Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  "We have fought side by side," Alphonso said at last.

  "Like lions," Sean confirmed.

  "I have called you Babo and Nkosi Kakulu."

  "You have honored me thus," Sean said formally. "And I have called you friend."

  Alphonso nodded in the darkness. "I cannot let you cross the Zimbabwean border," he said with sudden decisiveness, and Sean rocked back on his heels.

  "Tell me why not."

  "You remember Cuthbert?" Alphonso asked.

  It took Sean a moment to place the name. "Cuthbert, you mean the one from Grand Reef air base? The one who helped us on the raid?" It all seemed so long ago.

  "General China's nephew." Alphonso nodded. "That is the one I speak of."

  "Sammy Davis Junior." Sean smiled. "The cool laid-back cat.

  I remember him well."

  "General China spoke to him on the radio. This very morning from the laager of the hen shaw after our victory. I was in the outer room of the bunker. I heard everything he said."

  Sean felt a cold wind blow down his spine, and the hair at the base of his skull prickled. "What did China tell him?" he asked dreading the reply.

  "He ordered Cuthbert to let the Zimbabwean Army know that it was you who led the raid on Grand Reef and stole the indeki full of missiles. He told Cuthbert to tell them that you would be ssing k into Zimbabwe through the Honde Valley at Saint ary's Mission, and they must wait for you there."

  Sean's gut knotted with shock, and for long moments he was stunned by the enormity and cunning of the trap China had prepared for him. The cruelty of it was diabolical. To allow them to believe they were being set free, to let them taste the relief of crossing out of harm, when in fact they were going to a fate even worse than China himself could have meted out to them.

  The fury of the Zimbabwean high command would know no bounds. Sean was the holder of a Zimbabwean passport, a document of convenience but one that would make him a traitor and murderer beyond any help from outside. He would be handed over to the notorious Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organization and taken to the interrogation cells at Chikarubi prison, and he would never emerge from there alive. Job, despite his wounds, would share the same fate.

  Even though Claudia was an American citizen, officially she no longer existed. It was weeks since she had been reported missing.

  By this time, interest in her case, even at the U.S. embassies in Harare and Pretoria, would have cooled. Along with her father, she was presumed dead, so she could expect no protection. She was as vulnerable as they were.

  The trap was completely closed; there was no way out. The Renamo army behind them, Frelimo on either hand, and the Zimbabwe CIO ahead of them. They were marooned in a devastated wasteland, doomed to be hunted down Ike wild animals or to starve slowly in the wilderness.

  "Think!" Sean told himself. "Find the way out."

  They could attempt to cross the Zimbabwean border at some other point than the Honde Valley, but the CIO would have the entire country alerted for them. There were permanent army blocks on every road. Without papers they wouldn't get more than a few miles, and then there was Job--what would he do with Job?

  wounded man when every police and How could they transport a r somebody in a stretchers military post would be looking lo we must go southward," Alphonso said. "We must go to South Africa."we?" Sean stared at him. "You want to come with us?"

  "I can't go back to General China," he pointed out philosophwill come with you to betrayed him. I ically. "Not after I have South Africa."

  "That's a trek of three hundred miles, through two Opposed armies, Frefimo and the southern division of Renamo. And what ut Job?"

  abO 99

  "We will carry him , Alphonso replied.

  "Three hundred miles"

  "Then we will leave Sin behind." Alphonso shrugged. "He is only a Matabele and he is dying anyway. It will be no great loss."

  Sean caught the angry words that rose to his tongue and re silent while he thought it out. Every way he twisted it and mained examined it, he saw that Alphonso was right. To the north the dubious haven of Malawi was blocked by the waters of Cabora he east lay the Indian Bossa and by General China's division. To t Ocean, and to the west the Zimbabwe

  CIO.

  t," Sean admitted reluctantly. "South is the only way.

  righ Frefimo and the south Perhaps we can squeeze through between heavily em division of Renanio. All we have to do is get across a guarded railway line and the Limpopo River and find enough to eat while we are doing it in a land that has been burned and devastated by ten years of civil war."

  "In South Africa we will eat meat every day," Alphonso pointed out cheerfully.

  Sean stood up. "Will your men follow you?"

  "I will kill those that don't." Alphonso was matter-of-fact. "We can't let them go back to General China."

  "Right," Sean agreed. "And you will report on the radio schedule that I have crossed into Zimbabwe. We'll be able to string China along on the radio for four or five days. He won't realize that we have broken away southward until we are well on our way and beyond his range. You had better talk to your men now. We'll have to turn south right away. Talk to them before they realize for themselves that we are up to something."

  Alphonso called in the sentries, and in the gray light of dawn the faces of the Shanganes were sober and intent as they squatted in a circle around him and listened to Alphonso describe the southern paradise to which he would lead them.

  "We are all weary of fighting, of living like animals in the bush.

  It is time we learned to live like men, to find good wives to bear our sons." He was filled with the fiery eloquence of the recent convert, and before he had finished Sean saw the sparkle of anticipation in most of their eyes and felt a lift of relief. For the first time he began to believe the journey ahead might just be possible, with a great deal of endeavor and an even greater deal of luck.

  He went to tell Claudia and Job what lay ahead. Claudia was bathing Job's face with a damp rag. "He's much better, a good night's rest." She broke off as she saw his face. Her spirits visibly Plummeted as he explained what they had to do.

  "It was too good to be true," she whispered. "I knew deep down it wouldn't be that easy, that General China wasn't Santa Claus in disguise."

  Job lay so stiff on his stretcher that Sean thought he had once again slipped over the edge of consciousness, and he reached out to check his pulse. At his touch Job opened his eyes.

  "Can you trust those Shanganes?" he whispered.

  "We don't have much choice," Sean pointed out and then went on briskly, "We-"

  "Leave me here." Job's whisper was barely audible, but Sean's expression hardened and his voice was brittle with anger.

  "Cut out that sort of bullshit," he warned Job.

  "Without me you might have a chance," Job insisted. "If you have to drag this stretcher-"

  "We've got twelve hefty Shanganes," Sean pointed out.

  "Better some of you get through than all of us die. Leave me, Sean. Save Claudia and yourself."

  1419 in getting angry." Sean stood up and said to Claudia, "We leave in ten minutes."

  They traveled cautiously southward all that day. It was an intense relief not to have to watch the sky for the Hind gunships, although out of habit the Shanganes occasionally turned their faces upward. The closer they drew to the railway fine, the slower their progress became, and they spent much of their time hiding in the dense wild ebony thickets and clumps of jesse until Matatu came ghosting back to assure them the coast was clear and lead them onward.

  In the late afternoon Sean left the main party hiding in a bushy. and went forward with Matatu. He was gone for almost two ravine hours, and the sun was setting when he reappeared silently and suddenly at Claudia's side.

  "You startled me!" she gasped. "You're like a cat."

  "The railway line is only a mile ahead. The Frehmo guards seem itary traffic to be in a state of confusion still. There is a lot of mil
on the line and a great deal of panicky activity all around. The crossing is going to be a trifle tricky. As soon as the moon comes up, I'll go up and take another look."

  While they waited for the moon, Alphonso rigged the radio aerial and made his scheduled contact with General China's headquarters.

  "The dove is in flight." He gave the prearranged code so China would believe that Sean and his party had crossed the border.

  After a brief pause, presumably while he relayed the message, the radio operator came back to Alphonso with the order to return to river.

  Alphonso acknowledged and signed off.

  the main base on the "They won't expect nw'to arrive back for another two days."

  Alphonso grinned as he packed up the radio. "It will be that long before they start getting suspicious."

  As the moon pushed its bald silver pate above the trees, Sean and Matatu slipped away into the forest to make a final reconnaissance of the railway line. A mile south of their position they found the place where the line crossed a narrow stream. Although the stream contained only a few shallow puddles, the banks were thick with riverine bush that would afford them good cover. Originally the bush must have been cleared for a hundred yards on each side of the line, but secondary growth had been allowed to spring up to waist height. 391

  "Sloppy Frelinio bastards" Scan muttered. "That will give us some cover, and we'll stay in the river-bed."

  The main line crossed the stream over an embankment and culvert. There was a guard post on the approaches, fifty yards up track from the culvert. While Sean watched through his bmocuIan, a Frelimo sentry, his AK rifle slung on his back, sauntered ! ! down to the bridge over the culvert. He leaned on the guardrail and fit a cigarette. The glow of the cigarette marked his progress as he ambled back to the guard post. He seemed to Sean to be a little unsteady on his feet, and when he reached the guard post, a faint ripple of fenumne giggles carried to where Sean and Matatu lay.

  "They are having a party," Sean chuckled.

  "Palm wine and jig-jig," Matatu agreed enviously. In the moonlight he held up his right hand with his thumb trapped between his first two fingers. "I would like some of that myself "You randy little bugger." Sean tweaked his ear. "When we get to Johannesburg, I'll stand you to the biggest, fattest lady we can Bush out." Matatu's taste in amour ran to the mountainous. "Like Sherpa Tensing on Everest," Sean often remarked.

  The distractions with which the railway guards had provided themselves promised to make their crossing easier. Sean and Matatu withdrew quietly and started back to where they had left the rest of the party.

  They had been gone for three hours, and it was a few minutes before midnight as they approached the camp. At the head of the ravine Sean paused to give the recognition signal, the liquid warble of a fiery-necked nightjar. He didn't want to be shot by one of Alphonso's Shanganes. He waited a full minute for the reply.

  When it did not come, he repeated the signal. Still there was silence, and he felt the first tickle of alarm.

  Instead of going straight in, they circled the ravine cautiously, and in the moonlight Matatu picked up unexpected spoor and squatted over it, frowning with alarm.

  Sean whispered. "Who? Which way?"

  "Many men, our own Shanganes!" Matatu lifted his head and pointed to the north. "They are going out, leaving camp."

  "Outgoing?" Sean was puzzled. "Doesn't make sense, unless--I Oh, God!

  No!"

  Swiftly, quietly, he closed in on the camp. The sentries he had set before he left were gone, their posts deserted. Sean felt panic rise in a wave that threatened to suffocate him.

  "Claudia!" he whispered, suppressing the urge to shout her name aloud. He wanted to rush into the camp and fiW her, but he drew a series of deep breaths and fought back the panic.

  He slipped the AKM on to fully automatic and went down on his belly, creeping in. The five Shanganes he had left asleep in the of the ravine were gone, and all their equipment and weapons gut had disappeared. He went on and made out the shape of Job's stretcher in the dappled moonlight; beside it, exactly as he had left her, was Claudia's body wrapped in a blanket, but just beyond her another body lay sprawled. In the moonlight he saw the sheen of wetness on the back of the man's head.

  "Blood!"

  Sean threw all caution aside and rushed to Claudia's body, dropping to his knees beside her and sweeping her into his arms.

  She gasped and cried out, coming out of a deep sleep. She began to struggle in his arms, then quieted as she realized who he was.

  "Sean!" she blurted, still groggy with sleep. "What is it? What "Thank God," he murmured fervently. "I thought-!" He set her down gently, and reached across to where Job lay in the litter.

  "Job, are you all right?" He shook him carefully, and Job stirred and murmured.

  Sean jumped to his feet and went to where Alphonso lay. He touched his neck. The skin was warm, his pulse strong and even.

  "Claudia!" he called. "Bring the flashlight."

  In the beam of the flashlight he examined the laceration in Alphonso's scalp. "A-nice little ding," he grunted. Although the bleeding had stanched spontaneously, he pressed a field dressing over it and bound it in place. "Good thing they hit him on the head, or they might have done some serious damage." He grinned wryly at his own joke.

  "What happened, Sean?" Claudia demanded anxiously. "I was fast asleep. I didn't heat a thing."

  "Lucky for you." Sean tied the tag ends of the bandage. "Or you might have got thesaine treatment."

  "What happened? Where are the others?"

  "Gone," he told her. "Flown, deserted. They obviously didn't fancy the walk or the destination. They bashed Alphonso on the noggin and took off back to General China."

  She stared at him. "You mean there are only the four of us now.?

  All the Shanganes except Alphonso have gone?"

  "That's right," Sean agreed. Alphonso groaned and reached up to touch his bandaged head. Sean helped him sit up.

  "Sean!" Claudia tugged at his arm and he turned back to her.

  "What are we going to do?" Sean glanced across at Job's stretcher.

  I" going to do with Job? How are we going to carry him? How are we going to get out of here now/P" 90 "That, My love, is an extremely interesting question, Sean tell you is that by this time tomorrow, our know that we are on the run, and

  "We don't seem to have us-we keep on the way we are going."

  one road still open to He hauled Alphonso to his feet.

  "that's impossible, "Claudia whispered anxiously. "Two of YOU cannot carry the stretcher-" some other or' You right, of course. we'll have to make rangement."

  Between them they lifted Job out of the fiberglass stretcher and laid him on Claudia's blanket. Then, while the Others watched, had finished, Sean began to dismantle the stretcher. Before he Matatu appeared silently out of the darkness and whispered a brief report to Sean.

  Sean barely looked up as he told Alphonso, "You taught them well. Your Shanganes have bomb shelled taken off in eleven different directions. If we followed, we might catch one or two of them, but some of them are going to get back to China with the good news."

  Alphonso cursed the deserters bitterly, while Sean explained to Claudia and Job, "I'm going to use the nylon webbing from the stretcher to improvise a sling seat."

  Claudia looked dubious. "Job isn't strong enough to sit upright.

  lee ding--2" She broke The movement will reopen his wound, the b off as Sean glared at her.

  "Can you think of a better way?" he snarled, and she shook her head.

  Sean doubled the length of heavy green canvas and took the rifle and Alphonso's AK to make carrying loops.

  slings from his AKM ted, 1"14 "-We'll have to make adjustments as we go along," he grun "Instead of finding difficulties, make your then looked at Claudia.

  self useful by gathering all the equipment the Shanganes left. We'll have to make a selection."

  quipment swiftly, discarding all but the
most He picked out the e tween us. On vital pieces. "Alphonso and I will be carrying Job be that we'll only be able to manage our basic weapons and a top of blanket each. Claudia and Matatu must lug the medical pack, the water bottles, and a blanket each. Everything else will be left behind."

  we are headed."

  are we going to do?"

  choice," he said. "There is only The canned food?" Claudia asked.

  Forget it," Sean told her brusquely. He set about apportioning their loads, cutting everything down to the barest minimum, knowing every pound of weight now would seem like ten after the first few miles. He even made Alphonso abandon his AK rifle and gave him the pistol he had taken from the Russian pilot to replace it. He restricted himself to two spare clips of ammunition for his own AKM, and he and Alphonso retained only a pair of grenades each, one fragmentation and the other phosphorus.