Height of Day: A Johnny Fedora Espionage Spy Thriller Assignment Book 5

by Desmond Cory

  The headman bowed cautiously.

  “See, K’Fali; here is the white lord who has lain ill of the fever devils. It is his desire that I thank you, that he has dwelt in peace in the shadow of your hut.”

  “Kuk-kuk,” said the headman, rubbing his foot against the back of his calf.

  “And in the morning, when he and the white men leave on the shoulders of the river for the distant country of the Dead, then will they make great and manifold presents to you in reward for your courtesy. Also will they buy men to serve them, so that tonight the Fire Dance may be danced.”

  “Ah. That is great talk,” said the headman, brightening considerably. “I shall summon my counsellors and the drums shall sound at once. This shall be a good dance.”

  He toddled importantly away, much taken up with the new and excellent idea. The Fire Dance had not been danced for many months; there was little occasion for it. He stopped to consider a moment. The Fire Dance required a minimum of fifteen virgins.

  He pulled his lip dubiously.

  Down by the river, Fedora pushed his topee farther back on his forehead and eased the tension of his belt. Evening was approaching, but the heat remained terrific and he still felt giddy and weak. Van Kuyp paused momentarily from his labours to wave a hand in greeting.

  “What was old monkey-face saying?”

  “He says they dance the mwaki tonight,” said Johnny. “It should be a high old beanfeast.”

  “Oh? Raven’ll be pleased. Why don’t you go and have a word with him? – He’d like to hear your white gorilla stories. Not there, you silly beggar.” Van Kuyp’s aside was addressed to one of the porters. “Glad to see you up,” he added, as an afterthought. “Reckon you’ll be fit to start tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” said Johnny. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Professor Raven was superintending the removal of the cargo from the Expedition’s launch, a large and well-appointed vessel with an air of conscious superiority. His task was now just about completed, and he was standing on the gang plank wiping his face with the large red neckerchief which normally he wore as a head covering. He was a big fellow, almost as tall as van Kuyp, red-complexioned and red-haired; wrinkles met over the bridge of his nose in a shallow V of nervous irritability. However, he greeted Johnny affably.

  “Oh yes. You’re the hunter guy. Glad to meet you.” He spoke the precise, clipped American of Connecticut. “Come to look over the old ship?”

  Johnny nodded. He was alone now, Demetrius having gone to prepare his evening meal. “I hear it’s pretty badly damaged.”

  “It’s damaged, sure enough. You smoke? Forgot to say the name’s Raven.”

  “Thanks,” said Johnny, accepting a cigarette. “Fedora.”

  “I’m from New Haven.”

  Johnny grinned. “You’re a long way from home, then.”

  “I guess I am, if you look at it that way. Care to sit down? You’ve been in pretty bad shape, from what I hear.”

  They sat down on the gang plank, feet dangling over the filthy water. “’Fraid I’m the only one receiving guests,” said Raven, spitting inelegantly downwards. “The others are out on a shoot. Except Madrid; she’s taking it easy. Had a touch of sun stroke.”

  “Madrid?”

  “She’s our interpreter. You’ll meet her later.”

  “It’s a funny name.”

  Raven shot a sideways glance at Johnny from under his lowered brows. “I’ll bet you think ours is a funny outfit altogether, to find on the Ubangi.”

  “I’ll admit it’s a surprise.”

  “It’s mutual.” The creases in Raven’s cheeks deepened; he was smiling. “We didn’t think anybody else’d be crazy enough to trek round this part of the globe. I’ve seen the Kalahari and I’ve seen Turkana; they’re ice-floes compared with this spot.”

  “You’re an old hand in Africa, then?”

  “Heck no. I wouldn’t say that. My job takes me round a bit, that’s all. I’m a palaeontologist, if you get it.”

  “I get it, but I don’t understand it.”

  Raven smiled again, a trifle impatiently. “I’m a student of prehistoric man, to put it more simply. I worked for three years for the Pretoria Museum; now I’m working for Wayland University, Ohio, which I may tell you I’ve never even visited. But they’re backing a hunch of mine that I’m going to find fossil plesianthropus in the Ubangi gravel drifts.”

  “That’s some kind of a giant reptile, isn’t it?”

  “No, no, no. You’re thinking of plesiosaurus. You won’t find him in a Miocene deposit. Plesianthropus is what the gutter press would describe as the Missing Link; except that he’s been dead for over a million years. He’s a hominoid, if you know what that means.”

  Johnny didn’t, but he didn’t say so; Raven’s tone had become a little testy. Professors are apt to be short-tempered when giving elementary expositions of their subjects; Johnny knew this, but was interested in spite of himself. “But why the Ubangi?”

  “That’s a sensible question, but I can’t give a simple answer. You wouldn’t understand one word in ten. But it boils down to this – that our first step’ll be to examine the gravel deposits where the Kob’ei joins the Ubangi, for traces of artefacts. If we find any, as I’m sure we will – organic matter would be too much to hope for,” said Raven wistfully, in parenthesis – “then we’ll examine, as quickly as possible, the banks of the Kob’ei itself.”

  Johnny took a final drag from his cigarette and sent it spinning into the river. His head was beginning to ache; either from the effects of the tobacco smoke or from the effort of following the Professor’s explanations. “Well, Professor,” he said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Raven. “Of course, you’re after a rather similar thing yourself, aren’t you? White gorilla. H’m.”

  Johnny stared. “Hardly the same sort of thing.”

  “In a way. The white gorilla, if it exists, is obviously some hitherto unrecognised subspecies of anthropoid; possibly with hominoid characteristics. I’ve been into all the stories pretty carefully … I don’t want to disappoint you, Fedora, but it’s my considered opinion that no such animal exists.”

  “You think in this case there’s smoke without fire?”

  “No. There’s never that. Even the legends of the unicorn and the mermaid have their sources in certain known mammalian species. But these legends are incredibly distorted.” Raven distributed a thoughtful puff of smoke to the trembling air. “The white gorilla is, to my mind, an example of totemism on the part of the Central African native; as such it’s analogous to the Minotaur. It’s merely the object of worship of a primitive gorilla cult that has now died out.”

  He slapped vindictively, at a mosquito that had settled on his arm, leaving a splash of blood beneath his elbow. “It’s getting towards sundown,” he said. “I’d better go and change my clothes.”

  Johnny rose to his feet, swaying awkwardly as he did so; his shadow leapt towards the bank, long and shapeless in the light of the tilting sun. Then from the huts towards the edge of the jungle came the sudden startling stutter of the locali, the hollow tree trunk that sends its messages across the fathomless darkness of the bush, rattling out a frenzied invitation to the mysteries of the Fire Dance.

  Johnny stood on the bank, and shivered.

  The moon hung low over the tangled trees, finding an answering glimmer in the dark depths of the river. In the clearing in the middle of the village, before the headman’s hut, the flames mounted into the night, their fierce light overpowering the moonbeams twenty yards from the heart of the fire. The hard tight-packed earth seemed to flicker with their leaping, to throb and pulse inwardly with the rolling beats and cross-rhythms of the drums; shadows and counter-shadows weaved a fantastic pattern around the arena as the dancers, bedaubed with ingola dust, brown skins agleam in the firelight, monkey-skins flying, circled in and out; limbs jerking and pirouetting to the beats of the drum as
though to the strings of an invisible puppeteer. The guttural chant of the watchers sprang in bursts into the ink-blue sky; the shuffle and stamp of bare feet on the earth echoed round the clearing, to be drowned at intervals by sudden ecstatic bursts of hand claps. Deep in the womb of time, fire was coming to birth.

  Raikes turned towards Johnny, his face livid in the angry light. “I wish your man was here,” he said. “I’d like to know what they’re singing.”

  “They’re talking to the drums,” said Johnny.

  “Talking …?”

  “That’s right. Each of those drums has a different beat, you see; that’s why it sounds so confused. The bass drum says gondo da ngondo da da, like that. The middle drum says chigana ma chigana ma chiga chiga ba, like that. The chief drum can say anything it likes; that’s the virtuoso part. The words don’t mean anything; they just convey the rhythm.”

  “How interesting,” said Raikes, regarding Johnny perplexedly. “How did you find all that out?”

  “I’m a bit of a musician myself,” said Johnny. “I used to think I knew something about rhythm, until I came to Africa.”

  “Really? They’re good, are they? I wouldn’t know.” Raikes looked moodily towards the gape-mouthed, glazed-eyed drummers. “Not in my line of country. Raven ought to know something about it; he plays the flute rather well, I’m told.” His gaze shifted towards the huts on the far side of the clearing. “Yes, he’s over there. I rather thought he wouldn’t miss it; he quite likes this sort of thing, y’know. He spent a couple of hours once telling me about the symbolical significance of it all – can’t honestly say I registered much of it.”

  Johnny, whose basically simple spirit accepted the violence of the dance almost as whole-heartedly as the participating natives, looked up in mild surprise. “You don’t care for the mwaki, then?”

  “The dancing? No,” said Raikes stiffly. “Makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, as a matter of fact. Never know what the beggars’ll do next.”

  “Oh well,” said Johnny. “You can always just listen to the drums.”

  This simple solution apparently held no great appeal to Raikes. He looked moodily out towards the distant end of the arena, where the fifteen stipulated virgins were cavorting ungracefully. “Oh Lord,” he said, as they advanced. “Here comes the chorus.”

  “They’re the Bearers,” said Johnny, using the Kiswaheli name.

  “Really? Oh yes. Something to do with the Vestal Virgins, I believe. I remember Raven saying something about the same principle being involved. That man’s quite incomprehensible, at times.” He glanced once more towards the adjacent huts. “Oh, he’s got young Banfield with him now. His assistant. You haven’t met Banfield yet, have you?”

  “No,” said Johnny, following the direction of his gaze. He saw Banfield at once; a broad-shouldered young man of twenty-eight or nine, with fair hair bleached almost white by the sun. His face was surprisingly narrow in relation to that albino mop, and his mouth was thin and sensual. “Is he an archaeologist, too?”

  “An anthropologist, anyway; the same as Raven.” Raikes’ lips twisted slightly in amusement. “I expect you had the same idea as most people about archaeologists, so it comes as a bit of a surprise.”

  “What idea?”

  “Well, most people seem to think archaeologists are all doddering old fools of about eighty. Suppose it’s because they never hear of them until they’re eminent and retired from work. In actual fact, it’s a dam’ tough job.” Raikes stretched his shoulders reflectively. “They spend nearly all their time working in the field of tropical heat under the most Godawful conditions – and when I say working, I mean that. They have to dig like navvies, and when they’re not digging they’re walking twenty miles a day. It’s an awful tough game, believe me.”

  “How did you get caught up in it?”

  “Me?” Raikes smiled cheerfully. “Oh, I know nothing about it. I’m just an ordinary G.P. who likes to travel about. So when I came into some money two years ago, I pulled down my plate and applied for a post as Medical Officer to an expedition that was off to the Transvaal. Then I went to Mesopotamia with Hartley’s people, and then to Kenya with a crowd doing a geographical survey. When I got to Nairobi I saw this bunch were advertising for a doctor, so I … Well, in short, I got the job. It’s not a bad life, y’know.”

  “Better than England?”

  “What, with the National Health Service?” Raikes might have been a witch doctor pronouncing an especially venomous curse. “Not on your life. This way, I stay sane. Or I have so far,” he added cautiously.

  The drums pattered like thunder drops up to a brittle staccato; a log fell outwards in the fire and flames leapt high into the air. The women screamed, their teeth slashes of dazzling white in the black holes of their mouths. Then they whirled, and whirled again; brown limbs gyrating and glistening with sweat. Condo da ngondo da da, said the heavy beat of the drum.

  “… In some ways, though, this is a rum expedition. Not like any of the others.”

  Part of Johnny’s mind detached itself from the spectacle of the dance, and moved stealthily closer to Raikes. “Oh? In what way is it odd?”

  “Hard to say, old man. The individuals are all right; put together, they seem a funny mixture. I suppose … what I miss are the arguments.”

  “What you miss? But that’s a good thing, surely?”

  “I don’t mean about everyday things, that you and I would argue about. But with Hartley’s crowd, and Petersen’s were just the same, they’d argue all night about ridiculous technical questions. Things like – Lord, I don’t remember – whether so-and-so’s culture was chalcolithic or something quite different – that sort of thing. But the experts on this do just don’t seem to argue at all.”

  Johnny shrugged. That seemed to him a fact of singularly little importance. “Who do you call the experts?”

  “Raven and van Kuyp and Banfield. They are the Expedition, really. Of course, Miss Schneider – she’s our interpreter – she knows a lot about native customs and all that; and I’ll admit that she and Raven sometimes get down to it and talk for hours about the marriage rites of the Kikuyu. But she and her brother got their jobs just as I did; by applying at Nairobi.”

  “What does the brother do?”

  “He’s in your line of business. He’s our hunter. Dam’ good shot, too.”

  Johnny sucked his teeth, and asked no further questions. His head was beginning to ache under the pressure of the pattering drums; it was time to return to his tent and rest. He would get no sleep for some time, for the dance would continue another two hours at least; nevertheless, it would be pleasant to lie down and ease the angry pounding of the blood in his temples.

  The dance was approaching the first of its several climaxes. Johnny screwed up his eyes as the fire shot swift stabs of red into the village; the drum beats changed to a sudden rapid tock-tock-tock. In the clearing, the leader of the fifteen virgins grimaced horribly and sank down to her knees; her body still swayed to the rhythms, twisting and curving, her breasts quivering in the firelight like molten bronze, her arms extended to the sky. For she had become the ordained bride of the thunder lurking above her, and from their consummation would fire be brought to the waiting earth. A film of chalky foam whitened her lips; her thighs writhed in anticipation of the fearful thrust of the lightning fork. The drums rolled. Stopped. Rolled. Stopped. Exploded. The naked tortured body on the ground stiffened; straddled; was convulsed. Raikes looked on with interest.

  “I once found a girl doing that in Kensington Gardens,” he said surprisedly. “Epileptic, of course. Rolling about on the grass without any clothes on; caused quite a sensation at the time.”

  “What happened to her?” asked Johnny.

  “I believe she died of pneumonia.”

  The bride of the thunder lay very still on the earth. Her body had loosened, relaxed, but the mutter of the drums still rose and fell; “Uh,” said the audience, good humouredly. “Uh. Uh. Uh.” She hadn�
��t done too badly, on the whole; the thunder God would be pleased. And that of course was the important thing.

  “It was rather embarrassing,” said Raikes. “But then, the most peculiar things happen in London. You’d be surprised.”

  Johnny rose tiredly to his feet. The next item on the programme would be the witch doctor’s solo; he had to carry out the difficult and dangerous operation of taking fire from the prostrate young lady’s belly, a task involving much strenuous incantation and a local version of the soft-shoe shuffle. The whole thing was in any case much more in Raikes’ line that Johnny’s; Johnny made his apologies and stepped gingerly away from the watching circle. The pale African night received him gratefully.

  Clear of the fire, the air was warm and sweet and aglint with a thousand stars. Johnny strolled casually towards his tent, rolling a cigarette as he went; his fingers no longer fumbled and jerked, but were cool and swift and efficient. He was recovering swiftly, no doubt about that. Raikes had been right in his prophecy.

  The match flame was orange and blue and seemingly ineffectual, after the torrid heat of the fire. Johnny lifted smoke into his lungs and continued his walk, he was thinking of Raikes. A talkative little man. Inquisitive, too; but able to conceal his curiosity, when he wished, behind an air of permanent perplexity. He thought the Expedition odd, did he? Well, so did Johnny; though not for the same reasons. Johnny thought it odd because he deeply distrusted coincidences, on principle.

  He found that he was still holding the match stem in his hand, and flicked it away. He approached the neat white bell-tents of the Expedition’s members, which were clustered like ghosts to the right of the river path. All were dark inside, except for the last one, where a bright triangle of light showed through the open fly; voices conversed very softly in its depths. Johnny passed by, and might have gone on to his own tent if he had not heard one of the voices mention a name.

  It is surprising how clearly the sound of one’s own name emerges from an apparently inaudible murmur of voices. Johnny heard nothing else but that one word “Fedora”; he paused for a moment, listening further, but could make out nothing more. He rubbed out his cigarette carefully on the heel of his mosquito boot and, moving without undue haste, retraced his steps to the flap of the tent. There he stood with his head bowed attentively.