Eagle in the Sky

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Sometime within the next hundred years.’

  A week later she asked of David this time.

  ‘Have you decided what you are going to do yet, Davey?’

  ‘Just what I’m doing now,’ he said, and Debra backed him up quickly. ‘For ever!’ she said. ‘Just like this for ever.’

  Then without thinking about it, without really steeling themselves to it, they went to where they would meet other people in the mass.

  David borrowed the speedboat, picked up a shopping list from Ella, and they planed down along the lake shore to Tiberias, with the white wake churning out behind them and the wind and drops of spray in their faces.

  They moored in the tiny harbour of the marina at Lido Beach and walked up into the town. David was so engrossed with Debra that the crowds around him were unreal, and although he noticed a few curious glances they meant very little to him.

  Although it was early in the season, the town was filled with visitors, and the buses were parked in the square at the foot of the hill and along the lake front, for this was full on the tourist route.

  David carried a plastic bag that grew steadily heavier until it was ready to overflow.

  ‘Bread, and that’s the lot,’ Debra mentally ticked off the list.

  They went down the hill under the eucalyptus trees and found a table on the harbour wall, beneath the gaily coloured umbrella.

  They sat touching each other and drank cold beer and ate pistachio nuts, oblivious of everything and everybody about them even though the other tables were crowded with tourists. The lake sparkled and the softly rounded hills seemed very close in the bright light. Once a flight of Phantoms went booming down the valley, flying low on some mysterious errand, and David watched them dwindle southward without regrets.

  When the sun was low they went to where the speedboat was moored, and David handed Debra down into it. On the wall above them sat a party of tourists, probably on some package pilgrimage, and they were talking animatedly – their accents were Limehouse, Golders Green and Merseyside, although the subtleties of pronunciation were lost on David.

  He started the motor and pushed off from the wall, steering for the harbour mouth with Debra sitting close beside him and the motor burbling softly.

  A big red-faced tourist looked down from the wall and, supposing that the motor covered his voice, nudged his wife.

  ‘Get a look at those two, Mavis. Beauty and the beast, isn’t it?’

  ‘Cork it, Bert. They might understand.’

  ‘Go on, luv! They only talk Yiddish or whatever.’

  Debra felt David’s arm go rigid under her hand, felt him begin to pull away, sensing his outrage and anger – but she gripped his forearm tightly and restrained him.

  ‘Let’s go, Davey, darling. Leave them, please.’

  Even when they were alone in the safety of the cottage, David was silent and she could feel the tension in his body and the air was charged with it.

  They ate the evening meal of bread and cheese and fish and figs in the same strained silence. Debra could think of nothing to say to distract him for the careless words had wounded her as deeply. Afterwards she lay unsleeping beside him. He lay on his back, not touching her, with his arms at his sides and his fists clenched. When at last she could bear it no longer, she turned to him and stroked his face, still not knowing what to say. It was David who broke the silence at last.

  ‘I want to go away from people. We don’t need people – do we?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘We don’t need them.’

  ‘There is a place called Jabulani. It is deep in the African bushveld, far from the nearest town. My father bought it as a hunting lodge thirty years ago – and now it belongs to me.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Debra laid her head on his chest, and he began stroking her hair, relaxing as he talked.

  ‘There is a wide plain on which grow open forests of mopani and mohobahoba, with some fat old baobabs and a few ivory palms. In the open glades the grass is yellow gold and the fronds of the ilala palms look like beggars’ fingers. At the end of the plain is a line of hills, they turn blue at a distance and the peaks are shaped like the turrets of a fairy castle with tumbled blocks of granite. Between the hills rises a spring of water, a strong spring that has never dried and the water is very clear and sweet—’

  ‘What does Jabulani mean?’ Debra asked when he had described it to her.

  ‘It means the “place of rejoicing”,’ David told her.

  ‘I want to go there with you,’ she said.

  ‘What about Israel?’ he asked. ‘Will you not miss it?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘You see, I will take it with me – in my heart.’

  Ella went up to Jerusalem with them, filling the back seat of the Mercedes. She would help Debra select the furniture they would take with them from the house and have it crated and shipped. The rest of it she would sell for them. Aaron Cohen would negotiate the sale of the house, and both David and Debra felt a chill of sadness at the thought of other people living in their home.

  David left the women to it and he drove out to Ein Karem and parked the Mercedes beside the iron gate in the garden wall.

  The Brig was waiting for him in that bleak and forbidding room above the courtyard. When David greeted him from the doorway he looked up coldly, and there was no relaxation of the iron features, no warmth or pity in the fierce warrior eyes.

  ‘You come to me with the blood of my son on your hands,’ he said, and David froze at the words and held his gaze. After a few moments the Brig indicated the tall-backed chair against the far wall, and David crossed stiffly to it and sat down.

  ‘If you had suffered less, I would have made you answer for more,’ said the Brig. ‘But vengeance and hatred are barren things – as you have discovered.’

  David dropped his eyes to the floor.

  ‘I will not pursue them further, despite the dictates of my heart, for that is what I am condemning in you. You are a violent young man, and violence is the pleasure of fools and only the last resort of wise men. The only excuse for it is to protect what is rightfully yours – any other display of violence is abuse. You abused the power I gave you – and in doing it you killed my son, and brought my country to the verge of war.’

  The Brig stood up from his desk, and he crossed to the window and looked down into the garden. They were both silent while he stroked his moustache and remembered his son.

  At last the Brig sighed heavily and turned back into the room.

  ‘Why do you come to me?’ he asked.

  ‘I wish to marry your daughter, sir.’

  ‘You are asking me – or telling me?’ the Brig demanded, and then without waiting for an answer returned to his desk and sat down. ‘If you abuse this also – if you bring her pain or unhappiness, I will seek you out. Depend upon it.’

  David stood up and settled the cloth cap over his gross head, pulling the brim well down.

  ‘We would like you to be at the wedding. Debra asked that particularly – for you and her mother.’

  The Brig nodded. ‘You may tell her that we will be there.’

  The synagogue at Jerusalem University is a gleaming white structure, shaped like the tent of a desert wanderer, with the same billowing lines.

  The red-bud trees were in full bloom and the wedding party was larger than they had planned, for apart from the immediate family there were Debra’s colleagues from the university, Robert and some of the other boys from the squadron, Ella Kadesh, Doctor Edelman the baby-faced eye surgeon who had worked on Debra, Aaron Cohen and a dozen others.

  After the simple ceremony, they walked through the university grounds to one of the reception rooms that David had hired. It was a quiet gathering with little laughter or joking. The young pilots from David’s old squadron had to leave early to return to base, and with them went any pretence of jollity.

  Debra’s mother was still not yet fully recovered, and the prospect of Debra’s departure
reduced her to quiet grey weeping. Debra tried without success to comfort her.

  Before he left, Dr Edelman drew David aside.

  ‘Watch for any sign of atrophy in her eyes, any cloudiness, excessive redness – any complaints of pain, headaches—’

  ‘I will watch for it.’

  ‘Any indications, no matter how trivial – if you have any doubts, you must write to me.’

  Thank you, Doctor.’

  They shook hands. ‘Good luck in your new life,’ said Edelman.

  Through it all Debra showed iron control, but even she at last succumbed and she, her mother, and Ella Kadesh all broke down simultaneously at the departure barrier of Lod airport and hung around each other’s necks, weeping bitterly.

  The Brig and David stood by, stiff and awkward, trying to look as though they were not associated with the weeping trio, until the first warning broadcast gave them an excuse for a brief handshake and David took Debra’s arm and drew her gently away.

  They climbed the boarding ladder into the waiting Boeing without looking back. The giant aircraft took off and turned away southwards, and as always the sensation of flight soothed David; all the cares and tensions of these last few days left on the earth behind and below, he felt a new lightness of the spirit – excitement for what lay ahead.

  He reached across and squeezed Debra’s arm.

  ‘Hello there, Morgan,’ he said, and she turned towards him and smiled happily – blindly.

  It was necessary to spend some time in Cape Town before they could escape to the sanctuary of Jabulani in the north.

  David took a suite at the Mount Nelson Hotel, and from there he was able to settle the numerous issues that had piled up in his absence.

  The accountants who managed his trust funds demanded ten days of his time and they spent it in the sitting-room of the suite, poring over trust documents and accounts.

  In two years his income had grossly exceeded his spending, and the unused portion of his income had to be re-invested. In addition the third trust fund would soon pass to him and there were formalities to be completed.

  Debra was hugely impressed by the extent of David’s wealth.

  ‘You must be almost a millionaire,’ she said in a truly awed voice, for that was as rich as Debra could imagine.

  ‘I’m not just a pretty face,’ David agreed, and she was relieved that he could talk so lightly about his appearance.

  Mitzi and her new husband came to visit them in their suite. However, the evening was not a success. Although Mitzi tried to act as though nothing had changed, and though she still called him ‘warrior’, yet it was apparent that she and her feelings had altered.

  She was heavily pregnant and more shapeless than David would have thought possible. It was halfway through the evening before David realized the true reason for all the reserve. At first he thought that his disfigurement was worrying them, but after Mitzi had given a half-hour eulogy of the strides that Cecil was making at Morgan Group and the immense trust that Paul Morgan had placed in him, Cecil had asked innocently, ‘Are you thinking of joining us at the Group? I’m sure we could find something useful for you to do – ha, ha!’

  David could assure them quietly.

  ‘No, thank you. You won’t have to worry about me, Cecil, old boy. You take over from Uncle Paul with my blessing.’

  ‘Good Lord, I didn’t mean that.’ Cecil was shocked, but Mitzi was less devious,

  ‘He really will be very good, warrior, and you never were interested, were you?’

  After that evening they did not see the couple again, and Paul Morgan was in Europe, so David fulfilled his family obligations without much pain or suffering and he could concentrate on the preparations for the move to Jabulani.

  Barney Venter spent a week with them in choosing a suitable aircraft to handle the bush airstrip and yet give David the type of performance he enjoyed. At last they decided on a twin-engined Piper Navajo, a six-seater with two big 300-hp Lycoming engines and a tricycle under-cart, and Barney walked around it with his hands on his hips.

  ‘Well, she’s no Mirage.’ He kicked the landing-wheel and then checked himself and glanced quickly at David’s face.

  ‘I’ve had enough of Mirages,’ David told him. ‘They bite!’

  On the last day David drove out with Debra to a farm near Paarl. The owner’s wife was a dog breeder and when they went down to the kennels one of her Labrador pups walked directly to Debra and placed a cold nose on her leg as he inhaled her scent. Debra squatted and groped for his head and after fondling for a few moments she in her turn leaned forward and sniffed the pup’s fur.

  ‘He smells like old leather,’ she said. ‘What colour is he?’

  ‘Black,’ said David. ‘Black as a Zulu.’

  ‘That’s what we’ll call him,’ said Debra. ‘Zulu.’

  ‘You want to choose this one?’ David asked.

  ‘No,’ Debra laughed. ‘He chose us.’

  When they flew northwards the next morning the pup was indignant at being placed in the back seat and with a flying scrambling leap he came over Debra’s shoulder and took up position in her lap, which seemed to suit them both very well.

  ‘It looks like I have competition,’ David muttered ruefully.

  From the brown plateau of the high veld, the land dropped away steeply down the escarpment to the bush veld of southern Africa.

  David picked up his landmark on the little village of Bush Buck Ridge and the long slim snake of the Sabi River as it twisted through the open forests of the plain. He altered course slightly northwards and within ten minutes he saw the low line of blue hills which rose abruptly out of the flat land.

  ‘There it is, ahead of us,’ David told Debra and his tone was infectious. She hugged the dog closer to her and leaned towards David.

  ‘What does it look like?’

  The hills were forested with big timber, and turreted with grey rock. At their base the bush was thick and dark. The pools glinted softly through the dark foliage. He described them to her.

  ‘My father named them “The String of Pearls”, and that’s what they look like. They rise out of the run-off of rain water from the sloping ground beyond the hills. They disappear just as suddenly again into the sandy earth of the plain,’ David explained as he circled the hills, slowly losing height. ‘They are what give Jabulani its special character, for they provide water for all the wild life of the plain. Birds and animals are drawn from hundreds of miles to the Pearls.’ He levelled out and throttled back, letting the aircraft sink lower. ‘There is the homestead, white walls and thatch to keep it cool in the hot weather, deep shaded verandas and high rooms – you will love it.’

  The airstrip seemed clear and safe, although the wind-sock hung in dirty tatters from its pole. David circled it carefully before lining up for the landing, and they taxied towards the small brick hangar set amongst the trees. David kicked on the wheel brakes and cut the engines.

  ‘This is it,’ he said.

  Jabulani was one of a block of estates that bounded the Kruger National Park – the most spectacular nature reserve on earth. These estates were not productive, in that they were unsuitable for the growth of crops and few of them were used for grazing of domestic animals; their immense value lay in the unspoiled bush veld and the wild life – in the peace and space upon which wealthy men placed such a premium that they would pay large fortunes for a piece of this Lebensraum.

  When David’s grandfather had purchased Jabulani he had paid a few shillings an acre, for in those days the wilderness was still intact.

  It had been used as a family hunting estate down the years, and as Paul Morgan had never shown interest in the veld, it had passed to David’s father and so to David.

  Now the eighteen thousand acres of African bush and plain, held as freehold land, was a possession beyond price.

  Yet the Morgan family had made little use of it these last fifteen years. David’s father had been an enthusiastic huntsman, and with
him most of David’s school holidays had been spent here. However, after his father’s death, the visits to Jabulani had become shorter and further apart.

  It was seven years since the last visit, when he had brought up a party of brother officers from Cobra Squadron.

  Then it had been immaculately run by Sam, the black overseer, butler and game ranger.

  Under Sam’s management there had always been fresh crisp linen on the beds, highly polished floors, the exterior walls of the buildings had been snowy white and the thatch neat and well-tended. The deep-freeze had been well stocked with steak and the liquor cupboard filled – with every bottle accounted for.

  Sam ran a tight camp, with half a dozen willing and cheerful helpers.

  ‘Where is Sam?’ was the first question David asked of the two servants who hurried down from the homestead to meet the aircraft.

  ‘Sam gone.’

  ‘Where to?’ And the answer was the eloquent shrug of Africa. Their uniforms were dirty and needed mending, and their manners disinterested.

  ‘Where is the Land-Rover?’

  ‘She is dead.’

  They walked up to the homestead and there David had another series of unpleasant surprises.

  The buildings were dilapidated, looking forlorn and neglected under their rotting black thatch. The walls were dingy, grey-brown with the plaster falling away in patches.

  The interiors were filthy with dust, and sprinkled with the droppings of the birds and reptiles that had made their homes in the thatch.

  The mosquito gauze, that was intended to keep the wide verandas insect-free, was rusted through and breaking away in tatters.

  The vegetable gardens were overgrown, the fences about them falling to pieces. The grounds of the homestead itself were thick with rank weed, and not only the Land-Rover had died. No single piece of machinery on the estate – water pump, toilet cistern, electricity generator, motor vehicle – was in working order.

  ‘It’s a mess, a frightful mess,’ David told Debra as they sat on the front step and drank mugs of sweet tea. Fortunately David had thought to bring emergency supplies with them.