I pulled my body into a foetal position and rode the waves of anguish and confusion until it stopped once again. With my left hand I felt the snout of the great beast still clamped to my calf and ran my fingers up to the protruding knob of its eye. I slammed the blade into the thick plated skull with my right hand and it penetrated to the hilt. Instantly the creature stopped moving, its massive jaws still locked onto my leg. My vision began fading and I felt a far greater force pulling the creature and me away. Although I did not realise at the time, it had pulled me back into the deep channel. Its long tail now acting as a weighted keel drawing me into the depths. Leaving the knife, I gripped the jaws of the dead creature and pried them apart away from my leg. The brain damage it had suffered had caused its jaw muscles to contract and it took many seconds to free myself from the razor-sharp rows of teeth. My ears were bursting with sharp stabbing pain from the water pressure by the time I had freed myself and floated slowly to the surface. My face broke the surface and I saw the moon above, but I have no recollection of what happened afterwards. I awoke sprawled and face down in the sand on the very same island the crocodile had taken me from. The effort of lifting my head to look around was tiring in itself. My entire body was numbed and shivering with cold. I looked down to see my legs were in the water as they had been when the crocodile had attacked. With a sudden surge of terror, I dragged myself up the sand towards the reeds. When I finally arrived, I found the reeds were soft and bent easily under my weight. I pulled my body into a foetal position and blacked out immediately. I awoke in the moonlight, hours later, to the bellowing, roaring sound of Lions calling to each other on the bank nearby. This alarming and ominous sound was soon followed the manic and insane laughter of a pack of Hyenas. Their footfalls, rumbling nearby, were a stark warning that predators would be around and my nightmare was far from over. I glanced down to the water and noticed a thick line of pebbles that had been washed onto the sand by the current. Seeing them as my only possible form of defence I pulled myself out of the nest of reeds and down towards the water. I gathered as many of the smooth rocks as I could and placed them into the bottom of my shirt which acted like a sack. From there I clawed my way back up to the hollow I had created in the reeds to await the next ordeal.
Before long there was a great crashing sound of water nearby. Something big and heavy had come through the channel and on to the island. I looked up to see the enormous silhouette of a Cape Buffalo walking towards me through the reeds. A lone Buffalo was one of the most feared animals in Africa and I watched it silently as it raised its nose to catch my scent on the air. Its horns spanned three feet or more in the moonlight and I was fully aware that they could toss a man high into the air. The great beast stopped twenty feet away from me and carefully folded its legs. With a huffing sound It lay in the reeds and stared at me as it casually chewed on the grass. I pulled the shirt from my back and using a stick I wound the material around my ruined left leg to slow the bleeding. It was a matter of minutes before I passed out once again. I was awoken by an intense itching all over my body. I opened my eyes to find the sun was just breaking the horizon and my body covered in red ants.
Having forgotten the Buffalo, I quickly began to brush them from my skin. The movement startled the massive beast which was still lying in the reeds nearby. It leapt to its feet with an indignant snort and crashed through the channel of water back to the riverbank. I realised then that in safeguarding itself, the animal had actually guarded me through the night. Five minutes later I heard the sound of outboard motors up river. Eventually I saw two boats coming around the bend in the river towards me. I immediately recognized one of them as belonging to my camp and I saw the tall figure of the old man Andrew standing at the wheel with a pair of binoculars held to his eyes. He soon saw me waving and both boats raced towards me. Andrew's boat crunched on to the sand below me. He and another worker climbed out and rushed towards me.
“What the hell happened to you?” he snarled.
“You don't want to know,” I whispered. “I need a hospital now.”
Chapter Nine: Sister of Mercy
AFTER THE JOURNEY UPSTREAM Andrew and the staff wasted no time in loading me into the back seat of his own Land Cruiser. My only request was that they safeguard my laptop and the hard drive which they promised to do. The journey to the small tourist town of Kariba at the dam wall of the lake by the same name took exactly two hours. The journey was a miserable one mainly because Andrew insisted on speeding round the many sharp bends on the road down to the town. Shirley had obviously phoned ahead as the staff were waiting to receive me. I was unceremoniously dumped on a worn hospital trolley and taken immediately to an operating room with broken tiles and peeling green paint on the walls. Although threadbare, the room looked clean and smelt strongly of antiseptic. The nurses began by cleaning the wounds to my left leg and I gritted my teeth in pain. It was then I heard Andrew's voice outside the room. He was obviously talking to the doctor on duty and was demanding that I be given morphine. The doctor replied that the hospital did not have any stocks of the drug, but it was readily available in the privately-owned pharmacy next door.
“Just get everything you need dammit!” he shouted “This man is seriously injured! I will guarantee payment in full!”
There was a flurry of activity as the doctor called one of the nurses and instructed the rest of them to wait. Ten minutes later they returned with a trolley full of drugs and equipment. A drip was positioned nearby, a cannula line inserted into my arm and then finally the morphine injection. The drug took effect in a series of warm soothing waves. First to fade was the pain followed by my thought patterns which slowly drifted into calming randomness. My last memory was that of the doctor and nurses surrounding me and the bright theatre light above shining into my face like the warm African sun. I awoke slowly much later that day as the sun was making its way down towards the outline of the mountain outside the window. I looked around the room to find I was alone. The walls of the room were painted in the same green paint which was faded and peeling leaving areas of white plaster beneath. Surrounding the outside of the window was the rusted frame of a grenade screen. A bygone from the war days. Above me hung the dirty and tattered remains of a mosquito net. Cautiously I moved my left leg a little to check how it felt. Immediately I was overwhelmed by an intense and painful itching that covered the entire leg up to the knee. I lifted my head to see the leg was dressed in bandages and raised slightly on a wooden ramp. The rest of my body was covered in an old threadbare sheet. My mouth was dust-dry and I looked around for water. The old steel shelves on either side of me were bare.
“Hello!” my voice was parched and croaky “Hello?”
The swinging door banged open and Andrew and a nurse walked in.
“Finally! You're awake” said Andrew.
“Please can I have some water?” I whispered.
The nurse busied herself to my left as Andrew walked around and stood between me and the window.
“They removed the bullet from your shoulder,” he said loudly. “Lucky it was a small firearm. A .22 mm pistol by the look of it. Your leg is another story. What the hell happened Jason? How did you end up so far down river?”
I had to think before I made my reply. The nurse walked up to my left side and handed me a battered tin cup of water. Before answering Andrew, I quickly emptied it. In the process, I spilled some water on my neck and chest. The nurse wiped it away with a small white towel and went back to whatever she was doing to my left.
“Poachers” I said quietly, not wanting to say too much “They must have been poachers. They came on a boat. I fell into a pit trap and I got shot trying to escape. They threw me in the river.”
Andrew's forehead creased in frustration and anger.
“But...” he said.
We were disturbed by a loud knock on the door. Two uniformed policemen were standing there, clutching files and papers. They had obviously walked to the hospital as their faces were glistening with
sweat. The nurse to my left suddenly started into a loud tirade in the local Shona dialect.
“Out! Get out! The doctor has told you this man can only be interviewed once he has recovered. Come back tomorrow!”
The wide eyed and chastened officers retreated into the gloom of the corridor and the door closed once again.
“They're going to ask you a lot more questions than I, you know that?” Andrew said.
“There isn't much more to tell Andrew” I replied resignedly.
“Hmmm” he nodded. “Well, you're bloody lucky to be alive is all I can say. I have to go back to Chirundu. I'll be back here tomorrow morning. Can I bring you anything?”
“Um, my bags, shoes and my phone please” I said.
“I don't think you'll be needing your shoes for a while” he said. “There's a bloody great hole through your foot and as for your leg .......!”
I looked down towards the bandages.
“Please keep that hard drive safe Andrew,” I said. “That's the most important thing I have to ask.”
His craggy face softened as he looked at me.
“Of course. Now I've told the staff here to look after you. I organized this private room. You really don't want to see the other wards. Everything costs money as the government hospitals don't have any drugs but I have bought morphine and fresh dressings. I'll see you at around 11.00am. tomorrow. I'll ask Shirley what I can bring to make you as comfortable as possible.”
“Thanks very much Andrew,” I replied as he walked out of the room.
Once again, I shifted my left leg slightly to see how it felt and again there was the terrible itching and deep pain. The nurse who had told the police officers to leave walked up to me on the left-hand side of the bed.
“You must keep your leg still please, Sir” she said in a loud clear voice with a strong Shona accent.
She was young and had a stern look on her round moonlike face, but I could see her bright clear eyes were soft and caring.
“How is the leg?” I asked hopefully.
“Your leg is seriously injured and there is a risk of infection. That is why I ask you to please keep it still. The doctor will be through to speak to you soon.”
She stopped to look at me
“What is your name?” I asked.
Immediately her face lit up and the faux stern look was replaced by a beaming smile of perfectly white teeth.
“My name is Sister Mercy Chavunduka. Please do as I say Mr Green.”
I grunted and turned to look out of the window once again. The Kariba Hospital was situated on the outskirts of the town and the bush on the nearby hills was as wild as any in the Zambezi Valley. In the distance at the foot of the mountains, a group of barefoot children were kicking a soccer ball around on a dusty rural pitch. I could just hear their joyful yells in the distance. The setting sun created a red aura around them as they played. With the shock and morphine still running through me I began to drift off to sleep. I was awoken in the twilight of early evening by a thin bespectacled man in a white coat.
“Mr. Green wake up, please,” he said.
I moaned as I opened my eyes. My entire left leg was alive and buzzing with an intense itching and a deep gnawing pain.
“My leg,” were my first words.
“Good evening Mr Green. Yes, your leg was badly injured. We had to put in fifty-six stitches and then there is the injury to your foot. Any wound from a Crocodile attack carries a high risk of infection due to the millions of bacteria found in the mouth of the animal. We have you on a high dosage of antibiotics but the itching you speak of is entirely expected. It is essential that you keep your leg still and allow the drugs to do their job.”
“It's unbearable,” I said quietly.
“It will get better with time and rest. In the meantime, you must eat and sleep. Mr Andrew from Chirundu has purchased some drugs for the pain. I will have the nurse administer some after you have eaten. You are a very lucky man. See you tomorrow Mr Green.”
His words were no comfort and I closed my eyes to ride the waves of agony and torment. It was half an hour later when the nurse Mercy Chavunduka came back. I had no idea she had entered until I felt the cool wet towel wipe the sweat from my face and neck.
I opened my eyes to see her looking down at me with a stern look on her face.
“It is time to eat Mr Green” she said.
“I'm not hungry. The doctor said you had some morphine, please give me some. I need it.” I replied.
“Of course, I will but first you will eat” she replied. “Here,”
She handed me a battered metal plate with a portion of rice and beef stew. With sweat streaming from my temples and the overwhelming discomfort of my injuries I forced myself to swallow most of the stew and half of the rice. When I was finished, I laid my head back and sighed with exhaustion.
“Good food eh?” she said cheerfully.
“Superb,” I replied, eyes closed.
Suddenly there was a loud buzzing sound above me. I opened my eyes to see she had turned on the lights and one of them was faulty and flickered noisily.
“Are you going to leave that light making that noise all night?” I growled
“No Mr Green, you are going to sleep. I am going home, but first I am going to give you the injection you have been waiting for.”
“About fucking time,” I said under my breath.
“Hey! Hey! I will not have language like that in here Mr Green!” she scolded.
I realized it was a battle I would not win. I turned my head and looked out of the window into the night. Turning back, I saw a broomstick hovering above, beside the tattered mosquito net.
“What the hell are you doing now?” I asked quietly.
“Mr Andrew has bought you a new mosquito net. You are very lucky Mr Green.”
I continued to gaze out into the darkness as the old net was removed from its hook in the ceiling and a fresh one put in its place.
After a while she came to stand near me once again.
“Now Mr Green. Here is your injection,” she said as she drew the clear liquid from the small rubber capped bottle with a fresh syringe.
The sting of the needle in my arm was an immense blessing and soon after the familiar waves of relief and calm washed over me in soothing ever-increasing swells. I looked up to see her holding the bottle of morphine up to the light.
“Ten milligrams administered at 8.00pm. three doses remaining in bottle.” She said the words under her breath as she wrote the information on a tattered file attached to the bottom of the bed.
I watched as she untied the mosquito net and pulled it around the four corners of the bed. Lastly, she walked up to my left and parted the netting to check on me.
“I think you are now ready to sleep Mr Green,” she said as she mopped the sweat from my temples.
“Thank you, Mercy,” I mumbled in a euphoric half stupor.
Soon after, the lights stopped buzzing and the room was dark and silent. In my dreams I saw the smiling encrusted face of Dixon Mayuni in the light of a lamp. The gaps between his teeth wide and sneering. In the flickering light his jaws and teeth morphed into those of a crocodile which snapped viciously as they came towards me.
Chapter Ten: Baboon on my Back
IT WAS 3.00AM. WHEN I was once again awoken by the fiery buzzing itching of my leg and the dull ache in my shoulder. The back of my head was soaking wet with sweat on the pillow and my arms felt weak as I parted the mosquito net to reach the water on the shelf nearby. The movement caused my discomfort to increase and I let out a loud moan as I stretched for the cup. Outside the window the mountains were a towering light grey mass in the moonlight and the cicadas were chirping constantly. The room was dark and feverishly hot. For the first time in over twenty-four hours I felt the need to urinate. There was a door on the opposite side of the room which I assumed was the en-suite bathroom and I lay still as I contemplated how to get there. Eventually the need became overwhelming and combined with
the extreme discomfort and sweaty conditions I gave in and decided to call for a nurse. After five attempts I heard a shuffling in the corridor and the door swung open noisily. The lights were turned on to reveal a massively obese woman wearing a dirty nurse’s uniform that was stretched to almost bursting around her rolling frame. She stood, unsteady on her feet, under the flickering light and rubbed her eyes with pudgy hands that protruded from the colossal glistening brown sausages that were her arms.
The Jason Green series Box Set Page 49