by Wilbur Smith
‘Why not leave Ruffy here, and I’ll go with you.’ Hendry looked up at Bruce.
‘I want Ruffy with me to translate if we meet any Africans along the way.’ Also, thought Bruce, I don’t want to be left on the side of the road with a bullet in my head while you drive on to Elisabethville.
‘Suits me,’ grunted Hendry. He dropped his eyes to the map. About forty miles to the border. A hard day’s walk.
Bruce changed to French and spoke swiftly. ‘Ruffy, hide the diamonds behind the dashboard of your truck. That way we are certain they will send a rescue party, even if we have to go Elisabethville.’
‘Talk English, Bucko,’ growled Hendry, but Ruffy nodded and answered, also in French.
‘I will leave Sergeant Jacque to guard them.’
‘NO!’ said Bruce. ‘Tell no one.’
‘Cut it out!’ rasped Hendry. ‘Anything you say I want to hear.’
‘We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow,’ Bruce reverted to English.
‘May I go with you?’ Shermaine spoke for the first time.
‘I don’t see why not.’ Bruce smiled quickly at her, but Ruffy coughed awkwardly.
‘Reckon that’s not such a good idea, boss.’
‘Why?’ Bruce turned on him with his temper starting to rise.
‘Well, boss,’ Ruffy hesitated, and then went on, ‘you, me and the lady all shoving off towards Elisabethville might not look so good to the boys. They might get ideas, think we’re not coming back or something.’
Bruce was silent, considering it.
‘That’s right,’ Hendry cut in. ‘You might just take it into your head to keep going. Let her stay, sort of guarantee for the rest of us.’
‘I don’t mind, Bruce. I didn’t think about it that way. I’ll stay.’
‘She’ll have forty good boys looking after her, she’ll be all right,’ Ruffy assured Bruce.
‘All right then, that’s settled. It won’t be for long, Shermaine.’
‘I’ll go and see about draining the trucks.’ Ruffy stood up. ‘See you in the morning, boss.’
‘I’m going to get some more of that meat.’ Wally picked up the map carelessly. ‘Try and get some sleep tonight, Curry. Not too much grumble and grunt.’
In his exasperation, Bruce did not notice that Hendry had taken the map.
– 28 –
It rained in the early hours before the dawn and Bruce lay in the back of the Ranchero and listened to it drum on the metal roof. It was a lulling sound and a good feeling to lie warmly listening to the rain with the woman you love in your arms.
He felt her waking against him, the change in her breathing and the first slow movements of her body.
There were buffalo steaks for breakfast, but no coffee. They ate swiftly and then Bruce called across to Ruffy.
‘Okay, Ruffy?’
‘Let’s go, boss.’ They climbed into the Ford and Ruffy filled most of the seat beside Bruce. His helmet perched on the back of his head, rifle sticking out through the space where the windscreen should have been, and two large feet planted securely on top of the case of beer on the floor.
Bruce twisted the key and the engine fired. He warmed it at a fast idle and turned to Hendry who leaned against the roof of the Ford and peered through the window.
‘We’ll be back this afternoon. Don’t let anybody wander away from camp.’
‘Okay.’ Hendry breathed his morning breath full into Bruce’s face.
‘Keep them busy, otherwise they’ll get bored and start fighting.’
Before he answered Hendry let his eyes search the interior of the Ford carefully and then he stood back.
‘Okay,’ he said again. ‘On your way!’
Bruce looked beyond him to where Shermaine sat on the tailboard of a truck and smiled at her.
‘Bon voyage!’ she called and Bruce let out the clutch. They bumped out on to the road amid a chorus of cheerful farewells from the gendarmes round the cooking fires and Bruce settled down to drive. In the rear-view mirror he watched the camp disappear round the curve in the road. There were puddles of rainwater in the road, but above them the clouds had broken up and scattered across the sky.
‘How’s it for a beer, boss?’
‘Instead of coffee?’ asked Bruce.
‘Nothing like it for the bowels,’ grunted Ruffy and reached down to open the case.
Wally Hendry lifted his helmet and scratched his scalp. His short red hair felt stiff and wiry with dried sweat and there was a spot above his right ear that itched. He fingered it tenderly.
The Ranchero disappeared round a bend in the road, the trees screening it abruptly, and the hum of its motor faded.
Okay, so they haven’t taken the diamonds with them. I had a bloody good look around. I guessed they’d leave them. The girl knows where they are like as not. Perhaps – no, she’d squeal like a stuck pig if I asked.
Hendry looked sideways at Shermaine; she was staring after the Ranchero.
Silly bitch! Getting all broody now that Curry’s giving her the rod. Funny how these educated Johnnies like their women to have small tits – nice piece of arse though. Wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself. Jesus, that would really get to Mr High Class Bloody Curry, me giving his pretty the business. Not a chance though. These niggers think he’s a god or something. They’d tear me to pieces if I touched her. Forget about it! Let’s get the diamonds and take off for the border.
Hendry settled his helmet back on to his head and strolled casually across to the truck that Ruffy had been driving the day before.
Got a map, compass, coupla spare clips of ammo – now all we need is the glass.
He climbed into the cab and opened the cubby hole.
Bet a pound to a pinch of dung that they’ve hidden them somewhere in this truck. They’re not worried – think they’ve got me tied up here. Never occurred to them that old Uncle Wally might up and walk away. Thought I’d just sit here and wait for them to come back and fetch me – take me in and hand me over to a bunch of nigger police aching to get their hands on a white man.
Well, I got news for you, Mr Fancy-talking Curry!
He rummaged in the cubbyhole and then slammed it shut.
Okay, they’re not there. Let’s try under the seats. The border is not guarded, might take me three or four days to get through to Fort Rosebery, but when I do I’ll have me a pocket full of diamonds and there’s a direct air service out to Ndola and the rest of the world. Then we start living!
There was nothing under the seats except a greasy dust-coated jack and wheel spanner. Hendry turned his attention to the floorboards.
Pity I’ll have to leave that bastard Curry. I had plans for him. There’s a guy who really gets to me. So goddam cocksure of himself. One of them. Makes you feel you’re shit – fancy talk, pretty face, soft hands. Christ, I hate him.
Viciously he tore the rubber mats off the floor and the dust made him cough.
Been to university, makes him think he’s something special. The bastard. I should have fixed him long ago – that night at the road bridge I nearly gave it to him in the dark. Nobody would have known, just a mistake. I shoulda done it then. I shoulda done it at Port Reprieve when he ran out across the road to the office block. Big bloody hero. Big lover. Bet he had everything he ever wanted, bet his Daddy gave him all the money he could use. And he looks at you like that, like you crawled out of rotting meat.
Hendry straightened up and gripped the steering wheel, his jaws chewing with the strength of his hatred. He stared out of the windscreen.
Shermaine Cartier walked past the front of the truck. She had a towel and a pink plastic toilet bag in her hand; the pistol swung against her leg as she moved.
Sergeant Jacque stood up from the cooking fire and moved to intercept her. They talked, arguing, then Shermaine touched the pistol at her side and laughed. A worried frown creased Jacque’s black face and he shook his head dubiously. Shermaine laughed again, turned from him and set off down the road towards the stream. Her hair
, caught carelessly at her neck with a ribbon, hung down her back on to the rose-coloured shirt she wore and the heavy canvas holster emphasized the unconsciously provocative swing of her hips. She went out of sight down the steep bank of the stream.
Wally Hendry chuckled and then licked his lips with the quick-darting tip of his tongue.
‘This is going to make it perfect,’ he whispered. ‘They couldn’t have done things to suit me better if they’d spent a week working it out.’
Eagerly he turned back to his search for the diamonds. Leaning forward he thrust his hand up behind the dashboard of the truck and it brushed against the bunch of canvas bags that hung from the mass of concealed wires.
‘Come to Uncle Wally.’ He jerked them loose and, holding them in his lap, began checking their contents. The third bag he opened contained the gem stones.
‘Lovely, lovely grub,’ he whispered at the dull glint and sparkle in the depths of the bag. Then he closed the drawstring, stuffed the bag into the pocket of his battle-jacket and buttoned the flap. He dropped the bags of industrial diamonds on to the floor and kicked them under the seat, picked up his rifle and stepped down out of the truck.
Three or four gendarmes looked up curiously at him as he passed the cooking fires. Hendry rubbed his stomach and pulled a face.
‘Too much meat last night!’
The gendarme who understood English laughed and translated into French. They all laughed and one of them called something in a dialect that Hendry did not understand. They watched him walk away among the trees.
As soon as he was out of sight of the camp Hendry started to run, circling back towards the stream. ‘This is going to be a pleasure!’ He laughed aloud.
– 29 –
Fifty yards below the drift where the road crossed the stream Shermaine found a shallow pool. There were reeds with fluffy heads around it and a small beach of white river sand, black boulders, polished round and glossy smooth, the water almost blood warm and so clear that she could see a shoal of fingerlings nibbling at the green algae that coated the boulders beneath the surface.
She stood barefooted in the sand and looked around carefully, but the reeds screened her, and she had asked Jacque not to let any of his men come down to the river while she was there.
She undressed, dropped her clothes across one of the black boulders and with a cake of soap in her hand waded out into the pool and lowered herself until she sat with the water up to her neck and the sand pleasantly rough under her naked behind.
She washed her hair first and then lay stretched out with the water moving gently over her, soft as the caress of silk. Growing bold the tiny fish darted in and nibbled at her skin, tickling, so that she gasped and splashed at them.
At last she ducked her head under the surface and, with the water streaming out of her hair into her eyes, she groped her way back to the bank.
As she stooped, still half blinded, for her towel Wally Hendry’s hand closed over her mouth and his other arm circled her waist from behind.
‘One squeak out of you and I’ll wring your bloody neck.’ He spoke hoarsely into her ear. She could smell his breath, warm and sour in her face. ‘Just pretend I’m old Bruce – then both of us will enjoy it.’ And he chuckled.
Sliding quickly over her hip his hand moved downwards and the shock of it galvanized her into frantic struggles. Holding her easily Hendry kept on chuckling.
She opened her mouth suddenly and one of his fingers went in between her teeth. She bit with all her strength and felt the skin break and tasted blood in her mouth.
‘You bitch!’ Hendry jerked his hand away and she opened her mouth to scream, but the hand swung back, clenched, into the side of her face, knocking her head across. The scream never reached her lips for he hit her again and she felt herself falling.
Stunned by the blows, lying in the sand, she could not believe it was happening, until she felt his weight upon her and his knee forced cruelly between hers.
Then she started to struggle again, trying to twist away from his mouth and the smell of his breath.
‘No, no, no.’ She repeated it over and over, her eyes shut tightly so she did not have to see that face above her, and her head rolling from side to side in the sand. He was so strong, so immensely powerful.
‘No,’ she said, and then, ‘Ooah!’ at the pain, the tearing stinging pain within, and the thrusting heaviness above.
And through the pounding, grunting, thrusting nightmare she could smell him and feel the sweat drip from him and splash into her upturned unprotected face.
It lasted forever, and then suddenly the weight was gone and she opened her eyes.
He stood over her, fumbling with his clothing, and there was a dullness in his expression. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and she saw the fingers were trembling. His voice when he spoke was tired and disinterested.
‘I’ve had better.’
Swiftly Shermaine rolled over and reached for the pistol that lay on top of her clothes. Hendry stepped forward with all his weight on her wrist and she felt the bones bend under his boot and she moaned. But through pain she whispered. ‘You pig, you filthy pig,’ and he hit her again, flat-handed across the face, knocking her on to her back once more.
He picked up the pistol and opened it, spilling the cartridges into the sand, then he unclipped the lanyard and threw the pistol far out into the reed bed.
‘Tell Curry I say he can have my share of you,’ he said and walked quickly away among the reeds.
The white sand coated her damp body like icing sugar. She sat up slowly holding her wrist, the side of her face inflamed and starting to swell where he had hit her.
She started to cry, shaking silently, and the tears squeezed out between her eyelids and matted her long dark lashes.
– 30 –
Ruffy held up the brown bottle and inspected it ruefully.
‘Seems like one mouthful and it’s empty.’ He threw the bottle out of the side window. It hit a tree and burst with a small pop.
‘We can always find our way back by following the empties,’ smiled Bruce, once more marvelling at the man’s capacity. But there was plenty of storage space. He watched Ruffy’s stomach spread on to his lap as he reached down to the beer crate.
‘How we doing, boss?’
Bruce glanced at the milometer.
‘We’ve come eighty-seven miles,’ and Ruffy nodded.
‘Not bad going. Be there pretty soon now.’
They were silent. The wind blew in on to them through the open front. The grass that grew between the tracks brushed the bottom of the chassis with a continuous rushing sound.
‘Boss—’ Ruffy spoke at last.
‘Yes?’
‘Lieutenant Hendry – those diamonds. You reckon we did a good thing leaving him there?’
‘He’s stranded in the middle of the bush. Even if he did find them they wouldn’t do him much good.’
‘Suppose that’s right.’ Ruffy lifted the beer bottle to his lips and when he lowered it he went on. ‘Mind you, that’s one guy you can never be sure of.’ He tapped his head with a finger as thick and as black as a blood-sausage. ‘Something wrong with him – he’s one of the maddest Arabs I’ve found in a long time of looking.’
Bruce grunted grimly.
‘You want to be careful there, boss,’ observed Ruffy. ‘Any time now he’s going to try for you. I’ve seen it coming. He’s working himself up to it. He’s a mad Arab.’
‘I’ll watch him,’ said Bruce.
‘Yeah, you do that.’
Again they were silent in the steady swish of the wind and the drone of the motor.
‘There’s a railway.’ Ruffy pointed to the blue-gravelled embankment through the trees.
‘Nearly there,’ said Bruce.
They came out into another open glade and beyond it the water tank of Msapa Junction stuck up above the forest.
‘Here we are,’ said Ruffy and drained the bottle in his hand.
Bruce slowed the Ford past the row of cottages. They were exactly as he remembered them, deserted and forlorn. The corners of his mouth were compressed into a hard angle as he looked at the two small mounds of earth beneath the casia flora trees. Ruffy looked at them also but neither of them spoke.
Bruce stopped the Ford outside the station building and they climbed out stiffly and walked together on to the verandah. The wooden flooring echoed dully under their boots as they made for the door of the office.
Bruce pushed the door open and looked in. The walls were painted a depressing utility green, loose paper was scattered on the floor, the drawers of the single desk hung open, and a thin grey skin of dust coated everything.
‘There she is,’ said Ruffy and pointed to the brass and varnished wood complexity of the telegraph on a table against the far wall.
‘Looks all right,’ said Bruce. ‘As long as the lines haven’t been cut.’
As if to reassure him, the telegraph began to clatter like a typewriter.
‘Thank God for that,’ sighed Bruce.
They walked across to the table.
‘You know how to work this thing?’ asked Ruffy.
‘Sort of,’ Bruce answered and set his rifle against the wall. He was relieved to see a Morse table stuck with adhesive tape to the wall above the apparatus. It was a long time since he had memorized it as a boy scout.
He laid his hand on the transmission key and studied the table. The call sign for Elisabethville was ‘EE’.
He tapped it out clumsily and then waited. Almost immediately the set clattered back at him, much too fast to be intelligible and the roll of paper in the repeater was exhausted. Bruce took off his helmet and laboriously spelled out, ‘Transmit slower.’
It was a long business with requests for repetition. ‘Not understood’ was made nearly every second signal, but finally Bruce got the operator to understand that he had an urgent message for Colonel Franklyn of President Tshombe’s staff.
‘Wait,’ came back the laconic signal.
And they waited. They waited an hour, then two.