by Wilbur Smith
Then she realized that the fuselage of the Viscount had been severed just in front of her seat, as though by a guillotine; the tail section was all that was left around her. Over Janine’s head the body of the child who had been her seating partner still hung by its strap. Her arms dangled below her head, and her blonde pigtails pointed at the earth. Her eyes were wide open, and her face contorted with the terror in which she had died.
Janine used her elbows to crawl out of the shattered fuselage, dragging her leg behind her and she felt the coldness and nausea of shock sweep over her. Still on her stomach, she retched and vomited until she was too weak to do anything else but let herself sink back into the darkness in her head. Then she heard a sound in the silence, faint at first, but growing swiftly in volume.
It was the wackety-wackety-wack of a helicopter’s rotors. She looked up at the sky, but it was shrouded by the roof of the forest overhead, and she realized that the last rays of daylight had gone and the swift African night was rushing down upon the earth.
‘Oh please!’ she screamed. ‘Here I am. Please help me!’ But the sound of the helicopter grew no louder, it seemed to pass only a few hundred metres from where she lay under the concealing trees, and then the sound of its rotors receded as swiftly as the darkness came on, and at last there was silence.
‘A fire,’ she thought. ‘I must start a signal fire.’
She looked around her wildly, and almost within reach of where she lay was the crumpled body of the blonde girl’s father who had been in the seat in front of her. She crawled to him, and touched his face, running her finger lightly over his eyelids. There was no flicker of response. She sobbed and drew back, and then steeled herself and returned once more to search the dead man’s pockets. The disposable Bic plastic cigarette-lighter was in the side pocket of his jacket. At the first flick it gave her a pretty yellow flame, and she sobbed again – this time with relief.
Roland Ballantyne sat in the co-pilot’s seat of the Super Frelon helicopter and peered down at the tree-tops only two hundred feet below him. It was so dark that the occasional clearing in the forest was a mere pale leprous patch. There was no definition in the tree-tops, they were a dark amorphous mattress. Even when the light had been stronger, the chances of spotting the wreckage below the tree-tops had been remote. Of course there was the possibility that part of a wing or tail-section had torn off and been left hanging high up, and in easy view. However, they could not trust to that.
At first they were looking for damage to the tree-tops, a blaze of lopped branches or the tell-tale white splotches of torn bark and raw wet wood. They were looking for a signal flare, or for smoke or the chance reflection of the late sun off bare metal, but then the light started to go. Now they were flying in desperation, waiting for, but not really believing, they would see a signal flare or a torch or even a fire.
Roland turned to the pilot and shouted in the rackety cabin.
‘Landing lights. Switch them on!’
‘They will overheat and burn out in five minutes,’ the pilot bellowed back. ‘No good!’
‘One minute on, and one minute off to cool again,’ Roland told him. ‘Try it.’ The pilot reached for the switch and below them the forest was lit with the cruel bluish-white glare of the phosphorous lamps. The pilot dropped even closer to the earth.
The shadows below the trees were stark and black. In one clearing they trapped a small herd of elephant. The animals were monstrous and unearthly in the flood of light, with their tentlike ears extended in alarm. Then the helicopter bore on and plunged them back into utter darkness.
Back and forth they flew, covering the corridor which the Viscount must have followed on her outward track, but that was one hundred nautical miles long and ten wide, one thousand square miles. It was full night now, and Roland glanced at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It was nine o’clock, almost four hours since the Viscount had gone in. If there were survivors, they would be dying now, from the cold and shock, from loss of blood and internal injuries, while here in the main cabin of the Super Frelon there was a doctor, with twenty quarts of plasma, with blankets – with the chance of life.
Grimly Roland stared down into the brilliant circle of white light as it danced over the tree-tops like the spotlight over a theatrical stage, and there was a cold and desolate despair in him that seemed slowly to numb his limbs and paralyse his resolve. He knew she was down there, so close, so very close, and yet he was helpless.
Suddenly he bunched his right fist and slammed it into the metal partition at his side. The skin smeared from his knuckles and the pain shot up his arm to the shoulder, but the pain was a stimulant, and in it he found his anger again. He cupped the anger to him, the way a man shelters a candle-flame in a high wind.
In the seat beside him the pilot checked the time-lapse on his stopwatch and then switched off the landing lights to cool them. The blackness that followed was more intense for the brilliance that had preceded it. Roland’s night-sight was destroyed, his vision filled with wriggling insects of starred light, and he was forced to cover his eyes with his hands for a few seconds to rest them and let them re-adjust.
So he did not see the tiny dull red spark down below him that showed through the forest tops for the smallest part of a second, and then was left behind as the Super Frelon roared back on the next leg of its search pattern.
Janine had gathered a pile of dried grass and twigs, and built them up into a cone ready for the flame of the lighter. It had been difficult work. She had dragged herself slowly backwards on her buttocks and hands, with her broken leg sliding along after her as she gathered the kindling from the nearest bushes. Each time her leg caught or twisted over an irregularity of the torn earth, she almost fainted again with the pain.
Once she had the fire ready, she had laid the plastic lighter beside it, and fallen back to rest. Almost immediately the night cold struck through her thin clothing and she began to shiver uncontrollably. It required an enormous effort of will to force herself to move again, but she started back towards the shattered tail-section of the Viscount. It was still just light enough to make out the trail of devastation that the main forward-section of the aircraft had smashed through the forest.
There were pieces of metal and burst luggage and bodies littered down this dreadful pathway, although the main wreckage, carried on by its own weight, was not in sight from where she lay.
Once again Janine called, ‘Is anybody there, is anybody else alive?’ But the night was silent. She dragged herself on.
The lighter tail-section in which Janine had been seated must have struck one of the larger trees as the fuselage broadsided, and it had been sheered off neatly. The whiplash of impact had broken the necks of the passengers around her – only the fact that Janine had been leaning forward with her face pressed into her lap had saved her.
Janine reached the severed tail end, and raised herself to peer in, avoiding looking at the body of the teenage girl which still hung upside-down from her inverted seat. The storage cupboards forward of the aircraft’s galley had broken open and in the gloom she could make out a treasure-house of blankets and canned food and drink. She dragged herself inchingly towards it. The feel of a woollen blanket around her shoulders was a blessed boon, and then thirstily she drank two cans of bitter lemon before searching further through the spilled and jumbled contents of the storage cupboard.
She found the first-aid kit and splinted and strapped her leg as best she could. The relief was immediate. There were disposable syringes and a dozen ampoules of morphine in the kit. The prospect of a surcease from agony was an acute temptation, but she knew it would dull her and inactivity or the inability to respond swiftly would be mortally dangerous in the long hours of darkness that lay ahead. She was still playing with the temptation when she heard the helicopter again.
It was coming swiftly towards her – she dropped the syringe and lunged clumsily towards the gaping hole in the fuselage. She tumbled out onto the dusty earth, a
fall of almost three feet, and the pain of her leg anchored her for seconds. Then, through it, she heard the whistle and throbbing beat of the helicopter coming towards her.
She clawed her fingers into the earth, and bit into her bottom lip until she tasted blood in her mouth to subdue the pain as she dragged herself towards the pile of kindling. By the time she reached it, the helicopter engine was a vast roaring in her head, and the sky above the forest was lightening with a bluish-white glow. She flicked the plastic lighter, and held the tiny flame to the dried grass. It flared up swiftly.
She lifted her face to the sky and in the light of the fire and the growing glare of the landing-lights, her cheeks were smeared with dust and dried blood from the cut in her scalp, and wet with the new tears of mingled agony and hope that slid from under her swollen eyelids.
‘Please,’ she prayed. ‘Oh sweet merciful God, please let them see me.’
The landing-lights grew stronger, dazzling, blinding – and then suddenly went out. Darkness struck her like a club. The sound of the helicopter passed over her, and she felt the buffeting down-draught of air from the rotors. For a brief instant she saw the black shark-like shape of it silhouetted against the stars – and then it was gone, and the sound of the spinning rotors sank swiftly into silence.
In that silence she heard her own wild shrieks of despair. ‘Come back! You can’t leave me! Please come back!’
She recognized the hysteria in her own voice, and thrust her fist into her mouth to gag it, but still the savage uncontrollable sobs racked her whole body, and the coldness of the night was made unbearable by the icy grip that despair had upon her.
She crawled closer to the fire. She had been able to gather only a few handfuls of twigs. It would not last long, but the cheerful yellow and orange flames gave her a brief warmth and a moment of comfort in which to regain control. She gave one last choking gasping sob and bit down upon it. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten, and felt herself steadying.
She opened her eyes, and across the fire from her, at the level of her own eyes, she saw a pair of canvas jungle boots. Slowly, she lifted her eyes and shaded them from the fire with one hand. She made out the form of a man, a tall man, and the flickering light of the fire lit his face. He was looking down at her with an expression she could not fathom, perhaps it was compassion.
‘Oh, thank you, God,’ Janine whispered. ‘Oh, thank you.’ She began to drag herself towards the man. ‘Help me,’ she croaked. ‘My leg is broken – please help me.’
Standing on the peak of the kopje, Tungata Zebiwe watched the stricken aircraft tumble down the sky like a high-flying duck hit by shot. He threw the empty rocket-launcher aside, and he lifted both hands above his head, fists clenched, and shook them in triumph to the heavens.
‘It is done,’ he roared, ‘they are dead!’ His face was swollen with the raging blood of the berserker, and his eyes were smoky like the glow of slag upon the tip, when it comes red-hot from the blast furnace.
Behind him his men shook their weapons above their heads, caught up like Tungata in the divine killing madness of the victors, the atavistic instinct come down from their forefathers who had formed the fighting bull, and raced in on the horns to the stabbing.
As they watched, the Viscount fell towards the forest top, and then at the very last moment it seemed to check. The nose of the tiny silver machine came up out of its death dive, and for a fleeting few seconds it seemed to fly parallel with the earth, but still sinking fast. Then it touched the tree-tops, and was instantly snatched from view, but the crash site was so close that Tungata had been able to hear, if only very faintly, the shattering impact of metal against trees and earth.
‘Mark it!’ Tungata sobered. ‘Comrade, the hand-bearing compass! Get a fix on it!’ He re-measured the distance with his eye. ‘About six miles, we can be there by dark.’
They moved out from the base of the kopje in their running formation, in the haft and spearhead, the flanks covering the bearers of the heavy equipment and the point breaking trail and clearing for ambush. They moved fast, at a pace just below a jog-trot that would carry them seven kilometres to the hour. Tungata was running the point himself, and every fifteen minutes he halted and went down on one knee to check the bearing on the hand-compass. Then he was up, and with an overhead pump of his fist signalled the advance. They went on, swiftly and relentlessly.
As the light started to fade, they heard the helicopter, and Tungata gave the side-arm cut-out signal that dropped them into cover. The helicopter passed a mile to the east, and he got them up and took them on for ten minutes more, before stopping again.
He brought in his wing-men, and told them quietly, ‘We are here, the machine is lying within a few hundred metres of us.’
They looked around them at the forest, the tall twisted columns of treetrunks seemed to reach as high as the darkening heaven. Through a chink in the leafy roof of the forest the evening star was a bright white prick of light.
‘We will go into extended line,’ Tungata told them, ‘and sweep along the line of bearing.’
‘Comrade Commissar, if we stay too late, we will not be able to reach the river tomorrow. The kanka will be here at first light,’ one of his men pointed out diffidently.
‘We will find the wreck,’ Tungata said. ‘Do not even think otherwise. That is why we have done this. To lay a trail for the kanka to follow. Now let us begin the search.’
They moved like grey wolves through the forest, Tungata keeping them in line and on direction with a code of bird-whistles like those of a nightjar. They went southwards for twenty minutes by his watch, and then he pivoted his line, and they went back, moving silently, bowed under their packs, but with the AK 47 rifles held at high port across their chests.
Twice more Tungata pivoted his line, and they searched back and forth, and the minutes drained away. It was past nine o’clock, there was a limit to how much longer he dared remain in the area of the wreck. His man had been right. First light would bring the avengers swarming out of the skies.
‘One hour more,’ he told himself aloud. ‘We will search one hour more.’ Yet he knew that to leave without laying a hot scent for the jackals to follow was to abandon the most important part of the operation. He had to entice Ballantyne and his kanka to the killing ground that he had chosen so carefully. He had to find the wreck, and leave something there for the kanka that would madden them, that would bring them rushing after him without regard to any of the consequences.
He heard the helicopter then, still far off, but coming back swiftly. Then he saw the glow of its landing-lights on the tree-tops, and he gave the signal to put his line into cover. The helicopter passed within half a kilometre of where they lay. Its glaring eye confused and jumbled up the shadows beneath the trees, making them run across the forest floor like ghostly fugitives.
Abruptly the light was quenched, but the memory of it left a hot red spot on the retina of Tungata’s eyeballs. They listened to the engine beat dwindle, and then Tungata whistled his men to their feet, and they went forward once more. Within two hundred paces Tungata stopped again, and sniffed the dank cold air of the forest.
Wood smoke! His heart jumped against his ribs, and he gave the soft warbling bird-call that presaged danger. He slipped out of the shoulder-straps of his heavy backpack and lowered it gently to earth. Then the line went forward again, moving lightly and silently. Ahead of Tungata something large and pale loomed from the darkness. He flicked his flashlight on. It was the nose-section of the Viscount, the wings sheared off it, the fuselage shattered. It lay on its side, so that he could flash his beam through the windscreen into the cockpit. The dead crew were still strapped into their seats. Their faces were bloodless pale, their eyes staring and glassy.
The line of guerrillas moved on quickly down the swath that the machine had hacked from the forest for itself. It was strewn with wreckage and debris, with clothing from the burst luggage-hold, with books and newspapers that fluttered aimles
sly in the small night breeze. In the litter, the corpses seemed strangely peaceful and relaxed. Tungata turned his flashlight into the face of a grey-haired middle-aged woman. She lay on her back with no visible injury. Her skirts were tucked modestly down below her knees, and her hands relaxed at her sides. However, her false teeth had been flung from her mouth and it gave her the look of an ancient crone.
He passed her and went on. His men were stopping every few paces to hunt swiftly through the clothing of the dead, or to examine an abandoned handbag or briefcase. Tungata wanted a live one. He needed a live one, and the dead were scattered all about him.
‘The smoke,’ he whispered. ‘I smelled smoke.’
And then ahead of him, at the very edge of the forest line, he saw a pretty little flower of flame, flickering and wavering in the gentle movement of air. He changed his grip on the rifle and slipped the selector onto semi-automatic fire. From the shadows he searched the area around the fire carefully and then stepped up to it. His jungle boots made no sound.
There was a woman lying beside the fire. She wore a thin yellow skirt, but it was stained with blood and dirt. The woman lay with her face in her arm. Her whole body was racked with gasping sobs. Her one leg below the skirt was roughly bound up with wooden splints and field bandages. Slowly she raised her head. In the feeble firelight her eyes were dark as those of a skull, and the pale skin, like her clothing, was smeared with blood and dirt. She raised her head very slowly until she was looking up at him, and then words came tumbling out of her swollen lips.
‘Oh, thank you, God,’ she blurted, and began to crawl towards Tungata, the leg slithering along behind her. ‘Oh, thank you. Help me!’ Her voice was so hoarse and broken that he could barely understand the words. ‘My leg is broken – please help me!’ She reached out and clasped his ankle.
‘Please,’ she blubbered, and he squatted down beside her.
‘What is your name?’ he asked very gently, and his tone touched her, but she could not think – could not even remember her own name.