Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  "It's the Matabele." China recognized Job's features immediately.

  "I didn't think he'd get this far. Dig him out and feed him to the hyenas," he ordered.

  Two of the scouts reached down and seized Job's blanket wrapped shoulders. China watched with ghoulish interest. Mutilation of enemy dead was an ancient Nguni custom; the ritual disembowelment allowed the spirit of the vanquished to escape so it would not plague the victor. There was, however, a vindictive satisfaction in watching his men exhume the Matabele. He understood what grief this act would cause Sean Courtney, and he relished how he would describe it to him on his next radio transmission.

  At that moment he spotted the short length of bark twine. It was twisted lightly around the blanket-wrapped shoulders of the corpse. a moment ie stare at it wit Purr len, as saw it tighten and heard the click of the grenade p he realized what it was, and he screamed a warning and hurled himself face forward to the earth.

  The explosion crushed his eardrums and filled his head with pain. He felt the blast wave hit him, and something struck him in the cheek with numbing force. He rolled into a sitting position and for a moment thought that he had lost his eyesight; then the stars and Catherine wheels of light that filled his head dissipated, and with a rush of relief he realized he could see again.

  Blood was streaming down the side of his face and dribbling from his chin onto the front of his battle dress shirt. He whipped the kerchief from around his neck and wadded it into the deep gash that a fragment from the grenade had opened across his cheekbone.

  Unsteadily he came to his feet and stared down into the grave.

  The grenade had gutted one of his men like a fish. He was kneeling and trying to push his bowels back into the hole, but the wet lining was sticking to his bare hands. The second guerrilla had been killed cleanly. The section leader sprang to China's side and tried to examine the gash in his cheek, but China struck his hands away.

  "You white bastard!" His voice was shrill. "You will pay dearly for that, Colonel Courtney. I swear it to you."

  The wounded guerrilla was still fumbling with his entrails, but they bulged out between his fingers. He was making a dreadful cawing bubbling sound that only increased General China's fury.

  "Get that man out of here!" he screamed. "Take him away and shut him up!"

  They dragged the wounded man away, but still China was not satisfied. He was shaking wildly with shock and fury, looking around for something on which to vent his rage.

  "You men!" He pointed with a trembling finger. "Bring your pan gas Two guerrilla stan forward to obey. "Pull that Matabele dog out of his hole! Thit's right. Now use the pan gas Chop him into hyena food. ThIt's it. Small pieces, don't stop! Mincemeat! I want him turned into mincemeat!"

  All that morning Matatu led them southward through the abandoned fields and past the deserted villages. The weeds and rank secondary growth gave them good cover, and they avoided the footpaths and skirted the burned -out huts.

  Claudia was having difficulty keeping up. They had been going with only brief rests since the previous evening, and she was reaching the limits of her endurance. There was no sensation of pain.

  Even the devilish little red-tipped thorns that left red weeping fines across the exposed skin of her arms merely tugged at her painlessly as she passed. Her steps were leaden and mechanical, and though she tried to keep the rhythm of the march, she felt herself running down like a clockwork toy. Slowly Sean drew ahead of her and she could not lengthen her stride to hold him. He glanced over his shoulder, saw how she was lagging, and slowed for her to catch up.

  "I'm sorry," she blurted.

  He glanced at the sky. "We have to keep going," he answered, and she toiled on behind him.

  A little after midday they heard the Hind again. The sound of its engines were very faint and grew fainter still, dwindling away into the north.

  Sean put out an arm to steady Claudia as she swayed on her feet.

  "Well done," he told her gently. "I'm sorry I had to do that to you, but we've made good ground. China will never expect us to have got so far south. He has headed back northward, and we can rest now."

  He led her to a cluster of low thorn acacia that formed a natural shelter. She sobbed with exhaustion as she sank to the hard ground and lay quietly as Sean squatted in front of her to remove her shoes and socks.

  "Your feet have hardened up beautifully," he told her as he ! massaged them gently. "Not a sign of a blister. You're as tough as aScoutandtwiceasgutsy. "Shecouldn'tevenraiseasmj attic compliment. Sean pulled her sock over his hand, stuck one finger through the hole in the toe, and wiggled it like a ventriloquist's dummy.

  "Okay. She walks good," he made the sock speak like Miss Piggy, "but, buster, you should see her in the sack."

  Claudia giggled weakly, and he smiled down at her gently.

  "That's better," he said. "Now go to sleep."

  For a few minutes longer she watched him working on her sock.

  "Which of your trollops taught you to dam?" she murmured drowsily.

  "I was a virgin until I met you. Go to sleep."

  "I hate her, whoever she was," Claudia said, and closed her eyes.

  It seemed to her that she opened them again immediately, but the light had changed to soft shades of evening and the midday heat had cooled. She sat up.

  Sean was cooking over a small fire of dry sticks, and he looked across at her. "Hungry?" he asked.

  "Starving."

  "Dinner." He brought the metal billy to her.

  "What is it?" she asked suspiciously, peering down at the heap of scorched black sausages, each the size of her little finger.

  "Don't ask," he said. "Eat."

  Gingerly she picked one out and sniffed at it. It was still hot from the cooking fire.

  "Eat!" he repeated, and to set an example popped one into his own mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

  "Damned good," he gave his opinion. "Go ahead."

  Carefully she bit into it. It squelched between her teeth and burst, filling her mouth with a warm custard that tasted like creamed spinach.

  She forced it down.

  "Have another."

  "No thanks."

  "They're full of protein. Eat."

  "I couldn't."

  "You won't last out the next march on an empty stomach. Open your mouth." He fed her and then himself alternately.

  When the billy was empty, she asked again, "Now tell me, what have I been eating?" But he grinned and shook his head and turned the fire devouring his share to Alphonso, who was squatting across of the meal.

  "Rig the radio," Sean ordered. "Let's hear if China has anything to say."

  While Alphonso was busy stringing the radio aerial, Matatu slipped quietly into camp. He was carrying a cylinder of freshly peeled bark whose ends were stoppered with plugs of dried grass.

  He and Sean exchanged a few words, and Sean looked serious.

  "What is it?" Claudia asked with concern.

  "Matatu has seen a lot of sign up ahead. It looks like there is a great deal of patrol activity, Frehmo or Renanio, he can't tell which."

  That made Claudia uneasy, and she moved a little closer to where Sean sat and leaned against his shoulder. Together they listened to the radio, and again there seemed to be a much higher level of traffic, most of it in Shangane or African-accented Portuguese.

  "There is something brewing," Alphonso grunted as he concentrated on the set. "They are moving patrols into a stop line."

  "Renamo?" Sean asked, and Alphonso nodded.

  "Sounds like General Tippoo Tip's men."

  "What does he say?" Claudia asked, but Sean didn't want to alarm her further.

  "Routine traffic," he bed. Claudia relaxed and watched Matatu at the cooking fire as he carefully un stoppered the bark cylinder and shook out its contents onto the coals. As she realized what he was cooking, she stiffened with horror.

  "Those are the most disgusting-!" She couldn't finish, and she stared in awful fasc
ination at the huge, hairy caterpillars writhing and wriggling on the coals. Their long reddish hair frizzled off in little puffs of smoke, and gradually the worms stopped moving and curled into little crisp black sausages.

  Claudia let out a tiny strangled cry and clutched at Sean's arm as she recognized them. "They aren't-!" she gasped. "I didn't!

  You didn't make me! Oh! No! I can't believe-!"

  "Highly nutritious," Sean assured her, and Matatu, seeing the direction of her gaze, picked one of the caterpillars out of the coals and, passing it quickly from hand to hand to cool it, offered it to her with a magnanimous flourish.

  "I think I'm going to throw up," Claudia said faintly, turning her face away. "I can't believe I actually ate one of those."

  At that moment the radio crackled sharply and a voice spoke very faintly in a guttural language Claudia could not understand.

  However, Sean's sudden interest in the transmission distracted her from her feelings of nauseous disgust and she asked, "What language is that?"

  "Afrikaans," he replied shortly. "Quiet! Listen!" But the transmission faded out abruptly.

  "Afrikaans?" she asked. "South African Dutch?"

  441mat's right." Sean nodded. We must be getting within extreme range. That was almost certainly a South African military transmission, probably a border patrol on the Limpopo." Sean spoke briefly to Alphonso and then told Claudia, "He agrees.

  South African border patrol. Alphonso says they sometimes Pick up skip transmissions like that even further north." Sean chocked his wristwatch. "Well, it doesn't look as though General China is going to entertain us this evening. We had better pack up and get ready to march." Sean had half risen when suddenly the radio burst into LIFE again. This time the voice was so clear they could hear every intake of General China's breath.

  "Good evening, Colonel Courtney. Please forgive me for the late schedule, but I have had urgent business to attend to. Come in, please, Colonel Courtney."

  In the silence that followed Sean made no move toward the microphone, and General China chuckled softly across the ether.

  "Still at a loss for words, Colonel? Never mind. I'm sure you are listening, so I will congratulate you on the ground you have covered to date. Quite remarkable, especially in view Of Miss Monterro's brake upon your progress."

  "Arrogant bastard," Claudia whispered bitterly. "He is everything and a male chauvinist pig to boot." me by surprise. We "Quite frankly, Colonel Courtney, you took have been forced to redeploy our stop lines further south to welcome you." Again there was a short silence, and suddenly General China's voice was full of malice. "You see, Colonel, we have found where you buried your Matabele." Claudia felt Sean stiffen beside her. The silence drew out until China spoke again. "We dug up the body and we were able to judge how long it had been in the earth by the extent of putrefaction." Sean began to tremble, and China went on affably. "A Matabele can stink like a dead hyena, and your friend was no exception. Tell me, Colonel, did you put that bullet in his head? Very'sensible thing to do. He wasn't going to make it anyway.". 4 "The swine! The bloody swine"" It was wrung out of Sean.

  "Oh, and by the way, the booby trap didn't work. Very amateurish effort, I'm afraid." China laughed easily. "And don't worry about the Matabele. I made it easier for the hyenas. I put two of n to work on him with pan gas Bite-size chunks, Colonel, my me Matabele goulash!" snatched it to his mouth.

  Sean lunged for the microphone and yelled into it. "You filthy "You depraved bloody animal!" he ghoul! By Christ, you'd better pray I never get my hand s on you!" He broke off, panting with the strength of his outrage.

  "Thank you, Colonel." There was a smile in General China's voice.

  "I was getting bored with talking to myself. It's good to be in contact again-I've missed you."

  With a huge effort Sean resisted the temptation to reply and instead switched off the set. "Pack up." His voice was stiff trembling; with fury. "China will have us pretty well pinpointed after that little outburst. We've got to move fast now."

  "Like we were dragging our heels before?" Claudia asked with resignation, but she stood up obediently.

  Yet their progress was slower this night. Twice before midnight Matatu cautioned them to wait, warned by his animal sixth sense of danger ahead. Each time he went forward to scout the track and found the ambush that had been set for them, and each time they were forced to make a slow and stealthy detour to avoid the trap.

  "General Tippoo Tip's men," Alphonso muttered. "He must be helping General China. There are men waiting for us on every path."

  However, after midnight their luck changed for the better.

  Matatu came across a well-used path running almost directly southward and discovered that only a short time before a large detachment of men had passed along it in the same direction they were headed.

  "We'll use their spoor to cover our own." Sean seized the opportunity and put Matatu in the lead, with Claudia following him, while he and Alphonso took the drag, deliberately treading over the small, distinctive foot marks of the leading pair, obliterating them and losing them in the heavy sign the party of Tippoo Tip s men had left behind them.

  They hurried along the path until Matatu's sharp ears picked out the tiny sounds the Renamo patrol was making as it moved forward in the silence of the night. Then they moderated their pace and trailed them at a discreet distance, letting the patrol run interference for them.

  Keeping in contact with the enemy, maintaining the strict interval that was the fine between discovery and concealment, was a delicate and eerie business for which they had to rely completely on Matatu's hearing and night sight, but they were moving at almost double the pace they could have hoped for without this assistance.

  A little before dawn the Renarno patrol stopped just ahead of them, and they crouched in the darkness and listened to them setting up an ambush on both sides of the pathway. Once the ambush party was settled in, Matatu led them on another detour to meet the path again further on, and they struck out southward once again.

  "We have covered twenty-five miles by my reckoning," Sean murmured with grim satisfaction as the first delicate light of dawn paled the eastern stars. "But we cannot risk moving further in daylight. The country is crawling with Renamo. Matatu, find us a place to lie up for the day."

  During that night march, they had moved into an area of wet vlei ground on the approaches to the Save River, and now Matatu led them deliberately into the tall swamp grass. They waded knee deep across the flood plains that guarded the river, picking their way between shallow open lagoons from which the mosquitoes rose in gray clouds. The water covered their tracks and Sean brought up the rear of the file, meticulously closing the swamp grass and brushing it upright behind him to disguise their passing.

  A few hundred yards off the path Matatu discovered a small dry island only inches above the level of the floodwaters, and as he stepped onto it there was a violent upheaval in the reeds as a heavy body rushed through it.

  Claudia screamed with shock, certain they had blundered into another murderous Renamo ambush. However, Matatu whipped out his skinning knife and with a shrill war cry dived into the grass; there was a wild commotion as he wrestled with a writhing, scaly body twice his own size.

  Sean rushed forward to help him, and between them they clubbed and stabbed the creature and dragged it out of the grass onto the island. Claudia shuddered with horror as she realized it was a huge gray lizard, almost seven feet long, with a speckled yellow belly and a long whip of a tail that still twitched and lashed from side to side.

  With squeaks of glee Matatu immediately began to peel off the scaly skin.

  "What is it?"

  "Matatu's favorite delicacy, leguan." Sean whetted the blade of his trench knife on thQ,palm of his hand and then helped Matatu butcher the monitor lizard.

  The flesh from the tail was white as filets of Dover sole, but Claudia grimaced when Sean offered her a strip.

  "You and Matatu would eat your own off
spring," she accused.

  "That from the girl who dines regularly on mo pane caterpillars!"

  "Sean, I couldn't, I really couldn't force myself. Not raw."

  "We haven't any dry wood for a fire, and you have eaten Japanese sashimi, haven't you? You told me you loved it."

  "That's raw fish, not raw lizard!"

  "Same difference. Think of it as a kind of African sashimi," he coaxed her gently. When at last she gave in and tasted it, she found it surprisingly palatable, and her hunger overcame her squeamishness.

  For once there was no shortage of water, and they filled their bellies with sweet white meat and floodwater, then curled up on their blankets. With the tall swamp grass swaying over their heads to protect them from the burning sunlight and the eyes in the sky, Claudia felt secure and gave in to her fatigue.