by Wilbur Smith
When David Livingstone, the missionary explorer, first stood on the edge of the gorge and looked down into the sombre sunless depths, he said, "Sights such as these must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight." The Livingstone suite, which looks out upon this view, was named after him.
One of the black porters who carried up their luggage told Janine proudly, "King Georgey slept here and Missy Elizabeth, who is now the queen, with her sister Margaret when they were little girls." Roly laughed. "Hell, what was good enough for King Georgey!" and he grossly overtipped the grinning porters and fired the cork from the bottle of champagne that waited for them in a silver ice-bucket.
They walked hand in hand along the enchanted path beside the Zambezi river, while the timid little spotted bushbuck scuttled away into the tropical undergrowth and the vervet monkeys scolded them from the tree-tops. They ran laughing hand in hand through the rain forests, under the torrential downpour of falling spray, Janine's hair melted down her face, and their sodden clothing clung to their bodies.
When they kissed, standing on the edge of the high cliff, the rock trembled under their feet and the turmoil of air displaced by the volume of tumbling water buffeted them and flung the icy spray into their faces.
They cruised on the placid upper reaches of the river in the sunset, and they chartered a light aircraft to fly over the serpentine coiling and uncoiling gorge in the noon, and Janine clung to Roland in delicious vertigo as they skimmed the rocky lip of the gorge. They danced to the African steel band, under the stars, and the other guests who recognized Roland's uniform watched them with pride and affection.
"One of Ballantyne's Scouts," they told each other, "they are very special, the Scouts." And they sent wine to their table in the manorial dining-room to mark their appreciation.
Roland and Janine lay late in bed in the mornings and had their breakfast sent up to them. They played tennis and Roland lobbed his service and returned to her forehand. They lay in the sunlight beside the Olympic-sized pool and anointed each other with sun cream In their brief bathing suits they were magnificently healthy clean young animals, and so obviously in love that they seemed charmed and set apart. In the evenings they sat under the umbrella spread of the great trees on the terrace and drank Pimms No. I cup, and experienced a marvelous sense of defiance in flaunting themselves to the full view of their mortal enemies on the far side of the gorge.
Then one day at dinner, the manager stopped at their table.
"I understand that you are leaving us tomorrow, Colonel Ballantyne. We shall miss you both." "Oh no!" Janine shook her head laughingly. "We are staying until the twenty-sixth." "Tomorrow is the twenty-sixth, Mrs. Ballantyne." he head porter had all their luggage piled at the hotel entrance and Roland was settling their bill. Janine waited for him under the portico. Suddenly she started as she recognized the battered old open Lan dRover that swung in through the gates, and parked in one of the open slots at the end of the lot.
Her first reaction, as she watched the familiar gawky figure untangle his long legs and flick the hair out of his eyes as he climbed out, was quick anger.
"He's come on purpose," she thought. "Just to try and spoil it all." Craig came ambling towards her with his hands thrust into his pockets, but when he was less than a dozen paces from where she stood, he recognized her and his confusion was obviously unfeigned.
Jan, he blushed furiously. "Oh my God, I didn't know you'd be here." She felt her anger recede. "Hello, Craig dear. No, it was a secret, until now." "I'm so dreadfully sorry-" "Don't be, we are leaving anyway."
"Sonny boy," Roland came out of the doorway behind Janine and went to throw a brotherly arm around Craig's shoulders. "You are ahead of time. How are you?" "You knew I was coming?" Craig looked even more confused.
"I knew," Roland admitted, "but not so soon. You were supposed to report on the twenty-eighth." "George gave me a couple of days." Since that first startled exchange, Craig had not looked at Janine again. "I thought I would spend them here." "Good boy, you will need the rest.
You and I are going to be doing a bit of work together. I tell you what, Sonny, let's have a quick drink. I'll explain it to you some of it anyway." "Oh, darling," Janine cut in swiftly, "we don't have time. I'll miss the flight." She could not bear the hurt and confusion in Craig's eyes another moment.
"Darn it, I suppose you are right." Roland checked his watch.
"It will have to keep until I see you the day after tomorrow, Sonny," and at that moment the airways" bus drove into the hotel driveway.
Roland and Janine were the only passengers in the mini-bus out to the airport.
"Darling, when will I see you again?" "Look, I can't say for sure, Bugsy, that depends on so many things." "Will you telephone me or write even?" "You know I can't." "I know, but I will be at the flat, just in case." "I wish you would go out to live at Queen's Lynn that's where you belong now." "My job." "The hell with your job. Ballantyne wives don't work." "Well, see here, Colonel, sir, this Ballantyne wife is going on working until-" "Until?" he asked.
"Until you give me something better to do." "Like what?" "Like a baby." "Is that a challenge?" "Oh please, Colonel, sir, do take it as one." At the airport there was a cheerfully rowdy young crowd, all the men in uniform, come to see the aircraft leave. Most of them knew Roland and they plied him and Janine with drinks. It made the last minutes more bearable. Then suddenly they were standing at the gate and the air hostess was calling for boarding.
"I shall miss you so,"Janine whispered. "I shall pray for you."
He kissed her and held her so fiercely that she almost lost her breath.
"I love you, "Roland said. "You never said that before." "No," he agreed. "Not to anybody before. Now, go, woman before I do something stupid." She was the last in the straggling line of passengers that climbed the boarding-ladder into the elderly Viscount aircraft parked on the hard stand. She wore a white blouse with a daffodil-yellow skirt and flat sandals. There was a matching yellow scarf around her hair and a sling-bag over her shoulder. In the doorway of the aircraft at the top of the boarding-ladder, she looked back, shading her eyes as she searched for Roland, and when she found him she smiled and waved and then stepped through the fuselage door.
The door closed and the boarding-ladder wheeled away. The Rolls-Royce Dart turbo-prop engines whined and fired, and the silver Viscount, with the flying Zimbabwe bird emblem on its tail, taxied downwind to its holding point.
Cleared for take-off, it lumbered back down the runway, and climbed slowly into the air. Roland watched it bank onto its southerly heading for Bulawayo, and then went back into the airport building, showed his pass to the guard at the door and climbed the steps to the control tower.
"What can we do for you, Colonel?" the assistant controller at the flight planning desk greeted him.
"I am expecting a helicopter flight coming in from Wankie to pick me up--" "Oh, you are Colonel Ballantyne yes, we have your bird on the plot. They were airborne twelve minutes ago. They will be here in an hour and ten minutes." While they were talking, the flight-controller at the picture windows was speaking quietly with the pilot of the departing Viscount.
"You are cleared to standard departure, unrestricted climb fifteen thousand feet. Over now to Bulawayo approach on "18 comma six.
Goodday!" "Understand standard departure unrestricted climb to flight level-" The pilot's calm, almost bored voice broke off and the side-band hummed for a few seconds. Then the voice came back crackling with urgency. Roland spun away from the flight planning desk, and strode to the controller's console. He gripped the back of the controller's chair and through the tall windows stared up into the sky.
The high fair-weather clouds were already turning pink with the oncoming sunset, but the Viscount was out of sight, somewhere out there in the south. Roland's face was hard and terrible with anger and fear, as he listened to the pilot's voice grating out of the radio speakers.
"The portable surface-to-air missile-launcher,
designated SAM-7, is a crude-looking weapon almost indistinguishable from the bazooka anti-tank rocket launcher of World War II. It looks like a five-foot section of ordinary drainpipe, but the exhaust end is slightly flared into the mouth of a funnel. At the point of balance, there is a shoulder-plate below the barrel and an aiming and igniting device like a small portable AM radio set attached to the upper surface of the barrel.
The weapon is operated by two men. The loader simply places the missile in the exhaust breech of the barrel and, making sure the fins engage the slots, pushes it forward until its rim engages the electrical terminals and locks it into the firing-position. The missile weighs a little less than ten kilos. It has the conventional rocket shape, but in the front of the nose cone is an opaque glass eye, behind which is located the infra-red sensor. The tail-fins are steerable, enabling the rocket to lock onto and follow a moving target.
The gunner settles the barrel across his shoulder, places the earphones on his head, and switches, on the power pack In the earphones he hears the cyclic tone of his audio-warning. He tunes this down below the background infra-red count, so that it is no longer audible.
The weapon is now loaded and ready to fire. The gunner searches out his target through the cross-hatched gun-sight. As soon as an infra-red source is detected by the missile's sensor, the audio warning begins to sound and a tiny red bulb lights up in the eye-piece of the gun-sight to confirm that the missile is "locked-on. It remains only for the gunner to press the trigger in the pistol-type grip and the missile launches itself in relentless pursuit of its prey, steering itself to track it accurately through any turns or changes of altitude.
Tungata Zebiwe had held his cadre in position for four days.
Apart from himself, there were eight of them and he had chosen each of them with extreme care. They were all veterans of proven courage and determination, but, more importantly, they were all of superior intelligence and capable of operating under their own initiative.
Every one of them had been trained in the use of the SAM-7 missile launcher in both roles of loader and gunner, and each of them carried one of the finned missiles in addition to their AK 47 assault rifles, and the usual complement of grenades and AP mines. Any two of them could make the attack, and had been thoroughly briefed to do so.
The wind direction would dictate the departure track of any aircraft leaving the main runway of Victoria Falls airport. Wind velocity would also affect the aircraft's altitude as it passed over any specific point on the extended centre-line and crosswind legs of its outward track. Fortunately for Tungata's calculations, the prevailing northeasterly wind had been blowing at a steady fifteen knots during the entire four days in which they had been in position.
He had chosem a small kopje, thickly wooded enough to give them good cover, but not so thick that it impeded the view over the surrounding tree-tops. From the peak in the early mornings, before the heat-haze and dust thickened, Tungata had been able to see the stationary silver cloud of spray that marked the Victoria Falls on the northern horizon.
Each afternoon they had practised the attack drill. Half an hour before the expected time of departure of the scheduled Viscount flight from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo, Tungata had moved them into position. six men in a ring below the summit to guard against surprise attack by security forces, and three men above them in the actual attack group.
Tungata himself was the gunner, and his loader and backup loader had both been chosen for the acuteness of their hearing and the sharpness of their eyesight. On each of the three preceding afternoon drills, they had been able to hear the turbo-prop Rolls-Royce Dart engines minutes after takeoff. They were in climb power-setting, and the whine was distinctive, it drew the eye to the tiny crucifix shape of the aircraft against the blue.
On the first afternoon, the Viscount had climbed almost directly over their kopje, at not more than eight thousand feet in altitude, and Tungata had locked on and tracked it until it passed out of sight and then out of hearing. The second afternoon the aircraft had passed at about the same altitude, but five miles to the east of their position.
That was extreme range for the missile. The audio-signal had been weak and intermittent, and the lock-on -bulb had glowed only fitfully.
Tungata had to admit to himself that an attack would probably have failed. The third day the Viscount had been east of them again, three miles out. It would have been a good kill, so that the odds seemed to be about two to one in their favour.
This fourth day he moved the attack team into position on the summit fifteen minutes early, and tested the SAM launcher by aiming it at the lowering sun. It howled in his ears at the excitation of that immense infra-red source. Tungata switched off the power pack and they settled down to wait, all their faces lifted to the sky.
His loader glanced at his wristwatch and murmured, "They are late." Tungata hissed at him viciously. He knew they were late, and already the doubts were crowding in flight delayed or cancelled, even a leak in their own security, the kanka might already be on their way.
"Listen!" said his loader, and seconds later he heard it also, the faint whistling whine in the northern sky.
"Ready!" he ordered, and settled the shoulder-plate into position and switched on the power pack The audio-warning had been pre-set, but he checked it again.
"Load!"he said. He felt the missile go into the breech and weight the barrel slightly tail-heavy. He heard the clunk of the rim seating itself against the terminals.
"Loaded!"his No. 2 confirmed and tapped his shoulder. He traversed left and right, making certain he was firmly settled, and his loader spoke again. "Nansi! There!" He extended his arm over Tungata's left shoulder, and pointed upwards with his forefinger.
Tungata searched, and then caught the high silver spark as the sunlight reflected off burnished metal.
"Target identified!" he said, and heard his two loaders move aside softly to avoid the backblast of the rocket.
The tiny speck grew swiftly in size, and Tungata saw that it was tracking to pass less than half a mile to the west of the hillock, and that it was at least a thousand feet lower than it had been on the preceding afternoons. It was in a perfect position for attack. He picked it up in the cross, wires of the gun-sight, and the missile howled lustfully in his earphones, a wicked sound like a wolf-pack hunting at full moon. The missile had sensed the infra-red burn from the exhausts of the Rolls-Royce engines. In the gun-sight the lock-on bulb burned like a fiery red Cyclops" eye, and Tungata pressed the trigger.
There was a stunning whoosh of sound, but almost no recoil from the weapon across his shoulder as it exhausted through the funnel vent in the rear. He was enveloped for micro-seconds in white fumes and whirling dust, but when they were whipped away by their own velocity, he saw the little silver missile going upwards into the blue on the feather of its own rocket vapours. It was like a hunting falcon bating from the gloved fist, going up to tower above its quarry. Its speed was dazzling, so that it seemed to dwindle miraculously into nothingness, and there was only the faint drumming rumble of its rocket-burn.
Tungata knew that there was no time for a second launch. By the time they could re-load, the Viscount would be well out of range.
They stared up at the tiny shiny aircraft and the seconds seemed to flow with the slow viscosity of honey.
