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

by Desmond Cory

  Johnny wiped beads of sweat from his brow and looked over the teeming sea of green towards the horizon. Four miles away – or five – or six – the jungle rose gradually skywards, sloping up to a ridge; it was like seeing the rim of a saucer from a point somewhere near the centre. That ridge paralleled to north and south the easy flow of the river; sometimes the north rim would be nearer, sometimes the south; sometimes the jungle would break briefly across it, like an exhausted wave, to show a clean line of brick-red, dotted with patches of scrub; but those ridges were always there. Johnny watched them narrowly.

  “Those ridges to either side of us … Would they be gravel terraces?”

  Van Kuyp turned his head; regarded Johnny suspiciously. “That’s just what they are. Why, what do you know about it?”

  “Nothing at all.” Johnny wiped again at his forehead. “Professor Raven was telling me something about it yesterday.”

  “Oh, was he? Well, that’s right enough. The whole area as far as you can see is the Ubangi drift zone. Something like the Nile, except that it developed about five million years earlier and hasn’t changed much since. No major disturbance, that is; except over by the Kob’ei.”

  Johnny nodded. “There’s a new outcrop of rock there, isn’t there?”

  “Just so. At any rate, more recent than the Miocene. What makes you so interested?”

  “I haven’t got any very clear idea of what the Kob’ei country looks like,” admitted Johnny. “Nobody seems very sure about it.”

  “Oh, I get you. Well, I’m none too sure myself; the maps are pretty hopeless. But,” – van Kuyp flipped open his diary and pulled loose a sheet of cartridge paper – “this is the position, as I see it. Now this is the Ubangi, flowing happily along.” He stabbed downwards with his thumb towards the paper. “Six or seven million years ago it was moving over a big plateau, and building up those Miocene gravel terraces you’ve noticed. It was four or five miles wide, and the Kob’ei didn’t exist at all. Then – bang.” He stabbed down again, this time with his thumb. “There was a great upheaval of rock way out to the north – here – and a pretty sizeable area of land got pushed up way above the plateau. That’s where you see these mountains marked.” He looked up. “They’re called the Mountains of the Sun.”

  “That’s a pretty name,” said Johnny.

  “Sure. This new outcrop forms something like a cup.” He demonstrated the shape with his palm. “Water collects there; big lakes up in the hills. In the end, it overflows. The rivulets form one big stream – that’s the Kob’ei – and they come rollicking downhill to join the Ubangi, which by now is a darned sight smaller. The Kob’ei is a fast-moving river, cuts quick and deep. Before long, it’s made a gully right through the terraces the Ubangi had built up before; it’s carried the gravel right down to here, where it joins the Ubangi. So now we’ve got two things. Where it’s cut through, we’ve got a nice clean cross-section of the Miocene terrace. Right here where the rivers join, there’ll be a big deposit of the stuff that’s been brought downstream. In those two places, we’re bound to find fossils of the period. It’s Raven’s job to find out what they are; it’s my job to find out how long they’ve been there.”

  “How d’you do that?”

  Van Kuyp smiled. “That’s what I’d call the sixty-four dollar question. It took me ten years to learn how to begin. The easy way out is to say the deeper down, the older; but in this country, of course, it isn’t.” He looked at the younger man sympathetically. “But all this isn’t helping you much, is it?”

  “Well, no. But it’s interesting, all the same. You explain it much more clearly than Professor Raven.”

  “I probably do.” Van Kuyp chuckled. “He has strong views about amateurs. And, of course, geologists aren’t bothered by laymen so much as anthropologists; geology just isn’t news. At least, not often. But the professor here … Well, all the time we were in Nairobi he had a gang of newspapermen camped on his doorstep, asking him when he was going to find the Missing Link.” The remembrance seemed to cheer him up considerably. “Oh yes, they got his goat all right.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Too bad,” agreed van Kuyp, chuckling heartily. “Still – talking about getting goats won’t get you your gorilla, hey? Well, one thing’s pretty plain. You won’t find any in the high ground to the north.”

  “Hardly. I was thinking of trying the triangle between the two rivers. It seems to me that any gorilla living in that area would have a lot of trouble getting out again since they can’t swim rivers or march over mountains. If the white gorilla’s anywhere, it’ll be in some such pocket as that.”

  “A sort of Lost World, eh? Well, it’s kind of a romantic idea.” Van Kuyp folded the map and slid it back into place in his notebook. “It’s certainly the place where I’d try first. I hope you’re lucky.”

  He placed the book on the floor and lay back, exhausted by the effort. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and the temperature was swinging into the nineties. Five hours to noon.

  To Johnny, the morning seemed endless. By ten o’clock, his head was beginning to swim in the sweltering, unmoving air; the weakness of his fever was still with him, and the temperature had reached a hundred and four. He drank great sips of cold tea, and perspiration prickled all over his body; his green shirt turned swiftly black, not merely where the flesh touched but everywhere, and the back of the canvas chair was wet to the touch. Then the mercury reached a hundred and four, and stayed there, and the sweat dried even as it left the pores. There was no more talking; it took energy even to breathe; and over the whole landscape nothing moved, except where two birds with wings like knives sailed in the steely sky. The great crocodiles lay like logs on the baked mud beside the river, not stirring at the approach of the steamer; the water rippled and sluiced from the paddlewheel against the bank, leaving a dark line on the mud that turned brown again as one looked at it. The sun was black in the sky.

  It was hot.

  It was hot when they set off again on the afternoon run. Raven and van Kuyp were taking their turn in the Masai canoe; Banfield and the girl were joining Johnny in the Circe. Johnny, still white and shaken even after a long spell in the shade, hoped that they wouldn’t be too conversational. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried.

  Banfield approached him as he stood waiting for the boat to get up steam. “I want a word with you, Fedora.”

  Johnny turned politely. “Yes?”

  “I’m just giving you a warning, because I’ve met your sort before. If you try any of your tricks on Miss Schneider, this afternoon or any other time, then I’ll break your ruddy neck for you.”

  As he turned away, Johnny noticed for the first time that Banfield, too, was wearing a pistol at his belt … It was too hot, Johnny decided.

  Van Kuyp sat in his tent that evening, writing in his diary.

  Quite a successful day’s run, he wrote slowly. We covered some eighty miles. The heat was very considerable, and in view of the obvious fatigue of the native paddlers at the end of the day it may be necessary to be satisfied with shorter distances. Our new boat appears satisfactory in every way.

  I do not anticipate any trouble from the young man Fedora. He seems surprisingly intelligent for a professional hunter, but I am satisfied that he will not interfere with the smooth running of prospective operations. I am inclined to think that Madrid Schneider’s comments of last night were informed by personal prejudice. The possibility that they have met before has, I suppose, to be borne in mind.

  He paused, and looked thoughtfully out of the open fly of his tent. He could see the object of his deliberations standing some ten yards away, supervising the building of the night fire, her fair hair shaking brilliance into the light of the setting sun. Banfield was crouched on his haunches a little farther away; he too was watching her. Van Kuyp’s brows puckered anxiously; he began to suck the top of his fountain pen.

  Professor Raven was in his tent, changing into the long drill trousers and long-sl
eeved jacket he always wore at night, rubbing mosquito repellant over his face and hands. Otto Schneider and Raikes were returning to the camp, their rifles slung under their arms; their gun-boys walked heavily behind them, carrying the evening’s bag of waterbuck. Demetrius sat cross-legged on the bows of the Circe; his yellow-brown animal’s eyes were focused not, for once, on infinity, but on the small flannel-trousered figure that stood by the sparkling fire. He watched her every movement, as a cat watches a feeding sparrow. His face was expressionless.

  Then a shadow fell across him, and he looked up. Johnny stood beside him, thumb cocked into the buckle of his canvas belt. “Bad thoughts, Demetrius,” said Fedora softly.

  “Bad thoughts come to a man in a jungle, and signify little. It is bad actions that make a man the enemy of Allah.”

  “Yet the Christians say that thought is the father of action,” said Johnny, and sat down beside his servant. “And I know this, that never before have I taken you unawares from behind.”

  Demetrius looked down at the deck beside his toes. “That is so, sir. Yet you tread like the panther, and a man cannot always be vigilant.”

  “Roll me a cigarette,” said Johnny; and Demetrius knew that the matter was ended. His white teeth flashed as he grinned, disappeared as he fumbled for tobacco. “At once,” he said. “At once.”

  “Well, well. What do you think, Demetrius?”

  “Of what, sir?”

  “Of the way of the world.”

  “I think that all goes well. Yet I prefer it when you and I are together, as now.”

  “And so do I. But the money the Expedition will pay us for our boat will pay your wages and mine, Demetrius.”

  “I know it. And I know the power of money. But why did you accept dirt, sir, from the lips of the white man Banfield? I know that you could kill him, if you wished, as I would kill a fly and in the space of a handclap.”

  “I know it too, Demetrius, and therefore there is no shame.”

  “No? I shall never understand the white man’s ways.”

  “Nor I those of the black man. The river must always be wet and the land be dry. So tell me of the black men.”

  Demetrius finished rolling the cigarette before he spoke, and spat into the river before handing it to Johnny. “Today, they work well. Tomorrow, maybe. Beyond that, who can say?”

  “I was hoping that you might,” Johnny explained. Demetrius struck a match. “These Bushmen are as children, sir. Their thoughts come to them from afar. While they are for peace, all is well; yet if a white man dies five hundred miles away, they smell the blood in the air and call for their spears. It is a risk that one must take.”

  Johnny nodded. “That is much as I supposed.”

  “The fellow Obeli I distrust. His mind is already turned to evil.”

  “Obeli?”

  “The man they call Snort.”

  “Oh, him. You’d better keep an eye on him, then.”

  Johnny smoked for a few moments in companionable silence. To the west and behind him, the sun was poised for its final downwards rush; the disembowelled river was a pool of gleaming blood. “What of the man that Obeli serves?”

  “Mister Schneider? He has straight eyes and hunter’s wrists. He hits what he shoots at.”

  Johnny raised his eyebrows; for that phrase was perhaps the highest praise of all. “I’m rather worried about that chap Schneider. He’s the only one of the lot who might find out how little I know about hunting.”

  “How so, sir? He is already satisfied.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “He has seen you. That is enough. A hunter knows another when he sees one. And you, if it was your wish, could be one of the great white hunters of Africa. I have carried rifles for Gunner Barratt and Mister Rhino Jackson, also for others less great but very, very good; and I know that what I tell you is the truth.”

  Johnny breathed out smoke and peered sideways. “That’s hard to believe, Demetrius. I know little of the jungle.”

  “That is of small importance, sir. When a white man claims to be a tracker, he lies. For any Kikuyu can hasten on a trail that no white man in the world can see, as the real white hunters admit.” Demetrius paused, and spat again in the river. “Men like Mister Jackson use the black men as their eyes and ears and noses; then when the prey is sighted they shoot as no black man will ever shoot. Now this you too could do. For you move silently as a ghost and you fear nothing, living nor dead; and what you aim at you hit.”

  Johnny laughed. “You almost convince me.”

  “It is true. But I know I cannot persuade you to follow the jungle.” Demetrius sniffed penetratingly. “It is a pity.”

  “And just how good is Schneider?”

  “Well. Very good. But he can never be great as you could be. For I have seen him shoot, and he always kills without love.”

  Johnny had never heard the term before, but he knew what Demetrius meant. For as he had travelled deeper and deeper into Africa, shooting his meat on the way, he had found himself drawn closer and closer into the lives of those animals he killed; feeling even as he pressed the trigger a throb in the heart for their beauty and grace and their courage and cunning. So that now he prayed with every shot that the bullet would fly clean and true, in order that the beast standing proud and upright before the gunsights should die a worthy death. In that moment they both shared a certain knowledge; they knew one another in that second of fulfilment, and the knowledge was of love. For the animal had loved life and the meaning of life, and Johnny as he fired was both those things; for life in the jungle means killing and the meaning of life is death.

  This was a new experience to Johnny; for before, he had killed without love a different kind of game. One was a relaxation and the other a duty; yet he knew well which of the two came the nearest in his mind to murder.

  As Johnny sat there pondering, the sun dipped to touch the vast horizon; and at the signal the locali began to beat, stuttering its message out into the gathering night. Johnny listened to its muffled violence for a few more minutes, then pushed himself up to his feet.

  “Get a good night’s sleep,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. And you also.”

  4

  AT SUNRISE the lemurs yelled on the flanks of the clearing; and the Expedition continued on its way.

  Johnny travelled in the second canoe with the Bushmen, and alone – for Demetrius had taken on the job of permanent helmsman of the Circe, with Snort as his assistant. He sat with his back supported by a thick pile of evil-smelling skins, and with his express rifle slanted across his knees. The paddlers squatted before him, their brown shoulders undulating smoothly; they worked in relays, six paddling while six were resting. “Imgai che’gli, che’gli,” sang the men reclining on the floor of the dug-out: “Ahhhh-ko, ah,” grunted the paddlers, spurning back the water. The dank spreadeagled corpse of the jungle swayed past to either side.

  The sensation of movement was far stronger in the canoes than on the deck of the Circe. Johnny watched the long counterpoint of rippling muscle in the bent and straining backs; he watched the yellow kola-wood paddles dipping and gleaming with pendant diamonds of water; he watched the tension of biceps, the rhythmic co-ordination of shoulder and forearm, the smooth drive of wrist and hand. Many of the Bushmen had mutilated fingers, some scarred and twisted by initiation ceremonies, some severed completely at the knuckle as a sacrificial offering; yet they handled the paddles as tools with the confidence of craftsmen, and there was strength and beauty in their movements. Twenty yards ahead of them and slightly to the right, the Masai canoe urged itself swiftly onwards, red-dyed paddles swinging and lifting with the same primeval intensity; Johnny could see Raven’s neckerchief flaunting its scarlet like some poisonous flower in the bows, and beside it the stiff angular whiteness of van Kuyp’s solar topee.

  With the heightening sun, the insects began to arrive. At canoe level, one saw them all; the thick squat water beetles skimming the muddy surface, great dragonfli
es of metallic lustre that hovered motionless in a filmy blur of wings, ugly worm-like hairy things that rose with a plop from the depths and walked on greasy bubbles; flies, flies, and still more flies. A huge green grasshopper with saw-like legs came drifting through the motionless air and landed with a thump on the side of the canoe; a flash of whirling blue followed it, seized it as it stiffened with despair, flicked away over the water with the grasshopper clutched in its beak. It perched on a bough overhanging the brown river, a bird of bright blue and flaming gold, about the size of a starling; it watched the canoe pass by with cautious, beady eyes, then began to peck at the grasshopper’s head.

  As the dagger of the sun grew fiercer, the tiny things in the water completed their three hours’ life and died; while the fat black flies moved away to the moist outskirts of the jungle. The stillness of noon began to fall over the Ubangi; the whooping of the monkeys faded away, and the rattling of the macaws, until only the canoes and the Circe moved under the brazen sun. And at full midday, they sought the shelter of the banks.

  It had been a good morning’s run, though; and in the afternoon, things were no different. There was no perceptible flagging in the thrust and sweep of the paddlers’ arms; their ceaseless chant droned out as rhythmically as before. In the Masai canoe, the red neckerchief and the topee had been replaced by Banfield’s American-style sun helmet and by a battered bush hat that covered incompletely a falling wave of fair hair; the change meant a loss in total weight, and the Masai were striking as strongly as ever. Johnny, sweltering contentedly in the knowledge that the weakness of his fever was passing, anticipated a clear run-through till six o’clock and camp.