A Cleft Of Stars

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  Little meteors of flaming fuel raced into the dry bush. One fell on to the pilot's jacket and I beat it out. With the tinder dry bush for fuel, each incendiary spot became the start of a new fire. I humped the pilot up again and stumbled towards where I had left Nadine but saw her coming, white and shaky, towards me. I tried to wave her back but she joined me and tried to help me set the pilot down in her own patch of shade. I found my shirt and hands sticky with the blood from his wound. A tall plume of smoke rose above the burning machine and everywhere the bush was ablaze.

  I welcomed the need for quick action about the wounded man. It begged off all the impossible questions in Nadine's eyes and quietened the devils inside me.

  'Who is he?'

  'Peter Talbot. My father's personal pilot. He . . . ."

  'The explanations can wait. He's in a bad way. The first thing to do is to get well clear of the fire.'

  'Guy - you ..

  She seemed to sway a little. I went to her. 'Here! You'll pass out from heat stroke in that jacket. Off with it.' 'It's not the heat ... Guy!'

  'We can't talk now.

  'Have you seen yourself? What have they been doing to you?'

  She bit back the rest of her words.

  I wondered if Rankin, too, had been shaken by my wild appearance. I suddenly became aware that my face was singed and stained from the Mannlicher misfire; one eye was bloodshot; my unshaven beard plastered with dust and sweat; my shirt ripped; an arm skinned and raw. I stank of petrol, sweat, cordite and fresh blood.

  'There's a sort of cave over there.' I nodded towards my 'command-post', which merged remarkably well into its surroundings. 'We must move him out of the sun. It's a bit tricky crossing over . . I started to explain and then asked dubiously, 'Do you think you can make it?'

  'I'm all right. I'm not really hurt. A bit dazed, that's all.'

  However, the shock of the crash was catching up on her fast. Despite her brave show of words she looked on the point of collapse.

  She indicated the pilot: 'When you think Of all the flying risks he's come through, and then he crashes because of a bullet which wasn't his fault!'

  There probably wasn't any imputation in her words but nevertheless I found myself replying defensively. 'I couldn't get there in time. I was just too late to prevent the shot.'

  'We saw you waving to us. We both felt certain it was you.'

  A billow of smoke, acrid with the smell of petrol fumes and kanniedood timber, swept over us.

  'We must hustle,' I said. 'Soon this whole hillside will be ablaze. The "command-post" and its approaches are solid rock so we'll be safe there. I'll make the first trip with him. You wait where the wall ends and I'll come back for you. It's a nasty stretch and you're in no state to make it yourself.'

  'What about . . . I mean, the man who fired the shot?'

  I laughed grimly. 'You needn't worry. I took care of Rankin.'

  Her constraint cracked. 'You must be joking – Rankin I didn't feel up to meeting the emotional challenge which lay all the time just below the surface.

  'I'll tell you later,' I replied, 'it's too involved. But Rankin's no threat to anyone at the moment. He's out - unconscious. Now help me get this man on to my back!'

  I could sense the conscious effort she made to bring her nerves under control.

  'Shouldn't we try to bandage the wound and stop the bleeding first?'

  'I don't know enough to judge. Perhaps carrying him will make it worse. At a guess I'd say the slug is lodged inside him.'

  She buried her head suddenly in her arm and cried out brokenly. 'It was all so good until . . . until .. I couldn't find it in myself to comfort her. There were a score of questions I dared not face. I had not even started to come to terms with the situation which had exploded the moment I saw Rankin's sights tracking the aircraft; the range of events which had taken over extended much beyond Rankin now. At the press of a trigger he had brought unguessed-at forces into play and The Hill was somehow one of them. Without further ado I shouldered the pilot's limp body.

  'Keep on the top side of the ruined wall and don't look down,' I told Nadine. 'Stay put at the gap until I come back for you.'

  Heat bounced off the rocks and seemed to distort their shape. Its intensity made my head swim. There was nothing I could do to ease Talbot's passage and I suspected that we must have left a trail of blood behind us. Nadine kept close to me until we reached the unprotected section between wall and door. There I shifted my grip to steady myself: my arm muscles were kicking from the weight of my burden. I wanted to turn and reassure Nadine before starting off, but didn't know what to say. Looking up to take my line for the crossing, all I was aware of was The Hill: looming, blocking everything. Our Hill. I cannot pretend to remember staggering to the other side, blinded as I was by the insufferable light and my confused mental state, but the barred gate brought a return to reality. My earlier leap up the coping came back like a film flashback of which I was a spectator, not a participant. I put Talbot down and decided that once again I would have to attempt the stone face. This time, however, there was no revenge induced thrust to transform my hands and feet into automatic instruments finding their own holds. The ascent was painful, slow and energy-sapping. Once over the breastwork, however, it was only a matter of minutes before I had lifted the door's rough-hewn log catch.

  To my astonishment, Nadine was crouched beside the airman. My general annoyance with her boiled over. 'My God! I don't want any extra casualties on my hands! I told you to wait for me!'

  The sun was strong enough to burn all expression from her eyes except a bright carry-over of terror from her recent brush with death.

  But her reply was a sensible one. 'You left a trail of blood all the way across. The sooner we do something for him the better'

  'Come on then?

  Together we hefted the inert body, Nadine carrying his feet and I his shoulders. We carried him into the 'command post'. But it was Rankin who held her attention. She became paler still at the sight of him, put down Talbot's feet, and went over to where he lay wheezing, standing back with a sort of shocked repugnance. She looked at me – reproachfully, I believed – and I stared back wordlessly.

  'You did that to him, Guy? I wouldn't have believed it possible when I think of the gentleness I've known from you.'

  I was in no mood for any criticism from her. 'Don't waste your sympathy on that hardline sonofabitch! He had two guns and a knife. There they are at your feet.'

  She gathered up four shell cases–two stubby ones from the derringer and two lean ones from the Mauser–then with her earlier air of repugnance studied the fine 7 mm Mauser, with its ribbed barrel and glistening stock of African zebra wood, where Rankin had flung it before making at me. She nicked up the derringer by its flick-blade between thumb and forefinger holding it and the spent cases out to me. I read this as a further accusation.

  'Guy, I'm not reproaching you. I. see the odds. I'm reproaching the whole situation we're in.'

  'I'd cleaned it up – then you arrived.'

  She turned away. The tension was punctuated by Rankin's gasps. I wondered if a rib had pierced one of his lungs. I added a little more kindly, 'That's all over now. Our immediate problem is Talbot.'

  She pitched the derringer and shell cases away and came back to help the pilot. The command-post was backed by a hollowed-out cliff of holkrans sandsteen similar to my safe spot on The Hill. To the front the post dominated an area so extensive that one machine-gunner could have held a whole regiment at bay. At the rear the original roofline had collapsed centuries before, converting what must merely have been an overhang into a cave. The entrance was to one side, the interior out of sight. The place offered reasonable living quarters under the most trying weather conditions. Silently we carried Talbot into the shade.

  We avoided each other's eyes.

  'Let's see what's inside,' I suggested.

  We edged past a rock pillar at the entrance and found ourselves in what was more a worksho
p than a home. A curious wooden structure, something between a bench and a skeletonized cupboard minus panelling, dominated the centre of the shadowy interior. Two wheels were set into openwork beams at the top. From them a long cogwheel spindle ran almost to the floor, where it was connected to a treadle which appeared to have come from a sewing-machine. On the surface of the bench a heavy balanced arm rested on a revolving disc. It looked like an outsize gramophone turntable. Set about it were a series of screw-clamps and large butterfly nuts. On the floor was a cast-iron pot with burned-out coals. Among them was a metal crucible filled with solder; and a similar empty vessel lay on the bench.

  Nadine shivered, maybe because of the contrast with the heat outside; the coldness I felt was my recollection of Rankin's hands in the moonlight. I puzzled over what strange craft those hands might ply on the bizarre machinery before us. Nothing could have been in greater contrast to his hovel on the diggings than this neat, clean, trim abode.

  'What is all this apparatus for, Guy?'

  'It stumps me. But the place looks as if it's been lived in for a long time.'

  'It must have been he who booby-trapped our expedition.' '

  That's for sure. Other things too.'

  She waited for me to explain further but I couldn't bring myself to muck-rake details of the guard's murder and Rankin's attempt on my life.

  'What is it, Guy? What are you hiding from me? What has got into you?' She was obviously making an effort to keep her voice even.

  I tried to lower the pressure between us. 'Let's take a look round. There may be something we can use to help Talbot.' '

  Here's a camp-bed, and a stretcher too.'

  'Perhaps there's some water. We'll need it if we're to clean up his wound.'

  We went deeper into the cave. There were two chambers, a smaller one leading off the first, larger one. The inner room was clearly Rankin's kitchen.

  'There's our water,' I said. 'And I could use a drop of brandy in it too.'

  I went towards three or four large, buff-coloured. Aladdinlike storage jars. There were several dippers nearby, all decorated with a similar sort of triangular motif near the upper rim. There was also a spouted bowl with odd black markings.

  'Guy! Please don't! Don't drink!'

  Nadine was staring at the dippers as if they were instruments of torture.

  'I doubt whether Rankin thought of poisoning me, among his other efforts,' I answered ironically. 'And by Heaven he owes me a drink! I intend to have it.'

  'No, Guy!'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' I said off-handedly. 'I haven't had any water since yesterday. Again because of Rankin all I've tasted is a lot of soapy pith.'

  'Guy - what has been going on here at The Hill between you and Rankin? All I get from you are hints and a lot of evasions when I try to press my questions.'

  'It can wait. If you won't let me use one of those things, I'll try my hands instead.'

  'Let me get it for you. I. . . I can't explain'

  The constraint and touchiness was back in full force between us. I watched her with growing puzzlement as she avoided what were clearly containers for the water and filled instead a cup which she took from the table. I felt her concern for my thirst was more like the professional sympathy of a nurse for a patient than that of lover for lover. She had several small sips from my cup when I had finished. The same sort of feeling was evident when we went back to the pilot, acting like compassionate strangers in seeing to his wound. I used the derringer flick-blade to cut away his flying-jacket. The wound had almost stopped bleeding and we bathed it clean. It looked harmless for so deadly a thing – a small bruised blue-black swelling on the collarbone with a puncture in the centre.

  Nadine eyed me questionably when I proceeded to cut away the clothing behind his neck.

  'Look,' I pointed out. 'There's no exit mark. That's bad. It means that the bullet went in from the front, smashed his collarbone and penetrated deeper still. If it's ended up lodged against his spine, he's had it. On the other hand, it may have shattered into fragments when it hit bone. Then he may still have a sporting chance. Rankin's rather fond of dum-dum bullets.'

  She swung back on to her heels and the thing which separated us flared lip.

  'He's fond of dum-dum bullets–' she echoed. 'You know that!'

  'Yes – I know that.'

  'Guy,' she burst out. 'You're not here with me . . . you haven't come back . . . from something I don't, can't understand . . . please . . . I can't reach you . . . please . . I dropped my eyes and tugged the ripped sleeve clear of the wound. Then I looked up at her. There was something in her eyes I had never seen before. I should have taken her in my arms. But like a shell-shocked impotent I could not reach for the love I needed.

  Instead I answered harshly: 'I found a man's head with the back of it blown away. Only a dum-dum bullet does that. Rankin fired the shot.'

  She buried her head in her hands as if I had thrown the horrible thing on the ground in front of her.

  'The head was off its body,' I went on. 'Rankin spent half last night trying to do the same to me.' I got up. 'Save yourself any feelings you may have about the way I roughed him up. I want him alive for one reason only.'

  She looked up at me from where she knelt with a kind of uncomprehending despair. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think, think, think. I even asked myself the savage question, looking down on her lovely face, whether a love born of so strange a thing as The Hill had the strength to neutralize the acid which was eating into me.

  'See here, Nadine,' I said more gently. 'A great deal has happened since . . . since my . . I could not bring myself to use the word 'walkout' to her face. 'I'm sorry if I sound half out of my mind. Yesterday . . last night . . .' The words would not come. I temporized and got a grip on my voice.

  'Let's strap up Talbot as best we can. He could be dying. From the limp way he hung on my shoulder I'd say he's paralysed from the neck down. He needs a doctor and hospital care. So does Rankin. I want to check on him also.'

  'Guy,' she replied raggedly, 'I want this thing your way. You've been through some awful hell you won't tell me about. Not long ago you would have. What is between us has slipped somehow. I don't know where anything begins or ends. But I'd like you to understand that for me it is simply enough that I've found you.'

  My rawness erupted again. 'Sands?' I demanded.

  'Don't say it like that! Yes, Dr Sands told me, but it was my idea! And I talked Peter into flying me to The Hill to look for you! He'd just bought the Tiger Moth for himself. He thought it was a bit of a lark. We told Father we were off together to a flying rally. He was all for it - daughter on the rebound with his personal pilot. He was only too glad to think I was getting you out of my system - a blasted jail-bird he called you - does all this really matter to you, Guy?'

  'And you expected to find the flown bird?'

  I regretted the crack the moment it slipped out. She brought her voice under control and said softly, with only a shadow of rebuke. 'I expected to find you. The man I loved. I haven't. I have the person of Guy Bowker, it's true, but not . . . not . . '

  Trying for a breathing-space to sort things out inside myself, I fenced: 'This man's going to die while we stand here talking. Somehow we've got to get him to hospital in Messina.'

  My brusque voice annoyed but steadied her. 'We can put the mattress from Rankin's bed in your Land-Rover,' she said. 'I'll hold him firm over the rough bits of track.'

  'There isn't a Land-Rover.'

  'It's not possible!'

  'Mine's a shoestring outfit. Everything I have can fit into a couple of gunny-bags. In fact, it's all lying rignt now at the foot of The Hill.'

  Did you walk? Through this sort of country?'

  'No. I bought a boat in Messina. It's made out of an old flying-boat float with an outboard motor, but it goes. And it's shallow enough for the river.'

  'But there's scarcely any water! Peter and I followed the river upstream from Messin
a.'

  'It probably looks worse from the air than it really is. There are pools and shallow channels connecting them. You have to look for them, hard. Plenty of sand.'

  'How did you manage to get over that?'

  'Portage. The hard way. I dragged the Empress of Baobab as I call her across the sandy bits at the end of a rope. I guess I've got harness sores on my shoulders as a result. I'll never forget those sixty miles of pulley-hauley.'

  'You really were keen to lose the world and me, Guy.' '

  The boat's our only transport for Talbot.'

  'From what you say it would be madness to attempt it.' 'In the first place I doubt whether we'd get him alive to the river. I've moored near a big pool at the confluence.' 'And . . . Rankin?'

  'It's about time we took a look at him too.'

  We went outside to where he lay. His face was puffy and mottled and he was deeply unconscious. His breathing frightened me. When I pulled open his shirt Nadine flinched. The red-and-purple welt across his chest looked far worse than Talbot's wound.

  'You . . . you did that, Guy?'

  It was one of those rhetorical questions which, under the circumstances, threw me on the defensive. 'You saw,' I rejoined. 'He had two guns and a knife. I was unarmed.'

  She didn't reply immediately but gestured towards the looming, shimmering Hill.

  'It was a place of love – that is what it meant to me. All the things that go with love. Now somehow it's changed, horribly, into something else. You're part of the change . . . oh, Guy, Guy, doesn't the queen's ring still mean what it did?'

  I could not face her hurt, pleading look: there was too much to explain all at once.

  'Nadine, neither of us is in any shape for the questions which are uppermost in our minds. We're pretty well at the limit. Let's leave it and get some rest. I'll clean up first. We'll talk later and also try to make a plan about these two. I can't see that we can do anything for them at present. We're as marooned here as if we were on a desert island. Now give me a hand with Rankin.'