Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  They had been going only a little over thirty minutes, but already their momentum was winding down. Job's weight was heavier, the straps cutting painfully into the flesh of Sean's shoulders, and Job's footsteps were dragging and catching on every irregularity of the game path.

  I, I'm cutting down to thirty-minute stages," Sean told Job.

  "We'll take five minutes now."

  When Sean lowered him to a sitting position against the hole of a tree, Job leaned his head back against the rough bark and closed his eyes. His breathing sobbed in his chest, and droplets of sweat made slow runners down his cheeks. Like tiny black pearls, the drops reflected the color of his skin.

  Sean let the five minutes run over to ten, then told Job cheerfully, "On your feet, soldier, let's eat some ground."

  Getting Job up on his feet again was torture for both of them, and Sean realized that in trying to be gentle on him, he had allowed Job to rest too long. The wound had begun to stiffen.

  The next thirty-minute stage endured so long that Sean was convinced his watch had stopped. He had to check the sweep of the second hand to reassure himself.

  When at last he lowered him to a sitting position, Job grimaced.

  "Sorry, Sean, cramps. Left calf."

  Sean squatted in front of him and felt the knots of tortured muscle in Job's leg. While he massaged it, he spoke quietly to Claudia. "There are salt tablets in the medic pack, front pocket."

  Job swallowed them, and Claudia held the water bottle to his lips.

  After two swallows he pushed it away.

  More," Claudia urged him, but he shook his head.

  "Don't waste it," he murmured.

  "How's that feel?" Sean gave his calf a couple of hard slaps.

  "Good for another few miles."

  "Let's go," Sean said. "Before it seizes up again."

  It amazed Claudia how the two of them kept going through the night with only those five-minute breaks and the frugal drafts from the water bottles.

  "Three hundred miles of this," she thought. "It simply is not possible. Flesh and blood can't take it. It will kill both of them."

  A little before dawn, Matatu popped up like a small black shadow out of the forest and whispered to Sean.

  "He has found a water hole about two or three miles ahead," Sean told them. "Can you make it, Job?"

  The sun had risen and cleared the tops of the trees, and the day's heat was building up like a stoked furnace. When Job collapsed and hung suspended at Sean's side, dangling with his full weight on the cross straps, they were still half a mile from the water hole.

  Sean lowered him to the ground and sat beside him. He was so exhausted himself that for a few minutes he could not find the energy to talk or move.

  "Well, at least you picked a good place to pass out," he congratulated Job a in hoarse whisper. They were in a patch of thick thorn bush that would give them shade and cover for the rest of the day.

  The made a bed of cut grass for Job in the shade and settled him on it. He was only half conscious, his speech slurred and andering and his eyes continually slipping out of focus. Claudia tried to feed him, but he turned his face away. However, he drank thirstily when at last Matatu and Alphonso returned from the water hole with all the water bottles refilled. After he had drunk he lapsed back into coma, and they waited out the heat of the day in the thorn patch.

  Sean and Claudia lay in each other's arms, for she had become so accustomed to falling asleep in his embrace. She realized that Sean was near the end of his tether. She had never imagined he could be so finely stretched, that even his strength, which she had come to believe was inexhaustible, had a limit upon it.

  When she woke a little after noon, he lay like a dead man beside her and she studied his face lovingly, almost greedily. His beard was full and beginning to curl, and she picked out two curly silver hairs in the dense bush. His features were punt, all trace of fat and superfluous flesh burnedlaway, and there were lines and weathered creases in his skin that she had never noticed before. She studied them as though 6 LIFE history were chiseled into them like cuneiform writing on a tablet she could read. "God, but I love him," she thought, amazed at the depth of her own feelings. His skin was burned to the color of dark mahogany by the sun, yet it retained a luster like that of fine leather, well used but polished with care over the years, "like Papa's polo boots." She smiled at the simile, but it was somehow apt. She had watched her father in his dressing room lovingly applying dubbin to the leather with his fingers and polishing it to a dull glow with his own bare palm.

  "Boots!" she whispered. "That's a good name for you," she told Sean as he slept, and she remembered how her father's boots had flexed and wrinkled at the ankle, almost as supple as silk as he stepped up into the stirrup. "Wrinkled just like you, my old boot."

  She smiled and kissed the lines in his forehead softly so as not to wake him.

  She realized then to just what an extent the memory of her father had been absorbed in this man who lay for once like a child in her arms. The two men seemed to have merged in one body, and she could concentrate all her love in a single place. Gently she moved Sean's sleeping head until it nestled against her shoulder, and she burrowed her fingers into the dense springing curls at the back of his head and rocked him gently.

  Up to this moment, he had succeeded in evoking the full spectrum of her emotions, from anger to sensual passion---everything except tenderness. Now, however, it was complete. "My baby," she whispered as tenderly as a mother. For once she truly felt he belonged to her completely.

  A soft groan shattered her fragile mood. She raised her head and glanced across at where Job lay beneath the thorn bush nearby, but he relapsed into silence once again.

  She thought about the two of them, Job and Sean and their special masculine relationship in which she knew she could never share. She should have been jealous, but instead in some strange way it made her feel more secure. If Sean could be so constant and self-sacrificing in his love for another man, she hoped that she could expect the same constancy from him in their own different but even more intense relationship.

  Job groaned again and began to thrash about restlessly. She sighed and then gently disentangled herself from Sean's sleeping form, stood up, and crossed to where Job lay.

  A cloud of metallic green flies buzzed around the blood-soaked bandage that covered his shoulder. They settled on the soiled dressing and tasted it with their long proboscises, then rubbed their front legs together with delight. Claudia saw that they had laid their rice-grain eggs in thick rafts on the bloody cloth, and with an exclamation of disgust she fanned them away and scraped the loathsome white eggs from the folds of the bandage.

  Job opened his eyes and looked up at her. She realized he was fully conscious once again, and she smiled encouragingly at him.

  "Would you like another drink?"

  "No." His voice was so low she had to lean closer to him. "You have to make him do it," he said.

  "Who? Sean?" she asked.

  Job nodded. "He can't go on like this. He's killing himself.

  Without him none of you will survive. You must make him leave me here." She had begun to shake her head before he stopped speaking' No she said firmly. "He would never do it, and I wouldn't let him, even if he wanted to. We're in this together, pardner." She touched his arm. "Now, how about that drink?" He subsided, too weak to argue further. Like Sean, Job seemed to have deteriorated alarmingly in the last few hours. She sat beside him, fanning the flies away with an i1ala palm frond while the sun slid slowly down the western sky.

  In the cool of the afternoon Sean stiffed and sat up, instantly wide awake, taking in his surroundings with a quick glance. The sleep had revived and fortified him.

  "How is be?" he asked.

  When she shook her head, he came to squat beside her. "We'll have to get him up again pretty soon."

  "Give him a few more minutes," she pleaded. Then she went on, "Do you know what I've been thinking about while I've
been sitting here?"

  "Tell me," he invited, and put his arm around her shoulders.

  "I've been thinking about that water hole out there. I've been fantasizing about pouring water over myself, washing my clothes, getting rid of this stink."

  "Have you heard about NapoleonT" he asked.

  "Napoleon?" She looked puzzled. "What does he have to do with bathing?"

  "Whenever he returned from a campaign, he would send a galloper ahead of him to Josephine with the message "Je rent re the te have pas. "I'm coming home, don't bathe." You see, he liked his ladies the way he liked his cheese, full bodied. He would have loved you the way you are now!"

  "You're disgusting.". She punched his shoulder, and Job groaned.

  "Hey, there." Sea; turned his attention to him. "What's going down, monT"

  "I'll take you up on your offer now,". Job whispered.

  "Morphine?" Sean asked.

  Job nodded. "Just a little shot, okay?"

  "You've got it," Sean agreed, and reached for the medical pack.

  After the injection Job lay with his eyes closed, and they watched the taut fines of pain around his mouth slowly relax.

  "]setter?" Sean asked. Job smiled softly without opening his eyes. "We'll give you a few minutes more," Sean told him, "while we make the radio sched. with Banana Tree."

  Sean stood up and went across to where Alphonso was already rigging the radio aerial.

  this is Banana Tree." The response to Alphonso's first call was so strong and clear that Sean started.

  Alphonso adjusted the gain and then thumbed the microphone and gave another fictitious position report, as though he were still on the return march to the river area.

  There was a pause, filled only by the drone and crackle of static.

  Then another voice came equally clear and loud. "Let me speak to Colonel Courtney!" The intonation was unmistakable, and Alphonso looked up at Sean.

  "General China," he whispered. He offered Sean the microphone but Sean pushed it aside and frowned with concentration as he waited for the next transmission.

  In the silence that followed, Claudia left Job's side and crossed quickly to Sean. She squatted beside him and he placed his arm around her protectively; both of them stared at the radio.

  "The deserters," she said softly. "China knows."

  "Listen!" Sean cautioned. They waited.

  Very well. " China's voice again. "I can understand that you do not wish to reply. However, I will presume that you are listening, Colonel."

  All their attention was on the radio, and Job opened his eyes. He had heard every word China spoke quite clearly, and he rolled his head.

  Alphonso had left his pack and webbing piled on his blanket not ten paces from where Job lay. The butt of the Tokarev pistol protruded from the side pocket of the pack.

  "You have yet to disappoint me, Colonel." China's voice was mellow and affable. "It would have been too simple and totally unsatisfying if you had merely blundered into the arms of the reception committee I had arranged for you at the Zimbabwean border."

  Job eased himself up on his good elbow. There was no pain, merely a sensation of weakness and drowsiness. The morphine was working. It was difficult to think clearly. He focused all his attention on the pistol, and he wondered if Alphonso had chambered a round. He began to move toward it, extending his legs, digging in his heels, then lifting his buttocks clear, and jackknifing his legs.

  He made no sound, and all the others were concentrating on the voice from the radio.

  "So the game is still on, Colonel-or should we rather call it the hunt? You are a great hunter, a great white hunter. You glory in the pursuit of wild animals. You call it sport, and you pride yourself on what you term "fair chase." Job was halfway across the clearing. There was still no Pam, and he moved a little quicker. At any moment one of them might turn Ins way and see him.

  "I have never understood your white man's passion for this pursuit. To me it always seemed so pointless. My people have always believed that if you want meat, you should kill it as efficiently and with as little effort as possible."

  Job reached the pile of equipment on Alphonso's blanket and stretched out to touch the hilt of the pistol. When he tried to withdraw it from the pocket, his fingertips were numb and it slipped from his hand, but instead of clattering on the hard earth, the pistol dropped soundlessly onto a fold of the blanket and he saw with a rush of relief that the action was cocked and the safety catch engaged. Alphonso had loaded it, ready for instant use.

  Behind him China's voice still echoed from the radio set: "Perhaps you have corrupted me, Colonel. Perhaps I am acqumng your decadent European ways, but for the first time I understand your passion. Perhaps it is simply that at last the game is big enough to excite me. I wonder how you must feel at this change of role, Colonel. You are the game and I am the hunter. I know where you are, but you don't know where I am. Perhaps I am closer than you believe possible. Where am 1, Colonel? You must guess. You must run and hide. When will we meet, and how?"

  oh settled his fingers carefully around the butt of the Tokarev.

  He lifted it and was surprised by the effort it required. He placed his thumb upon the slide of the safety catch, but it would not budge. He felt panic rising in him. His hand was too weak and numb to move the slide forward into the firing position.

  "I do not prorruse you "fair chase," Colonel. I will hunt you in my own African way, but it will be good sport. I promise you that at least."

  Job exerted all his strength and felt the slide of the safety catch begin to move under hiNhumb.

  "The time is nowtighteen hundred hours Zulu. I will call you on this frequencya't the same time tomorrow, Colonel-that is, if we have not already met. Until then watch the sky, Colonel Courtlook behind you. You do not know from which direction I they, will come. But be sure I will come!"

  There was a faint click as China unkeyed his microphone. Sean reached over and switched off the radio set to conserve the battery.

  None of them spoke or moved, until another, sharper metallic click broke the silence. To Sean the sound was unmistakable, the sound of a safety catch being disengaged, and he reacted instinctively, pushing Claudia flat and whirling round to face it.

  For a moment he was paralyzed. Then he screamed, "No! Job, for Christ's sake! NO!" and hurled himself forward like a sprinter from the blocks.

  Job was lying on his side facing Sean, but well beyond his reach.

  Sean drove himself across the space that separated them, but he seemed to be wading through honey, sticky and slow, it impeded his movements. He watched Job raise the pistol, and he tried to prevent him by the force of his gaze. They were looking into each other's eyes, Sean trying to dominate and command her, but Job's eyes were sad, filled with a deep regret and yet unwavering.

  Sean saw him open his lips and heard the muzzle of the pistol click against his teeth as Job thrust it deeply into his mouth and closed his lips around the muzzle, like a child sucking a Popsicle.

  Sean reached out desperately, straining with all his strength to reach Job's pistol hand and rip the stubby black barrel out of his mouth. His fingertips had just touched Job's wrist when the pistol fired. The sound was muffled, damped down by the flesh and bone of Job's skull.

  In his extremity of effort, Sean's vision was enhanced to unnatural clarity, and it seemed that time had been suspended so that everything happened very slowly, like a movie reel run at half speed.

  Job's head altered shape. It swelled before Sean's eyes like a rubber Halloween mask filled with high-pressure gas. His eyelids flew wide open, and for an instant his eyeballs bulged from their sockets, exposing a wide rim of white around their dark irises, then rolling upward into his skull.

  His shattered head changed shape again, elongating backward, stretching his skin tightly over his cheekbones and flattening his nostrils as the bullet drew the contents of his skull out through the back of his head, whiplashing his neck to its full stretch so that ev
en in the aftermath of the shot, Sean heard the vertebrae creak and click.

  Job was jerked backward, his arm flung away from his head in a debonair salute, the Tokarev pistol still gripped in his clenched fist, but Sean was quick enough to catch him before his mutilated head hit the hard earth.

  He caught Job in his arms and held him to his chest with all his strength. His body was heavy and hot with fever, but slack and plastic as though it contained no bone. It seemed to overflow Sean's enfolding arms, and he held him hard. Job's muscles shivered and shuddered, and his legs kicked in a macabre little jigging movement. Sean tried to hold him still.

  "Job," he whispered, and he reached up behind him and cupped his hand over the back of his head, covering the terrible exit wound as though he were trying to hold it together, to press the spilled contents back into the ruptured skull.