by D C Macey
‘I think we’ve made it in time. You pull ahead of me. Go straight down the slope, slowly. There are men marking the entrance and exit to the crossing, just steer a straight line between the two. Once you’re in the water, don’t stop for anything.’
‘Sam, I spent years in West Africa, I’ve driven Land Rovers through more river crossings than I can remember. I’ll be fine.’
‘Okay, I know, but this water is rising, and it looks to be picking up speed. And don’t forget, you’ve got extra weight up top.’
He broke off to check the ties that secured the dead morani to her roof rack. The bodies were covered, protected from the rain by Mauwled’s little tent that the warriors had found scrunched up in the rear of the Land Rover.
‘Drive past me then pause at the bank. I’m going to hook the steel cable from the 4 x 4’s front winch to the back of the Land Rover, if the river does take you we might be able to stop you being carried away completely. When you are on the other side, go right up the bank to solid ground and then we’ll use the cable as an anchor point for me - if necessary you can drive ahead to pull the 4 x 4 out if I get stuck.’
‘Great, see you on the other side.’
Sam slid his hand through the driver’s side window and squeezed Helen’s shoulder lightly. ‘Helen, take care.’
‘I’ll be fine, stop worrying. Now go and get me hooked up.’ She revved the Land Rover’s engine and edged ahead of the 4 x 4.
Once Sam had the cable hooked on to the back of the Land Rover he banged on its side and waved it on. Helen’s drove forward, allowing the vehicle to edge down the bank, pausing for just a moment at the foot. Then, as the moran on the bank beckoned her on, Helen drove out into the water. She didn’t stop, executing a textbook crossing. The vehicle struggled for only a moment as it started to pull up the bank on the far side.
Sam let out a little sigh of relief as the orange Land Rover crested the far bank and stopped on the level. Helen got out for a moment, gave him a wave and then jumped back in the driver’s seat, ready to edge ahead and take any slack out of the steel cable that linked the two vehicles as Sam crossed towards her.
The 4 x 4 was not as sturdy as the Land Rover but its raised snorkel exhaust and well-built water seal doors kept the rising waters out and Sam made it across too. At the top of the bank, he stopped and got out. He was immediately joined by the moran who had been marking the far bank and had clung on to the back of Sam’s 4 x 4 when it had entered the water. Everyone was over.
Some yards ahead, he saw Helen unhooking the tow cable and he wound it back in on the winch. She followed the hook back along the track, and as it clunked to a stop against the winch bar, she arrived next to him.
Sam grinned at her. ‘Piece of cake.’
‘Told you not to worry.’ She gave him a hug, he hugged her back. They touched lips in a brief kiss then separated when Charles hobbled from the passenger door to join them.
‘What now?’ said Helen.
Sam pointed off along the track. A group of elders and the small number of Charles’ morani who had remained behind at the boma when their expedition had set off were now emerging through the blur of the rain.
‘I think you should get back to the boma with the wounded now. The sooner they get treatment the better. And there are families who will want their dead.’
Helen hesitated for just a moment. She sensed there was business afoot at the riverbank.
‘Really, you should go now,’ said Sam, reaching out a hand and resting it on her forearm, he squeezed. ‘Please.’
Helen realised that Sam was not really asking; there was an urgency in his voice that she rarely heard.
‘Okay,’ she said. With a rueful glance around, she turned and walked back to the Land Rover. A moment later, Sam heard the engine kick into life and it rolled away, quickly disappearing into the rain gloomed bush.
• • •
In the clearing outside the boma, Helen drove the Land Rover past a large helicopter. It had red, white and blue roundels together with little Union Jacks painted on the nose, and on the fuselage were large red crosses set against white circles. The flight crew was sat inside the aircraft, watching her pass. If nothing else, it confirmed that Rupert had told the truth about the medical team.
She pulled to a halt just outside the boma gates. A rainproof shelter had been rigged by the medical team - an open-sided tent, a sheet of canvas for a floor and a trestle table set up in the middle. She was quite impressed that they had such a portable shelter kit with them. As Helen got out of the Land Rover, she was met by the medics.
‘I’ve got wounded. All gun shots.’
‘Great, thanks. We’ll take it from here. Have you been in a war zone or something?’ The military medics kicked into action, using the Land Rover as a holding area where they did a quick triage assessment of the injuries and began taking the wounded one at a time for treatment.
Standing off to one side of the treatment area but still under the canvas, Helen listened as the steady drum of rain on the canvas above her head provided a back score to the wailing and crying of the women of the boma as they carefully lowered the dead morani down and carried their bodies away. When the last of the bodies had disappeared inside the boma, she turned her attention back to watch the team efficiently treat one wound after another. The moran with a shattered leg was carried off to the helicopter - he needed more complex treatment that was beyond their field service resources.
‘I guess we’re your ride,’ came a voice from behind her.
Helen turned to see the pilot. ‘I sure hope so, otherwise we’re in trouble.’
‘Looks to me like you’ve already been in a bit of trouble.’
‘Ha, something and nothing,’ said Helen lightly.
‘More something than nothing, I’m thinking. Don’t worry, I’ve been told not to ask questions.’
Helen gave him a grateful smile. She was suddenly feeling very drained. Right now, she didn’t need questions.
‘Come and wait in the aircraft, it’s not luxury but better than this. And I’ve got coffee.’
‘Oh, coffee, I’ll go for that,’ said Helen. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve anything a bit stronger by any chance? I could manage a glass for sure.’
The pilot laughed. ‘Sorry, no alcohol. I might have some chocolate though. If you friend hasn’t eaten it all.’
‘My friend?’
‘Yes, African guy, shot in the shoulder and has a little head scratch, seems to like chocolate.’
‘Mauwled! They’ve fixed him up already? Great, let’s go see.’
• • •
The morani were ranged along the bank - just upstream from the fording point, beside the natural pool Sam had spotted the previous evening. It was so valued because it stayed wet even during the driest times of the year. It was also here that the biggest of the crocodiles necessarily gathered through the dry months. With the steady dropping of the water levels, their opportunities for ambush had diminished. Some had not eaten for months; they were hungry and now, with the coming of the rains, they would quickly spread out to their favoured spots, upstream and down. But first, an unexpected feast.
It was raining, first water and then men. One after another, bodies had dropped into the pool. The first splash had alerted them, then the taste of man had spread through the water like a sounding dinner gong, and from all across the pool, they came. Closing in on the Korean cadavers, jaws snapping, tails swiping, hissing, all vying for a good grip; then the spinning and rolling, the ripping of flesh as, one by one, the Koreans’ bodies were torn apart.
It had not taken long for the larger crocodiles in the pool to take their share. Then the meat was gone, and the waters fell still. The only visible movements remaining were from the smaller crocodiles who were just too far down the pecking order to have eaten. They hovered, still hoping that the man-rain might resume.
Sam had stood two or three paces back from the morani while the scene unfolded. Solutions to pro
blems in the bush were uncompromising and swift. It was not nice, nature at its most brutal; but he had to admit to himself, Charles had been as good as his word to Rupert. The bush had taken the Koreans; there would never be any evidence of their presence here.
He wondered what fate Charles had in store for Ro and turned to look back towards the vehicle where Ro had been left. He was standing outside it, exactly where his morani guards had left him while they helped carry the bodies to the bank. His hands remained tied, and before leaving him, they had tied his feet too. The defiance of before was gone now; Ro, too, had watched the show.
Charles stood in the middle of the row of men who were gathered along the bank, he leant heavily on his spear shaft, his face expressionless.
Sam stepped across to join him. ‘What about Ro? You can’t do that to him too, he’s alive.’
‘No, there must be a meeting of the elders to decide. I do not know what will happen. When a Maasai kills, there is a bill to pay: many cattle and goats and the families must agree. But this is different, he is an outsider - we will have to see.’
As they turned and started towards the vehicles, Sam shouted an alert. Ro had clearly decided he was not waiting for the Maasai to reach a decision on his fate. He’d stooped, managed to untie his feet and was running off along the bankside. The morani took up Sam’s cry and set off in pursuit.
With tied hands, Ro was at a disadvantage as he hurried along the bank above the pool, heading for the fording place beyond. After only a few paces, his plan collapsed. The leading moran had paused for just a moment to raise his rungu and, with the precision that came from years of practice, hurled it at Ro. It caught him square in the back and sent him tumbling forward.
Gasping for breath, Ro raised his head and saw the next moran about to seize him. He rolled to one side and Sam caught the look of surprise on Ro’s face when he dropped away from the closing moran. Sam saw the surprise turn to fear as Ro comprehended what was happening. Having rolled over the lip of the bank, he was sliding down towards the pool. The wet earth now offered no resistance, and even as his hands scrabbled at the muddy bank, he began to gather speed on the slide down.
Ro hit the surface with a splash. What had been dried earth just four hours before was now under a foot of water. He struggled to his hands and knees, getting his head and back clear of the surface. Then quickly rose to his feet and glanced about. Other than the falling rain’s pattern on the surface, here the water around him seemed still. Immediate anxiety easing, he turned to face the bank then looked up to see the gathered morani and Sam looking down at him.
Ro directed a slightly manic laugh towards his audience and then started to hurry round the edge of the ever-deepening pool. The water reached to just below the knee and it seemed Ro fancied his chances of making the fording point beyond the pool before it became completely unusable.
Sam had learnt long ago that still waters were no sign of safety. Just as he was about to call a warning, Ro realised that too. From the shallows directly in front of him, a young six-foot crocodile leapt and snapped. Ro was moving towards his attacker and could not evade it. His motion carried him directly towards the opening jaws. In despair, he cried out and raised his bound hands in futile defence. The crocodile closed its jaws on his hands, tight.
Sam saw the ugly predator, saw an empty eye socket; he knew exactly how that had been lost.
Ro was still on his feet though bent at the waist, the crocodile holding his bound hands and forearms tight, trying to drag him into deeper water while Ro desperately strained to work his legs back to the pool’s edge and out onto the bank.
He was caught in a deadly tug of war with the crocodile and his arms were the rope. He screamed for help and glanced back up the bank, cried again for assistance.
The morani stood impassively watching the struggle unfold. Sam could not. With a curse under his breath, he started for the lip of the bank. Bad as Ro was, nobody deserved to die like that.
Charles shouted and two morani grabbed Sam just as he went over the lip. Holding tight, they pulled him back to his feet at the top. Pinned between the two warriors, Sam looked angrily at Charles and was about to unleash a tirade in his direction when he suddenly became aware that Ro was silent. Charles pointed his club down towards the pool, and Sam traced the direction of his point. He shivered.
Ro was standing upright now. He hadn’t won the tug of war; the small crocodile had thought better and released him before slipping backwards quietly beneath the water, all the while its good eye glaring angrily at the one that got away.
Sam and the morani were all silent, looking down into the pool. Any sense of justice and anger that even the toughest of the warriors felt was replaced by a morbid horror as their darkest nightmares played before them.
The indignation Sam felt at Charles having stopped him vanished when he recognised his life had just been saved. Sam realised he was holding his breath and forced air into his lungs as, below them in the water, nature played out its eternal cycle. Ro’s entry splash and the commotion of the struggle with the smaller crocodile had alerted the big boys, and they were back for more.
Ro had given up shouting for help that couldn’t come. He was standing facing the pool’s edge, which he knew he could never reach. A huge crocodile had slid between him and the bank, cutting off his retreat. The monster was so big that, here in the shallows, even when pressed to the bottom its bulk was above the surface. It watched Ro and gave a hiss that carried up the bank to the audience.
Ro slowly turned his head, looked back out towards the deep, could see two other big boys had closed on him and were holding off for a moment, assessing his potential as a meal. He turned quickly back to look at the bankside crocodile. Sam realised Ro was not silent, he was whimpering to himself.
One of the crocs behind him flicked its tail and glided silently in. It turned its head slightly and nuzzled the back of Ro’s leg, letting its front teeth brush against trouser. Ro felt the touch and jerked his leg away. The crocodile instantly responded by snapping hard on the leg above the knee and dragging him back. Now Ro let out an uncontrollable scream of fear and pain, falling forward towards the water, instinctively reaching his bound hands out to break his fall.
Up on the bank Sam shrugged off the hands of the restraining morani. This was not something he wanted to be part of. They let him go just as the pool-edge monster decided Ro was his meal, and leapt forward, mouth open wide to catch the falling prey. Ro’s scream of terror stopped abruptly as his head and shoulders were engulfed, disappearing into the crocodile’s maw. Ro’s free leg continued to kick out in an uncontrollable though futile response as the two crocodiles vied for supremacy and hurriedly moved into deeper water.
Sam had already turned away when the crocodiles sank beneath the surface. In the deep, Ro’s free leg kicked just once more as the two giants began to spin, their death rolls ripping his still living body in two. The sound of churning water reached Sam, he knew what it meant. Didn’t need to look back to know the water would be frothing white and red. He hurried to his vehicle.
Pulling open the driver’s door, he looked back. ‘Come on, Charles. There’s a doctor waiting to treat you and I really need to go.’
35.
Monday, 4th November - PM
Helen put down her cutlery, lifted her glass and drained its last drops of rosé wine. As soon as she put the glass down, John Guthrie hurried to fill it.
‘I’m sure Sam won’t be long now,’ he said.
‘Well, I hope that a courtesy visit was the right thing to do. I’ve had my fill of bailing him out of African police stations.’
‘Oh, absolutely, the very best course of action. In fact, the authorities here are actually decent enough really, you know. It’s the local politics that are just a bit sticky at present. It’ll come good soon enough. In the meantime, Sam visiting police headquarters to apologise for his abrupt departure will help us in the, urrgh, the normalisation process.’
‘I
f you say so. But remember, John, if the Nairobi police lock him up, I’m holding you responsible.’
‘Don’t worry; he’ll be along in no time. His contrite apology will boost the local police chief’s self-esteem no end. And of course, it’s the High Commission that’s facilitated it, so we’ll benefit as the restorer of harmony. Do remember, Sam’s only transgression was to leave the country faster than the people chasing him. He hadn’t actually committed a crime in the first place. It’s all just about showing up, allowing local authorities to save face, and building bridges. We really are so very grateful you stopped off.’
‘Okay, I’m trusting you.’ She glanced around the Thorn Tree Café. The atmosphere was exactly as it had been when she and Sam had visited for afternoon tea just a few days before. It was the perfect picture of stability in a changing world; yet so much had happened in those past few days, she gave a little shiver. Then laughed to herself; Sam had promised she would come here to eat. He could never have guessed it would be with John.
John suddenly tensed, and Helen looked up to see a group of men approaching. It was Bishop Ignatius with his assistant and an escort. This time, not junior priests; now the bishop was followed by three of the burliest guards she had seen. John stood and moved to create a barrier between Helen and the newcomers. ‘Can I help you?’ he said.
Though outnumbered and outsized, Helen could tell that John would stand his ground. She reached out a hand and rested it on his forearm. ‘It’s okay, John. These are friends of mine.’
John looked doubtful. ‘Really?’ He looked at the guards. ‘Friends?’
‘Yes, really,’ said Helen, though she had still not really reconciled her relationship with the bishop.
‘Helen, we meet again, what fortune,’ said Bishop Ignatius.
‘Well, knowing you, your Grace, I’m not sure luck will have been a factor. But please join me.’ She waved a hand towards one of the seats, and with a chuckle, the bishop sat.
