then he smiled at himself.
If you can feel like this before breakfast, then you’ve got it in a bad way, he told himself.
Do you know something, he retorted. I like the feeling.
‘Hey, you lazy wench!’ He pulled the lobe of her ear. ‘Time to wake up.’
It was almost half past five before the convoy got under way. It had taken that long to bully and cajole the sleep out of sixty men and get them into the lorries. This morning Bruce did not find the delay unbearable. He had managed to find time for four hours’ sleep during the night. Four hours was not nearly enough to make up for the previous two days.
Now he felt light-headed, a certain unreal quality of gaiety overlaying his exhaustion, a carnival spirit. There was no longer the same urgency, for the road to Elisabethville was clear and not too long. Home for breakfast tomorrow!
‘We’ll be at the bridge in a little under an hour.’ He glanced sideways at Shermaine.
‘You’ve left a guard on it?’
‘Ten men,’ answered Bruce. ‘We’ll pick them up almost without stopping, and then the next stop, room 201, Grand Hotel Leopold II, Avenue du Kasai.’ He grinned in anticipation. ‘A bath so deep it will slop over on to the floor, so hot it will take five minutes to get into it. Clean clothes. A steak that thick, with French salad and a bottle of Liebfraumilch.’
‘For breakfast!’ protested Shermaine.
‘For breakfast,’ Bruce agreed happily. He was silent for a while, savouring the idea. The road ahead of him was tiger-striped with the shadows of the trees thrown by the low sun. The air that blew in through the missing windscreen was cool and clean-smelling. He felt good. The responsibility of command lay lightly on his shoulders this morning; a pretty girl beside him, a golden morning, the horror of the last few days half-forgotten – they might have been going on a picnic.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked suddenly. She was very quiet beside him.
‘I was wondering about the future,’ she answered softly. ‘There is no one I know in Elisabethville, and I do not wish to stay there.’