by M. M. Kaye
12
The Land-Rovers bumped and bounced and jolted over the unmade lake road, trailing the inevitable dust clouds behind them like smoke from an express train, and the morning was hot and blue and brilliant.
The country was more rugged here, near the foothills of the Mau, and oddly shaped hillocks that had once been the cones of volcanoes jutted up out of the plain, turning from green to darkest midnight blue as an idling cloud shadow would engulf one and silhouette it blackly against the surrounding blaze of sunlight.
There was little game to be seen at this hour of the day, for in the hot noonday the great herds of zebra and gazelle that grazed across the open ranges in the early morning and the late afternoon had retired to the shade of the trees. But in a grove of acacias outside a small village a troop of baboons howled and leapt and danced among the branches as the Land-Rovers passed.
The picnic party had arrived separately at the Brandons’ farm, and had there sorted themselves out into three Land-Rovers. Ken Brandon and Lisa in Drew Stratton’s, Em with Mabel and Hector, and Victoria and Gilly with Eden.
Eden’s complement had also included Thuku, Em’s African driver, and old Zacharia who had been brought along to deal with such tedious but necessary chores as the cleaning of dirty knives and dishes, the disposal of debris and the repacking of depleted baskets. The Brandons had also brought their driver, Samuel, for it was still not considered safe to leave a vehicle unguarded in the remoter parts of the Rift, and both Samuel and Thuku carried loaded shot-guns.
‘There’s Crater Lake,’ announced Gilly, breaking a silence that had lasted for several miles. ‘Or rather, there’s the rim of the crater. Over on the right——’
‘But there’s no road,’ objected Victoria.
‘Lor’ bless you, we don’t need roads in this country,’ said Gilly. ‘What do you take us for? Sissies? I admit that this appalling chain of rocks and potholes that we have been bouncing along for the last umpteen miles or so calls itself a road, but you won’t notice any appreciable difference when we take to the open range. Here we go!’
As he spoke, Eden drove the Land-Rover off the dust-laden road and across a long stretch of open country that sloped upward towards high ground crowned with rocks, candelabrum trees, thorn scrub and thickets of wild olive.
‘See what I mean?’ demanded Gilly, returning violently to his seat from hitting his head on the canvas roof. Victoria, who had inadvertently bitten her tongue, nodded dumbly and braced herself to withstand a sharp list to starboard as they roared up a steep cattle track that climbed over rocks and roots, and came at last to a stop in a small clearing where the two Land-Rovers that had preceded them were already parked.
‘Well, that’s as far as we can go,’ said Eden, applying the brake and wiping the dust out of his eyes. ‘We walk from here.’
Gilly descended and went round to the back of the car to superintend the removal of the beer, and Eden jumped out and reached up to lift Victoria down.
He held her for a full half-minute before he released her, and Victoria, looking into the grey eyes that were so near her own, was astonished to realize that her pulse had not quickened nor her heart missed a beat, and that for the first time in her life she was looking at him as though he were a friend, or a cousin, instead of the glamour-gilded Hero of all Romance that he had been to her for so many years.
Her feet touched the ground, and feeling it rough and solid under her shoes it was as if she had touched reality at long last and relinquished her grasp upon illusion.
Eden released her, but she did not move away. She stood in the hot sunlight looking at him gravely and intently, and he smiled his charming quizzical smile and said lightly: ‘What is it, Vicky? Learning me by heart?’
‘No,’ said Victoria slowly. ‘I know you by heart. I think that’s always been my trouble. I’ve never known you any other way.’
‘You mean, never with your head? Then don’t start now, darling. You mightn’t like me with your hard little head, and I couldn’t bear that.’
He lifted her hand and kissed it, and then suddenly his face changed. The warmth went out of his eyes and he dropped her hand, and Victoria, turning, saw that Lisa and Drew had walked back to the cars and were standing within a few yards of them, having obviously witnessed the brief scene. It was also equally obvious that neither of them was pleased. Drew looked blank and bored and thoroughly disagreeable, and Lisa looked frankly furious.
It was, somehow, a deeply embarrassing moment out of all proportion to the triviality of the occasion, and facing Lisa’s white-faced, tight-lipped jealousy and Drew’s cold eyes, Victoria found herself blushing as hotly as though she had been guilty of some gross impropriety. She looked away and became aware that Gilly too was an interested spectator. He had come round from the back of the car and was leaning against it, studying his wife with detached interest as though she had been some stranger whom he had not previously met. His gaze took in her ultra-feminine and un-picnic-like garb, and once again there was comprehension and malice in his face, as though he were perfectly aware for whose approval she had dressed.
His glance slid past her and came to rest on Victoria, neat and slim in slacks and shirt, and he said meditatively and in the manner of one speaking a thought aloud: ‘You know, she’s good, this girl: she uses her head. Lisa’ll have to work fast. Very fast!’
Eden said coldly: ‘What are you babbling about, Gilly? Have you got the stuff unloaded?’
‘I was musing, like Polonius, on the frailty of human nature,’ said Gilly. ‘Whose violent property fordoes itself, and leads the will to desperate undertakings, as oft as any passion under heaven – and if you were referring to the beer, yes. I have unloaded it and it is on its way up. Hadn’t somebody better stay and keep an eye on our transport, just in case the odd terrorist is still using this salubrious spot as a hide-out?’
Drew said briefly: ‘Thuku can stay around.’ And taking Lisa by the arm he turned her about and started back up the steep slope, the others following in single file behind him.
Lisa had not spoken, but Drew, holding her arm, could feel that she was shivering as though with ague, and he said sharply: ‘Hold up, Lisa! If you don’t look where you’re going you’ll end up with a broken ankle. Here we are——’
They had come out on a bare expanse of broken rock, and below them, ringed by the steep sides of the crater and bordered by a jungle of scrub and acacias, lay a little green lake. The eeriest place, thought Victoria, looking down on it, that she had ever seen. And the most silent.
The sky overhead was clear and blue, but the lake did not reflect it, and the whole cup of the crater was as green and dark and still as though a cold cloud shadow had fallen directly upon it. Victoria shivered, and drawing back from the edge of the cliff, said doubtfully: ‘It looks rather an unfriendly place, doesn’t it?’
‘A Daniel come to judgement!’ said Gilly. ‘My opinion exactly. A morgue. However, don’t worry, a few drinks will brighten your viewpoint considerably – and mine. And if you’re worrying about the dangers of the African bush, Hector, Eden and Ken are all Grade A marksmen, while Drew has Annie Oakley beat to a frazzle. Anything she could do, he can do better. You are as safe as houses – except for the flies. And Mabel and her flit gun will probably be able to repel those. Let’s go.’
Victoria laughed a little shamefacedly, and Drew, after favouring her with a brief, frowning glance, turned and led the way along the rim of the crater to a point where there was a fairly easy route down the cliff to the trees and the lake edge.
They met the Brandons’ driver, Samuel, coming up the narrow track having helped carry down the baskets, and found Em, Mabel and Hector comfortably ensconced on rugs and ground sheets in the shade while Zacharia unpacked the luncheon.
Ken Brandon, who had been on a solitary ramble, reported that he had seen the pug marks of a leopard in a patch of wet mud at the far side of the lake, and that there was the skeleton of a big warthog among the bushe
s. He exhibited one of the enormous curved tusks, and said: ‘Look at that! Must have been the great-grandfather of all warthogs. I’ve never seen tusks that size before.’
The air of embittered gloom had temporarily left him, and he looked boyish and refreshingly normal as he handled the yellowed chunk of ivory.
‘Leopard kill?’ enquired Drew.
Ken shook his head. ‘No. The bones are complete. Old age probably. Or perhaps he was wounded somewhere on Conville’s range, and came here to die.’
‘Or got bitten by a snake?’ suggested Gilly.
Ken dropped the tusk on to the ground and the animation went out of his face. He said: ‘Perhaps,’ in a colourless voice, and went to sit beside Lisa, who moved over to make room for him.
* * *
It was well past two o’clock by the time Zacharia had washed up in the scummy water of the lake, and assisted by Samuel had carried the picnic baskets back up the cliff path to the cars.
Hector departed to inspect the leopard’s spoor and the skeleton of the warthog, while his wife produced a voluminous cretonne bag and settled down to some knitting, and Em, who had thoughtfully provided herself with a cushion, announced her intention of resting for at least an hour.
The remaining members of the party had gone off to explore the crater – with the exception of Gilly who, having drunk two bottles of beer on top of seven pink gins, had quarrelled with Hector, been offensive to Ken Brandon and been spoken to sharply by Em, and had retired with a rug and a flit gun to sleep it off behind a clump of bushes. Lisa’s sandals, however, were not made for exploring, and she had clung to Eden’s arm and they had fallen back and got separated from the others, so that Victoria found herself left with Drew Stratton and young Mr Brandon. Neither of her companions evinced the slightest desire to talk, and Victoria only noticed that Ken had removed himself elsewhere when they had made an almost complete circuit of the crater and she had turned to ask him where he had seen the leopard’s pug marks.
‘He left us about ten minutes ago,’ said Mr Stratton, bored. ‘Is there anything else you want to see?’
‘Not here,’ said Victoria with a shiver. ‘I don’t think I like this place. And I don’t think it likes us. It’s too quiet.’
She turned her head, listening, and in the silence they could hear faintly but distinctly, and coming from somewhere twenty or thirty yards ahead and out of sight, a sound that after a moment or two she identified as snores. That would be Gilly Markham – or Em! The snores ended on a loud snort, and after an interval of silence began again, and Victoria turned back to Mr Stratton and enquired uneasily if he really thought that there might be a leopard in the crater?
‘Possibly,’ said Drew, without interest. ‘There are hundreds of hiding places among the rocks, and those pug marks were fairly new. Which is one reason why you can’t be left to wander round here on your own.’
Victoria stood still and stared at him for a fulminating moment. ‘If that means that you feel that you have to stay around in order to protect me, you needn’t bother. I shall be quite safe, and I don’t want to explore any more.’ She sat down on a convenient boulder, with her chin in the air, and added coldly: ‘Don’t let me keep you.’
Drew looked at her thoughtfully for a full half-minute, and then he shrugged his shoulders slightly and turned away.
Victoria watched him go with a mixture of resentment and apprehension, and was strongly tempted to call him back. Not because she anticipated any danger from leopards or terrorists, but because she did not like being left alone in this eerie and disquieting spot, even though she knew that nine other people were presumably within call, and at least three of them – Aunt Emily, Mrs Brandon and Mr Markham – less than thirty yards away. But Drew had disappeared among the thick belt of trees and she could no longer hear the bushes rustling as he moved. She sat quite still, listening; but no one seemed to be moving anywhere in the crater, and the silence flowed back into it, filling it as a cup is filled with water.
It was not in any way a peaceful silence, but a stealthy, all-pervading stillness that contained a disturbing quality of awareness. And suddenly, and for no reason, she was afraid. Where had everyone else got to? Had they all stolen away and left her alone in this horrible place? She must find them again. She would walk over to the trees where they had picnicked, and sit beside Aunt Em and Mrs Brandon and listen to the comforting click of Mrs Brandon’s knitting needles.
But she found that she could not make the first move to break that brooding silence, and when at last she heard movements among the trees the sounds were as frightening as the silence had been, for there was about them the same disquieting suggestion of stealth; as though someone – or perhaps several people? – were moving within the crater with infinite caution and the minimum of noise.
Once a stone rattled down from the cliffs with a small metallic clatter that was uncomfortably reminiscent of the chatter of teeth, and then a twig cracked, and Victoria turned quickly: but there was no one there. Only the trees and the shadows and the rank grass – and a flicker of movement that might have been imagination or a bird flitting between the leaves.
‘Who’s there?’ called Victoria, astonished at the huskiness of her own voice. ‘Is anyone there?’
The words seemed astonishingly loud in the silence, but no one answered her, and a minute or two later the undergrowth rustled as though something or someone was moving stealthily away. The soft sound grew fainter until it was submerged at last by the silence, and though there were no more sounds Victoria did not move. She sat quite still, listening intently, while the sun moved slowly down the sky and the deep blue shadow of the cliff crept forward across the cup of the crater. Only when it touched her did she give herself a mental shake and stand up.
I’m behaving like an idiot, thought Victoria with disgust: sitting here working myself into a panic over nothing, just because everyone else has very sensibly done what Aunt Em and Mrs Brandon have – gone to sleep! And with that thought courage flowed back and her fears seemed childish, and she began to walk along the marshy margin of the lake towards the spot where they had picnicked. She had almost reached it when a sound that was painfully associated with her recent flight out from England assaulted her ears, and she stopped in sudden distaste. Mr Markham, having awoken from sleep, was obviously – and regrettably – engaged in parting with his lunch and the excess of alcohol with which he had insulted his long-suffering stomach.
Victoria turned and tiptoed away again, feeling for the first time deeply sorry for Gilly’s wife, and she was halfway round the far side of the lake when Hector Brandon came out of the bushes a few yards ahead of her and waved cheerfully, and a moment later Lisa Markham joined them. They found Ken Brandon taking photographs with a large box camera, and as they reached the little clearing where they had picnicked, Drew came down the cliff path and Eden strolled out from between the tree trunks.
Em was asleep – her hat tilted well over her nose – and Mabel’s busy needles were silent while their owner snored gently.
‘A pretty and peaceful picture,’ commented Eden. ‘But unless we’re going to have tea here, it’s time we moved on. Wake up, Gran darling!’
Em grunted like a startled warthog, and sitting up with a jerk that dislodged her hat, glared at her grandson.
‘I wish,’ she said crossly, ‘that you would all go away and let me have a short rest. Surely you can amuse yourselves somewhere else for half an hour?’
‘You’ve been resting, darling. And for well over an hour! It’s getting on for half-past three.’
‘That’s right,’ confirmed Hector, who had been rousing his sleeping wife. ‘Time we were makin’ tracks. Here are Zach and Samuel to carry up the rugs. Better let ’em take your cushion too. Hope we haven’t left any bottles about. Where’s Gilly?’
‘Still sleeping it off, I expect,’ said Eden. He raised his voice and called out: ‘Hi, Gilly, wake up! We’re off! Ken, go and rout him out.’
�
�Rout him out yourself,’ said Ken sulkily.
Eden raised his brows, and the boy coloured hotly and said: ‘Oh, all right,’ and plunged round the clump of bushes behind which Gilly had retired for his afternoon nap. They heard him give an exclamation of disgust and mutter in an undertone, ‘Tight again!’ and then, loudly: ‘Hi, Gilly – we’re going: wake up! Gilly——!’
There followed an indescribable gasp, and the next minute he was back again, his face a sickly white and his eyes wide and staring. ‘I – I can’t wake him! I think he’s having a fit.’
Drew departed at a run, closely followed by Hector, and the remainder of the party, rounding the bushes, found him on his knees beside Gilly’s recumbent body.
Gilly was shivering violently, and Drew looked up and said curtly: ‘It looks like an attack of fever. Has he ever had malaria, Lisa?’
‘No,’ said Lisa, staring in white-faced distaste at her husband’s shuddering body. ‘I don’t think so. But he did once have——’ She checked herself abruptly and bit her lip.
‘D.T.’s,’ finished Hector bluntly. ‘Yes, we know. Perhaps you’re right.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Em crisply. ‘He may have had too much to drink, but he certainly wasn’t that drunk. Must be malaria.’
‘He’s not hot,’ said Drew, laying a hand on Gilly’s sweating forehead.
Em bent down to touch him, and drawing back with a gasp, struck with her stick at something that had lain concealed by a fold of the rug.
‘Look out!’ shouted Hector, leaping forward. ‘Snake!’ He snatched the stick from her hand and beat at the puff adder that had been curled up near Gilly’s arm, and Ken Brandon ran in with a broken branch, and lifting the limp, battered thing, flung it far out so that it fell with a splash into the silent lake.
