African Sky

by Tony Park

  ‘Given up on your flying lessons, Reitz?’ As Bryant spoke, he increased the throttle setting and pulled back on the stick until the nose was up, thirty degrees over the horizon. Once there, he centred the stick then snapped it fully over to the right.

  Reitz let out a scream as the aircraft flipped over on its back. ‘Stop!’ G-forces pushed him into his seat and made his arms feel as though they were encased in lead. He struggled, unsuccessfully, to chamber another round into the Mauser’s breech.

  Reitz had stowed the two sarin bombs under his seat. When Bryant had first released the stick and the Harvard had dived, one of the bombs had rolled forward between his legs, coming to rest against the rudder pedals. As the Harvard reached the top of its roll, the bomb flew past Reitz’s face, a tail fin scratching his cheek before it came to rest on the inside of the closed canopy over his head. ‘You’ll kill us both!’ Reitz had not retightened his restraint straps after leaning forward to check on Bryant earlier, and he hung now below his seat, the straps the only thing stopping his head crashing into the canopy.

  Once the wings were level with the horizon, Bryant calmly moved the stick to slightly left of centre and then back to the central position, so they were flying level, but still upside down.

  Bryant looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Reitz, one arm dangling, trying to retrieve the evil-looking bomb, which still rattled and rolled against the glass, just out of reach. Bryant gave another vicious tug on the Mauser and felt it come free of the Afrikaner’s grasp.

  Like Reitz, he knew he needed two hands to load the weapon. He chanced letting go of the stick and dragged the long rifle across his body. He worked the bolt, pulling it rearwards.

  Having lost his weapon, Reitz gave up trying to recover the bomb and reached awkwardly for the control column. Unsure what would happen upside down, he pulled the stick hard back towards his groin.

  Bryant gasped as they entered a steep dive, inverted. He knew he needed to get a hand back on the stick, but one was not enough to regain control. He let go of the Mauser and, with the aircraft still upside down, the weapon sailed past his face and was snatched away into the sky by the slipstream.

  Bryant heard a bounce and a clatter above his head and looked up just in time to see the bomb slide towards him with the changing angle of the dive. Reitz struggled clumsily with the stick and the deadly device suddenly dropped into Bryant’s lap. He winced in pain as the snub-nosed mass hit him. ‘Shit!’ he said as he looked at it sitting there.

  Bryant fought against the crushing forces of gravity as the brown bushveld raced up to meet them. He took a breath and held it hard in his chest, trying to stop all his blood draining from his torso to his legs. Still, he felt his vision starting to grey out. ‘Help me . . .’ he gasped, hoping Reitz knew what he meant.

  Reitz, too, was being forced back into his seat as they entered a vertical dive. Summoning every reserve of strength in his arms he slowly reached out to grab the stick. He grasped it and pulled back, adding his effort to Bryant’s. The Harvard whined and vibrated around them, protesting audibly at the terrible strain of the manoeuvre, reluctant to let the men save her.

  Bryant felt his head clearing, his sight returning as the unbearable pressure started to ease. He saw clearly the detail of individual dried, dying leaves on a tree in front of him, and was convinced they were too late. God help Pip, he prayed.

  Then they were level, the same leaves brushing noisily along the bottom of the fuselage as they screamed fast and low across the trees. Bryant needed altitude and he brought the nose up again, searching for the road below as he did.

  Freed of having to help save the aircraft, Reitz, his face red with rage, undid his restraints and half stood in the rear cockpit. He reached around the seat in front of him and locked his fingers around Bryant’s throat.

  ‘What . . .’ The protest faded on Bryant’s lips as he felt his windpipe being crushed. He glanced down at the altimeter. They were at nine hundred feet. Not high enough, his mind registered as he fought a losing battle for breath.

  ‘I am going to kill you!’ Reitz screamed. He knew Bryant would have to release the stick to try to claw the hands from his throat, but Reitz was certain he could kill the Australian and then quickly regain control of the aircraft.

  Bryant kept one hand on the control column and, with the other, punched the release buckle on his restraint straps. He looked at their height again. Eleven hundred feet. He felt his vision fading once more. With his free hand he grabbed one of the tail fins and lifted it up, so the blunt nose was cradled in his lap again. He hooked a finger into the pin at the centre of the tailpiece and yanked it out.

  Reitz craned forward, trying to see what the other man was doing. Wind from the bullet hole in the windscreen and the open front cockpit stung his eyes, but he knew Bryant was up to something.

  Grinning, despite the pain in his throat, Bryant held up the pin and dangled it, from the ring, in front of Reitz’s eyes.

  ‘No!’ Reitz screamed. He let go his grip on Bryant’s neck and tried first to reach across the other man, to get to the bomb.

  ‘Die!’ Bryant croaked, his voice weak with pain. He rolled the bomb off himself, onto the floor, pushed the stick forward, then let go of it. The Harvard started to dive again.

  Reitz fell back into his seat and tugged on the control column, trying to arrest the dive. The only thing he could do was to try to roll the Harvard again, to get rid of the deadly cargo, whose fuse whirred unheard on the floor in front of the pilot’s seat, way out of his reach. Having unclipped his harness to get his hands on Bryant’s throat, he was no longer attached to his parachute either.

  Bryant allowed himself one last glance at the wide-eyed terrified face behind him as he stood on his seat and vaulted out of the cockpit, into the rushing slipstream outside. As soon as he knew he was clear of the tailplane he wrenched the ripcord. They were back below safe jump altitude, so it would be a fast, dangerous ride down.

  Reitz yanked the stick over to the left and the Harvard slowly started to roll.

  Bryant heard the explosion as his parachute deployed, and swung around under the silken canopy in time to see smoke streaming from the open front cockpit.

  *

  Reitz screamed in fear and frustration as he tried to yank open the rear cockpit cover. He had finally realised, too late, that there was no way he could shake out the first bomb, and that the mission was doomed. All he could do was save himself. The explosion was not enough to destroy the Harvard, though the controls were suddenly slack, as the charge had severed cables and shattered gauges. Far more dangerous was the payload that the small blast had released. He fumbled with the parachute harness straps.

  Most of the sarin was sucked out of the aircraft, along with the smoke from the detonation, but as Hendrick Reitz finally released the rear sliding canopy a mist of remnant vapour hit him full in the face. He slumped back down into his seat – paralysed by the realisation that hit him, as surely as if he had been felled by a bullet. One drop, he knew, was all it took to kill a man.

  His agonised screams died on the wind.

  20

  Kenneth Ngwenya put his hand over his mouth as he peered through a crack between two of the rough planks in the hangar’s walls. Catherine De Beers, his father’s employer, had a knife in her hand and was standing over the body of another woman who was tied down on a workbench.

  He had no idea what was going on here, but he had finally been able to coax from his father the truth about who had hit him. It was not a man, but the woman standing with her back to him. She had struck her feeble though devoted servant with a riding crop over some minor incident involving an unlocked gate. His father had said the madam had been acting increasingly strangely in the preceding week.

  Kenneth had never harmed a woman in his life, but he seethed with rage over his father’s treatment. He had been fully prepared to report Mrs De Beers to the police, but it looked very much like a policewoman’s skirt that her capti
ve was wearing. How was he to know, however, that the prisoner was not a wrongdoer herself?

  What he saw next, though, galvanised him into action. Catherine De Beers leaned over the woman, slipped the blade of the knife under one of the buttons on her captive’s blouse and, with one deft movement, sliced it off. The woman screamed. Kenneth had armed himself with a spade, which he had found beside a freshly dug hole behind the hangar. He strode through the open door of the hangar, swung back the shovel and slammed the flat of the blade into the back of Mrs De Beers’ head, just as it appeared she was about to terrorise the other woman with another knife stroke.

  ‘Are you all right, miss?’ Kenneth Ngwenya asked the obviously relieved woman.

  ‘Oh, God, thank you, whoever you are,’ Pip said, fighting back tears.

  ‘I am Kenneth Ngwenya. My father works for Mrs De Beers,’ he said as he laid the spade against the bench. ‘I don’t think things are as they should be here at Isilwane.’

  ‘That’s the understatement of the century. Untie me, quickly. Before she comes to. I’m a policewoman, and Mrs De Beers is guilty of murder, along with plenty of other things!’ Catherine had tired of waiting for Reitz to return, and Pip feared she was about to become the woman’s next victim.

  ‘Hurry, Kenneth!’

  ‘I am trying.’

  ‘The knife! She dropped it when you hit her. It must be on the floor somewhere, along with her pistol.’ Catherine had laid her pistol on the workbench when she’d pulled out the knife, and both weapons had fallen to the floor when she had staggered against the bench before collapsing.

  Kenneth bent over and looked around Catherine’s prone body.

  ‘Here is the knife,’ he said, beaming as he stood. He started sawing at the ropes binding Pip’s hands. The razor-sharp blade sliced smoothly through the strands and in less than a minute her wrists were free.

  ‘Give it to me. I’ll do my ankles. You look for Mrs De Beers’ pistol, please.’

  Kenneth dropped onto his hands and knees, his head under the workbench, and began searching in the shadows.

  Pip hacked at the ropes around her legs. She needed to get Catherine tied up as soon as possible, and to make her way to the house. ‘We need to get to the telephone, as quickly as we can.’

  *

  Tears filled Catherine’s closed eyes, but she willed herself to stay silent. When she regained consciousness she heard a man’s voice close to her. An African.

  She heard him crawling around on all fours like the animal he was, searching for the pistol, but she had already located it. Ever so slowly, she reached out with her right hand. Her fingers brushed the grip of the Walther. Thank God, she thought. She grabbed the pistol and rolled hard to her left and started to sit up. Her head rang with pain from the blow to the back of her head and her vision swam.

  Pip was sitting up on the workbench, swinging her freed legs over the edge. Catherine blinked and aimed at the swimming image of the policewoman, pulled the trigger twice.

  The first bullet sailed wide, but the second punched through Pip’s upper left arm. Pip screamed but didn’t fall. She regained her balance, jumped off the bench and delivered a vicious kick with the toe of her heavy police-issue shoe into Catherine’s bandaged leg.

  Catherine howled like a cat and her vision went grey. She pulled the trigger blindly again.

  Pip turned and sprinted for the sunlight. ‘Run, Kenneth!’

  The schoolteacher hauled himself to his feet. He saw the lady in the uniform running for the doorway, and Mrs De Beers raising her hand, aiming the gun. He lunged from out of the shadows, throwing his body in front of her.

  Outside, Pip heard another gunshot and the immediate thud of a falling body.

  21

  Bryant felt as though his heart and lungs were about to explode from his chest. He’d never run so far in his life. It was only the thought of what Pip might be going through that kept his legs going, stride after weary stride.

  He’d checked his watch and done a quick calculation as soon as he hit the ground. He had landed hard, but his body was running on adrenaline and fear, so the pain from his many injuries barely registered. On take-off he’d taken the Harvard north of Isilwane to cut the distance he’d have to fly from the ranch before bailing out. He’d lied to Reitz about the wind. There was hardly a breeze, so he could have taken off in either direction.

  Though it had seemed to take an eternity to free himself from Reitz, he reckoned he had flown for two minutes until he’d disappeared from view of the lodge, past the granite hills. A hundred and fifty miles an hour equalled two and a half miles a minute. He was five miles from the ranch – at least.

  Five miles hadn’t sounded like a lot, but he’d never run more than three during air force physical training. His feet burned as blisters formed on his heels and soles.

  He was unarmed. That was a problem. Catherine had at least one weapon – the pistol – and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. He’d have surprise on his side, and that was something.

  Sweat poured from his body, staining his tattered shirt and filling his eyes. When he wiped a hand through his hair it came back sticky and red with blood oozing from the wound on his temple. He was painfully thirsty and he’d had virtually no sleep in the last twenty-four hours, unless one counted intermittent bouts of unconsciousness.

  He crested the granite-capped rise and coughed a ragged, ‘Thank God,’ as the ranch came into view again. He followed the road almost all the way to the homestead, then turned off on the airstrip track. Halfway to the airfield he allowed his pace to slow to a shuffle, in order to catch his breath and make a plan.

  Three shots, in fairly quick succession. He started to sprint again, drawing on a hidden reserve of strength and breath. Another shot rang out.

  Catherine hobbled into the light and brought her pistol hand up to her eyes to shield them from the glare. Her leg burned with every step and her head still pounded a tattoo of pain. She blinked twice and saw Lovejoy running across the runway, a bloodied hand to her shoulder. ‘Stop, Philippa! You won’t make it.’ She turned and looked down at the young man. He writhed on the ground, a hand clutched over his stomach, blood oozing between his fingers. He’d be dead soon enough. ‘I won’t even waste another bullet on you.’

  Pip didn’t look back. She kept running. Her hand seemed to be getting wetter and wetter. She guessed her increased heart rate was pumping more blood out of her damaged shoulder and down her arm. She fought back tears and forced herself to keep moving. The gun fired again, though she had no idea how wide of the mark the bullet went. The important thing was that it missed.

  ‘I’ll get the dogs, Philippa. They’ll drive you to the river and I’ll kill you there!’ Catherine stopped, steadied herself, raised the pistol and supported it with her left hand in order to take better aim. She held the foresight on the middle of the running woman’s back and squeezed the trigger.

  The shot hit the ground directly behind Pip, inches from her heel. She felt a spray of dirt pepper the backs of her calves. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Catherine standing still, both hands extended as she took aim again. Catherine had aimed too low, not allowing for the bullet’s fall. Her second shot would probably not miss. Pip zigzagged to the left, then the right, and risked another glance. She heard the crack of the pistol again and a bullet rushed past her right side, where she had been a split second ago.

  Catherine took aim again, then noticed the furrowed grass in front of Pip. She held her fire and yelled instead. ‘Paul!’

  Pip instinctively looked back over her shoulder. She saw only Catherine, looking down the barrel of the pistol and grinning. Her left foot suddenly met nothing, where there should have been grass. She fell headlong onto the ground.

  Catherine staggered along, favouring her injured leg. She’d noticed that Pip was heading straight for the same hole that had destroyed Andy Cavendish’s undercarriage. Pip hadn’t seen it, and had either fallen into it or tripped on the furrows made b
y the Harvard’s shattered landing gear, fooled by her bluff.

  Pip tried to stand, but fell. Her ankle was badly damaged. Twisted, if not broken. She tried again, but it was no use. She started to crawl.

  Bryant was alarmed when he heard his name called. He dropped to the ground, seeking refuge in the long grass and braced himself for the shot he thought would surely follow. Instead there was silence. He looked up and saw that Pip had fallen. Catherine was hobbling across the runway.

  He had circled around the hangar, sticking to the tree line. Close to him, just a short dash away, was the wreck of Sergeant Smythe’s Harvard – the aircraft Catherine and Reitz had crashed. Catherine was looking away from him now, still limping towards Pip. He stood and sprinted across to the aircraft. When he reached it he climbed onto the wing, put a hand on the hot metal of the fuselage and vaulted into the pilot’s seat.

  Tears of anger and frustration rolled down Pip’s cheeks. She had been so close to getting away. If only she had disarmed Catherine, it would have all been over. Or would it? She wondered what had happened to Paul.

  ‘Stop crawling, you pathetic little bitch,’ Catherine said. She stood behind Pip, the pistol levelled at her back.

  Pip stopped, rolled onto her side and looked up at Catherine. ‘You’re sick, Catherine. Your vision of the future is a nightmare.’

  Catherine laughed. ‘You and your kind will give Africa away in the end, surrender it to the blacks.’

  ‘There are more of them than us, Catherine. But I think we can all live together, even if you don’t.’

  Catherine shook her head. ‘The new Africa starts today, Philippa. With you. Before we can rid ourselves of the useless blacks, we need to weed out soft, liberal whites. Your kind.’ She raised her hand until the pistol was pointing at Pip’s forehead.

  ‘I’d rather die than live in your world, Catherine.’