Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  Claudia was standing beside her father. Now she smiled hesitantly, almost shyly, and took a step forward as if to offer her hand. She had released her hair from its plait and brushed it out into a dense, dark mane around her head. Her expression was soft and her eyes big and dark and lustrous. In the Toyota headlights her classical Latin features went beyond the merely handsome, and Sean realized for the first time that she was truly beautiful. Despite her beauty and her penitent attitude, he kept his expression cold and forbidding, nodded at her curtly, ignored the tentative offer to shake his hand, climbed up onto the wing of the Beechcraft, and ducked into the cockpit.

  Sean had cut the airstrip out of the brush himself and leveled it by dragging a bundle of old truck tires up and down it behind the Toyota. It was narrow, rough, and short, with a gradient falling toward the river. He lined up with the Beechcraft's tail backed into the bushes and, facing down the slope, stood on the brakes. He aimed at the lights of the Toyota at the far end of the strip while he ran up to full power on both engines and then let the brakes off.

  Just short of the trees at the end of the strip he pulled on the flaps and bounced the Beechcraft into the air. As always he crossed himself blasphemously with mock relief as he cleared the treetops and turned on course for Harare.

  During the flight he tried to plan his strategy. The director of the game department was an old friend, and Sean had successfully dealt with him in equally serious circumstances. The deputy, Geoffrey Manguza, however, was a horse of literally another color. The director was one of the few white civil servants still in charge of a department of government. Manguza would succeed him soon, the first black head of the game department.

  He and Sean had fought on opposite sides during the bush war, and Manguza had been an astute guerrilla leader and political commissar. The rumor was that he did not like the safari Concension owners, most of whom were white. The concept of private exploitation of state assets offended his Marxist principles, and he had shot too many white men during the war to have any great deal of liking or respect for them. It was going to be a difficult meeting. Sean sighed.

  Reema was waiting for him as he taxied in. A modern Indian woman, she had abandoned the said in favor of a neat pant-suit. She was not so modern, however, that she wished to choose her own husband. Her father and her uncles were working on that at the moment and had already come up with a likely candidate in Canada, a professor of Oriental religions at the University of Toronto.

  Sean hated them for it. Reema was a great asset to Courtney Safaris, and he knew he would never be able to replace her.

  She had the ambulance waiting on the tarmac beside the light aircraft hangars. Reema regularly bribed the guards at the main gate with dried game meat from the concession. In Africa, meat or the Promise of meat opens all gates.

  They followed the ambulance to the hospital in the Kombi.

  While Sean sat in the passenger seat glancing through the most urgent mail she had brought for his attention, Reema recited a list of the important developments during his absence.

  "Carter, the surgeon from Atlanta, canceled.. That was a twenty-one-day safari, and Sean glanced up sharply, but Reema soothed him. "I phoned the German soap manufacturer in Munich-Herr Buchner, the one we turned down in December? He jumped at it. So we are full, back to back, for the rest of the season.

  "How about my brother?" Sean interrupted. He didn't want to tell her it was touch and go that there was going to be an abrupt end to the season. "Your broth eris expecting your call, and as of six o'clock this morning the telephone was still working." In Zimbabwe that was something that couldn't be taken for granted.

  At the hospital there were at least fifty seriously ill patients awaiting admission ahead of them. The long benches were full of huddled, miserable humanity and the stretchers were blocking the aisles and doorways. The admissions clerks were in no great hurry and waved Shadrach's stretcher to a far corner.

  "Leave it to me," said Reema, and she took the senior admissions clerk by the elbow and led him aside with an angelic smile, talking to him sweetly.

  Five minutes later Shadrach's admission papers had been processed and he was being examined by an East German doctor.

  "How much did that cost?" Sean asked.

  "Cheap," Reema answered. "A bag of dried meat."

  Sean had picked up sufficient German from his safari clients to be able to discuss Shadrach's case with the doctor. The man was reassuring. Sean said good-bye to Shadrach.

  "Reema has your money. She will come to see you each day. If you need anything, tell her."

  "I will be with you in spirit when you hunt Tukutela," Shadrach said softly.

  Sean had to clear his throat before he could answer. "We will hunt many more elephant together, old friend." And he walked away quickly.

  The next morning, when at last he got through to Johannesburg, the telephone line was crackling with static.

  "Mr. Garrick Courtney is in a board meeting," the girl on the switchboard at Centaine House, the Courtney Group headquarters, told him. "But he gave orders to put your call through directly." In his mind's eye, Sean saw once again the boardroom paneled in figured walnut, the huge Pierneef canvases framed by the elaborate panels, and his brother Garry sitting at the head of the table in the chairman's high-backed throne, beneath the crystal chandelier his grandmother had imported from Murano in Italy.

  "Sean!" Garry's voice cut through the static, bold and assured.

  How he had changed from the puny little runt who used to Pee in his bed!

  The job could have been Sean's if he had wanted it and had been prepared to work for it. Sean was the eldest son, but he had not wanted the job. Still, he always experienced a twinge of resentment when he thought of Garry's Rolls and Lear jet and holiday home in the south of France.

  "Hello, Garry. How's it going", All well here," Garry told him. "What's the problem?" It was typical of their relationship that any contact meant there was a problem to solve.

  "I might need to put a bit of honey with the cheese," Sean told him diplomatically. It was their private code for money to Switzerland, and Garry would understand that Sean would be bribing somebody for something. It happened often enough.

  "Okay, Sean. Just give me the amount and the account number." Garry was Sean's partner in the safari company and held 40 percent of the shares.

  Garry, I'll call you sometime tomorrow. How's the rest of the family?" They chatted for a few minutes longer, and when he hung up Reema came through from the outer office.

  "I managed to get through to the game department at last."

  Reema had been trying all morning. "Comrade Manguza will see u at four-thirty this afternoon."

  GeOffreY Manguza was a tall Shana with a very black complexion and close-cropped hair. He wore silver-framed eyeglasses and a dark blue suit. However, his necktie was Hermes... Sean recognized the horse carriage logo-and his wristwatch was a Patek Philippe with, a black crocodile-skin strap. They were not your run-of-the-mill Marxist accessories, and Sean found that encouraging. However, the deputy director did not rise from behind his desk to welcome him.

  "Colonel Courtney," he greeted him unsmilingly, using Sean's Previous rank to let him know that he knew that Sean had commanded the Ballantyne Scouts, one of the elite Rhodesian groups, after Ballantyne, the founder of the regiment, had been killed in action. It was also a reminder that they had been enemies and might still be so.

  "I Prefer Plain "Mister, "" Sean smiled engagingly. "That other business is behind us now, Comrade Manguza. The deputy director inclined his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "What can I do for you?"

  "Unfortunately, I have to report an unintentional transgression of the game regulations... " Geoffrey Manguza's expression hardened and remained like that while Sean described the accidental shooting of the lioness and Shadrach's subsequent mauling. When Sean finished by submitting the written report Reema had typed for him, Geoffrey Manguza let the document lie untouched on hi
s desk top while he asked a few Pertinent and unsympathetic questions.

  "You do realize, Colonel Courtney," he used the rank again, deliberately, "that I'm obliged to take a most serious view of this entire business. It seems to me that there has been negligence and serious disregard for the safety of your clients and your own staff.

  Zimbabwe is no longer a colony, and you cannot treat our people the way you did before."

  "Before you make your recommendation to the director, I would like to clarify a few points for you," Sean told him.

  "You are free to speak, Colonel."

  "It's almost five o'clock now." Sean checked his watch. "Won't you allow me to buy you a drink at the golf club, and we can discuss it in more relaxed surroundings?"

  Manguza's expression was inscrutable, but after a few moments" thought he nodded. "As you wish. I have a few small matters to attend to before I leave here, but I will meet you at the club in half an hour."

  He kept Sean sitting on the veranda of the golf club for forty minutes before he put in an appearance. it had once been the Royal Salisbury Golf Club. However, the first two words had been dropped from the title lest they perpetuate the colonial past. Nevertheless, the first remark Geoffrey Manguza made after he had taken the chair opposite Sean and ordered a gin and tonic was. "Strange, isn't it? A few years ago, the only way a black man could have got in here was as a waiter, and now I am on the committee and my handicap is five." Sean let it pass and changed the subject to that of rhino poaching across the border with Zambia. Manguza made no effort to pursue that topic. He watched Sean through his silver-rimmed spectacles and, as soon as he stopped speaking, cut in immediately.

  "You wished to clarify a few points for me," he said. "We are both busy men, Colonel."

  This directness was disconcerting. Sean was preparing for a typically roundabout African approach, but he adapted his pitch.

  "First of all, Mr. Manguza, I wanted to tell you what a high price I and my associates place on the Chiwewe concession." Sean used the word "price" deliberately. "I telephoned them this morning and explained this unfortunate incident, and they are anxious to have it resolved at any price." Again he used the word, and paused significantly.

  There was a certain etiquette to be observed in negotiations such as these. To the Western mind it was bribery, but in Africa it was simply the "dash system," a universal and acceptable means of getting things done. Government might put up posters in all public buildings depicting a booted foot crushing a venomous serpent under the slogan sTAmp ouT coRRuptioN, but nobody took that very seriously. In fact, in a bizarre fashion, the posters themselves constituted official recognition of the practice.

  At this stage, Geoffrey Manguza should have agreed that recoin, was due or given some other indication of his willingness to listen to reason. He said nothing, merely stared at Sean from behind those glinting lenses until Sean was forced to speak again.

  "If you've finished your drink, why don't we take a stroll down to the eighteenth fairway?" The club veranda was crowded and the happy hour in full swing with too many listening ears. Manguza swallowed the last of his gin and tonic and without a word led the way down the steps to the lawn.

  The last foursome was coming down the eighteenth, but Sean kept to the edge of the rough, and as the players and their caddies straggled past, Sean said softly, "I told my associates that you are the most powerful man in the department and that the white director is merely your rubber stamp. I told them you had it in Your Power to sidetrack an official inquiry and dismiss any charges arising from this most unfortunate incident. I was so certain that I laid a bet of ten thousand U.S. dollars with them. If I win my bet, those winnings are yours, Mr. Manguza, paid into any account you nominate anywhere in the world."

  Manguza stopped and turned to face him, and Sean was taken aback when he saw his expression. Manguza's voice quivered with fury as he said, "Your assumption that I am open to a bribe is an insult to me personally. That I could tolerate, but it is also an insult to the revolution and the revolutionary heroes who died in the struggle to free this country of the imperial and colonial yoke. it is an insult to the party and our leaders, to the Marxist spirit, and ultimately to the African people as a whole."

  "I only suggested a lousy ten grand, not the return of the monarchY, for the love of Allah."

  "You may smile your supercilious white smile, Colonel Courtney, but we know you well. We know about your South African connections and about the bunch of Matabele hooligans you have gathered about you. We know that some of them fought with you against the forces of revolutionary democracy. They are counterrevolution ari and capitalist roaders, and you are their leader."

  "I shot a lioness by mistake, and one of my capitalist roaders got bitten. That's the full extent of my counterrevolutionary activities.

  "We are watching You, Colonel," Manguza told him ominouslY "You can be certain that I will make the correct recommendation in your case, and that The insult to me and my people will not be forgotten." Manguza turned and strode back toward the clubhouse. Sean shook his head. "So we say farewell to the beautiful Chiwewe s concession, he murmured. "I really blew that one! Despite his levity, he felt a sliding sensation of disaster in the pit of his stomach. The office of Courtney Safaris was in the Avenues, between Government House and the golf club. Reema was waiting for him in the outer office, its walls decorated with color posters of wildlife and photographic enlargements of satisfied clients with their trophies.

  She jumped up from her desk the moment Sean came in. "The hospital called an hour ago, Sean. They have amputated Shadrach's leg."

  For long moments Sean could neither speak nor move. Then he crossed slowly to the filing cabinet and took a glass and a half-empty bottle of Chivas from the top drawer. He sagged onto the sofa and poured a three-finger jolt of whisky.

  "The ending to a perfect day," he said, and tossed back the whisky.

  Reema left him sitting on the sofa. There were only two more drinks left in the bottle, and when they were gone, Sean went down to the Monomatapa, Hotel. The hotel was full of tourists, and among them was a blond Teutonic Valkyrie in full Out of Africa costume. She caught his eye across the lounge the moment Sean walked in and smiled at him.

  "What the hell!" Sean said to himself. "It's cheaper than whisky, and no hangover either."

  The German Friulein laughed delightedly at Sean's rudimentary German, and not long afterward it transpired that she had the presidential suite on the fourteenth floor all to herself. She ordered a bottle of Mumm's from room service, and they drank it in bed.

  In the morning, while Reema filed a flight plan for him, taking a bag of dried meat down to air traffic control, Sean returned to the hospital.

  They had taken Shadrach's leg off only inches below the hip.

  The East German doctor showed Sean the X-ray plates. "Hopeless!" He pointed out the bone fragments. "Like confetti!"

  There was no place to sit in the crowded surgical ward, so Sean stood beside Shadrach's bed for a while and they talked about the battles and the hunts they had shared. They did not mention the leg, and when they had run out of reminiscences, Sean gave the ward sister a hundred dollars to look after him and went out to the airport.

  Reema had the flight plan for him and the Beechcraft was refueled and loaded with everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to toilet paper for the camp.

  "You are a heroine, Reema," he said. Then, standing beside the aircraft, he described the meeting with Geoffrey Manguza.

  "It doesn't look very cheerful," he ended. "You had better begin looking for another job."

  "I'm sorry for you, Sean," she said. "But don't worry about me.

  I was wondering how to break the news to you. I'm leaving for

  Canada on September sixteenth. It's all arranged-I'm going to be the wife of a professor."

  "You be happy," Sean ordered. For the first time he kissed her, and she blushed under her nut-brown skin, looking prettier than ever.

&nbs
p; Sean made three low-level passes over the camp. On the third he saw the Toyota puff out toward the airstrip with Job driving and Matatu standing in the back. He landed and taxied the Beechcraft into its cage of galvanized diamond-mesh wire, designed to discourage elephants from pulling the wings off and lions from chewing the tires.

  When Job and Matatu arrived in the Toyota, they transferred the cargo to it. Then Sean told them about Shadrach's leg.

  They had fought all through the bush war together and were hardened to casualties, but Sean saw the pain and grief in Job's eyes as he murmured, "We will need a new number two gun bearer.

  Pumula, the skinner, is a good man."

  "Yes, we will use him," Sean agreed.

  For a while they stood silently, paying tribute to their maimed companion. Then, still without speaking, they climbed into the Toyota and drove back to camp.

  Rather than pants, Claudia Monterro wore a dress for dinner that evening, a floating silk chiffon in pure white with silver and turquoise Navajo jewelry. Against her tanned skin and jet black hair, the effect was stunning. However, Sean made certain not to show his admiration and directed all his conversation at her father.