Behind them, Harold could see Sir Gardnor. He was standing in the doorway of his own marquee, his eyes shaded against the slanting sun. Throughout, he had been watching the whole scene very closely; it was almost as though he had anticipated that something of the sort might happen.
Then, as soon as Sybil Prosser had got Lady Anne safely back to her tent again, he turned and went inside to take his shower.
Chapter 21
At breakfast next day Sir Gardnor was in excellent form.
‘Most extraordinary. Really quite extraordinary, wouldn’t you say?’ he remarked to Major Mills and Captain Webber as they sat facing him across the trestle-table top, with the coffee-pot and the milk jug and the marmalade jar between them. ‘I’d read about it, naturally. But I’d never actually encountered it at first hand, had you? Simply waiting there to be killed. Like a dummy. “Frozen” is the word you might use.’
Captain Webber pushed his plate to one side, and leant forward.
‘Paralysed by fear, sir?’ he suggested.
Sir Gardnor paused, and regarded Captain Webber for a moment. The impression was distasteful: Sir Gardnor disliked young-looking doctors.
‘I always hesitate,’ he said, ‘to impute motives. So far as I could see, he was absolutely calm. Cool and collected throughout, wouldn’t you say?’ He had shifted round in his seat, and was speaking to the A.D.C. ‘Did you see any signs of panic? I confess, I didn’t.’
‘Not a trace, sir,’ the A.D.C. replied. ‘He just fired too high.’
‘Well, there you are.’ Sir Gardnor allowed himself his expansive smile. This time it was directed straight at Captain Webber. ‘You see how wrong laymen can be. But, as a medical man, you detected it at once. I must confess that I would never have thought of Mr. Stebbs as the panic-stricken type.’
Captain Webber leant forward even further.
‘What I meant, sir,’ he said, ‘was that…’
But this time it was Sir Gardnor who interrupted him.
‘You will excuse me, won’t you?’
The bearer from Signals had come over to the table, and Sir Gardnor was in touch with Amimbo once more. He read the typed sheets slowly and carefully, his face revealing nothing. Then he folded up the paper and stuffed it under the corner of his plate.
‘It seemed that our native newspaper is angry with me,’ he said. ‘It calls me a bloodthirsty Governor because a murderer has been executed. It’s not, I must admit, a point of view that I understand. And there have been more outrages. Two, in fact. One native, and one white.’ He caught Major Mills’s eye. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken you away like this. You’ll be needed back there, wouldn’t you say? I’m afraid our Acting Chief Secretary must be having a hard time of it.’
Major Mills very nearly made the mistake of replying. But already Sir Gardnor was speaking again.
‘And, I gather, that at home India is still very much in the news,’ he said. ‘The press simply won’t let things alone. It’s poor Eldred. Apparently, he’s allowed himself to be interviewed. By the Morning Post, too. That must surely be a mistake, mustn’t it? I mean one can’t exactly canvas for Viceroyship, can one? It’s always been the tradition …’
Major Mills glanced down at his watch for a moment. It was a discreet, furtive gesture; but, even so, Sir Gardnor detected it. He broke off in the middle of his sentence.
‘Am I detaining you?’ he asked.
Major Mills hurriedly thrust his cuff down over his wrist again.
‘Oh no, sir,’ he said. ‘Not at all. It’s simply that I was wondering about…’
‘About moving on?’
‘Precisely, sir.’ He paused. ‘Before the sun gets too high, you know, sir.’
Sir Gardnor gave his half-smile.
‘I’m ready, Major, whenever you are. We are all ready. We don’t want to stay here all day, do we? But’—here he turned the same half-smile on Captain Webber—’it’s your pigeon, isn’t it? I mean we can’t get under way until you say its safe for our invalid to travel. He did have rather a shaking-up yesterday, didn’t he?’
Captain Webber pushed his chair back.
‘Then if you’ll excuse me, sir,’ he said.
‘But, of course,’ Sir Gardnor told him. ‘You’re on duty, aren’t you? You have your rounds to make. Tell him I’ll come over myself a little later on. I have one or two things to attend to.’
Major Mills and Captain Webber left the tent together. As soon as they had gone a safe-speaking distance, Captain Webber leant over a little towards his companion.
‘Bit tetchy this morning, isn’t he?’ he asked. ‘Did I say anything to upset him?’
Major Mills did not answer directly.
‘Got a lot on his mind, remember,’ he said. ‘Never really gets away from it, you know. All those radio cables and things.’
They were now twenty-five yards from the tent, and there was no question of their being overheard. Even so, Captain Webber kept his voice discreetly low.
‘Don’t think it’s anything else, do you?’ he suggested. ‘Something a bit nearer home, I mean.’
But he had put his question to the wrong man. Major Mills was a serving officer, and Sir Gardnor was his Commander-in-Chief.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he replied. ‘Afraid I can’t help you.’
And rather than risk getting himself caught up in a conversation that he did not want to pursue, Major Mills made off at right-angles: it was time for his morning conference with O.C. Transport, he explained.
Captain Webber continued his own way alone towards the sick bay. It was early; not yet six o’clock, in fact. And there was still a breeze. Later on, when it was needed, the breeze would die down, leaving the same furious hot stillness everywhere. Already the swampland down below them was steaming.
Captain Webber was a great believer in going round the wards as soon after dawn as possible: it helped to keep the hospital staff on their toes. But he was not to be his patient’s first visitor that day. As he drew near, he could hear the sound of voices.
‘But you understand.’ It was Lady Anne who was speaking. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re out there with him’—she emphasised the word ever so slightly—’killing things, and I’m left all alone here with Sybil while all those radio messages keep coming through. I just want to know what they say.’
Captain Webber could not hear Harold’s reply. From the sound of it, he judged that Harold was still lying down flat in bed. But Lady Anne’s response was plain enough.
‘He’d never agree,’ she said. ‘He’d think it was just silly and interfering if I asked him. And, in any case, you know I wouldn’t ask. Major Mills isn’t any use, and Miles is on Gardie’s side anyhow. It’s got to be the Signals man. He’s the only one who can help.’
There was another mutter that probably came from the pillow. What was said was obviously unsatisfactory, because this time Lady Anne’s voice was raised again.
‘You don’t care,’ she said. ‘That’s it: you just don’t care. Well, if you won’t do anything, I won’t either. I won’t bother to see you again. I only came along for your sake.’
Captain Webber gave a little cough. The voice stopped immediately. A moment later, Lady Anne appeared in the doorway. She looked cool and unconcerned; even rather elegant. Sybil Prosser must have taken care of all the arrangements. Lady Anne’s dress was freshly-pressed and her white shoes were spotless.
She seemed pleased to see Captain Webber.
‘Oh come in, doctor,’ she said. ‘He’s much better. He wants to get up. I was just telling him not to until you’d seen him again. I’ve sent off the orderly to get him some breakfast.’
Harold was quite well enough to be moved, Captain Webber announced. There were definitely no bones broken; and what he had feared might be a small rupture was simply where the buckle of his belt had been driven into him. If they laid out a mattress in one of the transport trucks, the patient could make the journey quite comfortabl
y, Captain Webber reckoned.
They camped that night in hill country. And it was a different Africa. The fifteen hundred feet that they had climbed had left the stale air of the plains behind them, and they could breathe again. Major Mills made the round of his caravan site rubbing his hands together, and predicting that they would need a blanket on the bed before morning.
The hills, too, had their customary effect. Everyone suddenly became relaxed and peaceful. Up there in all that stillness, senses became keener. Drinks tasted better. The smell of something roasting in one of the field-kitchens was delicious; and the sound of the boys singing as they humped the portables out of the service truck reached them in faint snatches, restful rather than discordant. If they would like some real music later on, Major Mills remarked, he’d brought his gramophone along with him.
As for Harold he was being pampered. Sir Gardnor had insisted that one of the campbeds should be moved out for him so that he could recline there, Roman fashion, among the others. And Sir Gardnor himself was in the best of high spirits.
‘I take it you know where we are this time, Major?’ he was saying. ‘No river off course, or anything like that? We should rendezvous tomorrow. The reports are excellent. My leopard is in fine condition, so I am told. We must arrange an appointment, must we not?’
He turned to Harold.
‘Everything well with you?’ he asked. ‘No after effects? Not regretting your decision to come along with us?’
Sir Gardnor was at his most paternal: he wanted everyone around him to be as contented as he was himself. It was only the one empty chair displeased him.
‘Tony,’ he said, ‘do go and find that Signals fellow. It’s no use fiddling about with the buzzer any longer. It won’t work up here: that’s pretty obvious. Tomorrow when we skirt that’—he indicated the deep indigo outline of the mountain range to the west of them—’we shall be in touch again. And, in the meantime, we must get along as best we can, mustn’t we?’ He produced one of his little smiles as he said it. ‘And the rest of the world must learn to get along without us.’
He got up, and allowed his hands to rest for a moment on the canvas chair-back.
‘Really,’ he said, ‘I suppose we should all be grateful. The complete rest, you know. And the leisure. But I must be off now. My papers, you understand. We mustn’t forget that we’ve all got work to do, must we?’
Except for the brightness of the stars, it would have been dark, pitch dark, by now. Every detail of the camp stood out clearly. With no moon, there were no shadows. There was simply a vague, milky light that turned the khaki of the canvas into clay, and made a pale silver canal of the pathway that the trucks had flattened out.
One by one the kerosene lamps had been extinguished. Only the Signals tent was still illuminated: propped up on a chair inside and with the headphones worn round his neck like a doctor’s stethoscope, a corporal was on all-night vigil in case, with nightfall, cracklings of some kind began to get through.
Because he still ached all over, Harold got up to stretch himself. He knew enough of Major Mills’s sentry postings not to risk going outside the camp: there was no point in being halted, challenged, made to advance and be recognised when all that he wanted was a quiet, uninterrupted stroll. And, hi any case, the camp itself was large enough. He lit a cigarette, and turned in the direction of the Quartermaster’s side.
It was all very peaceful. The sleep of others surrounded him. There was no movement; not even, up there in the hills, any of the usual nightly hootings and cat-calls of the bush. Everything was entirely silent. He felt as though he had the whole planet to himself.
Then, as he rounded one of the trucks, he heard something. It was a voice, deliberately kept low, he thought: scarcely more than a whisper. And he heard something else. This time it was a little laugh; kept low, too, like the voice.
Harold put his cigarette behind his back, and waited. In the rear of the end truck he could make out two figures. One was lying on the grass and the other seemed to be kneeling beside him. It was the one on the grass who had given that little laugh. And then Harold remembered where he had heard it before. It had come from the bronze kitchen-boy when old Moses had snatched the knife from him.
A moment later the other figure got up and straightened himself. He raised one hand to thrust back a lock of hair from his forehead. It was a gesture with which anyone who had ever known the A.D.C. would be familiar.
Chapter 22
Sir Gardnor was extremely pleased with Major Mills. His map-reading had worked perfectly. They were not merely on the spot: they were on time, too. And expected. In the shade of the acacia grove, the two native hunters were already waiting.
Nature, too, was for once promising to behave every bit as satisfactorily as Major Mills. Despite the lateness of the rains, the grass was waist-high, and still growing. The river-bed was neither barren nor overflowing: its ochre-red torrent might have been made to measure for easy crossing. Startled by the approach of the scout-car, a herd of impala had just exploded into the air and gone aerily bouncing away as though the hard ground beneath their hooves were an acrobats’ trampoline.
Sir Gardnor, however, was not to be distracted: he declined to go after anything. It was to be a long safari; and he had all the time in the world in front of him. In any case, it was leopard, not antelope, that he was after.
Because they were going to be camped there for three or four days or even a week possibly—Major Mills laid everything out with the thoroughness of a town surveyor. And now that the one night stands were over, the extra section of Sir Gardnor’s marquee was hauled out of the truck, and fitted on.
When fully erected, it was fairground-sized. Under one canopy, there was an ante-room for the A.D.C., Sir Gardnor’s own study and sleeping-quarters, and a lean-to out at the back for Old Moses. At the side, connected by a hedge of khaki screens, all neatly cleated and strung, were the adjoining tents for Lady Anne and Sybil Prosser. There, even the Elsans were built-in.
The whole strategic arrangement suited Major Mills admirably. It ensured that, once the ladies had fastened down the front tent-flap they were entirely protected from the outside world. The only access from the camp was past the A.D.C.’s ante-room; and, even here, Major Mills had taken every precaution. More than once he had reminded the young man that, with the L.M.s around, safari was nothing short of active service, and he had extracted the promise that the A.D.C. would sleep with his revolver on the pillow beside him.
The place was, in fact, a khaki fortress; and, coupled with two sentries posted at either end of the camp and two more on patrol on the perimeter, it made things well-nigh impregnable.
Just as well, too, Major Mills reflected. Less than a mile away lay the beehive village of Kitu. It was quite famous in its way, Kitu. Only last year, his predecessor had raided the settlement and come away with a collection of rough-sharpened pangas and a set of steel claws all ready for mounting.
Sir Gardnor lost no time about it.
Leopard was what he had come for, and leopard was what he intended to have. By dawn on this first morning, he and Major Mills were interrogating the two native hunters. Patiently and without protest, they had spent the night in the adjoining grove.
This time, however, Major Mills was not doing so well. His African languages were limited to Mimbo; and out here by Kitu it was no use to him.
‘But I thought you knew,’ Sir Gardnor was saying. ‘Mimbo stops the other side of those mountains. These people aren’t Mimbo at all. These are pure Kiburru. Look at their noses,’ He turned to Harold. ‘There’s a job for you, if you care to stay out here long enough—a Kiburru Dictionary and Grammar. No one’s written one yet. You’ll find some oddities, too. Most of it’s Swahili. But some of the roots are pure Hati.’
Sir Gardnor was speaking as though he were in a lecture hall; or in a private tutorial, at least. It suited him, the effortless showing-off of knowledge that no one else around him could possibly question.
&
nbsp; ‘But we must get down to business, mustn’t we?’ he asked. ‘I’ll have a word with them myself.’
They were not by any standards particularly prepossessing, these Kiburru tribesmen; and the ichi marks carved into their foreheads did nothing to improve them. The row of jagged scars running up from the eyebrows and over the cheekbones made them look as though they had been lucky to come safely through some nasty road accident. Their colour, too, was against them. They weren’t bronze like the kitchen-boy; or gleaming, recently-polished ebony like the Mimbo. They were blue-black; blue-black and ugly.
But they knew their stuff. Moreover, they were excellent actors. “With their flexible black hands they were drawing leopards in the air, describing every contour of them. They ceased to be a couple of half-naked savages waving their arms about. Instead, they became two inky magicians, with one of the great cats, lying, standing, skulking, sitting there, leaping into the air in front of them.
Sir Gardnor came away entirely satisfied.
‘They’re exaggerating the size, of course,’ he said. ‘These fellows always do. But there’s a pair of leopard here all right, wouldn’t you say? One of them rather distinguished by all accounts.’
He paused, not because he had finished but because he hadn’t finished: he wanted someone to invite him to continue. Major Mills, however, simply did not know the form. It was Harold who stepped in.
‘Distinguished in what way, sir?’ he asked.
Sir Gardnor smiled.
‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that the male is by no means purely animal. He is a departed human spirit, returned in animal form. And from a hostile tribe, too. That makes him particularly dangerous and anti-social.’ Sir Gardnor gave a little laugh. ‘Nor, I’m afraid, is that the end of it.’ He was really enjoying himself by now: his smile was at its widest and most patronising. ‘I’m told that such leopards take their revenge on those that attack them. Even a shot between the eyes, I gather, will not deter them. Because being spirits, they can still revenge themselves after death.’
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