by Wilbur Smith
‘Will you return to Brussels?’ he asked. The question was without significance, for Bruce Curry had very definite plans for the immediate future, and these included Shermaine.
‘Yes, I think so. There is nowhere else.’
‘You have relatives there?’
‘An aunt.’
‘Are you close?’
Shermaine laughed, but there was bitterness in the husky chuckle. ‘Oh, very close. She came to see me once at the orphanage. Once in all those years. She brought me a comic book of a religious nature and told me to clean my teeth and brush my hair a hundred strokes a day.’
‘There is no one else?’ asked Bruce.
‘No.’
‘Then why go back?’
‘What else is there to do?’ she asked. ‘Where else is there to go?’
‘There’s a life to live, and the rest of the world to visit.’
‘Is that what you are going to do?’
‘That is exactly what I’m going to do, starting with a hot bath.’
Bruce could feel it between them. They both knew it was there, but it was too soon to talk about it. I have only kissed her once, but that was enough. So what will happen? Marriage? His mind shied away from that word with startling violence, then came hesitantly back to examine it. Stalking it as though it were a dangerous beast, ready to take flight again as soon as it showed its teeth.
For some people it is a good thing. It can stiffen the spineless; ease the lonely; give direction to the wanderers; spur those without ambition – and, of course, there was the final unassailable argument in its favour. Children.
But there are some who can only sicken and shrivel in the colourless cell of matrimony. With no space to fly, your wings must weaken with disuse; turned inwards, your eyes become short-sighted; when all your communication with the rest of the world is through the glass windows of the cell, then your contact is limited.
And I already have children. I have a daughter and I have a son.
Bruce turned his eyes from the road and studied the girl beside him. There is no fault I can find. She is beautiful in the delicate, almost fragile way that is so much better and longer-lived than blond hair and big bosoms. She is unspoilt; hardship has long been her travelling companion and from it she has learned kindness and humility.
She is mature, knowing the ways of this world; knowing death and fear, the evilness of men and their goodness. I do not believe she has ever lived in the fairy-tale cocoon that most young girls spin about themselves.
And yet she has not forgotten how to laugh.
Perhaps, he thought, perhaps. But it is too soon to talk about it.
‘You are very grim.’ Shermaine broke the silence, but the laughter shivered just below the surface of her voice. ‘Again you are Bonaparte. And when you are grim your nose is too big and cruel. It is a nose of great brutality and it does not fit the rest of your face. I think that when they had finished you they had only one nose left in stock. “It is too big,” they said, “but it is the only nose left, and when he smiles it will not look too bad.” So they took a chance and stuck it on anyway.’
‘Were you never taught that it is bad manners to poke fun at a man’s weakness?’ Bruce fingered his nose ruefully.
‘Your nose is many things, but not weak. Never weak.’ She laughed now and moved a little closer to him.
‘You know you can attack me from behind your own perfect nose, and I cannot retaliate.’
‘Never trust a man who makes pretty speeches so easily, because he surely makes them to every girl he meets.’ She slid an inch further across the seat until they were almost touching. ‘You waste your talents, mon capitaine. I am immune to your charm.’
‘In just one minute I will stop this car and—’
‘You cannot.’ Shermaine jerked her head to indicate the two gendarmes in the seat behind them. ‘What would they think, Bonaparte? It would be very bad for discipline.’
‘Discipline or no discipline, in just one minute I will stop this car and spank you soundly before I kiss you.’
‘One threat does not frighten me, but because of the other I will leave your poor nose.’ She moved away a little and once more Bruce studied her face. Beneath the frank scrutiny she fidgeted and started to blush.
‘Do you mind! Were you never taught that it is bad manners to stare?’
So now I am in love again, thought Bruce. This is only the third time, an average of once every ten years or so. It frightens me a little because there is always pain with it. The exquisite pain of loving and the agony of losing.
It starts in the loins and it is very deceptive because you think it is only the old thing, the tightness and tension that any well-rounded stern or cheeky pair of breasts will give you. Scratch it, you think, it’s just a small itch. Spread a little of the warm salve on it and it will be gone in no time.
But suddenly it spreads, upwards and downwards, all through you. The pit of your stomach feels hot, then the flutters round the heart. It’s dangerous now; once it gets this far it’s incurable and you can scratch and scratch but all you do is inflame it.
Then the last stages, when it attacks the brain. No pain there, that’s the worst sign. A heightening of the senses; your eyes are sharper, your blood runs too fast, food tastes good, your mouth wants to shout and legs want to run. Then the delusions of grandeur: you are the cleverest, strongest, most masculine male in the universe, and you stand ten feet tall in your socks.
How tall are you now, Curry, he asked himself. About nine feet six and I weigh twenty stone, he answered, and almost laughed aloud.
And how does it end? It ends with words. Words can kill anything. It ends with cold words; words like fire that stick in the structure and take hold and lick it up, blackening and charring it, bringing it down in smoking ruins.
It ends in suspicion of things not done, and in the certainty of things done and remembered. It ends with selfishness and carelessness, and words, always words.
It ends with pain and greyness, and it leaves scar tissue and damage that will never heal.
Or it ends without fuss and fury. It just crumbles and blows away like dust on the wind. But there is still the agony of loss.
Both these endings I know well, for I have loved twice, and now I love again.
Perhaps this time it does not have to be that way. Perhaps this time it will last. Nothing is for ever, he thought. Nothing is for ever, not even life, and perhaps this time if I cherish it and tend it carefully it will last that long, as long as life.
‘We are nearly at the bridge,’ said Shermaine beside him, and Bruce started. The miles had dropped unseen behind them and now the forest was thickening. It crouched closer to the earth, greener and darker along the river.
Bruce slowed the Ford and the forest became dense bush around them, the road a tunnel through it. They came round one last bend in the track and out of the tunnel of green vegetation into the clearing where the road met the railway line and ran beside it on to the heavy timber platform of the bridge.
Bruce stopped the Ranchero, switched off the engine and they all sat silently, staring out at the solid jungle on the far bank with its screen of creepers and monkey-ropes hanging down, trailing the surface of the deep green swift-flowing river. They stared at the stumps of the bridge thrusting out from each bank towards each other like the arms of parted lovers; at the wide gap between with the timbers still smouldering and the smoke drifting away downstream over the green water.
‘It’s gone,’ said Shermaine. ‘It’s been burnt.’
‘Oh, no,’ groaned Bruce. ‘Oh, God, no!’
With an effort he pulled his eyes from the charred remains of the bridge and turned them on to the jungle about them, a hundred feet away, ringing them in. Hostile, silent. ‘Don’t get out of the car,’ he snapped as Shermaine reached for the door handle. ‘Roll your window up, quickly.’
She obeyed.
‘They’re waiting in there.’ He pointed at the edge of the j
ungle.
Behind them the first of the convoy came round the bend into the clearing. Bruce jumped from the Ford and ran back towards the leading truck.
‘Don’t get out, stay inside,’ he shouted and ran on down the line, repeating the instruction to each of them as he passed. When he reached Ruffy’s cab he jumped on to the running board, jerked the door open, slipped in on to the seat and slammed the door.
‘They’ve burnt the bridge.’
‘What’s happened to the boys we left to guard it?’
‘I don’t know but we’ll find out. Pull up alongside the others so that I can talk to them.’
Through the half-open window he issued his orders to each of the drivers and within ten minutes all the vehicles had been manoeuvred into the tight defensive circle of the laager, a formation Bruce’s ancestors had used a hundred years before.
‘Ruffy, get out those tarpaulins and spread them over the top to form a roof. We don’t want them dropping arrows in amongst us.’
Ruffy selected half a dozen gendarmes and they went to work, dragging out the heavy folded canvas.
‘Hendry, put a couple of men under each truck. Set up the Brens in case they try to rush us.’
In the infectious urgency of defence, Wally did not make his usual retort, but gathered his men. They wriggled on their stomachs under the vehicles, rifles pointed out towards the silent jungle.
‘I want the extinguishers here in the middle so we can get them in a hurry. They might use fire again.’
Two gendarmes ran to each of the cabs and unclipped the fire-extinguishers from the dashboards.
‘What can I do?’ Shermaine was standing beside Bruce.
‘Keep quiet and stay out of the way,’ said Bruce as he turned and hurried across to help Ruffy’s gang with the tarpaulins.
It took them half an hour of desperate endeavour before they completed the fortifications to Bruce’s satisfaction.
‘That should hold them.’ Bruce stood with Ruffy and Hendry in the centre of the laager and surveyed the green canvas roof above them and the closely packed vehicles around them. The Ford was parked beside the tanker, not included in the outer ring for its comparative size would have made it a weak point in the defence.
‘It’s going to be bloody hot and crowded in here,’ grumbled Hendry.
‘Yes, I know.’ Bruce looked at him. ‘Would you like to relieve the congestion by waiting outside?’
‘Funny boy, big laugh,’ answered Wally.
‘What now, boss?’ Ruffy put into words the question Bruce had been asking himself.
‘You and I will go and take a look at the bridge,’ he said.
‘You’ll look a rare old sight with an arrow sticking out of your jack,’ grinned Wally. ‘Boy, that’s going to kill me!’
‘Ruffy, get us half a dozen gas capes each. I doubt their arrows will go through them at a range of a hundred feet, and of course we’ll wear helmets.’
‘Okay, boss.’
It was like being in a sauna bath beneath the six layers of rubberized canvas. Bruce could feel the sweat squirting from his pores with each pace, and rivulets of it coursing down his back and flanks as he and Ruffy left the laager and walked up the road to the bridge.
Beside him Ruffy’s bulk was so enhanced by the gas capes that he reminded Bruce of a prehistoric monster reaching the end of its gestation period.
‘Warm enough, Ruffy?’ he asked, feeling the need for humour. The ring of jungle made him nervous. Perhaps he had underestimated the carry of a Baluba arrow – despite the light reed shaft, they used iron heads, barbed viciously and ground to a needle point, and poison smeared thickly between the barbs.
‘Man, look at me shiver,’ grunted Ruffy and the sweat greased down his jowls and dripped from his chin.
Long before they reached the access to the bridge the stench of putrefaction crept out to meet them. In Bruce’s mind every smell had its own colour, and this one was green, the same green as the sheen of putrefaction on rotting meat. The stench was so heavy he could almost feel it bearing down on them, choking in his throat and coating his tongue and the roof of his mouth with the oily over-sweetness.
‘No doubt what that is!’ Ruffy spat, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.
‘Where are they?’ gagged Bruce, starting to pant from the heat and the effort of breathing the fouled air.
They reached the bank and Bruce’s question was answered as they looked down on to the narrow beach.
There were the black remains of a dozen cooking fires along the water’s edge, and closer to the high bank were two crude structures of poles. For a moment their purpose puzzled Bruce and then he realized what they were. He had seen those crosspieces suspended between two uprights often before in hunting camps throughout Africa. They were paunching racks! At intervals along the crosspieces were the bark ropes that had been used to string up the game, heels first, with head and forelegs dangling and belly bulging forward so that at the long abdominal stroke of the knife the viscera would drop out easily.
But the game they had butchered on these racks were men, his men. He counted the hanging ropes. There were ten of them, so no one had escaped.
‘Cover me, Ruffy. I’m going down to have a look.’ It was a penance Bruce was imposing upon himself. They were his men, and he had left them there.
‘Okay, boss.’
Bruce clambered down the well-defined path to the beach. Now the smell was almost unbearable and he found the source of it. Between the racks lay a dark shapeless mass. It moved with flies; its surface moved, trembled, crawled with flies. Suddenly, humming, they lifted in a cloud from the pile of human debris, and then settled once more upon it.
A single fly buzzed round Bruce’s head and then settled on his hand. Metallic blue body, wings cocked back, it crouched on his skin and gleefully rubbed its front legs together. Bruce’s throat and stomach convulsed as he began to retch. He struck at the fly and it darted away.
There were bones scattered round the cooking fires and a skull lay near his feet, split open to yield its contents.
Another spasm took Bruce and this time the vomit came up into his mouth, acid and warm. He swallowed it, turned away and scrambled up the bank to where Ruffy waited. He stood there gasping, suppressing his nausea until at last he could speak.
‘All right, that’s all I wanted to know,’ and he led the way back to the circle of vehicles.
Bruce sat on the bonnet of the Ranchero and sucked hard on his cigarette, trying to get the taste of death from his mouth.
‘They probably swam downstream during the night and climbed the supports of the bridge. Kanaki and his boys wouldn’t have known anything about it until they came over the sides.’ He drew on the cigarette again and trickled the smoke out of his nostrils, fumigating the back of his throat and his nasal passages. ‘I should have thought of that. I should have warned Kanaki of that.’
‘You mean they ate all ten of them – Jesus!’ even Wally Hendry was impressed. ‘I’d like to have a look at that beach. It must be quite something.’
‘Good!’ Bruce’s voice was suddenly harsh. ‘I’ll put you in charge of the burial squad. You can go down there and clean it up before we start work on the bridge.’ And Wally did not argue.
‘You want me to do it now?’ he asked.
‘No,’ snapped Bruce. ‘You and Ruffy are going to take two of the trucks back to Port Reprieve and fetch the materials we need to repair the bridge.’
They both looked at Bruce with rising delight.
‘I never thought of that,’ said Wally.
‘There’s plenty of roofing timber in the hotel and the office block,’ grinned Ruffy.
‘Nails,’ said Wally as though he were making a major contribution. ‘We’ll need nails.’
Bruce cut through their comments. ‘It’s two o’clock now. You can get back to Port Reprieve by nightfall, collect the material tomorrow morning and return here by the evening. Take those two trucks there – check
to see they’re full of gas and you’ll need about fifteen men. Say, five gendarmes, in case of trouble, and ten of those civilians.’
‘That should be enough,’ agreed Ruffy.
‘Bring a couple of dozen sheets of corrugated iron back with you. We’ll use them to make a shield to protect us from arrows while we’re working.’
‘Yeah, that’s a good idea.’
They settled the details, picked men to go back, loaded the trucks, worked them out of the laager, and Bruce watched them disappear down the road towards Port Reprieve. An ache started deep behind his eyes and suddenly he was very tired, drained of energy by too little sleep, by the heat and by the emotional pace of the last four days. He made one last circuit of the laager, checking the defences, chatting for a few minutes with his gendarmes and then he stumbled to the Ford, slid on to the front seat, laid his helmet and rifle aside, lowered his head on to his arms and was instantly asleep.
– 21 –
Shermaine woke him after dark with food unheated from the cans and a bottle of Ruffy’s beer.
‘I’m sorry, Bruce, we have no fire to cook upon. It is very unappetizing and the beer is warm.’
Bruce sat up and rubbed his eyes. Six hours’ sleep had helped; they were less swollen and inflamed. The headache was still there.
‘I’m not really hungry, thank you. It’s this heat.’
‘You must eat, Bruce. Try just a little,’ and then she smiled. ‘At least you are more gallant after having rested. It is “Thank you” now, instead of “Keep quiet and stay out of the way”.’
Ruefully Bruce grimaced. ‘You are one of those women with a built-in recording unit; every word remembered and used in evidence against a man later.’ Then he touched her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I like your apologies, mon capitaine. They are like the rest of you, completely masculine. There is nothing about you which is not male, sometimes almost overpoweringly so.’ Impishly she watched his eyes; he knew she was talking about the little scene on the train that Wally Hendry had interrupted.
‘Let’s try this food,’ he said, and then a little later, ‘not bad – you are an excellent cook.’