The Angels Weep b-3

by Wilbur Smith

  "No sign of security forces, not yet. It looks as though your arrival has gone unnoticed, but we will take no chances." She parked in the lean-to garage which had been added to the old stone-walled building, and while she unloaded her valise and a pile of files from the seat, she made certain they were still not observed. The garden was screened from the road and the thatched church by trellised creepers and -flowering shrubs.

  She opened the side door to the house, and said, "Please keep low, and go in as quickly as you can." He ducked out of the Fiat, and she followed him into the living-room. The shutters and curtains were drawn and it was half-dark.

  "My grandmother built this house after the original was burned down during the 1896 troubles. Fortunately she took precautions against the troubles of the future." Leila crossed the floor of sawn Rhodesian teak, the highly polished surface of which was strewn with tanned animal skins and hand-woven rugs in bold patterns and primary colours.

  She entered the walk-in stone fireplace and drew aside the black grate. The floor of the fireplace was of slate flags, and she used the fire irons to prise and lift one of these. When Tungata stepped up beside her, he saw that she had exposed a square vertical shaft, into one wall of which were set stone steps.

  "This was where Comrade Tebe was hiding that night?" Tungata asked. When the Scouts, the kanka, could not find him?" "Yes, he was here. It would be best if you went down now." He dropped nimbly down the shaft and found himself in darkness. Leila closed the slate hatch and came down beside him. She groped along the wall and turned a switch. A bare electric bulb lit on the roof of the tiny stone cell.

  There was a deal table on which were stacked a few well-thumbed books, pushed beneath it was a low stool and there was a narrow truckle-bed against the far wall. A chemical toilet stood at its foot.

  "Not very comfortable," she apologized. "But nobody will find you here." "I have had less luxurious accommodation," he assured her. "Now let us go over your arrangements." She had the medical certificates ready on the table, and she sat on the stool and wrote down his requirements for the transportation of the Umlimo as he dictated them.

  When she had finished, he said, "Memorize that and destroy it."

  "Very well." He watched while she went over the list carefully and then looked up.

  "Now, there is a message for you to take to Comrade Inkunzi,"she said. "It is from our friend in high places." "Give it to me,"he nodded.

  "Ballantyne's Scouts, the kanka, they are planning a special operation. It is to destroy Comrade Inkunzi and his staff. Your own name is high on their list." Tungata's expression did not change.

  "Do you have any details of their plans?" "All the details," she assured him. "This is what they will do-" She spoke slowly and deliberately for almost ten minutes, and he did not interrupt her.

  Even when she had finished, he was silent for many minutes, lying flat on his back on the bed, staring up at the electric bulb. Then she saw that his jaws clenched and that a smoky red tide seemed to have spread over his eyeballs. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with loathing.

  "Colonel Roland Ballantyne. If we could get him! He is responsible for the deaths of over three thousand of our people he and his kanka. In the camps they speak his name in whispers, as though he were some sort of demon. His name alone turns our bravest men to cowards. I have seen him and his butchers at work. Oh, if we could only take him." He sat up and glared at her. Perhaps. His voice was choked and slurred as though he was drunk with hatred. "Perhaps this is our chance." He reached out and took Leila by the shoulders. His fingers dug deeply into her flesh and she winced and tried to draw away. He held her without effort.

  "This woman of his. You say that she will fly from the Victoria Falls? Can you get me the date, the number of the flight, the exact time?" She nodded, afraid of him now, terrified by his strength and fury.

  "We have somebody in the airway booking-office," she whispered, no longer trying to escape the agony of his grip. "I can get it for you."

  "The bait," he said, "the tender lamb that will lure the leopard into the trap." She brought him food and drink down the stone shaft and waited while Tungata ate.

  For a while he ate in silence, then abruptly he returned to the subject of the Umlimo.

  "The stone falcons, he started, "you heard what the old woman said?" She nodded and he went on, "Tell me what you know of these things." "Well, the stone falcons are the emblem on the flag. They are minted on the coinage of this country." "Yes, go on." "They are ancient carvings of bird figures. They were discovered in the ruins of Zimbabwe by the early white adventurers, and stolen by them. There is a legend that Lobengula tried to prevent them, but they were taken south." "Where are they now?"Tungata demanded.

  "One of them was destroyed by fire when Cecil Rhodes" house at Groote Schuur was burned down, but the others, I'm not absolutely certain, but I think they are at Cape Town in South Africa."

  "Whereabouts?" "In the museum, there." He grunted and went on eating steadily. When the bowl and mug were empty he pushed them aside and stared at her again with those smoky eyes.

  "The words of the old woman, "he began and then paused. "The prophecy of the Umlimo," she went on for him, "that the man who returned the falcons would rule this land, and that you were that man."

  "You will tell nobody what she said do you understand me?" (I will tell nobody, "she promised.

  "You know that if you do, I will kill you." "I know that," she said simply, and gathered the bowl and mug and replaced them on the tray.

  She stood before him waiting, and when he did not speak again, she asked, "Is there anything else?" He went on staring at her, and she dropped her eyes. "Do you wish me to stay?" "Yes,"he said, and she turned to the light switch.

  "Leave the light," he ordered. "I want to see your whiteness."

  The first time she cried out, it was in fear and pain, the second time and the uncounted times after that was in mindless, incoherent transports of ecstasy.

  Douglas Ballantyne had selected a dozen of the finest slaughter-beasts from the herds of King's Lynn and Queen's Lynn. The prime carcasses had hung in the cold room for three weeks until they were perfect. They were being barbecued whole on the open coal pits at the bottom of the gardens. The kitchen servants of Queen's Lynn worked in relays, turning the spits and basting the sizzling golden carcasses amidst clouds of fragrant steam.

  There were three bands to provide continuous music. The caterers had been flown in with all their equipment from Johannesburg, and paid suitable danger-money for entering the war zone. The gardens of every homestead for fifty miles around had been ransacked for flowers and the marquees were filled with banks of floral decorations, of roses and poinsettia and dahlia in fifty blazing shades of colour.

  Bawu Ballantyne had chartered a special aircraft to bring the liquor up from South Africa. There was a little over four tons" weight of fine wines and spirits. After searching his political conscience, Bawu had even decided to suspend his personal sanctions against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the duration of the wedding festivities, and had included one hundred case's of Chivas Regal whisky in the shipment. This was his most valuable contribution to the preparations, but there had been others.

  He had transferred some of his most potent and cherished Claymore mines across from the King's Lynn de fences and added them to the decorations in the Queen's Lynn gardens.

  "You can never be too careful," he explained darkly, when taxed with it. "If there is a terr attack during the ceremony-" He made the motion of pressing a button, and the entire family shuddered at the thought of a mushroom-shaped cloud hanging over Queen's Lynn. It had taken all their combined powers of persuasion to get him to remove his pets.

  He had then sneaked into the kitchens and added an extra six bottles of brandy to the mix for the wedding cake. Fortunately Valerie had made a final tasting and when she got her breath back, ordered the chef to bury it and start a new batch. From then on Bawu was banned from
the kitchens in disgrace, and Douglas had drawn up a roster of family members to keep him under surveillance during the great day.

  Craig had the first shift from nine in the morning when the two thousand invited guests started arriving until eleven when Craig would hand over to a cousin and assume his other duties as Roland's best man.

  Craig had helped the old man dress in his uniform from the Kaiser's war. A local tailor had been brought out to King's Lynn to make the alterations, and the results' were surprising. Bawu looked dapper and spry with his Sam Browne belt and swagger stick and the double row of coloured ribbons on his chest.

  Craig was proud of him as he took up his position on the front veranda, and looked over the crowded lawns, lifting his swagger-stick in acknowledgement of the affectionate cries of "Hello, Uncle Bawu', brushing out his gleaming silver moustaches and tipping the peak of his cap at a more debonair angle over one eye.

  "Damn me, boy," he told Craig. "This whole business makes me feel quite romantic again. I haven't been married myself for nearly twenty years. I have a good mind to give it one last whirl." "There is always the widow Angus," Craig suggested, and his grandfather was outraged.

  "That old crow!" "Bawu, she is rich and only fifty." "That's old, boy. Catch "em young and train "em well. That's my motto." Bawu winked at him. "Now how about that one?" His choice was twenty-five years old, twice divorced already, wearing an unfashionable mini-skirt and casting a bold eye about her.

  "You can introduce me." Bawu gave his magnanimous permission. -I, think the prime minister wants to see you, Bawu." Craig searched desperately for a distraction, before the pert little bottom under the mini-skirt was soundly pinched. Craig had seen the old man flirting before. He left Bawu, gin and tonic in hand, giving Ian Smith a few tips on international diplomacy.

  "You have to remember that these fellows, Callaghan and his friends, are working class, Ian, my boy, you cannot treat them like gentlemen. They wouldn't understand that-" And the prime minister, worn and tired and wan with his responsibilities, one eyelid drooping, his curly sandy hair receding, tried to hide his smile as he nodded.

  "Quite right, Uncle Bawu, I'll remember that." Craig felt safe to leave him for ten minutes, sure that the old man's opinions of the British Labour government were good for at least that long, and he made his way swiftly through the crowds to where Janine's parents stood with a small group at the end of the veranda.

  He insinuated himself unobtrusively into the circle, and studied Janine's mother out of the corner of his eye. It gave him a hollow aching feeling to recognize the same features, the jawline and deep forehead blurred only marginally by the passage of time. She had the same slanted eyes with the same appealing cat-like cast to them. She caught his gaze and smiled at him.

  "Mrs. Carpenter, I'm a good friend of Janine's. My name is Craig Mellow." "Oh yes, Jan wrote about you in her letters." Her smile was warm, and her voice had haunting echoes of her daughter's. Craig found himself babbling away to her, and could not prevent it until softly and compassionately she said. "She told me you were such a nice person.

  I am sorry, I truly am." "I don't understand?" Craig stiffened. "You love her very much, don't you!" He stared at her miserably, unable to reply, and she touched his arm in understanding.

  "Excuse me," he blurted. "Roland will be ready to dress, I must go." He stumbled and almost fell on, the veranda steps. "By God, Sonny, where have you been? I thought you were going to let me go into contact on my own," Roland shouted from the shower. "Have you got the ring?" They waited side by side, under the bower of fresh flowers in front of the makeshift altar which also was smothered with flowers.

  Roland wore full-dress uniform. the maroon beret with Bazo's head cap-badge, the colonel's crowns on his shoulders, the silver cross for valour on his breast, white gloves on his hands and the gilt and tasselled sword at his waist.

  In his simple police uniform, Craig felt gauche and drab, like a sparrow beside a golden eagle, like a tabby cat beside a leopard, and the waiting seemed to go on for ever. Through it all, Craig clung to a hopeless notion that it was still not going to happen that was the only way he could hold his despair at bay.

  Then there was the triumphant swell of the bridal march, and down both sides of the carpeted aisle from the house, the crowds stirred and hummed with excitement and anticipation. Craig felt his soul begin the final plunge into cold and darkness, he could not bring himself to look around. He stared straight ahead at the face of the priest. He had known him since childhood, but now he seemed a stranger, his face swam and wavered in Craig's vision.

  Then he smelled Janine, even over the scent of the altar flowers he recognized her perfume, and he almost choked on the memories it evoked. He felt the train of her dress brush against his ankle, and he moved back slightly and turned so that he could see her for the last time.

  She was on her father's arm. The veil covered her hair, and misted her face, but beneath its soft folds, he could see her eyes, those great slanted eyes, the dark indigo of a tropical sea, shining softly as she looked up at Roland Ballantyne.

  "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this church, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony-" Now Craig could not take his eyes from her face. She had never looked so lovely. She wore a crown of fresh Violets, the exact colour of her eyes. He still hoped that it would not happen, that something would prevent it.

  "Therefore if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak-" He wanted to call out, to stop it. He wanted to shout, "I love her, she is mine," but his throat was so dry and painful that he could not draw breath enough through it. Then, it was happening.

  "I, Roland Morris, take thee, Janine Elizabeth, to have and to hold from this day forward-" Roly's voice was clear and strong and it raked Craig's soul to its very depths. After that, nothing else mattered. Craig seemed to be standing a little away from it all, as though all the laughter and joy was on the other side of a glass partition, the voices were strangely muted, even the light seemed dulled as though a cloud had passed across the sun.

  He watched from the back of the crowd, standing under the jacaranda trees, while Janine came out onto the veranda still carrying her bouquet Of violets, dressed in her blue going-away ensemble. She and Roland were still hand in hand, but now he lifted her onto a table-top and there were feminine shrieks of excitement as Janine poised to toss her bouquet.

  In that moment, she looked over their heads, and saw Craig. The smile stayed on her lovely wide mouth, but something moved in her eyes, a dark shadow, perhaps of pity, perhaps even regret, then she threw the bouquet, one of her bridesmaids caught it, and Roland swept her down and away. Hand in hand, the two of them ran down the lawns to where the helicopter waited with its rotor already turning. They ran laughing, Janine clutching her wide brimmed straw hat, and Roland trying to shield her from the storm of confetti that swirled around them.

  Craig did not wait for the machine to bear them away. He returned to where he had left the old Land-rover at the back of the stables. He drove back to the yacht. He stripped off his uniform, threw it onto the bunk, and pulled on a pair of silk jogging shorts. He went into the galley and from the refrigerator hooked out a can of beer. Sipping the froth, he went back into the saloon. A loner all his life, he had believed himself immune to the tortures of loneliness, and now he knew he had been mistaken.

  By this time there was a stack of over fifty exercise books upon the saloon table, each of them filled from cover to cover with his pencilled scrawl. He sat down and selected a pencil from the bunch stuck into an empty coffee mug like porcupine quills. He began to write, and slowly the corrosive agony of loneliness receded and became merely a slow dull ache.

  On Monday morning, when Craig walked into police headquarters, on his way through to the armoury, the member-in-charge called him into his office.

  "Craig, I've got movement papers for you. You are bein
g detached on special assignment." What is it?" "Hell, I don't know. I just work here. Nobody tells me anything, but you are ordered to report to the area commander, Wankie, on twenty-eighth-" The inspector broke off and studied Craig's face. "Are you feeling okay, Craig?" "Yes, why do you ask?" "You are looking bloody awful." He considered for a few moments. "I tell you what, if you sneak away from here on the twenty-fifth, you could give yourself a couple of days" break before reporting to your new assignment." "You are the only star in my firmament, George." Craig grinned lopsidedly, and thought to himself, "That's all I need, three days with nothing to do but feel sorry for myself." The Victoria Falls Hotel is one of those magnificent monuments to the great days of Empire. Its walls are as thick as those of a castle, but painted brilliant white. The floors are of marble, with sweeping staircases and colonnaded porticos, the ceilings are cathedral-high with fancy plaster-work and gently revolving fans. The terraces and lawns stretch down to the very brink of the aby's through which the Zambezi river boils in all its fury and grandeur, Spanning the gorge is the delicate steel tracery of the arched bridge of which Cecil Rhodes ordered, "I want the spray from the falls to wet my train as it passes on its way to the north." The spray hangs in a perpetual snowy mantle over the chasm, twisting and folding upon itself as the breeze picks at it, and always there is the muted thunder of falling water like the sound of storm surf heard from afar.