Eagle in the Sky

by Wilbur Smith

The weeks that followed were as good then as they had ever been. David’s appreciation was sharper, edged by the storm shadows on the horizon, the time of plenty made more poignant by the possibility of the drought years coming. He tried to draw it out beyond its natural time. It was five weeks more before he flew to Nelspruit again, and then only because Debra was anxious to learn of any further news from her publishers and agent, and to pick up her typing.

  ‘I would like to have my hair set, and although I know we don’t really need them, David, my darling, we should keep in touch with people – like once a month – don’t you think?’

  ‘Has it been that long?’ David asked innocently, although each day had been carefully weighed and tallied, the actuality savoured and the memory stored for the lean times ahead.

  David left Debra at the beauty salon, and as he went out he could hear her pleading with the girl not to ‘put it up into those tight little curls and plaster it with lacquer’ and even in the anxiety of the moment, David grinned for he had always thought of the hairstyle she was describing as ‘Modern Cape Dutch’ or ‘Randburg Renaissance’.

  The postbox was crammed full and David sorted quickly through the junk mail and picked out three letters from Debra’s American agent, and two envelopes with Israeli stamps. Of these one was addressed in a doctor’s prescription scrawl, and David was surprised that it had found its destination. The writing on the second envelope was unmistakable, it marched in martial ranks, each letter in step with the next, and the high strokes were like the weapons of a company of pike men, spiky and abrupt.

  David found a bench in the park under the purple jacaranda trees, and he opened Edelman’s letter first. It was in Hebrew, which made deciphering even more difficult.

  Dear David,

  Your letter came as a surprise, and I have since studied the X-ray plates once more. They seem unequivocal, and upon an interpretation of them I would not hesitate to confirm my original prognosis—

  Despite himself, David felt the small stirrings of relief.

  – However, if I have learned anything in twenty-five years of practice, it is humility. I can only accept that your observations of light-sensitivity are correct. Having done so, then I must also accept that there is at least partial function of the optic nerves. This presupposes that the nerve was not completely divided, and it seems reasonable to believe now that it was only partially severed, and that now – possibly due to the head blows that Debra received – it has regained some function.

  The crucial question is just how great that recovery is, and again I must warn you that it may be as minimal as it is at the present time, when it amounts to nothing more than light sensitivity without any increase to the amount of vision. It may, however, be greater, and it is within the realms of possibility that with treatment some portion of sight may be regained. I do not expect, however, that this will ever amount to more than a vague definition of light or shape, and a decision would have to be made as to whether any possible benefit might not be outweighed by the undesirability of surgery within such a vulnerable area.

  I would, of course, be all too willing to examine Debra myself. However, it will probably be inconvenient for you to journey to Jerusalem, and I have therefore taken the liberty of writing to a colleague of mine in Cape Town who is one of the leading world authorities on optical trauma. He is Dr Ruben Friedman and I enclose a copy of my letter to him. You will see that I have also dispatched to him Debra’s original X-ray plates and a clinical history of her case.

  I would recommend most strongly that you take the first opportunity of presenting Debra to Dr Friedman, and that you place in him your complete confidence. I might add that the optical unit of Groote Schuur Hospital is rightly world-renowned and fully equipped to provide any treatment necessary – they do not restrict their activities to heart transplants!

  I have taken the liberty of showing your letter to General Mordecai, and of discussing the case with him—

  David folded the letter the carefully. ‘Why the hell did he have to bring the Brig into it, talk about a war horse in a rose garden—’ and he opened the Brig’s letter.

  Dear David,

  Dr Edelman has spoken with me. I have telephoned Friedman in Cape Town, and he has agreed to see Debra.

  For some years I have been postponing a lecture tour to South Africa which the S.A. Zionist Council has been urging upon me. I have today written to them and asked them to make the arrangements.

  This will give us the excuse to bring Debra to Cape Town. Tell her I have insufficient time to visit you on your farm but insist upon seeing her.

  I will give you my dates later, and expect to see you then—

  It was in typical style, brusque and commanding, presupposing acquiescence. It was out of David’s hands now. There was no turning back, but there was still the chance that it would not work. He found himself hoping for that – and his own selfishness sickened him a little. He turned over the letter and on the reverse he drafted a dummy letter from the Brig setting out his plans for the forthcoming tour. This was for Debra, and he found faint amusement in aping the Brig’s style, so that he might read it aloud to Debra convincingly.

  Debra was ecstatic when he read it to her and he experienced a twinge of conscience at his deceit.

  ‘It will be wonderful seeing him again, I wonder if Mother will be coming out with him—?’

  ‘He didn’t say, but I doubt it.’ David sorted the American mail into chronological order from the post marks, and read them to her. The first two were editorial comment on Burning Bright and were set aside for detailed reply – but the third letter was another with hard news.

  United Artists wanted to film A Place of Our Own and were talking impressively heavy figures for the twelvemonth option against an outright purchase of the property and a small percentage of the profits. However, if Debra would go to California and write the screenplay, Bobby Dugan felt sure he could roll it all into a quarter-million-dollar package. He wanted her to weigh the fact that even established novelists were seldom asked to write their own screenplays – this was an offer not to be lightly spurned, and he urged Debra to accept.

  ‘Who needs people?’ Debra laughed it away quickly, too quickly – and David caught the wistful expression before she turned her head away and asked brightly, ‘Have you got any of that champagne left, Morgan? I think we can celebrate – don’t you?’

  ‘The way you’re going, Morgan, I’d best lay in a store of the stuff,’ he replied, and went to the gas refrigerator. It foamed to the rim of the glass as he poured the wine, and before it subsided and he had carried the glass to her, he had made his decision.

  ‘Let’s take his advice seriously, and think about you going to Hollywood,’ he said, and put the glass in her hand.

  ‘What’s to think about?’ she asked. ‘This is where we belong.’

  ‘No, let’s wait a while before replying—’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She lowered the glass without tasting the wine.

  ‘We will wait until – let’s say, until after we have seen the Brig in Cape Town.’

  ‘Why?’ She looked puzzled. ‘Why should it be different then?’

  ‘No reason. It’s just that it is an important decision – the choice of time is arbitrary, however.’

  ‘Beseder!’ she agreed readily, and raised the glass to toast him. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said, and as he drank he was glad that she had so many roads to choose from.

  The Brig’s arrangements allowed them three more weeks before the rendezvous in Cape Town, and David drew upon each hour to the full, anticipating his chances of expulsion from their private Eden.

  They were happy days and it seemed that nature had conspired to give them of her best. The good rains fell steadily, always beginning in the afternoon after a morning of tall clouds and heavy air filled with static and the feel of thunder. In the sunset the lightning played and flickered across the gilt cloud banks, turned by the angry
sun to the colour of burnished bronze and virgins’ blushes. Then in the darkness as they lay entwined, the thunder struck like a hammer blow and the lightning etched the window beyond the bed to a square of blinding white light, and the rain came teeming down with the sound of wild fire and running hooves. With David beside her, Debra was unafraid.

  In the morning it was bright and cool, the trees washed sparkling clean so that the leaves glinted in the early sun and the earth was dark with water and spangled with standing pools.

  The rains brought life and excitement to the wild things, and each day held its small discoveries – unexpected visitations, and strange occurrences.

  The fish eagles moved their two chicks from the great shaggy nest in the mhobahoba at the head of the pools and taught them to perch out on the bare limb that supported it. They sat there day after day, seeming to gather their courage. The parent birds were frenetic in their ministrations, grooming their offspring for the great moment of flight.

  Then one morning, as he and Debra ate breakfast on the stoop, David heard the swollen chorus of their chanting cries, harsh with triumph, and he took Debra’s hand and they went down the steps into the open. David looked up and saw the four dark shapes spread on wide wings against the clear blue of the sky – and his spirit soared with them in their moment of achievement. They flew upwards in great sweeping circles, until they dwindled to specks and vanished, gone to their autumn grounds upon the Zambezi River, two thousand miles to the north.

  There was, however, one incident during those last days that saddened and subdued them both. One morning, they walked four miles northwards beyond the line of hills to a narrow wedge-shaped plain on which stood a group of towering leadwood trees.

  A pair of martial eagles had chosen the tallest leadwood as their mating ground. The female was a beautiful young bird but the male was past his prime. They had begun constructing their nest on a high fork, but the work was interrupted by the intrusion of a lone male eagle, a big young bird, fierce and proud and acquisitive. David had noticed him lurking about the borders of the territory, carefully avoiding overflying the airspace claimed by the breeding pair, choosing a perch on the hills overlooking the plain and gathering his confidence for the confrontation he was so clearly planning. The impending conflict had its particular fascination for David and his sympathy was with the older bird as he made his warlike show, screeching defiance from his perch upon the high branches of the leadwood or weaving his patrols along his borders, turning on his great wings always within the limits of that which he claimed as his own.

  David had decided to walk up to the plain that day, in order to choose a site for the photographic blind he planned to erect overlooking the nest site, and also in curiosity as to the outcome of this primeval clash between the two males.

  It seemed more than chance that he had chosen the day when the crisis was reached.

  David and Debra came up through the gap in the hills and paused to sit on an outcrop of rock overlooking the plain while they regained their breath. The battlefield was spread below them.

  The old bird was at the nest, a dark hunched shape with white breast and head set low on the powerful shoulders. David looked for the invader, sweeping the crests of the hills with his binoculars, but there was no sign of him. He dropped the binoculars to his chest and he and Debra talked quietly for a while.

  Then suddenly David’s attention was attracted by the behaviour of the old eagle. He launched suddenly into flight, striking upwards on his great black pinions, and there was an urgency in the way he bored for height.

  His climb brought him close over their heads, so that David could clearly see the cruel curve of the beak and the ermine black splashes that decorated the imperial snow of his breast.

  He opened the yellow beak and shrieked a harsh challenge, and David turned quickly in the old fighter pilot’s sweep of sky and cloud. He saw the cunning of it immediately. The younger bird had chosen his moment and his attack vector with skill beyond his years. He was towering in the sun, high and clear, a flagrant trespasser, daring the old eagle to come up at him, and David felt his skin crawl in sympathy as he watched the defender climb slowly on flogging wings.

  Quickly, and a little breathlessly, he described it to Debra and she reached for his hand, her sympathy with the old bird also.

  ‘Tell me!’ she commanded.

  The young bird sailed calmly in waiting circles, cocking his head to watch his adversary’s approach.

  ‘There he goes!’ David’s voice was taut, as the attacker went wing over and began his stoop.

  ‘I can hear him,’ Debra whispered, and the sound of his wings carried clearly to them, rustling like a bush fire in dry grass as he dived on the old bird.

  ‘Break left! Go! Go! Go!’ David found he was calling to the old eagle as though he were flying wingman for him, and he gripped Debra’s hand until she winced. The old eagle seemed almost to hear him, for he closed his wings and flicked out of the path of the strike, tumbling for a single turn so that the attacker hissed by him with talons reaching uselessly through air, his speed plummeting him down into the basin of the plain.

  The old bird caught and broke out of his roll with wings half-cocked, and streaked down after the other. In one veteran stroke of skill he had wrested the advantage.

  ‘Get him!’ screamed David. ‘Get him when he turns! Now!’

  The young bird was streaking towards the tree-tops and swift death, he flared his wings to break his fall, turning desperately to avoid the lethal stoop of his enemy. In that moment he was vulnerable and the old eagle reached forward with his terrible spiked talons and without slackening the searing speed of his dive he hit the other bird in the critical moment of his turn.

  The thud of the impact carried clearly to the watchers on the hill and there was a puff of feathers like the burst of explosives, black from the wings and white from the breast.

  Locked together by the old bird’s honed killing claws, they tumbled, wing over tangled wing, feathers streaming from their straining bodies and then drifting away like thistledown on the light breeze.

  Still joined in mortal combat, they struck the top branches of one of the leadwood trees, and fell through them to come to rest at last in a high fork as an untidy bundle of ruffled feathers and trailing wings.

  Leading Debra over the rough ground David hurried down the hill and through the coarse stands of arrow grass to the tree.

  ‘Can you see them?’ Debra asked anxiously, as David focused his binoculars on the struggling pair.

  ‘They are trapped,’ David told her. ‘The old fellow has his claws buried to the hilt in the other’s back. He will never be able to free them and they have fallen across the fork, one on either side of the tree.’

  The screams of rage and agony rang from the hills about them, and the female eagle sailed anxiously above the leadwood. She added her querulous screeching to the sound of conflict.

  ‘The young bird is dying.’ David studied him through the lens, watching the carmine drops ooze from the gaping yellow beak to fall and glisten upon the snowy breast, like a dying king’s rubies.

  ‘And the old bird—’ Debra listened to the clamour with face upturned, her eyes dark with concern.

  ‘He will never get those claws loose, they lock automatically as soon as pressure is applied and he will not be able to lift himself. He will die also.’

  ‘Can’t you do something?’ Debra was tugging at his arm. ‘Can’t you help him?’

  Gently he tried to explain to her that the birds were locked together seventy feet above the earth. The bole of the leadwood was smooth and without branches for the first fifty feet of its height. It would take days of effort to reach the birds, and by then it would be too late.

  ‘Even if one could reach them, darling, they are two wild creatures, fierce and dangerous, those beaks and talons could tear the eyes out of your head or rip you to the bone – nature does not like interference in her designs.’

  �
��Isn’t there anything we can do?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered quietly. ‘We can come back in the morning to see if he has been able to free himself. But we will bring a gun with us, in case he has not.’

  In the dawn they came together to the leadwood tree. The young bird was dead, hanging limp and graceless, but the old bird was still alive, linked by his claws to the carcass of the other, weak and dying but with the furious yellow flames still burning in his eyes. He heard their voices and twisted the shaggy old head and opened his beak in a last defiant cry.

  David loaded the shotgun, snapping the barrels closed and staring up at the old eagle. ‘Not you alone, old friend,’ he thought, and he lifted the gun to his shoulder and hit him with two charges of buckshot. They left him hanging in tatters with trailing wings and the quick patter of blood slowing to a dark steady drip. David felt as though he had destroyed a part of himself in that blast of gunfire, and the shadow of it was cast over the bright days that followed.

  These few days sped past too swiftly for David, and when they were almost gone he and Debra spent the last of them wandering together across Jabulani, visiting each of their special places and seeking out the various herds or individual animals almost as if they were taking farewell of old friends. In the evening they came to the place amongst the fever trees beside the pools, and they sat there until the sun had fallen below the earth in a splendour of purples and muted pinks. Then the mosquitoes began whining about their heads, and they strolled back hand in hand and came to the homestead in the dark.

  They packed their bags that night and left them on the stoep, ready for an early start. Then they drank champagne beside the barbecue fire. The wine lifted their mood and they laughed together in their little island of firelight in the vast ocean of the African night – but for David there were echoes from the laughter, and he was aware of a sense of finality, of an ending of something and a new beginning.