'Now's our moment of decision, Nadine. We're so to say afloat. If we're to keep the idea of somehow getting back to The Hill as soon as possible we'll have to fight the river. Otherwise we can simply hang around until we judge there's enough water under the boat and hightail it downstream.'
While I was speaking the boat swung cleanly on to an even keel and brought up with a jerk at the end of her rope.
'Do you still want The Hill, Guy?'
I took her hands and kissed the palms. 'More than anything in the world.'
She buried her head against me, still kneeling, and the warm drops fell on my hands.
When finally she drew back her eyes were very bright. 'I'm under captain's orders.' She threw me a mock salute. 'The captain and crew had better go and take a look at the situation on deck.'
I gave her my oilskins and wrapped myself in a kind of improvised poncho made of tarpaulin.
To my mind the wind seemed to be gaining momentum, and it sent sheets of rain slanting at us so that it was almost impossible to face the weather for more than a few minutes at a time. We turned our backs on the north-east and, hunched and streaming, tried to assess our chances.
The river front was a breath-taking sight. The formidable sky was a little less black in the east where the sun should have been, and gave off a smudgy grey, watershot light which made all outlines indeterminate. There was no horizon to be seen – just the slanting curtains of rain. The Hill appeared _ once or twice through the murk like a ship pitching in a seaway and throwing water all over itself. Nearer at hand, the edge of the terrace looked equally strange. Torrents of frothing, chocolate-coloured water pouring over it were caught by the whipping north-easter so that it had the appearance of a great roller breaking on shore. What had a short while before been a stagnant pool at the confluence of the two rivers was now a flowing river beginning to flex its muscles. It was difficult to estimate its strength because the gale was churning it up against the run of the stream into masses of small waves. From every quarter came the roar of pouring water and the moan of the wind through the bare trees. Some of those near the terrace were already half submerged.
I pointed this out: 'No good there – the water's banking up,' I shouted.
'The edge of the terrace looks like Niagara!'
'The opposite side in the Shashi channel is our best bet,' I told her. 'Look at its big trees. They'll give safe moorings. This palm isn't going to hold much longer. Once the storm's blown itself out, we'll recross to The Hill.'
'How wide can the river become in flood?'
'A mile – two miles – who knows?'
The Empress of Baobab was now straining and tugging at its mooring like a dog on a leash. Her shallow draught and high freeboard made her very cranky in the gale.
'It's no use trying to plug into the teeth of this wind; the engine simply won't make it,' I said. 'We'd do better to strike diagonally across the confluence and then allow the current to carry us down to the tree we choose.'
'Isn't that pretty dangerous?'
'Anything's dangerous in this. You steer and I'll nurse the outboard.'
I pointed out as our target a large tree on a high bank opposite, slightly above the confluence.
'Steer for that and don't let her head fall off, if you value our lives, or we'll be swamped'
'Isn't it simply Hobson's choice which bank we go for? Why not strike to this side where The Hill is?'
'If I'm right about a runaway cyclone, we can expect still more wind. Those high Shashi banks will shelter us. We'll make fast right under their lee.'
'What about your flash flood?'
'The Shashi's gradient isn't steep like the Limpopo's and therefore the run-off won't be as fast. Let's go!'
I stripped off the waterproof engine cover and prayed the electrics would work, It took half a dozen pulls on the starting cord before it kicked but it sounded healthy enough. Of course, her head fell off as soon as I cast off but I managed to bring her back on course by gunning the motor to its maximum.
The crossing was as slow and tedious in its way as our plod on foot through the wadi's sand. The engine's power against the combined forces of the river and the gale was weaker than I had expected and we chugged across the choppy water (with the bows trying to break away all the time) with a kind of hellish single-mindedness. Nadine was kept busy compensating but our course was as zig-zag as a war-time convoy under attack. We finally made it across and then nearly came to grief when the current bore us down on the tree I had selected. The boat's unexpected speed caught us by surprise and she was snared by a sunken branch which luckily snapped before ripping the hull.
I secured the boat fore and aft to the big tree and, with the lesson of the underwater branch in mind, lashed several small trunks to the boat's above-water bulges to serve as buffers. It was mid-morning before we crept below out of the wind and driving rain.
It stormed all day.
By late afternoon the river was in full flood and presented an awe-inspiring sight. Muddy water roared by, making a kind of deep-throated complement to the sound of the gale, which had increased in violence to a long dismal howl. It simply threw the rain at us, and it became impossible to stand and face the wind quarter, which remained north-east. Its con· tinuous pressure was broken at intervals only by fiercer squalls. The air was full of flying debris; these squalls seemed to pick up objects which the otherwise steady thrust of the wind passed over. The way the weather was developing made me more certain that a cyclone from the sea had indeed broken loose overland instead of veering characteristically back into mid-ocean. I explained to Nadine that I had heard of this happening on occasions in the past and that on these rare occasions thousands of square miles of countryside had been swamped. The pool at the rivers' junction had now vanished and in its place was a swirl of chocolate water by virtue of the down-current becoming stronger and running headon into gale-lashed water. We checked at intervals and saw the waves grow in size until they were about three feet high. Two great natural forces were testing their strength against each other.
By midday we were certain that our decision to move to the Shashi bank was a wise one. The main torrent was in the Limpopo channel beside The Hill and the water there was banked right up to the terrace. The trees near the palm to which I'd originally tied up were under water, or had been washed away. The choppy water was full of floating timber and we saw some dead animals too.
As the storm grew in intensity I double-lashed the boat to our big tree. At first I secured her both bow and stern to its trunk and later to the overhanging branches as well. It was risky working on the exposed deck which the rain had made as slippery as glass and the wind plucked at one's clothing making it dangerous to stand. From time to time we had to bail out the cockpit when the waves came aboard and added their quota. As the afternoon wore on I became anxious about our tree's holding power in the wet bank. I checked and felt reassured: it still stood firm; and I thought that by fending off the drifting debris and preventing a dam forming round the boat we would safely ride out the gale. The boat had also the advantage of the lee under the bank but this decreased as the water rose and increased her exposure to the gale. And as the day progressed the weather grew colder.
We spent some time examining and discussing the 'King's Messenger'. The fresh, strong torch we'd found in the boat showed clearly the chevron pattern in the centre of the stone and we made a cast of it by softening a candle and pushing it through the hole. Afterwards we felt surer that my hunch about its being part of an ingenious 'combination lock' was correct. However, trying to talk above the racket of the storm was tiring and as it grew worse we conversed less and even dozed at intervals.
About five o'clock in the afternoon I left Nadine and went on deck. The air was full of storm sounds. There was a weak smudge of light in the west where the sun was sinking but I reckoned that it would be dark soon. I couldn't see anything in the direction of The Hill and the river seemed to be boiling and churning worse than be
fore. I checked the boat's moorings because there appeared to be a new degree of play in the way she bucked and swung on the ropes. I wondered if the tree was working loose from the wet bank and decided to get a light and inspect it after I had cleared away the build-up of loose stuff round the hull.
I was busy on this with a pole and had my head down, so still don't know from which direction came the wall of water which hit us. One moment I was shoving the debris clear; the next the boat had flipped on to her side, throwing me to the cockpit's bottom-board. The tree came loose and fell with a crash on top of us. Its weight must have plunged us completely under water because everything became a choking mess of muddy water. Mechanically, I grabbed hold of something and held on and then the boat and the tree, tangled together by ropes and branches, broke surface and shot away on the current. I had no idea which way we were going. The cockpit was full of water and the boat was still pinned on her side by the tree, which now began to bump and crash and threatened to hole her at every lift and fall.
I tried to get across to the cabin door to find an axe to-cut away the tree but the angle of list made my first attempt impossible. For a moment I was held by evidence of how powerful had been the force of water which had hit us. A big tiger fish lay on the gratings: it had been sliced lengthwise on some metal projection and its guts lay pulsating while" its razor toothed jaws snapped feebly. I managed to reach the door at my second attempt, and found Nadine safe but bewildered and up to her waist in water:
'Bail, Nadine! For God's sake, bail! I'm going to try and cut her loose!'
I thrust a bailer – a saucepan I found floating about – into her hands and seized my axe. I thought when I began to work on deck, however, that she would never rise again: the tree and boat swinging together in circles made my task doubly difficult. I went for the ropes first, then switched my attack to the entangling branches. Some of these were dead and hard and too much for the small chopper, so I concentrated on the smaller ones and cleared them sufficiently to enable the boat to float more upright. Nevertheless she was still trapped by some big limbs which banged down on the deck and punched some holes through it. I selected one which I thought was the main danger and after a tough struggle succeeded in hacking it off. This gave me room for manoeuvre: I got the engine going and awaited my moment for trying to break free. The dizzy slewing went on and on and the way the boat rode heavy and dead brought fear into the pit of my stomach. I could see no sign of the banks: nothing but dirty brown water everywhere. I watched my opportunity and it occurred during one of the merry-go-rounds. The stern pointed clear and I snapped the engine into reverse and gave it the gun. She barely pulled clear of the tree because of the weight of water inside her; then, despite full power on the screw, she too began the same sort of swirling movement. I moved the rudder in every direction but it didn't help. So I cut the engine and went below to help Nadine bail out.
'Are we sinking, Guy?'
'Not yet. She's not badly holed, as far as I know. If we can lighten her and get control before she crashes into something we'll be okay.'
She touched her pocket. 'I've got the "King's Messenger" safe.'
'We'll need all the luck it can bring us'
We bailed and bailed and brought down the water level inside the cabin but the worst part was the way the boat was listing first to one side then the other, as she went round and round with a slow spinning movement wherever the current chose to take her. As soon as the water in the cabin was below the immediate danger level I decided I must again try, using the engine, to bring things under control.
'I don't know if it's got enough guts to make any difference but I'll try,' I told Nadine. 'I must bring her head steady.'
'Where's the shore, Guy?' Her voice was very small and flat and her face looked peaked in the light of the swinging lantern.
'God knows. We may hit it at any moment. I daren't even think about floating obstacles.'
The roundabout movement seemed worse up on deck,
though I had no fixed point to assess it by. The light was too bad to see more than a few yards ahead and all that was visible was the bucking water with its white caps of dirty foam looking like cappuccino coffee. I couldn't spot the banks but from the force of the current judged we must be in midstream. I wanted something to steer for, something to end -that sickening motion. I tried to get the boat's head steady by using impetus of an outward wing plus full throttle but it didn't work. I tried a similar tactic when it seemed that the stern offered a hope, and revved the motor in reverse under full power until it felt it would jump clean out of the transom; but that didn't help either. I abandoned my efforts for a moment when I spotted a big tree trunk with broken-off branches whirling close in the same orbit as the boat and managed to pole it clear. There were suddenly more logs and trunks all round us now. I went into the bows with the pole to see whether there was perhaps a whirlpool or some obstruction which was causing the debris to bank up.
Through the murk and rain I saw what it -was- a moment before the boat struck - a low brush island with debris of all kinds heaping up against it. The boat was still running and yawing like a hunted animal and there was no time to make even a gesture with the engine to avoid it. We tripped over a seething white reef fronting the island and bumped across it with a sickening crash-grind, crash-grind.
I was caught on the open deck with only the pole in my hands and nothing to hang on to. The jar on the keel shot me headlong into the water and I was carried away downstream on the current and into the night.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The water was very cold and I thought I would never come up. My boots and the tarpaulin poncho were a deadweight pulling down as the flood turned my body over and over. When I did surface I grabbed a lungful of air and tried to see the island where the boat had grounded but didn't know which way to look. It was dark and the waves splashed into my eyes and the swirling water completely disorientated me. The weight of my clothes and boots took me down again and I knew that I would drown if I didn't get rid of them or find something to hang on to. I was being whirled about, fairly deep under the water again, in a kind of blind-man's buff; then rose to the surface a second time, almost bumping into a piece of floating timber spinning about as I had just been doing underwater. I was too keen and snatched at it too quickly; it span and slipped away out of my grip. I tried to follow it but my boots and clothing stopped me. I attempted to thrash with arms and feet but the waves kept slapping me down and filling my eyes and mouth with ice-cold water, full of sand and grit.
I tried not to panic and told myself that the river was full of things to hang on to and that I had seen big trees about just before the boat struck. I'm only a fair swimmer and couldn't float because of my boots. Then I saw a trunk near by and it swung round as if it were meant for me. I held on to it and seemed to be moving very fast but there was nothing static against which I could judge my speed. Now that I could move my head freely, I looked for the island and the boat, and thought I saw them sliding away out of sight behind me. I couldn't be sure, however, what with the dirty water slapping into my face, but I hoped to guide the log towards where I thought the boat might be by thrashing with my feet and paddling with my free arm. But I couldn't work against the current and after a few minutes my throat tasted sour from the effort and my stomach muscles were strained; I wanted to retch but couldn't.
The rain on my face had a different quality about it from the water blown into it off the river. The latter was thick and muddy, and a silly phrase kept, beating about in my brain about its being 'too thin to plough and too thick to drink'. I steadied the log and tried to face the wind, which I knew would be north-east, but every time I achieved this by paddling, a new eddy would swing us round and I would lose direction again.
It wasn't until I knew I wouldn't drown that I started to panic about Nadine. Until then I had taken it for granted she would be safe below in the cabin because the boat had grounded on an outlying spur of the island. But now the thought tore
at me that she might have struck an isolated rock and not an island at all tearing the bottom out of the boat, with Nadine trapped in the cabin before she could escape. I lifted myself on the trunk as high as I could to see if I could spot the boat but it was dark and streaming and even the coffee-coloured wave-tops were invisible beyond a few yards.
It was colder out of the water than in and the wind seemed to cut into my chest through my soaking clothes. I fell back to my previous position, numbed by an inner chill and sick with despair.
I do not know how long I was in the river. There was nothing by which to judge distances or speed and my watch had been smashed. I was held in a tiny world of darkness, slapping water and cavorting tree trunk. I wondered if I would fall off if I got cramps or if I could do anything about a crocodile if it came my way. It was so dark, I told myself, that I wouldn't see it coming anyhow and the end would be quick. I also wondered whether any of the dead things in the river were hyenas and I cursed Dika and everything to do with von Praeger. I tried not to think of Nadine and clung to the hope that the boat had stuck fast on the reef, with the comparative safety of the island only a few steps away. After a time it seemed that the wind was beginning to ease: it felt less cold about my head; and from the way it played in turn on my cheeks, ears and then the back of my neck I judged that I was travelling in a long swinging curve. The white caps appeared easier, too, though the current was stronger. I hoped the moon would give some light later on when the storm had slacked off, so that I could see if I was moving in towards a bank. I could, have been near one a dozen times in the darkness without knowing it. At first I was hopeful but afterwards began to lose heart when the rain continued to sluice down. Now the wind was definitely less. I consoled myself that I mightn't be travelling miles away from Nadine but was perhaps circling about quite near her; and the thought brought me comfort for a while. I wished I had Koen's brandy. My toes felt dead when I wriggled them inside my boots. I wondered if the cramps would start there first or in my arms and whether I could do anything about lashing myself to the log when they did come.
A Cleft Of Stars Page 19
